General Ongoing Doctor Discussion

connemara man

I must be really naïve I thought it was a nod to the doctor not being a medical doctor

pixelburp

Tickle Me was obviously just having a little fun with the idea of Whittaker starring as woman playing a 'fake Doctor'. Clearly it's nothing more than a coincidence & some bad/funny timing, given the general brouhaha over her casting as The Doctor; it's hard not to find some amusement from her character saying she's 'not a real Doctor'.

Doctor DooM

pixelburp wrote: »

Tickle Me was obviously just having a little fun with the idea of Whittaker starring as woman playing a 'fake Doctor'. Clearly it's nothing more than a coincidence & some bad/funny timing, given the general brouhaha over her casting as The Doctor; it's hard not to find some amusement from her character saying she's 'not a real Doctor'.

Yeah I think people are getting confused, Elmo made a joke, martin made a serious comment off the back off it, we're all good, I think I made it more complicated not less

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

pixelburp wrote: »

Tickle Me was obviously just having a little fun with the idea of Whittaker starring as woman playing a 'fake Doctor'. Clearly it's nothing more than a coincidence & some bad/funny timing, given the general brouhaha over her casting as The Doctor; it's hard not to find some amusement from her character saying she's 'not a real Doctor'.

Exactly.

martingriff

TICKLE_ME_ELMO wrote: »

pixelburp wrote: »

Tickle Me was obviously just having a little fun with the idea of Whittaker starring as woman playing a 'fake Doctor'. Clearly it's nothing more than a coincidence & some bad/funny timing, given the general brouhaha over her casting as The Doctor; it's hard not to find some amusement from her character saying she's 'not a real Doctor'.

Exactly.

Then I apologise for taking it up the wrong way. Bad timing I suppose need to calibrate myfunny sensors

tritium

Maybe its just me but tbh there seems to be more outrage at the idea anyone doesnt approve of a female doctor who than there is for the choice of doctor.

Generally people who opposed the choice for whatever reason have stated their case but said they'll see how it goes and wish it the best of luck nonetheless (im sure someone can point to an alt right bowel of reddit thats more extreme but tbh i can find a corner there for just about anything)

On the other hand jeebus the roasting Peter Davison for example earned for daring to suggest it might not be the greatest of decisions, and why he held that view.

Frankly the treatment of anyone who may hold an opposing view is depressing. Its the same sort of breathtaking arrogance and refusal to actually listen that led to 2016 being the year of "how the **** did that happen?"

pixelburp

tritium wrote: »

Maybe its just me but tbh there seems to be more outrage at the idea anyone doesnt approve of a female doctor who than there is for the choice of doctor.

It's just you IMO: there has been just as much outrage against Whittaker's casting. I think what you've probably seen has been a fairly open & broad mocking of the outrage - not to mention far too many pretentious Think Pieces in broadsheets, that really shouldn't over-analyse a SciFi show about a time-travelling alien.

Like you say below, you can find a corner to prove just about any point of view, but by and large the noise thrown towards those opposing the casting has been predominantly towards - as you say - the Reddit groupings, rather than those making there thoughts known in a thoughtful manner. Of course you're going to get the over-zealous champions pouncing at every uttering, but empty vessels make the most noise n' all that...

tritium wrote: »

Generally people who opposed the choice for whatever reason have stated their case but said they'll see how it goes and wish it the best of luck nonetheless (im sure someone can point to an alt right bowel of reddit thats more extreme but tbh i can find a corner there for just about anything)

I can point to this very thread and some users who declared the casting the 'death' of Dr. Who & the show jumping the shark So yes, most people are adopting a wait & see approach, including most here; but it's not without its own smattering of Dire Portents.

tritium

pixelburp wrote: »

It's just you IMO: there has been just as much outrage against Whittaker's casting. I think what you've probably seen has been a fairly open & broad mocking of the outrage - not to mention far too many pretentious Think Pieces in broadsheets, that really shouldn't over-analyse a SciFi show about a time-travelling alien.

Like you say below, you can find a corner to prove just about any point of view, but by and large the noise thrown towards those opposing the casting has been predominantly towards - as you say - the Reddit groupings, rather than those making there thoughts known in a thoughtful manner. Of course you're going to get the over-zealous champions pouncing at every uttering, but empty vessels make the most noise n' all that...

