#also this is like 12000 words rip skdfjsdf i totally underestimated how long this project is going to take

[brilliantfantasticgeronimo]

60th Anniversary Doctor Who Rewatch – “The Unquiet Death” takes

(Hello. This is part of a series of on-going posts covering my analysis / impressions of RTD-era doctor who episodes (and spin-offs?) as I revisit them.* The **approach of this is candid and informal, with aim to be cleaned up in the future.*)

(I’m dividing this analysis into the following categories:COMPANION WATCH(characterization analysis of the companion for that episode)/THE TIMELESS CHILD RETROACTIVE CONTINUITY BONUS (stuff that Hits Different after knowing the TTC)/ **BLORBOS(things that made me emotional re: characters / ships) THEMES(exploration of possible associations, metaphors and recurring themes)/ COLONIALISM/HEGEMONY (political critiques) / ENVIRONMENT (how the set design or architecture plays a role in the story). Note that not all the episodes may cover these points, it will depend on the episode.)

(These posts will be the basis for a larger live-document that will change according to feedback and BTS material that I encounter in the future. For now think of these posts as advanced-drafts being sent for fandom-peer-review).

COMPANION WATCH:

The bit of Rose putting the slimy old man in his place is pretty awesome. It gives me Jackie Tyler vibes as well, for some reason!

Rose Tytler regularly skipped school to go to the mall and look at boys. I stan one (1) normie. (also, it's criminal Rose and Gwen Cooper never interact, honestly!).

It's a small thing but I find it charming rose already is like "you opened the doors last time so now it's my turn!". Rose has this thing with really managing to… let’s say “keep the pants in the relationship” that I think a lot of companion/doctor dynamics strive to do, but don’t always feel genuine/don’t commit to it? But Rose manages at times to keep the power dynamics somewhat balanced (probably from her experiences with dating older guys like Jimmy Stone and Mickey?).

Then again, this episode also gives us the "Accept the way I do things, or go home". Which is a major power move from The Doctor. "You can leave if you want (I'm tempting to firing you), but I know you won't (you'll do what I think it's best)".

"You've got all the clothes and the breeding, but you talk like some sort of wild thing. / Maybe I am. Maybe that's a good thing" Rose as a sex positive activist :)

THEMES Bodies as a resource that becomes more valuable once its dead. Once again separation of the “body” from the “personsoul/consciousness** Modern Hypocrisy. Diplomacy and Negotiation (once again not working). Grief, Mourning and “Respect for the Dead”. Class (the Classic Rose/Gwen dialogue but also ‘’You look like a navvie” (from Dickens to the Doc). Margins: Cardiff, not London. Undertakers? Ghostly Christmas (paganism?). Atheism (falsely questioned?). Science Fiction vs Realist Fiction. Nine fighting / doctoring as his way of “Dancing” (“I think this is my dance” *as he saves Rose from the zombie). Fatality as in literal death and as in an attitude towards life. Illusions vs Reality (Dicken’s dilemma but also the “escapist” aspect of Rose’s travels meeting the reality of having to make tough calls). Time / Death. Destiny. Telepathy. We get also a biiit of an introduction to the whole “Earth’s self-determination” thing the New Series explores (Gwenivere should make the call of what happens to her).

BLORBOS:

Nine referring to Rose as “Barbarella”…….. coughhisroleplayscenariocough

"you look beautiful... considering that you're human" is this another nine stupid apes moment or nine's first "curse of the timelords" moment?

THE TIMELESS CHILD RETROACTIVE CONTINUITY BONUS:

The Child could have come from the (a) rift? see:

DOCTOR: Means it's getting stronger, the rift's getting wider and something's sneaking through / ROSE: What's the rift? / DOCTOR: A weak point in time and space. A connection between this place and another. That's the cause of ghost stories, most of the time.

Dickens gives us some parallels to The Doctor’s curse of immortality:

"Absolutely. I was just brooding. Christmas Eve. Not the best of times to be alone. "/ I've been rather, let's say, clumsy, with family matters. Thank God I'm too old to cause any more trouble. / You speak as though it's all over, sir. / No, it's never over. On and on I go, the same old show. I'm like a ghost, condemned to repeat myself for all eternity. "

ENVIRONMENT: the final confrontation taking place on a basement signaling the “Underground War” theme of s1. Dicken’s performance signaling the self-referential/post-modern vibe of the New Series (show within a show).

COLONIALISM / HEGEMONY: couple points… this is the kind of episodes that the more I thought about the implications the more uncomfortable it got, unfortunately.

History in *theory* being in “flux” and regrettable, but ultimately the Status Quo must be preserved. Many times aliens will come asking for help, whether genuinely or not the show's format is restricted on legitimately changing the status quo of earht, bc it means distancing the audience from "that" version of earth.

Implicit in the mythos of the Time War and The Shadow Proclamation is the notion of human societies being “advanced” (and thus other societies being "primitive". We discover that the Time War was “Invisible to smaller species but devastating to higher forms”. What does this mean? What is a “smaller species” and what is a “higher form”? Also, we know from episode 1 that the earth’s position in the “technological scale” makes it vulnerable to “invaders”. There’s a lot of assumptions implicit in this whole set up: that a technologically “superior” civilization will *always* invade a “lower” one (a kind of naturalization of colonialism), that technological advancements can be categorized this way in a progressive 1-10 scale, and that "a societies is defined by its tech" (presumably The Shadow Proclamation defines tech in the narrow, “tools and science” definition, and not the wider anthropological "any ideas that produce a desired effect" definition).

There’s a bit of an Atheist vs Supernatural thing going on in this episode. The UK is at its core still largely a Christian country, but it’s been progressively shifting with time to an atheist / agnostic one as the ruling classes has distanced from its primary tool of consent making (Christians were 71.6% on the uk's 2001 census, 59.3% on the 2011 census vs 46.2% on the 2021 one). So, it makes sense the writing reflects this anxiety. It gets a bit bizarre though…to explain, let’s look at the crux of Dickens arc, found in this dialogue:

"I've always railed against the fantasists. Oh, I loved an illusion as much as the next man, rebelled in them, but that's exactly what they were, illusions. The real world is something else. I dedicated myself to that. Injustices, the great social causes. I hoped that I was a force for good. Now you tell me that the real world is a realm of specters and jack-o'-lanterns. In which case, have I wasted my brief span here, Doctor? Has it all been for nothing?"

But... his worldview is truly being challenged by the situation. There IS a rational explanation to the “ghosts”, there aren’t “specters and jack-o.lanterns” in the who-world (eu voice: not after The Anchoring Of The Thread!). Dickens walks from the story with the impression that irrationality is True and There’s Life After Death and that he’s wasted his time writing about “the great social causes”. Again… it’s strange. I’m not sure the episode is aware it is doing this?

Finally we get the Really uncomfortable (unintentional?) allegory of this episode…

->The Gelth are refugees from a war between “superior civilizations”. -> The Gelth intentionally lie about their numbers and resources they need. ->They lie about being a “couple hundred”- turns out they’re billions! ->Earthlings cannot share their land with them. Because they will take “everything”. ->The only solution is to kill them, they’re too duplicitous and aggressive to do anything else! ->(And once again, like with the Nestene... there’s not really a grappling with how it was the Time Lords' fault that this is even happened).