Doctor Who: Waters of Mars (more detailed thoughts)

[selenay]

With time to think about it, I still loved this episode. Perhaps I'm fairly easily pleased (it was Doctor Who!), but I see nothing wrong with that :-D

Overall, it was gripping and completely absorbing. I enjoyed the change of pace between mad-cap running and slower, more thoughtful moments. If it had been break-neck all the way through then I think some of the really scary ideas would have had less impact because there would have been no time for them to sink in.

The episode really felt like it was building to something, but not to what I thought it would build to. We knew from very early that everyone died and it was a fixed moment in history, a concept that the Doctor has referenced before. I thought that meant we would have to watch the Doctor abandon them, which would be dreadful indeed.

In fact, the scene where the Doctor is walking away from the base and can only hear what's happening to everyone was one of the truly horrific, nasty moments. Hearing the terror and pain as they realised that they were doomed was worse, somehow, than seeing the characters gradually turned into water monsters.

Perhaps the idea of it, the way that water can get everywhere, was part of the genius of this episode. We didn't have to worry about monsters beating down doors, it was single drops of water seeping through cracks and having the persistence to wear down every barrier. That's definitely the stuff of nightmares.

Then the Doctor cracked. It wasn't even a tiny wobble, he cracked and broke every law that he knew. I was shouting at the TV at that stage because he's told us regularly, for five years, that you cannot change this kind of thing without terrible consequences. He was manic and terrifying: I was more scared of the Doctor at that moment than I was of the water creatures.

Or perhaps I was scared for the Doctor.

It's something that has been building up for the last few seasons. His status as the Lonely God was something he rejected before but in this story it felt like he embraced it for a few moments. He thought that he could save someone that even the Daleks knew had a fixed ending. Adelaide was a brave, intelligent woman for understanding that the consequences of her not dying might be worse than her death.

I think that maybe the Doctor has been broken this time. He's gone too far and I suspect that the repercussions from this are going to be dreadful. That final fifteen minutes of the episode had my heart in my mouth and I was both terrified and heartbroken.

I'm really starting to get the feeling that this regeneration is going to be his most painful yet.

This had all the hallmarks of an RTD episode and it worked really well. I'm sure that Moffat's stuff is going to be different, so I'm quite happy to have RTD give us a very 'him' farewell to the show and wipe the slate clean for the new boys. RTD has spent the last couple of years building up the Doctor's image as the all-powerful Time Lord and I've been predicting since S2 that there would be some kind of reckoning. Now I suspect that he's giving it to us, pulling the Doctor's world down and forcing him to see what he has become.

The Cloister Bell at the end made me very happy because it's both a reference to Old Who and an implication that we're heading into dark, scary, doom-laden stuff for the Christmas eps. This was a really good episode for Old Who stuff, between Ice Warriors and the Cloister Bell.

Lastly, I already knew about Wilf and the Master for the Christmas specials, but the shots of Donna in the trailer made me incredibly happy.

Is it Christmas yet?

Now?

Comments

[alicambs.livejournal.com]

The episode was great and the trailer... wow!

[gaspodex.livejournal.com]

*Lastly, I already knew about Wilf and the Master for the Christmas specials, but the shots of Donna in the trailer made me incredibly happy*

I'm terribly terribly afraid for both Wilf and particularly Doctor/Donna ... After CoE and the Parallels here (did you spot them) there will be tears before bedtime I can tell you that...