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wintercompanion2012-03-14 11:19 pm
wojelah.livejournal.com) wrote in wintercompanion2012-03-14 11:19 pm
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Meta Month of March: Ep Discussion: Bad Wolf/Parting of the Ways
We were together, we were laughing,...
... and then it all fell apart. Oh, my heart.
Consider the Doctor, waking up without his companions, with complete strangers, meeting the threat head on, analytically, cold and very much the Oncoming Storm. Don't tempt me, he says - and that tone's not so much a warning as a promise. And yet, even then, he can spare kindness. You're sweet, he tells Lynda-with-a-y.
Consider Jack. All of Jack, in glorious, if carefully edited, technicolor. And when you've picked your tongues up off the floor, consider the rest of Jack, who starts right out at Nice to meet you ladies, and proceeds to fondling plastic robot breasts. Only, even naked in front of millions of viewers, Jack's just full of surprises. You really don't want to know, he says, and that tells you almost everything you need to know.
It's never a question that the two of them are going to get free - there's never any real doubt. And when they do find each other - there's no time lost explaining. They know what the next priority is, and Jack hands over that lovely wristband of his without so much as blinking, because that's the necessary next step. They're just entirely in sync.
And even then, even with both of those gorgeous brains working in tandem, they're still too late. And when the Doctor just breaks, it's Jack who's there standing over him, baring his teeth at the world. Just like, when it's time for action, it's the Doctor who gives Jack the order to go that the Captain so desperately needs.
Even once they make it to Floor 500 - even then, they're still in tandem. The Doctor has the room well under control, and Jack - Jack finds the TARDIS. And then he finds hope. And when he gives it back to the Doctor... oh, the joy in their faces. Those are two men who don't necessarily expect the universe to be kind, and to see them delight in it together - that's just such a thing to watch.
These eps - they aren't kind, though, and even though our heroes get to kick off the second part with a daring rescue, it all falls to bits so, so fast. There's barely time to appreciate the revelations - Jack learning the Time War's no myth, that the Doctor was there - all these truths, with so little time to process.
They're soldiers, men at war, and they know what has to be done. They don't look for protection, and they don't expect to live, and that last/first/only kiss - it says so very much. And they're both sending people to their deaths, coolly and calmly. With pain and regret, but without hesitation. And without ever openly telling them that's what's going on.
And then the end, which just always hurts. The Doctor as a coward, in more ways than one. Jack's last stand, and the betrayal when he comes back to life. It's just so hard, and I'm so sorry, because I really do lose coherence at this point. :P
Never doubted him, never will.
Coward, every time.
Oh, my heart.
What do you think? How did Jack get their biometrics into that wristband? What made him decide to do it? How do you read the dynamic in the scene where Jack tells the Doctor to patch the wristband into the system - is the Doctor really angry? Is Jack really chastised? Or is it a friend letting another friend have the outlet he needs?
Jack jumps at the order to go - at this point in their relationship, is there anything he wouldn't do, if the Doctor said go? He doesn't kill the guards, I'd note - and I wonder if he might have, before he joined Team TARDIS. And is "fully functional forcefield" a sign of the Doctor rubbing off on Jack, or is Jack just really a dork at heart?
Was Jack really caught in a blunder when he reveals the extrapolator's limitations? Or is that another moment of banter - or something more calculated, to go along with the Doctor's patter? Why would savvy Jack let something like that slip? Is he just rattled?
When does Jack really grasp that the Doctor was in the Time War - what that must mean about who the Doctor is? Why hasn't the Doctor told Jack before that? What happens, after the door closes on the Emperor Dalek and the Doctor has to pause for breath?
Is the Doctor taking advantage of Jack? What's the message in that fleeting kiss? What does Jack's avowal of utter faith do to the Doctor? How does it factor into his refusal to push the lever? Is the Doctor thinking about it as he runs away? And what, oh what, does Jack go through when he realizes the Doctor's not coming back?
There's that moment of hesitation when Jack grasps the Doctor's plan - when he realizes that this is a Delta Wave they're talking about. But is it hesitation? Certainly we never see it again.
Does Jack guess that the Doctor will send Rose away? At what point does Jack conclude they're not walking away from this? By the time the Emperor Dalek calls the Doctor on it, he's clearly unsurprised. And is it practicality or kindness that makes Jack let the programmers and staff live with the hope that they might live through this? Is it the same thing motivating the Doctor when it comes to Lynda?
... and then it all fell apart. Oh, my heart.
Consider the Doctor, waking up without his companions, with complete strangers, meeting the threat head on, analytically, cold and very much the Oncoming Storm. Don't tempt me, he says - and that tone's not so much a warning as a promise. And yet, even then, he can spare kindness. You're sweet, he tells Lynda-with-a-y.
Consider Jack. All of Jack, in glorious, if carefully edited, technicolor. And when you've picked your tongues up off the floor, consider the rest of Jack, who starts right out at Nice to meet you ladies, and proceeds to fondling plastic robot breasts. Only, even naked in front of millions of viewers, Jack's just full of surprises. You really don't want to know, he says, and that tells you almost everything you need to know.
It's never a question that the two of them are going to get free - there's never any real doubt. And when they do find each other - there's no time lost explaining. They know what the next priority is, and Jack hands over that lovely wristband of his without so much as blinking, because that's the necessary next step. They're just entirely in sync.
