Deadly Furniture

"Bad Wolf" and "The Parting of the Ways"

There's a moment when every Doctor steps into the role and makes the title his own. For Ten and Eleven it's pretty early on in their runs, but they have a beloved and experienced show behind them. Nine never really  had that. Everything was filmed before a single episode was shown to the British public. The writers were still trying to figure out what to keep from the classic series and what to throw away. Plus, the Doctor had been through some stuff lately and who really knew who he was anymore?

Elizabeth and I were talking about when Nine's moment was--the moment when Eccleston claimed the role for himself and decided--this is the man the Doctor is. Elizabeth thinks that it was that moment back in "The Doctor Dances" where Nine realizes that today, everyone will live. And it is a great moment, a fantastic moment. The joy on Eccelston's face captures joyous madness in a nutshell. But my moment, my moment when I finally understand Nine, is in "The Parting of the Ways."

The pesky Daleks have once again returned and Nine's journey has come full circle. He's once again in the midst of a war where two entire races are at stake. So naturally the Doctor goes to talk to the Daleks face to face (rescuing Rose along the way) and he realizes that they're all made out of humans--human biologically elements with all the soul removed. But the imperfection of humanity's taint has driven the Daleks insane. And then the Doctor says one of those great Doctor Who lines: " They hate your own existence, and that makes them more deadly than ever."

Sure, this could all be meant to be straightforward. But, if you turn it around and apply it to the Dalek the line takes on an entirely different meaning. The Doctor runs off with his companions and finds safety behind the door of the TARDIS, but then there's this fantastic moment when Eccleston leans his forhead against the door. And that's Nine's moment. That moment when we as an audience realize how much our Doctor hates himself.

But the second part of that sentence still has to play out. And the Doctor realizes that he's going to have to be the Oncoming Storm. So he sends Rose away the only way he knows how--by lying to her. And then he creates a weapon of mass destruction that will exterminate the Daleks but take most of humanity and the last of the Time Lords with them. And as he builds it, person after person dies for him. Jack, the bad guy, the time bandit, goes off to lead a small militia. But before he leaves, he tells the Doctor, "Wish I'd never met you Doctor. I was much better off as a coward."


And then Jack dies, because being a companion with the Doctor comes with a horrible price. And the Doctor has to set off the device. But he can't do it. He's no longer the Oncoming Storm. Traveling throughout time and space with a shop girl has healed him in some way, and he would rather die a man alone, then a monster with others.

But Rose saves him. Or rather the Bad Wolf saves him. After staring into the heart of the TARDIS, Rose comes back with all the power and foresight of the Time Vortex. Powerful enough to send words back throughout time and space as clues to lead her to this moment, Vortex Rose can deflect a Dalek's laser with the flick of a hand. She can destroy the Dalek God with words, and she can bring Jack back from the dead with a single thought. But the power of it is burning Rose up, and so the Doctor kisses her. And with that kiss, he dies for her.


A lot has been written about how Nine needed to regenerate to fully be healed from the Time Wars. And I mostly agree with that. But I also think that Nine and Rose could have continued to travel the galaxy together and been perfectly happy. Nine was never a complete lost cause. Besides, future episodes will prove that Ten and Eleven have just as many problems (if not more) than Nine ever did.

Instead, I choose to see Nine's regeneration as a final gift. He was born out of war and he died out of love. It's a poetic ending, the right ending. Or rather--beginning. Because the next step is Barcelona.


Next Up: "The Christmas Invasion," "New Earth," and "Tooth and Claw"

"Father's Day," "The Empty Child," 'The Doctor Dances" and "Boom Town"

I remember thinking fondly about "Father's Day." It was one of the few episodes that I watched my first run through of series one, and it has some of those classic deep moments that I love about Doctor Who. At one point, the Doctor swears he's going to leave his companion behind and maybe might have (no matter what he says at the end of the episode) if time hadn't robbed him of the TARDIS.  And there's this quick acknowledgement that this sort of thing wouldn't have happened if the Time Lords were still around. Not only would the Doctor probably not have dared crossing his own time line when other Time Lords were there to catch him, but his people would have cleaned up the paradox/time-wackiness.

And then there's the ending--where Rose finally has the courage to hold her father as he dies. She's faced Daleks, the End of the World, and a giant monster at  the top of a space station with little more than a couple of screams, but she can't say goodbye again.  It's a touching moment, a moment when we get to see how similar Rose is to her dead father, combined with just enough dark undertones to keep it from being sappy.

