Doctor Who - Utopia

[raven]

Wow. This one, for me, was a whirl of colour and light and mayhem. I am not sure if this was the episode itself or merely a function of my current addled state. We shall see.

To start with: oh, Jack. I haven't seen Torchwood, and wasn't planning to until hathy_col threatened gruesome death (I am conceding, we are spending our respectively useful and productive summers watching it, Heroes and Life On Mars) so my last memory of Jack is from The Parting of the Ways and oh, Jack. I love him. A lot. There is nothing I do not love about him. I rest my case.

-And, oh, Doctor. I am in a minority here, but I love this dark-eyed ruthless Doctor who's so... well, himself. And he left Jack behind on purpose, but you just know that the mask slips on for some deep and angsty reason there. (David Tennant remains fabulous, naturally.)

-"Oh, she was blonde." Martha, I love you. And I love the Doctor too; does the word "blogging" mean what the Doctor thinks it means, there?

-Is it just me, or does too much happen at the beginning? It's all, ooh, Doctor, ooh, Jack, ooh, end of the world, ooh, end of the universe, ooh, people with teeth, military people, the Doctor doesn't like guns, teeth more teeth (and hee, I liked the resonance with the Doctor's "new teeth" comment, back in the last episode where we saw Jack), refugees, no, passengers, small children with Scottish accents, very bright light, ooh, laboratory.

-Yep, that was the point where I started to focus and enjoy the episode. Jacobi was great as Professor Yana, and I knew there was something funny about the name! (Didn't call it, but caught on that there was something to call, so to speak.) And I like the details throughout this scene - Martha's conversation with Chantho, and with the little girl.

-Speaking of which, I do hope she becomes significant later.

-The Futurekind were a bit rubbish, I think. Well, maybe not - perhaps I should reserve judgement until we know who they are and why they are. I was just a bit baffled by the one who sneaks in and sabtotages the coupling mechanism - if they're not human, who are they? And why don't they want the humans to leave?

-Actually, I got a sense here of old-skool episodes. Running around in a futuristic post-apocalyptic world, vivid lighting and shadows, lots of running. I don't know what specifically gave me the impression.

-The best bit of the episode, I think, was the gloriously red-lit scene where the focus is ostensibly on Jack, oh, saving the day, but is really on the conversation through the glass. The Doctor is scared of Jack. I have so much love for this concept - Jack as a "fixed point in time and space", the Doctor's instinctive revulsion, and all that they aren't saying, with the Doctor being much less calm than he makes out, and Jack somewhere between being pissed off and just happy to see the Doctor again.

-"You are not alone."

Oh, yes. Where all of it comes together - the Face of Boe's last words, the watch in Human Nature, Rose bringing Jack back to life, all together into one single plot twist. The Master's back! And he doesn't hang around and tell you his evil plans! Because that would not be cool!

John Simm - very much of the good. I was worried I'd look at him and just think Sam Tyler, but no! He does evil very well.

-And, oh, Doctor. The way he says, "Master," is very very suggestive, and very slashy, as others have said. I wonder if he'd rather be the last, or have the Master exist so he isn't? There needs to be fic.

And that's all, because I am addled and need to see this again, but I'm looking forward to the next part, if I ever get to see it.

Comments

[gamesiplay.livejournal.com]

I really don't understand most of this, because I haven't seen the episode and am waaaaay behind on watching DW, but: Jacobi as in DEREK JACOBI? I must see this!

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Yes! (http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/gallery/s3_11gallery/hires/homepage.jpg) You really should see it!

[gamesiplay.livejournal.com]

...That is so deeply fabulous. I'm going to go track it down.

Totally unrelatedly, I have discovered that it's only Facebook that doesn't want to correctly display my OMG II photo! The full-size version is up at my journal now.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

OMG, yaaaay! *scurries off*

[principia-coh.livejournal.com]

Yes, THE Derek Jacobi. Glee!

[shinji-star.livejournal.com]

The little scottish girl with the clipboard is a little boy called John, the Blue Peter competition winner.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Ohhhhh. Okay, I really thought that was a girl. *sighs*

[jacinthsong.livejournal.com]

Me too :o Children are weird.

[emily-shore.livejournal.com]

I thought it was a girl too...

[tmpe5t.livejournal.com]

HA! So did i, which is very funny...

[shinji-star.livejournal.com]

I would've thought he was a girl too if I hadn't seen the Who Peter special! (which was incredibly cute, I almost cried when they showed him finding out he'd got the part.)

