Also known as “the episode where I start liking and respecting Mickey Smith.”

 

This is also the one in which I hope that the Doctor, Jack, and Rose are together forever, and the one in which I squee because Doctor Who is exploring the implications of the death penalty!

I love you people. I really do.

First, though, let’s deal with Mickey.

You may have noticed that I occasionally feel the need to remind Rose about Mickey and how he might feel about things, and yes, I know she’s not real and can’t hear me… And neither can he thank me for taking his side as he doesn’t exist, either… And that in fact this entire show isn’t r—you know what? Shut the fuck up and listen.

I do this because for a really long time, the show’s been… well, it’s been treating Mickey like Rose has been treating Mickey. It’s one of the things I really don’t like about Rose, really, and it bugs me because I genuinely like her and know that she can be better than that. That she is better than that.

At this point, it’s oh, so painfully, awkwardly obvious that Mickey cares about Rose more than she cares about him, at least romantically, and sweet baby Jesus child was it satisfying to see him take her to task for treating him like she does. It was almost meta, because the show’s just as guilty as Rose is of “forgetting” Mickey, too.

One thing, though: Mickey’s entire speech was great until he tells her that he’d wait for her if that’s what he’s supposed to do. NO, MICKEY, YOU WERE DOING SO WELL!

Still, it does make Rose think about her EPIC ASSHOLERY, so I suppose it’ll have to do.

Now, what else?

Oh!

I know it made this episode a little slow, but can I say that I adored the entire “is it okay to take someone back to face the death penalty?” thing.

It’s no secret that I abhor the death penalty and think it has no place in an advanced society, so throughout this whole thing I just enjoyed watching the Doctor wrestle with this moral conundrum.

(Source)

And yes, I admit it’s a thorny problem, because bad people should get punished, and sometimes a relativist view is justified, but… well, let’s put it this way: as Blon points out, the Doctor himself is a killer. He’s not a gleeful killer like Blon and her brothers were, but the fact remains.

No one but the most cold-hearted, absolutist bastard would say that the Doctor deserves death for his “crime.” After all, the Doctor has a strong moral center, and he does happen to save the world (and universe!) on occasion, so it can be surmised that he’s “reformed.” But even if he wasn’t reformed, he still wouldn’t deserve death for one extremely simple reason: just because he (theoretically) hasn’t, doesn’t mean he (theoretically) won’t. It doesn’t even matter if he never does reform—just that he’s given the chance to. And giving someone that choice is what makes us better. Makes us human.

Blon’s right—killing her doesn’t make our heroes a bit better than her. Not a bit.

Fortunately, I think they know it.

Also fortunately, they ultimately don’t have to make that choice.

Smart girl, that TARDIS, giving Blon just what she needs—a fresh start. I mean, ew… but also bravo!

And bravo also to Rose for letting Mickey get on with his life. He deserves better.

Blimey (I say “blimey,” now… Blimeys are cool), that got serious. How about a list?

