#anti rtd

[leikeliscomet]

(Reposting from twitter)

My POV as a Black fan that thinks Dot and Bubble's racism commentary is trash

Rewatched Dot and Bubble and I'm gonna break down from my POV as a Black fan why this episode didn't work for me & why it's an awful racism commentary. Long arse post incoming:

The whole "You should've noticed the cast was all white except for fifteen ha your bias is showing" doesn't work for a show that's been predominantly white for 60+ years. D&B casting has been the default for most of the show so its not abnormal enough to be a racial litmus test. An example is the Matt Smith era The only reoccurring character of colour in s5 (2+ appearances) is Liz 10. Artie n Angie in s7. 0 in s6. RTD's own era isn't fully safe either. For many eps Martha or Mickey are the *only* Black characters. Most POC are side characters or extras.

White fans should be aware of the predominantly white casting of the show but this late in the game feels cheap. Most of the show has gone through 100% white episodes including fan faves and it was never an issue back then bc it was beneficial. This is so hollow. Representing racists as cartoon caricatures SEVERLY underestimates the danger of white supremacy irl. White supremacy is system designed and constructed and rebranded over centuries. It is not accidental. People aren't racist bc they don't know they're racist because they *do* They know the system that oppresses POC, Black people especially, benefits them socially and financially and that is why they participate. Its not stupidity it's intention. That should've been the Finetime core not Lindy goofing around bc the arrows are gone or some shit.

Human Nature showed us racist young people that exercised this power bc they knew this. They may be children but they are still dangerous bc of their views. Martha knew this. The silly tech obsessed gen z angle erases this danger and that of actual gen z white supremacy

Instead of the camp goofy tone we could've gotten a serious focused episode. The slugs and millenial/gen z social media silly distracts from what could've been the main theme of colonisation instead of saving it for 10 mins of exposition at the end & scattering microaggressions. Saving Fifteen's racism scene for a goofy episode was a horrid idea. Spending 30 mins on representing racism as silliness then giving a dramatic dangerous score is the definition of tonal whiplash. Representing his oppressor as a blonde bimbo again does not take this seriously. Fifteen went to 1960s BRITAIN & got through it unscathed. Finetime is a fictional futuristic land but the racism of 1960s Britain was real. If anytime was right it could've been Devil's Chord. Distancing yourself from a panto villain is easy but addressing your history is hard.

The scene itself is incredibly performed so I'll give Ncuti his flowers but what he used this skill for could've been so much more. Having his FIRST SCENE begging to save a racist is disgusting. It isn't Black people's responsibility to show compassion to people that want us dead. Yes the Doctor helps the baddies bc they care. But they're aren't ignorant to prejudice. The liberal anti racism of who is so jarring and why I still think Thin Ice is performative. When white people are angry at injustice it's radical. When it's Black people we're aggressive.

Respectability politics is a tool of white supremacy. That if one pleads and is nice enough they can earn liberation. What would white fans think of Fifteen if he DIDN'T beg Lindy? If your allyship with Black people depends on showing kindness to racists you are NOT an ally.

Next up is Ricky. It was established ALL Finetime citizens have white supremacist views yet Ricky September stans refuse to see him in any negative light. Just like Joan Redfern white dw fans refuse to see racism if a character is likeable. If nice guy Ricky's a racist, then anyone no matter the niceness can be racist too and that's a pill white fans aren't ready to swallow. If racism is systemic and not about individual character, then what's keeping them safe? What happens when YOU are under the microscope.

THIS is why we NEED Black writers in Doctor Who. The nuances, depth and complexity of the Black experience can only be told at it's best by Black creatives and not guessed, assumed or spoken over by white fans and white writers. It's okay to put ego aside and say you don't get it.

"Im white but I loved the Doctor's reaction" "I'm white and i thought the racism commentary was great" "I'm white but i-" Yet again, we have to sit through another round of white and non Black fans of colour dictating Black representation for us. I'm so fucking tired man. AGAIN IM YELLING FROM MY HILLTOP TO WATCH SHOWS BY BLACK WRITERS. Almost EVERY single theme in Dot and Bubble and frankly most of the show has been done WAY better in other media. RTD is not the authority on Black stories. We are. Always have been and always will.

