Doctor Who

[stiggie]

They've chosen a woman simply for the sake of choosing a woman and that is never a sound basis for making a decision.

 

[smib]

They've chosen a woman simply for the sake of choosing a woman and that is never a sound basis for making a decision.

This is my concern as well. But, we have a new writer, who has experience with the new Doctor, so it may all turn out well. It may also turn out poorly. I'll probably watch all of it either way.

I am disappointed that Capaldi didn't have a chance to be on with actual good writing, though.

 

[Spectre]

And I have to agree with Spectre. I don't have a problem with casting a woman as Doctor Who. The character is an alien from a fictional species that regenerates upon death into a new body, so what, it's no biggie switching the gender. It has been handled very well with The Master before.

Same here - this gets filed under 'Aliens are alien' and is a somewhat underused plot tool in mainstream SF that if skillfully employed can emphasize that the aliens are, in fact, alien and not human.

I do have an issue with the move blatantly motivated by political correctness, gender diversity, whatever you may call it. There has been so much talk for such a long time about making The Doctor a woman, or black (why not Asian, though?), or both, that the casting just cannot be sold as "we have a great actress who can play the character in the direction we want him/her to go". It is "she was cast because this time, it had to be a woman". And this kind of following the PC lead also does not inspire confidence in the writing getting any better in the future.

There's also the nigh-inevitable sequence that will occur when the bad writing and awkwardly inserted PC bits fail to bring ratings up in the long term (or worse, the show just fails), just as we saw the BBC do with other shows: The blame for the failure will be placed on the 'sexist, misogynist' fan base who refused to watch this new, 'progressive' series of Doctor Who out of 'hatred' (which I find highly offensive) instead of where it actually belongs - on the bad writing, PC preaching/stupidity and (potentially) bad cast performances.

The last would be only where applicable - as I said, I have no idea how well Whittaker is going to do in the role, but in the past the BBC and other media empires have blamed show failures on a sexist or otherwise non-PC fan base when it was clear that the cast was essentially "phoning in" their performances or may even have been reading their lines off a teleprompter. Like, say, the 2007 incarnation of Painkiller Jane on SciFi, or any other much-vaunted-by-rabid-feminists female-lead show that nobody (male or female) watched because it was completely unwatchably badly written and acted. No, the show only failed due to sexism/misogyny/insertotherPCreasonhere, couldn't be any other reason.

 

[CrzRsn]

Breaking from the new Doctor discussion, can someone explain to me what the hell is going on in "A Good Man Goes to War"? I'm so lost how he got a Sontaran and the Silurians and the Judoon on his side? Furthermore, Whats a Silurian doing in 19th century London? And when did Rory become a competent warrior? Or will all this be explained later? I've got to say that the huge leap from "The Almost People" to this was pretty frustrating. I did like the return of the Captain Henry Avery though.

 

[93Flareside]

I believe this gets answered when the pandorica opens.

 

[CrzRsn]

I believe this gets answered when the pandorica opens.

I don't recall that being answered in that story. Yeah the Sontarans and the Silurians were there as part of the alliance to seal The Doctor in the Pandorica, but I don't remember anything about Strax or sending a Silurian to 1888 London.

 

[Dr_Grip]

My main concern regarding the writing for the next Series is neither the fact that The Doctor now is a she nor leftist pandering. Maybe I am too PC or not scared of change enough, but my fears are rooted in more mundane matters:

Broadchurch Series 2.

Let's put the politics aside for a while and focus on the fact that Chibnall has produced arguably one of the best BBC miniseries of recent years with the first series of Broadchurch, only to deliver a total turd as a followup. Consistency this man's strong side ain't.

 

[MWF]

A bit late to the party but I have to agree almost completely with Spectre. There has been so much carping on about "why can't the Doctor be played by a female actor" in recent years that it was pretty much inevitable. I have no problem with that at all.

