"The Giggle" second thoughts [review]
Dec. 11th, 2023 07:44 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shivverLast time, I opened my post with "adventure great, ending bad". Today, after 24 hours of thinking about it, watching it again, and another 12 hours of thinking about it, I'm revising this to "entire thing average-good".
So, on second watch, the episode was a lot more enjoyable. Maybe it's a matter of less, "What, really?" and more, "Okay, I get what's going on now."
Now, first things first: I'm still not happy about unleashing two Doctors on the frankly tiny Doctor Who universe, a universe which can be dominated by a single species of a few billion individuals (whether you consider that to be Daleks, Cybermen, or Time Lords). Handled incorrectly, this can really overbalance the show. But I'm not considering that here. We don't know how this will affect the franchise going forward, so I'm not going to speculate.
I will say, though, that I don't think there's any chance that Fourteen is going to draw the spotlight away from Fifteen. First, there's always been the ability to draw previous Doctors into the current Doctor's run and it's mostly only been done for anniversaries. (The one exception is Eleven's appeal to the audience to please keep watching and give Twelve a chance. Did that go well? I don't know in general, but not in my circle.) Second, I believe I've heard that there's some rule at the BBC to only have one active Doctor at a time. Third, I have faith in both RTD and DT that they know better.
With that out of the way, what about the episode itself? Thinking about the 60th in general, I feel like RTD wanted to take the most tragic and conflicted of the modern Doctors, grow him up due to his experiences in the intervening years, have him work through his issues, and give him a happy ending. Pretty much mission accomplished, while also getting him out of the way of the new Doctor but leaving open the possibility of taking the show (or a spinoff) in a new direction.
I love the fan theory that Fourteen has become the Curator; I think this will be my headcanon. Eleven: "I could retire and do that. I could retire and be the curator of this place." It fits in nicely with the idea of "revisiting old faces", and it fills in the tantalizing hole that TDotD left us, about how the Curator came to be. That's a good thing, by the way, the show occasionally leaving things unexplained and allowing future writers to explain it (ten years later!). I think that the episode would have been much tighter and fan objections much lighter if it had been stated outright, that the Doctor was now working as the Curator. Then we would be able to believe that the Doctor could sit still for more than ten seconds.
The second watch also clarified things as we picked up on things that went by too fast or that we forgot. For one, we completely missed the first time how the second TARDIS was created: for winning the Toymaker's game, both Doctors got a prize; Fourteen's was banishing the Toymaker from the universe, and Fifteen's was the new TARDIS (with a jukebox). There was also something around seeing Mel that we both pointed at and went "Oh!" but I don't remember now. And then there was Donna's "You don't talk about Mel and your other friends because you never actually stop and breathe" discussion, which the Doctor ignored and which led to the ending.
So honestly, I think this story actually worked, and while I would have preferred having Fourteen regenerate with a optimistic smile on his face and satisfied with himself (and he was actually doing so when regeneration twisted), this was satisfying as well. The problem is that the episode could have been so much more.
Neil Patrick Harris was excellent as the Toymaker, but the Toymaker and his story really didn't resonate. It almost felt like the episode was rushed, and in putting all the care into the Doctor's story, the Toymaker part was hastily slapped together. The initial foray into the Toymaker's realm should have been a sequence of puzzles that the Doctor and Donna had to figure out together or separately, or at the very least, there should have been a quick encounter in each room, not just running through doors. (Did anyone else, upon seeing them reunite and hug, scream out, "Don't!" I totally expected, after "Wild Blue Yonder", for them to be fake duplicates, or at least have both characters pause and wonder if the other were fakes.) I did love the puppet show, taking some pointed shots at Moffat's statement about "nothing bad ultimately should happen to the companion" - as long as they're alive, the horrible things you put them through, "Well, that's all right then!"
I really love stories about elemental forces that have strict rules that everyone has to obey, including themselves. The protagonist usually has to figure out those rules and then turn the rules against them. That's what was missing here. The Doctor already knew the rules and he knew he couldn't break them, but at the climax of the episode, there was no cleverness, no turning the rules around or finding loopholes. He did so with the first game (the high/low card game), by pointing out that his loss only evened things up, but the ball game was won by a failed dexterity check (to use D&D game terminology). The Doctor needed to actively win, not win by the Toymaker losing - and better, the Doctor should have won by a joint effort between Fourteen and Fifteen. How about a minute of snappy dialogue, shared between the two of them, building up to some revelation about the Toymaker that distracts him enough to make him miss while demonstrating they're still the same person. (Sort of like Ten and Eleven in the human/Zygon negotiation scene in "The Day of the Doctor", except machine-gunned dialogue while they're throwing the ball, to the point where they are finishing each other's sentences.) Off the top of my head...
