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The Impossible Astronaut. DW S 6.1
This review was near-impossible to write, so I’m just throwing some stuff out there, and you can make of it what you want. The problem is that EVERYTHING ties in with EVERYTHING ELSE and whenever I try to write it down my head dies from meta. No really. I’d need some kind of three dimensional diagram to properly illustrate my thoughts.
Instead you’ll get a brief look into my head - with illustrations!
To begin with:
(For the non-Brits among you: Carry On was a long-running series of low-budget British comedy films. They are an energetic mix of parody, farce, slapstick and double entendres. Perfectly illustrated in this 20 second clip from Carry On Camping)
Actually can I just say that I love Amy and Rory to itty bitty little pieces and that I flail at everything they do? Because I won’t be talking about them much, since they don’t generate that much meta... Although I *will* say that as someone who married age 20, and had her first child at 22, I cannot off the top of my head think of any other show that has had anything similar, ever, and certainly not portrayed it as a good and positive thing. Random fandom people who lay into Amy’s choices: Those were MY choices too, and I have not ever regretted them, not for a second. Are we clear? (ETA: This is not so much about the pregnancy (or whatever it is), as the 'getting married young', because the criticisms irk me.)
Other random observations:
The music playing at the very, very end when Amy shoots the astronaut/little girl is The Life And Death Of Amy Pond - one of my favourite pieces of music ever.
The music playing on the radio in the diner when older!Doctor and River compare diaries is Adele's Rolling In The Deep. This KILLED me.
I adore Canton Everett Delaware the Third, and am desperately hoping that he brings along The Gay Agenda once more.
The Doctor/River flirting was just OFF THE SCALE! If I had the time I'd list every line they spoke...
Vid rec: Who Wants To Live Forever.
***
Well then, onto the meta. There’ll be a lot of River now, because she is River, and she winds her way through the Doctor’s life and times and metaphors in ways that are just *ridiculous*...
And, like I’ve said before,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
calapine’s What the Doormouse Said informs pretty much all of my thinking here. This bit especially:
(There are contradictions in the narrative; someone has been doing a great deal of rewriting.)
Everything that exists should be as real as everything else.
The first - obviously - pertains to Eleven’s death here. It is a blantant contradiction to what we know of Doctor Who - both on a Doylist and a Watsonian level. And yet - it happened. The Doctor really died, and it was real. Even if it is unmade, doesn’t make it less real, here.
The Doctor died, and there were no comedy vultures, no overwrought despair. Just a man, gathering his friends for one last time, and then meeting his final adventure head-on.
It was A Good Death, and it was perfect and I loved it.
And...
You see? Everything is tied up in big round circles. What’s happening has happened before, will happen again. Remember the Comic Relief Special? The whole ‘verse is like that. Everything reflected back, mirrored, layers upon layers upon layers, every puzzle piece adding another facet, another interpretation...
Which brings me to River’s speech. It’s heartbreaking, and also somewhat troublesome, but - as everyone has pointed out - she’s had a really, really bad day. She’s gone from being the person the Doctor trusts the most in the whole universe (himself apart... oh Jim the Fish!), to having all her motives questioned. Plus she’s in prison (voluntarily, but still) - is it any wonder she rues days to come and tries to cling on to every scrap of the man she loves? (There's even a vid that's that speech to a T: Gravity. Made back in August last year...)
Now several things ameliorate this for me - one, when she gets out of prison (for good), she doesn’t sit around wringing her hands. She gets her professorship and finds a little team of her own (Anita, the Daves) and goes off on her own adventures. No pointless pining - River is a woman of action.
Two, she describes the times when she first met the Doctor, how wonderful it was - but of course he was then at the point she is now. Loving someone dearly who barely knew him... (And really, do you think she fell into his arms? Ten certainly didn't fall into her arms.)
Third, it puts a different slant on her ending. Like so:
Her final end is not that tear-stained goodbye to a man who doesn’t know her yet. It’s a loving confirmation from the man who trusts her completely: Yes, he was always there to catch her.
Plus, her role as story teller in The Library again ties in with 'What The Dormouse Said':
Sometimes River wonders if the Doctor is a figment of her imagination.
[...]
She invented him; she can’t tell him that, what if he doesn’t believe her? What if he unmakes her? Why make him so unhappy? Why make his world burn?
What is real, what is not? A story only dies if it’s forgotten or lost, and that is her greatest fear... And that is what the Silence represents, the terror underpinning the whole narrative. You look away, you forget. People, stories, erased from the world.
Anyway, I don't think it's River who kills him. Well it might be, but if so it's a future!River, and the Doctor is certainly not the man she goes to prison for killing. Still, I'll leave you with this, because the visual parallels in this show are so gorgeous I get all speechless:
("You said you were in the library!"
"So was the swimming pool!")
Stories, water (River), a space 'man' who's not what you expect (space travel, moving forward, going somewhere different, somewhere brand new)...
There are too many layers, too many unknown unknowns for me to go further.