What I do have a problem with is that, as I said in a recent post about the latest run, the writing has become increasingly left biased - blatant eco messages, a lesbian companion (I'm not including Capt Jack Harkness as he was a: pansexual and b: an alien in all but body), ditto a companion of colour; a determination that any alien presence is simply "misunderstood" and not actually evil and so on.

This run has seen a later timeslot which should have given the writers freer reign to inject more menace and fear into the proceedings; instead it has been drippy, wishy-washy, almost as if it were being aimed aimed at sensitive pre-schoolers.

Hopefully with a new showrunner we will have a new injection of energy and a rediscovery of form but I shan't be holding my breath.

 

[RaphEmer]

My main concern regarding the writing for the next Series is neither the fact that The Doctor now is a she nor leftist pandering. Maybe I am too PC or not scared of change enough, but my fears are rooted in more mundane matters:

Broadchurch Series 2.

Let's put the politics aside for a while and focus on the fact that Chibnall has produced arguably one of the best BBC miniseries of recent years with the first series of Broadchurch, only to deliver a total turd as a followup. Consistency this man's strong side ain't.

Agreed on the difference between Series 1 & 2 of Broadchurch, but I felt things definitely improved with Series 3.

 

[MWF]

Broadchurch wasn't a BBC production - it was made bu Kudos for ITV.

 

[Spectre]

Came across this...
https://twitter.com/garwboy/status/886644806352588800

"Doctor Who makes sci-fi history by casting a woman as the lead"

 

[thomas]

Hahaha! Well deserved reputation cookie spread! Voyager was (mostly) Awesome! I have to find a decent rip and rewatch it..

 

[Spectre]

Thanks for the rep, but I can't take credit for creating it. I just replicated someone's Tweet that I saw. I completely agree with it, though - some of the 'celebratory' media pieces in the wake of the casting news has been almost that giddy - and ignorant.

That said, the Voyager writers did a good job of developing the character in a respectable, believable direction and Mulgrew did a great job of portraying her. (Hell, she's *still* a role model in the real world for women in science.) The former being something I'm not at all confident about the DW writers or indeed any Beeb-approved writers being able to do and the latter being still up in the air for Whittaker. Time will tell.

 

[Dr_Grip]

Broadchurch wasn't a BBC production - it was made bu Kudos for ITV.

But we can agree that if Chibnall can come even close to Broadchurch S1 with Doctor Who, it'll be a high water mark.

 

[CrzRsn]

Don't have much to go on when it comes to Chibnall, but I'm seeing a lot of people online complaining that he's responsible for Cyberwoman so by default he should not be writing for the first female Doctor.

 

[Dr_Grip]

I haven't seen that episode but reading it's wiki page it sounds like a pretty standard early Torchwood fare...

You should really watch the first Series of Broadchurch, though - even starring David Tennant. It's a police procedural in name only: As it takes eight episodes to solve the kind of crime Law & Order: SVU solves in a single episode with enough time for the courtroom scenes left, it has the space to focus on what a heineous crime does to the fabric of a relatively close-knit smalltown community, without ever drifting into soapy territory.

 

[CrzRsn]

I haven't seen that episode but reading it's wiki page it sounds like a pretty standard early Torchwood fare...

I think they were referring to the costume design.

 

[Dr_Grip]

I think they were referring to the costume design.

Then anyone with this complaint does not unterstand how film works: The writer has no input on the costume design whatsoever. The showrunner, RTD in this case, and the director are to blame (and, of course, the costume designer).

 

[CrzRsn]

Then anyone with this complaint does not unterstand how film works: The writer has no input on the costume design whatsoever. The showrunner, RTD in this case, and the director are to blame (and, of course, the costume designer).

I understand that, you understand that, anyone with even the smallest shred of common sense understands that. All these people that are so into virtue signaling seem to have had the logic centers of their brains lobotomized.

 

[stiggie]

Hahaha! Well deserved reputation cookie spread! Voyager was (mostly) Awesome! I have to find a decent rip and rewatch it..

Netflix has it.