General Ongoing Doctor Discussion

pixelburp

Funny thing mentioning the notion of 'being' Dr Who: I remember frequenting a Dr who fan site during the 2005 series, that first year back, and funny thing, I distinctly recall a core, vocal group who HATED the new series. It was too short, plots too rushed, too sexed up, too glitzy, just too UNLIKE the show from yesteryear (though the rushed plots comment does ring true). Now I dunno how many of those people changed their opinions or were eventually won over (the site eventually shut down around season 4,5), but to them even the revised series in the form it returned in was just too much. So to them the 2005 never was 'true' Who

It's funny how people can have an idea of what a thing 'is' to them, the necessary ingredients that qualify it as that pop cultural item they love, and how varied those ideas can be.

ps3lover

So Dr Who doesn't have a penis any more, does it really matter? Is everyone afraid she'll just get really bitchey once a month?

Doctor DooM

pixelburp wrote: »

Funny thing mentioning the notion of 'being' Dr Who: I remember frequenting a Dr who fan site during the 2005 series, that first year back, and funny thing, I distinctly recall a core, vocal group who HATED the new series. It was too short, plots too rushed, too sexed up, too glitzy, just too UNLIKE the show from yesteryear (though the rushed plots comment does ring true). Now I dunno how many of those people changed their opinions or were eventually won over (the site eventually shut down around season 4,5), but to them even the revised series in the form it returned in was just too much. So to them the 2005 never was 'true' Who

It's funny how people can have an idea of what a thing 'is' to them, the necessary ingredients that qualify it as that pop cultural item they love, and how varied those ideas can be.

You're a TF fan, right? This is a very well known phenomenon.


http://tfwiki.net/wiki/GEEWUN

It's actually a manifestation of a common logical fallacy I mentioned earlier, the no true scotsman fallacy. In a pub two people are talking. "No Scotsman would drink this whiskey" says the first. "My uncle does" says the second. "Ah, but he's not a TRUE Scotsman".

People have difficulty accepting that their internal canon is just that.

http://tfwiki.net/wiki/True_fan

AtomicHorror

Doctor DooM wrote: »

You're a TF fan, right? This is a very well known phenomenon.


http://tfwiki.net/wiki/GEEWUN

It's actually a manifestation of a common logical fallacy I mentioned earlier, the no true scotsman fallacy. In a pub two people are talking. "No Scotsman would drink this whiskey" says the first. "My uncle does" says the second. "Ah, but he's not a TRUE Scotsman".

People have difficulty accepting that their internal canon is just that.

http://tfwiki.net/wiki/True_fan

It's common in Star Trek too, and we've most recently seen it as the Discovery PR machine has kicked in.

But this time it's more than that, for Star Trek and Who. It's not just about the precious canon, but about women. And it is becoming painfully obvious that a faction of our fellow Trekkers, Whovians- and oh yeah Star Wars fans as well- have a very specific problem with women.

They want protagonists they can identify with. They cannot identify with women.

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

ixoy wrote: »

I wonder if this is the best actor for the role - they just happened to be a lead on his own show? How much did he look around?

In the brief Q&A Whittaker did about the role she says something about chatting to Chibnall about something but she thought they were talking about more Broadchurch whereas he was actually scoping her out for this. Or something to that effect. I doubt very much he would have the power to just say "this is who I want so cast them" but he basically asked her to audition for it. He may have had the same conversation with other people, who knows, but he definitely wanted her to audition.

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

Doctor DooM wrote: »

Just because it's a change doesn't mean it does anything to continuity. It has nothing to do with retconning.

I always struggle with the term "retconning", as in understanding precisely what it means, but didn't Mofatt retcon a bunch of stuff? I remember seeing people complain about the Day of the Doctor retconning stuff and also inserting Clara into the Doctor's timeline as an explanation for the "impossible girl" stuff. Having her be the one to chose his TARDIS or whatever she did retconned the entire history of the show, according to some people.

These seem like worse crimes to me than having him regenerate to a her.

