Ursula's fate. (Love & Monsters)

[Pavonis]

Alidar Jarok wrote:

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Why do people want to reject an episode as a dream or fantasy? It seems like too much work. Just accept that it's a crappy episode and move on.

"Love and Monsters" can be both a crappy episode and a dream, fantasy, or delusion.

Ursula never appears as a face-in-a-slab in the video diary, which is the only reliable part of the episode. As I recall, the rest of the story is told in flashback, in the vein of How I Met Your Mother. I think it's entirely possible Elton is completely delusional, and the story is being related to us by an unreliable narrator. It's still a crappy story, but now it's a crappy story being told by a crappy story-teller.

... So I would say it's better than death. Certainly not good, but I think that's at least fair.

I just can't see the Doctor leaving anyone to live as a face-in-a-slab. Not only does it seem like something he shouldn't be able to do with a wave of the sonic screwdriver, it also strikes me as something that he wouldn't want to do.

[The Borgified Corpse]

Yeah.......

This is the only episode of Doctor Who I ever declared totally un-rewatchable. (Although, I made a point of also skipping over "Fear Her" after the 2nd time.)

I interpreted the stone slab ending as RTD's attempt to mitigate how sad the ending would be if she just totally died. Unfortunately, he miscalculated, VERY BADLY! (I'd say this was probably the worst writer miscalculation since that Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode where Spike tried to rape Buffy.)

[Alidar Jarok]

Pavonis wrote:

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"Love and Monsters" can be both a crappy episode and a dream, fantasy, or delusion.

Can be, but there's next to no reason to believe it is.

Do you have evidence that it is? Doctor Who rarely uses the unreliable narrator and I see no artistic reason it was intended to be used in this case.

[Pavonis]

Because Ursula never appears in Elton's video diary. If she had, then Elton's story would be believable. Without an appearance in the video, Elton could be unreliable. Delusional. Crazy. Maybe he's not, but the possibility exists. Many will latch onto that.

[Sindatur]

Pavonis wrote:

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Because Ursula never appears in Elton's video diary. If she had, then Elton's story would be believable. Without an appearance in the video, Elton could be unreliable. Delusional. Crazy. Maybe he's not, but the possibility exists. Many will latch onto that.

Well...Sure, I guess...If that provides comfort...

[Mister Fandango]

Judge Death wrote:

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What made it worse was that literally a few episodes earlier Ten had implied that life as a Cyberman was a living death, yet apparently existance as a paving slab is tickerty boo...I guess it isn't that different from being the face of Boe!

To be fair, he did see how Humanity evolved and that the last living human (nevermind all those humans running around when the Master is at the end of the universe) was nothing but a stretched face. Maybe he assumes that's a suitable way of living for humans. Afterall, if they do it of their own free will, it can't be all that bad.

Personally, I think RTD just has some fucked up fetishes.

[Ghost Bones]

SimpleLogic wrote:

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Why did the Doctor think that doing that to her was a good thing? It seems like a very cruel thing to do myself. I rank it as one of his worst decisions.

Vile isn't it. It's not just that it had a blowjob joke, I thought it was a pretty horrific thing for a show children watch.

Sindatur wrote:

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Well, yea, I remembered that much, I just wanted to know what caused the "slab" condition.

He pointed his magic screwdriver at it.

Redfern wrote:

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Some viewers have concocted a fannish theory that severals aspects of the story are really just Elton's delusions. Basically, there's was no Absorbiloff, just Elton's jealous perception of Kay's character as he wooed each of his friends. When he finally swayed Ursula, Elton finally "cracked" and perceived Kay's role as some sort of "monster" who consumed his friends.

Problem is, the Doctor makes mention of the planet Clom in a later episode independent of Elton, thus cementing its reality.

Sincerely,

Bill

Course, just mentioned a planet doesn't mean all of that happened. There could be an unreliable narrator thing going on, and we don't see the paving slab face on the camera of his video diary, for what that's worth.

Also, it's biologically impossible that someone in that condition has a functioning cognisant brain, as well as functioning senses (she doesn't have any ears for a start, so she shouldn't be able to hear anything even if anything else magically works), so you can dismiss it as Elton's fantasy on those grounds.

[Alidar Jarok]

Pavonis wrote:

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Because Ursula never appears in Elton's video diary. If she had, then Elton's story would be believable. Without an appearance in the video, Elton could be unreliable. Delusional. Crazy. Maybe he's not, but the possibility exists. Many will latch onto that.

And that brings me back to my point of why? There's still no evidence. The only reason to latch on to it is because you don't like the episode and it's still easier just to say it's a bad episode than to say it's not part of the same continuity because it's all a delusion.

The unreliable narrator is often in very good stories. Fight Club or the Murder of Roger Ackroyd are examples. In neither story does the audience have to determine an unreliable narrator simply because they don't like it nor would creating the unreliable narrator change whether or not you like it. The same goes for an ambiguous unreliable narrator (of sorts) in Inception with its ambiguous ending. Even there, whether the narrator is reliable is hinted at in a way that isn't mere speculation.

I see nothing but speculation here. You could also speculate that all of Doctor Who is in the mind of an autistic kid, but I don't see why you would.

[Mitty]

I rewatched bits of it after Marc Warren (Elton) appeared on "The Good Wife". But I couldn't bring myself to watch the whole thing. Awful, awful episode. It could have been so much more than it was. Thankfully other "Doctor/companion lite" eps, such as Blink, Turn Left and Midnight turned out far better.

[The Stig]

I've never understood the hate for "Love and Monsters." It's fun, touching and completely batty. One of my favorites from that season.

[The Mirrorball Man]

The Stig wrote:

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I've never understood the hate for "Love and Monsters." It's fun, touching and completely batty. One of my favorites from that season.

I agree, though it's true that the end is not very satisfactory and the monster doesn't quite work. But yes, it is touching and it stretches the Doctor Who formula in completely new directions, which is no small feat for such an old show.

I still want to know why the Doctor would force the hell of being a stone slab on that poor girl. Everything up till then was OK.

[Alidar Jarok]

Maybe she'd prefer to be a slab than dead? Maybe he asked her after he saved her and she said, yeah, I'd rather not be dead.