Rest assured I was on the Internet within minutes registering my disgust throughout the world

[spatch]

Just saw this week's Doctor Who and you know, the episode was decent, all things considered, it had its moments, had some instances of human beings actually acting human, didn't feature any gratutitous kissing (at least, not involving Ten)...

...and then I saw the previews for next week before turning it off.

Oh god.

Oh god.

OH JOHN RINGO GOD NO.

I don't believe I've hollered "WHAT?! WHAT?! WHAT?! NO!!" at my televised media display screen before with quite the fervor as I just did, and that includes the response to the concrete slab-fucker scene from a few seasons ago.

There's only one way this little premise could work and if what we see next week is not that way, I fear next week I will be hollering "RUSSELL T. DAVIES YOU ARE DEAD TO ME, DO YOU HEAR ME? OOPS NO, YOU CAN'T, BECAUSE YOU ARE DEAD TO ME."

Sigh.

Comments

[violetisblue.livejournal.com]

What's the way in which this could possibly work, she said, sharing the horror of a good ninety percent of the viewing audience in advance?

Stormee Saxon!

[viedma.livejournal.com]

She slices!

She dices!

She's a Tom Robbins character come to life!

But wait! There's more!

She's a nuclear phyisicist!

She can suck the chrome off of trailer hitches!

She can pick up her car keys without using her hands!

NOW HOW MUCH WOULD YOU PAY?!!??

Re: Stormee Saxon!

[dskasak.livejournal.com]

"I'm Stormee, with two E's."
"I'm appalled, with two p's."

Re: Stormee Saxon!

[viedma.livejournal.com]

Certain Bloom County strips proved very, very memorable in my girlhood, yes.

Re: Stormee Saxon!

[spatch]

I'm not sold until I hear her theme song.

[jossish.livejournal.com]

In the very very first series, he's traveling with his granddaughter, though. It's not wholly crackpot!

[dskasak.livejournal.com]

There's always one helluva retcon that could work be mentioned, where Romana II and K-9 leave Warrior's Gate eventually, only to discover that Four knocked her up before leaving E-space. This would then lead to some awkward questions, such as why the Doctor's daughter only appears to Ten, while the granddaughter appeared with One? Perhaps Ten could give a response similar to Worf, when he was asked why the Klingons of yore look so different than him.

[spatch]

The simplest way to do it is to have it be Susan's mother. None of this OMG FORGOTTEN LOVECHILD bullshit.

Unfortunately I don't think it'll happen that way, and we'll have Retcon Girl getting her own spinoff on BBC Three (just after Torchwood!) before we know it.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

Nah, chances are she's not actually his daughter and it's all a trick. You could see the episode winking at us even in the trailer.

If she were, though, I wouldn't be that upset, really. Some fans seem really upset by the idea of the Doctor ever having sex at all, and there's that whole Lungbarrow business in the tie-in media, wherein the Doctor's chastity is maintained and the "Grandfather" business explained by means so complicated and messed-up that I don't even want to bother explaining them here. But I prefer to imagine that Susan really was his granddaughter by normal means, and the new series has dropped hints that suggest that that's the case.

[spatch]

"You married Elastigirl? ..and got biz-zay!!"

I never delved into the Lungbarrow stuff. I have no qualms with the Doctor actually having a family (and he's talked about it, in whatever vague terms, recently.) The Doctor having Time Lord procreative activity some time in the series' past is not quibblicious. The Doctor going round boffing females from other species simply because OMG A MAN AND A WOMAN IN TARDIS MUST MEAN SEXUAL TENSION WHICH HAS TO BE RESOLVED is most quibblicious and incredibly irksome. In other words, you don't Do It for the sake of It being done unless you're on Torchwood.

Sexual relations are implied by offspring, sure... oh, wait, this is Rusty we're talking about, isn't it? He'll be about as subtle as a goddamn bulldozer with it. Argh.

I'm REALLY hoping it really is Susan's mom. I'm REALLY hoping it's not going to be a fake-out, a cop-out, a false memory ("...not a dream, a twin sister, or an indestructible robot") or a re-creation of Gallifrey built entirely by nanobots (sup Red Dwarf.) That kind of shit is the worst kind of shit.