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

Lord TSC wrote: »

It absolutely needs to be a male companion. I wonder if any of the names linked for the Docs role, like Kris Marshall, might get linked as such.

If what you mentioned earlier in spoilers turns out to be true

Marshall could still be the new Doctor :eek:

Wibbs

AtomicHorror wrote: »

And it is becoming painfully obvious that a faction of our fellow Trekkers, Whovians- and oh yeah Star Wars fans as well- have a very specific problem with women.

No, it's a very specific problem I have regarding narrative. Take your Star Wars example. The reboot/complete cog of the original Star Wars/a New Hope.

The new one; Rey, desert dweller of a sand world, can automatically save the men around her, because bewbs, can automatically fly Starships and defeat all around her, because bewbs, can automatically use the force voice, because bewbs, can automatically plug into the force, because bewbs. Can defeat an already trained in the force man(who is portrayed as a mewling, tantruming boy child), because bewbs. Is given the keys of the Falcon, because bewbs. Almost zero heroes journey going on. The only old stylee type hero is killed by his mewling son and Leia, an actual hero is in the background. Says much to me.

The original? Luke is a numpty. Gets left behind because he's a wuss. Goes looking for Ben Kenobi, but gets his arse kicked by the local nomads. Ben saves him. Then nearly gets killed in a bar fight. Ben saves him. Ends up on the Death Star after Solo laughs at/ignores him about being a pilot and although he finds Leia, she's the one who gets his arse out of the poo. More than once too. Can't save his new mentor Ben. Who saves him. Again. Finally in the position to get his own back and nearly gets killed by his da, only to be saved by Han and the hairy lad and only takes the Death Star out because of Ben whispering in his ear. In the sequel he fcuks up even more. Gets his arse handed to him on a plate by dear old pater and Yoda(now Ms specky four eyed Yoda in the reboot) thinks he's a lost cause and argues for his sis. It takes three flics to bring him to fruition and even then he gets fcuked up by the emperor and his da has a change of heart and saves him.

Compare and contrast. I have an issue with any character that doesn't earn the role of hero, but is placed in that position just because of their XX/XY status. We have had that long enough in the past, yet this nonsense is OK because it's reversed? Get up the yard.

They want protagonists they can identify with. They cannot identify with women.

I can't identify with Mary or Michael Sue's, though the latter are notable by their absence these days.

Doctor DooM

TICKLE_ME_ELMO wrote: »

I always struggle with the term "retconning", as in understanding precisely what it means, but didn't Mofatt retcon a bunch of stuff? I remember seeing people complain about the Day of the Doctor retconning stuff and also inserting Clara into the Doctor's timeline as an explanation for the "impossible girl" stuff. Having her be the one to chose his TARDIS or whatever she did retconned the entire history of the show, according to some people.

These seem like worse crimes to me than having him regenerate to a her.

A retcon is when you change established continuity by returning to a plot point and changing it at a later date- off the top of my head, the Scarlet Witch had her history changed in Marvel comics recently to have it suddenly emerge that she wasn't REALLY the daughter of Magneto, despite this being clearly established fact for about 25 years (this clearly only happened because the movie rights of Magneto were with Fox and Marvel doesn't want to give them the promotion).

Moffat did indeed retcon a bunch of stuff- for example the giant Cyberman in London no longer happened- but retconning is perhaps something that can't really happen in a time travel show, seeing as rewriting history is an integral component of it. I dunno, it's something for a discussion

I don't think it's fair, in any case, to say a female Doctor is a retconning of the rules of regeneration, as frankly they just make up the rules of it as they go along. It's also not the end of the continuity any more than Matt Smith's tenure was, seeing as that was basically the same deal (change at the back and front of house in production).

snowflaker

Could have been worse, they could have cast Ed Sheeran

ebbsy

snowflaker wrote: »

Could have been worse, they could have cast Ed Sheeran

Lol

Jurgen Klopp

To be honest I haven't had any interest since tennant left couldn't stand Smith or Capaldi from the odd ep

