Doctor Who: The God Complex
Jan. 4th, 2021 02:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
andrasteI thought about doing a post on Revolution of the Daleks, but I am already tired of talking about Doctor Who episodes I did not like very much. It was nice to see Jack again I guess?
In any case: why bother with that when there's so many stories I do like! This time on my very intermittent top twenty-five countdown: a creepy eighties hotel that abducts people and feeds their faith to a Minotaur, and also some other very normal Doctor Who things.
A thing I learned making this list: apparently I love it when Doctor Who deals with faith in one form or another. I always think of this as a sort of belated sequel to The Curse of Fenric even if the monster is actually a distant cousin of the much sillier Nimon.
One of the incidental things I love about The God Complex: I find it weirdly comforting that there is one horrible deadly place in the Doctor Who universe where I would be entirely safe. Nice to know the automated transport system would just show me increasingly larger exits, possibly with neon arrows and signs saying 'PLEASE GET OUT, YOU ARE INEDIBLE.' It's something to balance out the risk of being instantly eaten by Haemovores!
Other, more serious, things I love: the script by Toby Whithouse is his best for the show IMHO, but what it really makes me wish is that they could get Nick Hurran back some time. He pulled off a logistical miracle directing The Day of the Doctor and did some other great work on the show (the otherwise lacklustre Asylum of the Daleks, in particular, was very well-shot if nothing else) but this episode gave him the chance to be artsy and weird and unsettling and he really ran with it.
It's got a great cast of supporting characters, including Amara Karan as maybe the best companion the Doctor never had and David Williams in a memorably unpleasant apperance that makes the audience extra sad that the wrong person survived. This is also one of my favourite performances from Matt Smith, especially in the scenes where he works out that he's been wrong about what the monster feeds on and has just been making everything worse.
The thematic connection to The Curse of Fenris is most obvious, of course, in the climactic scene where the Doctor has to break Amy's faith in him in order to kill the monster, and it's a stunning contrast to the way the Seventh Doctor handles Ace when he has to do the same thing. On the surface, at least, it's a much kinder approach to the problem, as he focuses on his own shortcomings, telling her that he can't save her and that he took her away with him because he's vain and wants to be adored. All of which has the advantage of being at least somewhat true , which is more than you can say of anything the Seventh Doctor says about his feelings re: Ace. But even though it works just as effectively, I have to wonder how much of his approach is built on the Doctor's need to have Amy continue to love him even as he undermines he absolute faith in his ability to save her. Which is partly about not being able to deliberately hurt her, but it's also about not wanting to hurt himself. (I would be bothered by the Doctor using 'Amy Williams' as her 'grown-up' name when we've had no indication to this point that she's ever changed it, but since he goes straight back to calling both her and Rory 'Ponds' in future episodes it actually seems kind of fair.)
And of course the irony that Amy can't see but the audience probably can is that when she asks him later 'what do Time Lords pray too?' the awkward answer he's not giving her is '... um, you, actually.' It's really just as well the monster decided to eat Amy first and save the Doctor for dessert, because she'd have had absolutely no chance of saving him in similar circumstances. I mean, even if she'd someone managed to destroy his faith in her and Rory - not bloody likely - there's a literal litany of companions in his head for the Minotaur to feed on.
All in all, The God Complex takes some basic elements and a plot that could have been clichéd and makes them into a creepy and effective character piece, even if the bit at the end where the Minotaur talks about the blood on the Doctor's hands is rather over-egging the pudding.
In any case: why bother with that when there's so many stories I do like! This time on my very intermittent top twenty-five countdown: a creepy eighties hotel that abducts people and feeds their faith to a Minotaur, and also some other very normal Doctor Who things.
A thing I learned making this list: apparently I love it when Doctor Who deals with faith in one form or another. I always think of this as a sort of belated sequel to The Curse of Fenric even if the monster is actually a distant cousin of the much sillier Nimon.
One of the incidental things I love about The God Complex: I find it weirdly comforting that there is one horrible deadly place in the Doctor Who universe where I would be entirely safe. Nice to know the automated transport system would just show me increasingly larger exits, possibly with neon arrows and signs saying 'PLEASE GET OUT, YOU ARE INEDIBLE.' It's something to balance out the risk of being instantly eaten by Haemovores!
Other, more serious, things I love: the script by Toby Whithouse is his best for the show IMHO, but what it really makes me wish is that they could get Nick Hurran back some time. He pulled off a logistical miracle directing The Day of the Doctor and did some other great work on the show (the otherwise lacklustre Asylum of the Daleks, in particular, was very well-shot if nothing else) but this episode gave him the chance to be artsy and weird and unsettling and he really ran with it.
It's got a great cast of supporting characters, including Amara Karan as maybe the best companion the Doctor never had and David Williams in a memorably unpleasant apperance that makes the audience extra sad that the wrong person survived. This is also one of my favourite performances from Matt Smith, especially in the scenes where he works out that he's been wrong about what the monster feeds on and has just been making everything worse.
The thematic connection to The Curse of Fenris is most obvious, of course, in the climactic scene where the Doctor has to break Amy's faith in him in order to kill the monster, and it's a stunning contrast to the way the Seventh Doctor handles Ace when he has to do the same thing. On the surface, at least, it's a much kinder approach to the problem, as he focuses on his own shortcomings, telling her that he can't save her and that he took her away with him because he's vain and wants to be adored. All of which has the advantage of being at least somewhat true , which is more than you can say of anything the Seventh Doctor says about his feelings re: Ace. But even though it works just as effectively, I have to wonder how much of his approach is built on the Doctor's need to have Amy continue to love him even as he undermines he absolute faith in his ability to save her. Which is partly about not being able to deliberately hurt her, but it's also about not wanting to hurt himself. (I would be bothered by the Doctor using 'Amy Williams' as her 'grown-up' name when we've had no indication to this point that she's ever changed it, but since he goes straight back to calling both her and Rory 'Ponds' in future episodes it actually seems kind of fair.)
And of course the irony that Amy can't see but the audience probably can is that when she asks him later 'what do Time Lords pray too?' the awkward answer he's not giving her is '... um, you, actually.' It's really just as well the monster decided to eat Amy first and save the Doctor for dessert, because she'd have had absolutely no chance of saving him in similar circumstances. I mean, even if she'd someone managed to destroy his faith in her and Rory - not bloody likely - there's a literal litany of companions in his head for the Minotaur to feed on.
All in all, The God Complex takes some basic elements and a plot that could have been clichéd and makes them into a creepy and effective character piece, even if the bit at the end where the Minotaur talks about the blood on the Doctor's hands is rather over-egging the pudding.