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CrazySugarFreakBoy!
offers a review of this week's episode, written when it originally aired in the UK
Member Since: Sun Jan 04, 2004 Posts: 1,235
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Subject: Doctor Who, "Midnight:" Posted Sat Jul 12, 2008 at 01:37:49 am EDT (Viewed 726 times) |
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Posted with Microsoft Internet Explorer 7 on Windows XP
This episode has provoked more of a divisive reaction than any NuWho episode I can recall, which is especially impressive in light of its obvious status as a bottle episode.
Why? Because Russell T. Davies has actually managed an even more impressive feat, by writing the Doctor Who equivalent of the "Homer's Enemy" episode of The Simpsons:
Yes, Davies displays his apparently pathological cluelessness in dealing with characters of color, but to my mind, what's more significant about "Midnight" is that, like "Homer's Enemy," this is the episode that deliberately sets out to undermine many of the most important narrative tropes that its show requires in order, not only to run, but simply to exist, and as such, a lot of the discomfort that comes from watching this episode stems from how successful it is in undermining the show as a whole.
Just as Frank Grimes illustrated how dangerous and maddening a character like Homer Simpson would be in real life, in spite of how much the audience for The Simpsons has been conditioned to see him as harmless and lovable, so too do the stranded passengers illustrate how much the audience for Doctor Who takes it for granted that a) the Doctor can ultimately solve any problem and b) he can rely upon the supposedly baseline decency of human nature to pick up the slack, whenever he can't solve a problem by himself.
To me, that was what made this episode chilling, more than any fear of the stubbornly unexplained monster (and I love that it remained stubbornly unexplained), because it showed the Doctor responding to a crisis situation entirely in character - which is to say, with nothing less than his standard level of capability, but also with his typical tone-deafness of social skill and sensitivity - and yet, for once, it also showed the guest-starring masses failing to fall into line behind him, and doing so in a disturbingly believable way.
This is far from a flawless episode, but a lot of the "flaws" I've seen ascribed to it can be boiled down to, "But they were behaving so stupidly," which is a tricky criticism to level at an episode like this, since the self-destructive stupidity of the characters was pretty much the whole point of the episode.
Someone on LiveJournal-land reported that Davies stated that this episode was intended to be the opposite of "Voyage of the Damned." He could have extended that statement to include all of NuWho, though, since under Davies himself, Doctor Who has become associated with nothing so much as Care Bear Stares and a Norman Vincent Peale-level of faith in humankind's allegedly essential goodness that - ironically enough, for an outspoken atheist like Davies - borders on the religious.
Which leads me to believe that that's the point of "Midnight" ... Davies the humanist is on his way out as showrunner, so as long as he's heading out the door anyway, he might as well take a parting shot at the show that he loves so much, in a way that he could only do if he knew that he was leaving it behind forever.
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Visionary
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Subject: Sounds interesting. Plus I learned the term "Bottle Episode", so it was informative too. [Re: CrazySugarFreakBoy!] Posted Sat Jul 12, 2008 at 09:16:12 am EDT |
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Posted with Mozilla Firefox 2.0.0.15 on Windows XP
> This episode has provoked more of a divisive reaction than any NuWho episode I can recall, which is especially impressive in light of its obvious status as a bottle episode.
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Ah, those are some of my favorite episodes of series, now that I think about it. I've often felt that having to find solutions within limitations can produce better art than complete freedom.
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Scott
Location: Southwest US Member Since: Sun Sep 02, 2007 Posts: 326
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Subject: Hmm [Re: CrazySugarFreakBoy!] Posted Sat Jul 12, 2008 at 10:08:33 am EDT (Viewed 580 times) |
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Posted with Microsoft Internet Explorer 7 on Windows XP
I didn't see it as a parting shot, but you do have a point. I agree greatly that it was fun/scary to see a time when the sheep didn't blindly follow the Doc, but went into paranoid mode instead.
An amazing episode. And I loved the Rose cameo.
> This episode has provoked more of a divisive reaction than any NuWho episode I can recall, which is especially impressive in light of its obvious status as a bottle episode.
>
> Why? Because Russell T. Davies has actually managed an even more impressive feat, by writing the Doctor Who equivalent of the "Homer's Enemy" episode of The Simpsons:
>
> Yes, Davies displays his apparently pathological cluelessness in dealing with characters of color, but to my mind, what's more significant about "Midnight" is that, like "Homer's Enemy," this is the episode that deliberately sets out to undermine many of the most important narrative tropes that its show requires in order, not only to run, but simply to exist, and as such, a lot of the discomfort that comes from watching this episode stems from how successful it is in undermining the show as a whole.
>
> Just as Frank Grimes illustrated how dangerous and maddening a character like Homer Simpson would be in real life, in spite of how much the audience for The Simpsons has been conditioned to see him as harmless and lovable, so too do the stranded passengers illustrate how much the audience for Doctor Who takes it for granted that a) the Doctor can ultimately solve any problem and b) he can rely upon the supposedly baseline decency of human nature to pick up the slack, whenever he can't solve a problem by himself.
