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 😞

Switched off as soon as I realised they’d crow barred a trans storyline in, FUCK OFF BBC and Russell T you can fuck off too

I used to love 'New Who' and DT and some of the Tenth Doctor stories and arcs were fantastic and deep and angsty.

It's all a bit of a mess now. I'd have liked Capaldi to stick around longer and I thought Jodie Whitaker was ok, but they both suffered from really badly written scripts. Now RTD, the people-pleaser, is back at the helm, I was really hoping for some nostalgic feels - but no. Badly written and sledgehammer subtle.

...and yet. Add me to the list of GC commenters on this thread who weren't paying sufficient attention and hadn't realised 'Rose' was being played by a bloke! In all honesty, I was watching to see how DT had fared in the intervening years and whether he still had that Tenth magic (not really sure ) but DH, who was paying FAR more attention and is a proper Whovian who knew all about The Meep from the bloody comics missed that too.

Now I know, of course, it's impossible to not see. But what was all that bollix about binary and non-binary? Donna saying 'binary' was just when she was going a bit mad with the Time Lord/TARDIS energy or whatever, wasn't it? Rose saying 'non-binary' means nothing. Surely if Rose is trans and everyone is calling Rose her and she and daughter, she would not be id-ing as NB??

IT MAKES NO SENSE RTD, surely you can see that?? You can't just throw the buzzwords in and hope that'll please the pretty young things.

Thank you for the explanation ConsistentlyElectrifiedElves

It still sounds a bit weird that the young transgender character is reinventing themselves as “the doctor’s greatest companion/ love” though. Not to have their own unique character, but instead is some sort of wish fulfilment creation, almost as if to manipulate the doctor into remembering Rose whether he wants to or not and to connect the original Rose with this new character and to the Doctor (like forced teaming?!). It feels a bit incestuous and inappropriate.

It rings true in the sense that the child lacks their own secure identity so creates one, and reflects the men who appropriate womanhood and even the identities of individual women as if we are merely fantasy avatars or costumes to be chosen or worn.

I think maybe there’s also something in how Donna as the mother is unconsciously responsible for projecting something onto/into the child that has made them this way.

I tend to agree, and there was a time when I really enjoyed him. Now he seems to be always chewing the scenery.

That being said, I suspect what someone said up-thread about script issues is right. Lots of bad acting where you might not expect it is often down to bad writing or bad direction.

I can't help but think there is a bit of desperation about bringing DT in though. They are so desperate to revitalize the series, it's just bled viewers. They are hoping a little nostalgia for better times will make people tune in, and some better writing will keep them.

The question is the writing. I have serious doubts. It seems that even previously good writers produce shit once they let it start to be overtly ideological - which seems to be the requirement now. It's like they forgot what they knew.

Casting a 20 year old to play a 15 year old is especially grating if the other child characters on screen are played by child actors.

Rose dwarfs that other kid who was supposed to be Rose's friend.

I haven't rated David Tennant's acting for a while now. I think he's started to believe his own hype

I agree too. He's not even trying in this.

Jodie Whittaker's gurning half sided face scrunch expression annoyed me but my god Tennant's weird bottom lip thing where he sticks his lower jaw out and flashes his whole bottom teeth and gums drives me mad.

I still love Christopher Eccelston the most. No weird face stuff, normal hair, normal clothes.

100 times CE is the best.
DT has really crushed all my previous love for him as the Doctor and even other roles with how he is now.

Oh this is not good to hear. I haven't watched it since and episode about plastic waste on a random planet and was sick of all my leisure time being lectured at. Don't think I'll bother with it now.

I can't help but think there is a bit of desperation about bringing DT in though. They are so desperate to revitalize the series, it's just bled viewers. They are hoping a little nostalgia for better times will make people tune in, and some better writing will keep them.

This exactly. Bring back Dr and Donna, for the nostalgic viewers who left in droves and package it up as 'special 60th' then hope those viewers will be so wowed they'll continue to watch next year. Unfortunately means there's a lot riding on Ncuti. I'll start watching in the hope he does a good job but if the writing stays as shit, and even he can't save it, then we'll all be leaving again.

Wasn’t RTD, and his behaviour, a key reason why Christopher Eccleston left the show after just 1 series? He said it was a toxic work environment and wasn’t prepared to put up with it.

I like DT as an actor, he’s fantastic in Shakespeare and “Staged” is pretty much my favourite thing to have been spawned by Covid. He does like to chew the scenery as The Doctor though.

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.

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).

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

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.

@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....

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.

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

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?

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.

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.

@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 .

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.

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.

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.