"The End of Time"

[aelfgyfu_mead]

I have very mixed feelings about "The End of Time."

The first part ticked me off royally. It made no sense to me (or to Brilliant Husband, who is reasonably good at retconning and otherwise explaining things that make no sense). The second part still had some of those elements. I won't even get into the details, but just to mention a few SF bits that made no sense to me: the way the Master was revived (and the way Lucy fought back, from inside a hidden prison? and to what effect?); the Master's odd new eating habits and sudden flashes into Skeletor; the fact that Time Lords inside a time lock were able to implant a signal in an eight-year-old's brain at a definite point in time; the multiplication of prophecies and discovery that the Time Lords have their very own seer(s); where Naismith got his stuff and what the frell he thought he was doing with it; the coincidence of Galactic Salvage turning up; the fact that though the Doctor couldn't save Donna's memories he could somehow equip her with the power to knock out or kill her enemies with her mind while putting her gently to sleep, to wake up with no memory (again) later; the way Rassilon through a star into a hologram of Earth and it actually arrived there. . . . I'm getting carried away, aren't I? I think the increase in italics signals that.

In the less SF-oriented complaints: I still don't get the obsession with Obama (or why anyone thinks Obama would say anything important on Christmas, let alone how any speech of his could fix the world's economy), why and how Naismith had a private army (last I checked, that wasn't actually legal in the UK), and why so many UK industrialists are apparently even more bat-drenn crazy than ours.

Character-related complaints:
1) I defended "Journey's End," people: I saw the logic that nothing but death would take Donna from the Doctor, but she couldn't be a companion forever, so a kind of death was required to end her time with the Doctor. Yet "The End of Time" couldn't just leave her alone. The special had to keep pushing her in front of us, reminding us of what she'd lost and what she'd become again (the loud, frivolous woman she was when she first met the Doctor), and yet I thought it dangled a promise that she'd get something back. She didn't. I'm not defending "Journey's End" anymore.
(The special also jossed my story "Goodbye", whose details don't match what we saw of Donna at the end of "End of Time." Tough. I'm not changing my story. Consider it slightly AU. I still like it better than what RTD seems to have given us as Donna's end. Read it and see if you don't!)
2) Martha was engaged to a wonderful man, Tom, a pediatrician she met during the Year that Wasn't, and whom she then took the time to get to know in the new timeline. Now we're told she's married to Mickey? Garbage! I love Mickey, I love Martha, but I don't love them together. It was a cheap way of putting both their cameos into one brief scene. I intend to consider that AU. I never saw any spark between them, and last we knew, Martha was happy with her doctor.
3) I could have done without the Doctor himself throwing a temper tantrum about how unfair it was to lose his life now in front of Wilf while Wilf was urging the Doctor to save himself. Wilf deserved better, and honestly, I thought the Doctor deserved a little better. Like Wilf really needed more guilt and anxiety about how he didn't intervene in that gun battle in Palestine or how marginal his role in saving time was? Because he will see it that way. He was crucial; he gave the Doctor the gun that saved the day. I doubt he'll accept it. He also really didn't need to hear the Doctor saying that he was unimportant.


The good bits
Okay, so I really didn't like Part 1, or parts of Part 2. I have no regrets about watching, however. I'm annoyed with RTD for not giving the characters (the Doctor, of course, but also Donna and Wilf, Martha and Mickey, and the others who had cameos) a better send-off, but I still have to give him credit for bringing the show back and giving me a lot to love over the last five years. I even found a lot to love in the mess that was "The End of Time."

Call me crazy, but gosh, it felt good to have Time Lords back! Timothy Dalton as Rassilon was ace! Crazy as only a man who spent how much time stuck in (or on?) his tomb could be! Now we also know the Time Lords aren't 100% gone. I don't want to see them often, because familiarity breeds contempt, but those wacky outfits just warmed the cockles of my heart.

I knew the Doctor had tremendous guilt connected to the Time War and its outcome, but only in Part 2 last night did I begin to suspect (and not long before they made it explicit) that he had condemned his own people. Everything snapped into place and made sense. The Time Lords always were trouble. As astrogirl and some of her friends said on her LJ, the Doctor seemed nostalgic for Gallifrey, not so much for his people. He felt very much alone, but why he felt that so intensely when he always seemed in a hurry to get away from his people is clear: he had ended them, imprisoned them so thoroughly he considered them dead. That twist truly surprised me and worked for me.

