itsallovernow (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
itsallovernow) wrote2008-03-27 12:06 pm
itsallovernow) wrote2008-03-27 12:06 pm
Entry tags:
Here's How You Get the Chance to Be Someone Else
I alternately love or despise episodes where the characters get to be someone else for the duration, to inhabit an alternate life, lead a different path, feel different feelings. Those eps can be glorious wish fulfillment, devastating what-ifs, or alternately, a wasted hour with a reset button.
Having watched (last night) Season 3 Doctor Who's "Human Nature/Family of Blood", and having found myself all weepy at the end of it in spite of myself (partly hormones, partly… WWI will get me every time), I wanted to take a look at "be someone else" eps that worked and those that didn't.
Episode wise, I did find this terribly compelling, rich in the way that many of the eps that explore the less than stellar effect that the Doctor's presence has on humanity and individuals have been. Season 3 was a lot about the Doctor's loneliness, his isolation (both chosen and not). He keeps his emotional distance from Martha, who can't hide her own connection to him, which is a type of tragedy, or would be if Martha weren't keenly aware of the problem and the dichotomy, if she weren't active about saying, "Yes, I love him. But, I know better, and I'm not going to be… foolish. I'm still acting on my own agency here." But he also has the inevitable distance of being someone beyond time, someone who knows the heartbeat of the universe and how small everyone's tragedies and heartbreak's really are.
He's never going to have the sort of empathy necessary to love like a human because in the end, it fades, it disappears, it becomes meaningless. It's not forgivable, actually, but then, my sympathy for the Doctor falls more in the sympathetic with reserve category. He's selfish in his need for companionship, in his manipulations and cruelties and joys. It's a game to him, although a serious one, and while I adore him, I don't always like him and I think the show is doing a sort of beautiful job showing that there should be multiple views of him and his choices.
One of the many, many things I loved about Farscape was the way in which we were never allowed to forget that while John Crichton was the hero of the show, he wasn't necessarily a hero to the universe. His actions had consequences, and more often than not, those consequences were negative for the people around him, often people whom he didn't meet or know.
In "Family of Blood", when Joan asks if they'd chosen someplace else, would anyone in the village have died, that's the key. The doctor doesn't just change history for the better. He changes it, and fallout is inevitable.
I, myself, often have the desire to be someone else, more in the "run away from my life and start up a business in small town with a handsome sheriff" kind of way than looking at an actual individual's life and wanting to take over that, so I'm predisposed towards them, however... I am not a fan of the reset button.
So the question is, what are your favorite "alternate character or timeline" eps in any fandom?
Having watched (last night) Season 3 Doctor Who's "Human Nature/Family of Blood", and having found myself all weepy at the end of it in spite of myself (partly hormones, partly… WWI will get me every time), I wanted to take a look at "be someone else" eps that worked and those that didn't.
Episode wise, I did find this terribly compelling, rich in the way that many of the eps that explore the less than stellar effect that the Doctor's presence has on humanity and individuals have been. Season 3 was a lot about the Doctor's loneliness, his isolation (both chosen and not). He keeps his emotional distance from Martha, who can't hide her own connection to him, which is a type of tragedy, or would be if Martha weren't keenly aware of the problem and the dichotomy, if she weren't active about saying, "Yes, I love him. But, I know better, and I'm not going to be… foolish. I'm still acting on my own agency here." But he also has the inevitable distance of being someone beyond time, someone who knows the heartbeat of the universe and how small everyone's tragedies and heartbreak's really are.
He's never going to have the sort of empathy necessary to love like a human because in the end, it fades, it disappears, it becomes meaningless. It's not forgivable, actually, but then, my sympathy for the Doctor falls more in the sympathetic with reserve category. He's selfish in his need for companionship, in his manipulations and cruelties and joys. It's a game to him, although a serious one, and while I adore him, I don't always like him and I think the show is doing a sort of beautiful job showing that there should be multiple views of him and his choices.
One of the many, many things I loved about Farscape was the way in which we were never allowed to forget that while John Crichton was the hero of the show, he wasn't necessarily a hero to the universe. His actions had consequences, and more often than not, those consequences were negative for the people around him, often people whom he didn't meet or know.
In "Family of Blood", when Joan asks if they'd chosen someplace else, would anyone in the village have died, that's the key. The doctor doesn't just change history for the better. He changes it, and fallout is inevitable.
