Lessons In Loss

         
When I was 18 years old I had my first break up. It wasn’t particularly bad as far as break-ups go; I had seen it coming in advance, so I was prepared. What I wasn’t prepared for was the morning after. I remember waking up and I could hear my mother talking to some friend over the phone about how, “he’ll find a nice girl at college.” I laid there for a while thinking about what had happened to me the day prior and what it meant, and after a couple minutes I asked myself, “Do I want to get out of bed and start the day?”
          Honestly, I didn’t want to. Now I’m not quite sure why, but I think at the time it just didn’t seem worth it. It didn’t seem like there was any way that day could be a good day. I thought, “I just want to sulk in bed.” After a couple minutes though, I accepted reality; my relationship was over, but I needed to move on with life. I got up out of bed. I’ve had other days like this, and some of them were much worse. I got up every time though, and life has invariable continued.
So now you may be saying, “Reed I’m sorry for your troubles, but what the hell does this have to do with Doctor Who?” Well, Doctor Who has its own type of break-up every time a companion leaves, and I think those first few moments afterwards, as the Doctor considers what just happened, are an opportunity for us to empathize with the Doctor and to evaluate our own reactions to similar situations.
          The best example I can think of is the Doctor’s reaction after Clara leaves in ‘Hell Bent’.  Having had Clara wiped from his memory, all he could remember was that Clara was his best friend and that they’d had some great adventures together. In the final scene, the Doctor realizes that the girl he’d been talking to was in fact Clara, but she took off, never to be seen again. So, he walks in to the TARDIS, and he has to make a decision: does he stay an
d mourn Clara in his TARDIS, or does he move on to the next adventure? Does he stay in bed and sulk, or does he get up?
          As he walks through the TARDIS, we start to hear the music. He sees Clara’s final message: run you clever boy, and be a good doctor. He puts on his suit jacket. The TARDIS gives him a new sonic. He snaps his fingers and the TARDIS doors shut; that part of his life is closed. He never smiles during any of this. He doesn’t want to move on, but he accepts that he has too. He starts up the console and heads off to his next, unknown destination.
          Of course, The Doctor doesn’t always have an immediate recovery. When Amy and Rory left the Doctor did in fact sulk, and instead of doing so for a day he probably sulked for years. He eventually got up though. He bumped in to this interesting bar maid and found someone else worth helping.

          In moments like this, there’s a lot that Doctor Who can teach us.   The Doctor has suffered innumerable losses in his lifetime and they take their toll, but he keeps trucking on. He hasn’t forgotten his goodbyes just like we don’t forget ours; rather, he’s accepted that he needs to move on. It’s a good reminder that we don’t need to forget, but we do need to move on.

Doctor Who Ultimate Television Guide

Here you can download a spreadsheet of every Doctor Who television episode sense the premier in 1963. It has a lot of information in one place. It has details like who wrote it, who were the companions, who was the bad guy, or how many parts it was.

 I hope it helps some people when trying to navigate all the stories!

The Problem With The Answer

           Doctor Who is a series that is fueled by mystery. Even the name of the show is a question, and for 54 years we’ve been glad to not know the answer because it would never satisfy. That’s the problem with answers in Doctor Who: they’re just not satisfying. Perhaps two of the most dissatisfying answers in New Who (and the focus of this post) are River Song and Clara Oswin Oswald, which is disappointing because they both started off as such incredible mysteries.

Let’s start with the mystery of River Song. In “The Silence of the Library” this strange woman walked on to the set, looked at the Doctor with a knowing smile, and said her signature line, “Hello sweetie.”

           We had no idea who she was, but we were absolutely enthralled.  Then she starts talking about journals and all the adventures she and the Doctor have been on expecting him to know some of them, but he just gives the same blank stare we’re giving. For the first time, possibly in the series, the Doctor knows as little as we do, and that feels great. To us and to the Doctor, River is this fascinating mystery. He asks her what’s in the journal, but she refuses to tell and utters her (other) famous line, “Spoilers.” Tenant’s sonic isn’t good enough, so River pulls out the one her Doctor gave to her. When the Doctor seems cautious about trusting River she leans in close and whispers HIS NAME.

And then she dies, and it was beautiful. She left without us or the Doctor knowing anything more about her. Honestly, I think it should have stayed that way. I love River Song, but that’s all I ever wanted to see of her. However, Steven Moffat had different plans and River became a regular during Matt Smith’s era. The problem is that while River starred in some amazing episodes, every episode she appeared in made her feel less mysterious to us. And this culminated in “A Good Man Goes to War,” when we finally learned River’s origins.

           There was never going to be a good origin story for River because we as viewers didn’t want an answer to that question, nor did we feel we needed one. We loved the mystery of River, so by answering her it felt like Moffat was ripping a beautiful character away from us.

