Rewatch: Wild Blue Yonder and The Giggle (DW 14.2 & 14.3)

[unfeathered]

A few more notes from my respective rewatches of these two episodes.


Wild Blue Yonder rewatch

Contrary to what I’ve seen from most people, I wasn’t quite as blown away by this on second viewing, but I still really enjoyed it. If nothing else (and there was plenty else) it’s a fantastic showcase for the acting skills of David Tennant and Catherine Tate, and for their obvious friendship and the wonderful way they work together.

This is a mostly random list of things that popped into my head whilst watching.

I’d never heard of the song before and by the sound of it neither had many other people, so it seems an odd thing to make so prominent in the episode. Still haven’t seen anything explaining what the point of that was, unless it really was just the jolly song/ war song, "two things being true at the same time" thing.

If the captain was a horse-type creature, assuming she’s the same species that built the ship, then why was there a captain’s chair and why would their language work in base 10? As far as I’m aware, we use base 10 because we have ten fingers, and ten toes. Or do horses have 5 toes on each hoof too?

Why is the ship so huge? Wouldn’t that be ridiculously expensive to build and maintain?

The TARDIS running to the edge of the universe feels very reminiscent of her running to the end of the universe to get away from Jack.

Mavity – it’s not the Doctor, just Donna. He gives her a funny look the first time she says mavity, and then says gravity himself, amending it to mavity for her. Is it *just* Donna (because she was there when history changed) or is it the whole of the human race now?

Loved the visuals of the Doctor literally dragging his knuckles along the floor.

Apparently only half the universe was destroyed by the Flux. Sure seemed like more than that at the time!

The believing two things at once thing confused me somewhat. As did the whole thing with the salt. The Doctor explained it as having to believe that something was both a superstition and true, which is fine, but why did that make fake Donna try and count the salt, and why did she then stop? Also, why would ‘invoking a superstition’ at the edge of the universe be a bad thing? (Later note: apparently this is what let the Toymaker in, but I don't really get why.)

The copies were both incredibly creepy, and I definitely saw the similarities with Midnight this time round. I also found it interesting that when they weren’t pretending to be the real Doctor and Donna, the copies both spoke with a ‘posher’ accent. Not hugely different, but perhaps a nod to all those classic well-spoken British villains (not just in DW)?

The copy Doctor cheating by running on all fours down the corridor was fun, as was the Doctor scooting the TARDIS along to get to Donna. Picking up the wrong Donna was incredibly scary, especially the first time around, as I could really believe RTD would leave her behind and just leave us with the copy! Loved the entry ramp in the TARDIS flipping up and turning into a slide to eject her!

All the good conversations that the Doctor and Donna each had in this episode were with their copies, not with each other. It’s so sad that they never got to have these conversations with *each other*. I was particularly intrigued when they started talking at the end and Donna said she couldn’t remember what she’d picked up about the Doctor’s time since she last saw him. Was she lying? Was it actually just too bad to think about, rather than being too big for her human head?

I though this exchange was interesting in the light of what happens at the end of the next episode: “You OK?” “I will be.” “When?” “A million years.” I wonder if it’ll actually take him a million years in retirement as Fourteen to be OK? :-)



The Giggle rewatch

Again, just notes I made during my rewatch:

I feel it’s a shame they couldn’t work the John Logie Baird connection in to last year’s BBC centenary episode instead – that would have been a great thing to reference there!

I thought the shot of the TARDIS being airlifted by UNIT was a nice callback to the same thing happening in the 50th anniversary episode.

I didn't get why they had to take out the Korean satellite and risk international complications. Surely they could have taken out any British satellite to break the 'circuit' of satellites covering the whole world?

I liked the fact that they made use of Mel's knowledge of computers, and Donna's fast typing.

This time around I was much more aware of how fake the Toymaker's German accent and word usage was, and that he almost completely loses his accent at points when talking to the Doctor. Presumably because he gets absorbed in the game of it all and forgets to put on the accent/character he's built up.

I liked the Doctor's bit about the fact that the universe is not binary (tying back to the binary stuff in The Star Beast) – there's order and chaos AND play. I don't know, I just liked that idea!

