Doctor Who- this might be the last straw even for me.

[TinselAngel]

For fucks sake

Juno Dawson as a writer.

her books are YA fantasy in a very similar vein to Dr Who.

let them use your body and get fucked both ends like a little piggy,” and “You’re a fucking cum slut. Worthless tranny whore”

this sounds like you haven’t read any of them!

Ah yes, that's just like one of the episodes with the cybermen, obviously. 😬

Douglas Adam’s wrote some episodes as well.

Yeah remember when John Pertwee called that dalek a cum slut!

The old boy could be near the knuckle sometimes, but would probably have found Dawson a bit much.

Dr Who lost me when DT brought on the downfall of the female PM (Harriet something?) by saying she looked tired. Just because she did something he didn’t agree with. And he’s meant to be the good guy!!?!
I tried again with JW but I felt like I was watching a Ceebebies version of Dr Who.
Ill stick with the CE episodes and old Who.

@WellsAndThistles "Ruined it for me once they started with a female Dr."

I found the whole misogynist anti woman doctor protests so disheartening it soured the whole thing for me. Counter productive, I know, but it sucked the joy out of it.

I've never had a problem in principle with a female Doctor. I can remember arguments I had many years ago when I said Helen Mirren (she would have been more affordable then) was high on my fantasy casting list.

I think Jodie was miscast. She's very talented, just not right for the role, and not helped by the stories she was given.

In retrospect though... if you've got a lead character who's been male for decades, making them suddenly female changes the dynamic. Especially in the revival series where so much of it was based around sexual tension between the attractive male lead and his female companion. It might have mattered less when the Doctor was basically asexual.

Maybe I've been soured on that whole approach by the crude way the comics industry has approached this kind of thing. "Hey, we know Iceman has been straight since the 1960s, but now he's gay, and not only gay, but a flaming queen from a circa 1995 sitcom..."

Bleach needed

Jo Martin was the sort of female Doctor they should have had (without JW storylines)

I was against a female doctor because the writing was becoming crap and I knew that if Jodie's scripts were shit then it would be blamed on having a female doctor rather than poor writing

And I shudder to remember that this person was a teacher of children.

Sorry, that was for this comment

let them use your body and get fucked both ends like a little piggy,” and “You’re a fucking cum slut. Worthless tranny whore”

This - I think Jo Martin doctor would have been fantastic - she had gravitas when needed.

I think Jodie was miscast. She's very talented, just not right for the role, and not helped by the stories she was given.

I thought she played role like a ditzy little girl - she couldn't do the serious or intelligent, old or alien bits - DH says she failed to bring the dark side of the doctor.

Seen interview she gave subsequently and it was choice she seem to make - to disconnect completely from previous incarcerations and what went before - to be completely new. Also think they pivoted from family show to children show but without taking kids seriously - like any old plot/rubbish would do.

The writing was shit - the long talks in cafes that once would have happened while running and shooting and enacting a cleaver plan. The timeless child nonsense was just a mess from start to finish.

I did hope RTD and Gatwa would help things but it hasn't - and I've seen interview RTD given where he say yes some episodes had massive plot holes which didn't work really and shrug - I mean if you can't be arsed to care why should anyone else.

Also they seen to also be pitching it as much more a kids show than family viewing - which make it just bizarre to pick a writer like this.

I think that at this stage in his life RTD has become very much interested in baiting the conservative Right and sucking up to the progressive Left.

I don’t know why - the traditional reason often seems to be that usually the celebrity has something they want to cover up behaviour-wise so they adopt SJW-ism as camouflage or in hopes of reducing social punishment if they get caught out.

OR

He might really believe all this stuff - perhaps, given his circle of friends this ideology appeals to him and he wants to spread it to the children of the world. He did make some modernising changes that were well-received all those years ago when he revived DW. (I liked Captain Jack but loathed the Doctor having romances: the Doctor’s whole thing is being a highly intelligent, ancient alien who has seen a lot and isn’t interested in romance.)

At any rate, RTD’s and the BBC’s current level of SJW preaching makes for poor writing and execution of drama.

I think one thing is - RTD aged 40 and RTD aged 60 are two very different propositions.

He's never been particularly subtle about putting his own viewpoints into his work. But I think in the early years of the DW revival, he had the view that he was the custodian of a national institution and had to treat it with respect. The current incarnation of RTD seems to feel that it's his plaything to do with as he likes, as long as Disney continues to fund it.

There's a smallish clique who have dominated the franchise for over 20 years - even before the return to TV they were writing all the novels. RTD is the key man in that clique. I think it became a negative influence quite a while ago.

That's just the creative side. As far as working conditions on the show are concerned... I really don't believe that the problems start and stop with John Barrowman's compulsive need to get his jimmy joe out.

Yes!!! Basically, RTD is living the BNF (Big Name Fan) fanfic writer’s dream - he got to write the fanfic he wanted and have it made official canon.

He does seem to have the attitude now of ‘Doctor Who, C’est moi!’

Edited to add: I think RTD greatly reminds me of JNT (John Nathan Turner) who was responsible for DW in the 80s - he was another person who imposed his own particular vision of the Doctor on the nation and eventually killed it off because he was so out of synch with what fans wanted.

I thought she played role like a ditzy little girl - she couldn't do the serious or intelligent, old or alien bits - DH says she failed to bring the dark side of the doctor.

I always felt this, she played it like the cliched dumb ditzy blonde. I've always said I would have liked to see a River Song type character for the first female doctor, smart, sassy and feisty.

Oh, JNT was quite the piece of work. I blame him a lot for this trend of the showrunner thinking he's bigger than the show.

It makes me sceptical of reviving old properties. I feel like either you get mercenary writers who don't understand the IP, or you get fanfic types who want to impose their very specific views of the IP. What you rarely get is writers who understand what made the original IP work.

There have been rumblings for years about some kind of revival or spinoff of Daria. I'm glad it never seems likely to happen.

That Is why so many Harry Potter fans get in such a tizz - try as they might they haven’t been able to wrest HP away from JKR.

To go off topic for a moment, the current trend in mercenary writers/producers being given control of IP such as Star Trek, Rings of Power, Star Wars (although I loved Andor), and The Witcher has been so bloody annoying. I’m a HUGE scifi fan and younger me would have killed to have this strong interest in producing tons of scifi for telly and the cinema but not as programmes/films of this recent, and consistent, poor calibre.

These people have no understanding of what makes the source material work and they think their interpretation (or modernisation or correction of ‘problematic’ aspects) of the source material is the superior product. Where do they keep finding such massive inflated egos to be showrunners/writers???

/end rant

It should be a basic thing for writers to ask what made the original IP work. We know that George Lucas wanted to make a Flash Gordon movie, he invented Star Wars as a knockoff when he couldn't get the rights, but he knew the source material, he'd looked at the source material for the source material (John Carter etc) and he'd assimilated enough knowledge to be able to tell a compelling story with similar themes.

I'm not even a screenwriter and I know this. It's so frustrating to see all this hack work that doesn't ask the basic questions.