Doctor Who 30.06: "The Doctor's Daughter"
May. 14th, 2008 07:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
annathepiperWell now, that was fun, and isn't this a new and interesting wrinkle thrown into the universe, eh?
Looks like we have another example in this episode of the TARDIS being semi-sentient--because its own initiative is pretty much the reason for why it abruptly jumped off to this episode's plotline before Martha could depart. And, sensing the presence of a brand new Time (what the hell DO you call a female Time Lord, anyway?) Lord in the timelines, built out of the Doctor's own DNA, is a pretty damned good reason for it to go scampering off on its own volition, I'd say.
So, yeah. "Unauthorized clone" is the option taken for how the Doctor gets some offspring, and it amuses me that they went this route; it seems to actually fit in well with not only the general flavor of the show, but also what I've read on various Wikipedia pages about the history of Gallifrey. To wit, that the Time Lords as a species had grown sterile and had to resort to reconstituting genetic material to making offspring. I don't know how actual canon that is--but that's certainly what I thought of here. And it does open up all sorts of amusing questions about the potential to rebuild the species.
I do have to call a bit of shenanigans on the Doctor being the only one that the human troops spun off a clone from, though. ;) I should think that if they were that anxious to bolster their numbers, they'd have done Martha and Donna as well at their earliest opportunity--or at least, Donna.
As for the war plot in general, I found it kind of weak. I did like the whole idea that the conflict had only spanned the last seven days, though, and that the various generations of fighters had been so quickly generated; above and beyond that, though, not really much to work with. I was also a bit disappointed that Martha had no real reason to be in this plot. Sure, she has some good moments re-locating the shoulder of the wounded Hath soldier, and the interactions between them are good... but she ultimately doesn't contribute much to the resolution of the plot.
Donna fares better. I continue to appreciate that her strength is dealing with information and with numbers, and it was good to see her cluing in about the dates posted in various sections of the complex. I also liked her being the prod to get the Doctor to be less snippy at Jenny...
Which of course brings me back to Jenny, who is after all the huge, huge center of this episode. According to the episode's Wikipedia page, people have been saying in reviews that they wish Jenny had gotten a better plot to debut in... and I have to concur. The creation of offspring of the Doctor needed at the very least a two-parter. As it stands, this particular episode felt rushed and crammed.
That said, though, Georgia Moffett does a delightful job playing Jenny. She's absolutely charming, and her smile is a thing of beauty, and she totally looks like her father Peter Davison--while at the same time giving us a wonderful channeling of various Tennant mannerisms in her Jenny portrayal. I was quite delighted at the scene where Donna and the Doctor discover she does indeed have two hearts: evidence that she is a lot more like the Doctor than he wants to admit. And I quite liked Jenny deciding she very much liked the "running" part of what her father does.
And, as an intriguing side note, I did note that the Doctor admitted to Donna that he "was a father once". This certainly implies that Jenny isn't destined to pull amusing time tricks and become the mother of Susan, which vaguely disappoints me... but nevertheless it was good to get a hint of background there. I do rather wonder if RTD and the other writers will continue to feed us little bits of background as the series continues.
Last but not least--HAH, no surprise at all that Jenny revived at the end. ;) I don't know if I can call it a regeneration, since she didn't change appearance, and it's not clear in the episode whether that little bit of glowing exhalation she did was the same thing we saw happening to the Doctor when he last regenerated, whether it was more related to the terraforming gasses, or both. An interesting theory was raised in my household as well that Jenny didn't change appearance because she's so new an organism that she has no other real template for what else she might look like, too.
All in all a weaker episode than I would have liked, but hee, Jenny's bit at the end did make it worth the price of admission.
Looks like we have another example in this episode of the TARDIS being semi-sentient--because its own initiative is pretty much the reason for why it abruptly jumped off to this episode's plotline before Martha could depart. And, sensing the presence of a brand new Time (what the hell DO you call a female Time Lord, anyway?) Lord in the timelines, built out of the Doctor's own DNA, is a pretty damned good reason for it to go scampering off on its own volition, I'd say.
So, yeah. "Unauthorized clone" is the option taken for how the Doctor gets some offspring, and it amuses me that they went this route; it seems to actually fit in well with not only the general flavor of the show, but also what I've read on various Wikipedia pages about the history of Gallifrey. To wit, that the Time Lords as a species had grown sterile and had to resort to reconstituting genetic material to making offspring. I don't know how actual canon that is--but that's certainly what I thought of here. And it does open up all sorts of amusing questions about the potential to rebuild the species.
I do have to call a bit of shenanigans on the Doctor being the only one that the human troops spun off a clone from, though. ;) I should think that if they were that anxious to bolster their numbers, they'd have done Martha and Donna as well at their earliest opportunity--or at least, Donna.
As for the war plot in general, I found it kind of weak. I did like the whole idea that the conflict had only spanned the last seven days, though, and that the various generations of fighters had been so quickly generated; above and beyond that, though, not really much to work with. I was also a bit disappointed that Martha had no real reason to be in this plot. Sure, she has some good moments re-locating the shoulder of the wounded Hath soldier, and the interactions between them are good... but she ultimately doesn't contribute much to the resolution of the plot.
