01x11 - Unsung Heroes and Violent Death

[bunniefuu]

(PEOPLE SCREAMING)

SIMON". Everywhere the Doctor goes,
death is close behind.

Death is very present in every episode.

There is always somebody, somebody
quite innocent, who's wiped out.

SIMON". He leaves a trail
of destruction in his wake.

Part of saving the world, part of that,
probably involves a good few deaths.

They have the death penalty.

Not my problem.

SIMON: Doctor Who Confidential calls
to question the Doctor's right to k*ll.

I love seeing the Tardis
in front of the Millennium Centre there.

- First time I've ever seen it.
- Yeah, I've never seen it before.

Oh, it's the first time.

I think every episode, somehow,
should have a different feel.

SIMON". Cardiff's Millennium Centre
was the stage for a standoff

between the Doctor and an old enemy.

This is persecution.
Why can't you leave me alone?

What did I ever do to you?

You tried to k*ll me and destroy
this entire planet.

It's quite important that when Margaret
comes back, it's not a new enemy.

It's someone who's dealt with the Doctor
before and knows what he does.

It's someone whose entire family
was wiped out by the Doctor in fact.

Oh, boy.

Death is a very strong part
af Doctor Who.

Whether it's the Doctor fighting
to stop people dying

or whether it's, in fact, the Doctor's
meddling causing people to die.

It's never far behind him.

It's using the Tardis. I can't stop it.

Never mind Cardiff, it's gonna
rip open the planet!

It's a rare programme in that it always
faces the consequences of death.

Especially in the new series.

Sorry.

I was always going to call episode
Dining with Monsters.

The whole point of the episode is to get
to those scenes in the restaurant

where the Doctor sits down with an enemy
who he has defeated

and they get to talk to each other, and they
explore the consequences of the Doctor's actions.

Internal organs fall out into the liquid
and I become soup.

And still alive.

Still screaming.

- I don't make the law.
- But you deliver it.

Can you stay to watch?

The real story in this
is who the Doctor is

and what gives him the right to live
this lifestyle and what happens afterwards.

And inevitably you have to look at that
and sort of say,

“Actually, as part of saving the world, part
of that probably involves a good few deaths.“

Why don't you finish the job
and make the Daleks extinct?

Rid the universe of your filth?

Why don't you just die!

You would make a good Dalek.

I like the Doctor's ruthlessness.
I think... I, personally, have given him

a fair old streak of that just because
I think it's more interesting.

I know what you deserve.

Exterminate.

Retreat!

We're dealing with a Time Lord now
who's sort of w*r damaged.

And what of the Time Lords?

Dead. They burnt with you.

The end of the last great Time w*r.

Everyone lost.

I've always been fascinated by the fact
that he is a man who always leaves.

SIMON". And when the Doctor does go,

it's the people who are left behind
who have to pick up the pieces.

By the way, did I mention
it also travels in time?

- Thanks.
- Thanks for what?

Exactly.

CLARKE". The Doctor upsets the
whole balance of their relationship

when he turns up, basically.

Because once he opens the door for her
to adventure,

she's left with the choice of same old routine
or adventures beyond anyone's wildest dreams.

And there's not many people
that would turn that down.

You left me!

We were nice, we were happy.

And then what?
You give me a kiss and run off with him

and you make me feel like nothing, Rose.
I was nothing!

You've got Mickey, who's very much
a victim of the Doctor's lifestyle.

The Doctor takes Rose in and out
of Mickey's life and, you know,

there's a selfishness to the brilliance of being
a time traveller, actually. They do what they want.

Off we go.

- Into time.
- And space.

My God, have you seen yourselves? You
all think you're so clever, don't you?

- Yeah.
- Yeah.

Yeah.

And that episode is a chance
to look at people like Mickey,

who are the victims of that lifestyle.

I can't even go out
with a stupid girl from a shop

because you pick up the phone
and I comes running.

I mean, is that what I am,
Rose, standby?

Here we are in Cardiff. In Cardiff Bay.
It is freezing.

Basically, what we're doing now,
we're doing a scene

where Rose and Mickey have
sort of a bust-up because they've,

you know, she's been away and stuff like
that and he's not too happy about that.

Are we on? I'm on, man.
Sorry. What can I say, man?

Got to work. It's the money sh*t here.
That's what pays the bills.

-, take , A Camera only.
- Action.

The Doctor took me to this planet a while
back. It was much colder than this.

They called it Woman Wept.

The planet was actually
called Woman Wept

because if you looked at it,
right, from above,

it was like this huge continent,
all curved round.

It looked a bit like a woman,
sort of lamenting.

Oh, my God, and we went to this
beach, right. No people, no buildings,

just this beach, like,
, miles across.

