any dolt with half a brain...

the next doctor.

it is christmas in the 1800s and rtd has given us another character who knows more about the man with no name than we do. its a bit moffat-y, but that makes sense, given the impending changes. there is not a lot of long term stuff we can take out of the episode - usually there is something meaningful, a piece of the doctor's heart. but this time, as he says himself, his double organ is too broken. and it shows.

morrissey and the kid are far too obvious, and the kid is pretty generic. theres no chemistry between him and anyone. dervla's character was the best part of the show. i would love to have seen her escape to return. or to have had some kind of redemption. instead, like in all the christmas specials, the yuletide is a time for endings, not beginnings. only rose was a beginning, but that story looped in on itself so many times i'm unsure if regular semantics suffice. oh - and there was donna, but that story (before they decided to keep tate on) was an ending as well. there is no glory in these specials - only fire and the deep waters of the thames. its like humanity can only really appreciate the holiday when there is something to be truly thankful for - our continued survival against all odds. and another part of the doctor breaking . with every creature he sends into the abyss of endings, i think he loses part of himself. it doesnt matter that he never dies - his actions will diminish him until what is left is a gaping emptiness. he will send himself to the end. he will be not nearly so much a wonder if all he leaves behind him is a trail of fire and darkness through space and time.

there is a song, written for a movie about people who cannot see what the point of fighting is for, when, by fighting, you lose everything that makes you worth the effort. it is designed with bagpipes in mind, a tartan draped across the chest, freedom on the brain. the film ends with a train filled with german soldiers, sitting on crates in the dark. their c.o. is a jewish man who once spent time honeymooning on the banks of the seine. he once cheered his men on as they battled the scottish in a game of football in a snow-covered, bombed-out field in france. it was christmas. he was at the first world war. so they are being punished for their fraternising, sent away to the eastern front, certain death, in the train car, and so they hum a tune that sounds more celtic than anything. they are dreaming of a time and place gone forever to them. there will be no re-return. the sacrifice they make, demanded of them by others, is futile, becomes meaningless if they not only lose their lives, but they lose themselves. if they are forever alone, then what's the point? we forget we need to fix ourselves before we look outwards. an imprint needs to be changed from within, but we need to be pushed into it. we get weird if we are left alone.
and those soldiers? they are dreaming of home.