There are known unknowns too of course - what is older!Doctor's plan, who is River, what's up with the Silence etc etc. But they're easy, so far as they go, because we know that they'll be answered. It's the unknown unknowns that will change everything and turn it upside down... Go read the fic and you'll see what I mean:
(There are so many questions she’d like to ask, but she’s afraid the answers will change.)
Instead you’ll get a brief look into my head - with illustrations!
To begin with:
(For the non-Brits among you: Carry On was a long-running series of low-budget British comedy films. They are an energetic mix of parody, farce, slapstick and double entendres. Perfectly illustrated in this 20 second clip from Carry On Camping)
Actually can I just say that I love Amy and Rory to itty bitty little pieces and that I flail at everything they do? Because I won’t be talking about them much, since they don’t generate that much meta... Although I *will* say that as someone who married age 20, and had her first child at 22, I cannot off the top of my head think of any other show that has had anything similar, ever, and certainly not portrayed it as a good and positive thing. Random fandom people who lay into Amy’s choices: Those were MY choices too, and I have not ever regretted them, not for a second. Are we clear? (ETA: This is not so much about the pregnancy (or whatever it is), as the 'getting married young', because the criticisms irk me.)
Other random observations:
The music playing at the very, very end when Amy shoots the astronaut/little girl is The Life And Death Of Amy Pond - one of my favourite pieces of music ever.
The music playing on the radio in the diner when older!Doctor and River compare diaries is Adele's Rolling In The Deep. This KILLED me.
I adore Canton Everett Delaware the Third, and am desperately hoping that he brings along The Gay Agenda once more.
The Doctor/River flirting was just OFF THE SCALE! If I had the time I'd list every line they spoke...
Vid rec: Who Wants To Live Forever.
***
Well then, onto the meta. There’ll be a lot of River now, because she is River, and she winds her way through the Doctor’s life and times and metaphors in ways that are just *ridiculous*...
And, like I’ve said before,
calapine’s What the Doormouse Said informs pretty much all of my thinking here. This bit especially:(There are contradictions in the narrative; someone has been doing a great deal of rewriting.)
Everything that exists should be as real as everything else.
The first - obviously - pertains to Eleven’s death here. It is a blantant contradiction to what we know of Doctor Who - both on a Doylist and a Watsonian level. And yet - it happened. The Doctor really died, and it was real. Even if it is unmade, doesn’t make it less real, here.
The Doctor died, and there were no comedy vultures, no overwrought despair. Just a man, gathering his friends for one last time, and then meeting his final adventure head-on.
It was A Good Death, and it was perfect and I loved it.
And...
You see? Everything is tied up in big round circles. What’s happening has happened before, will happen again. Remember the Comic Relief Special? The whole ‘verse is like that. Everything reflected back, mirrored, layers upon layers upon layers, every puzzle piece adding another facet, another interpretation...
Which brings me to River’s speech. It’s heartbreaking, and also somewhat troublesome, but - as everyone has pointed out - she’s had a really, really bad day. She’s gone from being the person the Doctor trusts the most in the whole universe (himself apart... oh Jim the Fish!), to having all her motives questioned. Plus she’s in prison (voluntarily, but still) - is it any wonder she rues days to come and tries to cling on to every scrap of the man she loves? (There's even a vid that's that speech to a T: Gravity. Made back in August last year...)
Now several things ameliorate this for me - one, when she gets out of prison (for good), she doesn’t sit around wringing her hands. She gets her professorship and finds a little team of her own (Anita, the Daves) and goes off on her own adventures. No pointless pining - River is a woman of action.
Two, she describes the times when she first met the Doctor, how wonderful it was - but of course he was then at the point she is now. Loving someone dearly who barely knew him... (And really, do you think she fell into his arms? Ten certainly didn't fall into her arms.)
Third, it puts a different slant on her ending. Like so:
Her final end is not that tear-stained goodbye to a man who doesn’t know her yet. It’s a loving confirmation from the man who trusts her completely: Yes, he was always there to catch her.
Plus, her role as story teller in The Library again ties in with 'What The Dormouse Said':
Sometimes River wonders if the Doctor is a figment of her imagination.
[...]
She invented him; she can’t tell him that, what if he doesn’t believe her? What if he unmakes her? Why make him so unhappy? Why make his world burn?
What is real, what is not? A story only dies if it’s forgotten or lost, and that is her greatest fear... And that is what the Silence represents, the terror underpinning the whole narrative. You look away, you forget. People, stories, erased from the world.
Anyway, I don't think it's River who kills him. Well it might be, but if so it's a future!River, and the Doctor is certainly not the man she goes to prison for killing. Still, I'll leave you with this, because the visual parallels in this show are so gorgeous I get all speechless:
("You said you were in the library!"
"So was the swimming pool!")
Stories, water (River), a space 'man' who's not what you expect (space travel, moving forward, going somewhere different, somewhere brand new)...
There are too many layers, too many unknown unknowns for me to go further.
There are known unknowns too of course - what is older!Doctor's plan, who is River, what's up with the Silence etc etc. But they're easy, so far as they go, because we know that they'll be answered. It's the unknown unknowns that will change everything and turn it upside down... Go read the fic and you'll see what I mean:
(There are so many questions she’d like to ask, but she’s afraid the answers will change.)