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 😞

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.

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'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/

Go Malcolm! 👏

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'.

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

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"

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.

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

@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!

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

I think it's like NItro said, because that is how the character was conceived. If you want a woman Time Lord, write one. Giver her her own show. Write a whole new show with a new idea.

As far as the companions, some have been men.

There has been a huge trend to switching out male roles to make them female in recent years, almost all are horrible and fans almost always think they are a bit shit. Marvel has done it all over the place, there was that awful ghostbusters film etc. It's done because they lack the creativity to come up with anything new, and they are too risk adverse to give audiences new material.

But with Who it seems particularly all about paying service to identarianism. It's so ham-fisted you feel like they probably have a list for choosing future doctors.

They really have no shame with the ret-conning, the thing with Davros was pathetic. It's like they think they need to tell viewers - that is, people who like the show - what they are supposed to think. "Sorry you liked this villain, you're probably a bit abelist, we'll give you something more wholesome to watch so you can be Good like us."

Yes, exactly this.

My main problem with Rose was that she was a child (14 or 15 years old). How many youngsters going through puberty and thinking they are trans will be confirmed in that belief because they've seen a trans child in a big TV programme? And then maybe decide to start puberty blockers... which will probably lead to cross-sex hormones and maybe surgery? All of it irreversible, and leading to medical problems for the rest of their lives. If they later regret it, they're stuck with it.

This one programme might end up ruining several youngsters' lives.

If they wanted to have a trans character, why not make it an adult?

I also think the pronouns and the "male-presenting" time lord stuff was awful. I love the DT/Donna Noble partnership, and have watched their episodes several times. But I doubt I can bring myself to watch this one again.

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!

<beats head on wall>
Of all the patronising, condescending, grim & generally ableist absolute bollocks. Davros is a fully-formed & realised character whose disability manages to tread that fine balance of being both integral & incidental. “Oooh, you can’t have a disabled baddie” reduces disabled people to two-dimensional unrealistic beings.

If all your baddies are disabled, that’s an issue. Using facial differences as a shorthand for villainy/synonym for monster is also an issue. But disabled people are just that - people. As capable of being villains as anyone else - it’s a positively Victorian idea, the saintly invalid: RTD needs to educate himself & do better (😉)

I also think it just totally fucks with how viewers can relate to the material.

I am sure we are all aware that any tv show or film series, especially over a long period of time, will shift in certain ways. But when the writers feel completely free to change "the past" in the story, pretty much at will, to serve their current needs, it begins to eat away at the integrity of the narrative. And fans know that and it makes a lot of them disengage.

Beck when it was a new thing in films, I think people found it kind of fresh and fun, but ultimately it has really done a number on how people relate to film and tv stories. It's not really any different to the "oh, it was all a dream" trope, a la Dallas. You can't invest in a story that may well be completely meaningless in the end.

Plus, it's a bit of an insult to the fans. Because presumably - they liked the stuff in the show. Davros has always been hugely popular.

Wait! So, are you saying that all those people in wheelchairs aren't creating races of hideously deformed mutant humans, that completely lack conscience and empathy, and are set on taking over the world? Mind blown🤯

Late to the party- highly disappointed to have pronouns shoved down my throat constantly during watching this, there was no need. Having a 20yr old actor/tress playing a 14 yr old and all the nods to stunning and brave womanhood got quite boring, quite quickly. After really looking forward to this, the relaunch has fallen flat for me and instead of sci-fi, we had politics. Really hoping for more from the next episode, or I may be done with this which will really disappoint me!!!

I’m not yet in a wheelchair, so my evil plans to create a supreme race of monsters just aren’t quite taking off. Must try harder!

I’m furious with RTD on this, all joking aside. The worst treatment I’ve had as someone who visibly has a problem with walking (whether that’s pushing me aside or that one time someone tried to shove me downstairs in a station because I was moving too slow), seems to come from people perceiving me as an inconvenience and incompetent.

The infantilisation of ‘disabled people can’t be evil’ ties into that in a way I can’t express very well. I can only speak for myself, but it’s a far bigger problem in my day to day reality than a baddie in a wheelchair.

RTD has somehow managed to go down in my estimation, from misogynistic dumdum, to arsehole whose shows I won’t watch ever again.

Have not watched it for years, now sounds totally awful! I want the BBC defunded, it has outlived it’s purpose.

And gran was right, all the constantly referring to kid as beautiful is off key. "Mu-uuum you're being cringe" to quote my DC.

The infantilisation of ‘disabled people can’t be evil’ ties into that

It's similar to the 'women can be anything they want (as long as they are kind)'. It's not equality if it's limited to being nice. It would be a problem if all disabled or disfigured characters were evil, or vice versa. But it's also a problem if none of them are.

Having the UNIT scientist and Davros both in weaponised wheelchairs would be much better inclusion.

Just found ds watching it and a bit where Donna repeatedly shouts binary and her head explodes.

Wtaf was that about

I somehow managed to miss all the plot problems durimg the show, possibly because with the introduction of the Meep I said "merchandising" and "Christmas" and turned to off-screen interests.
But I have come up with a plot which RTD wouldn't run with. The Dr has two girl companions, sisters, very different. One is like Ace, a solver of problems, instinctive engineer, and dresses the part, boiler suit maybe. The other appears a bit of an airhead, like Bonny Langford playing Violet Elizabeth Bott, who when urged to run can't because of her shoes, and can't use her fingernails to unscrew things. (I appreciate that the actual VEB would sacrifice girlyness if needed.)
All three are captured on a planet ruled by men, with women out of sight, who would negotiate with a male but not with any of them. They can't determine the Dr's sex, being alien. They are disgusted by the engineer and have her scheduled for re-education. The leader has his eyes on the girly one.
So the engineer says her sister can save them, and there is a major argument about what is needed, someone who can pass as a man. "An actual woman would sacrifice anything to save her comrades." And the girly one is revealed as trans, cuts her hair, swaps clothes with her sister, and her DNA gets them out of jail so the Dr can call the Tardis and they escape. Girly one goes back to frocks, but sensible shoes for running. And helps her sister with tools.

I've watched it now and thought it was pretty awful, just so shoehorned. And badly, if the disabled woman is supposed to be clued into alien beings and tech then why isn't her wheelchair a floating darlek body not a chair from a 1960s bond film?

Plot holes too, like how did Donna know that 'this face' had returned? Surely she was not aware of Jodie Whittaker doctor at all?

The entire plot focused on rose being non binary but if twaw she is definitely binary?

@IcakethereforeIam thanks for that article; it was well-written and absolutely spot-on.