Did anyone watch Doctor Who?

[ZeldaFighter]

So on an existential level, I'm confused. 11 Doctors and only 1 woman - it seemed like finally progress had been made. Now we're back to male people playing the role of the teenage daughter (who is explicitly transgender, so I suppose is really OK but now women can't even play the women).

Irl, I'm embarrassed because my husband immediately realised the actor was a transgender woman, whereas I didn't twig at all 😞

Not watching at the moment and making sure my kids don't watch it either.

Really don't want them to get confused. Explaining everything to them step by step. And having transgender characters and aliens talking about pronouns is not something they need to think about at their ages.

Although now that you mention it- both the main 2 characters are male now.

Which kinda sucks

There's a long discussion elsewhere:

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/telly_addicts/4950463-who-is-watching-doctor-who-tonight

When the new Doctor arrives next year his companion is female so back to the original format somewhat.

While I understand your point - I think Donna was one of the two main characters.

Tbh I felt the Doctor, Donna and Donna's mum got more screen time than Rose anyway. Probably because their acting skills are a little better....

I think it's fine.

Shine some light on it. They are no debate, we are not.

I'm letting the little one watch it (they are Doctor Who mad, as am I) and am ready to answer questions on the issue.

Rose is tall, boy looking, sounds like a young man, 100% clockable. Child already wonders about it, and I answer truthfully about some men dressing as women and wanting to be called women. (Like Pantomime dames? they said. lol)

It's very sad, but I think RTD was hugely harmed by childhood homophobia and now he thinks this is the next big rights issue and I can't be cross at him for that. He's a good man, but he's wrong.

I also won't ignore every programme that has a trans actor, I don't hate trans people.

I posted on the main board thread and got deleted for saying that the weaponised wheelchair was brilliant DEI but having a grown man pretending to be a teenage girl wasn't.

And one of David Tennant's children was on set wearing a saying "let's get one thing straight, I'm not" tshirt. My eyes couldn't roll enough at the thought of a prepubescent child declaring their sexuality all over the Internet. Because that's always a great idea, isn't it.

This is a bit of a tangent, but DS and I heard something about Miriam Margoyles being turned down as the Doctor's assistant, because she wasn't as svelte as she wanted. DS observed that she was be an absolutely BRILLIANT Doctor. Posting here to get traction for the idea.

Yes
even though I am GC, I had no significant problems with the episode.

there were a couple of lines that were a bit heavy handed, but otherwise I thought it was great. I loved Donna’s speech about how you have a child and you expect one thing and then you end up with this different but wonderful child. She was making a point about both her own child and about how her mother treats her. it was just an excellent way of making a statement of accepting people for who they are.

I watched it.
Many eye rolls.

The whole 'women can just let it go' bollocks annoyed me and the 'male presenting doctor'

As if wearing a skirt suddenly gave a male this so called woman ability.

The stupid stuff about rose being both male and female and nonbinary too.
Rose is male and very binary.

It was all just so completely unnecessary.

Yes, I didn't get that either. If Rose was genuinely non-binary, why had they transitioned and presented as female / referred to as daughter. Shouldn't they be Sam or Alex and embrace both male and female characteristics?

I also find it quite insulting that "womanhood" was ascribed to a teenager. I thought that you couldn't have sex change surgery in the UK until 18 so wouldn't Rose still be an intact biological male?

Yeah, it was hugely irritating. It was very obvious that Rose was a bloke (because he is) and the storyline was irrelevant.

They could've just had the regeneration energy shared between mother and child without the trans nonsense added and a female child called rose, because of Donna's subconscious memories and rose making the toy monster's from her passed down doctor energy memories.

The doctor is an alien. He isn't male and female in one body. Each body is unique and either male or female.

My lifelong doctor who fan of a daughter, rainbow flag on her ceiling, announced “It was massively cringey, don’t think I’ll be watching the next series if they keep Rose in it.”

No problem with having a trans character/actor but would prefer one who was less annoying and better at acting. The only character trait I got from Rose was “sickeningly saccharine”, which is not what I want from anyone in the inner doctor who circle. Yaz and the fam were terrible and had no depth or edge to them, i want flawed sidekicks, not nauseatingly perfect ones. I’m hoping that the new doctor and companion have a lot more sizzle than the new Noble family.

