• We have updated the guidelines regarding posting political content: please see the stickied thread on Website Issues.

Doctor Who [Spoilers]

GNC said:
Really smart review of Rosa that sums it up better than I could:
Click to expand...

that was a good and accurate review for the programme I watched :)

Are you sure we are watching the same thing jimv1? :(
 
Dinobot said:
Why does it sound like it was recorded in a tin bath at the bottom of a mine?
Click to expand...

maybe it's the current incarnation of The Sand Quarry and the Rock Quarry that seemed to be every alien planet for a fe years :D
 
Frideswide said:
that was a good and accurate review for the programme I watched :)

Are you sure we are watching the same thing jimv1? :(
Click to expand...

I tend to watch the ‘back’ of the television. That goes into camerawork, lighting, casting, production values, colour grading, props, script, soundtrack, internal logic, borrowed storylines, agenda and so forth, so no. We’re probably not watching the same thing.
 
jimv1 said:
Best SJW virtue-signalling tourist demonstration ever! On the bus with Rosa Parks!
Now we know what the blue light on The Tardis is for.
Thanks BBC.

I found it less of a sci-fi episode and more of a reconstruction with The Doctor shoehorned in.

And the acting was pure CBBC.
Click to expand...

Doctor Who's original remit was as an educational programme, which is why the first ever story tells the viewers what it was like in the Stone Age, and it has regularly returned to that remit over the decades it's been on the air. Education isn't much good for subtlety, and these are not subtle times, so to tell the younger viewers about the injustice of the Jim Crow years with as much clarity as possible is surely something only someone who couldn't see past knee-jerk "PC gorn mad"-ism would object to, even if they didn't particularly enjoy the way the episode went about it.

But though the message had to be delivered with a sledgehammer blow (that villain was the epitome of one-dimensional, because giving him a detailed backstory would have derailed the story), I think it was a lot more carefully constructed than the haters believe. There was no scene where the Doctor or companions gave a big speech to Rosa to do the right thing, she made up her own mind, just as she did in real life. The (multi-racial) team of heroes simply supported her and made sure the future was safe, and what better message to impart to the youngsters watching? Everyone who mattered helped.

Blazing Saddles is one of the most blaring diatribes against racism ever made, it's also one of the most effective comedies ever made, but you couldn't tackle the subject like that now, not in the mainstream. Doctor who tackled it and brought the issue up with as much delicacy and impact as it could for a show on at 7pm on a Sunday night. I was reading that web searches for Rosa Parks rocketed after the episode had aired. That can't be bad, can it?
 
jimv1 said:
I tend to watch the ‘back’ of the television. That goes into camerawork, lighting, casting, production values, colour grading, props, script, soundtrack, internal logic, borrowed storylines, agenda and so forth, so no. We’re probably not watching the same thing.
Click to expand...

Let’s take a couple of examples of internal logic.
A far worse adversary but fitting for a Doctor used to dealing with Daleks is to appear earlier in the timeline and tackle and defeat the Klan in the first place.

The ‘Bigot’ of the episode seems like a very real Cockerney geezer with a limiter (Blake’s 7 anyone?) and a dirty time travel watch. I believe Captain Jack used the same thing. There was a confrontation but The Doctor didn’t really challenge his belief. Instead, the ultimate SJW fantasy came true and they just wished him into the past. Despite the previous warnings of interfering in the timeline.

The young assistant who definitely didn’t stalk Rosa ended up having a role at Rosa’s place which as far as I could see was purely to act as coffee waiter for the evening.
 
Last edited:
They were there to learn, and ultimately to teach, that's all.
 
GNC said:
They were there to learn, and ultimately to teach, that's all.
Click to expand...

No they weren’t. They were there to promote an agenda. The Daleks were total Nazis but that’s subtle and delicate nuance compared with the latest storylines.

Abstraction is sometimes a better message.
 
The BBC don't do 'subtle' anymore.
Or did they ever?
 
Mythopoeika said:
The BBC don't do 'subtle' anymore.
Or did they ever?
Click to expand...
They didn't. From watching old episodes and reading the history, Doctor Who has always been stuck with the "SJW" agenda.
I've been told by fans I've been brainwashed because I don't immediately hate the new Doctor, so take that as you will.
Me personally I get more if an older Who vibe than I have with most of the revival.
Though I'm a more modern fan of the show.
If you thought the show was too liberal in the old days, yeah you're not going to like it now, certainly.
 
