30 Days of Doctor Who – Day 16

Finally, it’s back. My 30 Days of Doctor Who! Like I’ve said – I never said they’d be consecutive days! But I’m going to do my best to get these out to you on a more regular basis…

DAY 16 – Favorite Martha Moment

Martha Evangelizes The Doctor in “The Last of the Time Lords”

The Doctor trusts Martha absolutely, and with good reason. She’s the most intelligent companion he’s ever had; a doctor herself (or, almost a doctor, at any rate). She has integrity. She values her family. And yes, she loves The Doctor, which also means that she will trust him completely and do for him and stand by him when others won’t. This does not make her weak. In fact, for a while it makes her the most badass person on Earth.

My favorite Martha Jones moment is this one, where she’s on the stairs telling the people she meets about The Doctor:

The line “My name isn’t important” kills me, because it speaks to her absolute faith in The Doctor, and I’m a sucker for absolute faith. I’ve never understood those who dislike Martha because she “pines for The Doctor” too much. Love isn’t weakness, nor does it makes you less. When it’s true, when it’s real, it can make you stronger than you ever believed possible. It can help you accomplish things you’ve never dreamed. It can give you the strength to walk the Earth and save the human race. Requited or not.

And once you realize how strong your heart is, once love teaches you how far your heart can go, you can also find the strength to walk away, which is exactly what Martha does. Love doesn’t need to be returned to be useful to you. And in this moment, Martha teaches us that. She knows The Doctor doesn’t feel the same way about her that she does about him, but it doesn’t matter. The Doctor not loving her back doesn’t make him horrible any more than her continued love of The Doctor makes her stupid or weak. He continues to be the brilliant, wonderful person she fell in love with, and she will do what she has to do to help him do what he needs to do. She puts him first, because she loves him, and because it’s the right thing to do. Selflessness isn’t weakness, and in the end it’s her selflessness, more than a rejeuvenated Doctor, that saves the world.

30 Days of Doctor Who – Day 15

DAY 15 – Favorite Rose Moment

Rose As Lady Cassandra

My favorite Rose moment technically wasn’t a Rose Moment at all. It was more of a Billie Piper moment. It was the moment I realized what a wonderful actress she actually is.  When Lady Cassandra, the “last human,” possesses Rose’s body in “New Earth,” we see the mousey, average Rose turn into a sultry, sarcastic version of herself; a version who’s funny and who gets to kiss The Doctor!

And then there’s the part where Cassandra (in Rose’s body), having temporarily occupied the body of a human plague victim and learned the error of her ways, agrees to finally die in the body of her aid, Chip, and we see an even deeper performance from Piper that impressed me greatly. “New Earth” was one of my favorite episodes, and Billie Piper as Rose was one of my favorite things about it.

Also, Rose kisses The Doctor. Hot, right?

30 Days of Doctor Who – Day 14

DAY 14 – Favorite Doctor Moment

“I’m The Doctor. Basically, run.”

Perhaps it’s because Series 5 was the first season I was able to start along with everyone else. Perhaps it’s because Matt Smith’s was the first regeneration I watched as it happened and not on DVD years after the fact. But my favorite Doctor moment, more than any time he’s ever been clever or funny, more than any time he’s saved the world or died tragically, is the moment at the end of “The Eleventh Hour” when the Eleventh Doctor chooses his clothes and fully becomes The Doctor.

My Doctor. Not the first Doctor I’d ever seen (that’d be Nine), but the first I got to experience in real-time. I think that’s one of the many reasons why I love Eleven so much. In addition to all the personality traits I enjoy – his ease with children, his seamless blend of wisdom and youth – I love the fact that I got in on the ground floor. He is the first Doctor about whom I got to form opinions without hearing anyone else’s first. And when he asks the Atraxi if the Earth is protected, and they replayed footage from each of the Doctors before him, it is as if they were reliving my experience with Doctor Who. All that previously recorded footage, and now here’s this new guy standing in front of me with all that history behind him and totally ready to kick ass.

