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rosa_acicularis) wrote2008-02-23 06:26 pm
rosa_acicularis) wrote2008-02-23 06:26 pm
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The Little Things - a New Who companion picspam.
A recent conversation with the_sandwalker got me thinking about some of my favorite character moments from the new series. Unfortunately, this picspam was the result.
the_sandwalker got me thinking about some of my favorite character moments from the new series. Unfortunately, this picspam was the result. Oddly enough, it is in one of my least favorite Who episodes that I find my absolute, hands down favorite Rose Tyler moment. Just before her encounter with the Scribble Creature in Fear Her, Rose stands in front of the garage door, and we hear crashing as something rather obviously larger and more powerful than an ionically-displaced tabby cat attempts to escape.
Rose's reaction? She stares at the door as if entranced - by curiosity, by the potential for danger, by the unknown - and mutters under her breath, "Not gonna open it, not gonna open it, not gonna open it..."
Her fingers actually twitch as she tries to resist the temptation to release whatever is inside. But ultimately she cannot help herself. She knows it could be dangerous, that the wise thing, the reasonable thing to do would be to call for the Doctor, but Rose is the sort of person who is directed by instinct, not by reason. Sometimes it serves her well and sometimes not so much, but certainly the same can be said of those who rely on rational thought. And thus this is the moment that perfectly defines Rose's character in my mind - reckless, curious, at once remarkably intuitive and a little unwise. She knows she's making the wrong choice ("Not gonna open it, not gonna open it...") but it is her choice to make.
Jumping back to series one and my ever-beloved Mickey Smith. I adore the scene at the end of World War Three when the Doctor admits that the Idiot who saved the world isn't quite so thick after all. What I love even more is when the Doctor invites him along, and Mickey turns him down:
He says: "This life of yours...it's just too much. I couldn't do it." Glancing at Rose's approaching figure: "Don't tell her I said that."
We know, of course, that he can do it - or, perhaps, that he will be able to do it, which is not quite the same thing. Mickey at this point is just an adorable bundle of unrealized potential burdened by self-doubt and this entrenched need to cling to Rose as tightly as he can. Abandoned by his mother and blaming himself for his grandmother's death, Mickey is always left behind. And he thinks that maybe that's where he belongs, that he deserves to be left. That he isn't enough for a life with the Doctor. He thinks himself less than what he is, that the dangers and adventure and responsibilities of a life like that are too much for him.
He's wrong, of course.
We haven't seen much of Donna yet, but I got my Definitive Donna Noble Moment in the first few minutes of The Runaway Bride. It's not even from a scene she's in, but rather from the aftermath of her disappearance. As her mother hustles through the chaos of the church, she offers this explanation for her daughter's sudden, glowy abduction: "Showing off, that's what she is. First day at school, she was sent home for biting."
My first thought was, "Oh, Donna." My second was:
I have absolutely no trouble believing that.
The obvious Martha moment is her fantastic bones-in-the-hand bit, and that is of undeniable significance, but what stands out in my mind is her reaction to those idiot, racist schoolboys at the beginning of Human Nature. She puts up with it because she must, because of crazy fog aliens and the Doctor and the fate of the universe, but she does it with such a fascinating combination of elegance and indignation.
In the almost serene anger behind her response, "That's very funny, sir," we hear that she's grown used to this sort of ignorant bullshit. Grown to expect it, to hear it and to stay quiet regardless, because keeping the Family from their goal is more important to her than giving these morons the bucket over the head that they deserve. And even though these boys are cruel and stupid and young, Martha feels for them when she thinks of the war to come.
She may be the one on her knees scrubbing floors, but she knows what they do not - that their futures are mud and shells and darkness. And though they are, quite frankly, snotty little shits, she takes absolutely no satisfaction from this knowledge. What the Doctor has asked of Martha in these episodes is not action but patience, and that requires a very different sort of courage. Two months of silence in a society in which people of her profession and her race are considered all but invisible, a year living as a ghost on a world in ruins. Martha Jones and her moments - her eras - of grace.
And now a character moment that is not a character moment at all, but rather an incident that perfectly embodies the friendship between Rose and the Doctor:
The woman is spitting gum into his hand, and I swear it's the most romantic thing I've ever seen. The casual intimacy of this (admittedly slightly gross) gesture speaks volumes about how easy and comfortable they are with each other. In a relationship rife with complications and misunderstandings--
("All right. So perhaps the 'dogs with no noses' bit wasn't the most efficient explanation of regeneration I've ever given..."
"Yeah, and 'hey, I've traveled with a lot of people in 900 years' isn't quite the same thing as 'oh, and you should know that I have a compulsive habit of serial monogamy and a taste for intellectually curious, attractive female assistants."
"Well, maybe you should rethink your use of the word 'forever', given your apparently sketchy understanding of human mortality."
