... and how it placed my heart on the floor and stomped on it.
*sighs* Okay. I can do this. I can take all my anger and disappointment and shape it into coherent sentences. Or at least I'll try. In order to write this post, I had to keep notes I could refer to whenever I felt like simply punching the keyboard in frustration. Let's hope it works. This will be long and bitchy but my anger is righteous.
First of all, let me say that I am annoyed by how "shut up" has become a catchphrase. Sure, it can be amusing sometimes, under the right circumstances, but it seems like the circumstances don't even matter anymore. Most of the time, it's a matter of "being rude is funny and/or endearing" which simply isn't true. It isn't. Don't open conversations by saying "shut up, shut up, shut up". Just... don't.
So, apparently, Clara needs a bunch of post-it notes to keep track of all her lies. Because being a woman instantly makes her a liar so prolific that she can't even remember all the things she's lied about. Not only that, she also needs them as a reminder of all the adventures she's been through, as though she can so easily forget the extraordinary things she's experienced. Or, it could be that because she's a woman, Clara needs the notes to help her focus when her emotions throw her off. Because, you know, us women folk are ruled by our emotions. Logic is a mystery to us. But I'm getting carried away... Personality fluctuations aside, the thing that most bothers me when it comes to Clara at this moment is the fact that she feels the need to say "Before all of the stuff that I did wrong..." And that's when the first "no", followed by head shaking, comes in. It's her life, her own life and she doesn't owe anyone an explanation. If she's done something wrong by Danny, that would be lying to him. She did one thing wrong. One. She didn't need to ask his permission before going off with the Doctor and travelling the galaxies, if that's what she felt she wanted to do. No, Clara. You don't apologize for wanting to see more than the average person does, you don't apologize for wanting to see amazing things. You travel through the whole of time and space if you want to and you apologize to no one! But this is not about Clara, is it? It's about Danny and how she loves him and how that makes him the centre of her world. A centre that is about to be dislodged however, because Danny gets hit by a car.
He gets hit by a car noiselessly. No brakes, no screeching, no thumping, nothing. In fact, had that random woman not picked up the phone afterwards, Clara probably would have found out about Danny's death a day or two later. Did the accident even happen? I'm almost tempted to believe it didn't. I'm actually willing to forget this entire episode exists! Aaanyway, the accident happened, Danny is dead and it's sad. I liked Danny Pink, initially. But like most of Moffat's characters, he's turned into a device, a point of conflict and not an actual character with a consistent personality. As a result of his death, Clara seems to be fading. Even more, that is. I don't know who Clara is at this point. She's several people at once and they're all fading. Again, a female trait, according to the Moff. Grief, for a woman, is too much to handle. For this particular woman, the Impossible Girl, grief is used as justification for her to develop yet another, different personality. We can't have too many of those, oh no.
I get it. I honestly do. Sorrow, pain, mourning can change people. You may find yourself doing things you wouldn't normally do, in order to cope with loss. For example, while in mourning, I make jokes. I'm not a particularly funny person so this is a slight modification of my personality, which occurs for a limited period of time. I don't suddenly become a different person. I certainly don't believe anybody owes me and I wouldn't go threatening anyone to fix the situation for me. This is a very human and tragic thing: after losing someone, we may be inconsolable and bereaved and slightly broken but we are not special in our pain. We are not owed better.
BUT MOFFAT SEEMS TO THINK THAT WOMEN, SPECIFICALLY, CANNOT COPE WITH LOSS WITHOUT TURNING INTO SHELLS OF THEIR FORMER SELVES AND PULLING RIDICULOUS STUNTS IN ORDER TO GET THEIR WAY! *inhales deeply* *exhales disappointment*
Clara calls the Doctor, because he's the one who owes her, apparently. And the Doctor asks "What can I do for you, Clara?" This seems like the perfect opportunity to tell him "hey, you know, my boyfriend kinda died, so could we kinda get him back somehow?" But nooo. That would be too easy. How about this brilliant plan? Instead of asking my friend to help me, Clara thinks, I will manipulate and threaten him into doing what I want. I won't even try asking first, I'll just skip right to the threatening, yeah? Good. Brilliant.
This idea, of course, is far from brilliant. It is actually quite stupid. And, as expected, it doesn't go as planned. So now, we have Clara throwing TARDIS keys in lava, one by one, until the Doctor agrees to do her bidding. He explains, properly explains to her why he can't do what she asks, but she still throws away the last key. Because she's an asshole. I don't care if there's no real harm done, seeing as all those keys were fake. This should not count in her favour. Her intention was to destroy every single key and she says she'd do it again. But this is not like her, this is not the same girl who would gladly sacrifice herself in order to save the Doctor. "His Clara" wouldn't do this. Who is this person then? Moffat, what are you doing?