But "Father's Day" has a rigid take on time travel that the rest of the series soon starts to ignore. Sure, the whole problem is that Rose and the Doctor cross their own time line creating a sort of weak point in the fabric of time and space--but series five and Amy Pond anyone? Anyone?). "Father's Day" therefore doesn't seem to fit in the cannon of the show anymore, but exists in some sort of no-man's land for things with other Doctor Who plots and elements that sorta work but don't really if you think about it too hard.

But maybe I was just in a rush to get through the episode because I knew the next one had THIS guy....


Man. Captain Jack is awesome. From the beginning, it's obvious that this man is a lot of what the Doctor is not. He uses technology to simplify matters, he flirts with most anything that walks, he's selfish, he's uses time travel as a means for his own gain, he carries a gun, he's out for himself and no one else. It's obvious that in the absence of Time Lords some other type of organization would have to take it's place, and the introduction of Time Agents is one that, at this early stage, still had a whole lot of potential. (The fact that for the most part the organization soon enters the no-man's land with "Father's Day" is pretty disappointing). But hanging out with the Doctor changes a man. Earlier in the episode, Jack would have come up with a way to cover his tracks and make a hasty retreat when faced with a giant bomb. But by the end of the episode, the conman is willing to die for others because he knows that's what the Doctor would do. And so the man abandons his profession and decides to travel with a man from some North somewhere and a girl.

The introduction of Captain Jack also allows for the Doctor to run across another time traveler. Nine's greatest comedic moment is when he switches out the Captain's blaster for a banana. Of course there's a back and forth masculine "Rose is mine!" thing going on. The Doctor noticeably doesn't let Jack cut in at the end (a rare selfish move for him).  But although Rose is of course tempted, there's a difference between a former Time Agent and a Time Lord--especially this Time Lord. By the end of the first episode, Rose has already switched her loyalties back to the Doctor (although they had really never strayed) and Jack soon realizes that it will always be the Doctor and Rose.

But Steven Moffat's first two-parter of new Who isn't all about the Captain. It's also about an Empty Child whose just looking for his mother. What the Moffat does best and what he'll do over and over and over again is to take things that we all know and love, like little five-year old boys, and make them ridiculously scary. With the Empty Child, he takes everything about being human out of this small boy and the result is terrifying.


This is also one of those rare episodes where everybody lives. For a show that's still (at rare times) called a family/children's show, Doctor Who stacks up a lot of bodies. But at the end of this episode, the universe gives the Doctor a gift. Everybody lives. And he's so excited, that he dances.

But my favorite episode of the series so far (because if I remember correctly there's a pretty terrific episode just around the corner) has to be "Boom Town" which is surprising because a) not a lot actually happens in the episode and b) it features the Slitheen.  Not surprisingly, however, I love this episode for it's character moments. First, Mickey finally comes back into the picture and dumps Rose. I'm not in the camp of people that think that, if the Doctor hadn't taken her hand in the shop and told her to run, Mickey and Rose would have lived happily ever after. Rose obviously was eventually going to go off and do something drastic with her life, leaving Mickey behind. But his last scene is still a great moment for Mickey--a moment where he finally leaves her guessing where he is instead of the reverse.

There's also the continued adventures of Captain Jack in the TARDIS. I like to imagine that the trio has been off having wild adventures between "The Doctor Dances" and "Boom Town." The three of them are so in sync, so connected in their shared love of time, space, and adventures that Mickey immediately notices that he doesn't belong. Also there's the continued evolution of Jack's relationship with the Doctor--he's not the superior mind with the most experience anymore.


But the real character moments are with the Doctor. He very quickly and easily captures his opponent and is all set to bring her back to her home planet to face justice, but he's then forced with the label of being her executioner. And suddenly he's called a murderer again. And even as Nine nears his end and his final redemption, he still isn't comfortable with the truth of that statement. He's killed two entire races, obliterated them in fact, and in many ways that makes him far worse from the creature that is sitting across the table from him.

The danger of the Doctor and the damage he does isn't easily resolved--even after he regenerates a couple of times. He's the most powerful creature left in the universe and that power is scary. As Margaret the Slitheen acknowledges, she has no where to run when the Doctor is looking.

