Doctor Who 5x04, "The Time of Angels"
Apr. 24th, 2010 03:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kindkitNothing new, once again. *sigh* I know that writers fall in love with their own work, but did we really need both the angels and River Song again? It's not that the episode was bad--it was reasonably exciting, although nothing like as smart and gripping as "Blink"--but everything interesting in it was recycled.
I'm not feeling the love for either Eleven or Amy. Although I really liked them in their first episode, I keep waiting for something more, some depth or sense of individuality, and I'm not seeing it. Amy is Generic Spunky Girl, and while there are certainly worse things she could be, I'm getting bored. And Eleven increasingly seems like a bundle of quirks recycled from previous Doctors (who were played by stronger actors).
As for River, when we first met her, I resented how readily some folks called her a Mary Sue. But now she's acquiring a Sue-ish tinge for me as well. She breaks into vaults in evening wear and sexy shoes! She's totally kickass and a scholar and a supersoldier and yet totally humble and nice to Amy and oh, by the way, she's the Doctor's wife who keeps meeting him through time and space and knows how to fly the TARDIS better than he does! Her Sue-ness will be confirmed if, when we learn what she was in prison for, it turns out to be something incredibly glamorous (a la the unbearable Lady Christina de Souza, Sexy Tough Genius Aristocratic Thief)--because one sign of a Mary Sue is that even their flaws are better than other people's. (This, incidentally, is why I don't think Jack Harkness was a Mary Sue even in his first episodes, because beneath his charm he was a conscienceless, selfish prick, and we saw him recognize that as a bad thing and begin to change.)
I admit that I don't want the Doctor to have a wife no matter who she is. But I do honestly think that's not the sole reason for my dissatisfaction with River Song in this episode. If we must have yet another canonical heterosexual relationship for the Doctor, couldn't it be with someone who is a well-rounded character, not a checklist of perfections? Not a "strong woman" in the sense that phrase is increasingly coming to have of "video-game heroine," but a woman with strength, and with weakness, and with faults, and with a complex personality?
I'm not feeling the love for either Eleven or Amy. Although I really liked them in their first episode, I keep waiting for something more, some depth or sense of individuality, and I'm not seeing it. Amy is Generic Spunky Girl, and while there are certainly worse things she could be, I'm getting bored. And Eleven increasingly seems like a bundle of quirks recycled from previous Doctors (who were played by stronger actors).
As for River, when we first met her, I resented how readily some folks called her a Mary Sue. But now she's acquiring a Sue-ish tinge for me as well. She breaks into vaults in evening wear and sexy shoes! She's totally kickass and a scholar and a supersoldier and yet totally humble and nice to Amy and oh, by the way, she's the Doctor's wife who keeps meeting him through time and space and knows how to fly the TARDIS better than he does! Her Sue-ness will be confirmed if, when we learn what she was in prison for, it turns out to be something incredibly glamorous (a la the unbearable Lady Christina de Souza, Sexy Tough Genius Aristocratic Thief)--because one sign of a Mary Sue is that even their flaws are better than other people's. (This, incidentally, is why I don't think Jack Harkness was a Mary Sue even in his first episodes, because beneath his charm he was a conscienceless, selfish prick, and we saw him recognize that as a bad thing and begin to change.)
I admit that I don't want the Doctor to have a wife no matter who she is. But I do honestly think that's not the sole reason for my dissatisfaction with River Song in this episode. If we must have yet another canonical heterosexual relationship for the Doctor, couldn't it be with someone who is a well-rounded character, not a checklist of perfections? Not a "strong woman" in the sense that phrase is increasingly coming to have of "video-game heroine," but a woman with strength, and with weakness, and with faults, and with a complex personality?