Except I’m not running anywhere.

30 Days of Doctor Who – Day 13

DAY 13 – Favorite Era visited by The Doctor & Co.

This is a difficult one to answer! Is the meme asking about my favorite EARTH era that The Doctor has visited? Also, which timeline are we talking about?

Such a temporal/species-centric question!

For the sake of simplicity, I’ll stick to Earth history…

The Far Future

I’m more intrigued by the future than I am by the past, and what sealed the deal for me as far as being a Whovian was the second episode of New Who, “The End of the World,” where we get to see what it would be like to experience a time beyond human existence through Rose. It is such an enormous, yet exciting concept for me, which makes episodes like this one, “New Earth”, “The Impossible Planet”/”The Satan Pit”, or “Utopia”/”The Sound of Drums” fascinating to me. I’m much more interested in seeing the possibilities in where we’ll go as a species, rather than interacting with where we’ve already been.

I guess that’s why I’m more of an aliens/spaceships kind of a girl and less of a Hobbit/dragon/broadsword kind of a girl, because if I had a time machine, that’s where I’d want to go. Which is strange, because I’m not interested in my personal future – like, I wouldn’t want to know when/where/how I’m going to die – but I’m desperately interested in where humanity is going to be in a million years. If it exists at all.

So that’s my favorite Doctor Who era – Humanity’s Far Future. I think what I love most of all about science fiction is the idea that humanity will always be kicking and screaming somewhere in the universe (even if we have to be suspended on racks and moisturized, or pumped with every disease). I love the idea that we’re here to stay.

30 Days of Doctor Who – Day 12

DAY 12 – Scene/Moment That Makes You Giggle

The Doctor As a Woman

The idea of The Doctor being a woman doesn’t make me giggle, but the The Doctor playing a woman does, mostly because in the two times I’ve seen him do it (I’m only in the middle of Tom Baker now as far as Classic Who), he (rather, the actors) seem to be having so much fun!

The first time was Jon Pertwee as the Third Doctor dressing up as a cleaning lady in order to hide in “The Green Death.” His outfit, in which he made a convincing older lady, coupled with the voice he did, amused me muchly.

However, there was nothing quite like the Tenth Doctor being possessed by Cassandra in “New Earth!” No drag required – just a really thin man in a well-tailored suit shaking his hips for all it was worth. His voice, too, was perfect, and the performance was EPIC. Comic gold. And “New Earth” is one of my favorite Doctor Who episodes for this, and many other reasons. The same goes for “The Green Death.”

But really, I guess I just have a thing for The Doctor playing with gender!

And now, here’s a picture of Matt Smith in drag. I can only hope that drag will be incorporated into his tenure as the Eleventh Doctor!

30 Days of Doctor Who – Day 11

DAY 11 – Scene/Moment That Makes You Cry

“The End of Time” – I don’t want to go!

I cried several times during David Tennant’s final episode of Doctor Who, but it was his final moment just before regenerating that made me bawl like a little girl. When he says “I don’t want to go!”, it is one of the purest moments of approaching death that I’ve ever seen. So often on television, people face death so bravely and with such acceptance that I can’t believe it after a while. If you love being alive – and Ten loved being alive, while I believed Nine was ready to go, because he wanted to save Rose – then knowing you’re going to die is a frightening, horrible thing. Yes, The Doctor regenerates, and yes, all of his incarnations are the same person. However, it makes sense that each personality would react to regeneration differently, and I thought it was very brave on Russell T. Davies’ part to really examine what the death of an incarnation means to The Doctor; to have The Doctor be not so accepting or brave for once.

To have him be really human.

I wrote about the episode immediately after it aired here at this blog and on Tor.com, and Ten’s final moment continues to be the moment that made me weep buckets. Vincent Van Gogh seeing his work at the Musee d’Orsay in “Vincent and The Doctor” came close…but “I don’t want to go!” still wins that contest.

