#Doctor Who: The Giggle

[wideeyedsmile]

HUGE DOCTOR WHO SPOILERS IF YOU HAVE NOT WATCHED THE THIRD 60TH ANNIVERSARY SPECIAL THAN LOOK AWAY

I have a theory

Okay SO I think bigeneration is RTD taking the timeless child and running with it.

So the doctor, right as they split, goes "But bigeneration is a myth!" Or something along those lines. But where would that myth come from, realistically? Probably from a pre-mind wipe doctor. They had already regenerated a solid chunk of times, its possible one of those times resulted in bigeneration, leading the timelords to wonder "shit is that possible? Can we do that?" With the answer likely being "no" due to their man-made regenerations vs the doctors natural ones. For all we know, this is how the doctor's actual species reproduces. All that being said however, some of you just noticed a flaw: "Where the fuck is the other doctor then?"

Well, they probably had to track down that version, de-age them, and wipe their mind too, as they had all the doctor's memories up until their split, and if they found their other half than the whole plan would be messed up. Its likely they were de-aged at the same time and went to live their respective childhoods. Maybe even ran into eachother. Became friends.

Became enemies.

Listen all I'm saying is RTD could do the funniest possible thing and make the Master a bigeneration of the Doctor. ALL I'M SAYING.

[rjalker]

Really irritating seeing so many people waxing poetic about how RTD just needed to bring back David Tennant / the Tenth Doctor to properly give Ncuti Gatwa a fresh start, and it would have just not worked somehow without bringing back David Tennant!!!!

as though every regeneration isn't a fucking soft reboot. As though people haven't been getting introduced to this show by whatever random episode is on TV when they turn it on. As though just letting the first Black man to play the Doctor literally just be the Doctor is an impossible task that wouldn't work and is absurd to think about -.-

It's not a fucking coincidance that the first regeneration to be hijacked by a previous incarnation is the one that's interrupting the regeneration into a Black actor. And none of the ~poetic~ excuses you people are pulling out of your asses to explain it away is gonna make it not racist.

Jodie Whittaker should have regenerated directly into Ncuti Gatwa. Bringing back David Tennant to interrupt the cycle while Russel T Davies writes MORE antiblackness into the show is just plan old racism. And wanting to pretend it's not doesn't make the racism magically go away.

"if you want Doctor Who to have consistent rules and plots that make sense, you're not really a fan (and therefore your opinions and criticisms, even of bigotry, are worthless)!!!"

And you're saying this to the people pointing out how racist this regeneration-hijacking is? That's called being racist!

Like, the whole fucking reason Doctor Who has lasted this long is because it's constantly changing and evolving! Every Doctor has to leave at some point! It's a tragedy and it's hope at the same damn time! Why does everyone want to pretend this is just impossible to continue right when it's a fucking Black man taking the role? I promise if you fucking think about it for two seconds without the David Tennant worshipping glasses you'll figure it the fuck out.

[timetravelingsherlockian]

I, too aspire to be a billions-something gay uncle living in my best friend's backyard

[malachitebeck]

Actually I'm not done talking about the Doctor Who Special what do you mean you included a shot of the Doctor lowering a little ramp demonstrating that the TARDIS was now wheelchair accessible but not a shot of Shirley actually going inside.

[abs0luteb4stard]

W A T C H E D

[azazel-dreams]

Doctor Who: The Giggle by James Goss

Rating: ❤️❤️❤️❤❤

[meret118]

I want Donna to fix 14 up with a guy, and he's played by Michael Sheen! :)

[patwrites]

Oh, Fifteen is FUN!!!!

[jmunneytumbler]

Entertainment To-Do List: Week of 12/8/23

Batman smells, yadda yadda yadda (CREDIT: Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc.) Every week, I list all the upcoming (or recently released) movies, TV shows, albums, podcasts, etc. that I believe are worth checking out. Movies –The Boy and the Heron (Theaters) –Merry Little Batman (December 8 on Amazon Prime) –Poor Things (Theaters) TV –Doctor Who: The Giggle (December 9 on Disney+) – One more bit of…

[nik-enby]

Doctor Who Spoilers for The Giggle

I did not know about the racism linked to The Toymaker. I mean I'm not surprised. Doctor Who and the BBC have not made some good decisions in recent years, let alone 60 years ago.

I don't know if it should make me feel better or dumb that I didn't originally get the comment he made to the man born in Cheltenham. It was clearly a racist comment alluding that because of what he looked like he must be from somewhere outside of the UK. Somehow I did not pick that up until it was literally spelt out to me in the behind the scenes show Doctor Who: Unleashed.

