a problem with river
Oct. 3rd, 2011 12:26 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tala_hidingSo. We're talking about the wedding of River Song.
Okay, first of all, I don't like River Song as a character. I like Alex Kingston, and I have nothing against the actress, and I like the way she portrays River to a certain degree, but I do not like the way River Song is written. I think she got the raw end of the deal when it came to dealing with the Doctor, and I think that it's unfair for her to be manipulated both as a child and as an adult. And I think that it's a major character flaw that we never actually feel what she feels for the Doctor - and this "love" that she has is her main motivation for accompanying the Doctor as a (potential) companion.
I know that in New!Who, there's much more emphasis placed on romantic and sexual relations in Doctor Who then there was pre-Eccleston (or pre-McGann, if you want to be nitpicky about it) and I think this is simply a reflection of the times and mores in our present day and age. And so to present River as a romantic companion, no, as THE romantic companion, the One True Love of the Doctor, is to cast aside the others that came before her as nothing more than shadows in the dark. And the thing is, I'm perfectly willing to accept that premise if it was executed in such a way that was belivable and understandable.
Look, Rose Tyler spent two years - three, if we count the year that she missed between "The Unquiet Dead" and "Aliens of London" - and it was very clear, even from the first few episodes with the Ninth Doctor, that there was already something between them that wasn't quite as platonic as we thought there could be. For goodness' sake, even a Dalek was able to see the love the Doctor had for Rose! So when, in "The Parting of the Ways", she was so desperate to get back to Satellite 5 even if it meant her own death millions of years in the future, even if it meant tearing the Doctor's beloved TARDIS apart so she could look into the vortex, you, the viewer, understood why she was doing that, and why she was so desperate to get back that she became the Bad Wolf.
And when she and the Doctor were separated by the Void, behind the walls of parallel universes, it was absolutely heartbreaking in a way that very few TV shows have ever been able to achieve. Because you knew the Doctor loved Rose, even though he never said it; he burned up a sun to say goodbye. Contrast this with the Eleventh Doctor's treatment of River, and how he manipulated her into a Gallifreyan bonding just so that he could restore the timelines. I mean, he said it himself: "I don't want to marry you." He manipulated River's feelings for him - feelings that, in my opinion, aren't even grounded in a particularly strong motivation for the character - just so that he could save all of history, so that he could fulfill that fixed point in time.
And look - Martha Jones spend a year with the Doctor, staying by his side despite his less-than-stellar treatment of her, braving The Year That Never Was to save the world from the Tofoclane and the Master's machinations, and then realizing that no matter how much she loved the Doctor, he was never going to love her back in exactly the same way. And she chose, good strong woman that she was, she chose to leave the TARDIS because she knew that it was already becoming unhealthy for her to spend so much time in close quarters with a man she was having a one-sided love affair with. And here's River Song, knowing full well what the Doctor's presence meant in a world where timelines are collapsing and history is bleeding into each other like wet ink on fragile pages, and what does she say?
The Doctor: River, you and I, we know what this means. We are ground zero of an explosion that will engulf all reality. Billions and billions will suffer and die.
River: I'll suffer if I have to kill you.
The Doctor: More than everything living thing in the universe?!
River: Yes.
She was thinking about herself, about how the Doctor's death would affect her. Rose Tyler came back to the room in Torchwood, knowing full well she could die but was still able to push that all away just to help the Doctor. Martha Jones walked through hell on Earth, knowing how Jack and the Doctor and her family were being tortured by the Master on the Valiant but she soldiered on because she knew it was the right thing to do. Donna Noble gave up her life so that the timelines in "Turn Left" would return back to a world where the Doctor survived his encounter with the Racnoss.
One can argue that these pre-Moffatt companions were different - they gave up themselves for the Doctor. But isn't that what makes a companion a companion? That willingness to sacrifice what they hold dear because it's the right thing to do? I mean, Rose said it herself: the Doctor teaches us how to make better choices for the good of other people, not for our own selfish wants.
I'm not saying that one should commit murder in order to restore to integrity of a time line - on the beach, I think River made the right choice at trying to stop herself (or rather, the astronaut suit) from killing the Doctor. I think that even in the most dire of circumstances, our choices are what defines us. And yet, she also chose not to let go of the Doctor - her refusal to touch him in the pyramids of Area 52 - says that she didn't save him because it was the right thing to do. She saved him, or rather, she chose not to kill him, because she wanted him for herself, because she needed him to know that "[She] can't let [him] without knowing [he is] loved. By so many and so much. And by no one more than [her]."
