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Telly addicts

Who is watching Doctor Who tonight

886 replies

Firefly2009 · 25/11/2023 17:13

And if you've now seen it, what are your thoughts?

I'm predicting I will love it no matter what. But look forward to discussing it.

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TripleDaisySummer · 27/11/2023 10:22

Marshtit · 27/11/2023 06:20

i enjoyed it
is there a part 2

There two more specials I think then a new Dr - who I am looking forward to.

I do admit I was disappointed with this one it was just okay - coasting by with huge does of nostalgia full of plot holes - I'm hoping it's a find it feet problem and not a Disney + problem - though I did actually like Mandalorian series 3 though it did lack a bit of focus and did at times feel disjointed overall it was as not terrible as reviewers insisted it was.

The fear is it ends up like last Dr getting progressively worse despite some stand out performances such as Dr Ruth and The Master.

pickledandpuzzled · 27/11/2023 10:27

I am still looking forward to the next set. Just irritated by issues with that one!

TheMarzipanDildo · 27/11/2023 10:31

BlueBox81 · 27/11/2023 09:32

I thought Rose being trans worked well with the storyline and the recent change of the doctor from male to female. Yes, Rose is biologically male but she has a woman's brain essentially, so is both (as is the Doctor). I thought the 'educating' us on pronouns was condescending and unnecessary. That bit of dialogue was really clumsily written, but other than that I think Rose being trans made sense to the plot and trans people do exist so no reason for them not to feature on TV shows as well as biological female teenagers. There can be both.

Woman’s brain. Hmm

do people see now why some women might think this stuff is a bit sexist and regressive?

BlueBox81 · 27/11/2023 10:33

Yeh I think it felt rushed and they were trying to fit a lot of plot and back story in. Am hoping with the catch up on Donna's life/meta crisis resolved the next one will have better pacing and focus more on the story of that episode. Loved seeing Donna and the Doctor back together and being in their world again. My kids loved it, they had really gone off it in the Chibnall/Whittiker era.

Ginmonkeyagain · 27/11/2023 11:09

Also didn't they do the whole children absorbing Tardis/Timelord energy in preganncy and subsequent children being part timelord with Amy and River Song?

Ginmonkeyagain · 27/11/2023 11:10

So not really a surprise to the Doctor?

tellmewhenthespaceshiplandscoz · 27/11/2023 11:23

Woman brain Confused

You can literally declare any nonsenses regarding one's self now and anyone who doesn't validate and shape their life and responses around that is a bigot who literally wants to cause you actual harm:deny your existence.

If this shit wasn't so dangerous it would be hilarious

TripleDaisySummer · 27/11/2023 11:25

Also didn't they do the whole children absorbing Tardis/Timelord energy in preganncy and subsequent children being part timelord with Amy and River Song?

Time travel while pg despite having human parents led to genetic changes in River Song that Silence movement then built on to make her a time lord.

Then Bad wolf with teenage/ young Rose Tyler taking the time vortex into her head - which Dr then took forcing a regeneration - not before she brought Captain Jack back as a fixed point.

Then another adult other David Tennant Dr who is human/timelord in another dimension/time stream with Rose Tyler. However at same time they never been a human timelord "meta" crisis because they can't be and thus Donna mind needed to be wiped.

It's like the control room having a force field down the middle - thus contriving a situation where Donna needed to remember so this can be a completely new situation with nothing like this ever happening before and thus anything can happen.

RedToothBrush · 27/11/2023 11:34

Ginmonkeyagain · 27/11/2023 11:09

Also didn't they do the whole children absorbing Tardis/Timelord energy in preganncy and subsequent children being part timelord with Amy and River Song?

Women are only good for plot devices which involve pregnancy and have pink fluffy brains which save the world.

