SPOILERS FOR DOCTOR WHO SEASON FINALE.
Okay? Okay.
We knew he was supposed to die, but we as followers of the industry also knew Matt Smith wasn't leaving the show, and there's no way the writers and producers and the BBC were going to just end such a great show, and a lucrative show, out of nowhere. So the question in the minds of all the fans was "How the hell are they gonna get out of this one?" Which is a great situation to be in. I love it when I have no idea how they'll get out of the hole they dug themselves.
Which leads me on a brief tangent. I loved Farscape dearly, like more than any other show, which says a lot, but I was watching old Farscape episodes recently, and it still bugs me how they'd get out of these crazy impossible season ending puzzles by saying basically "And they got out of there somehow and ended up here" or "And he was not really dead" or some equally lame solution to a complicated problem. But who cares, really, because the show was badass.
Anyhow, the point is, we knew the Doctor wouldn't really die, but the show backed itself into a corner. How were they going to worm their way out of this? We were all looking for the answer.
And they gave us the answer. The Tesselacta showed up in the Previously On so we were all thinking about it. The Doctor is totally a robot when he's shot! He's got to be! But then they used The Tesselacta and some of the information it provided, so okay, maybe that's why they showed it. And then there's the fact that in the season premiere when we saw his death scene, he tried to regenerate. There's no getting around that. He definitely did that gold glowy thing he does. The robot couldn't have done that.
So it couldn't have been the Tesselacta.
And there it was, right in front of us.
I don't know about you guys, but I rejected the idea that it was the Tesselacta as soon as I realized that he regenerated. But when we went to the actual scene where River shot at him, we didn't get to see him regenerate. And as we flashed to the new present where River decides to save him, we still never see him regenerate. But we've forgotten that we already rejected the Tesselacta because he regenerated. All we remember is, we rejected it. So we never saw it coming.
What a great red herring. That's textbook; show me the answer, then give me a reason to disbelieve it, then make me realize I forgot that I had the answer all along.
And that's why Doctor Who continues to be number one on my list of shows to record on the DVR.
For all you Dr Who fans..
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68wJIQbCtlI
dr qui.
The ending bothered me a little bit at first because the first time around Old Dude said something like "That's definitely the Doctor and he's definitely dead" when Amy speculated about duplicates. Which seems a little cheap to have them just come out and say "it's not that" only to turn around and say "just kidding, it actually was that all along." Seemed like a cop-out. But that's only because at that point the audience doesn't know about the Silence, and so a statement that seemed at the time like it was for the benefit of the audience is actually part of the ruse.
ReplyDeleteI was at a writer's conference in the back of beyond where Dr Who was unavailable and missed the finale. I keep forgetting to ask my daughter, who lives in England, what happened.
ReplyDeleteNice to read spoilers that don't spoil anything 'cuz I have no idea what's going on.
Glad to know, in this timeline, the Doctor didn't die.
;)
Doctor Who! Not reading post, spoilers, we're working through library of past seasons (yay dvr). Still in Tennant time. Please never end.
ReplyDeleteThe downside of a Doctor Who submersion, American shows seem pale, women characters cardboard cutouts and story scale just small. I'll get that love back, I'm sure, for the characters and shows I loved, after we finish working through Doctor Who, but for now, everything else pales. Show is great example that quality of writing trumps budget.
To share, photo montage of all the doctors here.
And great book, I think, haven't read, just received, so excited, making of Doctor Who, here.
Doctor Who and Archer. Bestest shows ever, or at least right now.
Well, paid international calling rates to find out what happened on Dr Who. (I have a good plan. kiddo's been over there for a while.)
ReplyDeleteI asked -- what about the gold glowy thing -- we saw him start to regenerate? She says, that's a good question, and laughed.
Second hand, I can't tell if I feel cheated by the ending.
At least it wasn't lame like the LOST finale.