And I think this is my main problem with how River Song is written - we're meant to empathize with her without actually knowing what we're empathizing with. When we first meet her, in "The Silence in the Library", we're allowed to catch glimpses of what she is to the Doctor, and I think that what the audience filled in was greater and more epic than what she was made out to be. She was given no agency whatsoever in how she grows up and how she becomes a character in her own right - kidnapped as a child, raised to be a psychopath, goes back in time to stalk her mother and father in an effort to find the Doctor and kill him... I mean, what happened to Melody's choice? Even her "love" for the Doctor feels forced, as though it's only there to fulfill the requirements of Time. It does not feel as though the Doctor deserves her love; it does not feel as though he loves her. Certainly, he's cheeky about it, and he cares about her, but I mean - in the Moffat-era, the epic love story is reserved for Amy and Rory, not the Doctor and River. In fact, in most of the River-centric stories post "A Good Man Goes to War" simply glosses over her emotions and choices and, most importantly, her motivations as a character in this overarching narrative of the Doctor in the TARDIS, traveling through time and space.
True, I agree, she's a badass in the proper sense of the term. She fights, she carries a gun, she's the muscle to the Time Lord's might. But these are all superficial things, in my opinion. She's imprisoned for a crime she was programmed to commit, and yet she swings in and out of Stormcage like it's her own personal dance hall. This, to me, does not seem like a woman bereft of choice, but she does seem like a woman who has been pretending for far too long to be all sorts of things that she no longer seems true and real. She is an amalgamation of what the writer wants her to be, a puppet controlled by invisible strings, and I don't feel what she is as strongly as I feel for other companions, including Amy and Rory.
And I think this is my main problem with River Song: she's all surface and very little depth. And if this is how Moffat is going to treat her in the subsequent episodes, and if/when River becomes the main companion of the Doctor, I don't think I'll be too interested in watching Doctor Who anymore. Because it's not going to be Doctor Who anymore - it's going to be "River who?"
Okay, first of all, I don't like River Song as a character. I like Alex Kingston, and I have nothing against the actress, and I like the way she portrays River to a certain degree, but I do not like the way River Song is written. I think she got the raw end of the deal when it came to dealing with the Doctor, and I think that it's unfair for her to be manipulated both as a child and as an adult. And I think that it's a major character flaw that we never actually feel what she feels for the Doctor - and this "love" that she has is her main motivation for accompanying the Doctor as a (potential) companion.
I know that in New!Who, there's much more emphasis placed on romantic and sexual relations in Doctor Who then there was pre-Eccleston (or pre-McGann, if you want to be nitpicky about it) and I think this is simply a reflection of the times and mores in our present day and age. And so to present River as a romantic companion, no, as THE romantic companion, the One True Love of the Doctor, is to cast aside the others that came before her as nothing more than shadows in the dark. And the thing is, I'm perfectly willing to accept that premise if it was executed in such a way that was belivable and understandable.
Look, Rose Tyler spent two years - three, if we count the year that she missed between "The Unquiet Dead" and "Aliens of London" - and it was very clear, even from the first few episodes with the Ninth Doctor, that there was already something between them that wasn't quite as platonic as we thought there could be. For goodness' sake, even a Dalek was able to see the love the Doctor had for Rose! So when, in "The Parting of the Ways", she was so desperate to get back to Satellite 5 even if it meant her own death millions of years in the future, even if it meant tearing the Doctor's beloved TARDIS apart so she could look into the vortex, you, the viewer, understood why she was doing that, and why she was so desperate to get back that she became the Bad Wolf.
And when she and the Doctor were separated by the Void, behind the walls of parallel universes, it was absolutely heartbreaking in a way that very few TV shows have ever been able to achieve. Because you knew the Doctor loved Rose, even though he never said it; he burned up a sun to say goodbye. Contrast this with the Eleventh Doctor's treatment of River, and how he manipulated her into a Gallifreyan bonding just so that he could restore the timelines. I mean, he said it himself: "I don't want to marry you." He manipulated River's feelings for him - feelings that, in my opinion, aren't even grounded in a particularly strong motivation for the character - just so that he could save all of history, so that he could fulfill that fixed point in time.
And look - Martha Jones spend a year with the Doctor, staying by his side despite his less-than-stellar treatment of her, braving The Year That Never Was to save the world from the Tofoclane and the Master's machinations, and then realizing that no matter how much she loved the Doctor, he was never going to love her back in exactly the same way. And she chose, good strong woman that she was, she chose to leave the TARDIS because she knew that it was already becoming unhealthy for her to spend so much time in close quarters with a man she was having a one-sided love affair with. And here's River Song, knowing full well what the Doctor's presence meant in a world where timelines are collapsing and history is bleeding into each other like wet ink on fragile pages, and what does she say?
The Doctor: River, you and I, we know what this means. We are ground zero of an explosion that will engulf all reality. Billions and billions will suffer and die.
