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Doctor Who: Turn Left
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>
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>
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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.
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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.
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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*
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