Tl;dr Dot and Bubble is an unserious and tacky racism commentary. It's core message is drowned by more RTD Who camp. Don't tell me this episode was good at representating my own experience. It wasn't. S15 having Black writers isn't a need it's a must. Goodbye.

Reblog this version pls

[praxeus-13]

There’s something so heartbreaking about watching your favourite parts of a tv show, the parts that you have loved for years and found so much joy in, being misunderstood, forgotten and erased by it’s predecessors.

13’s beautiful TARDIS interior, and sonic screwdriver erased to make way for nostalgia.

13’s clothes, her entire outfit, burnt up never to be seen again without any explanation.

Yaz, who 13 was in love with, who she wanted to tell everything to and spend the rest of her days with, not even mentioned - not even hinted at!

13’s character, her core personality traits and storyline reduced to ‘woman Doctor’ and fundamentally misunderstood!

13’s fam, the family that she found and built, not even mentioned or reminisced about!

I’m glad that the Timeless Child wasn’t erased, but I feel like so much else was that RTD didn’t properly watch 13’s era. It’s like he was given a summary and only took the parts that he thought was interesting.

13’s memory deserves better! She deserves to have passed on the baton to Ncuti’s Doctor, to have him running around high on regeneration energy while wearing her outfit! To use her sonic for an episode before choosing to make his own!

13 deserves to be remembered as a Doctor who was loved dearly by her companions and fans, as a Doctor who went through so much tragedy right from the start and struggled to deal with that, but still managed to face down her foes! As a someone who was optimistic and kind, but could also be cruel and harsh when needed! She was complicated, she went through so much, I love her and she will always be my Doctor.

She deserves to be remembered as more than ‘woman Doctor’, because she was so much more than that.

[paulrobinsonshotel]

It's been two years since The Power of the Doctor, and on my rewatch, the clothes change bothers me even more now than it did then. It's the absolute worst example of faux progressivism in Doctor Who.

"We can't show a man in women's clothes because it will cause mockery of drag."

So we should now avoid showing anything that will earn the ire of right wing bigots? Should we now only show straight white males and females dressed in gendered clothing and acting out traditional gender roles? (And maybe, just maybe, if you're worried about people mocking drag, don't cast a drag queen as a villain a few episodes later).

I'm not a believer in tradition by any means, but I've always loved seeing the new Doctor in the old Doctor's clothes. It feels like the essence of the previous incarnation is still there as the new incarnation's personality forms. In The Woman Who Fell to Earth Jodie not only wears Peter's outfit, but actively keeps putting his coat back on until encouraged to change by Yaz.

While I was hoping we wouldn't go straight back to a male Doctor straight after Jodie and would get a good few female incarnations after her, in the back of my mind I thought when the next male Doctor eventually came I was looking forward to seeing him in a female Doctor's outfit. But instead we get this. Jodie can wear Peter's outfit and respect his legacy and continue his character journey, but RTD won't allow David to do the same.

The worst thing about all this is that Jodie designed her outfit so it would be as gender neutral as possible, so that anyone could dress up the Thirteenth Doctor and feel included. But RTD decided to stick his middle finger up at that because he didn't want his cool manly hero to wear a "woman's" outfit.

I hate it with a passion.

(Everything by the Thirteenth Doctor era team was great though).

[aletterinthenameofsanity]

I would like to thank RTD for making so many people look back at Thirteen's Era and start to go "you know what? Maybe we judged the writing too harshly on this one." Maybe it is a good idea to bring in new writers and more women and people of color behind the scenes and allow them to write and direct things like Demons of the Punjab (top 5 ever Doctor Who episode) and the Haunting of Villa Diodati and Fugitive of the Judoon. Maybe Thirteen WAS camp, because the universe who decided to be a frog and the mud that did witchcraft and the Pting and the plastic that ate birds were unhinged and fun. Maybe we got some GORGEOUS cinematography out of it. Maybe Thirteen's take on gender is more interesting than the 60th anniversary specials. Maybe Yaz DID get an arc in the Flux/standalone specials and people just didn't pay attention. Maybe the Power of the Doctor paid more respect to former eras of Doctor Who than any of the 60th anniversary specials did. Maybe Chibnall acted with far more grace to the RTD Era (Jack) than RTD did to Chibnall (treatment of Yaz and Thirteen). Maybe it was actually cool to see less well-known or underexplored historical figures like Mary Seacole and Ada Lovelace and Nikola Tesla and Noor Inayat Khan end up onscreen. Maybe Thasmin wasn't queerbait, it was an interesting exploration of the doctor/companion romance IN KEEPING with Thirteen's established character with one of its keystone episodes written by a queer woman.