River: I'll suffer if I have to kill you.
The Doctor: More than everything living thing in the universe?!
River: Yes.
She was thinking about herself, about how the Doctor's death would affect her. Rose Tyler came back to the room in Torchwood, knowing full well she could die but was still able to push that all away just to help the Doctor. Martha Jones walked through hell on Earth, knowing how Jack and the Doctor and her family were being tortured by the Master on the Valiant but she soldiered on because she knew it was the right thing to do. Donna Noble gave up her life so that the timelines in "Turn Left" would return back to a world where the Doctor survived his encounter with the Racnoss.
One can argue that these pre-Moffatt companions were different - they gave up themselves for the Doctor. But isn't that what makes a companion a companion? That willingness to sacrifice what they hold dear because it's the right thing to do? I mean, Rose said it herself: the Doctor teaches us how to make better choices for the good of other people, not for our own selfish wants.
I'm not saying that one should commit murder in order to restore to integrity of a time line - on the beach, I think River made the right choice at trying to stop herself (or rather, the astronaut suit) from killing the Doctor. I think that even in the most dire of circumstances, our choices are what defines us. And yet, she also chose not to let go of the Doctor - her refusal to touch him in the pyramids of Area 52 - says that she didn't save him because it was the right thing to do. She saved him, or rather, she chose not to kill him, because she wanted him for herself, because she needed him to know that "[She] can't let [him] without knowing [he is] loved. By so many and so much. And by no one more than [her]."
And I think this is my main problem with how River Song is written - we're meant to empathize with her without actually knowing what we're empathizing with. When we first meet her, in "The Silence in the Library", we're allowed to catch glimpses of what she is to the Doctor, and I think that what the audience filled in was greater and more epic than what she was made out to be. She was given no agency whatsoever in how she grows up and how she becomes a character in her own right - kidnapped as a child, raised to be a psychopath, goes back in time to stalk her mother and father in an effort to find the Doctor and kill him... I mean, what happened to Melody's choice? Even her "love" for the Doctor feels forced, as though it's only there to fulfill the requirements of Time. It does not feel as though the Doctor deserves her love; it does not feel as though he loves her. Certainly, he's cheeky about it, and he cares about her, but I mean - in the Moffat-era, the epic love story is reserved for Amy and Rory, not the Doctor and River. In fact, in most of the River-centric stories post "A Good Man Goes to War" simply glosses over her emotions and choices and, most importantly, her motivations as a character in this overarching narrative of the Doctor in the TARDIS, traveling through time and space.
True, I agree, she's a badass in the proper sense of the term. She fights, she carries a gun, she's the muscle to the Time Lord's might. But these are all superficial things, in my opinion. She's imprisoned for a crime she was programmed to commit, and yet she swings in and out of Stormcage like it's her own personal dance hall. This, to me, does not seem like a woman bereft of choice, but she does seem like a woman who has been pretending for far too long to be all sorts of things that she no longer seems true and real. She is an amalgamation of what the writer wants her to be, a puppet controlled by invisible strings, and I don't feel what she is as strongly as I feel for other companions, including Amy and Rory.
And I think this is my main problem with River Song: she's all surface and very little depth. And if this is how Moffat is going to treat her in the subsequent episodes, and if/when River becomes the main companion of the Doctor, I don't think I'll be too interested in watching Doctor Who anymore. Because it's not going to be Doctor Who anymore - it's going to be "River who?"
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no subject
Date: 2011-10-02 04:58 pm (UTC)I tend to go more with the much shorter statement that River is not a character, she's a plot device that Moff uses to force his stories forward when he gets stuck, lol, but you put it so much better.
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Date: 2011-10-03 03:02 am (UTC)And then the Moff sledgehammered us with River, and I went from being neutral to just plain outright not liking her.
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Date: 2011-10-02 06:00 pm (UTC)This may very well be the most perfect post ever. Thank you so much!!!
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Date: 2011-10-03 03:02 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-10-02 06:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-10-03 03:03 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-10-02 06:42 pm (UTC)THANK YOU. I not sure why the Doctor/River shippers are taking the "marriage" as total proof of their ship. It was manipulative, complete goal-oriented on the Doctor's side, and not very romantic because of that.
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Date: 2011-10-03 03:05 am (UTC)You know how, when you ask two people what their relationship is to each other, and one says "She's my friend" and the other says, "She's my best friend"? River and the Doctor feels like that.
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Date: 2011-10-02 06:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-10-03 03:07 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-10-02 07:06 pm (UTC)For me, there's no emotion to Moffat's reign. I'll be the first to state that some of RTD's plots were absolutely horrible, but his characterization was incredible. Moffat seems so concerned about 'clever' plot twists, that he spends no time on actual characterization so that I CARE about the plot twist and how it affects the characters.