Chemenger · 27/11/2023 11:40

BlueBox81 · 27/11/2023 09:32

I thought Rose being trans worked well with the storyline and the recent change of the doctor from male to female. Yes, Rose is biologically male but she has a woman's brain essentially, so is both (as is the Doctor). I thought the 'educating' us on pronouns was condescending and unnecessary. That bit of dialogue was really clumsily written, but other than that I think Rose being trans made sense to the plot and trans people do exist so no reason for them not to feature on TV shows as well as biological female teenagers. There can be both.

Woman’s brain. Give me strength. What nonsense.

pickledandpuzzled · 27/11/2023 11:48

BlueBox81 · 27/11/2023 10:07

By woman's brain what I mean is feels like has the mind of a woman. Imagine your brain /mind/feelings were transplanted into a body that was the opposite sex. That's what I imagine it's like to be a trans person. So maybe mind was a better word to use. Rose is a male body with a woman's mind, making her both.

Trans people may well feel like that, but it’s not literally true and therefore can’t have a plot based around it.

We know it’s not literally true because women don’t feel actually like they have a female brain, and science has found no evidence of female brains being different from male brains apart of course from the xx chromosomes in every single cell.

TripleDaisySummer · 27/11/2023 11:51

Women are only good for plot devices which involve pregnancy and have pink fluffy brains which save the world.

I think that why I felt so annoyed with last Dr - a women who was played as super ditzy even in serious moments she lacked authority.

I liked Dr Ruth - she could turn authoritative and competent on - it's why I ended up thinking it was more than the writing - which was dire - was wrong with last two series.

It did feel as if they though any women in an position of power and authority had be made unthreatening and little girl like - it was insulting. I also really hated the Mary Shelly episode it diminished her considerable achievement with her writing and had her more reciting what she saw - other male authors in other episodes were more inspired it really didn't come across like that with her.

DumboHimalayan · 27/11/2023 12:35

There was something that struck me in this episode that I've barely seen mentioned online — except by one psychiatrist I follow on Twitter — which was that the writers seemed to mindlessly continue in the tradition (in sci-fi, but also more generally) of casual conflation of mental illness with evil. (I've missed a few of the middle pages of this thread so someone may have already mentioned this — apologies if so.)

In the episode, the turning-bad of the Meeps was explained as:

"The story of the Meep is a tragic tale. Their planet basked in the light of a living sun until one terrible day, the sun went mad. A psychedelic sun. Its radiation mutated all of Meepkind into cruel beasts who live for conquest. The eyes! That's solar psychedelia! It renders them as maniacs." I think I remember someone using the phrase "delusions of grandeur" (seems to be missing from the transcript I'm looking at), and the Meep also later says, "I name this ship the Delusions of Grandeur!" (As well as a phrase in general use, this is a clinical term referring to a symptom most commonly seen in serious mental illness.)

I've already seen people online refer to the glowy eyes as a sign of having caught the "psychosis", showing how the writers' use of colloquial words like "mad" and "maniac", alongside the odd term used in psychiatry, can in the audience's mind become a straight equation of: real, named mental illness symptom = evil.

Normally, I skim over this stuff in the media I watch because it is so common, even though it's thoughtless, lazy and harmful to the millions of perfectly lovely people living with serious mental illness. But here, the utter lack of giving a shit about a persecuted minority was thrown into sharp relief by the otherwise ostentatious, self-conscious, clumsy, "look how progressive we are" management of inclusion and representation throughout the episode (except the Sikh UNIT officer, who was well done, I think).

It's funny, in this context, that there's a big push to get gender dysphoria or gender identity disorder out of the purview of psychiatry. It's almost as though the activists know that the only way to be treated as a human being, to be taken seriously, to avoid being the butt of jokes and fair game for attack even when people bend over backwards to display how accepting they are of everyone else, is to make sure that nobody can call you mad.

WrenNatsworthy · 27/11/2023 13:04

I think that was deliberate

WrenNatsworthy · 27/11/2023 13:05

Marshtit · 27/11/2023 08:51

the coffee spill let it down for me, it was not very well done

Oops, meant to quote this!

