(no subject)

[dreamer_easy]

Voyage of the Damned is better than I remembered, too. Lightweight, as the specials tend to be, but some gorgeous images and a cracking cast (Kylie's great, and Tennant's performance gives the weaker material one hell of a boost). As with the Master trilogy, fandom made it all but impossible to enjoy the story at the time. With that taste of ashes no longer in my mouth, it was a pleasure to just watch it for itself. (Jon provided commentary in the form of reading out funny bits from Writer's Tale. :)

Mr. Copper says: "Of all the people to survive, he's not the one you would have chosen, is he? But if you could chose, Doctor, if you could decide who lives and who dies - that would make you a monster."

Ohhhhhh shit.

(Although of course I'm still waiting for the line about becoming a vengeful god to pay off.)

Comments

[kateorman.livejournal.com]

I must have missed the bit where the Doctor looked into the TARDIS, yeah. (But srsly, imagine that terrible revenge thingy - only powered by the Vortex. Eek!!!)

[scarfman]

I was rather speaking of the divine vengeance visited on the Family. I'm implying that taking in the Vortex from Rose on the Game Station has turned the Doctor into a vengeful god. "No second chances," "used to have so much mercy," what he says when Rose turns up in the Detective Inspector's secret headquarters, needing Donna to stop him when he was flooding the Racnoss, what he did to the Family. Perhaps it even wormed back in time and was responsible for his final judgment of Cassandra on Platform One.

You could use this to retcon anything you thought was out of character during the Davies administration.

[pbristow.livejournal.com]

Yes, exactly!

This is my take: The Doctor at first *isn't sure* whether what he did to save Rose has, as predicted/rumoured, turned him in to a "vengeful god", and he's been quietly obsessing over it ever since... which of of course gradually turns it into a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Look at:
1. His babble of self-questioning as soon as he's regenerated & woken up;
2. How strongly he reacts when nurse Hame talks about "The Lonely God";
3. How close to the line he seems to step in "School Reunion" when offered truly god-like powers, before Sarah - seeing that he's seriously tempted, but fighting it, but maybe not going to win - snaps him out of it.
4. Fast forwarding an entire season, we get to Human Nature / Family of Blood: The whole story happens because he's trying hard *not* to be a vengeful god. As the epilogue tells us, he was being merciful to the Family. Possibly thinking: "If I *have* to become a god, I'd rather be *this* kind of god"... But it backfires, and in the end he imposes the sactions that he should have done in the first place, but magnified tenfold. Instead of simply stopping/killing them, now he makes them suffer.

Of course, I'm crediting RTD with an awful lot of fairly subtle deep-plotting here. Terribly unfashionable of me, I know... Or maybe Helen Raynor slipped it in without RTD even noticing? =;o>

[ETA:] Oh and of course, at the end of the season he gets to be Tinkerbell Jeebus, redeeming the world by the power of faith, served by a wandering disciple/evangelist - which is a god-role much more to his liking.

(Wild guesswork: The Master mentioned how terrified he was when he saw the Dalek Emperor take control of "the Cruciform". What's the betting that'll be where/how Ten finally dies?)

[scarfman]

I've written in the past of hope that this is all an incarnation-long story arc but, if that's what Davies is doing, he's doing it so subtly or so poorly that I can't tell for sure.