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Disclaimer: My "You are too stupid for the internet right now" warning beeper is sounding but I am in a mood to pontificate and the cat's wandered off. Also, spoilers, there's anyone who cares left who hasn't seen it.
So, I just finished Dr Who Season 3. Overall I really enjoyed it, but some bits were just..blah. Wrong. In the end I found the only way to process the arc so far is to see the Doctor as a condescending borderline-sociopath who prefers the company of those who don't challenge his intelligence or power. Still, the second last disk is made of like 99% pure awesome (with 1%: a maid? Really? Ew)
And so finally I can read all the meta I kept seeing on![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
metafandom a year ago. And use it to say what I would but am too dumb to :) Unfortunately a little under half of them are flocked/deleted, which I guess is a sign of how intense the imbroglio got.
So:
Doctor Who and life and death: a nice synopsis of one of the themes of the season, good thinky (I say unthinky-ishly)
Meta: Martha Jones Is a Dork: exactly! I went into this season expecting to hate Rose (the doctor does not have a girlfriend!) and love Martha, and found myself liking them both (I hink there's a rule against that) but identifying much more with Marthabecause I am in love with David Tennant and he never returns my calls
Dealing with race in New Who: I totally agree that the complete avoidance of dealing with Martha's (or the other black characters) race in the historicals is just jarring (though "The Shakespeare Code" is one big silly anachronism anyway), and invalidates any point they were trying to make with "Daleks in Manhatten". One of my personal bugbears is whitewashing the past so that white/middle class/male etc viewers don't have to think about how nasty and oppressive their group used to be. Also , on a more shallow note, why on earth miss the chance to dress your characters in fancy dress? "Human Nature/Family of Blood" just make everything else look empty and crapand missing David Tennant in pretty clothes by comparison.
Mickey, Martha, and the Message that Doesn't Belong on Who and The myth of colorblindness: more on race in Doctor Who: It was funny for me going in to this show knowing there was this whole explosion in the middle of season 3, and it made me more attentive to portrayals of race than I might otherwise have been. There were many, many times earlier on when I went "Wait, and at this point people were happy with show's portrayal of race, how bad is it going to get?", the repeated themes of stupid cannon fodder slaves and black characters as second best were pretty darn creepy. The weird thing is I wasn't extra-specially offended by season 3 in particular, maybe because I'd already prepared myself for the way Martha is treated (and because I'm white, duh) Also, as a few people have asked: where are all the asians? That's like the constant mantra in tv sf, really :/
And do not get me started on the portrayal of women. The discussion on this post has a thing about the Doctor seeing his companions (and humans in general) as like adorable fluffy kittens: you love them to bits, but they're not really your equals, and you sure as hell wouldn't have sex with them. And of course in this context it makes perfect sense for him to prefer Rose (a young cute non-threatening ball of affectionate energy) to Martha and Jack (who are older, smarter, more sensible and competent, and in the case of Jack are almost a threat)
So, this may be utter crap I renounce later, and I will suck at comments until I feel a bit less stupid. Feel free to disagree (or agree!) anyway :) There's a whole other thing about how this Who compares to the old one but I'm not versed enough in old canon to do it.
Also,two three things that aren't covered above:
-Two different alien generated pig-people-things? With no relationship to each other? What's up with that?
-Have I ever mentioned that I have a soft spot for two friends/enemies who nobody else understands but are torn apart by their opposing/identical natures? No?
-It's a gas mask! I'd seen images from this scene before but it is SO much better in context :)
So, I just finished Dr Who Season 3. Overall I really enjoyed it, but some bits were just..blah. Wrong. In the end I found the only way to process the arc so far is to see the Doctor as a condescending borderline-sociopath who prefers the company of those who don't challenge his intelligence or power. Still, the second last disk is made of like 99% pure awesome (with 1%: a maid? Really? Ew)
And so finally I can read all the meta I kept seeing on
metafandom a year ago. And use it to say what I would but am too dumb to :) Unfortunately a little under half of them are flocked/deleted, which I guess is a sign of how intense the imbroglio got.So:
Doctor Who and life and death: a nice synopsis of one of the themes of the season, good thinky (I say unthinky-ishly)
Meta: Martha Jones Is a Dork: exactly! I went into this season expecting to hate Rose (the doctor does not have a girlfriend!) and love Martha, and found myself liking them both (I hink there's a rule against that) but identifying much more with Martha
Dealing with race in New Who: I totally agree that the complete avoidance of dealing with Martha's (or the other black characters) race in the historicals is just jarring (though "The Shakespeare Code" is one big silly anachronism anyway), and invalidates any point they were trying to make with "Daleks in Manhatten". One of my personal bugbears is whitewashing the past so that white/middle class/male etc viewers don't have to think about how nasty and oppressive their group used to be. Also , on a more shallow note, why on earth miss the chance to dress your characters in fancy dress? "Human Nature/Family of Blood" just make everything else look empty and crap
Mickey, Martha, and the Message that Doesn't Belong on Who and The myth of colorblindness: more on race in Doctor Who: It was funny for me going in to this show knowing there was this whole explosion in the middle of season 3, and it made me more attentive to portrayals of race than I might otherwise have been. There were many, many times earlier on when I went "Wait, and at this point people were happy with show's portrayal of race, how bad is it going to get?", the repeated themes of stupid cannon fodder slaves and black characters as second best were pretty darn creepy. The weird thing is I wasn't extra-specially offended by season 3 in particular, maybe because I'd already prepared myself for the way Martha is treated (and because I'm white, duh) Also, as a few people have asked: where are all the asians? That's like the constant mantra in tv sf, really :/
And do not get me started on the portrayal of women. The discussion on this post has a thing about the Doctor seeing his companions (and humans in general) as like adorable fluffy kittens: you love them to bits, but they're not really your equals, and you sure as hell wouldn't have sex with them. And of course in this context it makes perfect sense for him to prefer Rose (a young cute non-threatening ball of affectionate energy) to Martha and Jack (who are older, smarter, more sensible and competent, and in the case of Jack are almost a threat)
So, this may be utter crap I renounce later, and I will suck at comments until I feel a bit less stupid. Feel free to disagree (or agree!) anyway :) There's a whole other thing about how this Who compares to the old one but I'm not versed enough in old canon to do it.
Also,
-Two different alien generated pig-people-things? With no relationship to each other? What's up with that?
-Have I ever mentioned that I have a soft spot for two friends/enemies who nobody else understands but are torn apart by their opposing/identical natures? No?
-It's a gas mask! I'd seen images from this scene before but it is SO much better in context :)