30 Days of Doctor Who – Day 10

DAY 10 – Favorite Scene/Moment

The end of “The Doctor Dances”

The time from when The Doctor saves everyone, including Nancy’s son, to his celebratory dance with Rose on the TARDIS at the end of “The Doctor Dances,” is my favorite moment in Doctor Who, because it is such an earned happy moment.

The Ninth Doctor, who was my first, was a complicated character in that he is the first incarnation we meet after the Time War and the destruction of Time Lord civilization. For him, those events are excruciatingly recent, and it’s made this particular version of the Doctor dark. He is cautious and emotionally guarded a lot of the time. He’s become cynical, which is rare for The Doctor, who continues to save humanity because he has so much hope.

But then, in this episode, for the first time in a long time, “Everybody lives!” It was such a pure, joyful moment, precicely because the viewer feels that the Doctor deserves a victory. I loved Christopher Eccleston’s performance in this role, because he played it with such gravitas, so that whenever a smile bursts onto his face, it means something! And then, when he dances with Rose on the TARDIS, after having been reluctant about dancing earlier in the episode, we see that there’s been a fundamental shift in him. Rose, and this victory, have reminded him of the hopeful part of himself he thought was long gone. Also? The Doctor has moves!

So, yeah. The end of “The Doctor Dances” is my favorite moment in Doctor Who. I mean, come on. Look at The Doctor’s face:

30 Days of Doctor Who – Day 9

Day 9 – Least Favorite Episode

The Web Planet

OK, so there are these bug people…on a planet. And um, The Doctor is, like, trying to talk to them I guess…? And um…

*bleary eyes*

…Ian is hot, in a dashing 1960s kind of a way. And I like Vicki. She’s what Susan should’ve been. And Barbara’s always awesome. But yes, back to the bugs…oh, and Barbara has this bracelet that the bugs talk to her through? And there are different kinds of bugs…because…

*YAWN*

And something-something different bugs at war with each other. And something-something crotchety, douchey Doctor, and something-something….

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

NOT from "The Web Planet", but it was one of the few quality pics I could find with all of them in it.

I’ve fallen asleep watching Doctor Who before…because I was tired. I fell asleep during “The Web Planet” because it was SO. FUCKING. BORING. It was either fall asleep, or tear off my own face. And the following day, I had access to the DVDs to try to pick up where I left off…but I didn’t. I just couldn’t bring myself to watch it that day. Or the next. Or the next. It was too huge a struggle to put the DVD in the player, because of the sheer enormity of the boredom that I knew would befall me if I pressed ‘Play.’

If you want some quality First Doctor stories, check out “The Aztecs,” “The Romans,” or “The War Machines.” But do not, under any circumstances, watch “The Web Planet.”

That is, unless you need a sleep aid.

And you can’t get to a pharmacy.

And you don’t have alcohol.

And your friend won’t punch you in the face to knock you out.

30 Days of Doctor Who – Day 8

Day 8 – Favorite Series

Series 3 of New Who

“Smith and Jones”, “The Shakespeare Code”, “Gridlock”, “Daleks in Manhattan”, “Evolution of the Daleks”, “The Lazarus Experiment”, “42″, “Human Nature”, “The Family of Blood”, “Blink”, “Utopia”, “The Sound of Drums”, “Last of the Time Lords.”

Series 3 of the new Doctor Who is a series where even the uneven episodes tackle themes and issues that are important, and are about more than mere frolicking through time and space in a blue box.