And even then, even with both of those gorgeous brains working in tandem, they're still too late. And when the Doctor just breaks, it's Jack who's there standing over him, baring his teeth at the world. Just like, when it's time for action, it's the Doctor who gives Jack the order to go that the Captain so desperately needs.
Even once they make it to Floor 500 - even then, they're still in tandem. The Doctor has the room well under control, and Jack - Jack finds the TARDIS. And then he finds hope. And when he gives it back to the Doctor... oh, the joy in their faces. Those are two men who don't necessarily expect the universe to be kind, and to see them delight in it together - that's just such a thing to watch.
These eps - they aren't kind, though, and even though our heroes get to kick off the second part with a daring rescue, it all falls to bits so, so fast. There's barely time to appreciate the revelations - Jack learning the Time War's no myth, that the Doctor was there - all these truths, with so little time to process.
They're soldiers, men at war, and they know what has to be done. They don't look for protection, and they don't expect to live, and that last/first/only kiss - it says so very much. And they're both sending people to their deaths, coolly and calmly. With pain and regret, but without hesitation. And without ever openly telling them that's what's going on.
And then the end, which just always hurts. The Doctor as a coward, in more ways than one. Jack's last stand, and the betrayal when he comes back to life. It's just so hard, and I'm so sorry, because I really do lose coherence at this point. :P
Never doubted him, never will.
Coward, every time.
Oh, my heart.
What do you think? How did Jack get their biometrics into that wristband? What made him decide to do it? How do you read the dynamic in the scene where Jack tells the Doctor to patch the wristband into the system - is the Doctor really angry? Is Jack really chastised? Or is it a friend letting another friend have the outlet he needs?
Jack jumps at the order to go - at this point in their relationship, is there anything he wouldn't do, if the Doctor said go? He doesn't kill the guards, I'd note - and I wonder if he might have, before he joined Team TARDIS. And is "fully functional forcefield" a sign of the Doctor rubbing off on Jack, or is Jack just really a dork at heart?
Was Jack really caught in a blunder when he reveals the extrapolator's limitations? Or is that another moment of banter - or something more calculated, to go along with the Doctor's patter? Why would savvy Jack let something like that slip? Is he just rattled?
When does Jack really grasp that the Doctor was in the Time War - what that must mean about who the Doctor is? Why hasn't the Doctor told Jack before that? What happens, after the door closes on the Emperor Dalek and the Doctor has to pause for breath?
Is the Doctor taking advantage of Jack? What's the message in that fleeting kiss? What does Jack's avowal of utter faith do to the Doctor? How does it factor into his refusal to push the lever? Is the Doctor thinking about it as he runs away? And what, oh what, does Jack go through when he realizes the Doctor's not coming back?
There's that moment of hesitation when Jack grasps the Doctor's plan - when he realizes that this is a Delta Wave they're talking about. But is it hesitation? Certainly we never see it again.
Does Jack guess that the Doctor will send Rose away? At what point does Jack conclude they're not walking away from this? By the time the Emperor Dalek calls the Doctor on it, he's clearly unsurprised. And is it practicality or kindness that makes Jack let the programmers and staff live with the hope that they might live through this? Is it the same thing motivating the Doctor when it comes to Lynda?
no subject
Interesting question, and it's made me think about the whole pair of episodes in a new way. Because you're right, Jack and the Doctor are perfectly in sync up until that comment. I wonder if it might be seen as a pivot-point of sorts, at which the rapport they shared in "Boom Town" and "Bad Wolf" starts to fall apart, culminating of course in the Doctor's leaving Jack behind. Looking backward through "Boom Town" and even the tail-end of "The Doctor Dances," I want to say this is the first time since joining the team that Jack has botched up a cue from the Doctor. I think it's a genuine mistake, not a plan, but I wouldn't necessarily call it a slip on his part, more that the cue is one he's unfamiliar with. Imagine the same exchange occurring against a less formidable enemy, say an army of Slitheen. In my mind, it would go something like this:
THE DOCTOR: This force-field will hold back anything.
JACK: Almost anything.
THE DOCTOR: Well, yes, but I seriously doubt the Slitheen are carrying sonic disruptors.
SLITHEEN (producing a sonic disruptor): Oh, you mean this old thing?
THE DOCTOR (grinning maniacally): Run!
(They duck to safety in the TARDIS, then spend the next thirty seconds bickering over whose fault it is that the Slitheen have discovered the force-field's weakness. Meanwhile, Rose formulates a cunning plan to save the day without any major character deaths or Emergency Programme One)
Essentially, if they were up against anything less than Daleks, his comment would have fit right in with the carefree banter we see in "Boom Town." But they're up against Daleks. This isn't a romp for adrenaline junkies anymore; it's Time War business, and as much as Jack contributes under normal circumstances, he simply isn't qualified to play in this league. That's what his slip-up regarding the force field shows--and again, it's not so much that he slipped as that the Doctor's firing on all cylinders now, and even Jack can't quite keep up with a Time Lord brain on overdrive. Besides, while Jack and the Doctor might have made a fantastic team, the Oncoming Storm is a commander, not a comrade. So Jack falls back a step, from a near-equal (or at least playfully competitive) position into loyal-soldier mode. Instead of continuing to split challenges equally (i.e. escaping the games and finding each other, working together to find Rose, the Doctor confronting employees on Floor 500 while Jack goes after the TARDIS, etc.) Jack takes the supporting role of buying the Doctor time while the Doctor implements a plan he hasn't fully explained. And of course, that line. *hearts that line*