Did anyone watch Doctor Who?

Haven't watched it for yonks but did as 60th anniversary...it was complete shite in my opinion,obviously.

@thirdfiddle one of the most frustrating things about the Chibnall era is that he clearly knew how to write what most of the viewers wanted - Jo Martin was everything I’d hoped for in a female Doctor. Also the Master, the Lone Cybermen, at the time it felt like he’d realised what we were all annoyed about and tried to throw us a bone.
Although after learning what RTD has done to Davros, and his lecturing on how disabled people can’t be portrayed as evil in 2023, I may start to view Chibnall more kindly!

And yes, called the meep/evil right away. There's no storyline in super-cute sweet alien rescued from evil whatsits.

When they did Missy and female Doctor, I thought it was a good idea, and not related to transgender trending. For a long running show that canonically has completely different actors in the lead role, why the hell not have a woman sometimes? Like M in James Bond. And yes they may have needed to tweak the past canon a little bit to achieve it. It's boring always having men leading and women following. I don't like it.

I wasn't 100% about the writing for Whittaker. I was hoping for a really heroic female doctor. Jo Martin's Doctor I liked much better, she was more enigmatic and tough.

Actually I think Whittaker-doctor rather screwed with the trans narrative. Isn't the argument they make what if you suddenly woke up in an opposite-sexed body you'd still know you were [original sex]? Well the Doctor did that thought experiment and when she woke up in a female body she just assumed she was female. Oops. The trans-lobby would have been better served if Whittaker-Doctor had insisted on he pronouns.

I rather like the phrase "Pronoun scene"

Going forward I shall refer to media luminaries of gender ideology as "big on the Pronoun Scene".

"What's Eddie Izzard doing these days? Not sure - still big on the Pronoun Scene I think"

It reminds me of the Molochs from the old movie The Time Machine.

The first moment the Meep spoke, everyone in the room said, "it's lying!"

Surely everyone of a certain age saw the cute alien in the trailer and thought 'Gremlins'.

Go Malcolm! 👏

I've still not watched it, so I'm really in no position to criticise but I enjoyed reading this

https://www.spiked-online.com/2023/11/29/why-is-doctor-who-lecturing-us-about-pronouns/

I think it was this episode which eventually made me stop watching. It wasn’t subtle in the least, boring and preachy.

so pleased to know I was not the only one who hated this episode.

I really don't get the Riversong love. I couldn't stand her and I thought the whole "Dr's Wife" thing was the lamest thing ever. There was never any reason I could see that he would even like her, she was so annoying and know it all and coy. Blech.

Once she became a regular I started skipping episodes. Then the writing got so wrapped up it's own arse I just gave up early in Carpaldi's time.

Multiple races got together and invented the Pandorica to capture Matt Smith‘s Doctor, and it still couldn’t hold him.

Jodie Whittaker‘s Doctor was arrested and stayed tamely in prison until she was rescued by Captain Jack.

Says it all as far as I’m concerned.

I really liked Dr Jodie but her scripts and company were a bit meh.
Yeah probably MS was the best Reboot, but honestly I've rated them all in their own way. I feel like they all brought their Big Acting Chops to the show and did the character justice.

Totally agree with @YYURYYUCICYYUR4ME DT and MS were my favourites. No one since has even come close. Bernard Cribbins would have made a fantastic doctor! And I think someone like RiverSong's character would have been an ideal first female Dr - smart, sassy, funny, feisty, ballsy, just the right side of flirty and sexy. Not Jodie and her wishy-washy bumbling daft mare kind of woman.

@SDTGisAnEvilWolefGenius
Well we will have to agree to disagree on that one because I think it would be hard to find a worse actor than Catherine Tate. I am cringing whenever she is on screen. She ruined the US office for me and can only seem.to play the same character no matter what she is in .

I doubt I will be bothering with Dr Who, once the doctor regenerates again - and to be honest, I'll only be watching the DT episodes out of nostalgia for how good it used to be. Episodes like the Weeping Angels were absolutely brilliant, and I loved the original Doctor-Donna episodes too - though looking back, I do wonder how much of that was Catherine Tate's brilliance as an actor.

Watched Doctor Who as a kid, favouring Tom Baker's era, then loved the Christopher Ecclestone re-boot and was heartbroken when he left. Grew to love David Tennant (some great stories which could have easily made films), but Matt Smith is my favourite, he just had the depth of mania, mayhem and always seemed to carry the back history better (nod here for River Song's involvement too and some of those story arcs were amongst the best)! Lost hope early on with Peter Capaldi and never ventured back for more than a quick peep at Jodie Whittaker. It was the scripts that made Doctor Who and so I was hopeful that the re-boot would be worth watching and would have learnt a lesson from the issues of the last few series. I saw glimpses of DW at its best, but it seemed rushed, like it had a mission to pursue from minute one and sadly it was not one of entertaining the audience. As for the acting, some very wooden characters that fell very flat, a few that showed their quality regardless of the material and direction. As for the Meep, not a fan of cats anyway and using an old story shows that they are struggling for stories and maybe good writers stay away when forced to pursue an ideology? I just wanted to be entertained and really we are asked to believe in an alien world with sci-fi, so everything is other than our everyday, but preaching an ideology, allowing awful acting and showing us a poor story will not keep this Whoniverse going for long, will it! I'm just waiting for a glimpse of Bernard Cribbin's last performance, someone I had always believed would have made a cracking Doctor.

This too.

The first moment the Meep spoke, everyone in the room said, "it's lying!" I suppose very young viewers might have been fooled. But how does this fit with RTD's recent declaration that Doctor Who isn't for children?

Was the over-acting deliberate? Were the audience supposed to work it out?

I know knowing it was a RTD episode it felt like subconsciously even he couldn't stop the truth coming out.

So many congnitive inconsistencies the whole episode was a mess, an unintentionally hilarious mess at times

I spent most of it eyerolling, I have to say. None of us were gripped.

I liked the bit where the Nan pointed out that she'd never described her grandchild as beautiful before the transition, and was that sexist? Yes Nan, yes it is.

@TrainedByCats

"TBH I spent much of the episode slightly confused as to why we were supposed to believe something that was trying to hard to be harmless and hide in plain sight wasn't the villain."

Yep, I was completely unable to suspend disbelief. And doesn't this seem like the most supreme self-trolling of the programme? Hiding in plain sight, using victimhood to gain protection...

Not to mention Donna saying that Rose is a bad actor....

Oh I thought Rose was supposed to be doing child care for the other kid or something. I completely missed that Rose was supposed to be a teenager whilst watching the episode.

TBH I spent much of the episode slightly confused as to why we were supposed to believe something that was trying to hard to be harmless and hide in plain sight wasn't the villain.

Nooo she is now a parody of herself. Definitely someone for whom the more I hear what she has said the less I like her

I didn't even clock that it was a 20yo man playing Rose. I think I missed the comments by the yoots on bikes early on, which I guess were referring to that?

I did however clock the CLANG massive dropping of pronoun rowlocks. Doctor Who, and Nerd Culture more widely, has always been a refuge and somewhat safe space for teenage and post-teenage outsiders. So in those terms, fair play.

I take on board what others have said about sending unrealistic messages about transition and passing and lalala transing is GRATE option for young people with Gender Issues, vs reality (sterilisation, probably never having satisfying sex, life-long medical complications, risk of DEATH).

I think that was a part of it. Also I've heard that he knew there were serious concerns with Noel Clarke's behaviour (and to an extent possibly also John Barrowman's) and didn't like the way they were disregarded/covered up. But CE did also say that he only ever signed up for one season alone. A shame, as I thought be was brilliant as the Doctor.