• Oh, dear god, the farting alien is back.
• Captain Jack Harkness: Aww, sweet, look at these two. How come I never get any of that?
  The Doctor: Buy me a drink first.
  Captain Jack Harkness: You're such hard work.
  The Doctor: But worth it.
• Mickey: So what are you doing in Cardiff and who the hell is Jumpin' Jack Flash? I mean, I don't mind you hanging out with big ears up there—
  The Doctor: Oi!
  Mickey: Look in the mirror. But this guy, I don't know…He's kinda—
  Jack: Handsome?
  Mickey: More like cheesy.
  Jack: Early 21st century slang. Is “cheesy” good or bad?
  Mickey: It's bad.
  Jack: But “bad” means “good,” isn't that right?
  The Doctor: …Are you saying I'm not handsome?
• Did I mention that I love Jack, the Doctor, and Rose together? ‘Cause I do.
• (Source) …I also love Jack, in case that’s not obvious.
• “I knew we should’ve turned left!” (Source)
• (Source)   Jack Harkness: Doctor, you go face to face, that’ll designate exit 1. I’ll cover exit 2. Rose, exit 3. Mickey Smith, exit 4.
  The Doctor: Excuse me. Who’s in charge?
  Jack Harkness: Sorry. Awaiting orders, sir.
  The Doctor: Right, here’s the plan: Like he said. Nice plan!
• Secretary: The Lord Mayor says thank you for popping by. She'd love to have a chat but she's up to her eyes in paperwork. Perhaps if you could make an appointment for next week.
  The Doctor: … She's climbing out the window, isn't she?
  Secretary: Yes, she is.
• (Source)
• “Oh. I sound like a Welshman. God help me, I’ve gone native.”
• There goes that Bad Wolf shit again.
• Hm, the Doctor is watching Rose and Mickey go off together…
• LOL @the Doctor thwarting all of Blon’s attempts at killing him.
• “You’re pleading for mercy out of a dead woman’s lips.” Which, yeah… good point.
• Uh… you’ve got no right to be jealous, Rose.
• “You let one of them go, but that’s nothing new. Every now and then a little victim’s spared because she smiled, ‘cause he’s got freckles… ‘Cause they begged. And that's how you live with yourself. That’s how you slaughter millions. Because once in awhile—on a whim, if the wind's in the right direction—you happen to be kind.” Uncomfortable now, Doctor. :(
• Just gotta point out… This Doctor is a big change from End of the World Doctor. That Doctor didn’t even consider giving Cassandra a chance, whereas this one not only hears Blon out, he facilitates a way out for her. *sigh* I fucking love this show.

 

Right. Next week, it’s gonna be a two-parter! Stay tuned for Bad Wolf!

Hey, Doc, save the last dance for me!

 

Oh… so many things to love about this episode. Remember scary gas-masked zombies?

Not evil.

Creepy small child?

He’s frickin’ adorable, and also not evil:

The things responsible for all the creepiness and the no, thank yous? Not evil! They’re cute little Tinkerbells designed to help. They just wanted to help!

By the way, I want nanogenes in my life, please. Nowish would be good. Science, make it so.

But all of this pales in the face of a giddy Doctor.

(Source)

Steven Moffat, if I didn’t love you already for nearly flawless writing, I would love you for this.

There is no more satisfying moment in my life as a reader or a watcher than seeing a subversion of a trope, or seeing it used well. It’s part of the reason I love Buffy so much. I don’t know what it says about me that I automatically expect people to die in stories like this, but I sort of do? It’s not that I want it to happen, I just have never seen different, and you know what they say about there being no new stories…

And then there’s this episode, which basically says

The Doctor, who needs a happy ending way more than my misanthropic soul does, gets it!

Nancy gets her son back, Doctor Constantine is (presumably) a father and grandfather again, that one lady gets an entire leg back, and Jack, my  lovely Jack… He gets to be a hero.

Say what you will about the Doctor (actually, don’t, because if it’s bad, I will be forced to kill you and I’m too young and pretty to go to prison), it takes a pretty remarkable man—er, Time Lord—to inspire a petty con man to heroism with a few well-placed comments.

Also something this episode touches on is Rose trusting Jack before she had any reason to. She tells the Doctor it’s because “he’s like you—only with dating and dancing.” And that’s true, sort of (and pretty close to why I liked Jack straight off the bat, really).

But it speaks a little to Rose’s character. I always thought it was obvious that Rose had this HUGE crush on the Doctor because he offered a lot of things Mickey just couldn’t. However, it was also obvious to me that she found him intimidating for the same reasons he was so attractive (not to mention he’s like, 1000). The Doctor doesn’t really do romance or frivolity like that, and here comes Jack with his champagne and his Glenn Miller and his charm and Rose swoons.

And the Doctor being insulted that Rose just assumes he doesn’t “dance” is even more adorable, because he hasn’t given much indication that he does in the first place! Then again, we all know what they say about assumptions…

(Source)

…Look, if loving that guy is wrong, I don’t wanna be right.