BlueBox81 · 27/11/2023 13:29

I take your point on this. My POV is that it's a TV program, and one that is so fantastical that it's OK if not everything in it is 100% accurate in order to make a plot work. But I guess your POV is that with current concerns over trans rights vs women's rights, this is misinformation that can cause more confusion and so does matter.

DwightDFlysenhower · 27/11/2023 13:30

They also played the gender thing a bit for laughs though, when they had the psychic paper saying Grand Mistress.

BlueBox81 · 27/11/2023 13:31

That was to @pickledandpuzzled

thirdfiddle · 27/11/2023 13:54

Imagine your brain /mind/feelings were transplanted into a body that was the opposite sex.
This is the thing. I imagine that. Imagination me says, ooh look, male body, how did that happen. Then goes and uses the men's changing/loos because that's the place male bodies go and I wouldn't want to alarm any women. I would think I was a man. And if that was emotionally difficult, I'd put that down to weird supernatural thing just having happened. I think I'd get used to being a man pretty quickly really. I know how unreliable human perception is, if my feeling disagrees with reality it's my brain that's wrong, not reality.

Dr Who even played out that thought experiment with the doctor. Whittaker doctor didn't use male pronouns, or male changing rooms that was mentioned. Perhaps that's why they feel they need to tiptoe round the trans movement now.

ghostyslovesheets · 27/11/2023 14:16

DwightDFlysenhower · 27/11/2023 13:30

They also played the gender thing a bit for laughs though, when they had the psychic paper saying Grand Mistress.

Which would have been the perfect time to slip in a non binary reference- since Time Lords can be male or female depending on regeneration but, as non human, don’t have a human biological sex!

trans women identify as a sex different from their own - they are binary - male/female not non binary

GingerLiberalFeminist · 27/11/2023 14:44

It was ok, but didn't do anything new did it? Like sleeping with an ex 😂

I've given some thought as to why it was mediocre and concluded it is because it was like fan fiction, same old characters with some utterly forgettable aliens and dubious science.

DumboHimalayan · 27/11/2023 15:21

TBH I'm half-surprised by how positive the response to this episode has been on places like trans Twitter.

When I was chatting to DP after the episode ended, I said I was 50/50 as to whether the online trans community would absolutely adore it, or whether they'd instead pick up on some of the hamfisted, at least 5 years out of date attempts at trans inclusion, and really take against it. I was maybe leaning towards the latter, but I was wrong — I've only seen maybe one trans activist make any criticism at all. I'm slightly surprised that the reaction seems almost universally positive, because the episode doesn't seem to fit modern discourse — there were several elements that I've seen protested elsewhere.

Things like the fact that the story suggested there was an "explanation", a reason for Rose ending up as non-binary/trans, as though there needs to be an identifiable cause (i.e. something like, having inherited Timelord energy, because Timelords are both male and female, or some kind of similar mush — "We're binary. She's not, because the Doctor's male… and female. And neither. And more."). I've definitely seen people argue that looking for or identifying possible causes of someone being trans is transphobic.

And the Meep pronoun scene was clumsy and attention-drawing in exactly the way I've heard many trans people say they don't want that kind of situation managed. Also, possibly, the confusing mashing together of an implied binary-trans character — played by a transwoman AFAIK — with suddenly starting to talk about the character's non-binaryness the moment that being non-binary is convenient to the story, as if, meh, it's all the same thing. Though perhaps some would say that of course there's nothing to say that a male, feminine-presenting person who's had surgery to appear female, has chosen a feminine name, and requests feminine pronouns can't identify as non-binary.

Whatever, the whole thing felt to me like it was exactly the kind of thing that would attract complaints that it was some old, out-of-touch, white cis gay guy's well-meaning but problematic take on something he doesn't understand.

