Dr. Who Series 4 Finale

[annissamazing]

I watch Dr. Who on BBC America, even though it's way behind SciFi (I was still getting caught up on Series 3 on BBC while SciFi was playing Series 4). So, anyway, I caught the finale of Series 4 on Saturday night.


I was disappointed with the scene where the Doctor takes Rose, Jackie, and clone Doctor to Bad Wolf Bay. I felt the resolution to the Rose storyline was far too short for the buildup. I mean, seriously, Cloney proposes to stay with Rose and live a normal life so long as she'll have him. Rose seems undecided. Cut to commercial, come back to the show and Donna and the Doctor carry on. What's that about? I even complained to Justin about it and he doesn't watch the show.

So last night I saw it was playing again and I was bored and figured I'd watch the last 20 minutes. Only this time, they didn't cut to commercial where they did on Saturday. This time they have a long extended scene that was actually good and provided some closure. What the hell, BBC?

I do feel bad about Donna. I actually really liked her (finally a companion who isn't interested in the Doctor romantically!) and it seemed especially cruel to take away her memories.

Comments

[sprgtime.livejournal.com]

Oh! Weird, I guess I saw the un-edited scene because I thought it provided good closure and I loved that Rose and clone Doctor got to be together. Although I felt bad for the Doctor. :(

I never cared for Donna. I found her annoying.

[annissamazing]

I think a lot of people felt that way about Donna. I didn't like Catherine Tate's comedy show so I set the bar pretty low for her. :) But she really grew on me and I think she proved herself a better actress than I gave her credit for. Plus I thought the character was fun and a challenge for the Doctor. She would argue with him and also allowed him to go off and do his own thing while she did what she wanted to do. Headstrong and not clingy...yeah, I liked her.

[garillama.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I found her really obnoxious in "The Runaway Bride," so when they announced her as a companion I was less than pleased. But she really did grow on me, and their dynamic was quite splendid.

I find the American broadcasts so clunky because they have to squeeze in commercial breaks that aren't supposed to be there. Ugh :(

[annissamazing]

I don't think I've said this before, but I adore that avatar.

[garillama.livejournal.com]

Thanks :) I don't get to use it nearly enough.

[gement.livejournal.com]

Donna was horrific in Runaway Bride. When she came back, I turned out to like her a great deal, even from the first episode. After watching Rose and Martha moon over him for three seasons, I was glad to see him running around with someone who didn't have the traaaaaaagic romance thing going on.

I can imagine a mild-mannered character that researched things for herself and stood her ground and called the Doctor on it when he did stupid or malicious things. I'd like to see that too. I think this Doctor might have just swallowed her up or babbled over her, though. He needed someone with brass who could holler back at him. So I found myself cheering for Donna pretty often.

I can appreciate being annoyed by her voice, though. :)

[gement.livejournal.com]

This is why I watch them on DVD. Since I never had to be confused by weird editing, I just got to yell at the screen about Cloney.

This demonstrates to me that the only difference between a fanfic writer and a big-shot producer is that one doesn't have an editor yet, and the other has dismissed his already. ;) But seriously... I half expected a unicorn to come riding out of the surf carrying Jack (naked) and Ianto (pregnant) to make the fanfic happy ending complete.

I probably should watch it in the middle of the night. It might seem really awesome in the middle of the night.

I did feel awful for Donna, but I really like imperfect endings, so I'm rather glad they left it at that. Really I feel bad for the man with the stammer. The happy ending I wanted for her was that they would manage to spot each other again.

[annissamazing]

Paragraph 2 = win! I laughed so hard! Side note: I always thought the Jack/Ianto pairing was a mismatch. What do you think?

I kept expecting them to meet up with Stammerman (Ack! I can't remember his name!) again. The end of "Forest of the Dead" nearly had me in tears and I thought there was no way the writers would just let him go. :( I'm with you on the imperfect endings. They stick with you and make you think more than the happy ones.

[gement.livejournal.com]

I'm mild on the subject of Jack/Ianto. Frankly, it was so nice to see a canon queer pairing that was realistic and not overdone, it just about made me do cartwheels, and I didn't worry too much about the details. So, I'm not like "OMG best pairing EVER," and I can certainly imagine interpretations where they didn't get together, but I'm predisposed to like them.

I like that they're complicated, and have this weird boss/servant power dynamic when they're on the job, and it's unclear whether or how it bleeds into their private lives. I like that they've been screwing for probably six months and then Jack comes back from out of nowhere and it turns out they haven't actually been on a date before.

Every interpretation I've ever seen in fanfic basically runs Lisa -> totally screwed up -> only person with the patience or knowledge to deal with that kind of screwed up (since Torchwood refuses to hire a desperately needed staff psychologist) is Jack -> people tend to bond in that situation -> when Ianto gets his head relatively back together he has a terrible crush on Jack -> Stopwatch. :) It doesn't have to go that way, but it does make reasonable sense. I've gotten crushes over a lot less.

It does help that I always have the most sympathy/fascination for the helpful butler type, so it's my reader identification character getting the guy, of course.

Now that I've burbled, what feels mismatched about them to you? (I really like discussing these things, as I'm sure you recall.)

[annissamazing]

I think it may be the boss/subordinate dynamic that bothers me. Dating your employees just seems like a number 1 bad idea. And maybe it's that we don't really know much about Ianto, though we know quite a bit about Jack. What is it they have in common? What's the attraction (besides physically, because, yeah, that's pretty obvious)?

Also, Jack seems to be pretty much the exact opposite of Lisa and I guess that seems strange to me. But maybe after the whole Lisa thing, what Ianto needed was the opposite.

I like discussing this stuff as well. I don't know anyone local to me that watches the show and even if they did, they probably wouldn't want to have in-depth discussion of character motivation.

[candyleehuff.livejournal.com]

This whole thing just cracked me up. You guys are so funny!

I liked that Rose got Cloney, except that she didn't really seem to keen on the idea, which seemed insulting to him imo.

And ya, I hated Donna in the first episode she was in, but by the end of the season, she really grew on me
I loved that she never fell for him and I loved how her character could put him in his place. I thought they were really terrific together.
And I totally thought she got completely screwed. She basically saved everybody and got a partial amnesia as a thanks. Totally sucks! Reminded me of Martha's whole deal though, she did the same thing on her finale right, she saved the world then got totally screwed. Although, I did like that she had the balls to leave him. I really hated that she fell so hard for him. But then, when she came back into this episode she was engaged to her 'true love' or something right? So at least she got that.