Doctor Who - Season Finale Superlatives

[mijan]

Remember those cheesy "Superlatives" from your high school year book?  The Best ____, the Worst ____, the Most _____.  You get the idea.

Well, here's the Best, Worst, and Most for the season finale of Doctor Who, according to lil' old me.

Most Random Returnee: Harriet Jones

Best Line: "I can't tell you what I'm thinking right now." - Jack

Most Under-appreciated Hero:  K-9

Most Unexpected Ally: Dalek Caan  (Dude, I seriously cheered.)

Most Obvious Part of the Ending: human!Doctor going with Rose

Most Bad-Ass Part: Rose strutting down the street with a huge ray-gun.

Most Kick-Ass Part: Donna treating the Daleks like remote-control robots.  "And now the other way..."  Made. Of. WIN.

Most Devastating Part: Knowing that the Doctor was leaving Donna, and would be alone again, and mostly that Donna would never remember.

Greatest Need to Bitch-Slap: Donna's mother for still being a bitch after all that.

Coolest Part: Thinking back to all the times that people said, "So YOU'RE Donna Noble," and thinking, "AH!"

Cheesiest Part:  The TARDIS pulling the entire Earth.  I'm sorry, but my scientifically oriented brain was just not able to suspend reality and accept that the atmosphere wouldn't just blow right off the surface of the planet during transit.  Also, without some sort of dampening field, the acceleration and deceleration would have ripped the planet apart, and flung every living thing off the surface of the earth.  (The human!Doctor, and #10 regenerating into 10th Doctor again tie for 2nd place in this category.)

Biggest Cheering Point: human!Doctor and Doctor!Donna whisking away the TARDIS just before it's destroyed.

Best Snickering Point: Jack winking from the floor.

Biggest Sporfle: Mickey telling Jack "enough" with the hugging.

Most Obvious Question: What did human!Doctor whisper to Rose?  (We can guess, naturally, but damn it, can't I just hear it?  C'mon.)

Least Obvious Question: So is this still the 10th Doctor, or is it technically the 11th?

Worst Part: The fact that it's the Daleks... AGAIN.  Are they really dead this time?  I mean, REALLY?

Best Part: Watching all the companions and friends flying the TARDIS together.  (Sadly, this was dampened by the cheese-tastic-ness of the TARDIS pulling the earth like a cosmic tow-truck.)

Favourite Random Line: "You're naked."  "Yes."

Any ideas for more categories?  Or any nominations for these categories that you think are more worthy of the title?

My brain is still stuck on all of this.

Am I the only person who didn't cry?

Comments

[lunalovegoddess.livejournal.com]

"I'm just sitting here having the last laugh because her happy little take-home Doctor is also HALF-MOTHERFUCKINGDONNANOBLE!!!"

Word to your muggle. I was sitting here, too, giggling about the look on Rose's face. The "but, it's not the same!" look. She finally gets the Doctor, plus change. I loved the DonnaDoctor (male) so much, especially during scenes with Doctor Donna (female). Catherine Tate is such a versatile actress, really. It's been quite a run.

I love the irony that a piece of the Donna-that-was-brilliant lives on in a parallel world... with Rose. *snort*

[fiona-fawkes.livejournal.com]

I think I was ready to like Rose again, if not love her maybe a little. She was good in these last few episodes, she really was. But to see her be all But I don't want him 'cause he's not the real thing... Oh wait, he loves me, never mind *jumps* there at Bad Wolf Bay just brought back everything that I hated about her the first time around. That bit spoiled her comeback for me. If she'd of just hugged him or even just taken his hand, then I'd have been okay with it. But the suck-face kinda spoiled it for me.

[lunalovegoddess.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I know what you mean. As a fan of the classic series (pre-Davies), I'd been used to the Doctor being somewhat asexual towards his companions. I mean, imagine being a Time Lord; you've evolved from a complete different species entirely, and your brain holds the equivalent of a computer, plus you live upwards of 1000 years if you're lucky. In some ways, I'd imagine that a companion would seem much like a child, that it would feel wrong to pursue a romantic relationship. Plus, his world had been destroyed.

But, I liked Rose before, and I wanted to like her again. I was beginning to like her more in these episodes, liked how she'd become stronger without the Doctor. To have that character development suddenly evaporate and reduce her to a pouting child who is not satisfied with their present, but as soon as a man says he loves her, well... all is forgiven, innit?
That rankled. (Almost as much as Tonks suddenly being so insecure after falling in love with Remus.) It didn't do the character justice.
In the end, it seemed like the Doctor was almost as disappointed in her as I was for initially rejecting his double, because he knew she was a better person than that. In the morning, I thought about writing a short fic in which we view her thoughts as she processes that the human Doctor is actually in essence the same man, just without the current memories. That her Doctor tried to give her what she wanted in his clone, because he could not offer that to her as he is now. (Does that wording make sense to you?) Like how her father realized that this world's Jackie was still the woman he'd fallen in love with long ago, and not grown as cold and materialistic as his late wife.

In short, what I'm trying to say is that I'd love Rose again if Davies had shown that she was processing the fact that this wasn't a poor substitute for the Doctor, but rather, that this DonnaDoctor might be a better match. I'd have liked her to say, "We'll work it out as we go along," rather than immediately cling to him.

(I did like how he told her to make a good person out of the DonnaDoctor, though. Rose needs to be challenged, to be given a task.)

In terms of character development, though, Donna had the greatest impact on The Doctor. He'd been through losing Rose, the worst pain ever, right? And she helped him through it, seen him at his darkest, and wasn't half in love with him so she was able to hold a mirror up to him. And now, while he will always love her, Rose isn't smelling as sweet, is she?
I drew a lot of parallels to River's relationship with the Doctor, actually. It's like comparing the love I had for my first girlfriend to the love I have for my husband. It was real, but immature, and meeting her again a few years ago, I realized that it wouldn't have quite worked out now because I'd grown. She hadn't. My husband and I have been on a twelve-year rollercoaster ride, in which our love has been tested and polished. Based on my experiences since we broke up, if she had stayed with me, I can't say that she would have handled the same events well, especially pregnancy. Looking from the perspective of the person that I have become, she seems somewhat self-centered in retrospect. It's difficult to imagine her putting someone else's needs before her own. It simply did not occur to her to consider how things might affect others. In contrast, I've always been a team player: I had to help Mom pay bills, to take care of younger family members, to focus on what is good for the group as a whole rather what benefits me. My husband actually keeps me from sacrificing my needs, and encourages me to speak up if I'm feeling overwhelmed.

~ends babblefest~

[lunalovegoddess.livejournal.com]

*found my point buried in the anecdote*
That there could have been a better way to illustrate that Rose always wanted things that the Doctor, as a Time Lord, could not give her... and that as a human, he can. So, while I'm happy with the whole "I Can Haz Doktor?" outcome, I'm glad that the parallel world storyline is done with, because I much prefer the Doctor as he is now, wandering the stars.