Schedule Adjustment

In the interest of maintaining the quality of my posts (and my sanity), I have decided to change my posting schedule, starting next week (Wednesday, 23 Feb 11).  Rather than trying to post a Confession every week and squeeze in Reviews and Nu-Views as they arise, I will only post something from one of those three classes every week, depending on DVD release schedules and WhoFest session dates.

Partly, this allows me to "ramp up" to my intended eventual tripartite blog structure.  A revised, custom site is under construction (don't ask about a release date for that; I've no idea at this stage) in which each type of post (Confessions, Reviews, and Nu-Views) will have its own blog-stream.  You'll be able to follow the RSS feed for any one of them, or all of them.  If I gain a real Readership, I might even consider adding a forum.  It'll be cool; just wait and see.

Another thing I hope to improve with the upcoming site is giving readers the ability to post comments on Reviews and Nu-Views as well.  Not that there are many comments yet...  (C'mon, people!  I can see you in my stats!  I know someone's at least loading my pages!)  I recognize that episode reviews are probably the most likely to inspire chatter, so that's one of the main reasons I wanted to blog-etize all three sections.  In the meantime, please feel free to comment about any section of the site on the Confessions page.

Now just because I've declared that I will only post in one category a week, it doesn't mean I won't occasionally post to more, if I get inspired.  Sometimes I'll want to write a lot - I do get slightly obsessive about things like blogging.  And, of course, there's Series Six coming up.  So pull up a chair and settle in.  There's plenty to come.

Confession #5: I Have My Own Theories About River Song

This is more an "admission" than a confession, but hey - it's my blog.

Especially with Series Six coming up in a matter of weeks, and a promise that "everything changes," ideas about who River Song "really is" are as abundant as fans who watch Nu-Who (if not more so).  I figured now was as good a time as any to put forth my own.

Perhaps I should start with a brief list of the most common hypotheses that I don't buy.  For example:

• She's the Doctor's wife.  Yeah, right.  They may act "like an old married couple" and there have been hints dropped left and right that they are, but I just can't credit it.  Undoubtedly, there's a romantic (or even just sexual) component to the relationship, but if River is the Doctor's wife, then that is only a fraction of the whole story.  Otherwise, the rest makes no sense.
• She's a future incarnation of the Doctor.  This idea clearly comes out of certain fans' long-standing desire to see a female Doctor, but River Song is no Valeyard.  While she clearly knows how to handle herself in the TARDIS and such, she's much too comfortable with violence in general, and guns in particular, for me ever to believe she's the Doctor.
• She's another Time Lord.  I'm more willing to believe this one than some of the others, but it still doesn't ring true to me.  If she's traipsing around the 51st century, why is the Doctor convinced all through the rest of Nu-Who that he (or, for a time, the Master) is the last of the Time Lords?  Supposedly he can sense other Time Lords, regardless of where (or, presumably, when) they are.  None of that fits with what we know of River.
• She's the Doctor's mother/daughter.  Are these people on drugs?  There is nothing either maternal or filial in River's attitude toward the Doctor.  If there were, then other comments would be distinctly incestuous in nature, which is far too creepy for someone like Moffat to include in a show that is - at least in Britain - specifically aimed at a family audience.  I'd sooner believe the Woman in White from The End of Time had either familial relationship with the Doctor (most certainly not my interpretation) than that River does.

So what are the big clues we're given?  Well, among other things, we're led to believe by dialogue in The Time of Angels / Flesh and Stone that she kills the Doctor at some point.  Various comments through the six episodes in which River has so far appeared lead us to think that at different points in her timeline she is alternately untrustworthy and his most trusted (capital-C?) companion ever.  Aside from copious attitude-based implications from their interactions up until that point, the end of The Big Bang gives another nicely confused hint at their marital status.  Most importantly to me, though, she knows the Doctor's true name.

Ever since Silence in the Library / Forest of the Dead, I've been firmly convinced that knowing his name is the big key.  There's something extremely unpleasant behind River's relationship with the Doctor.  Why else would she preface the revelation of her knowledge with "I'm sorry; I'm really very sorry..."?  That's the most telling exchange we've yet seen, in my opinion.  While some people interpret Ten's admission that "there's only one way I would ever tell anyone my name. There's only one time I could" as evidence to support the Wife Hypothesis, I find it all more sinister.  (It also clearly debunks the Future Incarnation Hypothesis, as he would never need to tell himself his name.)  In what circumstances would it be critical for someone besides the Doctor to know (perhaps to preserve) his name?

I think it has something to do with his thirteenth (and canonically final) incarnation.  Somehow - though through what mechanism I'm not creative enough to contrive - I believe River is involved in extending his regenerations beyond the "normal" limit, probably needing to end his life as Thirteen in the process.  I'll be the first to admit that this is an incomplete idea at best, and utterly off the mark if Moffat's plans don't extend beyond Eleven's tenure.  Given River's off-handed comments about "all [his] faces," I prefer to believe she'll be with us at least until Twelve, and Moffat has assured us that River's entire story will play out on screen.  Whatever the case - and I'm perfectly willing to adjust my own hypothesis as more clues come to light - I cannot be swayed from my conviction that there is something really dark in the Doctor's future with River.