Now, I’m going to abruptly shift gears to Clara. Sweet, sweet Clara, how divisive you were. Introduced in season 7, Clara Oswin Oswald is a companion that everyone either hated or loved (disclosure: I loved her). I think the biggest problem with Clara is that she had such a strong start, but the season 7 finale felt like she just fizzled out. Clara first appeared in “Asylum of the Daleks” as Oswin Oswald, a survivor who had crash-landed on the titular Asylum of the Daleks.

            It was a great episode, due in large part to this fascinating character. She was witty and fun, and a useful character. Useful to the point that she not only saves the Doctor, but erases him from Dalek history. We knew from press releases that Jenna Coleman was going to be the next companion, and so it was shocking to see her die in her very first episode. It seemed that Moffat had taken a golden opportunity to leave the viewers truly unsure of what would happen next in the series.

So we put Clara to the back of our minds and enjoyed the first half of season 7, until Amy and Rory left, and we all cried a little (admit it, that was a tearjerker). Then in the Christmas Special, after the Doctor has spent an unspecified (but presumably long) period, he bumps in to this young girl on the streets of Victorian England. Her name: Clara Oswin Oswlad.

            She and the Doctor go on an adventure together, some shenanigans ensue… and Clara dies. Again. And same as before she whispers the line, “Run you clever boy and remember.” And boy did he remember.

            So we’re left to stew over this for another couple months before season 7 picks up again. Who is this girl? Why does she keep popping up? What is her relation to the Doctor? Finally, we get “The Bells of Saint John,” where we’re introduced to modern day Clara. She finally doesn’t die and takes off with the Doctor on the                                                                                        TARDIS.

            For the rest of season 7 they have some fun adventures, all the while thinking about what’s waiting at Trenzalore. In the season 7 finale, they visit Trenzalore. Here we get an answer to the mystery of Clara Oswin Oswald, but that answer just felt… weird. Just like River, we had gotten an origin story that just didn’t feel right. However, Clara is a bit different; because she was so proximal to the Doctor and was going to be a regular in the show, she was a question that needed answering. Unfortunately, this answer made us uncomfortable, and I think I know why. We didn’t like Clara’s answer because it also touched the biggest mystery in the show.

            The Doctor is probably the most mysterious character in television, and we like it that way. The fans of Doctor Who have made it clear that they despise anyone who would mess with his origins. So the answer to Clara’s question wasn’t bad, but it was the fact that she was given so much influence over the Doctor’s timeline that made it uncomfortable. I think the easiest solution to this Clara problem would have been to answer her in a way that wasn’t so integral to the Doctor’s own timeline.

            Fortunately, Clara started to pick up again with Capaldi’s Doctor, as she was an interesting philosophical opposition to Capaldi’s darker Doctor. Anyway, these are just my thought on two major characters in New Who and what went wrong with them. I don’t think either of these characters were bad, just that they each had a major flaw in terms of writing. Let me know what you think about their story lines and ways they could have possibly been improved.

Some Issues with Regeneration and Continuity

          Regeneration is essential to the longevity of Doctor Who. When the main character's actor leaves the show it does three main things.

1. It provides an exciting moment which energizes fans to tune in and watch.
2. It provides an opportunity to change the show in terms of style, themes, and more.
3. It allows the show to change cast members naturally.

          The fact that actors can come and go is the primary reason why Doctor Who has lasted as long as it has. For the sake of keeping the program on air, if the actor ever must leave, it's not a death sentence for the show. In addition, regeneration prevents the actors from accumulating outrageous salaries and keeps the show fresh for audiences. Take for example when Matt Smith took over for David Tennant. From his first episode, the Smith era had an eternally new feel from Tennant's. This was a result of having a new head writer and members on the production team, but the regeneration allowed for a natural transition instead of David Tennant suddenly becoming more dramatic and energetic.
          The fact that audiences flock to the show with news of possible regeneration means writers will take advantage. Often times they use regeneration to raise the stakes in normal episodes. This does more harm than good. Sure the viewership may spike, but when nothing comes from a fake regeneration, the audience is left feeling dissatisfied, and it often leads to confusing questions about the lore.
          I'm going to pick apart six times when regeneration/regenerative energy was used and no actors were replaced. Ultimately, I hope future episodes strive away from doing this, but I acknowledge that it can be used for to the benefit of the program.

      1. Mawdryn's Plead For Mercy 
          During Mawdryn Undead, a Fifth Doctor Story, it is first mentioned that the Doctor can gift regenerative energy to someone else. Mawdryn and his team of scientists attempted to steal the secrets of regeneration from the Time Lords. In their attempt to gain the ability to regenerate, they make themselves immortal but horribly mutated. Suffering and unable to die, Mawdryn attempts to convince the Doctor to give them his regenerative energy. The Doctor explains that giving up the regenerative energy would sacrifice all of his remaining lives. Fortunately, despite his companions being mutated as well, The Doctor does not have to give up his  remaining regenerations. The Brigadier saves the day once again! This is the first story to discuss regenerative energy as something relevant outside the death of a Time Lord. 