John Simm rocks. Okay, I hated the eating parts, but in Part 2 the writer, producer, and director seem to have got over the oral fixation and stopped eating or spitting on everything in sight. Aside from the eating scenes, I couldn't get enough of the Master. Even though I think some of his dialogue was laughable, John Simm gave it his all, and for a moment there, I wanted the Doctor and the Master to run off in the TARDIS and tour the universe! And I don't want the Master to be dead! I've already seen some debate. Sucked into the vortex with the rest of the Time Lords? That's what I'd bet. (Perhaps more discussion in comments?)

Oh, and when the Doctor said he still had things he could do, BH finished the sentence, "with my hair!" I hope you find that even half as funny as I did.

I did like that after all the big, blowing-up-stuff action, it was Wilf's gentle knock that signaled the Doctor's end. Wilf never even realized it.

I'm not happy with the idea of Martha and Mickey marrying each other; I'm already trying to retcon it in my head (I checked other people's LJs first for reactions, mostly hoping I'd misheard these key lines). I did, for the most part, like the Doctor's final visits. The one with Donna disappointed me, but I like that that lottery ticket has a secret tie to her father, even if she'll never know.

I squeed when I saw Russell Tovey. I thought the scene in the bar was hilarious. Yes, some of the humor was cheap. I assume that Slitheen wandering around the creature cantina was the one the TARDIS helped rebirth? I saw the Adipose baby and thought, "Hey, you're too young to be here!" right before it fell off the bar, with Jack just sort of staring at it, and I got a good laugh out of that one. No, Jack and Alonso Frame aren't bound for a long-term relationship; I assume Midshipman Frame goes from here on his final voyage. But Jack's not looking for a long-term relationship, and whatever Alonso thinks he wants, I'm afraid he'll only get so much. Normally I don't approve of flings, but I suspect Jack's in desperate need of one.

I thought the scene with Rose underplayed, and it needed to be. I loved Rose telling her mom not to sell herself short, with us secure in the knowledge that she will eventually find the right man (again)! She had a little conversation with the Doctor she'll never even remember; it meant nothing to her, but a lot to him, because she was the first connection he made after the Time War, as far as we know.

I did laugh when the Eleventh Doctor clutched his hair and feared he was a girl, then pulled it in front of his eyes and groaned that he still wasn't ginger (which was one of my first thoughts when I saw the pictures of Matt Smith!).

I will really miss David Tennant, but that's the beauty of the DVDs. I can go back and rewatch my favorites. I loved his skinny, frenetic self and his big, big eyes and his deep platonic love for his companions (don't argue with me on this one, I've got my gen glasses firmly in place here).

I'm curious to see what Matt Smith will do with the role—but no spoilers, please. I'll get there in my own time (and BBC America's).


Questions:
1. Can you help me retcon the Mickey and Martha scene so that she can get back together with her pediatrician? Can I make this an AU? Pretty please?
2. So who was that mysterious woman and how did she appear to Wilf from inside a time lock? We must assume she's a Time Lady. Brilliant Husband suggested Susan, having made her way back eventually to her own people (assuming she was actually a biological relation to the Doctor and not an honorary one). I don't know. I did wonder if it might be Romana, but she seemed far different than the two Romanas we saw; of course, centuries have presumably passed for her, it would be a new regeneration, and she has suffered through the Time War. I also wondered if it might be the Doctor's mother; didn't I hear someone calling something like "Help, son" or "Help, my boy" as the Time Lords were thrown back into the time lock?
2a. How Mysterious Time Lady appear to Wilf? And why Wilf?
3. Did Lucy's potion to stop the Master's return make him the always-dying person he was, or did she just blow up the prison and kill all the people inside? Would his return always have been disastrous?
4. Would shorter, female cactus person and Midshipman Frame make a cute couple?
5. How far did the Doctor fall from the salvage ship, and why did those injuries alone not trigger regeneration?
6. What's with all the seers and prophecies? (Boy, I hope Steven Moffat isn't so attached to them.)
7. When Timothy Dalton Rassilon declared that the two who voted against would be their own "weeping angels"; do they somehow become or otherwise relate to the weeping angels of "Blink," or was that just cute wording?