ooh! Jacob did a recap for DW season 4: [link]

And if you're not into recaps, skip to the very last page. It puts a beautiful perspective on Donna, and gets meta about how it relates to us as real people.

I must now go be awesome (I'll start by putting the dining room back together).

I just finished 4x09 The Library and I can't quit crying. I really thought I didn't have a "my doctor", but I guess I do now.

Oh, Jacob. How I've missed your recaps which aren't really recaps. I love how he just gets what's going on:

He doesn't turn people into things. That's a misconception. He doesn't change you. He doesn't make you stronger, or better, or smarter, or faster. He doesn't make you kinder, or make you love yourself more, or believe in yourself more. He doesn't give you anything you don't already have. He can inspire, and he can love, but nobody on this earth can change you. Nobody ever made you greater, and nobody ever made you crawl. Martha knew that: knew she was a soldier because she was a soldier. But it hurt to see him say it, because he'd been the one to inspire her. She was saving the world. I think the more he fought it, the more he complained about the guns and the salutes and the armies and the battles, the prouder she should be.

Serial, because Jacob's got me thinking about things I've noticed as the season went on.

When Donna met Martha, Donna asked The Doctor something along the lines of, "So? Is that what you do? Make your companions into soldiers?" It's an idea that unsettles the Doctor: That's never what he wanted for them, or even for himself. and poor Jenny, his sudden biological daughter: born a soldier. It's no wonder he resists the idea of her being really his.

And then look: all of his companions become soldiers. "The Doctor's Secret Army," as Harriet (poor Harriet) calls them. And that's a truth, if not perhaps the truth.

and then Sarah Jane, the companion that found him again, the bridge between the past and the present of the show, is the one to point out to him that these are his family. And he's still uncomfortable with that, because he's turned them all into soldiers, and he feels guilty for that. But like Jenny, how he feels about that doesn't make it any less true: Rose, Martha, Sarah Jane, Jack, Mickey, Donna and even Jackie, K-9, Luke, Gwen and Ianto -- this is his family, born (to borrow from Jacob) like Jenny on the battlefield, but there's nothing he can do about that.

And someday he'll realize that, but he hasn't yet. Or isn't ready to. He will, someday. That's what River Song tells us. That eventually, there's a time when he's able to allow himself to get close. Does it matter if River is his companion, his wife or his daughter? No, not much. What matters is that she's symbolizes hope for his future, which admittedly, looks bleak and lonely from where he's sitting right now.

And Donna? Donna's Agatha Christie showing up at the hotel, no memory of giant wasps and murders and a man from outer space. But some vestige of that remains. It can never entirely be erased. Agatha Christie goes on to be fantastic. And so will Donna. The Doctor didn't give her anything she didn't already have.

goes on to be fantastic. And so will Donna. The Doctor didn't give her anything she didn't already have.

That's true. I just don't want to see her starting over again.

And I'm not sure that a third try will make for a less self sacrificing ending. Her name sort of says it.

Donna's Agatha Christie showing up at the hotel, no memory of giant wasps and murders and a man from outer space....Agatha Christie goes on to be fantastic. And so will Donna. The Doctor didn't give her anything she didn't already have.

And because of Jacob's "recap" and your post, victor, The Unicorn and the Wasp just skyrocketed from being fun and silly to freaking brilliant.

And because of Jacob's "recap" and your post, victor, The Unicorn and the Wasp just skyrocketed from being fun and silly to freaking brilliant.

Yeah, it's amazing how important The Unicorn and the Wasp and The Doctor's Daughter are to understanding this season.

I have to disagree with the dude that said RTD was only making a product with his stories. There's serious stuff in his stories, it's arcy, it makes you question your beliefs, it's thinky. Yeah, some episodes can be blah or have their issues, but over the course of the season I find his stuff as good as anything Joss put out in Buffy, and that's kinda my gold standard (and even Joss didn't always get it right.)

*sits with Sail*

Sure, very sometimes the shows are rubbish, and I'll complain forever about making this last ep his swan song instead of making just a good finale for the season, but I never once thought he was catering to sponsors and action figures or something with shallow mass-market potential.

I think there is a lot of good storytelling in Dr. Who. There episode i don't rewatch. Either too many of my buttons ( weeping angles just creeps me way to badly lost in another time/ mobile intimate objects/messages from the past from someone you know now ...eeeehh), or the basic story only interests me in where it took the arc.