Maybe we'll learn more in the middle of Series Six*, when "everything changes."

*I have a sneaking suspicion that the upcoming mid-series cliffhanger will be all about River and her portents.

Post-poned

Due to the unfortunate encroachment of Real Life, Confession #4 will need to be postponed until next week.  With yesterday's release of The Movie and The Mutants, there should be some new reviews in the next week or two, as well.

My apologies if I've disappointed anyone (with my vast, single digit readership, I'm sure there's somebody...).  I'll get back on track as soon as possible, once these pesky RL issues are resolved.

Confession #4: I Hate the "Standard" Regenerations

Warning:

This site (specifically, this post) contains profanity.  If you can't handle that, turn back now.

When Nine regenerated into Ten, Rose looked on in consternation as all the energy of the Time Vortex streamed back out of him as a bright, shining light pouring from his arms and head.  It was dramatic, it was beautifully done, and it was appropriate.  So what the hell was going on when the same effect turned the Jacobi-Master into the Simms-Master?  He'd just been shot, for shit's sake - why would he get all glowy?

Former Head Writer/Executive Producer Russell T. Davies (commonly known as RTD) would have us believe that there needed to be a sense of continuity about the regeneration process, or new viewers wouldn't understand that it was the way all Timelords change their bodies whenever they near death.  Give me a fucking break.  Are we really so stupid we can't figure out that a body change is still a body change?  How does it make sense to have all regenerations the same, no matter the cause?  If a Timelord dies of a paper cut, should his regeneration cause him to stand up from where he's collapsed and shoot golden light out of every orifice?  Hardly.  That's clearly something else coming out of one of RTD's orifices, if you ask me.

Who knows what current head honcho Steven Moffat (aka The Grand Moff) will decide to do when it's time for Eleven to become Twelve, but I sincerely hope he gives fans a bit more credit in the mental capacity department.  He always challenges us to pay attention to little details in order to get to the heart of one of his twisted plots, so I'd like to think he'll be willing to throw this RTD-era relic of "standard" regenerations in the bin where it belongs.  I advocate the return of the Unique Regeneration - a process that is specific to the place, time, and method of the Doctor's (or other Timelord's) death.

Just look back at the history.  From One through Seven, we witness each Doctor undergo regeneration from a new cause of death, and each time it's a little different.  Check out the details to see what I mean:

One to Two - Apparent ill health / old age
          morph while collapsed
Two to Three - Decreed by Timelords
          off-screen; new Doctor stumbles from TARDIS
Three to Four* - Radiation poisoning
          K'anpo "kick starts" process, morph where collapsed
Four to Five - Fell from a height
          Watcher merged with Four, became Five
Five to Six - Spectrox toxemia; antidote given to Peri
          Hallucinations, morph where collapsed
Six to Seven* - Cranial(?) trauma when TARDIS hijacked
          morph when rolled over by a Tetrap
Seven to Eight - Cardiac surgery gone wrong
          morph on slab in morgue fridge
*These are regenerations I've only seen in snippets on YouTube, rather than in full episode context.

Compare these to the Nu-Who regenerations we've seen so far:

Nine to Ten - Absorbed all the energy of the Time Vortex
          standing morph; golden light of Time Vortex shooting from head, arms
Jacobi-Master to Simms-Master - Shot by companion Chan Tho
          standing morph; golden light shooting from head, arms
Ten to Ten Point Two* - Shot by Dalek
          standing morph; golden light shooting from head, arms
Ten to Eleven - Extreme radiation exposure
          standing morph; golden light shooting from head, arms
*Hardly counts as a regeneration; merely setting the stage for the Timelord-human metacrisis.

Does anybody else see anything wrong with this picture? Why is there no correlation between the manner of death and regeneration in Nu-Who?  Worse, why is there a brilliant connection in the first case, and nonsensical repetition ever after?  Once again, this feels like a case where RTD's fanboy'er-than-thou attitude has gotten the better of him. In the land of Russell Knows Best, Classic canon has been chucked out the window (let's not review the Doctor's purported age too closely in that light, shall we?) and RTD's poorly-thought-out vision inflicted on all of us.  Let's just hope the Grand Moff sees the not-shooting-golden light.

Maybe I'm being a bit hard on RTD (lord knows I'm not the only one); he did, after all, do a lot of things right, not the least of which is bringing the whole shebang back to our screens and introducing a whole new batch of people to Doctor Who (THANK YOU!).   But I'm sticking to my guns on this one.  Regeneration is as individual as death; every person experiences it differently, and as we are all well aware, every Doctor is a unique person.  Let's do them each the honor of allowing their final moments to be truly distinct.