This is the episode that is beyond normal episodic TV. It is beyond the best episode of the X-Files, Torchwood, Being Human, Mad Men, Fringe, Dexter, Life on Mars, The Walking Dead, True Blood, and Spartacus. I say this because I am into TV. I have watched many shows from the mundane to the sublime. I like to believe that I have pretty good taste but I know that I do not always. I have the Biggest Loser and the X-Factor set to record on my DVR and all six season's of Dawson's Creek on DVD. I am not immune to TV that is just for fun. But Doctor Who is different, they say it is just for fun and for children, except they hit you with this when you least expect it. It asks you if you could change something would you. And how would this change affect the rest of your life?
I will not get too in-depth as I want this to be the last Doctor Who post. I almost wish it could be a dissertation for a college paper. I will just call out what made this so amazing:
--The boys with guns in their hands ready to fire on straw men even through the fear and as the tears fell. John Smith looking unsure with a rifle in his hands and the dawning horror on his face as he watches the children do battle. He himself never fires a shot and is as overjoyed as the children when they realize they have killed no one and he decides to have them retreat.
--After the TARDIS is captured and John, Joan, and Martha view it from the bushes for the first time. John starts to panic and reiterates that he has never seen it before (although once again you see the truth in his eyes). Joan gently reminds him that he dreamed of a blue box and wrote about it in his journal. His face collapses and he starts to cry "Why can't I be John Smith? That's all I want to be, with his life and his job, and...(here he turns and looks to Joan) and his love. Isn't he a good man?" God this is a hard scene and his anger at the choice he has to make starts coming out as he lashes out at Martha, this won't be the last time.
--Finally, they find safety in an abandoned house and here is where it comes to an end. John once again lashes out at Martha because she doesn't know what to do. He yells what is she to him, what does she do for him. She says she travels with him because he is lonely, and John asks why she would want him to become that. She can't answer. Here Tim comes knocking, saying the watch drew him here, it wants to be opened and says so beautifully what the Doctor is in the quote that opens this post. After the family starts to bomb the village, John grabs the watch, and for a split second you want to cheer as the Doctor finally comes though and talks for the first time. The joy is short lived as John's face crumples and he is gripped by fear, "Is that him, is that how he talks?" Left alone John and Joan say a goodbye that neither will admit to. They both know what must be done. Touching the watch together, we see the last temptation of John Smith as a beautiful, normal life flashes before their eyes. A simple life of love and children and the relief as he dies of old age before Joan. That, finally, he is the one to leave instead of being left.
--We don't see him change but we know that the John Smith who enters the Families craft offering the watch, just take "HIM" away and leave the village in peace is actually the Doctor playing John and it is so. He punishes them. A chilling voice over and quick scenes of their punishments follow, and then we follow the Doctor as Joan meets him for the first time. Another powerful scene follows. And then it has one more ending. You just need to see it for yourself. It really drains you with the power of it.
This episode just seemed to open up the writers to explore every heartbreaking aspect of the Doctor.
Donna Nobles first trip with the Doctor followed with this quote:
The Doctor: Some things are fixed, some things are in a flux. Pompeii is fixed. Donna Noble: How do you know which is which? The Doctor: That's how I see the universe. Every waking second, I can see: what is, what was, what could be, what must not. That's the burden of a Time Lord, Donna. And I'm the only one left.
But she begs him, he doesn't have to save everyone, just save someone. PLEASE!
In The Next Doctor when he is traveling alone he admits that when his companions leave or he loses them that they break his heart. Maybe it is just easier to travel alone.
When in Utopia, I got so excited when I realized who Professor Yana was that I was jumping around the living room. I knew that John Simm (who gives DT a run for the money in the dishy department) was playing the Master but I did not know how he was introduced. Because of that I was delightfully surprised.
He has a heart to heart with Wilf in The End of Time, Part One. Wilf can see that the loneliness is tearing him up, that he is doing things, making mistakes that he wouldn't make if he had someone to care far. That Donna is so sad without him, even though she doesn't know why.
Scene after scene in episode after episode, he just breaks my heart the same way his companions break his. Just wonderful. As I was watching, marathoning huge chunks of it, I felt bad for those who had to wait weeks or months between episodes. Until now because that has come to bite me in the ass. Now, after only a few short months, I am not ready to say goodbye to David Tennant. I have yet to be able to bring myself to watch The End of Time, Part Two. I don't want to meet Matt Smith. I know I will. There are all new adventures for me to share with this new Doctor, but I will forever remember that David was my first Doctor in a way that none of the others were. I have been watching some of the older episodes and you can see where the well-spring is that David drunk so deep from. The melancholy, the back story, the depth of feeling, the emotion, the love of his companions, all there. It just needed the correct writers and the right actor to bring it life. So thanks David and Russell T Davies for bringing Doctor Who back to life... it has been a hell of a trip.
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