And while I tend to agree this move is simply typical BBC "look we're so progressive" I'm genuinely delighted with what's her name getting the role over Richard Ayoade or Kris Marshall they are woeful

The only thing I'm genuinely curious to see is if the series ratings go to crap or just keep declining, is if we'll get a "it's cause of sexism!" from the BBC and media

exaisle

Jodie Whittaker? Hmmm...didnt see that coming but there's no doubt...the lady can act...as evidenced in Broadchurch and Venus(supporting Peter O'Toole probably taught her more than any stint in drama school).
One cannot deny that she's easy on the eye too...which will no doubt guarantee a healthy audience of middle-aged men, me included.
It should be interesting to see what she and new show runner Chris Chibnall, (with whom Whittaker worked in Broadchurch), come up with.
I have to say that I'm more optimistic now than when Capaldi took over but I'm hoping that my optimism is justified.

Penn

Wibbs wrote: »

I disagree. It is because of his gender. And has been for a long time. Since the start actually. Even in the bad old days where women were "ladies", dolly birds and screamers he(and Prof Quatermass, who he was very similar to) was extremely unusual in that he was a man who wasn't the guns and ammo action hero type. He was cerebral, the boffin and faced down such action macho types and won. That remains an extremely unusual male type in drama(at least with "good guys", the 'baddies" are often that type).

MacGyver was mentioned earlier and yep he was another one, but both stood out as non mainstream(MacGyver was going toe to toe with the atomic steroid stuff of the Arnie/Rambo era). Today in amongst the post Buffy pantheon of female roles across the board that best the silly men at every turn and are naturally brilliant because bewbs(QV Lucille Skywalker), he's as needed as ever as a male role. But no, now we get yet another addition to the pantheon of you go girlz. It's all very banal at this stage.

Answer me this if you will: Which gender is the most violent in the real world. Which is most likely to lash out with fists? Outside of some relationship stats, it isn't women. Who needs a positive non violent role model more? Who is more likely to look up to a man growing up? Though given the current trend to write women characters as violent arse kickers(even though most cast weigh about as much as a bag of sugar), who knows what odd messages are being received.

With respect, Wibbs, I think you're really overplaying the influence Doctor Who has and the influence The Doctor himself has as a positive role model for young boys/men. Maybe back in the day, when half the tellys in Britain were watching it and there were only 3 TV stations. But now, the number of male kids/teens who could be influenced by it and could see The Doctor as a positive role model is such a smaller percentage (and the ones who are into such shows are probably less likely to "lash out with their fists" anyway), and even then they have a wealth of other avenues of entertainment with hundreds of TV stations, dvds/Netflix of anything they want to watch and video games. The Doctor simply will never be as important or influential in the minds of younger kids as he was way back when. If anything, I'd say Harry Potter has overtaken that role and reached a hell of a lot more kids in the last 10 years than Doctor Who has or could do in the next 20.

Wibbs

Penn wrote: »

With respect, Wibbs, I think you're really overplaying the influence Doctor Who has and the influence The Doctor himself has as a positive role model for young boys/men. Maybe back in the day, when half the tellys in Britain were watching it and there were only 3 TV stations.

Oh I agree P. My issue is the overall creep of the lack of mainstream male characters that aren't sidekicks, daft, or villains. It's like looking through a mirror at the bad old days of women being relegated to secondary foils. Never mind that's it's bone idle laziness. Create a new female character and series, or hijack an existing and successful male character and series and shoehorn a woman in, because bewbs.

On the matter at hand Doctor Who has been disappearing up its own fundament over the last few seasons. With better production values, but silly plot lines, clunky dialogue, off pacing and "progressive" preachiness about gender/sexuality/race/politics. This is just the natural continuation of that. And if anyone thinks that's going to change and we'll see a proselytising free zone with a return to god forbid plots and character in a show for all the family*, observe the new show runner's other work like Broadchurch and look at the gender dynamics going on there. The men are all weirdos, morally dubious, misogynists or rapists and the women are all pretty much strong victims of same. Casting the Doc as a woman is just telegraphing that stuff ahead of time. You know what you're going to get.