 

• Doctor: I’m really glad that worked. Those would’ve been terrible last words.
• Rose: When he’s stressed, he likes to insult species. Doctor: Rose, I’m thinking.                                                 Rose: Cuts himself shaving, does half an hour on life forms he’s cleverer than.
• Doctor: Don’t drop the banana.                                    Captain Jack: Why not?                                                   Doctor: Good source of potassium.
• It’s very likely this entire list will be quotes, because there’re so many great ones.
• Captain Jack: Who looks at a screwdriver and thinks, “ooh, this could be a little more sonic”?
• Rose: Okay, so he’s vanished into thin air. Why is it always the great-looking ones who do that?               Doctor: I’m making an effort not to be insulted.
• Rose: The world doesn’t end ‘cause the Doctor dances.
• Doctor: We were talking about dancing.                    Captain Jack: Didn’t look like talking.                             Rose: Didn’t feel like dancing.
• Nancy: Tell me, do you think there’s anything left I wouldn’t believe?                                                                  Rose: We’re time-travelers from the future.              Nancy: Mad, you are.
• Mrs. Harcourt: My leg’s grown back! When I come to ‘ospital, I ‘ad one leg!                                                     Doctor Constantine: Well, there is a war on… Is it possible you… miscounted?
• Rose: Look at you, beamin’ away like you’re Father Christmas!                                                                           Doctor: Who says I’m not? Red-bicycle-when-you-were-twelve.
• Captain Jack: A little too much vermouth. See if I come here again!
• DANCE PARTY!

 

Boom Town next!

As if I wasn’t terrified of small children already…

 

You know, before this episode, the thought of a poor little lost child going around asking if random people are its mother wasn't all that scary to me.

And then, Steven Moffat happened.

And then this:

And then WHAT THE FUCK.

And then (Source)

Steven Moffat, what the hell is broken in your brain?!

At this point, I would like to point out that I first saw this episode somewhere between three and four in the morning. When it was dark. And for some reason I kept hearing breathing noises as if someone was wearing a mask or something. A gas mask, of course, because seriously, fuck you, Moffat.

Getting to this two-parter pretty much cemented my love for Doctor Who as a show. I loved it before, but now I also feared it, which… made me love it more? I don’t know. I’m fucked in the head. It’s something I deal with.

Oh, but how could I go this long without mentioning Jack?!

Jack is so beautiful to me. If I were to imagine the perfect man, it would be Jack. Jack is allowed to touch all of my parts. In fact, I will name my all my jackets “Jack,” so that when I put them on, I can say that I am snug in Jack’s embrace.

Seriously, though… What. A. Great. Character. He’s like the anti-homophobe. I don’t just love that he’s omnisexual, I love that he is so unapologetically, matter-of-factly omnisexual. And so charming! The man can do charm, okay?

While I side-eye the hell out of Rose for that “available” thing (available, Rose, REALLY?! Has anybody told Mickey this? Thought. So), I can’t blame her for enjoying Jack.

(Source)

Hell, I wanna enjoy Jack. Maybe twice.

(Source)

Oh! Also a good thing in this episode? All of Nancy, really.

I like how she commands such an air of respect and motherly affection even while she looks so young, and how she looks after the children because no one else will. And because she lost someone! Just like the Doctor, she takes care of everyone else because she can’t take care of whom she lost.

…I—I’m sorry, I have something in my eye.

And speaking of minor characters (really, “minor character” is such a relative term in this series) that mirror the Doctor, there is the other doctor: Doctor Constantine. When Doctor Constantine mentions losing his children and grandchildren as a result of the war—but still retaining his identity as a doctor—and the Doctor mentions he “know[s] the feeling,” my heart seized with pain for him—for both  of them.

…

…

 

The Doctor was a father and grandfather?!

Oh, but never mind because now it’s time for Moffat to ensure I don’t sleep easily for the rest of my life:

(Source)

Damn you, sir. Damn you to the darkest pit of—oh, wait. That’s probably where you get your ideas. Sigh.

