The Ottery
“If an otter can’t have fun doing something, it just simply won’t do it.”

I’m still here! I promise!

October 8th, 2007

Your faithful Otter is still here–just snowed under with a lot of work. I haven’t seen any movies in the theater for a month and a half, my fall TV shows have just started up, and most of our Netflix rentals haven’t even been worth commenting on. Blades of Glory? Amusing, but not great. 300? Abysmal. Too abysmal to even write an interesting review about.

So what’s been sustaining me? Doctor Who: Season 3, which just finished airing on the Sci-Fi Channel. During the last episode, I teared up no less than three times. Now this may have been due to fluctuating hormones, but still, I’m not usually much of a TV-crier. What were the specific moments, I hear Jillian ask?

1) When Martha, apparently about to be executed, laughs in the face of the Master and reveals that, instead of traveling the world to collect the individual pieces of the weapon that would destroy the Master (Horcruxes, anyone?), she had traveled to tell the story of the Doctor everywhere she went–the story of the man (well, Time Lord) who had saved the planet so many times. I cried because of the importance of telling the Story. I cried because I so rarely want to tell the story of Christ–at least, not in direct words. I cried because Doctor Who inspires me more than “Go make of all disciples.” And I cried because I doubt that Russell T. Davies was trying to tell the Christian story–and yet he did, obliquely, which is always the most powerful way for me.

2) When the Doctor tells the Master, “I have just one thing to say to you, and you know what it is,” and the Master screams “No!”, huddled in a corner, and the Doctor advances toward him, drops down beside him, and says the one thing: “I forgive you.” Waaaa!

3) When the Master chooses to die, rather than regenerate, once again leaving the Doctor as the last Time Lord in the universe. That time I cried just because David Tennant so convincingly grieved. His gravitas in this episode did a good job of showing his manic, loony side as part facade. He’ll be a good Hamlet. Oh yes, he will.

The best-written episode of the season was definitely “Blink,” however. I continue to be in awe of Steven Moffat’s writing. I have to admit, I kind of hope that the rumor he will take over as head writer for the show is true.

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