I am hoping beyond hope, here, and even justifying: given that the Doctor regenerates into younger and younger-looking folks (and that women Time Lords can, as Romana showed us, pick their look) it wouldn't be a surprise to see his daughter doing the same. That she's gone all Catherine Zeta-Jones Entrapment on us and leaping like nimble minx through the Laser Beams of Pure Cliche has nothing to do with it.

It would be very nice to actually get more information on the Doctor's former family without it turning into a fake or a lovechild from Leela or Nyssa or something equally STUPID AND DUMB AND STUPID.

I'm now trying to scour the continuity trough here and see if there was any spoken amendment to Face of Boe's "You are not alone" which turned it into "You are not alone but that just means there'll be only one other guy and by the way he'll be your eternal nemesis and you'll kill him only you'll actually just be putting him in a coma and he'll wake up in 1973 oops wait wrong show."

I'm scared, man. I don't wanna be wrong about this because I can't see any other way this would work out well.

[thebitterguy]

You did not just rag on Red Dwarf, right?

I'm a bad Whovian, so I was all "his daughter"?

Which then led my wife into a monologue about how he was originally travelling with his granddaughter in the first series, and a short viewing of the original (?) Dalek episode where he stole her shoes.

[spatch]

You did not just rag on Red Dwarf, right?

Course not. However, I did think the eighth season was the weakest one (apart from Rimmer kicking Death in the goolies.) Then again I'm a fan of the first few seasons and well aware the show's tone has changed over time, so it's not the same show, but still.

Anyway.

[dskasak.livejournal.com]

You're gonna have to spill the beans on this little premise.

BTW, you do know that the woman playing the Doctor's daughter in next week's episode is the real-life daughter of Peter Davison? Cute, that.

[dskasak.livejournal.com]

Wait.
Scratch the first line in the above post.
While brushing my teeth, I became enlightened by this little premise of yours. Jennifer, the Doctor's daughter, is a blonde, and we've seen two appearances so far this season of another blonde. I really hope this isn't the direction RTD goes...

[elvisclooney.livejournal.com]

Oh hay look, a Corner Gas LJ icon! Hooray!

[spatch]

I done made it myself. It's one of my favorite quick-cut scenes in the entire series.

[greenlily.livejournal.com]

Oh hey, can RTD be dead to me too?

(I'm definitely the dorkiest fangrrl who ever fangrrled, but there is some shit up with which I will not put.)

[tcb.livejournal.com]

We're still pretty leery of the new companion. She seems more annoying and less interesting than either Rose or Martha..

[zhym.livejournal.com]

Have to disagree with you hard on that point. I much prefer Donna over either Rose or Martha. For starters, she isn't all googly-eyed and in wuv about the Doctor. Ten needs more smacking around and fewer women treating him like the goram high school prom king ("will he notice me? Is he LOOKING AT ME? OMG HE's A LONELY GOD!!!"). Donna's the first extended companion of the new series that he really treats like an equal, and it's not because she's a time traveller or brilliant, it's because she won't stand for anything else. I like that.

As for The Doctor's daughter: I'm more optimistic than most. It does open lots of questions, but the mere existence of a daughter doesn't bug me. He's 900+ years old. Surely in all that time the Doctor has "danced" more than a few times, and he had a granddaughter, so we know he could spawn. Why not a daughter?

A daughter who is a blonde Lara Croft...well, that doesn't bode well. But the season has been very good so far, so I'll wait until the episode shows before fretting about it.

[theswordmaiden.livejournal.com]

When Donna misunderstood what he said about wanting a mate and told him right away that she won't have any of that nonsense, I was thrilled! I know he's hot, but he doesn't need to be a love interest. And I think Donna brings a bit more much-needed maturity (I mean attitude, not age) than the last two.

I think it's the possibility of having some love-child that bothers us. I don't care how many centuries old he is, he can still choose not to dance and that kind of a past is just not inevitable. I guess it's so hard to find characters on good TV shows who do not or have not been able to exercise sexual self-restraint, that I'm holding out hope here. (I might be watching too much BSG though)

[zhym.livejournal.com]

What, a millennium of life, more or less, and you'd begrudge him one dance? He's the Doctor, not the 1,000 year-old virgin. Not having gotten busy at least once goes way past "restraint."

As children go, "love-child" is the best variety, I think.

[theswordmaiden.livejournal.com]

Yes, I realize it's commonly believed that to exercise sexual self-restraint is to be a virgin, but that's not what I said. It's already been established long ago that he had a family and I have no problem with that. I said that he could have been restrained enough to not have a love child pop up out of nowhere, not that he has to be a virgin, though I'll ignore what you say about the latter. I'm just sick of what I see on TV about self-restraint and I hope this won't be the billionth example.

