The Waters of Mars

[elleflies]

I have seen Waters of Mars and Lo, it was Good!

Those on my flist who know me and my TV watching proclivities are probably in shock right now. Yes, I really did watch it. gina_r_snape and jigglykat put their feet down and made no bones about it (they MADE ME DO IT). So watch I did. But I had a jigglykat and got to play with Doctor Who Nesting Dolls...

ANYWAYS.

I come from the John Crichton School of Character Development so I tend to be happiest when the characters I love the most are broken and CRAZY. If there is a lonely tear of man pain then... so much the better!

The Special did have some problems - they really could have cleaned up the beginning bits more. It felt a bit all over the place at first. The flashbacks to the BBC news page... really did not need to be included. They were a bit jarring and I think DT is a strong enough actor that he could have pulled off those scenes without BBC News helping out.

Which brings us to my new Doctor Who Canon:

The Doctor spends all his free time on Wikipedia. Wikipedia is practically Doctor created! He has to do something while his human-type peoples are sleeping and thusly he is an internet FIEND. He is THAT GUY who gets all pissed off because someone is WRONG on the internet. When Stephen Colbert pulled that Elephant stunt and had the Colbert Nation modify the Elephant Wikipedia page you know the Doctor was in the Tardis, glued to the console screen getting really really pissy. He worked really hard on that entry! And you just know that he only really goes to the BBC news page because you have to cite your references at Wikipedia and even though the Doctor has been trying, Wikipedia still refuses to accept "The Doctor" as an acceptable reference and resource.

Ahem.

jigglykat went out of her way, during one of the 'oh look the Doctor is crazy!pants' scenes to actually point out the Doctor's pants. Specifically, how poorly designed the Orange Space Suit is and how it sags in unfortunate places in the pelvic area.

I have provided evidence:



Thank you jigglykat I totally needed saggy space suits to improve my Doctor Who watching experience! See what you miss when you don't watch!

The best part for me really was the Doctor going crazy. I liked the other parts but wasn't terribly engaged by them. Maybe it's because I was totally and completely spoiled, but I didn't find the Water Monsters too terribly frightening. They were damn good monsters, don't get me wrong, but the most I felt inspired to do was drink a bottle of water and be extra super hydrated. I spent a good portion of the time trying to figure out how they'd done the make up and feeling super sorry for the actors who got to play the Water Monsters. I'm really hoping the BBC sprang for a really good Spa Day for when they were done filming. Being that wet and soggy for that long has got to be MURDER on your skin. Either a Spa Day or a trip to the Sahara Desert or something - I'd probably want to go ROLL in sand after all of that was over.

I didn't feel sorry for the actress playing Maggie, she looked like she was having WAY TO MUCH FUN playing a Water Monster. I can see why she was basically the lead monster and she totally made me want to roll myself in bubble wrap, spray paint myself green and pretend to be a Doctor Who monster (I'm sorry, the Bubble Wrap Monsters are the BEST WHO MONSTERS EVER and any arguments against their AWESOMENESS are irrelevant.)

And David Tennant... that man can act. Even when he's standing around looking tiny and forlorn and holding a space suit and thinking he really should not be there can he act. And then... the Doctor. I am so glad they went there with him. There have been hints of this all through 10's run and I can distinctly remember when New Earth aired and there was all this fan speculation about the season arc being about the Doctor as the "Lonely God" and how miffed certain sections of fandom where when it turned out the season was more Torchwood and not the Doctor's God issues.

And he is lonely. Ten started out as such a loved character. He had people looking out for him, people who loved him and he's lost them over and over and over again, and I won't deny that many of the losses he's suffered he's brought on himself. I love that we're finally seeing what he's like with no one. He doesn't have the Time Lords in his head and he doesn't have a companion to act as a conscience. I'm surprised he's gone this long being as sane as he has.

gina_r_snape brought up the topic of the Doctor being bi-polar and while I don't really subscribe to that idea (he's just mercurial, which I love.... don't get me started on the whole trickster thing. I will never stop.) it did bring up a whole conversation about PTSD. 9 definitely had it regarding the Time War, 10 to a lesser extent but all the recovery and getting over it he did through regeneration and being with Rose completely got tossed out the window based on all the crap he's gone through since then - Pompeii, The Master, Donna to name a few. Is he a Winner because he survived or is he a Victim because he survived? And how do you decide?

I can't blame him for breaking when he's listening to people die - he did the wrong thing for the right reasons and still got kicked in the teeth for it. I'm hoping that ending was him realizing he'd fucked up big time, but I also don't know what to make of him going nuts in the Tardis and driving it... somewhere.

Taking the Doctor to this headspace and then adding in the Master should be super interesting. It was like he was channeling the Master in some parts of Waters of Mars, doing whatever he wanted based on his own self interest - and completely disregarding all those things that make him a Lord of Time.

I totally had this all summed up in my head last night and now I think I'm doing a shitty job of saying "OMG Yay I love that he fucked up and went bonkers and did what he did and went where he went and why is DAVID TENNANT LEAVING ME?!"

So yeah... It had problems but overall was pretty amazing.