Next Up: "Bad Wolf" and "The Parting of the Ways." But first, a bonus picture of Captain Jack.

"Aliens of London," "World War Three," "Dalek," and "The Long Game"

The Ninth Doctor is not a very stable man. Sure, all the Doctors who have come before him and the two Doctors that will come after him are all mad men with a box. But none of these other incarnations have just killed their entire race, and the guilt, anger, and grief of that brings Nine to the brink over, and over, and over again.

I'll get to "Aliens of London," "World War Three," and the Slitheens in a second, but the real center of the first half of season one is "Dalek." The episode has its problems, pacing being the forefront. And the torture scenes only become more ridiculous when Nine immediately seems to recover and forgive his torturers. But all this can be forgiven for three scenes. The first, the Doctor's reunion with his mortal enemy, reveals for the first time that the Doctor was the one that brought an end to the Time War by destroying not only the Dalek race, but his own as well. He's a monster in his own right and that moment when he realizes it and then accepts it is fantastic. Where Ten and Eleven would hesitate in indecision and then probably find a way to make a hasty retreat, Nine goes right for the electrical switches and listens to the Dalek scream. He wants it to die and, even worse, celebrates in the extermination.

This tension returns in a later scene where the Doctor, after witnessing the death of hundreds by the Dalek's blue-ray of death, screams "Why don't you just die?" And there's a brilliant pause and in a manner that's slow and deliberate even for a Dalek, the Doctor's enemy replies: "You would make a good Dalek." And the Doctor doesn't have a response.


Which all leads to the Doctor pointing a huge gun at Rose Tyler. And she looks at him with such a mix of disgust and pity and shame that you don't really know what to think. The Doctor has become the monster that he's chasing--using the classic catchphrase "Exterminate" earlier in the episode, leaving his faithful companion to the clutches of the Dalek, screaming and yelling rather than acting. And this woman that he's quickly falling in love with suddenly asks him, "What the hell are you changing into?"

A lot is made about Rose saving the Doctor--it's a theme that will continue to come up over and over again until she eventually leaves the series. But it's never more obvious than it is here. The Doctor has turned into a maniac, a vengeful lord that's only now coming to turns with being the last of his kind. And if Rose hadn't been there, if Rose hadn't stopped him from firing that gun, then what would be left of him that would be worth saving?

The Doctor is a dangerous man. Rose knows it--she's almost died how many times by this point? Most of "Aliens of London" and "World War Three" is spent having people warn the girl to stay at home and forget the man and most of "The Long Game" is spent explaining why Rose never will.


Of course, this thread of storytelling is buried under the Slitheen who may be my least favorite Doctor Who creation of all time. Thankfully after this season they're relegated to the Sarah Jane Adventures with some success. The problem with them is that they act and look far too ridiculous to ever be viewed as a proper threat to the Doctor and are used too often for groan-worthy humor rather than proper storytelling.

But if you take all this away and stop being distracted by the big, fat green things that try to take over your screen, you'll notice that Rose Tyler makes a choice at the end of the two-parter. The Doctor makes her choose--or rather he gives her a choice that there's only one answer to. He won't become domestic, he won't visit with her mother, he won't eat at the kitchen table. It's either leave now or stay behind. It's not fair, and it's a lot to ask of a nineteen year old. And Rose makes the selfish choice and abandons Mickey, yet again, and leaves her mother waiting.


The end of "Dalek" brings the viewer right into "The Long Game," a moral story about companions gone wrong. Simon Pegg is in it as as a servant to a big monster, and other stuff happens with brains and information and the Face of Boe having a child. But the really important stuff is when Adam, the hanger-on that Rose brings along after the last episode, betrays the Doctor's trust and almost ruins everything. The Doctor has some jealousy issues (and it's more than a little implied that Rose brought Adam along hoping for some sort of reaction from the Time Lord) and so doesn't care for Adam from the start, but he lets the guy come because well...he almost kinda killed Rose and therefore owes her one.

But the Doctor has no room in the TARDIS for people who aren't clever, who aren't the best, who aren't loyal. And so Adam is left behind to be dissected and a Time Lord and his faithful companion continue on alone-a dysfunctional relationship that isn't heading anywhere good.

Next Up: "Father's Day," and the Moffat comes to save the day with "The Empty Child" and "The Doctor Dances."

