Thanks for writing the great meta. I, too, can't bear to watch most of S2 for most of the reasons you've outlined. I've had to watch RotC/AoS several times lately, and I just cringe at Rose, especially the beginning of RotC when, as you point out, Rose swans off while Mickey stays with the Doc to look after the TARDIS. When the Doctor says "This TARDIS is dead," I want to hug him.
fathers day is just a clusterfuck of disfunction, with rose manipulating the doctor into doing something extremely dangerous, the doctor letting hiself be manipulated, the bit where he's going to leave her and she yells, "you'll be back, i know how sad you are!" the AMAZINGLY parallel scenes with pete and rose and then the doctor and rose (pete cups her cheek with his right hand, and then hugs her; the doctor cups her cheek with his right hand and does the same thing, just afterwards).
"Father's Day" was the first newWho episode I saw and it hooked me onto the show because the relationship was so dysfunctional (don't know what that says about me) it intrigued me. As the show progressed, though, I got more and more annoyed with what looked like two characters regressing instead of anyone progressing--if that's what love does to you in RTD's world, I think I'll take a measure of hate.
Mickey's story breaks my heart (and really should have prepared me for what was going to happen to Martha) because he so clearly wants acceptance and validation, and he's denied it by this high-school-clique behavior the two of them exhibit. For a show that's likely to have a large contingent of fans who might have felt marginalized by society (which RTD seems to tweak in L&M), it was pretty risky to play up that dynamic for so long and so strongly.
I want to have your fic babies.
fathers day is just a clusterfuck of disfunction, with rose manipulating the doctor into doing something extremely dangerous, the doctor letting hiself be manipulated, the bit where he's going to leave her and she yells, "you'll be back, i know how sad you are!" the AMAZINGLY parallel scenes with pete and rose and then the doctor and rose (pete cups her cheek with his right hand, and then hugs her; the doctor cups her cheek with his right hand and does the same thing, just afterwards).
"Father's Day" was the first newWho episode I saw and it hooked me onto the show because the relationship was so dysfunctional (don't know what that says about me) it intrigued me. As the show progressed, though, I got more and more annoyed with what looked like two characters regressing instead of anyone progressing--if that's what love does to you in RTD's world, I think I'll take a measure of hate.
Mickey's story breaks my heart (and really should have prepared me for what was going to happen to Martha) because he so clearly wants acceptance and validation, and he's denied it by this high-school-clique behavior the two of them exhibit. For a show that's likely to have a large contingent of fans who might have felt marginalized by society (which RTD seems to tweak in L&M), it was pretty risky to play up that dynamic for so long and so strongly.
OK...enough rambling. OK if I friend you?