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Doctor Who [Spoilers]

@Little_grey_lady I said in another place that what clinched it for me was being at a convention and all the wee /girls/ were dressed up as her :D That's not what happened before - boys chose their favourite Doctor and the girls did monsters or other characters.

In the other forum I posted this (with delight and a lovely YES! feeling) one of the other posters couldn't grasp that actually being the Doctor was something that /all/ children could now aspire too - he just couldn't grasp why the girls liked having the option of being the main character...

Why can't they just go on being companions?

After a while you have to just walk away....
 
@Little_grey_lady I said in another place that what clinched it for me was being at a convention and all the wee /girls/ were dressed up as her :D That's not what happened before - boys chose their favourite Doctor and the girls did monsters or other characters.

In the other forum I posted this (with delight and a lovely YES! feeling) one of the other posters couldn't grasp that actually being the Doctor was something that /all/ children could now aspire too - he just couldn't grasp why the girls liked having the option of being the main character...

After a while you have to just walk away....

But what about all those boys who can't play the role of Ellen Ripley, Lara Croft, Xena Warrior Princess, Daenerys Targaryen or Uma Thurman in Kill Bill?
Should every major movie or TV role offer alternatives in both sexes (not forgetting LGBT variants)?
 
Should every major movie or TV role offer alternatives in both sexes (not forgetting LGBT variants)?

Those are characters which are one person :) In ensemble pieces like GoT there's lots of choice as it is.

Should every major movie or TV role offer alternatives in both sexes (not forgetting LGBT variants)?

A bit hyperbolic? :) Some characters are played by a succession of actors - Dr Who is one of them. People are behaving as if one female means there will never be a male again.

Edit to ask @blessmycottonsocks - do you get a good feeling about the weans who can now be The Doctor without people saying "no you can't, you can only be a companion"?
 
Edit to ask @blessmycottonsocks - do you get a good feeling about the weans who can now be The Doctor without people saying "no you can't, you can only be a companion"?

Plenty of conventions have always had females cos playing as their favourite Doctor. My experience in general is that Dr Who fandom is accepting and just the fact that people are celebrating their love of the show is enough, however they want to do it.
 
That's true - but now people who /couldn't/ before are able to. It's now open to more people.
 
But what about all those boys who can't play the role of Ellen Ripley, Lara Croft, Xena Warrior Princess, Daenerys Targaryen or Uma Thurman in Kill Bill?
Should every major movie or TV role offer alternatives in both sexes (not forgetting LGBT variants)?

I really don't think little kids should be watching Aliens, GoT or Kill Bill, for a start.
 
I really don't think little kids should be watching Aliens, GoT or Kill Bill, for a start.

That may possibly explain my dislike of the latest incarnation of DW.
I was that archetypal little boy, peeping out from behind the sofa at some of the scariest late 60s and early 70s DW stories.
DW was, for me an older avuncular sort of figure throughout the Troughton and Pertwee years. Then Tom Baker - surely the best Doctor by far, brought a brilliant air of anarchy and borderline insanity to the role. Those were the golden years. Capaldi brought some much needed gravitas back to the role and rang some faint echos of those early days, but this latest lightweight fluff with Whittaker just strikes me as a sell-out of what DW ought to be.

I guess I need to move on and accept that DW is never going to recapture those gothic chills of the early days.
That last episode though - haunting at Villa Diodati, was easily the most atmospheric of the Whittaker era, but I couldn't help feeling how much better it would have been with Tom Baker, Pertwee or Troughton at the helm (and without the utterly superfluous batch of current companions).
 
Doctor Who has always been a product of the time it was made. Look at the Tom Baker stories that had the Hammer Horror feel to them. Both Who and Hammer did all the gothic stories that were popular in the seventies. Time and tastes have moved on, even if the whiners haven't....

Not that anyone here is a whiner....
 
"Look at the Tom Baker stories that had the Hammer Horror feel to them. Both Who and Hammer did all the gothic stories that were popular in the seventies"

Exactly. Those, along with several Pertwee era stories were, for me, the absolute highlights of the whole DW saga. It's difficult not to compare that golden age with the more recent lightweight material. I don't believe such unfavourable comparisons are all down to me being several decades older now!
 
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A timely reminder that nobody hates DW more than DW fans:
DW article

The article starts out quoting scathing fan reviews of the classic story The Deadly Assassin, then points out fans loudly complaining about their latest Doctor goes back to... Patrick Troughton, in 1967! Worth a read, if only to point out how enjoyable the programme is to discuss.
 
Seems fans loved that the latest episode tackled mental health, but many hated the Doc and Graham's exchange about his cancer fears:
News story

I didn't have a problem with it, she clearly didn't want to talk about or even think about losing one of her friends, hence her awkwardness. I don't think it's to do with her alien side, she's just more comfortable taking on threats to the universe.
I saw it as the Doctor not having an easy answer for Graham's fears, and says she's going to "go over here and in a minute think up something reassuring I should have said right now" - she wasn't ignoring his fears, she didn't know how to make those fears less worrisome.
 
I saw it as the Doctor not having an easy answer for Graham's fears, and says she's going to "go over here and in a minute think up something reassuring I should have said right now" - she wasn't ignoring his fears, she didn't know how to make those fears less worrisome.

Yes, I think you're right, and the BBC responded to those uneasy about that scene:
BBC response

...which confirms we were correct, she was supposed to be sympathetic for those who just don't know what to say when their friends or family try to open up about their problems. I could certainly sympathise, not everyone has had counsellor training after all, a lot of times you don't know what to say so make a joke and hope it'll work out anyway. It was a really nice little scene, I thought, and I'm sorry it's been so controversial.
 