[buildoblivion]

[rjalker]

anyways I sent this complaint to the BBC about the racism in The Giggle

I can't believe I have to spell this out for a professional broadcasting company, but making the first Black Doctor run around without trousers on, in nothing but his pants and a shirt, is not okay. The fact that the moment he exists he's also comforting the white Doctor is also not okay. This show has had a very bad habit of treating Black characters like disposable comic relief who only exist to support the white characters, and never has that been more blatant than with the new Doctor, played by Ncuti Gatwa. I shouldn't have to explain to you that it's a racist stereotype that Black people only exist to serve the needs of white people around them, not just physically, but emotionally. Black people, when not portrayed as violent thugs, are shoved into the role of "shoulder to cry on" and "therapist friend" constantly, most infamously with the "mammy stereotype", which you can open google and look for if you don't already know. The first Black Doctor should not immediately be falling into racist stereotypes by not only being upstaged by the most popular white Doctor to come before him, but literally made to cater to this white man's whims the second he starts existing, comforting and coddling him like a child, and all the while? He has no trousers on and is half naked, and literally stays that way for the entirety of his first episode. If you want this show to NOT be filled with nothing but antiblack stereotypes, you NEED to hire Black sensitivity readers to go over white people's work. This failure to do so in 2023 is making Doctor Who racist again, and it is unacceptable. You will not get any credit for hiring a Black person to play the Doctor if his entire run is filled with white people's favorite modern racist stereotypes. Learn what racist stereotypes look like, listen to Black people, hire Black sensitivity readers, and do better. It's going to be 2024 in just a few weeks. This is a requirement for your show not being racist. 

If you're also upset about the racism being showcased in literally just the first episode of Ncuti Gatwa's run as the Doctor, send in a complaint here and tell them to get their shit together.

[sexy-sapphic-sorcerer]

Fifteen immediately changing the TARDIS to warm toned lighting is such a mood

[malachitebeck]

SPOILERS FOR DOCTOR WHO: THE GIGGLE (Also, Spoilers, I get a little serious and introspective under here. Shit's a bit of an essay.)

I will be the first to admit I have not engaged with Doctor Who as a franchise in a good few years. I stopped watching the series regularly around the end of Matt Smith's run, and while I tried to engage with Jodie Whittaker's season, the confusing release schedule meant that I lost that motivation and quickly let go.

But when I saw the initial trailers for these three anniversary specials, I will admit they likely had the exact effect on me they were probably meant to; drawing me, a wandering former fan, like a moth back towards the flame of the series as it was entering a new era of streaming partnerships and a boosted budget.

And while I enjoyed the first two specials and actually found them to be rather nostalgic in their own way, the ending of the third special has left an admittedly poor taste in my mouth that I can't sit with quietly. I usually don't make posts like this, but there's a first time for everything right?

I will admit, first and foremost, that The Giggle was not the story I had expected going in. I didn't know a lot about the Classic Episodes (or, well, episode) the Toymaker was coming from, and as a result was swept up in an intriguing fan fervor that posited the episode was going to take on a kind of meta-textual horror; addressing the fires that destroyed the film reels of the majority of the episodes in an in-universe fashion, depicting the Toymaker as this haunting entity the Doctor was struggling to remember.

Suffice to say the episode was not that. But I am not sitting down to write all of this simply because the episode took on a more... stale commentative approach to the internet and social media that didn't live up to the version I had constructed in my head. The creative team was never under any obligation to do so, obviously.

I'm writing this because of Ncuti Gatwa.

For a brief moment, when the characters were out on the helipad(?) of the UNIT building, I had what I thought was an epiphany. "This has been about Ncuti all along," I thought, "this approach to talking about internet discourse is a bit stale, sure, but allegorically it's trying to critically talk about the response to Ncuti's casting. Surely that's why they took this angle, it just didn't stick the landing."

I thought this because the regeneration was happening right at the climax of the Toymaker's speech about why he loved humanity and our worst "21st century" aspects, and because Mel, in the moment the Doctor was regenerating, took the time to hold his hand, smile, and remark that "all of your faces are fantastic."

In that moment, I tried to give the series the benefit of the doubt. I tried to believe that, while clumsy, they were teeing up the start of Gatwa's era by holding up a mirror to their own fanbase, trying to coax them into reflecting on the vitriol that they put him through, especially in the British Press and on social media.

But then the Doctor didn't regenerate. He Bi-Generated.

Immediately the common trope of the regeneration is tossed on its head. Gatwa and Tennant were on screen, together- defeating the Toymaker as a triumphant pair. Rather than going through the motions I was accustomed to in every regeneration I had seen previously, where the new Doctor is alone, adjusting sharply to their circumstances and needing to struggle for a moment to get their feet back under them before ultimately still winning the day and establishing themselves as as capable as they ever were; Gatwa was not only not alone, but was immediately being depicted as if he had simply always been there, not questioning the position he was in, not needing time to recover, just. Moving. Going.

But I thought perhaps this was just going to be fleeting. The concept of Bi-Generation being a myth of the Gallifreyan people and thus fair game to be invoked by the energy the Toymaker exuded was hastily explained, and since it had apparently never happened I thought there would be drawbacks, side effects. I was quickly constructing a reasonable way the show could still give Gatwa his space, his moment.

Then the fight ended. Tennant was still standing, triumphant and fine, and looked to be utterly unchanged. Still the Doctor in every physical aspect. He's being comforted, even, by Gatwa- the newly formed Doctor, usually the one reeling, is painted as being so utterly fine that he's able to be the shoulder 14 can use to lean on.