And something happened, something
to do with the sun, I don't know,

but the sea had just frozen.

In a split second.

Like in the middle of a storm, right,
waves and foam, just frozen,

all the way out to the horizon.

And at midnight, right,
we walk underneath these waves,

feet tall and made of ice.

I'm going out with Trisha Delaney.

Mickey is entirely blameless in the way
he has lived his life.

And he suffers because of a Time Lord
whizzing in and out of affairs.

We're all powered up. We can leave.

- How's Mickey?
- He's okay. He's gone.

Do you want to go and find him?
We'll wait.

No need. He deserves better.

Off we go, then. Always moving on.

Rose finds the Doctor's approach to his
work or his mission quite inhumane.

And at times,
he can be very cold and alien.

In the Dickens episode, you know...

you see the young girl realises
that she has to sacrifice herself

to save everybody else and the Doctor's
complicit and allows that.

Rose finds that tremendously difficult.

They do need you, Gwyneth.
You're their only chance of survival.

I told you, leave her alone. She's exhausted
and she's not fighting your battles.

When the Doctor suggests
putting Gwyneth forward

and there is a chance, a risk,
that she may die,

Rose isn't really at all
pleased with that.

And then they knock heads.

- She didn't make it.
- I'm sorry. She closed the rift.

I think it's a great property
of the Doctor's

to put people in the right place
to enable themselves.

That happens very often
throughout the series,

he doesn’t just solve things himself, he
encourages people, as he does with Rose,

he encourages people to become
a better version of themselves.

- You're not management, are you?
- At last, she's clever.

With Cathica, he barely says
a nice word to her.

What he's actually doing
is pushing her all the time

'cause she's swanning about with
a clipboard saying, “I'm a journalist.“

He's looking at her and saying,
“You're not a journalist at all.“

And no one's going to stop you.

Because you bred a human race
which doesn't bother to ask questions.

Stupid little slaves.
Believing every lie.

They’ll just drop right into the
slaughterhouse if they're told it's made of gold.

Burn out her mind.

Oh, no, you don't.

You should have promoted me years back.

He puts people like Cathica,
jabe to some extent in episode ,

he puts them in positions
where they become better.

And it might mean their death a lot
of the time 'cause it's a hard universe.

But he has encouraged that path.

You can't. The heat's gonna vent
through this place.

- I know.
-jabe, you're made of wood.

Then stop wasting time, Time Lord.

SIMON". But this time, the Tardis
has come up with the ultimate solution

to deal with the k*ller.

I almost feel better about
being defeated.

I never stood a chance.
This is the technology of the gods.

Margaret Slitheen is essentially
a hugely evil creature

and it's clear that he can’t just let her
potter about Cardiff 'cause she'll k*ll us all.

To the future.

ALL: To the future.

And believe me...

it will glow.

The problem of episode is
what should we do about Margaret?

That's what I should have called it.

What Should We Do About Margaret?
That's a much better title!

But genuinely, it's like,

can you take someone
to their death sentence?

And I would have thought
a lot less of the Doctor

if he had taken someone to a death sentence.
I don't approve of death sentences at all.

I would have despised a Doctor
who had done that.

Nonetheless, the woman he's dealing with
will go and m*rder millions if he lets her go.

The Slitheen family's huge.

There's a lot more of us, all scattered
off-world. Take me to them.

Take me somewhere safe.

- But then you’ll just start again.
- I promise I won't.

You've been in that skin suit too long.

You've forgotten.
There used to be a real Margaret Blaine.

You k*lled her and stripped her
and used the skin.

You're pleading for mercy
out of a dead woman's lips.

The idea that you get another chance

and that you can go back
to the beginning

and kind of do it all again
in the right way

is such a beautiful and seductive idea
and such a sad one as well.

Thank you.

You use the Tardis and it's absolutely,
clearly a deus ex machina,

at the end, to come up with a solution of
regressing her, of actually what Margaret needs.

Having realised that her life has gone wrong,
what she needs is a chance to start again.

And to live her life again under a
ifferent set of rules, a different morality.

And so the Tardis comes in
as a solution to that and...

Which, I believe, because we've sort of
said that whoever's on board the Tardis

has a psychic connection to the Tardis.

So it's actually reading your mind
and coming up with a solution.

- Here she is.
- She's an egg?

- Regressed to her childhood.
- She's an egg.

She can start again.
Live her life from scratch.

If we take her home,
give her to a different family,

tell them to bring her up properly,
she might be all right.

- Or she might be worse.
- That's her choice.

- She's an egg.
- She's an egg.

SIMON". In a series that deals with
death, happy endings are few.

But just sometimes,
you get a second chance.

Everybody lives!