(no subject)

[pearwaldorf]

I am seriously bawling my eyes out and just Not OK right now. (Yes I know it's just a TV show, shut up.) How could he do that? He didn't even give her a choice in the matter, he just up and wipes her mind of anything that makes her Donna. Perhaps this is my own issues, but I would fear loss of agency a hell of a lot more than Time Lord knowledge-induced madness or death. For a being who's supposedly super-big on choice, I'm rather irritated and confused as to why he wouldn't allow her that decision. It's paternalistic and insulting. Sure, she's still all brash and loud and mouthy and can type 100 wpm, but she'll have none of the wonder, the yearning, the curiosity about anything more remote than the latest celeb pics from the new film premiere. Or, she'll look up at the night sky from time to time and feel indescribably sad, and not know why. (And then her head will explode.)

I get all irritated at how the Doctor is like Jesus in a way and makes everybody who comes into contact with him Better People In Every Regard, but he did help her become braver and (a little) more self-assured. (And probably a better runner. You get a lot of cardio as a Companion.) I don't know if that will stick with her now, but if all the Doctor's influence has been wiped from her mind, maybe not. I just don't like the idea of a Donna Noble who is smaller and meaner, especially when it's his doing. It was a terribly selfish thing to do, and I think it's going to take me a while to get over my anger with Russell T. Davies, who can apparently write badfic with the worst of them.

I mean, seriously. A human clone who gets sent off to the parallel universe for Rose to fuck and grow old with? At that point any irritation I had with the D/R twue wuv soulmate thing just evaporated into lulz. Which was perhaps the intended effect. And I really hate to say it, but it was super duper awesome fan service to have EVERYBODY from EVERY DW SPINOFF EVAR in the TARDIS at once. Jack macking on Sarah Jane was deeply amusing.


Also, Stephen Moffat, you wrote the best sci-fi TV episodes about a library. I am totally OK with you taking over the show now. <3<3<3

Comments

[brouhaha.livejournal.com]

Sure, she's still all brash and loud and mouthy and can type 100 wpm, but she'll have none of the wonder, the yearning, the curiosity about anything more remote than the latest celeb pics from the new film premiere.

I don't think this is 100% true. Donna always had something more in her; it just took the Doctor to bring that out. Maybe she'd find it again anyway. :)

[sonatine.livejournal.com]

I hope so. It would be super-duper awful to have such an amazing life and go back to be not just ordinary, but small.

[threerings.livejournal.com]

I've only rewatched Journey's End once and I wasn't prepared to dissolve into uncontrollable sobs again. Yeah, RTD brings the pain.

Will not comment on the D/R or Moffat. To maintain civility. :)

[starstealingirl.livejournal.com]

This was my reaction after watching Journey's End, too. Usually, I expect RTD to do well by his women characters, but c'mon. Giving Rose the Doctor!Clone as a consolation prize? Telling her that said clone was angry and brutish, and that Rose needed to use her Victorian Woman Powers to civilize him? And what happened to Donna at the end strikes me as a kind of rape. Yet we're supposed to sympathize with his loneliness at the end. No-- not okay.

Basically, I agree. Except that I was not a fan of Silence in the Library, and I'm not so sure about him taking over the show.

[sonatine.livejournal.com]

So tell me of your concerns about Moffatt. I know nothing about him other than the episodes he penned and his apparent fondness for Mary Sues mysterious future companions who know the Doctor Super Duper Well. That part was just silly. I think I'm obligated to be fond of anything with libraries (with real books! An entire planet!) in it.

The thing that bothers me most about Donna is that it is so terribly uncharacteristic of the Doctor, imo. Why would he give the Sontarans, hell, the fucking Master, a choice but not his own Companion? He knows how people change when they're around him, and how hard it is when they leave him. But would they give that up for anything? Of course not. Some of them have even died because of it. Maybe RTD was fearing a fan revolt after a Companion death, but this is worse. So much worse.

[starstealingirl.livejournal.com]

Okay, so admittedly, most of my issue with Moffat has to do with the fact that previously to Doctor Who, what I knew him best for was the sitcom Coupling. Which was kind of like Friends, only funnier. I will grant him the funny, but I have this nightmare vision of Doctor Who suddenly featuring cliched hetero humor of the men-are-from-Mars-women-are-from-Venus variety. Also, the aforementioned fondness for Mary Sues. I'll give him a chance, but I'm apprehensive.

I don't know if the whole Donna debacle struck me as totally uncharacteristic of the Doctor. But I will say again that the fact that we were supposed to view him sympathetically after such an act continues to bug the shit out of me. Perhaps if it had been portrayed differently-- as the Doctor going off the deep end due to Davros' revelation, and losing (I should say "losing") so many of his other companions, I would have been able to at least suspend disbelief.

[sonatine.livejournal.com]

Maybe. What bothers me most is that maybe that was supposed to be the final bit of the prophecy about seeing the Doctor's soul. If so, it's bloody awful and I want to unsee it, kthx. I suspect there will be a great deal of personal retcon if I want to be able to watch this show anymore. Because that's not the sort of thing you can do as a showrunner/writer and expect people to view your characters the same way again. Somebody else mentioned how she'd never seen a fandom so upset with its canon the way it's been post S4. It's like RTD tried to make everything better to please everybody and ended up pissing everybody off.

(I've got the Doctor Who at the BBC Proms thing on in the background [shut up] and they just brought Catherine Tate out to introduce a segment. And she said something to the effect of "Let's celebrate Donna's adventures with the Doctor because poor Donna never can." WAAAAAAGH.)