Doctor Who: Turn Left

[purplecat]

I was a little disappointed by Turn Left. This doesn't mean I thought the central idea was a bad one, in fact I rather like the central idea, nor that I thought it was poorly executed, but there were a few key things that stopped me really enjoying the episode.



1. So, while not common, this kind of "what if things had been different" is a subject that has been treated before in tele-fantasy. The example that most immediately springs to my mind is the Buffy episode The Wish and I think Turn Left suffers by comparison. The Wish does not bother to go through every villain Buffy defeated after she arrived in Sunnydale and show one-by-one how the lack of her presence made things worse. No, it jumps straight into the dystopian vision and concentrates on elaborating that. Ultimately, although I'm sure on paper it looked like a good idea, I found the sequence of "and then this catastrophe was (or wasn't) averted like this" mostly dull since I already knew all about those catastrophes. As a result there wasn't really time to actually explore the dystopian alternative reality and it was, frankly, fairly generic with little sense of how or why that particular society arose from that particular sequence of events. The sudden appearance of labour camps, in particular, seemed a bit tacked on and almost tasteless in an "oh and obviously there would be death camps" kind of way.

2. I realise this is personal but I really do not get on with original Donna. It's a credit to the writing and acting that she was instantly recognisable as the Donna we originally met and not the one who's been travelling with the Doctor but, dear me, she is irritating. Tate also plays her in something much closer to "sit-com" mode (lots of heavy emphasis and gurning) than the rest of her acting and I find that both irritating and unbelievable. This was the companion I was dreading when Donna was first announced.

3. I didn't recognise Rose. I mean, obviously that was Billie Piper but the character traits I associate with Rose: Bright, bubbly, someone who "does domestic", an improvisor, did not appear to be present. Now obviously a lot of time has passed and Rose, we are told, has changed and become "harder". But that didn't seem to me so much changed as become a radically different person. I would have expected Rose to have connected much more quickly and on a much more social level with Donna than this one did. The idea that she has metamorphosed into some sort of prescient reality-jumping temporal scientist is also a little... odd. I'm assuming the prescience is some sort of residual Bad Wolfiness. Now obviously, this last point may all get gloriously resolved in the next couple of weeks. In some ways its hard to properly judge this story just as its hard to judge the first episode of a two-parter. The whole nature of Rose's involvement and dramatic character change was ill-explained but may become better explained in future. Let us hope so.



WHO DAILY html: <lj user=louisedennis> was <a href=http://louisedennis.livejournal.com/78956.html>a little disappointed</a>

Comments

[bunn.livejournal.com]

I think you may have suffered in your enjoyment of this episode from having thought too long and hard about the series and being too knowledgeable about the backstory. I really enjoyed it, because I'm not an involved fan so most of the references and explanation linked to to things I'd half-forgotten.

I didn't mind Rose's character change. One of my gripes with Rose was that she went through a lot of quite traumatic stuff and it didn't seem to hit her in the way that I'd expect it to. It seemed right to me that at last her experiences had hit and changed her, particularly the being Badwolfed: surely that's not something you should just walk away from with a cheery chavvy wave.

Original Donna, I am with you. What a pain she is.

[purplecat]

I think you may have suffered in your enjoyment of this episode from having thought too long and hard about the series

Oh I know. Even as I wrote this I was anticipating another phone call with my mum in which she calls me a grumpy old Who fan incapable of enjoying anything any more. Though, in this case, I think the core of the problem was my Buffy fannishness and, in particular, the comparison of Turn Left and The Wish which I think is a much, much better version of the same idea.

[lil-shepherd.livejournal.com]

On the other hand, I am not an involved fan and I thought it a dreadful mess, picking up bits and pieces from everywhere with no logic and no original ideas in the whole length. I am getting very fed up of people not realising that "The stars... are going out" is a steal. From one of the greatest SF stories of all time.

Pah!

I also have never liked Rose and loathe Donna.

[purplecat]

The line "the stars... are going out" is a steal but that's all that's been taken from the story so in terms of substantive comparisons I think the Buffy one is more informative.

I like Donna but I think she had better material earlier on. The Unicorn and the Wasp was an unpleasant throwback to The Runaway Bride, she was sidelined for much of the next three episodes and in Runaway Bride mode again in this.

I never really saw what was so great about Rose but I didn't particularly object to her either.

[bunn.livejournal.com]

My immediate crosscomparison was 'A wonderful life' and A Christmas Carol. I suppose the Wish is similar, but hasn't it been done by so many programs? I think there is a Simpson's one...

[purplecat]

I wasn't sure if A Wonderful Life and A Christmas Carol really counted as fantasy. I mean, obviously they are, but not so much in the minds of the lay man nor, I would say, TV writiers and producers. I certainly wouldn't describe this sort of "what if" scenario as a TV SF cliche.

In many ways Turn Left was much closer to A Wonderful Life etc. than the Buffy episode because it explicitly showed how bad life was without the central character, whereas The Wish had a more complex message, perhaps, about how different both she and Sunnydale were if they were not brought together.

[bunn.livejournal.com]

But why would Doctor Who reference only fantasy? Surely the Buffy episode is itself something of a tribute?

In some ways its rather odd that Who hasn't done more of that kind of thing given the central presence of time travel in the series.