I mean, when Amy loses her child and seemingly DOESN'T REFERENCE IT and goes about having more adventures with the Doctor, who was indirectly the cause of this, why should I care either?
This is the first time I debating whether or not to even set the series DVD set. If it weren't for Gaiman's excellent "Doctor's Wife", I definitely wouldn't.
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Date: 2011-10-03 03:15 am (UTC)Thanks for putting it so succinctly. In my opinion, most of the stories that I enjoyed a lot in S5 and S6 were the ones that Moffat didn't write - I loved "Vincent and the Doctor" and "The Lodger", and obviously "The Doctor's Wife", and also "The Girl Who Waited" and "The God Complex". They were lovingly written by people who actually cared about the characters, and not plot for plot's sake. I agree that RTD's writing had some duds ("Love and Monsters", anyone?) but even until now, I can look back and say, "They were great stories." :)
(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2011-10-02 07:10 pm (UTC)And 'River Who'? isn't that just the perfect reason why River is the Doctor's perfect partner, she can steal the show from him
no subject
Date: 2011-10-03 03:26 am (UTC)However, I've been under the impression I was watching a show called Doctor Who, with a character called the Doctor, and not a show called River Who? which makes it an entirely different banana altogether.
Yes she does it out of selfishness but love is always selfish, what is marriage if not the ultimate declaration of selfishness 'I want you to be with me forever and nobody else'
I don't think love is selfish, and if that's the case, then we're all screwed. Furthermore, at least in DW, with previous companions, it's always shown that their love is for the good of other people, not for themselves. Jack died, the last man standing on Satellite 5, for love of the Doctor and to give him time to save the human race. We can argue that yes, Rose did a selfish thing in trying to get back to Satellite 5 as well because she wanted the Doctor safe - and by safe, she means blowing the entire Dalek fleet out of the water. Martha's selfish as well, yes, in that she loved a man who couldn't love her back - but that love enabled her to walk through hell on Earth for a year, a preacher-like figure that reminded the human race to believe in something. And Donna - Donna gave up her life for a man she's never met simply because she believed there was something better for everyone else, even though she wouldn't exist in that timeline.
And even when you look at Amy and Rory - Rory waited for 2,000 years for Amy in the Pandorica, even though the Doctor told him she would be safe, he still waited for her and stood guard by her. I don't think that's selfish at all. And when Older!Amy sacrificed her place on the TARDIS for Young!Amy to survive, I don't think that's selfish either.
She was created to be a killer, to stalk one man, and consciously decided to become a hero instead without changing her main motivation in life, to stalk that man.
First, I don't think she consciously decided to become a hero. In "Let's Kill Hitler", she was moved by his heroics, and his care for his companions despite his imminent death, and I think that simply resonated in her, that here is this man whom everyone up until that point in time is telling her is a killer and a murderer and will destroy the universe, and yet in front of her is simply a man who wants to do what's best for everyone, who cares too much.
(TBH, I don't think the Doctor also started to wanting to be a hero. He wanted to escape Gallifrey, and he wanted to see the universe, and he had a very good sense of what was right and what was wrong, and he couldn't stand to see children cry. I think that the last two is simply basic decency, not heroics.)
Furthermore, stalking is a rather unhealthy occupation, and I don't think anyone in their proper frame of mind would equate stalking with love.
(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2011-10-02 07:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-10-03 03:29 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-10-02 07:12 pm (UTC)Now though... River is at the point in her timeline that she's just become her own person. She's figuring out who she is - gotten her doctorate in archaeology - and while she started it because of influence on her by the Doctor, who says that it stayed that way. She got a doctorate! That's years of study and dedication, to learning about the past. Time to reflect on herself. But also, she's still breaking that hold on her from the manipulation of who she is by the Silence. She's also still learning about love - the Doctor is the first person she's ever felt something like that for. I'm sure everyone remembers their first love. It's overpowering and amazing and you can't ever let go of it. That's the point that River's at right now. But also look at who she turns into at the end of her life. A person who sacrifices herself, to save him and other people. It's about growing up, and during the finale, River is still growing up. I think what the Doctor sees in her when he marries her is the person she turns into, after all, he has a unique perspective of seeing what she does with her life later.
no subject
Date: 2011-10-03 03:36 am (UTC)I just want to point out that the Doctor didn't really marry River, and I think this is part of my problem with the entire episode, and it's not just because I'm not River's biggest fan.