Pushed for time so can't go too deep, but I will say that I like, as others have said, that events actually transpired as we understand them (ie a principled stand by Ms Parks) rather than that stand being entirely enabled by the Doctor with Ms Parks being a passive actor in the scenario. The sliding doors-style / nudge idea was well-used in that respect. It was a bit earnest, though. I'll need to see it again to make a proper assessment.

I'm also liking Jodie, especially as she's playing the role as a subtle Victoria Wood (she even looks a little bit like her.) It's not sledge-hammer, but the delivery is right there.

I was amused after last week's episode to see someone on Twitter sigh about it "..becoming a children's programme", which is a tad wry.
 
jimv1 said:
No they weren’t. They were there to promote an agenda. The Daleks were total Nazis but that’s subtle and delicate nuance compared with the latest storylines.

Abstraction is sometimes a better message.
Click to expand...

You seem to be forgetting a lot of stuff about the past you champion. BBC Children's programming has always promoted inclusive and anti-prejudice storylines. Back in the 80s, the Gripper Stebson racism storyline on Grange Hill was one of the best they ever did. In the 70s, one of the biggest sci-fi shows for kids was The Changes, which devoted episodes to promoting a Sikh community as a model of good behaviour. Even The Tomorrow People on the other side had an anti-Nazi storyline. The media as a whole have promoted a "be excellent to each other" lesson ever since the Second World War ended. Not consistently, maybe, but it's been around a long time.
 
drbastard said:
By Christ it sounds like things have become so bad over on the al beeb these days
Click to expand...
Didactic for sure. I was going to catch up with Dr. Who, but (1) I now need to register for the BBCiPlayer, and (2) I'm damned if I'm going to watch stuff that tries to make me feel bad about myself. Life's too short.
 
It will only make you feel bad if you're some kind of racist maniac. Which I don't think you are.
 
GNC said:
It will only make you feel bad if you're some kind of racist maniac. Which I don't think you are.
Click to expand...

I think the BBC's somewhat tokenistic casting policy stems from the days when their director general Greg Dyke made some rather bigoted statements including the notorious "the BBC is hideously white!".

Since then, BBC commissioned series, notably Doctor Who and the Beeb's utterly woeful remake of the classic dystopian series "Survivors" seem to have had a disproportionately non-indigenous cast.

Fair enough to represent wider multicultural society as a whole, but tipping the balance far too much towards non-indigenous people simply looks ridiculous and prompts accusations of political correctness, left-wing bias and tokenism.
 
The thing I don't get about Rosa, is what the future racist thought he was going to achieve. If he made a small change in history, so that the civil rights movement failed or happened differently, there's every probability he's wiped himself out of existence. The risk is higher the further in the future he comes from.

Still, I suppose we can't expect terribly deep thinking from racists. They're already starting from a pretty bad position in terms of intellectual rigour.
 
Maybe the future racist was just a device to give real and imminent threat, that's all the plot needed. As Yaz said, they were on the bus all the time (historically speaking), if they weren't there the bus wouldn't have been full. They, literally, had to sit and do nothing to allow the right thing to happen.
 
GNC said:
You seem to be forgetting a lot of stuff about the past you champion. BBC Children's programming has always promoted inclusive and anti-prejudice storylines. Back in the 80s, the Gripper Stebson racism storyline on Grange Hill was one of the best they ever did. In the 70s, one of the biggest sci-fi shows for kids was The Changes, which devoted episodes to promoting a Sikh community as a model of good behaviour. Even The Tomorrow People on the other side had an anti-Nazi storyline. The media as a whole have promoted a "be excellent to each other" lesson ever since the Second World War ended. Not consistently, maybe, but it's been around a long time.
Click to expand...

If I am championing a past, it’s a past of brilliant scenarios and scripting like Steptoe and Son. Even as a child, I realised this programme was something special. The writing had a tragic and desperate element above the laughs that is now compared with Beckett and Godot.
And beyond that, at about 9, I was also reading the Penguin screenplays of Quatermass

upload_2018-10-24_21-3-32.jpeg


... mostly dealing with the liquidation (in some cases literally) of humankind.


If you wish to compare Grange Hill to Dr. Who as one of the jewels in international crown in terms of marketing and overseas sales for the Beeb and a huge cash cow...well....er.... I’d just say no.
Subtle has gone out of the window. This new series is a tick box exercise in BBC programming - and I mean the word programming in the wider sense, as it’s designed to promote a cultural shift of opinion.