I really resented them trying to piggy back off my emotional attachment to Donna and try to transfer it to new characters. Screw that, they have to earn it themselves.

How does the meta crisis transfer to children? Don’t think this fits with past WHO lore. If Donna could just “let it go” because she was female presenting, why didn’t she realise this ten years ago? And what the fuck was the whole non-binary shit about?

I don’t expect who plots to make perfect sense, but they need to be a lot better than this one to win me back after the last crappy doctor.

I didn't twig until near the end when they were literally saying the "binary" "non-binary" stuff!

I'm actually pretty sure my DH still doesn't know...!

I don't think the storyline was irrelevant though as it showed the connection between Rose and Donna and the Doctor in that the hidden history and background had been shared between mother and daughter, because "Rose" will have presumably chosen her own name and obviously Rose was DT's doctor's previous companion.

Yes, I thought the whole binary/non-binary storyline was odd - Rose believes himself to be a very binary girl - so completely inconsistent even with GI lore. Even DD (knows nobody can change sex, but somewhat more sympathetic to GI than I am) disliked it - apart from the wheelchair!

BBC trying to indoctrinate the children was a new low for me - but it’s been a while since I saw CBeebies, so it’s probably all over that already 🙄

My DC said the episode was fun but the attempts at trans inclusion were cringey. Will need to give it a watch so we can have a conversation about it.

Watched it last night although I'd seen stuff on X so I knew what was coming. Which is good because there would have been a fair few involuntary eye rolls.

They want to include a trans character? Fine, but they should have been looking at an adult character and not make being trans the be all and end all about them.

But when that character is (supposed to be but the actor clearly wasn't!) a young teen at a show predominantly for that age of audience? When gender clinic referrals for kids are what they are?

And delivered as one big morality lesson with all the sensitivity of a sledgehammer cracking a walnut. The whole did you assume their pronouns!! Donna not being able to mention Rose without having to say beautiful, gorgeous every other word. And referring to the doctor as "male presenting", no one bloody talks like that do they? It was like they went to Tik Tok for the script in parts. The smug 'you know nothing, you're male presenting, us women know what to do' (some extra affirmation thrown in there) was just so bloody cringe. And that whole non binary male female both neither was cringe too. The Meep wasn't just a baddie, oh no, it had to throw in a transphobic line too. And Rose saved the day of course. Stonewall presents a very special episode of Doctor Who.

The Meep plot was ok, nothing groundbreaking, and the action sequences were good.

And I hope they don't continue to call it The Whoniverse, because that's just shit.

I couldn't be bothered with it tbh 😕 I find it too preachy and irritating nowadays. Seems like it hasn't improved from these comments.

I just want a ridiculous entertaining sci fi.romp.

For their nonsense to work, surely Donna should've also came out as trans too, ya know, due to having all that male doctor energy and manly memories in her subconscious?

It was all so forced.

They could've thrown in a trans character anywhere. Just a normal person. Rose's mate, one of the UNIT staff, etc.

By making out that rose was only trans because of alien energy, once it was 'let go of' wouldn't rose of simply been Jason again. A teenage boy no longer in a mental health crisis? Dysphoria cured hurrah!

As soon as Rose came on the screen, I knew instantly that the actor was transgender. My husband, interesting, did not. I had to google it to prove it, but I knew in a heartbeat. It would have been ok except all the preachy language around it, Donna banging on about how her daughter was stunning blah blah. Anyway i can't watch it with my son because i am trying to keep him from the gender woo at the moment, as much as one can.

The trans storyline was irrelevant imo - they could simply have had a female playing the female part and having Rose as her name. As the character is male he didn’t choose her name.

apart from anything else it was shockingly badly written and the acting was dire ! It came across as a spoof rather than a real episode. I was cringing all the way through expecting it to get better but sadly not ! Shame as I used to love the programme. Won't be watching again.

It was really badly acted, even DT wasn't great and he's normally a good actor. Long gone are the days of Bad Wolf and the Pandorica and storylines that really made you think. Sigh.