First of all - it happened in an alternate timeline that never really existed, in a bubble universe that was destroyed once the Doctor's "death" happened in Utah. Aside from that, the Doctor wasn't even really the Doctor when the Gallifreyan bonding ceremony - and I honestly don't think it was a ceremony as it is, but a slapdash trick that the Doctor did to manipulate River's feelings for him - but it was the Teselecta robot with the Doctor inside. And finally, the Doctor said it himself: "I don't want to marry you."
I think that River just got the crap part of the deal, and for her to still love a man who manipulated her to restore the integrity of timelines and to put her in jail for a crime she was programmed to commit isn't really the actions of a man who is in love with her. Furthermore, I think that any other actions that he did for her (taking her to see Stevie Wonder, the singing towers of Derillium) was the act of a man trying to make up for the wrongs he did, simply because the burden of guilt was too great.
(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2011-10-02 07:36 pm (UTC)"The Doctor: River, you and I, we know what this means. We are ground zero of an explosion that will engulf all reality. Billions and billions will suffer and die.
River: I'll suffer if I have to kill you.
The Doctor: More than everything living thing in the universe?!
River: Yes."
Also, I was really sad to see that the above exchange went down this way. I had been hoping that I had misheard it, but no dice. River will suffer more than EVERY BEING IN THE UNIVERSE because she has to kill the Doctor? Not impressed. Why couldn't she have said something along the lines of "The universe needs you! Everything gets effed up when you're not around." [Sidenote: I did like how the ep pointed out that many people love the Doctor, instead of the whole "he's a monster who must be contained" trope.]
Finally, the bit about being raised to hate and kill this one specific person, and then OF COURSE falling in love with him... yeah, no. That's not how it works. Obsession =/= love.
no subject
Date: 2011-10-03 03:43 am (UTC)Yes, this one! Precisely. I think it's also because a lot of what happens to River happens off-screen, and someone else pointed out somewhere that a lot of the adventures that happened between River and the Doctor happened somewhere between "The God Complex" and "Closing Time", simply because it was older River on the beach with Amy and Rory, whose diary was synced with the Doctor's.
I did like how the ep pointed out that many people love the Doctor, instead of the whole "he's a monster who must be contained" trope.
Yes, I also liked that one. From "The Pandorica Opens" onwards, we see all this "The Doctor is bad and must be contained" and on the one hand, I think it's a very clever conceit, but on the other hand, I don't watch Doctor Who simply for the cleverness. I think Craig Ferguson said it best when he said the show was "the triumph of intelligence and romance over brute force and cynicism."
I'd like the romance back please, and less of the cynicism.
no subject
Date: 2011-10-02 07:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-10-03 03:44 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-10-02 07:52 pm (UTC)If you want to compare her to another (non-Who) character, she strikes me as Daniel Jonas on Days of Our Lives, who was the previous headwriter's plot device with a history of bad execution rather than purpose. She is nothing more than a plot-mover, with little fleshing out. She has no serious motivation, except possibly the fear we saw at the end of "Closing Time." But if everything is a very (badly done) love story, it fails on execution. Why it might have been interesting to explore, this series, if she really loved him or not, it was just an accepted "was" without build up. It's almost like she's doing to the Doctor what Moffat did to Amy from this viewer's point.
Frankly, the heavy emphasis is why I have been only casually viewing for the second half. I get that River's important but the scope of the Who world is so wide that there are any number of plot devices to use that are outside the Pond family. And quite frankly, I think that it's a swipe at the Ponds, as a whole. He took what could have been a great story (a family on board, or having to give up the adventures in favor of raising) and made it into a big old mess.
River could have been epic in that she's essentially part TARDIS, but she was too many devices (like basically giving the Doctor the ability to regen endlessly) with little character accountability.
no subject
Date: 2011-10-03 03:50 am (UTC)This one! I mean, if we list down all of River's epic abilities, we have:
- a Time Lady, with regenerative capabilities, since she was essentially "of TARDIS born"
- a special bond with the TARDIS, who was taught to pilot her instinctively
- good with a gun, trained to fight
- intelligent, if we're going by her doctorate in archaeology
And yet, she feels exactly like that: a list of things that doesn't bear much weight in the world of Doctor Who. And to be quite honest, part of the reason I can't empathize with her is because I can't see myself in her place. The reason the Doctor took human companions, people who had a sense of adventure and wanted to see the whole of time and space, was because they saw things with a sense of wonder that he missed and wanted to have again. This is what makes people respond to companions like Rose, or Martha, or Donna, or Amy... or let's go back and say Ian and Barbara, Sarah Jane, Jo Grant, Liz Shaw... it's the way they saw things. Even when you had non-human companions like Romana, there was still the sense of adventure and wonder, of putting rights to great wrongs. Here... River was wrong, clear as day, and even the Doctor recognized that.