Yes, Chibnall was flawed. I'm never gonna pretend that the Battle of Ranskoor Av Kalos wasn't a piss poor finale that felt like a first draft of themes and idea. I'm not gonna pretend like the multiple companions in the TARDIS ever felt properly balanced or explored. Yes, the moment with the Master and the Nazis was FUCKED UP. The Timeless Child might have deserved more than one episode for the ImplicationsTM to be fleshed out. But EVERY Doctor Who Era has its flaws, ESPECIALLY when it comes to racism, and I'm TIRED pretending as if Chibnall's writing is significantly worse than the other two showrunners.

[nightmanatee]

But almost completely absent from the upfront festivities was Doctor Who, the iconic British sci-fi series that Disney+ now co-produces with the BBC following what was undoubtedly one of the biggest global TV show deals of the past decade. Doctor Who was handed a minor bit of real estate at the North Javits, but its lack of front-and-center placement may spin a yarn about the series’ position in the Disney priority log nearly three years on from the deal being struck.

Noises that it may not last beyond its initial two seasons are already reverberating around international TV circles, and one source close to the production tells us that they feel its future hangs in the balance already. Disney, the BBC, and co-producers BBC Studios and Bad Wolf all declined Deadline’s interview requests for this article.

“I thought it was a mixed bag,” says Tony Jordan, Society Co-ordinator of the 30,000-strong Doctor Who Appreciation Society, who says this feeling broadly reflects that of the mega fans he speaks with regularly. “When Russell’s return was announced I thought, ‘That’s fantastic’ but maybe I remembered the good stuff and chose to forget the not so good stuff. His track record of ending seasons with two parters has been widely varying in success, for example.”

When consolidated seven-day viewing figures were taken into account, the entire series averaged an audience down almost 1.5 million per episode compared to Whittaker’s last in 2021, according to Barb data supplied by overnights.tv, while it failed to light up Barb’s daily seven-day streaming rankings, which were at the time dominated by the likes of Baby Reindeer and Clarkson’s Farm, and evergreens such as EastEnders.

One of our sources close to the production believes Disney will “need to make a decision” on its future relationship with the show soon after The War Between the Land and the Sea wraps, and this could have a bearing on how long the in-demand Gatwa ... this source predicts the final episode has been left open-ended, with the possibility remaining that Gatwa could regenerate into his successor if he chooses to exit. Gatwa’s agents hadn’t responded to Deadline’s request for comment by press time.

take it with a grain of salt but not only is gatwa not sure if he wants to stay in the show, not only the ratings keep dropping down (i hate talking about them but maybe disney isn't), not only is disney now in doubt but the whole "lets bring back old showrunner old actors old writers etc etc and make a deal with a big mouse" is not a... good idea???

wow who (me) could've thought.

[juviavevo]

the day russell t davies learns to let go of tennant’s doctor for once or not treat his black characters like secondary compared to his white ones is the day hell freezes over

[phyrexian-lesbian]

Thasmin is a built up gay relationship with intricacies and lots of thought. Timerogue is two random men thrown together for one 40 minute episode.

[the-desolated-quill]

Okay, listen guys. We are NOT going to pull a Sherlock Series 4 and start coming up with bullshit conspiracy theories to convince ourselves that Empire Of Death was secretly good all along. It was shit. End of. The Ruby mystery was a giant nothingburger, Series 14 as a whole was shallow and performative, and RTD would rather disappear up his own arsehole than actually listen to constructive feedback. And even if there were a future episode that would somehow make all of this bullshit make sense, it still would not justify RTD wasting our fucking time.

Oh and as for Mrs Flood, she can fuck off back to Albert Square. Giving us yet another doomsday prophecy this early in the new Doctor’s run is absolutely taking the piss, and I for one could not care less who she is.