And this is where I talk about betrayal and the "you wouldn't do this to me" factor. We know, or assume, what the people close to us are capable of. Because people are capable of immense cruelty, in general, but the ones we trust, the ones we love would never ever be cruel to us, ever. Of course the Doctor has been let down by Clara. He never thought she'd do this to him. He must be shaken. A little bit? Perhaps, in time, you can overcome the fact that someone you deeply care about betrayed you. In time. Not half a minute later, surely. But I'm thinking in human, not Gallifreyan standards, so maybe we shouldn't linger on this point. It's here just to exist, there are more important things to discuss. Moving on.
(I considered not adding this line but despite its total lack of eloquence, I feel it should be included, so...) Again, "the darkest this, the blackest that, the most dangerous fucking blah in the most bleak fucking bleh". After a bajillion times of hearing this, you kinda don't get the chills you're supposed to. Overusing anything makes it lose its appeal, whether that's a joke or a warning. Stop telling me that you're going to a dangerous place and show me how it's dangerous instead. (Spoiler: it's not nearly as dangerous as the most dangerous place in the whole of creation, give it a rest already.)
If you managed to miss the first "symbol" hanging on the wall in Seb's office, surely, from this point on, you'll be able to see several. There are Cyberman eyes everywhere. Literally, everywhere! "Rest in peace" sculpture. Boom, Cyberman eye. 3W introduction message? CYBERMAN EYE. It's not even subtle. It's almost as though the person that designed this place wanted to make it perfectly clear, this is where Cybermen are manufactured. Also, we've seen the trailer. We already knew there would be Cybermen. But I guess, if you haven't seen the trailer and failed to notice any of the utterly obvious eye-symbols all over the place, you're in for a surprise.
Enter Missy. Unaffected upon meeting Missy, are you, Doctor? Nothing tugging at your insides? No strange sensation you might have experienced before? Good, I'll treat that as a sign because, NO.
What's the first thing Missy does? Invade the Doctor's personal space, kiss him in spite of his evident discomfort. Great writing once again, Moffat. Men being sexually assaulted by women is such a funny joke, right? You can't blame the woman after all, it's not like she can control her emotions, everyone knows that! Ha ha ha, YOU ARE SUCH A FUNNY GUY.
"I am maintained by my heart." Touching the chest of another Time Lord should have alerted the Doctor to their Time Lordiness, undoubtedly? The Doctor couldn't be that careless, could he?
(The Steve Jobs joke is just plain rude. Ugh.)
We see Clara practically torturing Danny, pressuring him into recalling something only he would know, so that she can verify his identity. It doesn't matter that he's confused and shocked and scared, it's up to him to think of something. After saying she'd do anything to get him back, she simply ends the call and leaves him in an even worse state than before. If this is how Clara treats the people she loves, I'd hate to see how she'd treat anyone she doesn't like. At this point, I find it very hard to care about her. I want to but I just can't seem to...
And now's the time for the big revelation. Who is Missy?
I've thought of it. The answer was right before our eyes. It was there the whole time. But I thought it was too crazy, even Moffat in all his Moffatness wouldn't do that.
"Who is Missy?" No no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no...
"Short for Mistress." Please, please, please, don't. It's a mistake. It must be!
"Well, couldn't very well keep calling myself the Master now, could I?"
The look on Capaldi's face matches the one on mine. Horror. I do, at this point, hate Moffat. I've refrained from saying that, because I thought it wasn't nice, but let's face it, the man has earned it. I disliked him before but now I really hate him for taking a character I appreciate and love deeply, and treating him with so little respect, so little -which means none at all- finesse. This is the worst thing he's done as a showrunner, the worst possible thing he could have done to the show. I choose to maintain a speck of hope for the second part of the finale but I know, I know this cannot be undone. And I am angry and disappointed and sad and frustrated. I'd go so far as to say I'm in mourning.
Yes, I wanted the Master to come back. I love the Master, how could I not want him back? A new Master going up against Capaldi's Doctor would have been a terribly interesting thing to watch, especially now that the Doctor seems to be so perplexed concerning his nature, whether he's a good man or not. But Moffat shouldn't have touched the Master.
