Vidding Doctor Who: personal timeline (and some character thoughts - 4x13 spoilers)

[butterfly]

With eleven total vids, Doctor Who is the show that I have vidded the most, by far (the next closest are BtVS and Stargate, with four vids each). Clearly, I find the show incredibly visually appealing (if you add in the related show Torchwood, then the total becomes fourteen).

It also occurs to me that my vids are a very accurate timeline of the development of my feelings for the show and its characters. My very first Doctor Who vid was a glorious celebration of Rose Tyler in series one (My Hit Song). This vid is basically me going, "And there's this girl named Rose and she's the most awesome person ever OMG!" And, in that vid, while there's a ton of Doctor/Rose stuff, there's also quite a bit of Jack/Rose and some Mickey/Rose.

The second vid that I made was from the (ninth) Doctor's PoV, but it was still all about Rose (Beauty of the Rain). This can, in fact, sum up where I was after I'd seen all of Series One and when Series Two was just on the cusp of starting -- for me, it was All About Rose. This vid is about how the Doctor flailed about loving Rose and then, ultimately, submitted. Because the Doctor can see why he shouldn't care so much about this one human, who is just as fallible as all the rest, but oh... he can't quite help himself. For me, the key line of this vid is "feeling helpless if she asked for help or scared you'd have to change yourself." And he does and he is. He's thrown so utterly off-guard by the feelings that Rose inspires in him. She makes him want to shield her (and he never can) and she makes him want to be better: a stronger man, a braver man, a more touchable man. She makes him ache and he doesn't quite know how to stand it.

Another line that has grown even more important and weighty for me after everything else that we've seen is "you'll take her any way she sings" and the clip I paired it with is Rose destroying the Daleks. 'Any way she sings' -- even if Rose commits genocide, the Doctor doesn't care. She's Rose and that is all that matters.

Then Series Two started and I was in love. With the Doctor and with Rose and with everything. I made a vid after "The Girl in the Fireplace" exploring what felt like an interesting shift in the new Doctor -- he seemed to feel much more freedom in showing love. I actually started it soon after "New Earth" aired and finished it after tGitF because, in part, that episode felt like a kick in the stomach and I wanted to do this vid while it still felt like it might be accurate (Fumbling Towards Ecstasy). This is a vid that I would probably make a bit shorter if I made it now, but there's still a lot in it that I like. Honestly, rewatching this vid in particular breaks my heart a bit, post-"Doomsday". "I won't fear love" cries the chorus and the Doctor seemed to be living that in S2 and then... he lost Rose. He lost Rose and now he is, again, terrified of love. Rose, of course, is utterly fearless in this respect. But the Doctor... he fears love again now (which... yes... when I come to a S3 vid, there's a line about how "hope is always fear").

Anyway, this vid has both the Doctor and Rose's PoV but while Rose's part is primarily about the Doctor, the Doctor's has broadened and is about many different people and kinds of love. And I think that's very reflective of the vibe in S2 -- the Doctor was not as possessively obsessive about Rose in that series (though he could still manage a good snipe about Mickey). He's learned that she can go a little way from him and not forget his existence. She can spend time with her family and still want to return to the TARDIS.

The next vid that I made for the show was, basically, my Doctor/Rose ship manifesto post-"Doomsday" (Into the Fire). This was the vid that I made while I was still crying my heart out because of the Doctor and Rose's goodbye. This is the Doctor, Nine and Ten, and why Rose was worth it. Because, for me, this vid said it all. Even in just the beginning instrumental section, it's all about how Rose is amazing -- because she comes back, because she's his partner, because she lets go of her grip so that she can finish saving the world and because when she reaches the lever, she smiles. That smile in that first part is so incredibly important to me as a character note.

The first two verses of the song are identical. One for Nine and one for Ten, exactly the same. The 'fire' is, naturally, love. The Doctor and Rose tempt each other into it and they get burned so badly and yet... it's worth it and they would put their hands back into that fire again, if they only had the chance.

Then Series Two was over and my heart was broken and I made some non-Who vids for a while. I watched Torchwood when it started and adored Gwen (Get to Me) and the Christmas special was coming up and I was... quite sure that there would be a bit of Rose grief and then we'd see the Doctor move on with his life.

So, I made myself a vid that celebrated the Doctor and Rose in series two before the finale arc (The Best Thing). It's absolutely and completely from the Doctor's point of view and it is so utterly and unknowingly prescient that it makes me want to laugh and cry a little. As I was making it, I kept thinking about how dangerous an idea it is, that someone else can be the 'best thing' about you. Because well... what happens when you lose that person, as the Doctor just lost Rose? It's "Beauty of the Rain" taken up to the next level, where that beautiful moment matters more than anything else ever could in the universe. The song is about trying to figure that out -- is it just physical attraction or is this something so much more deadly and powerful? "This intoxication thrills me... I only pray it doesn't kill me."

Even more so if you subscribe to the school of thought that it was the Doctor's love for Rose that shaped this regeneration. He's younger, more domestic, doesn't snap about humans being stupid apes, more completely fits the image of 'dark-haired pretty geek-boy' that Rose showed herself to be interested in during the first series. This is a Doctor who isn't quite sure that he knows who he is without Rose Tyler. He's "frightened to believe" that Rose is the best thing about him.

So, I made my incredibly 'shippy vid and waited for canon to prove me wrong.