 

• I love that mauve is the universally recognized color for “danger.”
• “Is it safe?” “Perfectly!” (TARDIS showers them with sparks) “Okay, reasonably—should’ve said “reasonably” there.”
• Of course Rose is drawn to save a lost kid.
• The Doctor and a kitty. All things are right with the world.
• “What's a copper gonna do with you lot, anyway? Arrest you for starving?”
• (Source)
• The Doctor knows what it’s like to be the only child left out in the cold. :(
• Nancy teasing the Doctor about his big nose and ears. <3
• “1941. Right now, not very far from here, the German war machine is rolling up the map of Europe. Country after country, falling like dominoes. Nothing can stop it—nothing. Until one tiny, damp little island says “no.” “No, not here.” A mouse in front of a lion. You’re amazing, the lot of you. Don’t know what you do to Hitler, but you frighten the hell out of me.” This is the best thing ever.
• Albion Hospital—why does that sound familiar?
• “Don’t you ever get tired of ‘Doctor’? Doctor who?!”
• First a navvy, now a U-boat captain. What is wrong with the Doctor’s jumper?!
• … And people wonder why I hate hospitals.

 

Tomorrow, The Doctor Dances!

I have to go give my dad a hug.

 

I’ll be honest. If I had the same circumstances surrounding me, I can’t promise I wouldn’t act as Rose did in Father’s Day.

(Source)

… Don’t look at me that way, Doctor.

(Source)

Please? I mean, you’ve gotta understand, she never knew him!

(Source)

… Okay, I can see you’re upset, and you’ve got some right to be, but let me explain…

(Source)

Uh… Thanks?

Up ‘til now, the only reference we’d had to Rose’s father was way back in The Unquiet Dead, when Gwyneth mentioned that Rose had been thinking about him lately.

And I honestly didn’t even make that connection until embarrassingly recently.

First of all, I hate that Rose has this desire to go see her dad so soon after their having got rid of that tool Adam, and that this all ends up confirming the Doctor’s conceptions about humans being selfish apes. Not in a bad way… I mean, I love that Rose isn’t above being selfish in the first place, that she’s not some angel/saint of virtue who lives on selflessness and charity. In truth, she’d be way unrealistic as a character if the idea had never even crossed her mind. However. I don’t think she’d originally planned to save Pete. I don’t even think that crossed her mind until she saw just how painful it was to actually see him die.

(Source)

And I don’t think the Doctor fully believes that she’d been planning this from the start, either.

It’s just… That fucktard Adam had just tried to take advantage of the Doctor, and it’s not like the Doctor doesn’t have some prejudices to get over when it comes to humans, not to mention that the Doctor broke some rules to do this, and Rose temporarily telling the universe to fuck off just so that she could have her daddy again is something that is bound to strike a chord with a Doctor who’s lost everyone and everything that ever mattered to him and can’t have that luxury.

(Source)

Right? I mean, I’m not wrong here. I know.

And yet… How can your heart not break when you see this?

(Source)

I mean, seriously?

(Talk about time-eaters)

Only the Doctor can have given this to her. Granted, in a somewhat roundabout way, but still…

And so this is why their fight kills me. I can see the Doctor’s point of view (destruction of the universe, betrayal of trust, general ape-ish stupidity), but I also can’t fault Rose. The absence of her father has shaped her (just like someone else is shaped by his losses *ahem*), and it’s understandable that she should wonder what his presence would do.

You get that, Doctor, don’t you?

(Source)

I know you do. You do, because when it comes to trying to solve the whole time-eating thing problem, you do everything to avoid having to take Pete away from Rose again. You even sacrifice yourself to avoid it. And I love you for that, Doctor, I really do.

(Source)

Now…go and make up with Rose while I write this list.

(Source)

 