      2. River Expends All Her Lives
          In Let's Kill Hitler, the Doctor has been poisoned with no hope of a cure. Having come to understand her relationship with the Doctor to be more important than killing him, River releases all of her remaining regenerative energy to save his life. We now have seen what happens when you use regenerative energy on someone else. In the Fifth Doctor story, The Doctor was requiring complex machinery in order to relinquish is regenerative energy. In this story, River just chooses to use it and it happens. The excuse can be made that River has a certain control over her energy since she has just regenerated in this episode. Despite it being a crazy episode, Let's Kill Hitler does not break any established rules of regeneration.

      3. River's Broken Wrist

          In Amy and Rory's last story, their daughter gets herself trapped by a Weeping Angel. Creatively, to raise the stakes of the story and emphasize the theme of inevitability, River must break her wrist to escape since Amy had read it in a book. The Doctor, wanting to help and bring some light to the situation, uses some of his regenerative energy to heal her. Okay... now we run into problems. Despite my personal wishes, we have established that regenerative energy can be used on other people. That's fine, we can deal with that. However, The Doctor has not regenerated recently in this episode. So our theory that they need to be in the process of regenerating must be ruled out.

This means he can gift regenerative energy any time he wishes! WHAT!? Why doesn't he heal Clara in the very next episode? Why hasn't he saved any of the unfortunate people he has witnessed die over the years? Maybe it's a limited and precious resource? That can work, but then is a broken wrist really the most dire of situations? Unfortunately, this is when regeneration transitions from being a process which Time Lords can use twelve times to a supply of energy that can be tapped into whenever for whatever reason... WAIT! The Doctor had no regenerations left in this episode! So he had some energy left over? Not enough to regenerate, but enough to fix a wrist? Maybe The Doctor knew he had no regenerations left, so using any remaining energy would not cost him any lives? For the sake of a wrist, we are left with too many questions and I don't know if I want the answers.

     4. Doomed to Fail

         In The Witch's Familiar, Davros "tricks" the Doctor into giving up his regenerative energy in order to rejuvenate the Daleks. However, The Doctor apparently figured out this plan and knew it would fail, so he went along with it. Despite having total control over the situation, he loses enough regenerative energy to enhance the entire city of Daleks. Honestly I believe this would have worked as a plot even before The Angels Take Manhattan. Older villains, primarily the Master, have attempted to steal the Doctor's unused regenerations before. However, this case takes from The Angels Take Manhattan and refers to regenerative energy as a supply that can be tapped into. This wasn't poorly done, but leads to a few unfortunate questions. How much energy did the Doctor lose? How many times can he regenerate now? This plot point could be intentional and be used for a later story. However, I believe, since it is only the first life in The Doctor's new regeneration cycle, this will probably be completely forgotten by the 26th incarnation. 

     5. Just Why!?

         The "monk" three parter ended in series 10 with The Lie of the Land. It was an unsatisfying conclusion to and otherwise great story.  However, the worst part was nearer to the middle of the episode. Bill was confronting The Doctor about his alliance with the Monks. Truth be told, The Doctor was only putting on facade for her. He was testing to make sure she was not secretly aligned with the Monks. He pushes Bill to emotional extremes until she shoots him several times in the chest. Fortunately The Doctor replaced the bullets with blanks. At this point his test is over. He concludes that Bill is hiding nothing and is still on his side. Yet he continues the facade. He stands up (supposedly dying) and begins to shoot regenerative energy from his hands and face. Why?! The trailer for this episode certainly generated a lot of hype, but with no point. No one thought Capaldi was going to leave the show mid-season. Plus, it makes little sense. Does The Doctor just throw around regenerative energy like it's nothing? His test was over, he only did it for show. The previous events in this list show that he could do it if he wanted, so there is no continuity problems. However, there is no reason why he would do it especially when it is still considered a precious resource. JUST WHY?! It did do a great job at making my blood boil.

   6. The Metacrisis Loophole
         This one was awesome. In The Stolen Earth, The Doctor gets killed by a Dalek right before he reunites with Rose. Having truly died, the Tenth Doctor is returned to the TARDIS and begins to regenerate. The episode ends with him exploding in regenerative energy. In The Lie of The Land we knew the regeneration wasn't going to replace Capaldi and, after a few seconds of confusion, we were proven correct. This made it a weak scene for the audience. Tennant's fake regeneration was good because the episode just ends! It was just the most insane way to end an already over-the-top episode. No one thought he was leaving the show, but they had a week to stew and think about it. Even though I don't like the mention of regeneration outside of the real deal, this was really well done!