When they were playing catch, did anyone else feel there should have been some sort of reference to the Fifth Doctor and his cricket skills? Like in Human Nature?

I bet Shaun's mix-up with the vegan food at the end annoyed a few vegans! Not really PC in this day and age to make a joke about vegans mistakenly eating meat, surely?

TARDIS wheelchair ramp: second viewing confirms this is on the 'copy' TARDIS which Fifteen eventually took possession of, but of course there's no reason why Fourteen's TARDIS shouldn't discover it's got one too. They seem to be identical in most ways, after all, barring the jukebox!

The pacing of the episode was a bit odd. Some bits seemed to drag a bit (e.g. the Doctor and Donna opening door after door in the Toymaker’s realm) and others seemed implausibly fast (e.g. Shirley finding Stooky Bill online REALLY quickly, and the Doctor making a whole lot of assumptions and connections really quickly without, I felt, much to go on). And I think this was why I came out of my initial viewing without remembering much about the Toymaker, because yes he was actually there for a lot of the episode, but there was a whole big section after he was defeated which was just about the two Doctors. Which actually isn't unusual for a big episode so fair enough.

I've read various theories about whether the bigeneration produced a new 'Slayer' line through Fourteen or whether when he eventually regenerates Fourteen will get pulled back to the moment of bigeneration to emerge as Fifteen. On rewatch, I believe the latter is what's intended but it could well be changed by the time we get to that point (if in fact it's ever clarified at all). I guess for the general viewing public it really doesn't matter and leaving it vague allows the showrunners to go in whichever direction they want to. It's only as a writer that I'd like to know one way or the other…

As for The Church on Ruby Road, I absolutely loved it and the new Doctor and companion! Review to come when I've had a chance to sit and watch it again properly.

P.S. I need some Fifteen icons!!

Comments

[elisi]

Mavity – it’s not the Doctor, just Donna. He gives her a funny look the first time she says mavity, and then says gravity himself, amending it to mavity for her. Is it *just* Donna (because she was there when history changed) or is it the whole of the human race now?
Oh it's everywhere! ^_^

The believing two things at once thing confused me somewhat. As did the whole thing with the salt. The Doctor explained it as having to believe that something was both a superstition and true, which is fine, but why did that make fake Donna try and count the salt, and why did she then stop? Also, why would ‘invoking a superstition’ at the edge of the universe be a bad thing? (Later note: apparently this is what let the Toymaker in, but I don't really get why.)
This is fantasy rather than sci-fi. To quote malsperanza (from long ago):

These sorts of tropes, together with talking dolls and marionettes and ventriloquists' dummies, belong to classic folktales and horror stories, rather than sci fi per se. They establish the key point that the division between what is living and what is a thing is permeable. Moffat is much given to statements like "Don't blink. Blink and you're dead" and explaining that houses have rooms that you can only see out of the corner of your eye, and that the cracks in walls are rifts in time-space. Here Be Monsters. Things that appear to be inanimate have lives (often not happy ones) and thoughts (often not nice ones), and therefore we should take the universe a lot more seriously than we do.

This is Tolkien country, where there is a willow grows aslant a brook not in order to be picturesque and pastoral, but to eat you if you are so foolish as to come too near. As Gandalf says, there are older and fouler things than Orcs in the deep places of the world. And deep space is one of those places; the human heart is another. In Rivendell, Frodo notes, there is the memory of ancient things; in Lorien the ancient things still live on in the waking world. And as Hamlet remarks (perhaps because he is familiar with the ways of willow-trees), there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in the philosophy of a rationalist. Moffat knows that the scariest things are not chainsaws and tentacles but shadows and cracked plaster, and that the scariest things are also the most wonderful, wonderful and yet again wonderful. He knows because like most good British writers, he learned about enchanted forests from Arden and the woods near Athens; about trees that imprison mysteries from a cloven pine; about the magical transformations that occur in the deep places from the tolling of a sea-nymph's bell. The Shakespearean echoes are all over Doctor Who.