[unfeathered]

Oh, thank God, I thought it was a boy and got very confused reading this! :-)

[pinkishmew.livejournal.com]

Awwww, that's so nice! :D

[wishfulaces.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I got a feeling of Old Skool post-apocalyptic episodes too. And the FutureKind were so under-used/unexplained that I have no idea what the devil we're supposed to do with them. They just acted as catalyst to get the Doctor & Co. where the plot needed them to be.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Yes, that's what I thought! Unless they become terribly profound in the next part...

[wishfulaces.livejournal.com]

...Which I don't see how they can do, unless they travel to twenty-first century London? Though, yes, Doc & Co. do have to get there themselves. Hmmm.

[cscottd.livejournal.com]

Jack, yay!
Derek Jacobi, yay!
10th Doctor + Martha + Jack, yay!
Chantho, yay!
Jack + Radiation + 10th Doctor, yay!
The watch, yay!
The Master, yay!
John Simm, yay!

Poor Professor Yana though. So very John Smith, and yet worse really, because he's giving his life (a life spent trying to save the last of humanity) to bring back a ruthless megalomaniac... and, unlike John Smith, he doesn't even really get to make the choice.


"Why don't we stop and have a nice little chat, while I tell you all my plans and you can work out a way to stop me. I don't think."

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

I think John Smith had an easier time of it in many ways - he was frightened of the Doctor for being so alien, so unknown, but not for being evil. Poor old Yana, who's the Master's long-hidden academic side. (That's interesting, now I come to think of it - the Doctor and Master were friends once, and here they are being friends again, when the conversation is all academic. Maybe that explains the rift between them - maybe it began when the Master turned away from the pure pursuit of knowledge, and the Doctor didn't...)

[cscottd.livejournal.com]

I think John Smith had an easier time of it in many ways - he was frightened of the Doctor for being so alien, so unknown, but not for being evil.

So true. In many ways, I think that Professor Yana may be the most tragic character we've seen so far (or at least one of them).


That's interesting, now I come to think of it - the Doctor and Master were friends once, and here they are being friends again, when the conversation is all academic. Maybe that explains the rift between them - maybe it began when the Master turned away from the pure pursuit of knowledge, and the Doctor didn't...

My personal theory is that something happened a long time ago, back when they were very close friends (possibly related, possibly not, but definitely friends). I think whatever it was, it was something terrible, and it caused an irreparable rift between them. In fact, it may have even been the same event that forced the Doctor to steal a TARDIS and flee Gallifrey with Susan in the first place.

Over the years (back in my old-school Who days), I heard lots of speculation that perhaps the Master had somehow betrayed the Doctor in some way, but I've always wondered if maybe we've got that slightly wrong... What if it was the Doctor who betrayed the Master?

After all, at the core of all of the Master's grand schemes for power, there always seems to be this central element of simply outdoing the Doctor. He doesn't want to kill him, not really (or at least that's not what's important to him). He wants to beat him, and he wants the Doctor to admit it -- that he's better and smarter and that he won.

Just look at the scene from this episode, where the Doctor is begging him to stop and think and the Master demands, "Use my name." (Potential slashiness aside) he wants to hear the Doctor call him 'Master'. And the Doctor does. He says, "Master... I'm sorry." He's sorry? Maybe I'm reading way too much into it, but I can't help but wonder if he's apologising for whatever happened so long ago, back on Gallifrey.

Another bit that I thought was particularly interesting was when the Doctor first ran into the room and saw the the Master. Just after the Master ran into the TARDIS and locked the Doctor out, the Doctor says, "I'm begging you. Everything's changed. It's only the two of us. Just let me in!"

I could be wrong, but I think there is definitely a lot of history between these characters -- a lot more than what we've seen on the screen.

[pinkdormouse.livejournal.com]

I loved that one, and need to watch it again tonight. Much squeeage at Derek Jacobi and the Jack-Martha interactions especially. And Jack flirting again!!!!

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Jack and Martha! I had much love!

[pinkishmew.livejournal.com]

They cannot possibly make him his brother after that 'Master' business. All the slash we were all simultaneously writing in our heads would be made wrong and creepy!

And - you didn't watch Torchwood? ... How did I miss this fact?

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

So much SLASH. I've been writing it for so long now that I can't see them any other way.

No, I didn't! I didn't have a TV while it was on and then people warned me off it...

[pinkishmew.livejournal.com]

For me, it could kind of do no wrong. Even the silly bits. It was a land where everyone was bisexual, so I loved it.

[emily-shore.livejournal.com]

I didn't watch it either, I must admit. I thought it did much wrong...

[quackaquacka.livejournal.com]

The Futurekind were cannibals, that's why they didn't want the humans to leave and wanted to sabotage the Silo - they were hungry (at the beginning, the one with all the piercings in his nose said something like 'we hungry' in a Gollum-esque voice).

(I think that's right.)