(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2011-10-02 08:37 pm (UTC)None of this stops the show being very entertaining at times. But you're absolutely right, it's hollow and empty. It's interesting watching people trying to come up with reasons why Moffatt has just offered them everything they loathed about Rose Tyler, turned up to 11.
no subject
Date: 2011-10-03 03:57 am (UTC)I'd like to think "love saves the day" is essentially a theme in Doctor Who, no matter which Doctor we're looking at. The thing is, this love has been skewed to the point that we only look at the romantic aspect of love, as opposed to looking a love as a positive influence that makes us want to be better than who we are right now.
None of this stops the show being very entertaining at times. But you're absolutely right, it's hollow and empty.
That's the thing, it feels hollow and empty. Look, I cried as though my best friend had died at the season finale of S1, and still refuse to watch the S2 finale because I know I will weep copious tears and be a zombie for half the day. What happened to Donna in S4 broke my heart to bits and pieces. "The Wedding of River Song" does not even feel like a finale to me, because the only thing I felt for River was a kind of disbelief that she would sacrifice the bubble universe just to keep the Doctor alive for herself.
no subject
Date: 2011-10-02 08:45 pm (UTC)If it's any consolation, River tells Amy that she just returned from the episodes: Time of Angels & Flesh & Stone. That means the next time we the audience will see her will be at the Library where she meets her end.
Again, a good essay. Thank you!
no subject
Date: 2011-10-03 04:02 am (UTC)Just a quick one though: I would add only that Melody Pond is a Time Lord (without any regenerations left) who doesn't know how to be like the Doctor yet (the mad man with a box).
I suppose the question is: is she really meant to be like the Doctor, just because she's a Time Lady? (She's not even Gallifreyan.) Because then the question is - are all Time Lords/Ladies supposed to be like the Doctor, or possess Doctor-like qualities simply by virtue of their genetics?
(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2011-10-02 10:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-10-03 04:02 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-10-03 01:02 am (UTC)I also very much agree with you on the changing of the show's view on romance from the McGann-era on. It definitely is a telling of our times more than anything else (although Classic Who Doctors could be seen as having a sexual leaning in some way, depending on who you're looking at) and how else would Davies bring the viewer in without a hint of sexual tension? It's what sells.
no subject
Date: 2011-10-03 04:09 am (UTC)I was also willing to give River a chance with "The Silence in the Library"/"The Forest of the Dead" - she seemed funny and interesting, and I thought it ended well. However, now knowing what she's about and where she's from and how she came about, I think the way she died was really crappy and a cop-out. I mean, yes her consciousness is downloaded in the data core of the biggest library in the universe, which is as best as we can get a shot of heaven at in Doctor Who, but... ugh. For a woman who was supposedly married to the Doctor, she got the short end of the stick. I mean, at least Rose got a Doctor!clone for her troubles. :P
As for the sexual tension and romance in Doctor Who from McGann onwards, I think it's simply also because of the way stories and storytelling on television and on other mediums have changed. I mean, Doctor Who is a show about stories, about the way stories change and morph and become more than just words on a page, and I think that it'll still go on changing and evolving as we go along - which isn't itself a bad thing. :)
no subject
Date: 2011-10-03 02:22 am (UTC)I'd like to believe that River's Doctorate or her career in archaeology flesh her out -- but we don't get to see any of that. We only get to hear her innuendoes without ever getting to feel any real tension between them. Whereas there was more tension and longing between the Doctor and Rose in any given episode than they ever managed to build between the Doctor and River.
I actually am not sure they were even married. I recognize the handfasting ritual where they tied their hands together -- but then he didn't actually tell her his name. And there weren't any vows. And also, she's living backwards now--- it's all very sad really. :(
no subject
Date: 2011-10-03 04:17 am (UTC)You know, I didn't think of it that way, but I can definitely see the parallelisms. I think that's what made me uncomfortable with the way Moffat is writing these women, that they're essentially living their lives waiting for the Doctor. Even Amy has been designed to be like this, being called "the girl who waited". I mean, Rose is "the defender of earth", Martha is "the woman who saved the world", and Donna is "the most important person in the whole of creation". Even Rory got "the last Centurion", which is a hell of a lot cooler than "the girl who waited".
I actually am not sure they were even married. I recognize the handfasting ritual where they tied their hands together -- but then he didn't actually tell her his name. And there weren't any vows.
That's the crux of my argument - River *thinks* they're married, but from the Doctor's position, it's a bit blurrier, what with the Doctor inside the Teselecta-Doctor, and the entire manipulation of the event just to get River to touch him and thereby restore the timelines. And yes, if the only time the Doctor can tell a person his real name is if they get married, then I can bet that Rose Tyler's got a better chance of knowing the Doctor's name than River Song. Just saying.