I am deeply thrilled to see that RTD has learned from Moffat. The not-things are fantasy monsters. The superstition/truth dichotomy also works within this framework. The not-things are learning about the world, unsure what is real and what isn't, which the Doctor exploits with the salt. And after a little while the not-things decide that it's just a superstition and cross the salt... However. At the edge of the world, where the walls are thin, two things can be true at the same time. The Doctor created a door for creatures to enter through, a door that wasn't there before, and that only really works through belief. As I said, fantasy. :)

I've read various theories about whether the bigeneration produced a new 'Slayer' line through Fourteen or whether when he eventually regenerates Fourteen will get pulled back to the moment of bigeneration to emerge as Fifteen. On rewatch, I believe the latter is what's intended but it could well be changed by the time we get to that point (if in fact it's ever clarified at all).
IMHO it only works if Fourteen loops back. Fifteen is only okay because Fourteen's done the work. Otherwise it's like saying that Eleven should have been fine because of TenToo being happily married to Rose in Pete's World. (I only just thought of that! *g*)

[unfeathered]

Oh it's everywhere! ^_^
That is so brilliant!

I am deeply thrilled to see that RTD has learned from Moffat. The not-things are fantasy monsters.
Okay, that makes sense (sort of). I am a very literal person and so I tend to prefer RTD-type stories over Moffat-type stories. That said, you are completely correct that the scariest DW things are the shadows and cracks and Vashta Nerada etc. I just... I guess I enjoy being scared by them whilst still being irritated that they make no sense. :-D

I think in this case my frustration was that it felt like the whole thing came out of nowhere but was presented as if it was something we should know. If it is just something new introduced in this episode, I feel a bit better about it, and as it has in fact been followed up (with the Toymaker so far) then that helps too. :-)

IMHO it only works if Fourteen loops back. Fifteen is only okay because Fourteen's done the work. Otherwise it's like saying that Eleven should have been fine because of TenToo being happily married to Rose in Pete's World. (I only just thought of that! *g*)

Yeah, definitely. If he doesn't get pulled back then "I'm okay because you fixed us" doesn't make any sense. And yes, definitely agree with your Eleven analogy. I think this was what was worrying me when we got yet another Tennant-Doctor clone, but for me it does work if he's not a clone, not a divergent line, just simply hanging on for longer than he ought to in order to fix himself. I mean, that definitely works for Mr "I don't want to go", even if he seemed okay with going this time around!

[elisi]

That is so brilliant!
They are committing to the bit so hard!!

I just... I guess I enjoy being scared by them whilst still being irritated that they make no sense. :-D
LOL.

I think in this case my frustration was that it felt like the whole thing came out of nowhere but was presented as if it was something we should know. If it is just something new introduced in this episode, I feel a bit better about it, and as it has in fact been followed up (with the Toymaker so far) then that helps too. :-)
Oh definitely new (well 60th Anniversary new). It's all logical, just a lot of it works from fairy tales. :D

I think this was what was worrying me when we got yet another Tennant-Doctor clone, but for me it does work if he's not a clone, not a divergent line, just simply hanging on for longer than he ought to in order to fix himself. I mean, that definitely works for Mr "I don't want to go", even if he seemed okay with going this time around!
*nods a lot* And yeah, he's a very different man this time round (I love Fourteen so much <3). Here's to a long happy uneventful life. <3

[shivver]

Thanks for this post! I love reading people's thoughts about DW episodes (and these in specific), but there doesn't seem to be much chatter, at least as far as I can tell here on Dreamwidth. Ah well.

Some thoughts:

Re: the song Wild Blue Yonder. I'm not at all surprised you don't know the song; it's not even widely known here in the U.S., except that U.S. Air Force recruiting commercials sometimes play an instrumental version in the background. (The Army, Navy, and Marine songs are much older and better known.) I thought it was a weird choice - I expect it was for the idea that the TARDIS was flinging them a ways off, for the jolly/war song discussion, and for the "believing two things at the same time" idea.

I definitely thought it was strange for the Doctor to assume base 10, but that just makes the story not get bogged down in unimportant details. As far as "If the captain was a horse-type creature", it had a horse-shaped skull but a humanoid body with identifiable arms and legs. I don't think it had hooves.