(The three toss the ball a couple of times with random taunts, then the dialogue begins.)
"You know, the problem with you, Toy-Boy - can I call you that? Can I call him that?"
"Yeah, you can. Fits, I think."
"You think?"
"He's a boy and he's all about toys. I wouldn't, but you would."
"Yeah, I would at that. Never mind. The real problem is that -"
"- you only see the game, and everyone else are just pawns. There's nothing else. Just the game, the pawns -"
"- and you. And you see the problem there, don't you? Because that's wrong. There's just the game -"
"- and the pawns. You're just a pawn, aren't you? You have to be -"
"- because only pawns play games -"
"- and here you are playing. You called yourself the Toymaker -"
"Toy-Boy."
"Shut up. You've said you're the master of the game, but you're just a pawn. You're just the Toy."
(Toymaker) "Doesn't make a bit of difference. You're still trapped in my game."
"Oh yes! Your game, your rules. Except!"
"Except, you didn't tell all the pawns all the rules -"
"Or misrepresented them, maybe. Hid that one behind your back."
"And in our universe -"
"The one we're playing this game in, by the way."
"That's cheating."
(Toymaker misses the ball.)
Sorry. That was terrible and I've run out of inspiration. Also, I have Fifteen (I think - I lost count) delivering the final line and it probably should be Fourteen, who is the focus of this story. But something like this is what I wanted to see - a clever (and slightly comic) victory. They instead went with a totally serious game of catch, and it just didn't work. It didn't feel like a Doctor-y victory, and robbed both the Doctors and the Toymaker of a spectacular showdown scene.
So, at the end of the day, it was a basically good episode that never fulfilled its potential. This should have been a mind-fuck story, and they should have explicitly tied Fourteen to the Curator (if only to give him something to do with his retirement). I enjoyed the second watch, and at the end of the day, I'm pretty darn happy with the 60th anniversary overall. The TV specials were great, the audio series okay (I haven't finished reviewing them, but they definitely picked up at the end). My only question is, where is the sequel to "The Five(-ish) Doctors Reboot", huh, Mr. Davison?
So, on second watch, the episode was a lot more enjoyable. Maybe it's a matter of less, "What, really?" and more, "Okay, I get what's going on now."
Now, first things first: I'm still not happy about unleashing two Doctors on the frankly tiny Doctor Who universe, a universe which can be dominated by a single species of a few billion individuals (whether you consider that to be Daleks, Cybermen, or Time Lords). Handled incorrectly, this can really overbalance the show. But I'm not considering that here. We don't know how this will affect the franchise going forward, so I'm not going to speculate.
I will say, though, that I don't think there's any chance that Fourteen is going to draw the spotlight away from Fifteen. First, there's always been the ability to draw previous Doctors into the current Doctor's run and it's mostly only been done for anniversaries. (The one exception is Eleven's appeal to the audience to please keep watching and give Twelve a chance. Did that go well? I don't know in general, but not in my circle.) Second, I believe I've heard that there's some rule at the BBC to only have one active Doctor at a time. Third, I have faith in both RTD and DT that they know better.
With that out of the way, what about the episode itself? Thinking about the 60th in general, I feel like RTD wanted to take the most tragic and conflicted of the modern Doctors, grow him up due to his experiences in the intervening years, have him work through his issues, and give him a happy ending. Pretty much mission accomplished, while also getting him out of the way of the new Doctor but leaving open the possibility of taking the show (or a spinoff) in a new direction.
I love the fan theory that Fourteen has become the Curator; I think this will be my headcanon. Eleven: "I could retire and do that. I could retire and be the curator of this place." It fits in nicely with the idea of "revisiting old faces", and it fills in the tantalizing hole that TDotD left us, about how the Curator came to be. That's a good thing, by the way, the show occasionally leaving things unexplained and allowing future writers to explain it (ten years later!). I think that the episode would have been much tighter and fan objections much lighter if it had been stated outright, that the Doctor was now working as the Curator. Then we would be able to believe that the Doctor could sit still for more than ten seconds.
