May. 12th, 2008 @ 04:56 pm The Doctor's Daughter
Tags: , ,
I enjoyed The Doctor's Daughter, though I didn't find it as excellent as the other recent episodes.

* I Loved the Hath
* At first I was bored by the endless war cliche, but it's a classic idea and had a really interesting twist

* I liked Jenny. I'm glad they didn't try to meet Susan's mother, that would have meet too ambitious (the series always left the doctor's past on Gallifrey ambiguous, trying to instantiate it would break too many past references and never live up to the suggestions.) However, I'm glad they used this opportunity to illustrate the doctor's past.

Nitpicks:

* It was very sad when the Hath drowned. And I thought Martha sounded genuinely crying, however, it wasn't very well played, it looked as if he spent ages standing within reach of Martha, and she didn't try to save him, so I was distracted during the moving moment.

* Several moments did seem to be someone reading out a line, rather than really reacting. Donna's "She's a person, not collateral" is the right reaction, but it felt perfunctory.

* I liked the doctor's dislike of soldiery. But he seemed harsher with Jenny that I would have imagined; even if she upsets him for personal reasons, and isn't fully his daughter, he normally goes out of his way to help people. Why did it take longer to accept her?

* How come all the soldiers were men, but Jenny was a woman? As Enismirdal points out, if it recombined genes randomly, you'd get more and more women. And if it deliberately makes men, why weren't they surprised by Jenny (even if you assume time lord genetics are different, so making Jenny is possible). I suppose maybe it was a brief hack to mainly make men, and so doesn't work for some weird genetics or aliens, and they figure that's ok? But it seemed to undermine the episode a bit; they made Jenny such a kick-ass soldier you'd think they supported a message that women can do that too, but then perpetuated a choice of an all-male army in the n00'th century.

* For that matter, why bother recombining DNA at all? Why not just clone the best soldier?

* Lasers. Right. Why not just make a few regular rows of lasers so no-one could possibly get through, rather than a random selection. Or, you know, a door? Or are those lasers for some other implausible reason, not security?

* The escape in the shuttle was sort of nice, I'm glad Jenny gets to see the galaxy, but it seems implausible that it's that easy to take a shuttle and take off. However laudable going and adventuring the galaxy is, if a shuttle can fly interplanetary, what is the spaceship for? And isn't a bit of a nasty thing to do to steal the shuttle and leave everyone else behind? She's supposed to seem impulsive, which is fine, but she seemed dangerously reckless, which presumably isn't the intention.

Non-nitpicks

So all the original people died? Is that likely? Even the women who, apparently, weren't supposed to fight?

Actually, on reflection, that is likely. All the human originals probably banded together at the back for safety and let the clones do the fighting, and then were killed in one attack/disaster. And who says the Hath didn't know what was going on? Maybe they knew they'd been fighting for a week, but didn't speak to the humans other than Martha, who can't speak Bubbling.
About this Entry
Life on mars
Leave a comment
Permanent Link

Add to Memories
Tell a Friend
[User Picture Icon]
From:[info]saraphale
Date: May 12th, 2008 04:48 pm (UTC)
(Permanent Link)
AND! Why did the Hath have a bubbling thing at the front, and not over their gills?

And! Why did Cobb, presumably, come out of the machine a few decades "older" than the others?

I can overlook the randomly changing levels of water in their bubbling jars, though, that would be too nitpicky.

I would also put forward the idea that since the machine examined the subject's DNA and performed hand-wavy science on it, perhaps it also attempted to weed out genetic abnormalities - except, no, that would lead to a bias towards women, wouldn't it? Hrm. How about: The "soldier" template was male, and it modified each instance of the template, doing only a perfunctory job.
From:[info]cartesiandaemon
Date: May 12th, 2008 11:27 pm (UTC)
(Permanent Link)
And! Why did Cobb, presumably, come out of the machine a few decades "older" than the others?

Oh, good point! I hadn't noticed that. (I can think of potential excuses, but they all suck.) Unless maybe he was an original but kept quiet about it, that might also explain why he was so anti peace, if he'd been deliberately perpetuating a myth. But that's not supported by any evidence or anything.

I can overlook the randomly changing levels of water in their bubbling jars, though, that would be too nitpicky.

LOL. Though who says it's random? I assumed the jars were due to a complicated biological reason :) After all, you expect alien species to be weird in ways you don't expect. Maybe it seems more abhorant to an anatomist, but I was happy to say they looked cool and leave it at that.

that would lead to a bias towards women, wouldn't it?

You mean, because the Y gene is a minority? Or because foetuses start female? Or because men are weird?

How about: The "soldier" template was male, and it modified each instance of the template, doing only a perfunctory job.

That sort of makes sense. Or maybe the soldier template was an amalgam of previous soldiers, and hence mostly male, but sometimes a female might be a best match. (Although it's not clear why it has to do anything with genetics at all, surely warm bodies with training are quite sufficient.)
[User Picture Icon]
From:[info]rochvelleth
Date: May 12th, 2008 05:00 pm (UTC)
(Permanent Link)
So are non-nitpicks nitpicks that you immediately refute then? I like it :)

Actually though, why didn't the TARDIS thingy translate bubbling? Or did it? Some of the time Martha seemed not to be able to understand, and some of the time she seemed to almost be having a conversation with a Hath. *shrug*
From:[info]cartesiandaemon
Date: May 12th, 2008 11:33 pm (UTC)
(Permanent Link)
So are non-nitpicks nitpicks that you immediately refute then? I like it :)

Well, I don't think I've used the word before, but yes, that's roughly what I mean. That it looks implausible, enough that I noticed it, and I'm sure other people would bring it up if I didn't, and I think it's arguably a stylistic mistake for the show to invite that question and not answer it, but that it's not actually an inconsistency :)

Actually though, why didn't the TARDIS thingy translate bubbling?

Good point. Presumably some languages are in one way or another sufficiently weird it doesn't translate them; perhaps because it has no basis for the language, or it's untranslatable, or would just be misleading (as in the case of speaking latin to romans), or the character isn't prepared for it (eg. if they communicate partially telepathically, or by gesture, or subsonic noise, etc).

Less seriously: (a) maybe it was translated for the characters but the audio was shown of the original language for style reasons (b) the language is extremely simple and was translated into the body language we saw (c) the language was so simple "bubble" is the best translation :)
[User Picture Icon]
From:[info]hmmm_tea
Date: May 12th, 2008 05:02 pm (UTC)
(Permanent Link)
* For that matter, why bother recombining DNA at all? Why not just clone the best soldier?

They did that last week
From:[info]cartesiandaemon
Date: May 12th, 2008 11:33 pm (UTC)
(Permanent Link)
ROFL. Good point.
From:[info]fhtagn
Date: May 12th, 2008 06:24 pm (UTC)
(Permanent Link)
I'm sure I saw a few female soldiers in there, though I could be wrong. Quick, someone rewatch it!
From:[info]cartesiandaemon
Date: May 12th, 2008 11:34 pm (UTC)
(Permanent Link)
LOL. OK, maybe that's the simplest explanation. No women had speaking parts and I didn't bother to look closely at the mob of squaddies in the background. The stylistic point about not showing them would hold, but it answers the science best. (It might even be best to pretend that they were, even if they weren't shown, to avoid further arguing about genomes :))