M-L-L
The Last Straw
Posts: 11,146
Joined: Sep 2013
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RE: Dr Who
Wasn't intending to, but accidentally caught the end of the 2nd new Dalek episode on the BBC 3 repeat.
I mean, I'm just a curmudgeon that's predisposed not to like new Who, and I could well have totally misunderstood it, given that'd I'd not watched episode 1 or 95% of episode 2 ... BUT...
Spoiler
Clara inside/becoming a Dalek ? Have we not done this to death already ? Matt Smith episode ? Asylum of the Daleks ?
and
Spoiler
The Doctor goes back in time and saves a boy, presumably supposed to be Young Davros, so that Clara can be saved in the future ?
Show mercy to Davros, and that gives him the vital clue to know it's Clara inside the Dalek ?
I think that's supposed to be the idea anyway.
I assume it was set up in the earlier episode to show the Doctor deliberately abandoning the Young Davros and leaving him to die, so that - along with needlessly pretending to kill off Clara and the Mistress(? no idea what are we supposed to call it/him/her now ?) the season opener could give an impression off, like, "cool - darker Doctor - everybody dies - right on".
Now OK I have a general problem with the concept of a "darker Doctor" generally, I'm not sure it works as he still essentially needs to be the hero of his own series imo; but also :
I think making this the Doctor's motivation for changing his mind and rescuing the Young Davros is way off and way too "human" and selfish and "dumbed down" .
It negates Tom Baker's more philosophical position from Genesis of the Daleks which I believe these episodes had the temerity to resurrect in a clip at one point as if to show they were expanding this legacy ?
Surely the whole point of Tom Baker Doctor's argument was you can't visit punishment on the innocent when they haven't committed evil yet : and also as a Time Lord he ultimately can't pre-judge the Daleks and commit genocide : "Out of all their evil must come some good".
Now, the message seems to be : Peter Capaldi's Doctor would be quite happy to leave a boy to be killed, because he thinks he knows his future and has prejudged him to become irredeemably evil ; but then the Doctor changes his mind because he realises his decision is going to affect the life of one human he happens to have as as his companion ? That's way too selfish imo and not what the Doctor should be about at all ?
If you want to have a supposedly unsympathetic and darker Doctor, how about him not giving a damn if his companion dies if it's the only way he saves the universe; and not the other way around as seems to be the position in the new series now
Rant over.
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03-10-2015 16:00 |
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