"And maybe you need to get out a dictionary and look up the word 'hyberbole', you condescending alien twit.")
Right. Complications. Misunderstandings. Drama and such. But it's the small moments that give the big (the walls and the beaches and the goodbyes) their poignancy.
And in conclusion, we have Captain Jack Harkness:
I do not feel that this requires an explanation.
Screencaps from time-and-space.co.uk and www.demon-cry.net.
Rose's reaction? She stares at the door as if entranced - by curiosity, by the potential for danger, by the unknown - and mutters under her breath, "Not gonna open it, not gonna open it, not gonna open it..."
Her fingers actually twitch as she tries to resist the temptation to release whatever is inside. But ultimately she cannot help herself. She knows it could be dangerous, that the wise thing, the reasonable thing to do would be to call for the Doctor, but Rose is the sort of person who is directed by instinct, not by reason. Sometimes it serves her well and sometimes not so much, but certainly the same can be said of those who rely on rational thought. And thus this is the moment that perfectly defines Rose's character in my mind - reckless, curious, at once remarkably intuitive and a little unwise. She knows she's making the wrong choice ("Not gonna open it, not gonna open it...") but it is her choice to make.
Jumping back to series one and my ever-beloved Mickey Smith. I adore the scene at the end of World War Three when the Doctor admits that the Idiot who saved the world isn't quite so thick after all. What I love even more is when the Doctor invites him along, and Mickey turns him down:
He says: "This life of yours...it's just too much. I couldn't do it." Glancing at Rose's approaching figure: "Don't tell her I said that."
We know, of course, that he can do it - or, perhaps, that he will be able to do it, which is not quite the same thing. Mickey at this point is just an adorable bundle of unrealized potential burdened by self-doubt and this entrenched need to cling to Rose as tightly as he can. Abandoned by his mother and blaming himself for his grandmother's death, Mickey is always left behind. And he thinks that maybe that's where he belongs, that he deserves to be left. That he isn't enough for a life with the Doctor. He thinks himself less than what he is, that the dangers and adventure and responsibilities of a life like that are too much for him.
He's wrong, of course.
We haven't seen much of Donna yet, but I got my Definitive Donna Noble Moment in the first few minutes of The Runaway Bride. It's not even from a scene she's in, but rather from the aftermath of her disappearance. As her mother hustles through the chaos of the church, she offers this explanation for her daughter's sudden, glowy abduction: "Showing off, that's what she is. First day at school, she was sent home for biting."
My first thought was, "Oh, Donna." My second was:
I have absolutely no trouble believing that.
The obvious Martha moment is her fantastic bones-in-the-hand bit, and that is of undeniable significance, but what stands out in my mind is her reaction to those idiot, racist schoolboys at the beginning of Human Nature. She puts up with it because she must, because of crazy fog aliens and the Doctor and the fate of the universe, but she does it with such a fascinating combination of elegance and indignation.
In the almost serene anger behind her response, "That's very funny, sir," we hear that she's grown used to this sort of ignorant bullshit. Grown to expect it, to hear it and to stay quiet regardless, because keeping the Family from their goal is more important to her than giving these morons the bucket over the head that they deserve. And even though these boys are cruel and stupid and young, Martha feels for them when she thinks of the war to come.
She may be the one on her knees scrubbing floors, but she knows what they do not - that their futures are mud and shells and darkness. And though they are, quite frankly, snotty little shits, she takes absolutely no satisfaction from this knowledge. What the Doctor has asked of Martha in these episodes is not action but patience, and that requires a very different sort of courage. Two months of silence in a society in which people of her profession and her race are considered all but invisible, a year living as a ghost on a world in ruins. Martha Jones and her moments - her eras - of grace.
And now a character moment that is not a character moment at all, but rather an incident that perfectly embodies the friendship between Rose and the Doctor:
The woman is spitting gum into his hand, and I swear it's the most romantic thing I've ever seen. The casual intimacy of this (admittedly slightly gross) gesture speaks volumes about how easy and comfortable they are with each other. In a relationship rife with complications and misunderstandings--
("All right. So perhaps the 'dogs with no noses' bit wasn't the most efficient explanation of regeneration I've ever given..."
"Yeah, and 'hey, I've traveled with a lot of people in 900 years' isn't quite the same thing as 'oh, and you should know that I have a compulsive habit of serial monogamy and a taste for intellectually curious, attractive female assistants."
"Well, maybe you should rethink your use of the word 'forever', given your apparently sketchy understanding of human mortality."
"And maybe you need to get out a dictionary and look up the word 'hyberbole', you condescending alien twit.")
Right. Complications. Misunderstandings. Drama and such. But it's the small moments that give the big (the walls and the beaches and the goodbyes) their poignancy.
And in conclusion, we have Captain Jack Harkness:
I do not feel that this requires an explanation.
Screencaps from time-and-space.co.uk and www.demon-cry.net.