.

So, would you say Peter Davisons views were made in a thoughtful manner? Do you think the reaction to those views was reasonable or considered (bearing in mind he received so much vitriol he had to close his twitter account)

pixelburp

tritium wrote: »

So, would you say Peter Davisons views were made in a thoughtful manner? Do you think the reaction to those views was reasonable or considered (bearing in mind he received so much vitriol he had to close his twitter account)

Well clearly I'm not saying the reaction was such, so why even ask but you made your point suggesting that on balance there's "more outrage" coming from those supporting the casting, inferring that the true evil, so to speak, are those who are dog-piling on any sniff of not being onboard. It's a totally unknowable quantity as to who are the greater victims here, but the only reason to try would be to extract a bias or agenda, so why focus on the extremes. By and large, if you stick with actually published articles (that aren't clickbait I should note), as opposed to the great screeching garbage fires that are Reddit, Twitter etc, there's plenty of grown-up chat. There's plenty of chat that ... well, isn't, but to echo your own words, there's a corner for just about everything!

I feel sorry for Davison if he had to leave Twitter, or anyone for that matter, but that's not an isolated incident, it's endemic of the service: seriously - f*ck Twitter. It's a swamp that either actively or passively encourages toxic behaviour, bullying and is now the lazy journalist's vox-pop that only proves why brain-farts should be kept internal & not broadcast as news. I'd openly cheer if the company collapsed tomorrow. I certainly don't believe we should hold it as any great standard in any pop culture debate

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

The media are partly to blame for the reaction to Davison's comments. They quoted him out of context and only used the "negative" comments in their headlines. I saw plenty of people on Twitter who disagreed with his opinion try to share the full interview he did. He essentially made the "role model for boys" argument, which is not one I agree with but it's not the worst negative reaction to have, and then spoke quite highly of Whittaker herself and seemed to be taking a "wait and see" approach.
Of course the papers/clickbait sites won't get what they want by saying "Davison Isn't Sure But Will Wait And See".

Das Kitty

I thought Davidson's comment was reasonable & measured.

I thought the headline quote reporters chose for their clickbait was awful. It didn't reflect what he had said at all. They basically sold him out for clicks. Gross.

I think both of you guys are right and both of you are wrong. I think there's a noisy minority of people online who are outraged over this issue. I think the backlash against her and the backlash against the backlash have been vastly overstated by the meeja. I think it's human nature to think that people who disagree with us are being completely unreasonable, and that the most unreasonable voices represent the whole of "the other side".

I think (with a few exceptions) this forum is exemplary in having friendly discourse who people with opposing opinions. Kudos to the mods (and the community).

Doctor DooM

This is the real problem isn't it.

The majority of people are happy to have a discussion, and I think most people agree the real answer lies in the balance of how you feel on the "one of the few good role model for boys" and "one of the few good role models for girls" argument.

Seeing as they're literally reflections of one another, I think most people see it's not simple. It's an intricate argument.

The real problem is how loud the extremes are. If you pottered around the edges of twitter you'd think there's only people obsessed with "who shouldn't be **** fodder" or "it's not enough, it should be more diverse", because they shout.

I'm a lefty, always have been, and I know that change always comes from the middle. It's usually sensible people making sensible choices and at the end of the day, this programme is just trying something different. If it doesn't work out it'll be reverted. Whatever happens now at least, I think, the majority agrees it's interesting enough to keep an eye on.

I tell you what I do find frustrating though. Regardless of whether it turns out good or bad, we're going to have the extreme people "I told you so" ing.

I TOLD YOU Who would be more fun if you went diverse! I TOLD YOU they were selling out and it was going down hill!

As I said from the beginning though, honestly I don't think any of it's going to count in the end: if the series is good people who're open to it will enjoy it, if it's bad they won't. Frankly I have no idea how it's going to be yet!

pixelburp

First(?) interview with Whittaker for BBC News; if nothing else is gleaned from it, she sounds genuinely excited:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KO1q5guSdf4

Das Kitty

I hope she uses her normal accent.

kylith

Doctor DooM wrote: »

The majority of people are happy to have a discussion, and I think most people agree the real answer lies in the balance of how you feel on the "one of the few good role model for boys" and "one of the few good role models for girls" argument.

