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alexiscartwheelAgain this week we had competing choruses of “Best Episode Ever” and “Worst Episode Ever,” but my reaction was more along the lines of… meh. It was amusing, but I wasn’t blown away, and several things just left me confused. More, with much spoilers, under the cut.
“Silence in the Library” left me with lots of questions. Some of the questions were answered, but not all of them. Fandom had already guessed that Donna had been “saved” to a computer, so that wasn’t a surprise. I wasn’t expecting her to play much of a role, so I’m glad she had her storyline. Her world seemed very sinister to me. The supposedly “ideal” life is used to cover up the fact that she’s forgotten who she really is. Not knowing is keeping the people, and CAL, safe, but it still creeps me out. Catherine Tate is fabulous as usual. She packed in so much emotion as Donna tries to hang on as the world falls apart around her. Even if she’s been manipulated into thinking and feeling a certain way, it still seems real to her.
I was glad to see Miss Evangelista pop up again, rather than just being the bimbo who dies first. Her crazy Gothic novel outfit was pretty awesome. The pretty and stupid versus ugly and brilliant contrast was not so awesome. She says, “I have the two qualities you require to see absolute truth. I am brilliant. An unloved.” Because nobody loves an ugly woman, even if she’s smart. Ugh.
One of the biggest questions was River Song’s identity. On this, we’re pretty much left where we were last week: she’s very important to the Doctor in his future, either as a significant other or as a companion and trusted friend. I think the idea of the Doctor having a non-chronological relationship is really interesting, and it’s wonderful to know that sometime in the future he’ll have someone he loves to have adventures with. (Wouldn’t want him to be lonely, yeah?) As such, I really wanted to like River, but I still didn’t.
Lux says, “You’re just squabbling like an old married couple!” So major hint about what their relationship could be there, but even though Lux plants the suggestion, I just don’t read that into their interaction. Sure, River is comfortable and familiar, but the Doctor seems anything but. He appears frustrated when she flaunts her knowledge of his future self.
At one point River says, “He came when I called, just like he always does. But not my Doctor.” And why did you call him in the first place? For someone who seems to know the Doctor so well, she seems almost ridiculously naïve about him sometimes. It’s not clear whether she knows an older Ten or a future regeneration, but she doesn’t seem to grasp that however different he may be, he’s still the same Doctor. (The same thing the Doctor had to convince Rose in The Christmas Invasion and New Earth.)
When Ten says, “I am the Doctor,” River replies, “Yeah. Someday.” So are Four and Nine and all the rest also not the Doctor, just cause they’re not as cool as your Doctor, River? The huge history is such an important part of who he is. He can’t become the man that River knows without all the previous experience, so it’s irritating hearing her treat the present version with such seeming disdain. I just couldn’t get past my annoyance with her to really care about her.
The Doctor and River’s final scenes together are actually the ones that worked the best for me, with the two of them barking orders back and forth at each other, and the Doctor’s preemptive “Shut up!” I can’t decide whether her sacrifice was incredibly selfless or incredibly selfish. She’d rather die than risk rewriting her timeline so that the Doctor dies and she never knew him. What good is a huge romantic gesture if you end up dead? Then again, she does save 4000 people in the process.
And now the library. I get the trees--> paper--> books thing. The Vashta Nerada hatch from trees, so they hatched from the books, and the library is their forest. But, um, why do they hatch from trees in the first place? Just cause? And so we shouldn’t have books cause they’re full of carnivorous shadows? At the end they download all the people from the data core and teleport them out of the library so the shadows can “swarm to their hearts’ content.” The largest library in the universe, and now no one can go there without being eaten? That’s just depressing.
Lux says they gave CAL “…all of human history to pass the time. Any era to live in, any book to read.” But the world inside the data core doesn’t have anything to do with history or the worlds of great books. It’s just a generic “ideal” life. So, yeah, color me disappointed that the library really was just a setting, and had no actual relevance to the plot. Books are made of paper. Why not just have it in a giant forest? (I guess I’m kinda biased, cause I love books and I love libraries, and I wanted something library or literary related to be important. It seems like a wasted opportunity to me.)
River’s narration at the end suggests that it’s this amazing thing about the Doctor that he can’t accept that everybody dies. Why is that a good thing? It’s terrible! Because everyone does die, and not being to accept that condemns him to a life of future angst. “Everybody lives” falls a little flat to me when the team only survives within the data core, what Lux already described as a half life. (“Hers was only half a life, of course, but it’s forever.”) And then River tells bedtime stories to the fake children? Why are the fake children good now? Why is she tucking them in? Why is Miss Evangelista pretty again? Does this mean she’s back to being stupid?
Finally, my favorite moment of the episode, when Donna asks, “Is ‘alright’ special Time Lord code for really not alright at all.” I love that she calls him out in those moments when he puts up his emotional walls. She never forces him to discuss something he doesn’t want to, but she gives him a reality check. He’s not the only one hurting.
I also like that the Doctor and Donna, though both tempted to find out what’s in their futures, ultimately decide it’s better not to know. I really love them together. They just understand each other so well, and they’re true equals—that’s one of the things we see over and over again this season. Donna is going to be an awfully hard act for the next companion to follow.
Overall, I think the two-parter was conceptually very strong, but didn’t have the best execution. The lack was particularly noticeable in the second installment, because I expected it to resolve more of the issues from the first.
Some favorite moments:
Next week: Donna doesn't appear often enough in this trailer. But RTD wrote it, so maybe it'll be cracky.Doctor/Donna crack. Yep.