>
> To me, that was what made this episode chilling, more than any fear of the stubbornly unexplained monster (and I love that it remained stubbornly unexplained), because it showed the Doctor responding to a crisis situation entirely in character - which is to say, with nothing less than his standard level of capability, but also with his typical tone-deafness of social skill and sensitivity - and yet, for once, it also showed the guest-starring masses failing to fall into line behind him, and doing so in a disturbingly believable way.
>
> This is far from a flawless episode, but a lot of the "flaws" I've seen ascribed to it can be boiled down to, "But they were behaving so stupidly," which is a tricky criticism to level at an episode like this, since the self-destructive stupidity of the characters was pretty much the whole point of the episode.
>
> Someone on LiveJournal-land reported that Davies stated that this episode was intended to be the opposite of "Voyage of the Damned." He could have extended that statement to include all of NuWho, though, since under Davies himself, Doctor Who has become associated with nothing so much as Care Bear Stares and a Norman Vincent Peale-level of faith in humankind's allegedly essential goodness that - ironically enough, for an outspoken atheist like Davies - borders on the religious.
>
> Which leads me to believe that that's the point of "Midnight" ... Davies the humanist is on his way out as showrunner, so as long as he's heading out the door anyway, he might as well take a parting shot at the show that he loves so much, in a way that he could only do if he knew that he was leaving it behind forever.
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Scott
NIGHT CHILDREN: THE BLOG.
Come see!
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Nats
Member Since: Thu Jan 01, 2004 Posts: 85
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Subject: The witching hour [Re: CrazySugarFreakBoy!] Posted Sat Jul 12, 2008 at 11:30:39 am EDT (Viewed 512 times) |
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Posted with Mozilla Firefox 2.0.0.15 on Windows XP
You're right-- the best thing about this episode is how the Doctor has everything we take for granted about the show turned against him: his seemingly inherent authority, his mysterious lack of an identity, his "cleverness," even his catchphrases! The Doctor is the victim here, not the hero.
Unfortunately, I found the repetition gag to be pretty annoying, and I felt the episode was just starting to get going when it was over-- the solution seemed to come about because there were only three minutes left of airtime.
Fun tidbit time: The aging professor was played by David Troughton, son of the Second Doctor, Patrick Troughton. He previously appeared in a 1970s story "The Curse of Peladon" during Third Doctor Jon Pertwee's run.
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L!
Location: Seattle, Washington Member Since: Sun Jan 04, 2004 Posts: 1,038
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Subject: Comments... [Re: CrazySugarFreakBoy!] Posted Sat Jul 12, 2008 at 02:29:35 pm EDT (Viewed 563 times) |
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Posted with Apple Safari 3.1.2 on MacOS X
I think this episode come off as sort of an Outer Limits/Twilight Zone version of "Doctor Who", not that's a bad thing. By the end I was sort of expecting Rod Serling to come out & tie up the episode for us. A meeting of Rod & The Doctor would interesting but it's impossible now.
I also found the deletion, for no better term, of Donna somewhat interesting. it's almost like Davies had written this episode & then remembered "Oh, yeah! I forgot Donna." then added her in just so people knew where she was during all this.
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Nats
Member Since: Thu Jan 01, 2004 Posts: 85
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Subject: Re: Comments... [Re: L!] Posted Sat Jul 12, 2008 at 02:52:40 pm EDT (Viewed 528 times) |
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Posted with Mozilla Firefox 2.0.0.15 on Windows XP
> I also found the deletion, for no better term, of Donna somewhat interesting. it's almost like Davies had written this episode & then remembered "Oh, yeah! I forgot Donna." then added her in just so people knew where she was during all this.
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The reason for the lack of Donna is twofold: one, this story wouldn't work with a companion. But, more importantly, two: this was filmed the same time as next week's, Turn Left, which has barely any Doctor in it. Instead of doing an episode like Love & Monsters or Blink that features little of the Doctor and his companion, they split them up this year, so we've got a Doctor-lite and a Companion-lite.
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HH
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Subject: Re: "Midnight:" [Re: CrazySugarFreakBoy!] Posted Sun Jul 13, 2008 at 03:25:36 pm EDT |
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Posted with Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 on Windows 2000
> This episode has provoked more of a divisive reaction than any NuWho episode I can recall, which is especially impressive in light of its obvious status as a bottle episode.
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Yes, I had mixed feelings about it myself. It was a clever, well-written episode but it lacked the heart that some other, less-well-written but more enjoyable stories have.
It also overlooked another implication which is inherent and unstated in the Dr Who mythos. What were the chances of the Doctor randomly being on the one tourist bus that was attacked by the un-named entity? The most logical reason would be that he attracted it himself, since its ultimate goal was to absorb his intellect and use it. So yet more deaths happened because he was around.
This isn't the first time the Doctor's interest and prsence has brought danger with it. The Daleks punched through time and space to Canary Wharf precisely because that time and space was the most likely to find "time travellers". Everything that followed with Cybermen and Daleks, right through to the events of the recent Earth-stealing finale, followed on from the Doctor's frequent visits to "his favourite planet".
But that aside, the episode managed to be spooky and horrific and set up the moment of "soul exposure" in the finale fairly well. It'll never be my favourite, but it was well done.
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