Alone Again, Naturally

After over a month of lost posts (gotta love the information age), I'm yet again (hee) slowly rebuilding my arsenal, so bear with me as I repost some of those ramblings from season finales since May.

Which brings me to "House." It was an interesting ending to Season 3, as the final episode found the doctor everybody loves to hate (and hates to love) sans underlings, and strumming his guitar alone, not appearing at all unhappy at the situation.

I thought Season 3 was flawed on a number of levels -- I didn't like the way it opened, with House so magically healed by his coma that his thigh muscle had evidently grown back -- and I felt that some of the show's 'showiest' episodes of the season were also some of its worst, with House wildly inconsistent in character, even revealing himself as a a childhood victim of abuse. I dislike easy answers in writing, so I was unhappy with this, simply because I think House doesn't need a reason to be House -- he's a creature of nature, he just is. I don't need Freudian explorations or easy explanations of why House is the way he is. I love the character simply as someone who doesn't quite fit, who sees things a specific way and calls them on it to the world, not caring whether he's loved or hated for it.

I also thought the Tritter arc was a huge disappointment from a writing standpoint. I was so excited to see someone as wonderful as David Morse in the mix, and he brought a nice quiet menace and humor to his role, but the writing just wasn't there for him.

And yet, there was much to love in the season, with many patients who were strong and interesting characters in their own rights. I thought "Son of Coma Guy" was absolutely stunning, as were several other episodes throughout the season, and while the rape victim character didn't affect me (and in fact annoyed me, as written and acted), the little boy with autism moved me deeply, as did the expression on House's face when the boy gave him his beloved video game.

I enjoyed Chase's progression while continuing to find Cameron wildly inconsistent, yet I loved Cam in the episode with Pruitt Taylor Vince as well as in the episode with Joel Grey. I could also watch the hilarious episode in which House dosed Wilson with speed a million times and never get tired of it (and the often underappreciated Robert Sean Leonard has never been looser or funnier on the show).

As this season ended, with Foreman quitting, poor Chase fired, and Cam resigning, House seemed more than a little adrift, yet happy to be so. House has always shown a cruel streak where Chase was concerned, as if he's determined NOT to be the father Chase is always searching for, yet this was definitely his most extreme action to date. Yet I suspect that Chase will be back (hopefully with apology in tow), Cam will admit that she's still crushing on the gruff older guy (because she totally is), and Foreman will come back and admit that he isn't House -- he's his own particular brand of jerk.

The thing I always love about House, beyond the witticisms, beyond the patients of the week, is the way it celebrates someone who cannot and will not ever fit in. House glories in his individuality, and takes pride in everything that makes him different. He doesn't just march to the beat of a different drummer, he bashes the drummer over the head and pulls out his iPod. And thanks to the humanity and resonance brought to the part by the marvelous Hugh Laurie, House is never a caricature. There's always the glimmer of something more behind the eyes.

And so the ending to this season left me ambivalent, but part of me loved it. House is lonely, true. But it's the prison he chooses. As the curtain comes down, House is alone again, and loving it. Naturally.

The Doctor, That's Who

So I've been DYING to catch up on Doctor Who (I lost the Tivo battles on Friday nights so missed season 2 til now) and only just finally got to see and savor Season 2.

And what a treat, with Tennant bouncing around the universe, bringing this brand-new hilarity and energy to the Doctor ("Ten"). I love Ten even though I miss Nine's odd purity and devotion. There was something lovely and steadfast to Christopher Eccleston that is the precise opposite of Tennant. I never doubted that Eccleston's Doctor felt romantically about Rose, for instance, yet doubted it constantly with Tennant. I do love Ten -- I think he's cool, weird, sexy, crazy, and dazzlingly funny, but there is something about him that's more detached to me.

And it's funny how different his arc is. Last season was about rage and grief, I think. This one was ultimately about loneliness and how close you allow people to get (or not to get).

And I've been enjoying every minute of the season. Loved the body-switching. And werewolf meets Queen Victoria. Loved Anthony Stewart Head (Giles!) as the wicked (and wickedly tempting) schoolmaster. Loved Mickey and his adventures in an alternate dimension. Absolutely adored the two-part encounter with the Devil, in what was easily one of the show's best-written encounters.

And the finale, Doomsday... oh wow. I adored it, and thought it was heartbreaking, challenging, gruesome, gorgeous and smart, and even better than the finale for Season 1 (which I also loved). It even made me love the Cybermen (which I just felt was a bit clunky earlier in the season).

And what an ending to the relationship between Ten and Rose. I've never been sure that Ten loved Rose, really. Or to be precise, whether it was romantic versus just a genial "love ya kid" kind of thing.

Ultimately, I think the Doctor's thing for Rose (which I understand is very new in a Companion relationship, with Nine and Ten only) is that he's in love with humanity and Rose embodies the best of all of it. She's the best of the ordinary human being. She is pretty and scrappy, smart and capable, but she's no more so than millions on earth. She is everywoman -- and yet, she is blazingly unique. She is ordinary; she is extraordinary. Often it's the distance between the two I love (Rose sees only the ordinariness in herself, the Doctor sees the specialness she cannot see). And to me that's what the Doctor loves in her, best of all. But is it romantic? I kept waffling on the issue throughout the season before deciding that yes, it was.

And in "Doomsday," at the end of the season, when Rose was being ripped away from him, screaming, and the Doctor screamed in return, their screams actually mingling as if they were one person -- only then did I feel for sure that, "Wow, he does love her." It was one of those rare glimpses into the abyss in Ten's soul, that one moment, where you could see in his face that he was dying inside -- not just because she was about to die horribly and eternally in the Void, but because she was leaving him alone.

And Billie Piper, the girl can freaking act. That final scene, when she could not get the words out, was heartbreaking. Just gorgeous work from her in the entire finale, and from Tennant too. I loved this season. The moment it was over all I wanted to do was to watch it again. And the music was just stunning this season, really beautiful stuff.

Oh, and speaking of sheer romance... When Jackie and Pete stared at one another in that hallway, across the impossible gulf of two different universes and lifetimes, recognizing all the ways they could never really work... and then Pete ran into her arms anyway? Um. I, er, sobbed. I had to press pause on the DVD player to cry it out. (I used to be much tougher before my stepdad's cancer, but now? Total wimp.) But it was beautiful and so brave. For sheer romance, no matter how gorgeous those last moments were between Rose and Ten, for me nothing in the episode afterward could touch that moment when Pete ran to his Jacks. Sniffle. I love Pete, and loved that he was the one to rescue Rose. He found the father within himself after all.

So it's over. Bah. On the down side, I am still in a total funk because I adored the last episodes but am decidedly blue at finishing the season, and sad to see the parting of Rose and her Doctor. It was so cruel that they couldn't touch to say goodbye -- whether or not it was romantic in the kiss-me-now sense, the first thing the two of them have always seemed to do is to instinctively link hands. But no, not even the solace of a touch to say goodbye.

On a side note, Doctor Who seems to be one of those things that people simply won't try, sure that it's too British, too hokey, too Sci-Fi. Their loss.

I've been raving about this season and especially the final episode to all these people, and the other day was trying to explain the poetry and loveliness of Peter and Jackie in that hallway, from two different universes that should never have touched, and somehow the wonderfulness of it just wouldn't translate.

But what a lovely show, and a lovely ending to Season 2.