I just don't see why it has to be an either/or situation. Why can some not just accept that The Doctor is a good role model full stop?

Sleepy

You can logically make that argument and while in an ideal world it might be true, in this one, the majority of children look to their own gender for their role models.

The lobbyists the BBC are placating with this move don't tend to like reality however (and consider their temper tantrums when faced with it as being somehow comparable to the panic attacks suffered by those with PTSD) so they'd disregard such a statement as misogyny :rolleyes:

I think Doctor DooM is right: if the production team do good work, the show will continue to be good. Maybe my daughter might become more interested in the series with a "girl doctor" (I suspect my step-son may drift further away from it, though that had already started with Capalidi's run tbh). I'm not going to give up on a show I enjoy because the BBC caved into feminist demands but it lessens my opinion of the institution. They've drunk the koolaid and are tacitly supporting the anti-male propoganda industry that is modern feminism.

pixelburp

Sleepy wrote: »

[...]They've drunk the koolaid and are tacitly supporting the anti-male propoganda industry that is modern feminism.

I think it's getting a little off-topic to focus on this, but honestly, that's just hyperbole: there are wing-nuts within just about any movement, agenda or cause you could care to imagine, but implying a dark premise or intention as the norm within one is no more set in reality than those occupying said fringe. That's not to say there aren't movements that start from a point of repugnance, but they're few & far between in the cold light of day. The saying goes that you're only as a good as your weakest link, but it's reductionist to then lump everyone in a grouping based on their outliers; it's not like that kind of unfortunate thinking doesn't cause actual, demonstrable problems when applied to real-world situations - or demographics ...

corkie

Taken from this site: -
Things We Saw Today: The 13th Doctor Grapples With Life as a Woman in This Hilarious Animated Short

kylith

Sleepy wrote: »

You can logically make that argument and while in an ideal world it might be true, in this one, the majority of children look to their own gender for their role models.

I don't think that's necessarily true. I can only speak for myself, but if I were to have looked solely to my own gender my primary role model would have been Deanna Troi or that kid with the flying fish in Jace and the Wheeled Warriors (who I mostly remember fainting a lot)!

IMO girls have been having male role models for years: most of the books I'd have read growing up (that weren't to do with ponies) would have had male protagonists. I think that the only issue here is that now boys will be simply be asked to do what girls have been expected to do since Hartnell's era.

FunLover18

kylith wrote:

IMO girls have been having male role models for years: most of the books I'd have read growing up (that weren't to do with ponies) would have had male protagonists. I think that the only issue here is that now boys will be simply be asked to do what girls have been expected to do since Hartnell's era.

Exactly. I feel a lot of the posters in here are male who grew up with a vast range of male role models and the idea of having a role model of the opposite gender is something alien (pun intended) whereas females have been grown up looking up to male rodels like the doctor for decades.

pixelburp

FunLover18 wrote: »

Exactly. I feel a lot of the posters in here are male who grew up with a vast range of male role models and the idea of having a role model of the opposite gender is something alien (pun intended) whereas females have been grown up looking up to male rodels like the doctor for decades.

The argument I've seen in response to this has often centred around the suggestion that rather than gender-swapping, instead there should be brand-new female characters or IPs developed to keep everyone happy. Leaving aside the idea of 'just making' successful pop culture on a whim that the girls can go play with in their corner, the proposal always seemed more than a little disingenuous: cranking out intentionally female-oriented pop-culture would be almost guaranteed to face the same accusations of pandering Dr. Who is itself facing.

A good example to me would be something like Supergirl: the show has always been heavily advertised and scripted as explicitly about the importance and strength of sisterhood, girl-power, whatever you want to call it; it's often on the nose but the whole show is a pack of televisual bubblegum. Yet it still attracts criticism and snark for having the gall to do the very thing that's suggested elsewhere in geek-culture to keep female audiences happy. You can't win, basically

Doctor DooM

pixelburp wrote: »

The argument I've seen in response to this has often centred around the suggestion that rather than gender-swapping, instead there should be brand-new female characters or IPs developed to keep everyone happy. Leaving aside the idea of 'just making' successful pop culture on a whim that the girls can go play with in their corner, the proposal always seemed more than a little disingenuous: cranking out intentionally female-oriented pop-culture would be almost guaranteed to face the same accusations of pandering Dr. Who is itself facing.