The second watch also clarified things as we picked up on things that went by too fast or that we forgot. For one, we completely missed the first time how the second TARDIS was created: for winning the Toymaker's game, both Doctors got a prize; Fourteen's was banishing the Toymaker from the universe, and Fifteen's was the new TARDIS (with a jukebox). There was also something around seeing Mel that we both pointed at and went "Oh!" but I don't remember now. And then there was Donna's "You don't talk about Mel and your other friends because you never actually stop and breathe" discussion, which the Doctor ignored and which led to the ending.
So honestly, I think this story actually worked, and while I would have preferred having Fourteen regenerate with a optimistic smile on his face and satisfied with himself (and he was actually doing so when regeneration twisted), this was satisfying as well. The problem is that the episode could have been so much more.
Neil Patrick Harris was excellent as the Toymaker, but the Toymaker and his story really didn't resonate. It almost felt like the episode was rushed, and in putting all the care into the Doctor's story, the Toymaker part was hastily slapped together. The initial foray into the Toymaker's realm should have been a sequence of puzzles that the Doctor and Donna had to figure out together or separately, or at the very least, there should have been a quick encounter in each room, not just running through doors. (Did anyone else, upon seeing them reunite and hug, scream out, "Don't!" I totally expected, after "Wild Blue Yonder", for them to be fake duplicates, or at least have both characters pause and wonder if the other were fakes.) I did love the puppet show, taking some pointed shots at Moffat's statement about "nothing bad ultimately should happen to the companion" - as long as they're alive, the horrible things you put them through, "Well, that's all right then!"
I really love stories about elemental forces that have strict rules that everyone has to obey, including themselves. The protagonist usually has to figure out those rules and then turn the rules against them. That's what was missing here. The Doctor already knew the rules and he knew he couldn't break them, but at the climax of the episode, there was no cleverness, no turning the rules around or finding loopholes. He did so with the first game (the high/low card game), by pointing out that his loss only evened things up, but the ball game was won by a failed dexterity check (to use D&D game terminology). The Doctor needed to actively win, not win by the Toymaker losing - and better, the Doctor should have won by a joint effort between Fourteen and Fifteen. How about a minute of snappy dialogue, shared between the two of them, building up to some revelation about the Toymaker that distracts him enough to make him miss while demonstrating they're still the same person. (Sort of like Ten and Eleven in the human/Zygon negotiation scene in "The Day of the Doctor", except machine-gunned dialogue while they're throwing the ball, to the point where they are finishing each other's sentences.) Off the top of my head...
(The three toss the ball a couple of times with random taunts, then the dialogue begins.)
"You know, the problem with you, Toy-Boy - can I call you that? Can I call him that?"
"Yeah, you can. Fits, I think."
"You think?"
"He's a boy and he's all about toys. I wouldn't, but you would."
"Yeah, I would at that. Never mind. The real problem is that -"
"- you only see the game, and everyone else are just pawns. There's nothing else. Just the game, the pawns -"
"- and you. And you see the problem there, don't you? Because that's wrong. There's just the game -"
"- and the pawns. You're just a pawn, aren't you? You have to be -"
"- because only pawns play games -"
"- and here you are playing. You called yourself the Toymaker -"
"Toy-Boy."
"Shut up. You've said you're the master of the game, but you're just a pawn. You're just the Toy."
(Toymaker) "Doesn't make a bit of difference. You're still trapped in my game."
"Oh yes! Your game, your rules. Except!"
"Except, you didn't tell all the pawns all the rules -"
"Or misrepresented them, maybe. Hid that one behind your back."
"And in our universe -"
"The one we're playing this game in, by the way."
"That's cheating."
(Toymaker misses the ball.)
Sorry. That was terrible and I've run out of inspiration. Also, I have Fifteen (I think - I lost count) delivering the final line and it probably should be Fourteen, who is the focus of this story. But something like this is what I wanted to see - a clever (and slightly comic) victory. They instead went with a totally serious game of catch, and it just didn't work. It didn't feel like a Doctor-y victory, and robbed both the Doctors and the Toymaker of a spectacular showdown scene.
So, at the end of the day, it was a basically good episode that never fulfilled its potential. This should have been a mind-fuck story, and they should have explicitly tied Fourteen to the Curator (if only to give him something to do with his retirement). I enjoyed the second watch, and at the end of the day, I'm pretty darn happy with the 60th anniversary overall. The TV specials were great, the audio series okay (I haven't finished reviewing them, but they definitely picked up at the end). My only question is, where is the sequel to "The Five(-ish) Doctors Reboot", huh, Mr. Davison?