For some reason, he chooses to have the Master and the Doctor kiss. Has there been sexual tension between them all this time? I don't care. The answer may be yes, it may be no. Moffat seems to think so. Or it's something he picked up from the fandom, I don't know. Anyway, he felt the need to have them kiss. But not before changing one of them into a woman because what sort of sexual tension is this which doesn't occur between heterosexuals? Pffft, we can't have that, not ever. Sure, the young ones may be thrilled with this new development, as their ship is canon now. Whoop-dee-fucking-doo. If you can't possibly have them kiss while they're both male, you're insulting both characters. You're changing them to suit your -pathetic- view of the world and not the needs of their story and respective personalities.
Moffat treats characters he's created poorly. When we first met River Song, she was amazing and had so much potential. She ended up being a plot device, a thing to be used whenever he felt that it was convenient and by the time he was done with her, I didn't like her as much.
He couldn't write women as people if his life depended on it. A female Master is going to be abused and destroyed in his hands. He can't write women. He'll just turn her into another multiple personality-sexy (according to him) badass with no purpose other than to be the villain, a villain with no actual motives and thoughts. It's important to realize that, yes, the Master is usually the villain but he is also the antagonist. The antagonist's role isn't simply to vex the hero. The antagonist is fucking important to the hero's journey and character development, much more than your average villain. So they should be treated with respect. Moffat has already failed to do that by discarding the Master's identity. It's not the Master anymore, it's Missy and that's... really not the same person, is it?
Let me clarify, I have no objections with either the Master or the Doctor regenerating into a female body. No objections here, none. But this situation would have some consequences, it would take a bit of getting used to or not getting used to, refusing to getting used to it. It would be difficult for a person that has identified as male for hundreds of years to, one day, wake up in a female body. They wouldn't go about their day as though that's simply a thing that happens sometimes, oh well, why don't I change my name while I'm at it. And if, for the sake of argument, they did decide that it's ok after all, that wouldn't happen in a split second. There would normally be a process which you can't just dismiss and refuse to write, Moffat, I'm sorry but that isn't how things work! Show me this, if you can. If you have a good enough explanation, if you have a story good enough, show me.
But what was I expecting from an arrogant, sexist, "everything besides myself" - phobic jerk like you?
I can't. There are so many things wrong with this episode... I had arguments, I had good points to make but I can't do this. Three days later and I'm still rattled over this. I cannot stress enough how much I love the Master. Though I've only seen a little of Delgado and a whole lot of Simm, and knowing very little of this character's long history, I still know this is wrong. It makes me sad. I give up.
*sighs* Okay. I can do this. I can take all my anger and disappointment and shape it into coherent sentences. Or at least I'll try. In order to write this post, I had to keep notes I could refer to whenever I felt like simply punching the keyboard in frustration. Let's hope it works. This will be long and bitchy but my anger is righteous.
First of all, let me say that I am annoyed by how "shut up" has become a catchphrase. Sure, it can be amusing sometimes, under the right circumstances, but it seems like the circumstances don't even matter anymore. Most of the time, it's a matter of "being rude is funny and/or endearing" which simply isn't true. It isn't. Don't open conversations by saying "shut up, shut up, shut up". Just... don't.
So, apparently, Clara needs a bunch of post-it notes to keep track of all her lies. Because being a woman instantly makes her a liar so prolific that she can't even remember all the things she's lied about. Not only that, she also needs them as a reminder of all the adventures she's been through, as though she can so easily forget the extraordinary things she's experienced. Or, it could be that because she's a woman, Clara needs the notes to help her focus when her emotions throw her off. Because, you know, us women folk are ruled by our emotions. Logic is a mystery to us. But I'm getting carried away... Personality fluctuations aside, the thing that most bothers me when it comes to Clara at this moment is the fact that she feels the need to say "Before all of the stuff that I did wrong..." And that's when the first "no", followed by head shaking, comes in. It's her life, her own life and she doesn't owe anyone an explanation. If she's done something wrong by Danny, that would be lying to him. She did one thing wrong. One. She didn't need to ask his permission before going off with the Doctor and travelling the galaxies, if that's what she felt she wanted to do. No, Clara. You don't apologize for wanting to see more than the average person does, you don't apologize for wanting to see amazing things. You travel through the whole of time and space if you want to and you apologize to no one! But this is not about Clara, is it? It's about Danny and how she loves him and how that makes him the centre of her world. A centre that is about to be dislodged however, because Danny gets hit by a car.
