Christmas Day Dr Who

[boatyardblues]

What. Da. Fuq? As DS just said after the musical number “did that just happen?”

It’s Dr Who Jim, but not as we know it.

Edited for typo.

Will be interested to see what happens with Mrs Flood.

I watched the episode again today. I'm sure someone posted an idea on here but I can't find it; I agree with them though. I think the Doctor took Mrs Flood on a quick trip in the tardis. When Ruby came out, the tardis had moved and he had different clothes on. Before this, Mrs Flood didn't know who/what the doctor & tardis were.

You may be onto something- there was certainly a marked difference between her first finding the tardis a nuisance and blaming her neighbour to later on.

I think comparing ratings is a little unfair. By the time Tennant came along the show was well needed in...Eccleston had done the hard graft and Tennant stepped into a huge hit. RTD was show runner then too.
He's only been back five minutes, he's got to correct course after the Chibnall disaster. Give him a bit of time. I refuse to believe that the man who wrote It's A Sin has lost anything.
I hate that fucking word 'woke'.

Could you say exactly which aspects of ‘The Church on Ruby Road’, specifically, you found embarrassingly 'woke', @FreshWinterMorning ?

Interesting theory @Lisbeth50 I may have to watch it again now.
As for being woke? How?
I thought we had moved on a long way from viewing being black or gay or (gasp) both was being woke. Ffs.

It's pretty obvious all the complaints about the show being "woke" are because they don't want to see black actors on TV.

I've seen at least two threads on Mumsnet today complaining about TV shows being "woke" and both very obviously refer to the fact they are shows with black actors in a lead role. (And at least four threads in total today alone where "woke" was used to mean "black people are allowed to exist at all", for example the horrific thread about a nursery hiring a black teacher, which is full of screaming about wokeness and how they wouldn't want a black teacher, they wouldn't tolerate their kids learning about other cultures, woke woke woke).

Woke = "I only want to see white people on TV."

I’ve never been a fan of Dr Who. Ds fancied watching it. He loved it. I felt the baby eating was a bit dark for Christmas!

I’ve just started watching from the start of Christopher Ecclestone’s tenure. The writing is so much better than in most of the recent ones. I don’t know if they’re shorter episodes (most seem to be 45 mins whereas I think the recent ones are 60) so it has to be a “tighter” plot?

Having said that, I enjoyed the most recent episode and think Ncuti Gatwa has the makings of a great Doctor. Hopefully he’ll be given some better material to work with than the last two Doctors were.

It's pretty obvious all the complaints about the show being "woke" are because they don't want to see black actors on TV.

I'm never sure about this - because so often it's bad writing being complained about and this gets thrown out to deflect but at same time do see comments that make me wonder if it's this.

When I complained about Whittaker Dr* Who on here -where Jo Martin did so much more with less and *Sacha Dhawan Master was brilliant in my view - had posters insisting I must hate seeing women in lead roles because growing up in country where both head of state were women and we had female lead like Ripley or Sarah Connor in films means it was somehow odd and not completely normal everyday thing I thought it was.

But on the other hand I thought the cast and accompanying time frame changes in BBC Agatha Christie Murder is Easy added to the story. I thought it was an excellent example on how to make changes that added not detract from the story so don't understand why there are so many complaints.

I do think Ncuti Gatwa is well cast and has huge potential but if the stories don't pick up not sure how long we'll keep watching - we've already stuck a long time in hope of improvements and due to nostalgia.

I really enjoyed it - didn't expect to hear reference to S20 in a Dr Who episode! Loved the warm foster carer vibes but why oh why are all bloody social workers depicted as either completely incompetent or cruel. Very niche moan. Otherwise I enjoyed it and really enjoyed our new Dr, my DD7 has only recently got into Dr Who and has been binging DT era and she really enjoyed it.

See also the inept, bumbling police officer dealing with the fallen snowman. TV police in secondary roles are inept or bitter. Never anything else. It's pretty lazy writing.

Didn’t think Sacha was a great Master. I was annoyed at the return to ‘haha I’m being evil just because!’ after such an interesting, nuanced previous incarnation in Missy.

Didn’t think Sacha was a great Master. I was annoyed at the return to ‘haha I’m being evil just because!’ after such an interesting, nuanced previous incarnation in Missy.

I thought a reversion to hah ha I'm evil genius and having huge fun with that aspects of master character after Missy was believable - as in I've tried being good and nah - but I know many didn't like the portrayal.

I did really like Missy and John Simm's Master as well but I thought Sacha fitted with them just a tat more off his rocker more of the time than them.

I do think Sacha was hampered like all that cast by really bad scripts.

I thought he would have made a great Doctor. I agree Missy was a fab Master. But well, Michelle Gomez- of course she was going to be fab!

Gone back and watched the first two of the 60th anniversary episodes tonight, will watch the third tomorrow I expect.

Reading some of the posts on this thread, I'm wondering if any of the 13th doctor era ones are worth watching - the Jo Martin ones maybe?

The first one with Jo Martin was good but then I remember liking first Sacha master episode a lot - however she turns up in timeless child episodes which are just awful.

One of the reviews I watch started calling Whittaker the Doctor impostor - which I thought apt - she never quite got the Doctor right. I liked first episode with Ryan character and his dyspraxia -though is acting got progressively more wooden - but also like him and Step GF moments - it had potential to be good but it just got worse and worse as it went on.

I also thought the Capaldi era very variable - some brilliant some meh -but second viewing and post 13 Doctor they look really good - but Tenant, Smith and Eccleston were all good.

Sacha was the best part of the previous run. He was brilliant.

I really hope there won't be romance, I'm so utterly bored with young female companions mooning over the doc. Though since it's RTD, maybe it'll be a male this time 🙄

This may be true, and I think it's part of where hey ran into trouble with the writing in the past. It wasn't just the preachiness, it was the increasingly convoluted "everything is connected" and oh by the way space and time is about to be destroyed stuff.

There are certain fans who love all the convoluted connections and Easter eggs and such, but the fact is that this approach leads to writing that increasingly is up its own arse. There can ever really be anything new or different.

There needs to be a certain number of episodes that are stand alone, and a forward movement rather than just a sort of spiral. The Matt Smith era is where this started to get out of control, and it was completely over the top with Carpaldi's run.

I think this is a huge assumption. There are lots of people who dislike shows or tv that they feel is trying to push an agenda on them, but don't mind black (or other) actors in themselves.

In fact I think it's pretty rare these days that anyone has a problem with black actors is film or tv, most people don't really even notice. Plenty of films and shows that are mainly enjoyed by the unwashed masses have non-white actors and it isn't even cause for comment.

I would say where it puts people off tends to fall into a few related categories. On e being when it's clearly anachronistic. The other being where it feels the writers are being tokenistic - which usually is about the feel of the whole show, rather than any one casting decision. Doctor Who tends to do both of these things a lot which is why it gets as much flack as it does.

As for why people dislike these things - the anachronistic element is something some people find distracting. But some also feel there is a double standard around how historical settings are treated, or even that historical retconning is meant to imply something negative about historical demographic patterns (which in some cases does seem to be the writers motivation.) And similarly, many people see that kind of tokenistic approach to casting and writing characters as quite racist, and also it tends to produce poor writing.

It's possible to have discussions about these various points, and they aren't black and white by any means, but to say it's just about having something against black actors is really unfair.