Hi again! Am attempting to comment on All The Things before the next ep, so I can close some tabs. Despite lack of brain. (Promethia's glorious meta is next! Maybe this afternoon...)
The Doctor saying: 'Go on do a show of force!' was a very nice touch. He's still got that steel, and it’s good to be reminded that he has that warrior side, however much he doesn’t usually like to show it. (Also: Not a pacifist.)
Agreed with all of this – and as someone else said, this is the Doctor testing his own theory, running a simulation. But it’s ALSO a way of getting these three military leaders to work together. I’m pretty sure the Doctor knew their show of force would fail, but he also knew that getting them to put on a united front could be no bad thing…
There is a nice parallel between the Doctor using that Time Lord machine to trade some unknown thing from his future to get his sight back for a few minutes with Bill trading the whole human race (not knowing what this means) to give him his sight back in this episode.
Ooooh, I like it
She is not used to being allowed nice things.
Oh, Bill <3 Love all your character analysis here. I was also thinking – is Bill the first New Who companion who hasn’t had her first ‘saving the Doctor’ moment until midway through the season? All the other Companions get at least one big Saving the Doctor moment near the start (Rose and her gymnastics skills saving Nine from the Nestene, Martha giving up her last breath of air for him, Donna telling him to stop (though of course we don’t realise just *how* much that saved him until Turn Left), Amy stopping him from having to kill the Star Whale, Clara in the Dalek Asylum/on Akhaten, depending on where you want to start). They ALSO often get one big Fuck Up moment, where they accidentally doom the world and/or disappoint the Doctor (Rose saving her father and destroying time Martha inadvertently reawakening The Master, I can’t actually think of one for Donna or Amy but my memory is hazy. And Clara of course with the keys-in-the-volcano thing). Interesting that Bill’s Save the Doctor/Doom the World moment is one and the same (v like, as you say, River in TWoRS) and that the Saving part of that has come so late in the series. I like that what has won Bill her place in the Tardis is not that she’s a mystery, or that she’s somehow ‘earned’ it in payment for saving the Doctor’s life, but just that she’s clever and curious and has potential and she and the Doctor get on so well.
no subject
The Doctor saying: 'Go on do a show of force!' was a very nice touch. He's still got that steel, and it’s good to be reminded that he has that warrior side, however much he doesn’t usually like to show it. (Also: Not a pacifist.)
Agreed with all of this – and as someone else said, this is the Doctor testing his own theory, running a simulation. But it’s ALSO a way of getting these three military leaders to work together. I’m pretty sure the Doctor knew their show of force would fail, but he also knew that getting them to put on a united front could be no bad thing…
There is a nice parallel between the Doctor using that Time Lord machine to trade some unknown thing from his future to get his sight back for a few minutes with Bill trading the whole human race (not knowing what this means) to give him his sight back in this episode.
Ooooh, I like it
She is not used to being allowed nice things.
Oh, Bill <3 Love all your character analysis here. I was also thinking – is Bill the first New Who companion who hasn’t had her first ‘saving the Doctor’ moment until midway through the season? All the other Companions get at least one big Saving the Doctor moment near the start (Rose and her gymnastics skills saving Nine from the Nestene, Martha giving up her last breath of air for him, Donna telling him to stop (though of course we don’t realise just *how* much that saved him until Turn Left), Amy stopping him from having to kill the Star Whale, Clara in the Dalek Asylum/on Akhaten, depending on where you want to start). They ALSO often get one big Fuck Up moment, where they accidentally doom the world and/or disappoint the Doctor (Rose saving her father and destroying time Martha inadvertently reawakening The Master, I can’t actually think of one for Donna or Amy but my memory is hazy. And Clara of course with the keys-in-the-volcano thing). Interesting that Bill’s Save the Doctor/Doom the World moment is one and the same (v like, as you say, River in TWoRS) and that the Saving part of that has come so late in the series. I like that what has won Bill her place in the Tardis is not that she’s a mystery, or that she’s somehow ‘earned’ it in payment for saving the Doctor’s life, but just that she’s clever and curious and has potential and she and the Doctor get on so well.
Fascism arrives as your friend. http://michaelrosenblog.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/i-sometimes-fear.html
I’ve been thinking about that poem a LOT over the past year /o\