We need a new showrunner. And I mean a new showrunner. Not an old showrunner or one of the old showrunner’s mates. A new showrunner with new ideas and a new perspective. Unless something changes behind the scenes, nothing is going to get better. Doctor Who is clearly not working anymore, and if RTD and the BBC refuse to see that, then frankly the show deserves cancellation.

[13thdoctorposts]

RTD: Its really important I protect David from being accused of drag or for doing a disservice of drag by regenerating into Jodies gender neutral costume because David doesn't deserve to have to put up with the media writing articles about him in a negative way about gender neutral clothing that both a woman and a man in the show wore they will just say they are women's clothes so I'm going to burn it out of existence and make sure David is safe. Because people with Davids level of privilege and power need protection more than anyone, so I will protect David at all cost from having to do the thing everyone is expecting of the Doctor regenerating into the Doctors clothes. I'm just such a good caring guy protecting one of my leads.

Also RTD: Oh the Media are running with the narrative that my 19 year old female co lead was axed/dropped due to poor and unacceptable behaviour on set? That its weird and so must be true because companions usually do more then 1 series even though I've often only had them in 1 series, that not only was she axed they also announced my new companion while dragging the one who's first series still hasn't aired through the mud trying to ruin her career. Well I think we should just stay quiet, fuck her mental well being or career, lets not put out a press release refuting the claims or respond to any of the media's question's and just let her have to fend for herself when it comes time to do the media rounds for season 1, lets just leave this as her problem, I shouldn't have to deal with this even those it clearly leaked from my company or the BBC that she had a reduced role in season 2 and as show runner the buck stops with me, but fuck that, leave it as her problem. Why should I care if her face is planted across the internet, newsagents and super markets saying disparaging things about her?

If people can't see the misogyny in RTDs behaviour at this point they are choosing to be blind.

Also we can contrast this with Chibnall, in an interview he talked about how the media calls up trying to create stories and how they called him up and said they heard the the crew had walked off set because Jodie was making them work to 2am... he said his response was well I will call the journalist and tell them we were on night shoots people were schedule to work till 4 am they all love Jodie and we can send you the schedules to prove people were scheduled on. Thats how you protect people.

But let's all remember how RTD is he greatest person to ever live and Chibs is the bad guy. 🙄 So glad Jodie and Mandip got to work under Chibs and not RTD.

[oreo102]

Ruby could’ve been SO FUN. I love character’s whose importance comes not from themselves or their family but from the circumstances they find themselves in and the people they surround themselves with. Ruby being important and powerful because of the importance people put on her, because of how she met the doctor would’ve been interesting.

Making Ruby inherently entwined with Christmas because it’s the day she was born, because everyone says she is, making the music in her soul a famous Christmas song because everyone thinks that’s what it should be would’ve been interesting.

Ruby’s important coming from the doctor and her mom, and everyone else who has put that importance on her, would be interesting.

If they had worked that angle from the start. Don’t make her birth a mystery and if you do don’t hype it up so much, make her importance slowly gain traction throughout the story until she IS powerful and important, make something happen to make her so, make it happen because the doctor, this new face, so regretful of yaz not knowing anything about them(yes I found a way to work her into this) they infodump immediately, this new face that latches to the first person he sees, a blonde 19 year old, a 19 year old putting themselves in danger for others, vowing to change the past, to not hurt this one.

Make is happen because he begs the universe for the past to stop repeating and for once the universe allows it to. Let 15’s love and trauma influence how Ruby is perceived, let it influence the world around them to inflate her importance until it’s true. Let Ruby be in danger and for the doctor’s feelings, the regret and hurt and love and hope, influence the universe enough for Ruby to BECOME what everyone is saying she is.

[lariskapargitay]

Rose- Something a male presenting Timelord wouldn’t understand *smirks in Gen Alpha*

14- … For the last thousand or so years I constantly had to assert myself when people said the Doctor couldn’t be a woman, I had to kneel in front of a man in public and call him Master, I had my personal space violated WAY more than I ever had as a man, I was tied to a goddam post in a very sexual way to maximize my gendered humiliation, I got talked about how my form is ‘amusing’, I got hit on when I was trying to figure out ghosts, and oh yeah, little thing, hardly worth mentioning, but they TRIED ME AS A FUCKING WITCH AND TRIED TO MURDER ME JUST BC I WAS A WOMAN WHO WAS INTELLIGENT!!! But yeah no, I definitely don’t understand the pains of being a woman, you got me.

