| abstract | - The Tenth Doctor is immediately off to a bad start at the end of his first episode when he says he's a "No Second Chances" sort of man after killing a Sycorax and then proceeds to throw Harriet Jones out of office. What even was that? It makes no sense development-wise with how 9 ended and is completely out of character in general. It's never mentioned again either, in New Earth he gives everyone every chance in the world. So why was it even written in the first place? This starts a trend of some inconsistent character traits for 10. Ignoring that, New Earth completely ruins The Doctor and Rose. I felt the romance between The Doctor and Rose was alright in Series 1 and in character for The Doctor. It felt like something deeper than love. New Earth forward completely ruins that and makes them act like lovesick children. The dialogue is horrible with classics such as Rose calling End Of The World a "date". They act like this the whole season and it starts to make The Doctor feel less like an alien and more of an eccentric human. Time War stuff is noticeably weaker compared with 10 to how it was with 9 in Series 1. It just feels tacked on every time like "alright it's time for the doctor to sulk for a few minutes" and then back to action. There's nothing new or fresh done with it, just rehashes of what was already done in Series 1 and better. Fucking hell, most of Series 2 dangles the fact that Rose is leaving in front of you. "School Reunion" is all about life post-Doctor, and the Doctor treats Sarah Jane like utter shit for like the first 20 minutes, while he acts like an emo teen pining over Rose. But does Rose learn her lesson from Sarah Jane? Fuck no she doesn't. The entire thing is written with foreshadowing, which wouldn't be a problem in the hands of a capable writer. The Impossible Planet/The Satan Pit really builds up the preparation for Rose's departure, as the Beast claims that she will die. But, as Rusty falls prey to EVERY FUCKING SERIES, Rose's "death" is complete bullshit. No joke, I think that a character dying is prophesied in Series 1 - 4, and the only Series where it actually comes to fruition is Series 1. And that only happened because Eccleston realized just how shitty Rusty was. Series 2 overarching theme is "what does it cost to travel with the Doctor?" Davies answer is "Absolutely nothing!" Jesus fucking Christ, there are ZERO consequences for actions in Rusty's era, and there is no greater example of this than Series 2. As much as we love to hate Love & Monsters, it proves a fascinating point about Rusty's writing. Elton, a character who has NOTHING to do with the Doctor when you look at the big picture, has his life completely fucked over for even trying to get close to the Doctor, which is something that's interesting to explore. It's strongly implied that Rose and her family/friends will have to pay the price that Elton does, as Elton states that he "wonders how long it will be before they have to pay the price" for traveling with the Doctor. Of course, Rose never has to pay this price. She gets to live a completely normal life on Pete's World, and gets everything she's ever wanted simply because she wanted it bad enough. Wow. How shitty is it that Elton, a guy who just wanted to meet the Doctor, was totally ass-fucked while Rose got everything she wanted simply because her story was "heartbreaking"? I feel worse for Elton than I ever did for Rose. After Rose leaves, the first 5 episodes of Series 3 have constant references to Rose. There's nothing particularly wrong with having The Doctor grief over a lost companion. However, it's done in an extremely unsubtle annoying way that does nothing but make 10 look like a dick and pins the audience against Martha. Here are some classic dialogues. Tenth Doctor: "There's such a thing as psychic energy, but a human couldn't channel it like that. Not without a generator the size of Taunton and I think we'd have spotted that. No, there's something I'm missing, Martha. Something really close, staring me right in the face and I can't see it. Rose'd know. A friend of mine, Rose. Right now, she'd say exactly the right thing. Still, can't be helped. You're a novice, never mind. I'll take you back home tomorrow." He insults Martha calling her a "novice" even though Rose was nothing more than an ordinary human like herself. Rose had more travels than Martha did, yes, but she was never known to be any more intelligent or clever than usual companions. If Rose was actually in this episode she wouldn't have known jackshit about Witches and would have been just as clueless as Martha. In fact, Martha is a medical student, giving her some level of above-average intelligence. Rose worked in a fucking shop and openly admits she had no goals and that her life was going nowhere before she met the Doctor. Jesus, do I feel bad for Martha, who was actually a decent, intelligent person. LILITH: "Only sleeping, alas. It's curious. The name has less impact. She's somehow out of her time. And as for you, Sir Doctor. Fascinating. There is no name. Why would a man hide his title in such despair? Oh, but look. There's still one word with the power that aches." Tenth Doctor: "The naming won't work on me." LILITH: "But your heart grows cold. The north wind blows and carries down the distant Rose. Tenth Doctor: Oh, big mistake. Because that name keeps me fighting." Quote speaks for itself. But let's talk poor Martha for a bit. Despite her having basically no chemistry with Tennant, she suddenly has a consistent character arc. Being told how terrible she is all season and being either ignored or forgotten consistently, over the course of the season she gets to actually solve problems and do things to actually help