[purplecat]

I didn't mean it shouldn't, just countering "SF cliche" accusations which, admittedly haven't been made here. I think this definitely was something new in Dr Who terms and relatively unusual in TV SF terms.

It's often been commented how comparatively rarely Dr Who bases stories on "timey-wimey" stuff. In fact before the new series it was barely touched upon.

[bunn.livejournal.com]

Didn't it used to be said that there were only 7 available plots for all fiction..?

Not that a little originality isn't good, but 15 unique original stories every year, that are actually good, seems a bit much to ask. I'm happy with an old story told well, myself.

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

Of course the definitive version of this plot is the final two episodes of Dallas, in which an angel demonstrates to J.R. what would have happened if he had never been born.

[purplecat]

You are almost making me wish I'd watched Dallas

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

You never watched Dallas???

[purplecat]

I'm sure I must have seen the odd episode but I never watched it regularly. I did watch Dynasty for a bit because it had Robin of Sherwood in it and then, of course, because I wanted to know what happened next.

[parrot-knight.livejournal.com]

At the time the production team of Dallas acknowledged that this episode was a homage to It's A Wonderful Life, and in some ways an inversion, given the twist at the end.

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

I'm glad I'm not the only one.

Maybe I should make an icon sometime.

[parrot-knight.livejournal.com]

I returned to watch the last episode, but watched the series enthusiastically in the early 1980s, before it got lost a little and was panicked by the arrival of the glossier and more superficial Dynasty.

[bunn.livejournal.com]

Actually, I've always thought Clarke picked up that idea from 'the lights are going out all over Europe'... An idea like that is going to get used and reused, even if Clarke's use was the original, I don't see what's wrong with it being used and re-used, as it has been, in many other media. Nobody owns a concept like that and if Clarke hadn't used it, someone else would have done.

[parrot-knight.livejournal.com]

Agreed; I don't think the line is necessarily a borrowing or a homage, because it's the sort of phrase which is culturally endemic and has a lot of weight - dare I say thickness? - associated with loss of community and (both physical and emotional) warmth.

[lil-shepherd.livejournal.com]

That would be fine if there wasn't the amount of squee that there is, or if RTD had ever come up with a halfway surprising concept on his own account.

[parrot-knight.livejournal.com]

Out of interest, what is it taken from?

[lil-shepherd.livejournal.com]

Arthur C. Clarke: The Nine Billion Names of God.

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

Hmmm...

Which is Russell T. Davies more likely to be a fan of?

Series SF literature

or

Cheesy 80s new romantics...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sRGKD88IlJ0

[lil-shepherd.livejournal.com]

Who are the cheesy new romantics fans of?

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

Well quite!

[jane-somebody.livejournal.com]

(Yes, I've only just watched this one, and the latest is waiting on video and who knows when I'll get round to it - so please no spoilers if you reply to this...)

The main thing that niggled me about this episode was Rose's voice. She seemed to have a strange lisp that I'm sure I don't remember her having before, more than anything like in early Buffy when actors hadn't got used to the false vampire teeth. Having also now listened to the confidential, Billie's own voice didn't sound like that at all, so it must be her somehow not getting the original Rose voice quite right. A very superficial thing to be irritated by, but I did find it bugging me throughout the episode and pulling me out of the story.

I rather agree about the 'labour camps'. I was discussing this with Skordh, and he said he thought it worked well and was moving, while I thought that while over all they just about got away with it and pulled it off, probably through sheer force of good acting all round, I really wasn't happy with the way such a weighty and real human catastrophe was shanghaied in basically for entertainment purposes. I don't think I am putting this very well, and what you say pretty much covers what I mean I guess, so hopefully you see what I'm trying to get at.

[jane-somebody.livejournal.com]

(Having said all of which, I think I enjoyed the ep over all more than you seemed to have done, my overall reaction being perhaps closer to Bunn's.)

[purplecat]

Several people have commented on Billie's lip and accent. I can't say I really noticed.

The labour camps thing is difficult. I don't want to say that entertainment should never touch on serious issues but there will have been plenty of people watching who had friends or relatives put into camps of one sort or another and I do feel that something that happened within living memory should be treated with a bit of weight if you are going to use it, rather than used as a throw away piece of set dressing. Of course, its difficult to square that view, with the completely casual treatment of violent death we readily accept in entertainment.

[jane-somebody.livejournal.com]

Yes, that's it exactly, I think. Not that you shouldn't use it, but that you should be really aware of what you're doing and why, and have a well thought out good reason for it. (Not that everyone is going to agree on what constitutes a good reason, and where the boundary is to be set, but it's a useful starting point.) Certain subjects come with a definite responsibility to treat them sensitively.

[gabcd86.livejournal.com]

This episode worried me.

As far as we know there is no Doctor, right? But if any of the stuff that happens in the episodes happens, we're fucked.

Admittedly, it's a small fear. But I've got very few worries.

*sorry for all the comments, I'm scrolling down your sidebar wotsit and picking tags*

[purplecat]

Well the general thesis seemed to be that there was always someone to fix it, but it wasn't fixed so well and they lost their lives in the process - So Sarah Jane and the kids die in the Adipose thing, Torchwood are killed by the Sontarans etc. etc.

I'm in mid tag reorganise, ever since alyse showed me how to make them heirarchical.