Regeneration is a powerful plot device for Doctor Who. It is an element which no other show has and is key to its adaptability and longevity. So in conclusion I just want it treated with respect. Russel T. Davis did it well by understanding how the audience would view the foe regeneration. Moffat was more hit-and-miss by really pushing what regeneration and regenerative energy can do. Don't bring it out too often, don't redefine how it works, and don't let us know when or how its coming. Keep it as the incredibly unique and power plot device that has sustained one of the longest running TV shows of all time. 

What is WRONG with Last of the Time Lords?

                Oh... this one started so well. I mean really amazing! I mean, something the Davis era did right was have stakes and in the series 3 finale, they were certainly never higher. The Master ruled the world and was turning it into his own planet sized warship! The human race was enslaved and The Doctor was aged to the point of irrelevancy. With all that was going for it, how did this episode become one of the most disappointing finales of the Russel T. Davis era?

                I like a quote from Alasdair Wilkins who wrote an article for tv.avclub.com. He wrote "Depending on one’s perspective or even just one’s mood, every last thing that happens in this story is the best or the worst, the smartest or the dumbest, the most triumphant or the most cringe-worthy thing in all of Doctor Who history." Obviously this says a lot, but it captures the right idea. 
          The show had a major theme that time lords were these incredible beings that stood above everyone else. Bringing the Master back was a double dose of epic which struck every kind of viewer. Fans of the old show can be blown away by the return of the classic nemesis of the doctor and new fans can be equally engrossed by the introduction of a second time lord. It was really well done too. Utopia (the first of this three part finale) is by far the best episode. I mean it's really really good. Go watch it again, trust me.
          The problem begins with the next part The Sound of Drums. We just got a full episode of set up that was perfectly delivered. We are now ready for the conflict. The Master and The Doctor going head to head again. Unfortunately this does not happen. Don't get me wrong, we get an amazing scene with the two of them talking over the phone and The Doctor reminiscing of Gallifrey.  John Simm's master is terrifyingly mad and delivers at being threatening. Again, we have stakes which means we can get invested. 

               The problem does not come from the villain but the hero. The Doctor was a bit of a disappointment this episode. From a plot perspective he simply reacts to the Master and makes no powerful moves of his own. The one thing he tries to do is put the perception filter around the Master's neck which he fails to do. A very lackluster performance by the Oncoming Storm. This episode should have been a mix of set up for the finale and clever conflicts between The Doctor and his old enemy. Instead we get two episodes of set up. The first is welcomed exposition which gets us excited for what's to come. The second fails to deliver on anything satisfying. Well, hopefully part three will give us the climax that we need.

              The majority of Last of the Time Lords is spent learning more about the Master's evil plan and how Martha has been dealing with being a fugitive for an entire year. Notice how the setting has changed again. Utopia and The Sound of Drums had to each take time to establish setting. Even if they didn't need to explain where events were taking place they had to describe what The Master and other people around him were doing. The third episode is also burdened by having to discuss what happened to the world over the previous year, and further delay any satisfying conclusion for the audience. 

             We also cannot expect much from The Doctor in this episode. He has been made irrelevant in his old age and despite any hopes for him to make a move, he fails to deliver an satisfaction. His small mutiny against the Master was pitiful at best. I kinda hope it was yet another distraction from the real plan instead of another loss for The Doctor. 

             Now skip to the end of the episode. Martha reveals the big plan! and it makes no sense. Most everything with the conclusion is good. Great even. The Doctor had a plan the whole time, so we don't have to lose faith in him. It was fairly convoluted in execution but simple in principal. The plan is to take control of the Valiant and destroy the paradox machine. Without the paradox, the last year would not have happened and everything would be set right. Even the idea that Captan Jack Harkness needed to use his immortality to  get past the near invincible Toclafane was a great idea. 

            Then we get to execution. It simply make no sense how absorbing the telepathic energy from the Arcangel Network would have reversed the Doctor's age. It could have if we have been introduced to this concept in either of the other two parts. Instead we are left scratching our heads. Also, did they really need The Doctor to be revived to destroy the paradox machine? Maybe? He did distract The Master at the end, so maybe that was vital. Everything else is a solid conclusion that came about an episode late. The time reversing aspect is a little bit of a cop out, but is plausible in terms of established laws in the show. The biggest flaw in these three episodes is that all satisfaction is meant to be received in the last few minutes. It is a problem in newer Doctor Who episodes as well. All the build up for a nice quick rap up at the end. It is especially bad when it is stretched over three episodes, and even worse when it doesn't make much sense. 

           I will leave you with a question. When The Doctor says "I forgive you" to The Master, is he referring to the events of the finale? or to when The Master abandoned the Time Lords during the Time War? Let me know what you think.