Not that there are many uneven episodes. The reason why Series 3 stands out as my favorite is because it contains many of my favorite episodes. “Human Nature” and “The Family of Blood” (which I praised as my favorite episodes HERE) and “Blink” (whose heroine I praised HERE) are my top three. However, I also love “Smith and Jones”, which provides a wonderful introduction to the fabulous Martha Jones, as well as the equally fabulous Judoon. “The Shakespeare Code” is just sheer fun. Who wouldn’t want to hang out with Shakespeare if they could? “Gridlock” was a surprising and emotionally affecting story that I loved because it examined faith in an interesting and heartfelt way.  “Utopia”, “The Sound of Drums”, and “The Last of the Time Lords” feature The Master, Doctor Who’s most complex and thrilling villain (played impeccably by both Derek Jacobi and John Simm), Martha at her most extraordinary (how anyone can hate on her after she walked the Earth in order to save the universe is beyond me!), and The Doctor at the height of his faith in humanity. He completely puts his life in the hands of Martha (again) and the world, because he trusts that they will do what they need to do and step up when the time comes.

“The Daleks in Manhattan”/”Evolution of the Daleks” had a lot wrong with them (not the least of which was huge historical inaccuracies and Noo Yawk accents that were horrendous), but the idea of a Human-Dalek hybrid like Dalek Sec is hugely interesting to me – that being human is about more than our cultures or environments; that there is something innate down to our DNA that makes us who we are. “The Lazarus Experiment” and “42″ are filler standalone episodes, but they’re quality filler, both dealing with human survival at any cost. Even these seemingly weak episodes have something to offer.

So there you have it – Series 3 of new Doctor Who is my favorite season of the show for its near perfect, consistent quality, and the ideas and themes explored.

30 Days of Doctor Who – Day 7

Day 7 – Favorite Episode

“Human Nature”/”The Family of Blood”

My favorite episode of Doctor Who is actually a two-parter by one of my favorite writers, Paul Cornell. “Human Nature” and “The Family of Blood” tells the story of The Doctor and Martha hiding from a group of aliens that have attacked them, needing The Doctor’s Time Lord life force to stay alive. In order to escape them, The Doctor hides out with Martha in 1913. The trick? In order for The Doctor to be untraceable to this family of aliens, who can smell out his life force, he contains his Time Lord essence in a fob watch that he entrusts to Martha, and lives a life for three months as a human being named John Smith. He has a career as a teacher at an all-boys school, he falls in love with a woman named Joan Redfern, and he lives a life of quiet wonder that The Doctor never gets a chance to have. Meanwhile, he has entrusted Martha with his life, which she protects with hers as she lives a humiliating life as a maid watching the man she loves fall in love with someone else.

I love this story, because we get to see The Doctor live as the species he so admires. It isn’t just that he falls in love – though his relationship with Joan is beautiful and heartbreaking – but that he gets to be human. He gets to understand what that really means.

I love this story, because we get to see how strong Martha is. So many people see Martha as weak because of her feelings for The Doctor, but it is her enormous heart and the way she owns her feelings so fearlessly that make her strong. When she believes in something, she will fight for it. This first big mission of hers guarding the fob watch (and The Doctor’s existence as a Time Lord) prepared her for evangelizing The Doctor later on in order to defeat The Master. This story shows Martha at her best.

I love this story because The Family of Blood is frightening, and yet, really charming. The way they refer to each other as “Son of Mine” and “Father of Mine”; the way the son sniffs around like an animal for The Doctor; the way they kill people and use the bodies to walk around and communicate.

I love the little runt of a boy who ends up helping The Doctor and Martha, and though he isn’t the best in military training along with the rest of the boys in school, he ends up fighting in the war when he’s older and becoming a war hero.

I love that The Doctor makes the most difficult decision of his life by choosing to give up his humanity. And I love that we get to see him at his most ferocious. He punishes each member of the Family of Blood by giving them exactly what they wanted: immortality. But he gives them this in the coldest way possible, and it sent a chill up my spine to watch him be that way.

Also, there were evil scarecrows. How could you not love evil scarecrows?

So there you have it, “Human Nature” and “The Family of Blood” are my favorite episodes of Doctor Who. Incidentally, the episodes are based on Paul Cornell’s Docotr Who novel, also called Human Nature, for those who care to read it!