[leikeliscomet]

Im just gonna say it: the exact same argument about series 11 having a woman playing the Doctor but w/ inconsistent politic & fake activism applies to series 14 & a lil of RTD2 in general but in Black. Respectability politics & flimsy anti racism all over the shop

It thinks futuristic racism corrects racism "being a thing of the past" but then actively erases said racism of Britain's past. Twice. Not only that but it glorifies the 60s & regency period. Does "powerful" white supremacy commentary then slaps a regency wig on 15's head 😭

It should go without saying that 1960s & 1800s Britain wasnt some post racial utopia. The show would rather make these periods more progressive than they really were instead of telling the stories of the POC living there or hell, show us history outside of 'the West'

It treats the dehumanisation of Black people as an inevitable part of future society. Fifteen has to be a perfect non violent victim of racism but can fridge the goblin king & the chuldur easy. Racism can/must exist but fighting back or having any reaction to ur oppressor can't.

The gag is RTD understands racial oppression when it affects *him* tho. The oppression of the Welsh is acknowledged in present day Earth bc it's a real part of history. Its addressed again in 2046 bc it's still relevent in the future. & did Ruby save Roger? No she got him gone!

It sanitises its own history. The Doctor has called out racial supremacy, human or not since day. And no they didn't always save *everyone*. Against the establishment to begging it & partying with it too apparently. Rosa has issues but at least it was hopeful...

It treats Fifteen as a white character made Black which has weird implications for a non human being from a "post racial" society. Thirteen wasn't a "human woman" but she still had the agency to call out every misogynist she met. Lawd forbid she cried over Jack Robertson 😭

Despite having a Black Doctor they're written for a white audience. 'It's not about Black people, its about white people' sealed the deal. It treats their Blackness as circumstantial & not something they'll have to deal with regardless of time period playing it safe & palatable

This 1 should be self explanatory. If Donna's seen the Doctor's mind then she knows Fugitive Doctor exists so yes the Doctor comes in a range of different colours 🤪🤪 And again if he's not a human Black man but an alien then why is it a surprise that he can change race? Ugh...

Isaac Newton wasn't that deep bc he's only there for the mavity gag but it opened a fuck ton of racism towards Nathaniel Curtis & antiblackness bc the racists camping the tag thought he was Black. 'Owning the right 🤪' at the expense of POC in the show & fandom. Great job there..

RTD made the point of the Toymaker being racist then keeps him anyway? Takes a jab about cultural appropriation in Pyramids of Mars then based the finale on it anyway w/ Sutekh? Not even entertaining the Black Guardian ting. Like what's the point of any of this? It feels so fake.

Carla's not as egregious as the previous but apart from RTD copying & posting her name from Clyde's mum in SJA, she doesn't get a lot to do outside supporting Ruby's storyline. S14 then ends with Ruby calling her bio mum her "real" mum so her serving role didn't mean much anyway

The Giggle was the 1st flag bc it conflated all political related anger as bad bc it's anger instead of love 😫✊🏻without *single* look at why the current political climate is the way that it is. Pandemic, genocides, climate change & govt corruption yh ppl will be angry Russell 🥴

Series 11 at least gets to gas itself up for having women write for the 1st female Doctor and having Black and South Asian writers for the first time in the show's history (which isn't a great achievement but ah well)

Series 14 doesn't have that to its credit.

Black woman who only exists to boost white characters stories, racism stories that don't give their Black characters full agency & 0 follow up of their experiences only this time w/ no Black writers. Same tings different font. What improvement was made exactly?

Tl;Dr - We have the 1st Black Doctor in the main lineup but this series handles race and racism poorly. There's barely any improvement from how race was handled in RTD1 and his handling of Black characters in Years & Years and It's a Sin hasn't been brought over. 🥴

[bingqiv]

hundred percent believe that if moffat or chibnall had written that finale more fans would be willingly to admit that it was shit.