If anything, I'd say Harry Potter has overtaken that role and reached a hell of a lot more kids in the last 10 years than Doctor Who has or could do in the next 20.

I'd agree here too. He's one of the few positive more well rounded male characters in the mainstream.





*though Doctor Who doesn't seem to know what audience it's aiming for. It's wandered from family to more adult all over the place since the reboot. In the first season we went from animated corpses, to farting aliens to a young women repeatedly watching her father die. It's calmed down a little since then, but still isn't quite sure of what it is as an entity. Even its timeslot has shifted all over the place on the Beeb.

Wibbs

Jurgen Klopp wrote: »

I'm genuinely delighted with what's her name getting the role over Richard Ayoade or Kris Marshall they are woeful

Kris Marshall would have been awful and I could never understand the love Richard Ayoade seems to get. He's the one dimensional man. Maybe that's his superpower.

Clegg

Jodie Whittaker is ag ood choice, I think. Broadchurch is a middling show but she played her role well.

One day we'll get our ginger doctor.

Jurgen Klopp

Wibbs wrote: »

Kris Marshall would have been awful and I could never understand the love Richard Ayoade seems to get. He's the one dimensional man. Maybe that's his superpower.

I've never liked Marshall since he was in that sitcom My Family and he was terrible in anything else, especially a first world war horror called Deathwatch

I think Ayoade simply lives off his IT Crowd character popularity. I don't even get how he can be labelled a comedian, he's terribly unfunny even in non acting roles that tech show he was in comes to mind

Penn

Wibbs wrote: »

Oh I agree P. My issue is the overall creep of the lack of mainstream male characters that aren't sidekicks, daft, or villains. It's like looking through a mirror at the bad old days of women being relegated to secondary foils. Never mind that's it's bone idle laziness. Create a new female character and series, or hijack an existing and successful male character and series and shoehorn a woman in, because bewbs.

Again, I agree to an extent. Since Moffat took over, most of the interesting side characters (as in, major characters who weren't full companions) have been female. River, Vastra, Jenny, Tasha Lem, Ashildr, the head of the Sisterhood of Karn, Osgood, Kate Stewart. Even The General regenerated into a woman essentially just for one scene to show regenerations can change both gender and ethnicity. Whereas most of the recurring side characters who were male the last few years were more for comedic effect; Strax and Nardole in particular (though I did really enjoy Nardole's character).

Then again, by making the Doctor female, perhaps we may see a shift in the side characters too, with more interesting male side characters to balance the scales. That in itself may be a positive outcome for all concerned. Ultimately, it comes down to the same thing as casting a female Doctor; we won't know how good or bad it is, or if it IS Doctor Who (or can still be MY Doctor Who for those saying that) until it airs, and the show, with a new Doctor, new companion, new head writer... I think it deserves the chance to try and prove its worth (allowing for the fairly typical rocky start most new Doctors have to endure).

Wibbs

Penn wrote: »

Then again, by making the Doctor female, perhaps we may see a shift in the side characters too, with more interesting male side characters to balance the scales.

I dunno P, the signs are not exactly good. I reckon if I could hold my breath long enough for that to happen I'd make a world champion free diver look like an asthmatic surrounded by cats.

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

Wibbs wrote: »

Kris Marshall would have been awful and I could never understand the love Richard Ayoade seems to get. He's the one dimensional man. Maybe that's his superpower.

Jurgen Klopp wrote: »

I think Ayoade simply lives off his IT Crowd character popularity. I don't even get how he can be labelled a comedian, he's terribly unfunny even in non acting roles that tech show he was in comes to mind

I think Ayoade is like a few of the names that were thrown around in that people see them as a ready made Doctor. They would have him play the Doctor as himself basically. I feel the same was true for when Phoebe Waller-Bridge was everyone's favourite if they went with a woman. They know her from a specific role and want the Doctor played as that person. Although to be fair to PWB she is capable of more than one thing when it comes to characters.

