Oh, much, much love for this story. I love Harriet's strength and the way she stands up to the Doctor. She's come into herself here. The ending is wonderful, with the Doctor and Harriet facing each other down. She doesn't change his mind, but she doesn't have to, she's got the power now.
I'm thinking back to her first episode, when she continues on with her business of hospital funding after aliens have landed. That was hard to make sense of in the episode, but here you really turn it into a strength - her ability to just keep going, just keep doing her job and picking up the pieces, no matter what else is going on.
Harriet here just keeps going, she's not going to take time away from work to get distracted by revenge, but her dream was wonderful, with the tension between wishing the Doctor had actually saved her more effectively and her exasperation that he thought it was his business to save her - and control her - at all. Her identification with Martha makes so much sense. Harriet's months of background work and planning with Torchwood parallels nicely with Martha's year-long journey. And of course the Doctor takes over for both of them in the end.
Also: "Regeneration machine?" Deborah, another old political warhorse, asked. "We could use one of those around here." Then she laughed, bitterly.
![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2008-04-23 04:06 pm (UTC)I'm thinking back to her first episode, when she continues on with her business of hospital funding after aliens have landed. That was hard to make sense of in the episode, but here you really turn it into a strength - her ability to just keep going, just keep doing her job and picking up the pieces, no matter what else is going on.
Harriet here just keeps going, she's not going to take time away from work to get distracted by revenge, but her dream was wonderful, with the tension between wishing the Doctor had actually saved her more effectively and her exasperation that he thought it was his business to save her - and control her - at all. Her identification with Martha makes so much sense. Harriet's months of background work and planning with Torchwood parallels nicely with Martha's year-long journey. And of course the Doctor takes over for both of them in the end.
Also:
"Regeneration machine?" Deborah, another old political warhorse, asked. "We could use one of those around here." Then she laughed, bitterly.
*beams*