In it for the long haul

[scarfman]

crossposted to scarfman and doctorwho

A thought occurred to me in the middle of a comment in someone else's lj during a discussion of the climax of Family of Blood (which I'm not going to spoil here because, for one thing, I haven't seen it yet). But we've been bandying about the phrase "god complex" since just after the finale of Season 2006 at the latest. We keep saying - I know, I'm one who does - that we want to see some sort of resolution by the end of the current season ... through almost two seasons now. What if it's an incarnation arc?

What if the Doctor's post-Time War stress disorder was an incarnation arc too, but we only took it for a season arc because his ninth incarnation only lasted one season? What if Rusty and David planned all along to develop their character over the whole course of his tenure (an idea, I'm compelled to point out, which Colin Baker originated though he wasn't allowed to carry his all the way through)?

Look at the companions this supposed incarnation arc's had so far, and the way they help develop it. Rose was an ennabler; look at their giggly scenes together in Tooth and Claw and The Impossible Planet, the former of which created Torchwood. In Rose's defense, she was young and impressionable when she met the Doctor. But Martha is older and more studied and experienced (maybe not significantly so in the eyes of someone who's forty years old or nine hundred; but Rose worked in a shop and Martha workeds in a hospital). Martha calls the Doctor on things, most notably so far in the last scene of Gridlock (which I have seen); and I think that's why he (to reports) doesn't seem to let her know what he did at the end of Family of Blood. And Donna straight out told him, after witnessing his mercilessness with the Racnoss (to be fair, there wasn't much else he could have done about them given the circumstances, though he could have handled it differently), that he needs to find Jiminy Cricket in order to become a real boy.

I think Martha is Jiminy Cricket. I think it wouldn't be fair to her character for the Doctor's god complex arc not to run its course while Martha's with him. And I think, if the god complex arc has been intended an incarnation arc all along, it dovetails nicely with the rumors and speculation that Russell Davies, and maybe David Tennant and Freema Agyeman, plan/s to leave the series after Season 2008.

Comments

[hergrace.livejournal.com]

I'm fascinated by this, Paul, but I'm also confused. Can you explain (for those of us in the audience who haven't been in on this sort of thing before) what you mean by "god complex arc" (tho I think I can suss that one out) and "incarnation arc"?

Thanks!

[scarfman]

Well, both are synonyms of "story arc", which (at least here) means a planned overarcing plot over many stories or years of stories, like Babylon 5 or the Key to Time season on Doctor Who.

By "incarnation arc" I mean a story arc plotted out on Doctor Who at least in general outline by the producer and/or the lead actor with a definite idea where the character starts out in terms of development, where it'll end up just when the actor quits, and how it'll get from one point to the next. As I alluded above, Colin Baker intended to put in at least as many years in the part again as he actually did, and meant all along for the incarnation to develop dynamically like a character in a play over that time, instead of remaining static as a tv character usually does, or did at that time.

By "god complex arc" I mean the incarnation arc I posit here to have been conceived and and to currently be being executed by Davies and Tennant, in which Tennant's incarnation (referred to as "the Lonely God" in his first regular story) sees himself more and more as the ultimate arbiter of good and/or justice in the universe and goes a little more megalomanic every day (in another early story - no, the same one, innit? - he claims to be the highest authority in the universe); until either he gets called on it by (in my argument above) Martha or is made to realize how bonkers he's gotten by screwing something up royally and having to fix it.

[hergrace.livejournal.com]

Thanks for that.

It *does* help it all make sense. And now perhaps I can tolerate Rose (and the Doctor's apparent attachment to her) a bit better. I've liked Martha from the first time I saw her, perhaps because she reminds me so much of a 'classic' series companion rather than the too-close lovey-dovey stuff that Rose got up to. I've also noticed how the Doctor seems to be getting closer and closer to thinking of himself as God (as well as god). He'd probably go completely OTT if Rose were still with him. Oooooo....gives me something else to watch the shows for.

Actually, I've been thinking about this sort of Messianic thing he's had going on for a while. Especially in "Daleks Take In Manhattan", when he's up on the theatre seats daring the Daleks to kill him, but spare the others, I couldn't help thinking, "This is getting needlessly messianic."

[juanitadark.livejournal.com]

"This is getting needlessly messianic."

I swear I saw that on an icon once.

And yes, I really disliked him for his Christ posturing - especially when, if the Daleks had really shot him down, he would have left Martha stranded in 1930's Depression-era America. Do it on your own time, Ten.

[betawho.livejournal.com]

Not to mention that the Daleks would have just turned around and killed her anyway. And he knew that. I never did figure out what he was thinking.

[juanitadark.livejournal.com]

You've got it. I think that god complex is going to come to seriously appropriate end in the Last Of The Time Lords. And I will laugh at Ten when it happens, for he has *really* brought it all on himself this time.