(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2011-10-03 04:45 am (UTC)One thing that's been driving me a little nuts lately is how River is being hailed for doing things that they wanted to burn Rose at the stake for doing. Rose saves her father and causes a paradox, she's a selfish bitch. River saves the Doctor and causes a paradox, it's romantic. Rose falls in love with the Doctor and is branded clingy. River does so and once again we're at romantic.
Fandom is a creature I will never understand.
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Date: 2011-10-03 08:44 am (UTC)I love fandom with all my heart, but it is quite confusing in this regard. Also, at least with Rose, there's a part of you that understands, because come on, if we were taken to the time and place where a parent dies accidentally, wouldn't you TRY to save them? It's instinct, pure and simple.
And as for Rose falling in love with the Doctor, I think it's also safe to say that the Doctor fell in love with Rose as well. :)
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Date: 2011-10-03 04:57 am (UTC)Because you knew the Doctor loved Rose, even though he never said it; he burned up a sun to say goodbye.
I have to say that I'm quite new to Doctor Who. I've only just caught up on all of the newer episodes and I'm planning on going back and re-watching the older ones that I can find. With that I think I have a bit of a disadvantage in this regard. Since I didn't actually see the relationship progress over years of my own life and literally saw it in the matter of a week or two, I didn't view his goodbye that way. I definitely agree that the Doctor loved Rose, it was painfully clear, but I don't think he loved her in the way that she wanted him to. To me it came across as him understanding what he meant to her and him seeing the restrictions that would have been in place for their relationship (the restrictions that eventually the "other" Doctor was able to lift so he could be with Rose). I think the Doctor could have very easily loved her, and her told her that, but he didn't allow himself to do it because he knew it would have ended badly for the two of them. A lot of that I think has carried over into his relationship with River.
She was thinking about herself, about how the Doctor's death would affect her.
Despite being a HUGE River fan, I have to agree with this. The only thing that I could even begin to think of (and it's by no means an excuse for writing her that way) is this is a much younger River who doesn't fully understand. Yes, she knows that the world is suffering and would continue to do so, but I don't think at the time it was for her in her time stream she could fully comprehend. She's not as traveled, hasn't seen as much, and so is willing to see people suffer at her hand. An older River, at least in my opinion, would never act in such a way because she knows the repercussions. And in that sense I choose to see character growth from her.
Even her "love" for the Doctor feels forced, as though it's only there to fulfill the requirements of Time.
I have to see there are times when I have to agree with this, especially in the finale. I don't know if it's supposed to be River's form of teenage rebellion (though she wouldn't even know what she was rebellion against -- but in LKH she knew she was supposed to kill him?) or what ... but there are holes that were brought about in the finale specifically that leave me a bit on edge.
if/when River becomes the main companion of the Doctor
Do not want. At all. I much prefer her dropping in and starting problems (it's how I think she works but), but after the finale I feel a bit shorted out of my love for her and my ship. I know that with Moffat I'm never going to get the answers that I really want, but I also don't expect them. Out of all of the episodes that he's done I feel TWORS is my least favorite. Her relationship wasn't tied up with the Doctor in a way that was satisfactory, at all. I never expected River and the Doctor to get married properly (but that's a whole never topic), I never expected them to have this huge budding romance, but what I did expect was a bit of justification surrounding the things that River has done and this didn't give it to me.
It really did just feel like a young girls decisions who didn't understand what she was doing. And maybe that's what it was supposed to be, but it doesn't mean we have to like it. It would have been nice to see a younger version of her who we can then learn from her mistakes, and the finale would have been a fantastic way to do it, but I just don't feel as if it was executed properly.
I'm hoping that if in future episodes if Alex Kingston returns we are given a few more answers or get to see some things that can make her a bit more well rounded. I understand that it's hard, "spoilers" and all, but sometimes the audience does need that. And it would be nice to see if the Doctor could let go of (what I think is) is fear to love someone that goes all the back to Rose because he knows that they can't be together in the end. Otherwise it's going to make me feel completely cheated out of what I know not only the ship but the character could be.
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Date: 2011-10-03 08:57 am (UTC)I also started watching Doctor Who only during the beginning of S6, so my first Doctor, technically, was Eleven. And then I marathoned Nine and Ten for about two or three weeks, not counting all the fanfics I've been reading and watching the specials and the Confidentials (I have very nice friends who gave me/lent me all these things). So in a sense, I didn't have years to watch the show either - I literally inhaled everything in about a month or so, and now I'm slowly re-watching everything else.
Having said that, I think that the only reason stopping the Doctor from loving Rose in the way she wanted was simply because of the restrictions that he placed himself ("That's the curse of the Time Lords," he said, remember, during "School Reunion"?) and even RTD said that given the chance, Rose Tyler would still be traveling with the Doctor, which was why he had to put them in separate universes else the Doctor would've been perfectly fine with Rose traveling with him til the end of her days.