I continue to try to make excuses. As the scene in the TARDIS begins, sure I find it jarring that the 15th Doctor is comforting the 14th on mental health struggles he should reasonably also have, but they are trying to construct an out for Tennant. They've never done this before, but it's clearly setting up a kind of retirement- they want to give Tennant a unique sendoff, want to give the character a permanent resting place in the form of one final "adventure", the adventure of a normal human life with Donna.

But then Ncuti grabbed the fucking hammer. And it all started to sink in for me.

Not only was the 14th Doctor not gone, but he was still in a relatively vague position in the story. The final scene of him in the garden is nice, in theory, but the TARDIS, his own copy of the TARDIS that he magically had made for him, is quite literally looming in the background- reminding the audience that this is all potentially fleeting. Rose and Mel joke about 14 breaking his promises to slow down by sneaking away to take them on small adventures, and it just utterly hit me in that moment, that someone at the BBC, someone responsible for writing or maintaining Doctor Who as a titan of British Popular Culture, did not trust Ncuti Gatwa.

Because even if the fan response to this decision that I have seen thus far online has been positive, it's positive for a reason, and I am being kind when I say this, that I find disheartening. There are excited thoughts about what Tennant might get to do in the near future; thoughts of a potential UNIT series where he gets to star, appearances in the main series, his own spin-off as The Doctor.

But that's just it, isn't it? He's still the Doctor. In every way he is still there, in the universe. For now we are shown the character is at rest, has found peace, but even he admits that he doesn't think it will last, and neither does Donna, the other person supposedly trying to convince him to slow down and heal.

In the long tradition of the role of the Doctor, a tradition being commemorated through this very string of episodes, the role has been treated in a way like principal characters in a Broadway show. Each actor gets a special night to enter into the spotlight, the chance to make it their own for as long as they wish, and a fond sendoff the moment they decide they're ready for something else. The actors are not crossing paths, not really- not unless it is in a format meant to highlight their times in the role, something predicated on the idea that each of them, as independent beings who occupied it for a certain unique amount of time, are worthy of their proverbial flowers in their own right. They each make up the long canon of the role, but were each, individually, allowed to play it all on their own.

In this metaphor, Ncuti Gatwa has been double billed. In a history of this role being occupied by one actor, one at a time, he is the only one who is entering it with the previous actor still lingering- waiting in the wings, ready to be summoned on stage at any moment should the producers decide it would make things more interesting. He is not being trusted to carry the role on his own merits, intentionally or not. He, the first black man to ever occupy this role, is having the rules changed on him- and is acting out a story wherein his character is happy to accept that fact, is the one to grab the cartoon mallet from the floorboards and break the TARDIS in two, literally severing every iconic aspect of the character he should be allowed to embody all on his own into another person, who is literally handed a tool by the narrative to crop back up whenever he'd like.

In the scene on the helipad of the UNIT building, I thought I had had an epiphany. I thought what I was watching was an allegorical condemnation of an aspect of the fanbase that had refused to accept any actor who wasn't white occupying such a famous role in British Television history. I thought what I was watching was setting up something for Gatwa, was rolling out this metaphorical carpet for him to enter his first season on, bolstered by the fact he was being allegorically supported by former companions and a Doctor so adored they brought him back twice.

But what I was actually seeing, whether or not Davies or anyone else thought this aspect of it through, was that very thought process, that very hatred, being softly placated. That those vocal members of the British public and the audience at large were being told, "Not to worry! He's not the only Doctor," Wittingly or unwittingly utterly undermining Gatwa's run from the very start.

Simply put, the Doctor is a communal role, but not a role that has ever been shared. And this Special choosing now as a time to start? Left a deeply sour taste in my mouth. For now I will attempt to be hopeful, will tune in for Gatwa's Christmas Special and hope to all hopes he is given the moment in the spotlight he deserves... but if they lead Tennant out of the wings to thunderous applause? I only hope that my thoughts on the matter will make you all second guess clapping along.

[davidtennan-t]

*THE GIGGLE ENDING SPOILERS*

EVERYONE STOP WHAT YOU’RE DOING

I’ve just read the novelisation of the Giggle and the ending has me on my knees - it goes into much more detail than the show so guess what

THE DOCTOR BOUGHT THAT HOUSE

THAT IS HIS HOUSE

He chose it, he went to an estate agents and said ‘I want this pretty house’, offered them £60, then rang Kate Stewart and discovered he was getting paid by UNIT this whole time, was able to afford the house/mortgage and BOUGHT THAT HOUSE

The Nobles still have a house in London but they STAY WITH THE DOCTOR NEARLY ALL THE TIME

He chose the house with a sunroom so WILF COULD LIVE DOWNSTAIRS COMFORTABLY

[thebootstrap-paradox]

The face of a woman who has her best friend back, her memories back, an open UNIT job with 5 weeks holiday on a £120K salary, a husband, a daughter, a TARDIS… DONNA NOBLE YOU WON