Penn

Jurgen Klopp wrote: »

I think Ayoade simply lives off his IT Crowd character popularity. I don't even get how he can be labelled a comedian, he's terribly unfunny even in non acting roles that tech show he was in comes to mind

It's the other way round, I think his IT Crowd character was more of an exaggerated version of his own personality and comedic style. I think he can be genuinely hilarious, and is very deadpan and witty. But yeah his name seemed to be thrown into the mix more as "He'd be really wacky" as opposed to an actor who could actually play wacky (as the Doctor often is) but also have the acting chops for the more dramatic moments.

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

Penn wrote: »

Then again, by making the Doctor female, perhaps we may see a shift in the side characters too, with more interesting male side characters to balance the scales. That in itself may be a positive outcome for all concerned. Ultimately, it comes down to the same thing as casting a female Doctor; we won't know how good or bad it is, or if it IS Doctor Who (or can still be MY Doctor Who for those saying that) until it airs, and the show, with a new Doctor, new companion, new head writer... I think it deserves the chance to try and prove its worth (allowing for the fairly typical rocky start most new Doctors have to endure).

Again some of the issues you mention may come down to the writing teams. I know it seems to be tradition to get different people in to write each episode with the show runner keeping the season long arc on track but for me that leads to problems with tone, poorly developed characters, main characters flipflopping a bit and other such things. I would suggest they need to tighten the reigns in that regard. I wouldn't necessarily say let Chibnall write the whole series but having 4 or 5 really good writers work together across the whole series could see some of the issues with character development sorted.

Alternatively they could do away with the overly complicated season long arcs and just have a series of individual adventures. This would remove the need for stories to be altered to fit into the longer arc which may also have been an issue for previous episodes. For example, There's a logical conclusion to this episode but we have to change it to allow for something that's going to happen 2 episodes down the line in the bigger arc.

pixelburp

Wibbs wrote: »

*though Doctor Who doesn't seem to know what audience it's aiming for. It's wandered from family to more adult all over the place since the reboot. In the first season we went from animated corpses, to farting aliens to a young women repeatedly watching her father die. It's calmed down a little since then, but still isn't quite sure of what it is as an entity. Even its timeslot has shifted all over the place on the Beeb.

That's not a problem specific to the returned series though, that has been a conundrum that has existed since 1963, and one that's unlikely to ever by fully 'answered' really. Dr. Who's greatest strength -its narrative flexibility and broad audience potential - is also its greatest weakness, and like you say this manifests in a constantly wavering tone. The series just finished was the first in a while that didn't quite have any variable tone; I certainly don't remember any openly 'silly' episode bar the Vicorians-on-Mars one and even then its grisly deaths offset any potential daftness.

When the universe has tried to settle on a specific tone, audience or approach the results have often been a bit mixed: Torchwood being the prime example here, that took 3 attempts before it found its groove. Then almost immediately lost it again.

Dr. Who was always something of a blank template show, an empty vessel into which the various production teams, script writers & the actors playing the doctor poured their personalities - or failing that, just ripped off existing stories or narratives from other authors / media

It's funny to talk about agenda or gender politics because in many respects that has been part and parcel of the show since its heyday in the 60s-70s. Its accommodating structure organically encouraged people to fill the gaps with their respective belief systems or theories - and given the nature of the performing arts, that tended to be fairly left-leaning - with the big exception of my oft-mentioned anti-favourite, Eric Seward who I suspect wanted to see Dr. Who burn. People who found "Oxygen" too on the nose should probably go out and find "The Sunmakers" from the 1970s, the most overly and unsubtle lampooning of capitalism you're likely to find in Sci-Fi. The Pertwee era positively REVELLED in skewering the British government at every opportunity, often introducing politicians as monstrous 1D caricatures, with the Doctor nearly always taking them down a peg or three. But that was all pre-internet & millennials I guess, when people didn't dissect every morsel of pop-culture for acrimonious (social) politics.

Dr. Who just never shied away from politics, it just tended to surround its notions with aliens made of bubble wrap or whatnot.

