stunt_muppet

Part of it, I know, is just knee-jerk, reflexive anger, which hopefully will fade in time. That's the anger over Donna, and over having to say goodbye to her when I've come to love her so much, and over having to say goodbye to her in this particular fashion. I'm not up for a huge debate right now over whether the Doctor erasing her memory was right or wrong, but...dammit, I really hoped that maybe she'd get an unambiguously good ending, that she'd be able to walk away on her own terms and of her own free will. I wanted that for her, particularly after so many companions in New Who have had downbeat endings. And instead, I got this.

Part of it is anal-retentive nitpicky fangirl rage, since that was an enormous fucking waste of Davros and the Time Locked Time War concept and why are there hoards of Daleks in the sky again and didn't the earth burn up the last time it got moved through space and time (in The Mysterious Planet) and WHAT THE FUCK IS WITH THE REDIRECTED REGENERATION ENERGY. Look, RTD, I'll give you a pass on the regenerative "grace period", since that actually neatly wraps up quite a few issues from the Classic series and seemed to be implied in a few stories anyway. I'll even give you a pass on the Master's refusal to regenerate, since I guess that kind of makes sense when I don't think about it too much. But this? This thing with the hand? WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT. If you were going to pull something like that, you should have led up to it, because there's no indication in any of your prior episodes that Time Lords can do that and goodness knows you've waved the Hand around enough times, you could've given us something. OR MAYBE WE COULD JUST LEARN TO WORK WITHIN IN THE LIMITATIONS OF AVAILABLE CANONICAL RULES instead of making up something new every season.

I know that this, too, will pass, and that I shouldn't even be this anoraky about it when the series has always contradicted itself and made up new rules for regenerations (although, frankly, had I been alive when Logopolis was broadcast, I think this would have been my reaction to the Watcher).

Part of it, naturally, is Serious Meta-Level Rage re: Rose's characterization, the ending that I hope was meant as a satire of fandom because if it was meant to be taken seriously I can't even describe how creeped out I am, and the "I am become death, the destroyer of worlds" writing of the Doctor, especially with regards to his companions, which was interesting for a while but which Does Not Sit Well With Me anymore. But that requires me to summon up the mental energy for both SRS META and protracted arguement, and I just can't do that right now. For one thing, I'm working.

So how long do you think it'll be before someone writes fic where one of the Old School Doctors redirects his regeneration and ends up creating a copy of himself that's half his companion? Because I've got a persistent mental image now of a Clone!One who's one-third Ben and one-third Polly. Only, you know, Ben and Polly wouldn't have to be retconned, because, er...there's two of them. So the Time Lord Brain is all spread out and in manageable sizes that their human brains can handle.

It totally makes sense. Shut up.

And just think what would've happened if the Doctor had metacrisised at any one of his regenerations? Alas, there'd be no duplicate Two, since he regenerated all by his lonesome, but we could potentially have a duplicate Three who is part Sarah, part Brig, and entirely confused.

Clone!Four would have bits of Adric, Nyssa, and Tegan, though I'm tempted to just pick two of them, because otherwise their personalities would all get so jumbled that they might be indistinguishable. However, using all three of them adds the advantage that their individual personalities wouldn't be affected all that much, whereas, say, Polly or the Brig, even as one of two, might still have occasional episodes of Time Lord Brain.

<cut to scene of Brigadier, head on his desk, massaging his temples>
Doctor: Eventful night, Brigadier?
Brig (glaring): Actually, no, Doctor. No, my trouble seems to be that I'm thinking in languages I can't pronounce again.
Doctor: Ah. It wouldn't happen to be Aphasian Chronodenian, would it? Fascinating language; completely inaccessible to anything living in linear time. Requres sending phonemes back through time to interact with others and alter the meaning of a -
Brig: I don't care. What it is, Doctor. Switch. It. Off.
Doctor: We've been through this, Brigadier. I can't do that without permanently altering your memory. You'll just have to learn to appreciate the chronofractive languages. And, incidentally, you haven't seen the other one of me anywhere, have you?
Brig: Him? Oh, he left hours ago. Said something about looking more professional.
Doctor: Looking more pro...oh, bugger. (dashes out)

or, alternatively...

Polly: (pokes Ben) Psst! Ben!
Ben: (still half-asleep) Mmm?
Polly: What's a psychokinetic particle manipulator?
Ben: (groggy) I don't know, why's it matter?
Polly: Because there's one on Galaxy Six and I'd really like to go see it. I think.

And so forth.

Of course, it occurs to me that since metacrisis doesn't actually result in regeneration, theoretically the Doctor could have done this at almost any point in time - all he has to do is almost die. Which...oh, I hope someone writes fic for this, I don't care how they make it work. I mean, just think of the possibilities! I mean, Clone!Two! Who's part Jamie and Zoe! Staggeringly intelligent, magnificently Scottish, and still Patrick Troughton. There's no bad here.

Or Leela!Four. Dude. Leela!Four would be awesome on toast. And Leela can survive the metacrisis because she's special. Or Ace!Seven! Or Mel!Six! Barbara!Ian!One. Somehow they don't need to get mindwiped! I don't know!

You know, for all that it made me hiss with nitpicky rage during the episode itself, I don't think I've had quite as much fun with a plot device since the fobwatch.