He gets hit by a car noiselessly. No brakes, no screeching, no thumping, nothing. In fact, had that random woman not picked up the phone afterwards, Clara probably would have found out about Danny's death a day or two later. Did the accident even happen? I'm almost tempted to believe it didn't. I'm actually willing to forget this entire episode exists! Aaanyway, the accident happened, Danny is dead and it's sad. I liked Danny Pink, initially. But like most of Moffat's characters, he's turned into a device, a point of conflict and not an actual character with a consistent personality. As a result of his death, Clara seems to be fading. Even more, that is. I don't know who Clara is at this point. She's several people at once and they're all fading. Again, a female trait, according to the Moff. Grief, for a woman, is too much to handle. For this particular woman, the Impossible Girl, grief is used as justification for her to develop yet another, different personality. We can't have too many of those, oh no.
I get it. I honestly do. Sorrow, pain, mourning can change people. You may find yourself doing things you wouldn't normally do, in order to cope with loss. For example, while in mourning, I make jokes. I'm not a particularly funny person so this is a slight modification of my personality, which occurs for a limited period of time. I don't suddenly become a different person. I certainly don't believe anybody owes me and I wouldn't go threatening anyone to fix the situation for me. This is a very human and tragic thing: after losing someone, we may be inconsolable and bereaved and slightly broken but we are not special in our pain. We are not owed better.
BUT MOFFAT SEEMS TO THINK THAT WOMEN, SPECIFICALLY, CANNOT COPE WITH LOSS WITHOUT TURNING INTO SHELLS OF THEIR FORMER SELVES AND PULLING RIDICULOUS STUNTS IN ORDER TO GET THEIR WAY! *inhales deeply* *exhales disappointment*
Clara calls the Doctor, because he's the one who owes her, apparently. And the Doctor asks "What can I do for you, Clara?" This seems like the perfect opportunity to tell him "hey, you know, my boyfriend kinda died, so could we kinda get him back somehow?" But nooo. That would be too easy. How about this brilliant plan? Instead of asking my friend to help me, Clara thinks, I will manipulate and threaten him into doing what I want. I won't even try asking first, I'll just skip right to the threatening, yeah? Good. Brilliant.
This idea, of course, is far from brilliant. It is actually quite stupid. And, as expected, it doesn't go as planned. So now, we have Clara throwing TARDIS keys in lava, one by one, until the Doctor agrees to do her bidding. He explains, properly explains to her why he can't do what she asks, but she still throws away the last key. Because she's an asshole. I don't care if there's no real harm done, seeing as all those keys were fake. This should not count in her favour. Her intention was to destroy every single key and she says she'd do it again. But this is not like her, this is not the same girl who would gladly sacrifice herself in order to save the Doctor. "His Clara" wouldn't do this. Who is this person then? Moffat, what are you doing?
And this is where I talk about betrayal and the "you wouldn't do this to me" factor. We know, or assume, what the people close to us are capable of. Because people are capable of immense cruelty, in general, but the ones we trust, the ones we love would never ever be cruel to us, ever. Of course the Doctor has been let down by Clara. He never thought she'd do this to him. He must be shaken. A little bit? Perhaps, in time, you can overcome the fact that someone you deeply care about betrayed you. In time. Not half a minute later, surely. But I'm thinking in human, not Gallifreyan standards, so maybe we shouldn't linger on this point. It's here just to exist, there are more important things to discuss. Moving on.
(I considered not adding this line but despite its total lack of eloquence, I feel it should be included, so...) Again, "the darkest this, the blackest that, the most dangerous fucking blah in the most bleak fucking bleh". After a bajillion times of hearing this, you kinda don't get the chills you're supposed to. Overusing anything makes it lose its appeal, whether that's a joke or a warning. Stop telling me that you're going to a dangerous place and show me how it's dangerous instead. (Spoiler: it's not nearly as dangerous as the most dangerous place in the whole of creation, give it a rest already.)
If you managed to miss the first "symbol" hanging on the wall in Seb's office, surely, from this point on, you'll be able to see several. There are Cyberman eyes everywhere. Literally, everywhere! "Rest in peace" sculpture. Boom, Cyberman eye. 3W introduction message? CYBERMAN EYE. It's not even subtle. It's almost as though the person that designed this place wanted to make it perfectly clear, this is where Cybermen are manufactured. Also, we've seen the trailer. We already knew there would be Cybermen. But I guess, if you haven't seen the trailer and failed to notice any of the utterly obvious eye-symbols all over the place, you're in for a surprise.
Enter Missy. Unaffected upon meeting Missy, are you, Doctor? Nothing tugging at your insides? No strange sensation you might have experienced before? Good, I'll treat that as a sign because, NO.
What's the first thing Missy does? Invade the Doctor's personal space, kiss him in spite of his evident discomfort. Great writing once again, Moffat. Men being sexually assaulted by women is such a funny joke, right? You can't blame the woman after all, it's not like she can control her emotions, everyone knows that! Ha ha ha, YOU ARE SUCH A FUNNY GUY.