Yes, she knows that the world is suffering and would continue to do so, but I don't think at the time it was for her in her time stream she could fully comprehend
If this is the case, then first of all, I think it's a bit sad that despite her doctorate and her education, she still doesn't realize that she has the chance to save the universe and yet chooses to save the Doctor. This is what I mean when I said that I have a problem with the choices she makes and what that implies for her character. And I don't think age is the issue - it's understanding the consequences of your actions, and I think she doesn't really understand it.
I do wholeheartedly agree with you that I hope River's character expands and is elucidated somewhere along the way, but I suspect that wouldn't be the case. I mean, this is the Moff we're talking about...
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Date: 2011-10-03 06:53 am (UTC)Anyway, River was WAY to self-centered here which, from my understand, this her post-LKH a bit more grown up from then, so I can see this happening because she hasn't grown up as the bad ass River we've been given. It still doesn't excuse her; other companions loved the Doctor and were willing to do anything to save the universe 'cause that's what the Doctor showed them to do. Yes, I appreciate that River cares for him and showed him how much he's loved, but the whole "and no one more than me" thing totally crashed-and-burned her. *Sighs*
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Date: 2011-10-03 09:02 am (UTC)Yes, I appreciate that River cares for him and showed him how much he's loved, but the whole "and no one more than me" thing totally crashed-and-burned her. *Sighs*
I actually cringed when she said that, in an "Oh really now?" kind of way.
(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2011-10-03 08:46 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-10-03 09:02 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-10-03 09:24 am (UTC)This pissed me off so much, because like the Doctor said he would never want the universe to suffer if he could help it. And in my opinion no one is more important than the other except Donna, because she has been labeled as the most important woman in all of creation. But I don't think that River's plight of killing the Doctor is worse that people being tortured, killed, and destroyed because she refused to kill the Doctor Her refusal shows why in my opinion she could never be the Doctor's wife. She didn't trust him to have a plan to escape his own death. Trust is needed in any relationship for it to work, especially marriage. I wanted to like River too but I agree that she has been poorly written. I'm not saying I could do any better, but the writers are either not into the whole River/Doctor romance or they have no clue how to introduce her. I feel that the started out making her epic, but the journey there has been lacking. There have been very few moments where River shows that "Damn right I'm epic." One of my personal favorites is in "The Big Bang" where she's showing down with a Dalek. I think it would've been better if they had started her out as being modest and then building her to greatness. Almost every single time we see River she has a cocky attitude, and there have been very few if any humbling moments for her. The Doctor gets knocked down constantly, constantly reminded that he isn't the end-all-be-all and he learns from that. But River hasn't had that yet.
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Date: 2011-10-05 03:39 am (UTC)This pissed me off so much, because like the Doctor said he would never want the universe to suffer if he could help it.
I always thought that was the whole crux of the Doctor's reasons for traveling - to see the universe, and to protect it. I mean, I'm pretty sure Classic!Who viewers can name more examples, but to me what stands out is when Nine is asked by the Dalek Emperor, "Killer or coward?" and he responds with "Coward. Every time." I think that exchange speaks a lot about what the Doctor stands for and what his values are with regards to the integrity of the universe.
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Date: 2011-10-03 10:21 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-10-05 03:39 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-10-03 01:15 pm (UTC)I don't believe for a second that the Doctor really loves River. Pity, guilt, definitely...but love? Or let me rephrase - of course the Doctor loves River, he loves all of his companions, but romantically and enough to get married? No way. How could he, given all that's happened? So thank you for pointing out what should have been obvious to me - that the "marriage" was really a manipulation.
I still feel for River though (especially after seeing her story straightened out in Confidential). No matter how you look at it, her story is tragic. Tragic because of what happens to her, unrequited love and all that, but also tragic because she could have been so much better. She had so much potential after Forest of the Dead, and I still think the idea of the two time travelers meeting like they do is brilliant, but its execution just leaves much to be desired. It's just a shame.
Lastly, I'm no Doctor/Rose shipper, but even I could see a much stronger connection between those two than ever between River and the Doctor. So....totally agree with you on that too.
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Date: 2011-10-05 03:41 am (UTC)I know what you mean - I really do wish they just emphasized her tragedy, that here's a woman who was meant to kill the Doctor but falls in love with him instead and saves him. I mean, conceptually, it makes sense on paper and I'd love to see that, but over the course of S5 and S6, you don't really see it. And it's television, for goodness' sake - you're SUPPOSED to see it, because the medium demands it.
no subject
Date: 2011-10-03 11:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-10-05 03:41 am (UTC)