• I love that Pete’s not what Rose was led to believe he was. He’s flawed, of course, but remarkably self-aware and smart. Pete, this bullet point is dedicated to my love of you.(Source)
• Oh, the Doctor’s angry. I don’t like it when he’s angry. :(
• “When we met, I said ‘Travel with me in space.’ You said no. Then I said ‘Time machine.’” No, no, please don’t think this!
• Oh, Rose, don’t use his loneliness against him! This fight’s making me want to curl up in the fetal position and whimper. :(
• “I know what you're saying and we're not going there. At no point are we going anywhere near there. You aren't even aware that ‘there’ exists. I don't even want to think about ‘there’ and believe me, neither do you. ‘There’—for you—is like... It's like the Bermuda Triangle.” “Blimey, you know how to flatter a bloke.”
• (Source)WHAT WHAT THE FUCK WHERE IS THE TARDIS?!
• Aww, baby Rose!
• “I’ve waited a long time to say this: Jackie Tyler, do as I say!”
• (Source of both)
• “So if this mate of yours isn't your boyfriend then I have to say I’m glad, because being your dad I’m allowed to say he’s a bit old for you.” Love you, Pete!
• Oh, wouldja look at that, Mickey was always clingy!
• “Now, Rose, you’re not gonna bring about the end of the world, are you?”
• “Just… tell me you’re sorry.” What are these feelings in my heart?!
• THE DOCTOR GETS EATEN NO WHY
• I love that Pete figures it out. He’s a smart guy.
• (Source, both) Me: (Source)

 

The Empty Child next.

It was long, all right…

 

Maybe I was supposed to expect that Adam would stay, and that the Doctor and Rose would become the Doctor, Adam, and Rose, but… Nope. Never did. Never wanted it.

(All pictures from Time Lord Caps, unless otherwise noted.)

Adam was just too… ack. Sometimes I wish English had words like Spanish does. I’ll get back to that.

As it turns out, I ended up being glad that the bulk of this episode was right back to Rose and the Doctor figuring things out for themselves.

They’re just… good at it… Y’know?

That said… I wasn’t overly impressed by this episode. Especially after the last episode. I mean, okay, maybe I needed a little lightheartedness so that I could process some shit, but still… I just wasn’t too invested in what was happening.

Oh, BUT. There were things I liked. First?

Simon Pegg. I may or may not have squealed when I recognized him ‘cause I absolutely love him for various reasons. I also liked his character. He was kind of like the Mayor, but not really.

Also a thing I liked? How the Doctor sort of coaches Rose at the beginning of the episode.

It was just cute.

And while Adam himself sucked, he did kind of bring up an issue that I didn’t think of before this episode.

The Doctor runs a risk with this system that he has, this Companion business. I mean, let’s face it: humans, we are a selfish, self-interested bunch for the most part. It wouldn’t be out of the realm of possibility that someone would want to use the Doctor for selfish gain, and indeed, we see that here, with Adam.

(Source)

…Adam, you are a stupid douchecake.

And finally, a line we get from the Editor himself: “How can you walk through the world and not leave a single footprint?”

And it’s (sorta) easy to answer. He doesn’t want to leave a footprint. That is the absolute last thing he wants to do. It’s why he doesn’t do the “tidying up,” why he doesn’t stay in one place for too long. The Doctor’s not interested in putting down roots because he knows how painful it is when they’re torn up.

…And I can’t really blame him for that.

Right. Time for a list:

• “He’s your boyfriend.” “Not anymore.” HEY, DOES ANYBODY REMEMBER MICKEY AT ALL?!
• “The thing is, Adam, time travel is like visiting Paris. You can't just read the guide book. You've got to throw yourself in, eat the food, use the wrong verbs, get charged double and end up kissing complete strangers - or is that just me? Stop asking questions. Go and do it!” You keep giving me reasons to love you, Doctor.
• “Look at me, I’m stupid!”
• The Face of Boe is pregnant?! How would that even work??
• There is an interesting parallel between Adam and Rose and their first trips in the TARDIS. Adam clearly fails the test. Big wanker.
• If that’s where technology is going, I’ll be over here in the secluded cabin with my books and my 26 cats, thanks.
• “Trouble?” “Oh, yeah.”
• “All right—I’ll hug anyone!” <3 <3 <3
• “It’s gonna take a better man than me to get between you two.” Well, yeah, if you’re gonna lie, asshole.
• The Doctor is obviously a fan of the Socratic method.
• “Rose, tell her to button it.”
• Ew. No to the vomitomatic forever, thanks.
• “You should go back downstairs.” “Tough.”
• “Is a slave a slave if he doesn’t know he’s a slave?” “Yes.”
• “You and your boyfriends!”
• The whole end of this episode is just “hee!” (Source)

 

Next stop, Father’s Day!