“Silence in the Library” left me with lots of questions. Some of the questions were answered, but not all of them. Fandom had already guessed that Donna had been “saved” to a computer, so that wasn’t a surprise. I wasn’t expecting her to play much of a role, so I’m glad she had her storyline. Her world seemed very sinister to me. The supposedly “ideal” life is used to cover up the fact that she’s forgotten who she really is. Not knowing is keeping the people, and CAL, safe, but it still creeps me out. Catherine Tate is fabulous as usual. She packed in so much emotion as Donna tries to hang on as the world falls apart around her. Even if she’s been manipulated into thinking and feeling a certain way, it still seems real to her.
I was glad to see Miss Evangelista pop up again, rather than just being the bimbo who dies first. Her crazy Gothic novel outfit was pretty awesome. The pretty and stupid versus ugly and brilliant contrast was not so awesome. She says, “I have the two qualities you require to see absolute truth. I am brilliant. An unloved.” Because nobody loves an ugly woman, even if she’s smart. Ugh.
One of the biggest questions was River Song’s identity. On this, we’re pretty much left where we were last week: she’s very important to the Doctor in his future, either as a significant other or as a companion and trusted friend. I think the idea of the Doctor having a non-chronological relationship is really interesting, and it’s wonderful to know that sometime in the future he’ll have someone he loves to have adventures with. (Wouldn’t want him to be lonely, yeah?) As such, I really wanted to like River, but I still didn’t.
Lux says, “You’re just squabbling like an old married couple!” So major hint about what their relationship could be there, but even though Lux plants the suggestion, I just don’t read that into their interaction. Sure, River is comfortable and familiar, but the Doctor seems anything but. He appears frustrated when she flaunts her knowledge of his future self.
At one point River says, “He came when I called, just like he always does. But not my Doctor.” And why did you call him in the first place? For someone who seems to know the Doctor so well, she seems almost ridiculously naïve about him sometimes. It’s not clear whether she knows an older Ten or a future regeneration, but she doesn’t seem to grasp that however different he may be, he’s still the same Doctor. (The same thing the Doctor had to convince Rose in The Christmas Invasion and New Earth.)
When Ten says, “I am the Doctor,” River replies, “Yeah. Someday.” So are Four and Nine and all the rest also not the Doctor, just cause they’re not as cool as your Doctor, River? The huge history is such an important part of who he is. He can’t become the man that River knows without all the previous experience, so it’s irritating hearing her treat the present version with such seeming disdain. I just couldn’t get past my annoyance with her to really care about her.
The Doctor and River’s final scenes together are actually the ones that worked the best for me, with the two of them barking orders back and forth at each other, and the Doctor’s preemptive “Shut up!” I can’t decide whether her sacrifice was incredibly selfless or incredibly selfish. She’d rather die than risk rewriting her timeline so that the Doctor dies and she never knew him. What good is a huge romantic gesture if you end up dead? Then again, she does save 4000 people in the process.
And now the library. I get the trees--> paper--> books thing. The Vashta Nerada hatch from trees, so they hatched from the books, and the library is their forest. But, um, why do they hatch from trees in the first place? Just cause? And so we shouldn’t have books cause they’re full of carnivorous shadows? At the end they download all the people from the data core and teleport them out of the library so the shadows can “swarm to their hearts’ content.” The largest library in the universe, and now no one can go there without being eaten? That’s just depressing.
Lux says they gave CAL “…all of human history to pass the time. Any era to live in, any book to read.” But the world inside the data core doesn’t have anything to do with history or the worlds of great books. It’s just a generic “ideal” life. So, yeah, color me disappointed that the library really was just a setting, and had no actual relevance to the plot. Books are made of paper. Why not just have it in a giant forest? (I guess I’m kinda biased, cause I love books and I love libraries, and I wanted something library or literary related to be important. It seems like a wasted opportunity to me.)
River’s narration at the end suggests that it’s this amazing thing about the Doctor that he can’t accept that everybody dies. Why is that a good thing? It’s terrible! Because everyone does die, and not being to accept that condemns him to a life of future angst. “Everybody lives” falls a little flat to me when the team only survives within the data core, what Lux already described as a half life. (“Hers was only half a life, of course, but it’s forever.”) And then River tells bedtime stories to the fake children? Why are the fake children good now? Why is she tucking them in? Why is Miss Evangelista pretty again? Does this mean she’s back to being stupid?
Finally, my favorite moment of the episode, when Donna asks, “Is ‘alright’ special Time Lord code for really not alright at all.” I love that she calls him out in those moments when he puts up his emotional walls. She never forces him to discuss something he doesn’t want to, but she gives him a reality check. He’s not the only one hurting.
I also like that the Doctor and Donna, though both tempted to find out what’s in their futures, ultimately decide it’s better not to know. I really love them together. They just understand each other so well, and they’re true equals—that’s one of the things we see over and over again this season. Donna is going to be an awfully hard act for the next companion to follow.
Overall, I think the two-parter was conceptually very strong, but didn’t have the best execution. The lack was particularly noticeable in the second installment, because I expected it to resolve more of the issues from the first.
Some favorite moments:
- “It’s a screwdriver. It works in the dark.”
- “Keeping it together. I’m only crying. I’m about to die, it’s not an overreaction.” I think Anita is my favorite of the archaeology crew.
- “Dear Donna, The world is wrong.” Indeed.
- “This isn’t the real me? This isn’t my real body? But I’ve been dieting!” I feel your pain, Donna.
- “And before you say anything else, Professor, can I just say in passing cause you’re here: shut up.”
Next week: Donna doesn't appear often enough in this trailer. But RTD wrote it, so maybe it'll be cracky.
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Date: 2008-06-10 04:25 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-06-10 11:16 pm (UTC)And Rose is coming back soon! :D