I, myself, often have the desire to be someone else, more in the "run away from my life and start up a business in small town with a handsome sheriff" kind of way than looking at an actual individual's life and wanting to take over that, so I'm predisposed towards them, however... I am not a fan of the reset button.
So the question is, what are your favorite "alternate character or timeline" eps in any fandom?
no subject
(Ok, I will also admit that fifth season TNG is my absolute favorite anyway, so remembering the episode is really not that big a surprise)
no subject
no subject
no subject
Also, the New Adventures of Wonder Woman fan in me will always have a soft spot for Xena's "The Xena Scrolls". Someday, I really need to write that WW/Xena crossover where Ares uses the Spear of Destiny in 1942 to get out of that damned tomb in Macedonia, and ends up opening a portal to the WW universe (where Heracles was a baddie, and the Amazons ended up on Paradise Island because of his army. Take one look at Xena/Herc's Aphrodite and tell me she's so TOTALLY not based on the WW Amazons).
no subject
And since you mentioned Farscape, "A Human Reaction" and "Won't Get Fooled Again" (the latter especially).
I'm sure there are more, but they're not coming to me right now.
In "Family of Blood", when Joan asks if they'd chosen someplace else, would anyone in the village have died, that's the key. The doctor doesn't just change history for the better. He changes it, and fallout is inevitable.
I really liked that moment. I think I found the two-parter more compelling than you did; I really liked the way it concluded. Joan's description of him was particularly apt. And Martha's.
no subject
Honestly, for some reason, none of the Jossverse AUs work for me terribly well. I like them well enough, but am not... blown away by them, except for the one when Angel becomes human because it's so... ordinary, such little stuff.
Farscape's work better for me because they all having lasting consequences, I think.
no subject
no subject
Having watched (last night) Season 3 Doctor Who's "Human Nature/Family of Blood", and having found myself all weepy at the end of it in spite of myself (partly hormones, partly… WWI will get me every time), I wanted to take a look at "be someone else" eps that worked and those that didn't.
Dude, I think everyone cried at the end of Family of Blood.
no subject
no subject
*points at icon* The last ep of SG-1, with everyone living out their lives in 10 minutes... except Teal'c. No reset for Teal'c. The rest of it was nice and sweet, or poignant character stuff, but I liked that for once, someone *did* get to remember the AU. And was probably going to hold it over everyone's heads forever.
I adore AU's and such, but yeah, they're difficult to do right. I agree with whoever mentioned the ST:TNG ep up above, because again, even if it wasn't real, it had consequences, if only for one person.
no subject
Now, what else... okay, I was still in college when TNG did its *first* alternate-history episode. Not the Mirror Mirror one, but the one with the Federation at war. _Yesterday's Enterprise_. "Surrender? That'll be the day!" That was fantastic. 1990, sure, but fantastic.
Sheesh, I gotta come up with a less mainstream answer. Well, I just finished Gene Wolfe's _Pirate Freedom_, which is a terrific time-travel story.
But the best one ever was _The Green Futures of Tycho_.
Here via <lj user=cofax7> making a shameful admission
Hell, it's Andromeda, starring Kevin Sorbo--The Unconquerable Man.
What if...what if Sorbo's character wasn't the winner of the fight between the captain and the first officer as the ship slid towards the event horizon? What if it's the Nietzschean who lives when they're pulled out, who decides it's his duty to put the Commonwealth back together to atone for what he'd done, for his part in breaking it up all those years ago?
Sadly the show doesn't pick up from there and continue with Bacic in the lead instead of Sorbo. In fact, it demonstrates that it has to be Dylan Hunt trying to put the pieces back together. But it uses clips from the preceding seasons put together with newly shot scenes in such a way that I felt I had to go watch them all again, just to be sure--because it all seemed so plausible. They all worked so well in this new more dystopic light.
It was easily their best episode, and easily the last time they didn't stink to high heaven.
no subject
no subject
And that Dr Who Trilogy, YES. Heartbreaking, bold. Both shows are pure televised art.
no subject
I definitely need to check out Dr Who.
no subject
no subject
but Xena's uber eps are also amazing. in class Lynne shows the self-reflexive one where the characters have been reincarnated as contemporary Xena fans.
but nobody has mentioned Quantum Leap!