situations. By the end of the season her role entirely becomes "Fix Ten's shit by noticing things he doesn't without deconstructing how shitty of a character he is". The big problem is that being constantly berated just breaks your heart when you hear her decision at the end of the season to go find herself. Although she is very competent on her own and the universe itself owes her a debt, her season's ending (which is supposed to make her seem to be going out on a high like Romana) makes it seem more like she's been psychologically beat down to the point where she really doesn't know who she is, and her need to find herself despite being a strong enough character to save herself shows how someone can be so kind and yet hate the person they are at the same time because of one alien's opinion. It's telling that when 11 sees her hologram later, he experiences "More Guilt!" than even seeing Rose. Bravo, RTD. Not much to add here, except for the fact that the Jesus imagery sure does get strong in Voyage of the Darned. After kissing a popstar on a spaceship (no, not that popstar) and being told by the flattest doctor in history that he should man the fuck up and be Doctor Who for a change, 10 managed to rebound his characterization into Trial of a Time Lord era 6. Bantering with his companion, slyly sarcastic, and smiling while running around from danger, 10 suddenly was Doctor Who again. His companion Donna had tons of chemistry with 10 and had a consistent character arc that endeared audiences to her. We're going to ignore The Runaway Bride so that we can get the sense of how great of a companion Donna was. Restrained, fun and ready to leap headfirst into danger, she was a strong character who faced toe to toe with the Doctor and helped disguise the fact that the stories of her season were far below the quality of Martha's season. I really can't say anything more about this season, else I'll start bitching heavily about the goddamned finale and how, after an entire season of right moves, RTD ejaculated on a script and did everything possible wrong. For now here's a time skip... God, Journey's End is an absolute pastiche of Doctor Who and science fiction in general. Remember Doctor Horrible's Sing-Along-Blog? That's parody. Pastiche is parody without the wink, without the realization that what you're doing is a complete joke; it's parody with a straight face. That's what Journey's End is. You feel like you should be laughing at how ridiculous the plot is and Davros' manic screaming of "DetonAtE tHe ReAliTY BoMB11!!!11", but Rusty is sitting next to you the whole time, eagerly watching your reaction in the same way an autistic child looks at you when they hand you scribbles and shit and thinks it's good art, and you wanna give them your honest opinion, but you know it will absolutely crush them if you do so you laugh uncomfortably and say "Yeah, Rusty, haha, this is a great finale", all the while praying that he'll stop staring at you with his screwed up face and leave so that you can berate the next, high functioning autist who sits on the couch next to you and forces you to watch their eight years worth of shitty drawings episodes. That was a long, incredibly hard to follow sentence, just like Journey's End was long, incredibly hard to follow, and drenched in Russell's cum stains. Wiping the cum off his screen from Journey's End and getting to work, RTD decided it was time to get to work trying to fix his legacy. Sitting down to actually work, he spent the majority of 2009 writing the only good season of Torchwood, script editing Sarah Jane (but not writing thank god!), and conceiving of a 5 episode concentrated season of Doctor Who written by him. The season was a celebration of everything Davies does right and wrong: There was a wonderful christmas special packed with action and so over the top that you had fun, a shitty melodrama episode, a GOAT dark episode that copied Moffat's style that no one shuts the fuck up about, and more ejaculation on a script. This ejaculation was soaked into the paper and formed The End of Time. The End of Time could have been a chance for 10 to be heroic and go out on a high note. The episode however did the complete opposite. The Doctor and even The Tenth Doctor were completely out of character in this episode. He spends nearly the entire time sulking over his "death" and how "even if I change it feels like dying", has a mental freakout at Wilf about having to save him, visits all of his companions before changing and his final words are "I don't want to go". The Doctor would never act like this. It was basically RTD inserting himself into the character because he was sad that he was leaving. This was a huge fuck you to the next production team. The whole point of the show are things changing constantly and this episode doesn't support the next Doctor at all and acts as if the show is ending. This turned most of the audience immediately against Matt Smith and in my opinion this episode is the reason why there's such a huge schism in the fanbase between RTD/Moffat and why 5 years later some people STILL can't move on. There was always going to be people like this but the episode did absolutely no favors at all and probably made it bigger. Tennant deserved to go on high and with a bang. Not a complete whimper like this. This was RTD's final dump on the show before leaving. Luckily Moff brought back the Ten for the anniversary special and wrote him as a casanova wannabe that parodied himself and actually acted like The Doctor. It completely decanonized The End of Time's characterization and . However, the last words he said in the anniversary special were still "I don't want to go."
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