Note: This begins a "Watch A Doctor Who Episode A Day (ish)" series. Over the course of some weeks/months/years I've decided to watch an episode of the cult favorite a day (ish). For my few friends that I haven't convinced to love and adore this series about a mad man in a box (you know who you are) these posts will appear to be nothing but a fan girl thinking too much about her favorite television series (ish). But for you, the Converted, I hope that you'll have fun watching some episodes with me/hearing me rant about a time traveler and his faithful, TARDIS companion.

"Rose," "The End of the World," and "The Unquiet Dead"

I've always liked the idea of the Ninth Doctor more than I've liked the actual result. To be fair to the poor incarnation, I watched him after I'd watched most of David Tennant's run and Ten is a hard act to follow. But the actual premise of the Doctor's return to the small screen is pretty brilliant. Instead of just picking up where the now-cannon (ish) movie left off, with Time Lords a plenty and a content (ish) Doctor, the show begins after a war. While the Brits have let their national hero (ish) go off their screens, he's been through hell and back and he's far from the tea-sipping, book-reading Eighth Doctor that he was.

It's a pretty great idea. And I can just image the executives of BBC Wales realizing how brilliant it was when Russell T. Davies pitched it to them. And it's obvious in these first three episodes that the Doctor is a changed man. In "Rose," he picks up his first full-time companion in years and,with little more than a few warnings and some mysterious looks, whisks her away to the end of the world. The war is over and his world and people are gone, but the Doctor's anger, grief, and thirst for vengeance lead him right to the end of another world.

The man doesn't think. Rose takes the end of Earth rather badly (as I believe we all would) and if you think about it, world's end is a pretty horrible first date.  Martha gets to visit Shakespeare and Rose gets to see the remnants of everything she's ever known and believed burn up into nothing. The Doctor has taken her from home into destruction because endings are all the poor guy knows anymore. And when the man finally finds someone new to blame, he lashes out and kills Cassandra. When Rose asks him to stop, this last of his kind replies: "Everything has its time and everything dies."

Why these first three episodes don't always work is the fault of its ties to Classic Who. I haven't watched nearly enough of Doctors 1-7 to speak with any authority on the matter, however many of these old Who episodes can be categorized into "alien" and "historicals"--the Doctor either encounters some new race (Daleks, for example) or he goes back in time (cavemen for the win!). In "The End Of The World," the new series falls back on the alien story line and in "The Unquiet Dead" it falls back on the historical.


Which is fine. The Dickens story is fine. But it's not great and, at points, it's even boring (Sidenote: It also will now and forever be compared to "Vincent and the Doctor" and "The Unquiet Dead" doesn't come out on top in that battle.) It's brilliant when it focuses on our New Doctor--who refuses to listen to Rose's warnings and then ponders on the fact that he, the last of his kind, the explorer of the universe, is going to die in a basement. But for the most part the episode wants to focus on the walking zombies, the blue spirit smoke, and hey! That's DICKENS! And this just isn't very interesting. The threat of the zombies never feels quiet real. They're few in number, they're befuddled by 19th century doors, and all it takes is turning out the lights and turning up the gas for them to be thwarted.

But what's obvious is that at this early stage the show didn't quiet know what to do with itself. It had made this bold move and changed the Doctor Who universe forever, but it couldn't abandon it's classic roots. At times the Doctor has to act like fan-favorite Four and be goofy and strange and crazy, but Four never lived in a universe without Time Lords. The show wants to please its old fans with historicals, but it realizes that to gain new and young fans the show has to tell the tale twisted and can't become a history lesson (which Classic Who was partially created to be). This leaves poor Nine in a strange place--caught in the rift between two different shows that share the share universe and two different generations of viewers that don't often agree with each other.

Next Up: "Aliens of London," "World War Three," and "Dalek." Or probably mostly "Dalek" because I really don't like the Slitheen.

It’s a Disney cliché: The villain, finally defeated by the virtuous hero, falls to his or her death from a conveniently placed cliff/waterfall/castle buttress and disappears into the mists before we see the body hit the ground. It’s a convenient, goreless way to dispose of a character who has served their narrative purpose and now needs to meet justice. Parents are squeamish about exposing their kids to violence, and it’s understandable. That’s why I was a little shocked when I started watching Clone Wars—a Cartoon Network show set in the Star Wars universe between Episodes Two and Three. When characters die on this show, they don’t fall blissfully out of sight—they get stabbed through the freaking chest with a lightsaber!