As for love-children, I hope I made it clear that it's not them I have a problem with.

[spatch]

Yeah, we know the Doctor had a family, and he misses them dearly, but it's not been a part of his past he's been willing to discuss with anybody. That's one of the reasons why I hope this daughter is one he knows, possibly Susan's mother, because it would provide interesting backstory and do one of those nifty retro-answering things that I loved so much about the first season.

The whole love-child angle, on the other hand, just plain stinks and would imply that Russell T. Davies just can't conceive (hurr) of a character who, WITH OBVIOUS INTIMACY ISSUES, would opt not to Dance, as it were. I agree, it's refreshing to have a character who doesn't want to Dance every chance he gets, and still stay compelling.

But on the other hand, there's... the other hand. All this will be neatly sidestepped if it turns out Jennywho was indeed cloned from the Jar Hand and I'll be simultaneously relieved yet annoyed.

[zhym.livejournal.com]

Perhaps I just don't get what kind of child a "love-child" is supposed to be. I am not hip to the vernacular--what distinguishes a "love-child" from any other sort of child? Is that a hitherto-unknown child? The preview didn't sound like Ten was surprised that he had a daughter, just surprised that she'd popped up.

I'd expect the child to be from a previous regeneration anyway. Nine or Ten making babies would be very out-of-character, I agree. I don't know enough about Six, Seven, and Eight to have an opinion. Five? Maybe. Four? You just know he and Romana danced regularly. Two and Three seem unlikely candidates (I don't doubt that Three would, but he was stuck on Earth the whole time and I really don't see him as the type to be making babies with humans), and, of course, there's One and Susan's mother, which would make sense but probably isn't what's going to happen.

The point is that Nine and Ten have intimacy issues, but that's not necessarily true of the previous versions. I think there's also room between "dances every chance he gets" and "never dances" that leaves room for someone to dance once in a while without being a dancing fool about it.

[theswordmaiden.livejournal.com]

LOL, hurr indeed. But don't forget, when a person has huge intimacy issues, then obviously he will deal with it by having sex with a lot of people!!!

Anyway, I'm mainly hoping for a clone or Susan's mother.

[antikythera.livejournal.com]

Hell, attitude and age. Nice to see a woman over thirty-five who is pretty and still dreams of stuff like going to the stars.

[sanspoof.livejournal.com]

My favorite part was the trailer telling us that not only did the doctor have a daughter, but that the daughter called him her father!

Doctor: 'she's my daughter!'
(Other Stuff Happens a Little)
Daughter: 'Hi, dad!'
Me: You know, we probably didn't need BOTH of those lines in the TRAILER.

(Or, indeed, probably in the episode.)

[spatch]

But how else would we have known that she's his daughter and he's her dad? It's like that riddle about the guy and his son who get in an accident and the kid goes to the emergency room but the doctor says "I can't operate on this kid, he's my son!" and okay so it's not at all like that riddle.

Or maybe all she gets to say is "Hi, Dad!" before getting inexplicably hit by a truck and we get More Emo Doctor for a while.

[kalibex.livejournal.com]

*snickers evilly*

[giantfightbot.livejournal.com]

Somebody on the SA forums created an image of a Doctor Who title card with the caption "Something Hugely Retarded" by Russel T. Davies. (Should have been the real title for last season's finale.)

My money is on the Doctor visiting Earth in 1968, meeting the failed pilot team of Gary Seven and Teri Garr, and hooking up with the latter. Makes as much sense as anything else.

[spatch]

I hadn't even thought of the fact that this daughter might be the product of a booty call yet to be seen this season.

OH DON'T YOU DO IT.

Also, I grabbed the SA image: http://www.spatch.net/rtdavies-title.jpg

[dskasak.livejournal.com]

Well, Rose does come back for the "Turn Left" episode that will be airing in a few weeks...

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

Hell, Gary Seven basically was an American version of the Doctor. Never thought of him that way before.

[zhym.livejournal.com]

So, does that count as "fake-out?"

[spatch]

Fake-out, yeah. I'm still on the fence over whether or not it was a cop-out.

All I know is that (in the draft I'm writing) the episode really screamed out for a four-part serial because there was not enough time for any sort of decent character development.