"Why is the ship so huge?" When we first watched the ship, I turned to my husband and said, "It's an Iteron V!" - that's a cargo ship from the game Eve Online. I just assumed it was a cargo ship that happened to be empty when it fell through the wormhole. (Another good question is, what happened to the rest of the crew? Ships like this need more one person to run it.)

"Mavity – it’s not the Doctor, just Donna." In my opinion, the Newton encounter messed up the timeline by changing the word - Donna and the rest of the Earth have the word "mavity" now; the Doctor, being time-sensitive, knows it used to be "gravity", and uses "mavity" for now (including in "The Church on Ruby Road") until he fixes it, which I expect will be during this coming season.

"I was particularly intrigued when they started talking at the end and Donna said she couldn’t remember what she’d picked up about the Doctor’s time since she last saw him." Me too! Did you see that look on her face when his back was turned while he asked if she remembered? It was kind of that uncomfortable "should I say something?" look, and I think it means that she remembers at least some but thinks that it's better if he thinks she doesn't know.



"This time around I was much more aware of how fake the Toymaker's German accent and word usage was" - I've been studying German for the past couple of years (slowly, via Duolingo), and when we watched the ep for the first time, I was thinking, "That's odd, a German speaker would never add 'ge-' to present-tense verb like 'raining'! I'd think RTD would be more careful with his dialogue." And then it turned out to be intentional. I interpret it as the Toymaker playing with his listeners, throwing them off balance with the strange accent and mannerisms. So cool.

"there's order and chaos AND play. I don't know, I just liked that idea!" - Me too! Lovely concept!

[unfeathered]

Yeah, there's not much on DW is there, beyond what little is linked to by doctor_who_sonic? (And damn it's confusing that DW can mean both Doctor Who and Dreamwidth!!) Reddit seems to be where most of the chatter is, so I go there to read and see what other people are thinking, but there's just too *much* for me to really get involved or keep up with a conversation, and I really miss the ability to follow any particular individual there, or even notice who's saying what. I miss LJ a lot, in that respect. :-(

Re. Wild Blue Yonder, that's really interesting that it's not even that familiar to you US guys! I wonder where on earth it came from? Possibly it was only really there because it made a good title for the episode? I mean, there are plenty of other songs that could have been used for the idea of jolly/war.

Good point about the horse captain having a human-shaped body. I did notice that but forgot to take the thought any further!

Empty cargo ship makes a sort of sense, except that that huge corridor didn't exactly look like any kind of cargo bay. At least not of a kind familiar to humans...

Mavity - yeah, I spotted it being used again in the Christmas episode and that therefore it presumably is the whole universe now, apart from the Doctor. I wonder whether it's just going to be a running joke, or whether it will lead to something more sinister?

Me too! Did you see that look on her face when his back was turned while he asked if she remembered? It was kind of that uncomfortable "should I say something?" look, and I think it means that she remembers at least some but thinks that it's better if he thinks she doesn't know.
Oh, I'm really glad that wasn't just me! I'm sure there's a prerequisite for this somewhere too but I can't think what it is. (Might be something in Buffy rather than DW, as that's where a lot of my ideas were originally formed!)

And the fact that then in The Giggle she brings up (twice, I think?) that they never really actually talk... I feel like I was kind of waiting for that to all finally come to something, but it never did, at least not on-screen. I guess it's there though if they ever want to revisit Fourteen and Donna in the future, and I really do rather hope they will. I don't think I could ever get too much of that pairing.

Re. the Toymaker's accent - yes, exactly - I only did GCSE German but my son did it too a few years ago (and is playing a German character in his current show) so I have a fair idea what it should sound like and I REALLY noticed it on second viewing. That it was very much 'fake' German, or what an English speaker's idea of what German should sound like might be. Kind of 'Allo 'Allo-style German! And I really like that, being intentionally wrong (on the part of the writers) to go with the racist attitude etc. etc.

[shivver]

I'm too lazy to go read other social media, so it's really my fault. :)

I really would love to see further development with Fourteen and Donna, because as you noted, there's so much more to explore there, especially how Donna can help Fourteen cope. Ah well, that's what fanfic is for, I suppose.