Donna fares better. I continue to appreciate that her strength is dealing with information and with numbers, and it was good to see her cluing in about the dates posted in various sections of the complex. I also liked her being the prod to get the Doctor to be less snippy at Jenny...
Which of course brings me back to Jenny, who is after all the huge, huge center of this episode. According to the episode's Wikipedia page, people have been saying in reviews that they wish Jenny had gotten a better plot to debut in... and I have to concur. The creation of offspring of the Doctor needed at the very least a two-parter. As it stands, this particular episode felt rushed and crammed.
That said, though, Georgia Moffett does a delightful job playing Jenny. She's absolutely charming, and her smile is a thing of beauty, and she totally looks like her father Peter Davison--while at the same time giving us a wonderful channeling of various Tennant mannerisms in her Jenny portrayal. I was quite delighted at the scene where Donna and the Doctor discover she does indeed have two hearts: evidence that she is a lot more like the Doctor than he wants to admit. And I quite liked Jenny deciding she very much liked the "running" part of what her father does.
And, as an intriguing side note, I did note that the Doctor admitted to Donna that he "was a father once". This certainly implies that Jenny isn't destined to pull amusing time tricks and become the mother of Susan, which vaguely disappoints me... but nevertheless it was good to get a hint of background there. I do rather wonder if RTD and the other writers will continue to feed us little bits of background as the series continues.
Last but not least--HAH, no surprise at all that Jenny revived at the end. ;) I don't know if I can call it a regeneration, since she didn't change appearance, and it's not clear in the episode whether that little bit of glowing exhalation she did was the same thing we saw happening to the Doctor when he last regenerated, whether it was more related to the terraforming gasses, or both. An interesting theory was raised in my household as well that Jenny didn't change appearance because she's so new an organism that she has no other real template for what else she might look like, too.
All in all a weaker episode than I would have liked, but hee, Jenny's bit at the end did make it worth the price of admission.
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no subject
Date: 2008-05-15 03:56 am (UTC)I quite liked the bit at the end where the Doctor didn't shoot whassisface, and says "I never would". The speechifying afterwards was a bit much.
I'm really wanting to like the next one more than I've liked any Doctor Who episode, because in my from-home job, the guy who wrote it is a co-worker. (How cool is that?) He wrote the Shakespeare Code as well, and I really loved that one.
no subject
Date: 2008-05-15 04:02 am (UTC)Yeah, the failure to shoot the guy was good, and I liked that the Doctor for an instant looked like he was almost about to do it... since if anything could provoke the Doctor into taking a life, I'd lay odds that having his daughter take a bullet for him would do it. But yes, the speechifying was a little over the top.
Oo! Coworker? Seriously? Cool! I liked The Shakespeare Code quite a bit myself. :D
no subject
Date: 2008-05-15 04:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-05-15 06:13 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-05-15 06:16 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-05-15 07:26 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-05-15 07:57 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-05-15 04:46 pm (UTC)Regeneration comes from the energy in a Time Lord (or Lady)'s cells, right? Enough energy to rebuild their body twelve times, for thirteen total regenerations. We know the energy is not wholly naturally occurring, since (in the Five Doctors), the High Council of Gallifrey tries to bribe the Master into working for them by promising him a new set of regenerations.
We also know this energy comes from the Eye of Harmony. Jenny post-dates the destruction of the Eye; the vast power of the controlled black hole in the heart of Gallifrey, linked to all TARDIS engines, was what used to allow Time Lords to punch through the different walls of reality, and the whole Cyber-arc established that Doc can't do that anymore. I'd say we can thus assume the Eye is gone or inaccessible, and thus Jenny's never had that energy imbued into her. So I can even buy that she cannot regenerate.
However, one of the only remaining fragments of the Eye would be the vortex /in/ the TARDIS, no? And Doc said that the TARDIS brought them there because Jenny was dying, but arrived too early and created her in the first place. But she /was/ therefore exposed (while dying) to the little-fragmentary-Eye, which we've already seen (in Bad Wolf) is still a rather impressive whopping dose of power. Moreover, we know that the little fragment can help heal a Time Lord. (How many times, in the classic series, did an injured Doc rasp out, "Help me to the TARDIS..." and make a quick recovery by the next episode of the serial?)
Thusly, Jenny's recovery makes perfect sense to me. I admit I may be reading too much into it, given our beloved series' own penchant for altering its own continuity. (HOW many times has Doc visited Atlantis? Completely DIFFERENT Atlantises, no less? Three, I think?)
MY question is more... it's been long-established that the TARDIS has a mind (or heart) of its own. Given the TARDIS' loyalty to Doc, and his loneliness, I have to wonder if the paradox of Jenny's creation wasn't deliberately contrived by the TARDIS itself.
How's THAT for an interesting question? :)
no subject
Date: 2008-05-15 04:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-05-16 06:09 am (UTC)(speculation a-hoy!)
I do love the idea of the TARDIS being behind Jenny's creation. After all, he'll need someone there to comfort him when Donna suffers an unspeakable fate at the end of this season. Now that Donna's said she's going to travel with the Doctor forever, she is Doomed (Capital letter intentional).