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

pixelburp wrote: »

ntial daftness.
It's funny to talk about agenda or gender politics because in many respects that has been part and parcel of the show since its heyday in the 60s-70s. Its accommodating structure organically encouraged people to fill the gaps with their respective belief systems or theories - and given the nature of the performing arts, that tended to be fairly left-leaning - with the big exception of my oft-mentioned anti-favourite, Eric Seward who I suspect wanted to see Dr. Who burn. People who found "Oxygen" too on the nose should probably go out and find "The Sunmakers" from the 1970s, the most overly and unsubtle lampooning of capitalism you're likely to find in Sci-Fi. The Pertwee era positively REVELLED in skewering the British government at every opportunity, often introducing politicians as monstrous 1D caricatures, with the Doctor nearly always taking them down a peg or three. But that was all pre-internet & millennials I guess, when people didn't dissect every morsel of pop-culture for acrimonious (social) politics.

Dr. Who just never shied away from politics, it just tended to surround its notions with aliens made of bubble wrap or whatnot.

I wonder if a lot of people who think New Who is too political compared to the original run were too young to notice it back then? They're not overly subtle with it these days but it's entirely possible that anyone under a certain age aren't noticing it now either. To anyone over a certain age it may be clunky and obvious in it's political message but to kids watching it, and they are after all it's target audience, maybe it's not an issue.

I'd be interested in hearing what young kids think on all these things. There's a section in Empire magazine where they get little kids to review classic films and it's often surprising how aware they are of what they're watching but they seem to process it all in a very simple way.

The_Valeyard

Clegg wrote: »

Jodie Whittaker is ag ood choice, I think. Broadchurch is a middling show but she played her role well.

One day we'll get our ginger doctor.

Wasnt impressed by her really or that show, but that's just personal taste.

Looks like I wont be buying any 13th Who outfits otherwise the misses be asking questions!!!

I would have liked Andrew Scott or Ben Daniel's.
Or Maggie Smith could have been interesting.

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

The_Valeyard wrote: »

Looks like I wont be buying any 13th Who outfits otherwise the misses be asking questions!!!

We don't know what she's wearing yet, could be a pair of overalls or unisex onesie.

The_Valeyard

Could a moderator fix the thread, whenever I click into it I'm back to page one.

Wibbs

TICKLE_ME_ELMO wrote: »

I wonder if a lot of people who think New Who is too political compared to the original run were too young to notice it back then?

it was noticeable enough in some areas. Environmentalism was one that I clearly remember being a thing in a few stories. Not automatically trusting authority just because of rank was another one. Technology going out of control yet another. Not so much the left/anti capitalism stuff, though that was part of the wider cultural fabric anyway.

To anyone over a certain age it may be clunky and obvious in it's political message but to kids watching it, and they are after all it's target audience, maybe it's not an issue.

Think about that for a moment. Political messages aimed at kids that don't know what that is? That's essentially propaganda. That would be very troubling. On the gender front alone the subtle and not nearly so subtle message has increasingly been in Moffat's tenure men daft/silly, women better. Yeah that's a great message to sending young boys and girls for that matter. The new team's previous output ramped that way up for an adult audience. Can't see them changing their spots with Who. As I say the casting of a woman Doc is flag waving their intent.

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

Wibbs wrote: »

Think about that for a moment. Political messages aimed at kids that don't know what that is? That's essentially propaganda. That would be very troubling. On the gender front alone the subtle and not nearly so subtle message has increasingly been in Moffat's tenure men daft/silly, women better. Yeah that's a great message to sending young boys and girls for that matter. The new team's previous output ramped that way up for an adult audience. Can't see them changing their spots with Who. As I say the casting of a woman Doc is flag waving their intent.

It's not really political though, in my opinion. Bad choice of word. It's preaching tolerance, gender equality, kindness, diversity etc. etc. None of these are bad things to be teaching kids. And as I said, unless you're in the mind of a child how do you know what they're picking up? Maybe all they see is a woman helping the man save the day.