Today, I thought I’d describe what would have been a much better ending for Before the Flood. Because when my favourite TV show makes me mad, I at least want to flex my writing muscles pitching a different scenario.
• • •
I was pretty annoyed that the Fisher King only got a few lines of Generic Monster™ dialogue. It was a waste of Peter Serafinowicz, whose voice can work wonders. I see a very simple solution here. Cut the opening monologue about the Bootstrap Paradox and use that time for a four-minute long conversation between the Doctor and the Fisher King about the nature of the soul.
Fisher King
“I do nothing to their souls. I know nothing of the soul. My writing sets an energy pattern whirring around their brains. When they die, this energy reanimates them as holograms. They do my bidding. They call my people. They kill for me. I kill them to make them my machines.”
 |
| Another thing I think this story needed was more of the angry Capaldi. |
Doctor
“Do you really think that's all you're doing? Building a radio amplifier? You're killing people and literally ripping their minds out of them! Instead of leaving the dead in peace, you twist them into parts for your phone. These aren't holograms, they're ghosts! They're people!
“And you’ve wiped away all the meaning they had in their lives. You're written it all over with your phone call! Did you see the fear on O’Donnell’s face as you shot her? Could you have seen everything in her life leading up to this one stupid moment when she took a wrong turn and ran into you?
“No. You just saw another signal amplifier. And now that's all she ever was.”
Imagine Peter Capaldi and Peter Serafinowicz saying this to each other. Then they return to the same dialogue that tricks the Fisher King into going outside and dying in the flood.
• • •
Yesterday’s post spent some time on the icky ending of the base-under-siege crew’s storyline. There was enough ambiguity in Bennett and O’Donnell’s behaviour toward each other than you could easily imagine that they were actually a couple. Maybe early in their relationship, but still involved.
 |
| Having watched the episode to completion, this is no longer a cute moment. I'd prefer to recall it as tragic instead of simply creepy, as in Whithouse's version. |
Remember when she jumps up and down in front of Bennett with glee at being part of a real Doctor Who episode? “It's bigger on the inside!” Certainly the sort of thing a young woman could do now that he finally has a private moment with her awkward boyfriend in the middle of this crisis.
So it’s the last scene in the base, and the ghosts have been locked in the Faraday cage. The Doctor has just told us that UNIT will take the cage into deep space, and they’ll fade away as the Earth's electromagnetic field can no longer sustain them. There's nothing left to them but these echoes.
Clara and Bennett have their moment when they discuss how to move on from someone you loved. And as the crew drifts away from the cage, Bennett takes one last look back through the window.
He steps closer until he sees O’Donnell's ghost moving closer to the door too. She puts her hand up to the window. He places his opposite. He looks into her empty eyes and sees her repetitive muttering shrink to a twitch. Her hand stays on the window, touching his through the glass.
• • •
Cut to the Doctor and Clara in the TARDIS. Instead of talking about the bootstrap paradox, they might say this.
Clara
“I hope Bennett does get over this, though.”
Doctor
“Is it about getting over it, Clara? Or learning to live with it.”
Clara
“What's the difference?”
Doctor
“Plenty. He's certainly not running away from it. He didn’t even ask if he could come.”
Clara
“Is that supposed to mean something?”
Doctor
“I don't think so. I’m not always talking about you, you know.”
“I don't think so. I’m not always talking about you, you know.”
Clara
“There is a difference, though. You do have to learn to live with it. Just fully understand that they’re gone. And there's nothing left of them.”
Doctor
“Can you be sure?”
Clara
“Can’t you?”
Doctor
“Well, I'll never stop looking forward to being surprised.”
• • •
Can this be my first audition sample?
No comments:
Post a Comment