Felt genuinely anxious on tonight's episode, if anything the stakes were too high and the perils insurmountable. Unless Doctor Ruth (not... that Dr Ruth) appears I don't know how Graham and Yaz survive, and you-know-who showing up at the cliffhanger was almost too much to take. It's always alright in the end with DW... but what if this time it isn't?
 
Felt genuinely anxious on tonight's episode, if anything the stakes were too high and the perils insurmountable. Unless Doctor Ruth (not... that Dr Ruth) appears I don't know how Graham and Yaz survive, and you-know-who showing up at the cliffhanger was almost too much to take. It's always alright in the end with DW... but what if this time it isn't?
Graham and Yaz just piloted a ship into a Cyberman battle cruiser without using conventional weapons, or any attempt at steering and they made a perfect landing so they can pretty much do anything. Yet another miss for me this episode I’m afraid. I have generally liked the Graham character, and def liked Bradley Walsh’s performance, but I think he was poorly written on this one. And also I have loved the music this season however it seems to have been ramped up in this episode, back to the bad old Murray Gold days.
 
Graham and Yaz just piloted a ship into a Cyberman battle cruiser without using conventional weapons, or any attempt at steering and they made a perfect landing so they can pretty much do anything. Yet another miss for me this episode I’m afraid. I have generally liked the Graham character, and def liked Bradley Walsh’s performance, but I think he was poorly written on this one. And also I have loved the music this season however it seems to have been ramped up in this episode, back to the bad old Murray Gold days.

Wasn't it Julie Graham who did the piloting, though? G & Y just had the power diversion idea. Also, DW companions don't last on the show as long as the Doc (unless they're Clara), so they could be written out - Toisin Cole has a new job on US TV lined up soon, for example.
 
I thought he was going to be the damaged Cyberleader, but I don't think it's the same actor. That whole subplot was a complete puzzle!

It made my head hurt. I thought it might be him but I don’t think so now.

The last episode is call the Timeless Child maybe that was him. Maybe he was put on Earth for safety all those years and now they are getting him ready for his real life. There was a clock.

He revived from death like a certain Captain we know.

(Can I just point out he was Ginger something the Doctor has always wanted.)

Well a week to wait (and ponder). Hopefully not more.
 
I suppose Brendan was technically a "child" when we met him, though he didn't stay that way. Captain Jack became almost immortal when he got a blast of TARDIS energy, I seem to recall, so that might be a coincidence. And why Ireland? Questions, questions...
 
Was that the first time that "warp drive" was referenced on DW?
With hat-tips to I, Borg and the Vulcan mind meld too, just wondering if this story arc was written by a confirmed Trekkie.

"Wasn't it Julie Graham ..."

Ah! Thought I recognised the woman with the outrageously heavy mascara. I recall her now from that woefull remake of Survivors.
 
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Nice to see the FT letter reassuring us that just because The Master had an entire run of the mag, it didn't mean the mag was for baddies, it was because the mag is for goodies and The Master was fooling the Doc by possessing such a publication. Personally, I'm relieved.
 
Was that the first time that "warp drive" was referenced on DW?
With hat-tips to I, Borg and the Vulcan mind meld too, just wondering if this story arc was written by a confirmed Trekkie.

"Wasn't it Julie Graham ..."

Ah! Thought I recognised the woman with the outrageously heavy mascara. I recall her now from that woefull remake of Survivors.

I thought the remake of Survivors was fairly decent, it was Bonekickers that was utter carp...
 
I thought the remake of Survivors was fairly decent, it was Bonekickers that was utter carp...

Indeed. "Shitkickers" was a particularly egregious example of the BBC's pandering to "wokeness".

The brilliant original Survivors really fired my youthful imagination in the 70s. I guess a lot of viewers remembered this seminal apocalyptic drama with great fondness, as the backlash against the dreadful remake was so substantial that the BBC had no option but to cancel it.
 
"Wasn't it Julie Graham ..."

Ah! Thought I recognised the woman with the outrageously heavy mascara. I recall her now from that woefull remake of Survivors.
I have to say that anything with the lovely Ms Graham is worth watching, in my opinion. She does something funny to my insides whenever I see her on screen... er, or something. Maybe it's just me!
 
"Woke" began as slang among young black Americans for being aware of perilously racist situations. Within months it was an insult for white guys to bandy around on the internet for stuff they don't like.
 
I loathed Bonekickers. Can you expand on what was "woke" about it? @blessmycottonsocks

If I recall correctly, it pandered to the politically correct brigade in its blunt Muslims=good, Christians=bad take on the Crusades and even blamed Europeans for the slave trade whilst whitewashing Arabs.
Didn't they even reverse the facts by having a Christian "jihadi" behead a Muslim?.

Given the Wiki description of "woke" meaning "paranoia, especially about issues of racial and political justice" I suppose Bonekickers fell into that category (although the term "woke" hadn't reared its ugly head yet).
 
Can it be said to be pandering if the current nuanced academic view of the crusades /is/ that the populist view isn't holding up? Or maybe that would be "woke" because it's the view of experts with lots of data, analytical skills and the ability to synthesise? The current fashion seems to be a mistrust of intellectual effort after all.

The beheading wasn't a fit subject for evening entertainment imho - doesn't matter who was doing it. One duff editorial decision seems a poor thing to use your preferred insult though? Remember that, at the time, there was a widespread belief that Christians were the "goodies" and the Muslims the "baddies". People ignored the attacks on mosques and so on, in the british isles as well as elsewhere.

Are there other things that make it "woke"? Haven't seen it since it ran but I suppose the ex boyfriend might be a cabdidate? or rather the relationship might be.

If the programme had been "woke", in your definition, they story-line wouldn't have gone near the crusades! The whole "this is the cradle of arthur" line would have been dropped too :)
 
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