Spoilery thoughts on "Absolution", the morning after

[eponymous_rose]

"Absolution" had some very good ideas buried away in there somewhere, but the primary problem was that we all sort of knew what was coming (well, right up until the ending). It took a lot of the potential impact out of the narration, and it could've done with more surprises. The first episode in particular seemed to be paced a bit on the slow side.

Interesting thought - C'rizz was all about "saving" people by killing them (over-simplification, hooray!). In the end, that's precisely what happened to his character: he was redeemed/absolved by being killed off. (In theory, at least. It still feels like there were some holes in the whole thing, but I'd need to listen to it again without having been awake for twenty-four hours to truly appreciate it.)

A bit of weak writing, here and there. "Do you think gravity can stop me, Doctor?" had me giggling at an inopportune moment. Messing around with the TARDIS was creepy, but seemed a bit unnecessary (but of course, it was implied that she was just being "melodramatic", which is exactly the sort of self-referential thingummy I enjoy). Overall, though, it seemed pretty competent. No big, shocking moments (apart from the ending, of course!) - it had a certain relentless energy.

Ah, yes. The ending.

That's the sort of thing I don't envy the writer/director/actors having to cope with. It's such a huge, lumbering shock!ending that's arguably so entirely out-of-character that it's in danger of becoming ridiculous. And they've got to sell it, to pull it off so that it seems completely believable.

(And it's not the first time they've had to deal with this in the Eighth Doctor's arc, either!)

I think they did a fairly good job with it - it definitely shocks and all that - but it did feel a bit like a random tangent. That is, of course, because the emotional core of the story was C'rizz - "Absolution" delivers exactly what it says on the tin and doesn't pull any punches where he's concerned. And this is perhaps at the cost of some interesting development of both Charley and the Doctor - the former spends most of the episode distraught and the latter spends it aloof before the whole shockingly, strangely cheerful thing.

Through the whole story, even when C'rizz is dying, there's this distance between him and the other two. (He threatens them (well, offers to "save" them), but doesn't actually wind up doing anything to them.) It's a physical distance, a mental distance, and it becomes a psychological one. There's a bit of foreshadowing of the ending there. (And think of the Doctor's little speech to Charley on the good things that happen by accident: "I met you by accident!" Foreshadowing again?)

I can appreciate that there's a bit of meta involved - I get the impression that, especially at the start, C'rizz was a wee bit unpopular for becoming the third wheel in the Doctor-Charley dynamic. And so the Doctor's whole "back to the way it was" slip-up maybe hits a bit close to home. But it felt gimmicky - there was no depth to it. Who can blame Charley for getting angry?

(Another little note - Charley really didn't have much to do in this story besides react, did she?)

Overall, I feel like I should've been more impressed with the ending than I was - I love that sort of thing, the portrayal of the Doctor as inexpressibly and sometimes cruelly alien - but it didn't seem to be properly set up. It was a bit of an emotional sucker-punch after such a buildup - and yes, that's partly what it's meant to be, but it didn't carry the same weight it should've. Maybe they could've emphasized (more than they did, anyway) that C'rizz was the Doctor's last tie to the Divergence universe, and to all the painful associations and memories associated with that. (Sort of like the Tenth Doctor avoiding Jack for being, temporally speaking, "wrong".) It seems like a more plausible explanation than the whole wanting-to-hang-out-with-Charley-undisturbed thing. A bit more melodrama, perhaps, would've emphasized the way the Doctor's really just trying to cling to the familiar now he's back in his own universe.

There were definitely moments of closeness between the Doctor and C'rizz in earlier audios ("Caerdroia" being a prime example) - it wasn't all antagonism or, worse, indifference. We need a better explanation for this sudden cavalier attitude - and I hope that's what the next audio will retcon supply.

Bit of a disappointing swansong for C'rizz, really, but I'm still looking forward (with, y'know, anxious anticipation) to "The Girl Who Never Was". It should have plenty of opportunities to tie up the emotional loose ends of this one - let's hope they take a few of these chances!

Comments

[elliptic-eye.livejournal.com]

In an electronics lab last week, I burst out laughing when my instructor reminded us to "reverse the polarity". Said instructor was mildly put out and demanded an explanation, which meant that I had to make up a story about ammeters and things. Not pretty.

:D I think if one of my tutors had ever said something like that and didn't take kindly to laughter, I'd have ended up getting kicked out of the class.

[eponymous-rose.livejournal.com]

He said it so dramatically, too!

Fortunately, this guy's pretty awesome - he just retaliated by mocking my mad wiring skillz. Phew.