"I am maintained by my heart." Touching the chest of another Time Lord should have alerted the Doctor to their Time Lordiness, undoubtedly? The Doctor couldn't be that careless, could he?
(The Steve Jobs joke is just plain rude. Ugh.)
We see Clara practically torturing Danny, pressuring him into recalling something only he would know, so that she can verify his identity. It doesn't matter that he's confused and shocked and scared, it's up to him to think of something. After saying she'd do anything to get him back, she simply ends the call and leaves him in an even worse state than before. If this is how Clara treats the people she loves, I'd hate to see how she'd treat anyone she doesn't like. At this point, I find it very hard to care about her. I want to but I just can't seem to...
And now's the time for the big revelation. Who is Missy?
I've thought of it. The answer was right before our eyes. It was there the whole time. But I thought it was too crazy, even Moffat in all his Moffatness wouldn't do that.
"Who is Missy?" No no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no...
"Short for Mistress." Please, please, please, don't. It's a mistake. It must be!
"Well, couldn't very well keep calling myself the Master now, could I?"
The look on Capaldi's face matches the one on mine. Horror. I do, at this point, hate Moffat. I've refrained from saying that, because I thought it wasn't nice, but let's face it, the man has earned it. I disliked him before but now I really hate him for taking a character I appreciate and love deeply, and treating him with so little respect, so little -which means none at all- finesse. This is the worst thing he's done as a showrunner, the worst possible thing he could have done to the show. I choose to maintain a speck of hope for the second part of the finale but I know, I know this cannot be undone. And I am angry and disappointed and sad and frustrated. I'd go so far as to say I'm in mourning.
Yes, I wanted the Master to come back. I love the Master, how could I not want him back? A new Master going up against Capaldi's Doctor would have been a terribly interesting thing to watch, especially now that the Doctor seems to be so perplexed concerning his nature, whether he's a good man or not. But Moffat shouldn't have touched the Master.
For some reason, he chooses to have the Master and the Doctor kiss. Has there been sexual tension between them all this time? I don't care. The answer may be yes, it may be no. Moffat seems to think so. Or it's something he picked up from the fandom, I don't know. Anyway, he felt the need to have them kiss. But not before changing one of them into a woman because what sort of sexual tension is this which doesn't occur between heterosexuals? Pffft, we can't have that, not ever. Sure, the young ones may be thrilled with this new development, as their ship is canon now. Whoop-dee-fucking-doo. If you can't possibly have them kiss while they're both male, you're insulting both characters. You're changing them to suit your -pathetic- view of the world and not the needs of their story and respective personalities.
Moffat treats characters he's created poorly. When we first met River Song, she was amazing and had so much potential. She ended up being a plot device, a thing to be used whenever he felt that it was convenient and by the time he was done with her, I didn't like her as much.
He couldn't write women as people if his life depended on it. A female Master is going to be abused and destroyed in his hands. He can't write women. He'll just turn her into another multiple personality-sexy (according to him) badass with no purpose other than to be the villain, a villain with no actual motives and thoughts. It's important to realize that, yes, the Master is usually the villain but he is also the antagonist. The antagonist's role isn't simply to vex the hero. The antagonist is fucking important to the hero's journey and character development, much more than your average villain. So they should be treated with respect. Moffat has already failed to do that by discarding the Master's identity. It's not the Master anymore, it's Missy and that's... really not the same person, is it?
Let me clarify, I have no objections with either the Master or the Doctor regenerating into a female body. No objections here, none. But this situation would have some consequences, it would take a bit of getting used to or not getting used to, refusing to getting used to it. It would be difficult for a person that has identified as male for hundreds of years to, one day, wake up in a female body. They wouldn't go about their day as though that's simply a thing that happens sometimes, oh well, why don't I change my name while I'm at it. And if, for the sake of argument, they did decide that it's ok after all, that wouldn't happen in a split second. There would normally be a process which you can't just dismiss and refuse to write, Moffat, I'm sorry but that isn't how things work! Show me this, if you can. If you have a good enough explanation, if you have a story good enough, show me.
But what was I expecting from an arrogant, sexist, "everything besides myself" - phobic jerk like you?
I can't. There are so many things wrong with this episode... I had arguments, I had good points to make but I can't do this. Three days later and I'm still rattled over this. I cannot stress enough how much I love the Master. Though I've only seen a little of Delgado and a whole lot of Simm, and knowing very little of this character's long history, I still know this is wrong. It makes me sad. I give up.
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