A good example to me would be something like Supergirl: the show has always been heavily advertised and scripted as explicitly about the importance and strength of sisterhood, girl-power, whatever you want to call it; it's often on the nose but the whole show is a pack of televisual bubblegum. Yet it still attracts criticism and snark for having the gall to do the very thing that's suggested elsewhere in geek-culture to keep female audiences happy. You can't win, basically

The topic is super (pun intended) interesting in comics at the moment.

People are up in arms about the current widespread diversification of Marvel, for example (and the main problem with that is truly that most of the new comics suck). What people on the complaining side of the barrier- and this is also true of Who- are missing is that change and experimentation in sci fi over time is not only commonplace, but vital. For the last 10 years or so though, people who profess to be huge comic book fans seem to blank out utterly on this. They just attack anything that's different. Especially if it's female centric- even though the change is an attempt to keep their property going.

There's nothing intrinsically more interesting to Tony Stark than there is Rhodey (War Machine has been Iron Man for several periods). There is nothing intrinsically more interesting in Thor than Eric Masterson. We only hear about one of them now because the other, frankly, sucked. It's pretty much a celebrated change now. The reason these changes happened though is the same. They were running out of stories to tell without a change in the status quo.

Comic books don't just welcome change they require it. Tony Stark has, since the 70s, spent as much time out of the suit as in it because you need to rest the characters who have had decades of history to them (sound familiar)? If this mindset was not there we would never have gotten the Storm/Wolverine version of the X-Men!

All media needs to change. They need new ways to tell stories. Doctor Who is doing this as it always has - I just hope she's a Ms. Marvel instead of an Ironheart, but just like comics we'll have a triumphant return of an "original style" Doctor in a few years anyway, and it'll do huge business, because it can draw on the nostalgia the change has kicked off.

The people who rant about these things will miss the point though: The Who mythos will be more relevant now to more people in the modern day because it's not gotten bogged down in the wishes of people who don't seem to realise the world was never the way they thought it was in the first place. Change, experimentation, reaching to new audiences, new ideas- that's what good sci fi is, and the only reason their beloved property exists in the form they enjoy in the first place. It's unfair to ask that change to stop when it's other people's turn.

jasonb

Not sure how I feel about this, if it's true...

http://www.radiotimes.com/news/2017-08-22/is-bradley-walsh-really-the-new-doctor-who-companion/

pixelburp

Hmmm, I'm wearing my thick-rimmed scepticles for that one. I only know him from that gameshow The Chaser, know nothing of his acting ability or otherwise

That said, I'm well onboard the theory of an older companion, if not that specific pick: I've banged that drum before when Smith was still knocking about & the Big Finish audio series really did great work with that idea through their 6th Doctor stories & his OAP friend Evelyn.

Also Starring LeVar Burton

pixelburp wrote: »

Hmmm, I'm wearing my thick-rimmed scepticles for that one. I only know him from that gameshow The Chaser, know nothing of his acting ability or otherwise

He did Corrie for a few years and Law & Order UK (while Chris Chibnall was working on it), so one would assume he has some sort of acting ability.

If it did turn out to be true, I could see it going down the Catherine Tate route - no one expects him to be right for the part, but he could end up surprising everyone and being great.

The_Valeyard

I dont know what to make of that

Agent Coulson

He was in a couple of episodes of The Sarah Jane Adventures.

corkie

TICKLE_ME_ELMO wrote: »

BBC released a new trailer for "Trust Me", a new drama starring Jodie Whittaker.

"I took something that wasn't mine. I'm not a real doctor."


That is basically the plot of the thing, identity theft, but it seems a little on the nose

Jodie Whittaker's first Doctor outing in Trust Me has finished — did it pay off for fans?
^^^ Spoilers ^^^

flazio

https://www.instagram.com/p/BakMteRA3nC/

bbcdoctorwhoMeet the 13th Doctor's new friends! Yasmin (Mandip Gill), Ryan (Tosin Cole), and Graham (Bradley Walsh)

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

flazio wrote: »

https://www.instagram.com/p/BakMteRA3nC/

Ha! I can imagine the "PC GONE MAD!!" brigade's reaction to this :eek: