Traditional Society New Doctor thread

It got a little bit "oh, racism is so hard for white people to witness" at the end, there.

I don’t think it did that at all. I thought Graham’s discomfort was one of the strongest moments of the episode. His personal connection via what he’d learned from Grace had already been made abundantly clear. It wasn’t so much “hard to witness” as “excruciating to be a participant in”.

I would agree with Gar's takeaway on that. I've never been in a relationship with someone from another race but I can imagine it must be eye-opening. Not being able to ignore the benefit you receive from your white privilege in a way the rest of us can - all while seeing the aggressions (micro and otherwise) that your partner has to live with each and every day. It would take a sociopath not to be affected.

I'm reading a book called "Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People about Race" at the minute and in the first couple of chapters the author does a brief history of racism in Britain and how we just don't learn about this stuff at school. British people seem to think racism (esp. against black people) isn't really a thing here, Not like America™️. The author talks about how the American Civil Rights movement is more widely taught and known around the world and often becomes the only story of civil rights in people's minds. The stuff she covers in the first few chapters is shocking and more recent than you realise… Leading to Stephen Lawrence, which is in my lifetime.

I guess it's easier to get corporate on board with the Rosa Parks storyline than to confront the state of affairs in this country.

It’s a teatime family show with an audience of kids. Under the circumstances I think they were pretty bold with the subject matter. Certainly the conversation with Yaz where she discussed being called a Paki and a terrorist wasn’t something I’d ever expected to see in Doctor Who. And good on them for going there.

Yeah, that was pretty powerful. I wonder if the actors have been harassed off social media yet.

Do you watch with your kid? Do they ask questions about the content or do they just skip over those themes? I remember reading an article where this woman was re-reading Harry Potter as an adult and picked up on a lot more of the themes around romantic relationships that she didn't really have knowledge or experience of as a teenager.

No, my boy isn’t much of a TV watcher and I think a lot of Who would be a bit confusing for him - maybe in a year or two. I might start him with the Eccleston stuff which is a lot simpler in terms of characters and themes.

Also, on a connected note, if this stuff has got you thinking then can I take this opportunity to recommend a book called The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead? It’s a harrowing fictionalised account of slavery in the US and it’s quite, quite brilliant. One of those periods of history I’d always been aware of but never really stopped to consider what it must have been like on a human scale.

Any arachnophobes amongst us..?

Not me, thankfully, that episode must have been terrifying for anyone even remotely susceptible to the charms of our arachnid friends.

I thought it was a good episode but they botched the ending:

Spoiler - click to showThe solution of "let's lock all the spiders in a room to die" seemed needlessly cruel and also not particularly effective given the episode had already established that there were spiders all over the city, including one the size of a small child held at bay by nothing more than a line of vinegar. It's frustrating because it could have been rounded off (not well, but adequately) by a few lines of dialogue - the university are going to come and collect them as specimens, they're all going to die now the mother's dead because sci-fi reason, that kind of thing. As it was it came off like the writers didn't particularly care, a case of "we've saved our four main characters, fuck Sheffield" which probably wasn't what they were aiming for.

That said, I am really enjoying the dynamic of the main four this year, it seems that the story arc isn't some convoluted sci-fi bollocks but simply watching how these characters learn and grow. You know, like actual proper drama. It's great. And it feels very different to how Who has been over the last few years.

Didn't they imply Spoiler - click to showthe spiders all over the city were mainly going mad due to pheremonal interference, or something? It's a fair criticism, though, and would have been easily resolved, as you said.

I thought the scientist character was weak; her dialogue and delivery were really stilted, she was just Doctor Exposition. Spoiler - click to showAnd she talked about how secure her lab was immediately after letting four complete strangers in and telling them all about her research.

On the positive side, Whitaker is still an absolute delight.

This episode was a bit of a let down after the previous ones. And the season seems to be following the default new-who structure which doesn't help.

Yeah, I wasn't thrilled with this one either - and not just because spiders can all get fucked into the sun, the eight-legged hairy bastards.

It felt a bit rushed, like it was a two-parter compressed to save on effects; the spiders were oddly unthreatening - just normal-spiders-but-big, and were pretty easily captured, lured and escaped from as necessary; and the "bad guy" was just a cheap caricature that offered a few laughs but never delivered on his potential to really mess things up for the others.

It was an ultimately pointless bit of padding to give the companions time to decide, as they were always bound to, to come back to the TARDIS for further adventures.

(Though Whitaker's "guess I'll go off on me own then, theatrical sigh" stuff at the start was pretty funny.)

Well that was certainly an episode of DrWho.

The corridors were nice.

The production design as a whole was pretty good, but I agree - that's definitely the most generic episode of the current run so far.

Different writers for the next four episodes, at least.

It's taken me a few days to work out what I made of this week's episode. I liked the idea of it more than the episode itself, I think. I'm totally on board with the new focus on historical episodes (it feels both new, and somehow also in keeping with the original vision of the show), I like the way they're doing interesting bits of modern history that the audience might not be familiar with rather than the usual Romans & Shakespeare type of stuff, and I really like the way the storylines are being driven by the diverse backgrounds of this multi-racial TARDIS crew.

But

Spoiler - click to showThe Doctor doesn't actually DO anything in this episode, and the aliens are a complete McGuffin. It feels like they've just been dropped into an episode of something else entirely. And some of the acting was surprisingly bad (from the other actors, not the central crew).

Spoiler - click to showIt's also not the first episode this series that's… well, a bit morally dubious. Rather than showing up somewhere, identifying a problem and then fixing it, this Doctor seems to show up and let events play out. Which has made her now complicit in overt racism, and a horrendous massacre. It feels like double standards somehow. Modern-day or future episode? Fix the problem. Earth history? Stand by and watch. It's really very odd.

I liked it for the reasons you say, my problem is that the Doctor has, up until this series anyway, been godlike (without necessarily wanting to be), and now they're essentially being forced to witness history without being able to affect it. I know it's not very sci-fi but I'm finding it much more interesting, and I'm happier for it to take this route if it's going to piss off more people like Jeremy Clarkson.

Another fun episode I thought. I much prefer the Monster of the Week style (same applies with other shows like X-Files and Supernatural) to plot twists being thrown around all over the place.

I thought it was good, apart from Spoiler - click to show anything the mud queen said, post-reveal; relentlessly hammy dialogue. And yet another "earth as a prison for a warmongering race" twist. But all the witchfinding stuff was great, and Alan Cumming was fantastic as King James.

Is it just me, or was there generally a lot of talking? There can't have been more than a couple of minutes total in the entire runtime where someone wasn't saying something. The setting and content feel like it could have done with some time to breathe, but the characters just couldn't seem to shut up.

It's rarely a good thing when the reveal of the main enemy makes you laugh out loud. It was great up to that point, and very silly thereafter.

The…
Spoiler - click to showgiant mud tentacle with a face?

…yeah, that was prey silly.

Just got caught up. I think this episode did a better job of doing "This period of history was awful, let's not do this again!" while also having some Dr Who fun. Alan Cumming certainly helped.

They've kind of written themselves into a weird situation though where if it's Earth history they can't do anything to change things, but if it's any other kind of situation they'll go all out to fix stuff. I'm not sure that's a situation the programme's ever been in before.

They've always had their "fixed points in time" that shouldn't be messed with. Rose's Dad and Hitler spring to mind. I'm sure there were others with the historical figures that they met.

Starting to hear rumblings that this week’s episode is something really special.

https://twitter.com/GCHQ/status/1080462669948297217?s=09

Daleks are tedious and crap.

Anyone else been daft enough to stick with this show this series? I've been a fan of Doctor Who all my life but I think I'm done with it now - at least while the current showrunner is in place. Last night's episode was absolutely atrocious.

I managed two episodes.

Jodie Whittaker and Chris Chibnall both leaving the show in 2022. Next series is 6 episodes, followed by 3 specials and that's that.

Probably the right decision to be honest. I think Chibnall's been absolutely terrible as a showrunner, the writing is worse than it's ever been and the show feels like a relic compared to the kind of thing we are getting with the MCU shows or other modern sci-fi. The whole thing needs a complete reboot with someone in charge who's got some actual vision for the show and isn't tied down to sixty years of history. Sounds almost impossible, but Russell T Davies managed it once, maybe someone else will find that spark.

Cue Moffat coming back.

I really liked the character that Whittaker brought to the Doctor. It's been very refreshing and a whole thing to herself. The episodes started okay but really went off the boil, and it's just… incredibly sad. The wall of abuse she's gotten is crushingly expected, and the amount of 'fnar fnar go woke go broke' shit floating around is awful, awful, awful.

Cue Moffat coming back.

please no

Well, we have the new guy: Ncuti Gatwa. Cue a different flavour of abuse from the same bigots who whinged last time.

As a final(ish) thought on Jodie Whittaker, I think it's a shame she'll probably be more remembered/blamed for the garbage of her tenure than Chris "First Draft" Chibnall. It's a shame we never got to see someone halfway decent write for her.

He was great in Sex education, will be very interesting to see how he fares here.

As for jodie whittaker, I agree completely. I thought it was a really good bit of casting and eagerly watched the first few. I thought she was great, full of the right energy, but the scripts and companions were so consistently awful (and worse, uninteresting) that I gave up… Such a huge step down from the generally great capaldi era. For the first time I can remember, Who wasn't a fixture in my schedule any more. It felt like a poor covers band, neither interesting in an episode by episode basis, or intriguing enough across a series to maintain attention… Fingers crossed Davies et al can recapture some of the old magic.

Well, we have the new guy: Ncuti Gatwa. Cue a different flavour of abuse from the same bigots who whinged last time.

As a final(ish) thought on Jodie Whittaker, I think it's a shame she'll probably be more remembered/blamed for the garbage of her tenure than Chris "First Draft" Chibnall. It's a shame we never got to see someone halfway decent write for her.

The actors that play the doctor are great. It's just everything else that doesn't seem to work.

I've not heard of the guy before but those who've seen him in Sex Education say he's great so that's encouraging.

Combined with Russell T Davies' writing (which has never been stronger IMHO), this will hopefully revive the show's fortunes a bit. The Chibnall era has been exactly as bad as everyone said it would be, for pretty much exactly the reasons everyone expected - it's not Jodie Whittaker's fault, she's done her best with terrible material, but the show needs a very big kick up the arse right now if it's going to continue.

Anecdotally, I haven't seen a huge amount of outrage about the fact that we are about to have our first gay / black / refugee Doctor - at least nothing like the fuss that Whittaker's announcement caused. Is that progress? Or just a reflection of how far the show has slipped from the public consciousness in the last few years?

Or just that the irrational hatred/fear of women amongst certain demographics is still worse than that of other minorities…?

That was a real bad episode of Doctor Who, but on a positive note: finally, the era of Chibnall is over.

I still like Jodie's Doctor, and I think Sacha Dhawan is great as the Master, but Jesus fuck, Chibnall couldn't write a decent episode of this show if his life depended on it.

It was peak Chibnall really - hyperactive gibberish interspersed with big dollops of fanwank. I am so, so tired of his storytelling technique which just involves pinging around a whole load of unconnected events for half the episode then ignoring half of them when the limp conclusion isn't able to adequately join the dots.

It wasn't remotely as bad as the Sea Devils thing that preceded it or indeed the last couple of episodes of Flux and it was quite fun to see all the old faces once again but please, let that be the end of it. (Apart from Dhawan, he can come back any time).

Chibnall's problem is that he grew up on 80s Who, loves 80s Who, has written several books based around 80s Who and has tried to cram as much of that into his run as he can. Ironically he's left the show exactly where it was when it got cancelled in the 80s: looking and feeling about 15 years out of date, obsessed with its own continuity, and unable to appeal to anyone outside of a diminishing group of long-term fans of the show.

I'm sure RTD will freshen it up a bit but at this stage will it be enough? Compare Doctor Who to almost any other show on BBC or streaming services and it just looks cheap and tired.

Fair play though for a genuine

Spoiler - click to showsurprise regeneration. I think that's perhaps the first time that's actually been done. Everyone was expecting to see Gatwa, I know Tennant's involvement in next year's specials had been leaked but I don't think anyone was expecting him to actually be the 14th Doctor. Must have been very hard to keep that under wraps.

Unfortunately, I was spoiled on that by my fucking Google news feed, of all things.

And yes, the Sea Devils episode was worse, but then it was probably the worst hour of TV I've ever seen.

Two major questions about Power of the Doctor, then:

1. What was the Power of the Doctor?
2. Why were the Daleks even there? What function did they serve in the narrative that the cybermen couldn't have? Other than "it's a Doctor Who special, must have daleks in"?

I want to see the entire next season without a dalek or cyberman in sight.

The bit I didn't understand was the whole space train thing at the beginning - why were they on a train? Why was the train in space? Who was the child (later used as the cosmic equivalent of a AA battery)? Why did that whole plot go nowhere?

I think trying to actually understand any of this is futile, really. And they must be running out of "…of the Doctor" titles by now. I look forward to Haemorrhoids of the Doctor in the next season.

The bit I didn't understand was the whole space train thing at the beginning - why were they on a train? Why was the train in space? Who was the child (later used as the cosmic equivalent of a AA battery)? Why did that whole plot go nowhere?

Because Chibnall.

I gave up on Chibnall very early on, having watched every doctor since 5 "live", and haven't regretted my decision at all. Will be back on board when RTD is back, mainly through blind optimism rather than expectation at this point. Question though - is it worth trying to persuade my sceptical wife that we should watch this episode as a lead in to the brave new world? Or am I better to just pretend that none of it ever happened and just accept that 14=10 for reasons?

Question though - is it worth trying to persuade my sceptical wife that we should watch this episode as a lead in to the brave new world? Or am I better to just pretend that none of it ever happened and just accept that 14=10 for reasons?

Oh dear god no. It will put her off for life. It's complete nonsense from start to finish.

It also doesn't explain anything about the regeneration at all, that just happens as a surprise in the final 30 seconds of the show, so there's literally nothing in this episode that will act as any kind of lead-in.

In fact I'd expect next year's 60th anniversary specials

Spoiler - click to showTennant as the 14th Doctor

might also be a slightly contentious starting point, as they will probably be quite self-referential in the way the 50th anniversary special was.

I'd suggest the full series that will follow after those

Spoiler - click to showpresumably with Gatwa taking over as the 15th Doctor

might be the real "reboot" of the show. But honestly no-one knows until we get there. It's bound to be better than what we all just watched, though.

Ah OK, thought there might have been some explanation, but quite happy to skip the whole godforsaken era and be done with it. Will tune in for the specials and see where it goes…

Loved the return of Tennant and RTD this week, it's so good to have Doctor Who back on top form after years of Chibnall bullshit. Tennant's sheer joy at being back in the part is infectious. The gammons will be spluttering about how woke it all was but that just means they're angry about the inclusion of a trans character and a wheelchair user and they were both tremendous so honestly fuck the gammons.

It was a bit self-referential - very much a follow-up to the end of the Donna Noble story from 15 years ago - but it explained enough that my son followed it without too much trouble and we both thoroughly enjoyed it.

Two more of these and then the 15th Doctor on Christmas Day. Truly we are spoiled.

Having previously missed (most of) the 10th Doctor, we spent the evening watching The Runaway Bride and the first episode of Donna's full series on the Tardis. Gods, but it was a better show then. I felt bad for Jodie before, but she'd have had an incredible run if she'd had scripts even half as good as these.

I watched the new episode and thought it was awful. It felt like a chat GPT plot and the dialog was terrible.

Finally caught up. Ncuti's first episode was… not great. Conceptually, not the worst idea, but the execution was pretty shocking.

Spoiler - click to showThe design of the goblin ship is weird and entirely out of place; even if it's all hand-waving timey wimey at the best of times, Who usually at least pretends it's sci fi; a wooden airship is just wrong for the show. And seriously? A musical number? WTF.

After the three Tennant episodes, that was a major letdown. I'm willing to give it a chance, but I'm also getting kind of Eccleston-y energy off him, which isn't a positive for me.