Instead, it proved me far more right than I'd ever anticipated. "The Runaway Bride" ached with the absence of Rose. Enough so that I made another vid after it had aired (Human Remains) that catalogued that empty, hollow feeling that the Doctor showed whenever he stopped running. And... more than just the emptiness, there's a despair in the vid because the Doctor is certain that Rose will be just another memory in the back of his mind and he's realized that he doesn't want that to be true. He doesn't want to forget her (when "Turn Left" aired and showed us that the Doctor would have let himself die without Donna there, I hurt for him, but I wasn't surprised -- he's so broken and numb in "The Runaway Bride"). "It's not enough," goes the chorus of this song. He met Rose and she was sunshine and everything beautiful, and without her nothing in this universe feels like it will ever be enough again.

I wandered off and made my post-S1 Torchwood Jack vid (Ways and Means), which was a lot of fun. I actually mucked up the source for the sake of the music rather than keeping it all pristine and beautiful. This vid is all about Jack's anger, longing, and confusion. And then I was being nervous about Series Three because the media/fandom was playing up Martha and I was not yet over Rose, thanks for asking.

"Smith and Jones" aired and... I liked Martha but it was clear how tired and lost the Doctor was. Even before she said in the Dalek episodes that the Doctor was seeing Rose instead of her sometimes, it seemed clear to me. After "Gridlock" aired, I found that I couldn't hold in my grief over losing Rose and vidded the Doctor post-"Doomsday" (Never Gone).

This made me feel better for a while, released some of my feelings and I watched the show.

And the Doctor kept breaking my heart. He started with that scream in "Doomsday" and never really stopped. Series Three ended and it was, in a lot of ways, so bleak for him. He found another of his kind and... first, there's the hatred and the anger and then the Master dies just to spite the Doctor.

It never stopped. It would never stop. There were a few songs running through my head thoroughout series three and there was one that stuck (All of This Past). The key phrase was "all of this dust" and I linked it immediately to what the Doctor says in "The Lazarus Experiment" about how everything 'turns to dust'. And this was a grief more encompassing than the loss of Rose (though she was certainly part of it) -- this was about the way everything he wants to keep always slips away from him and how that has caused him to slip away from himself. This is the part of him that the Doctor would never ever have wanted Rose to see, the part that raged against the universe for the loss of her and the loss of his people. The part that just wished that something would take the choice away from him and let him end it all because he keeps going and everything -- everything -- that he loves gets taken from him. This is the Lonely God, all fire and ice and a desperate wish that someone would save him from himself.

Time went on and I vidded a couple of other things. Torchwood was filling me with giddy joy and I wanted to make a vid about that (Affirmation). At first, I was thinking that it would just be a Jack vid, then I was thinking just TW, and then I realized that there were too many perfect shots from Who to use not to do both series. I agonized so much over whether or not I was giving each person enough time. But you can't edit mathematically, it'll look wrong. So, I went with my instincts. It's worth noting that, even in an ensemble vid, my Doctor/Rose 'shipper tendencies were working overtime. Also, I couldn't help doing the Rose & Astrid parallel. And the 'sexuality' bit with the Doctor (look! he's got one!). This vid was pure joy to make and contained several personal jokes that seemed to work well for other people.

Then, of course, the season finale of Torchwood aired and broke my heart (Wild Hope).

And all this time, I was working on and off on a couple of Doctor/Rose vids (the others may or may not ever surface). I even completed one and then wiped it from my HD without posting it because it just felt too... raw (for the curious, the song I used was "Breathe", the Melissa Etheridge version). I still didn't fully trust RTD and I wanted to know that I was watching the same story that he was telling.

"Turn Left" was the point at which I realized that I was -- the Doctor adored Rose so much that it edged near the border of too much.

Come What May had been my personal 'feel better' vid for a while. I would work on it, while series three and four were airing, and it would reassure me that I hadn't imagined the depth of the Doctor and Rose's feelings for each other. Because... he looked at her like that and she held his hand there and they were so clearly in love. I'm now unsure about whether or not I can finish another D/R vid because... well, I've kinda said everything that I need to say about them -- Rose is awesome, he fell in love first, she fell back, they had fun, got their hearts broken, and it's a romantic epic that's also half tragedy. Kinda sums it all up.

"Journey's End" aired and it was so many things. I absolutely adored the episode but it really does break my heart for the Doctor and for Donna. Colder Darker Slower was a song that I'd marked down as a possible 'Doctor' song back when series three was airing but it didn't quite fit at the time and "All of This Past" just seemed to be a much better song for where the Doctor was at that point in time. After "Journey's End" aired, I revisited "Colder Darker Slower" and went, "Oh, yes." And not just for Donna -- for Jenny and Astrid and River. This is not a song about losses that are being swept away by time or about one huge loss, this is a song about a thousand tiny pinpricks to the heart. Cumulative damage.

For me, the most resonant line of the song is "where you've gone, some day I'll follow" which is paired with the Doctor holding the Master and Jenny as they die. And that all goes back to "Turn Left" and finding out that the Doctor really was prepared to go through with his death wish in series three. Like the Master  in LotTL, he wasn't planning on regenerating. And I actually tear my own heart out a bit by putting the Rose/Ten II kiss for "there's no one who won't leave," and it makes me want to flail and smack the Doctor (Ten I) and hug him at the same time. Much as the episode itself did.

I don't know where I'll go with vidding in DW in the future. With regards to all my vidding, I haven't really had any plans. I just... let inspiration hit, which means that a lot depends on what the specials end up doing next year.