Also, if I were trans I'm pretty sure I'd be cringing hard at the whole thing where the world is saved through the power of trans, or whatever the hell that ending was supposed to be. I'm a woman, and really dislike the feeling of being humoured and pandered to by things that misguidedly attempt to give the impression of redressing the balance of historic sexism — not by portraying us as full human beings, but by making out that women are a bit special and different from normal humans, and actually intrinsically better than men in some weird, blanket way (although not one that is actually valued), like this bit: "We know everything. Thanks. And you know nothing. It's a shame you're not a woman any more, cos she'd have understood. We've got all that power - but there is a way to get rid of it. Something a male-presenting Time Lord will never understand. Just let it go." Well, I'm a woman, and I didn't have a clue what that was all about. It's like how I cringe when people joke about how men are terrible at multitasking, or how if women ruled the world there would be no wars because we're lovely and kind and talk things through, or whatever bollocks.

Having an ASD diagnosis, I get a similar vibe from things that attempt to be inclusive in that uncomfortable, OTT way that feels like, "Let's celebrate autism, and have autistic characters who save the day through their autism, because autism is a special power that means an autistic person can do things that a normal person could never do, and that will make everyone realise that autistic people are sooper special — and because they're useful to us, that actually makes them worthwhile human beings rather than just a burden, woo, look how progressive we are" 🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄

DogsAkimbo · 27/11/2023 15:50

pickledandpuzzled · 27/11/2023 09:53

So Rose is a man with a woman’s brain, who has timelord energy because Donna shared it with her during pregnancy because she had timelord energy in a walled off part of her memory. And the time lord energy can now be released because it’s shared between two female brains instead of one, and Donna has now remembered which allowed Rose to remember. And it wouldn’t have worked with a male and female brain because women can ‘let it go’ in a way men can’t. It must be related to the being kind mechanism.

Right…. that explains everything and Rose really is special.

No, no, but nearly. The Dr shared his full man brain with Donna’s woman brain but that didn’t change Donna to a man because of female biology that time.

She needed the female biology to have a male biological child, Rose (named after a biological female with a female brain) with a female brain. Then the doctor’s big man brain was too much for them so they shared it between them (who needs a whole one) but then Rose was only wearing half a skirt so her brain and body got confused so now she’s non-binary. But it’s ok because it was all written by a male man and he knows everything, so not to worry.

Angrycat2768 · 27/11/2023 16:10

pickledandpuzzled · 27/11/2023 11:48

Trans people may well feel like that, but it’s not literally true and therefore can’t have a plot based around it.

We know it’s not literally true because women don’t feel actually like they have a female brain, and science has found no evidence of female brains being different from male brains apart of course from the xx chromosomes in every single cell.

Nobody knows what it feels like to have ' the mind of a woman' Women have shared experiences that shape their minds based in biology, like periods, pregnancy, menopause, the effects of oestrogen, as well as experiences caused by being physically weaker and historically less powerful than men. Apart from that, some women are pink and fluffy and like girly things and other women don't like those things, live in jeans and wear no makeup. All types of women are still women, so women's brains are all different. If I was transported into a male body, I would have no idea how a male body worked or how male hormones affected me, and I would still have the same brain I always had!

pickledandpuzzled · 27/11/2023 16:18

DogsAkimbo · 27/11/2023 15:50

No, no, but nearly. The Dr shared his full man brain with Donna’s woman brain but that didn’t change Donna to a man because of female biology that time.

She needed the female biology to have a male biological child, Rose (named after a biological female with a female brain) with a female brain. Then the doctor’s big man brain was too much for them so they shared it between them (who needs a whole one) but then Rose was only wearing half a skirt so her brain and body got confused so now she’s non-binary. But it’s ok because it was all written by a male man and he knows everything, so not to worry.

They need to be careful, that man brain being shared into Donna’s lady brain. I’m sure my mum said you shouldn’t do that unless you’re married!