I said earlier I’d be fine with the series if the characters and scripts were good but apart from Victoria Wood, I’m getting Bubble in Space (and I’m wondering if Jane Horrocks would have nailed it better), a blatant steal from Predator and an almost historical reconstruction of the Rosa Parks bus journey that some think is a bit Quantum Leap. There’s very little originality here.

I maintain this is shoehorn operated by sledgehammer.
 
Last edited:
jimv1 said:
If I am championing a past, it’s a past of brilliant scenarios and scripting like Steptoe and Son. Even as a child, I realised this programme was something special. The writing had a tragic and desperate element above the laughs that is now compared with Beckett and Godot.
And beyond that, at about 9, I was also reading the Penguin screenplays of Quatermass

View attachment 12482

... mostly dealing with the liquidation (in some cases literally) of humankind.


If you wish to compare Grange Hill to Dr. Who as one of the jewels in international crown in terms of marketing and overseas sales for the Beeb and a huge cash cow...well....er.... I’d just say no.
Subtle has gone out of the window. This new series is a tick box exercise in BBC programming - and I mean the word programming in the wider sense, as it’s designed to promote a cultural shift of opinion.

I said earlier I’d be fine with the series if the characters and scripts were good but apart from Victoria Wood, I’m getting Bubble in Space (and I’m wondering if Jane Horrocks would have nailed it better), a blatant steal from Predator and an almost historical reconstruction of the Rosa Parks bus journey that some think is a bit Quantum Leap. There’s very little originality here.

I maintain this is shoehorn operated by sledgehammer.
Click to expand...

Quite. The BBC has been talking about relaunching Quatermass for decades now.
I just fear that, if it ever happens, they will turn the crotchety old professor into a bisexual, Kung-fu kicking sjw.
 
jimv1 said:
I maintain this is shoehorn operated by sledgehammer.
Click to expand...
Yep.
jimv1 said:
Subtle has gone out of the window. This new series is a tick box exercise in BBC programming - and I mean the word programming in the wider sense, as it’s designed to promote a cultural shift of opinion.
Click to expand...
:agree:
I fear they have underestimated the current young generation. Many of them are NOT sjw leaning and are smart, aware and watch nearly all their TV via streaming. If the Beeb relies on such heavy handed tactics, their viewership will dwindle as they're now competing with Netflix, Amazon and Sky and these latter only produce programs that have an ROI, so mostly are basically quite good. No-one has to watch the BBC (any more) and in fact no-one even needs a TV. So license fees are almost virtually extinct...


blessmycottonsocks said:
I just fear that, if it ever happens, they will turn the crotchety old professor into a bisexual, Kung-fu kicking sjw.
Click to expand...
At the very least.
 
All well and good, but the new series of DW has been more popular than ever, and the only people who have a problem with it are bringing a lot of baggage to the table. The Rosa Parks episode may not have been subtle, but who wants that in a sci-fi adventure aimed at a family audience? What was so subtle about Steptoe and Son or Quatermass? The former made you belly laugh, the latter made you terrified. At least anyone who doesn't object to a black face on TV is just called a SJW now, they used a lot blunter language in the past that was anything but subtle.
 
I don't think we've had a 10/10 yet this series, but there's been some rattling good yarns and while this wasn't the Planet of the Spiders sequel I was expecting, it was a good, solid, scary monsters tale that harked back to 50s sci-fi like Them or Tarantula, which is more than fine by me. The Doc would be a spider fan, wouldn't she? And they actually got a bit of giant monster science in there - they'd never survive! Liked that.

Next week... erm, no idea, future hospital or something.
 
I've been with Dr Who since 1970. It was inspirational and it is the reason i became a cryptozoologist. The classic days of Pertwee and Baker were peerless. It combined horror and science fiction in a way no other show ever did and it was dark and disturbing. Monsters could lurk on your doorstep, giant maggots in Welsh slag heaps, intelligent marine dinosaurs, alien minds inhabiting children's toys and shop dummies, giant, psychic, interdimentional spiders, giant killer rats in Victorian sewers, monster, parasitic plants, death cults worshiping Egyptian gods, robot mummies, live, blood sucking standing stones, robot dogs fighting robot parrots (honest) christ it was good. You never got that in Star Trek.
And look at it now. A woman cast as the Doctor to placate the snowflakes (the Doctor always regenerated into a man and Romana into a woman. No mention of gender fluidity was made until The Doctor's Wife now its been shoehorned in for pc reasons. Doctor Who is no longer Doctor Who. It is an exersise in box ticking. Its only hope is cancellation and retconning down the line.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top