[paulrobinsonshotel]

Steven Moffat

Gives Ten an equally important role to Eleven in his anniversary special, Makes RTD's Time War central to the episode's storyline, and resolves it in a way that doesn't undermine Nine and Ten's character arcs, gives Billie Piper a major role without infringing on Rose's storyline, gives Paul McGann the regeneration story he deserves, gets Tom Baker back on the show one last time, and gives us one very brief, tantalising tease of the next Doctor. And all this was while having no actors under contract, and BBC executives constantly interfering.

Chris Chibnall

Used his final story to bring back two beloved companions from the classic era, and gives them closure with their respective Doctors. Brings back several Classic Doctors and the Fugitive Doctor to aid Thirteen in her final battle, and revealed that companions from throughout the Doctor's life have been getting together and supporting each other, as they will now do for Yaz. And this was in the aftermath of the pandemic, and at a point when a new showrunner couldn't be found, with no idea what future the show had.

Russell T Davies

After getting near complete creative control of the show in time for the 60th anniversary, burns the Thirteenth Doctor's outfit away, immediately pivots back to his Doctor and his companion, with just some old villains to represent the other 55 years of the show. Doesn't bring back any other elements from the show's history until the third episode, and even then, has Mel and Kate play second fiddle to his characters. Doubles down on the self-indulgence of The End of Time by refusing to have Tennant regenerate at all, uses the Fifteenth Doctor's introduction to give Ten a happy ending rather than letting Ncuti Gatwa define his character on his own terms as every one of his predecessors has done. And writes the Nobles (his characters once again) as the one true found family the Doctor needs, as though the Ponds and River and Clara and the Fam were just passing acquaintances.

Two of these are constantly accused of trying to undermine the show and making it all about themselves. I'll let you decide which one it isn't.

[aletterinthenameofsanity]

Empire of Death and Adoption: A RANT

You know what? I'm not over it. I don't think I'm ever gonna be over it.

I (semi-jokingly) said after Yaz was ignored and the complicated relationship Thirteen had with gender was boiled down and ignored to two or three flippant mentions of it in The Star Beast where the Doctor seemed to have NO understanding of the complexities of gender that it seemed that Rusty had not seen Thirteen's era. That he had read a summary of events and rolled with it.

Now, after the way that adoption was treated in Empire Death, I'm dead fucking certain that he didn't. And that if he did, he didn't understand the emotional core of those stories.

As someone who is adopted, I'm gonna be honest. I'm pissed with the way that it was handled in Empire of Death after how it was handled in the Timeless Child arc. Now, I'm not some consummate Timeless Child defender or anything, I still have mixed feelings about the twist, but the way that it was handled by the Doctor I really did like. The way that the Doctor had questions and wanted to know the truth about herself and was furious that she had been lied to but that after thinking about it and figuring herself out a bit, put aside the fob watch with her memories aside because what mattered, what had always mattered, was what she made of herself. What the Doctor had always made of themself, the family that they built, patchwork and broken but still so desperately, fiercely loved.

And then in Empire of Death it's all about Ruby finding her "real mom." Not her bio mom. Her real mom. And it fucking spat in the face of not just the Timeless Child arc but every found family theme echoed throughout Doctor Who before it. Sarah Jane telling the Doctor that he had the biggest family in the world. The Doctor's "fam." Every moment where the Doctor's family became these humans and their short, beautiful lives and the family that they made for themself.

You can have multiple real parents. I have an adoptive parent and step-parents and a mom who both birthed and raised me and all of these people are real parents. All of them matter because they all make me me.

Get the fuck out of here with that reductive "real parent is bio parent" bullshit, AND CALLING CARLA HER FOSTER MUM INSTEAD OF HER ADOPTIVE MOM EVEN THOUGH SHE IS ADOPTED, ESPECIALLY SINCE IT REDUCES HER BLACK ADOPTIVE MOTHER BENEATH HER WHITE BIOLOGICAL MOTHER, TELL ME YOU DIDN'T PAY ATTENTION TO THE THEMES OF THE DOT AND BUBBLE EPISODE YOU SAID YOU CARED ABOUT RUSTY.

[mariemariemaria]

the way christopher eccleston was right about rtd lmao