#honestly it’s my favourite thing about tennants doctor in the best and worst of ways lmao

[ae0nx]

Fourteenth Doctor: Donna can’t remember me, if she remembers me her mind will burn up and she will die ‼️‼️‼️

Later on: Fourteenth Doctor immediately runs to Donna’s yells, gleefully shows off his timelord skills of resonating concrete to Donna and fam and trying to talk to Donna more because he can’t help himself 🤷🏾‍♀️

[bambiesque]

New thread for Eccleston!Doctor.

Warning: Rose is not one of my favourite characters so be aware I do get critcial.

Episode: Rose - Not a bad start to the new era. Some parts are way too serious and others are beyond ridiculous - so no change there then. Eccleston!Doctor is a good mix of fun and bastard.

Episode: The End of the World - I enjoyed the beginning and the end. There are times I think Rose is lovely and times I think she's insufferable. I think it works better if you treat the first two episodes as one long story.

Episode: The Unquiet Dead - A great, spooky ghost story with all round excellent performances from the whole cast. I like Rose in this one and not entirely because of the pretty dress.

Episode: Aliens of London / World War Three - I do love Jackie. She would have made a fantastic companion. Eccleston!Doctor is a complete bastard in this one. Penelope Wilton is way too good for this. Mickey and Jackie are the best things about this episode.

Episode: Dalek - I enjoyed the Dalek having to come to terms with emotion and choosing to stay true to its Dalekness. I don't really like the whole "last time lord" thing. The whole time war leaves me cold.

Episode: The Long Game - Anna Maxwelll Martin <3 I love her. The rest is a bit boring. Adam is as pointless as Kamelion.

Episode: Father's Day - I liked this one, mostly Shaun Dingwell and Camille Coduri. I don't for a second believe the Doctor would take anyone to watch their dad dying no matter how much they begged.

Episode: The Empty Child - The best episode of the season. A great balance of creepy and funny, excellent introduction for Jack. Nancy is incredible. No notes.

Episode: The Doctor Dances - I think what I like most about this is that there isn't a bad guy. It's a lovely story with a wonderful ending.

Episode: Boom Town - I can do without this love triangle (quuntangle?) stuff. I can also do without the Slitheen in general.

Episode: Bad Wolf - There is a quote in The West Wing that goes "When you use pop-culture references, your speech has a shelf life of twelve minutes." It's hard not to think of that when watching this. Outside of the games it's a lot better. Yay the Daleks are back!

Episode: The Parting of the Ways - "The Oncoming Storm" - please wait while I collect my eyeballs, they rolled right out of my head. I really did like Lynda; I wish we could have kept her. And so this is another story where the Doctor ends up doing not much in the end, except regenerating. Hello, Tennant!Doctor.

Eccleston!Doctor Era Round-up

I have a lot of issues with the Time War and wiping out the Time Lords - there's a lot more scope for stuff to do with them around after all. Eccleston!Doctor is a weird mix of deadly serious and very silly, swinging around wildly much like the CBaker!Doctor and McCoy!Doctor eras did, honestly. It's not one of the best or the worst.

Favourite Companion: Jack

Least favourite Companion: Adam

Favourite Serial: The Empty Child

Least Favourite Serial: The Long Game

Current Doctor standings

Davison

Pertwee

TBaker

CBaker

McCoy

Troughton

McGann

Eccleston

Hartnell

Current Top 10 Companions (no change Jack goes in at 25 and Rose at 27 out of 31)

Jo Grant

Tegan Jovanka

Barbara Wright

Vislor Turlough

Sarah Jane Smith

Nyssa of Traken

Brigadier Lethbridge Stewart

Leela

Romana II

Zoe

Unpopular fandom opinion time:

I don't like Rose Tyler.

I remember being pretty pleased with her when I watched the first new episode back in 2005 but that quickly disappeared. It's not Billie Piper's fault - she's a good actress and I loved her in the 50th. I've spent a long time wondering why I dislike her as much as I do, when I don't dislike any of the other New Who companions.

And, I think it comes down to the amount of importance the show itself places on her. In 60 years of Doctor Who, no companion was more or less important than any of the others, from the programme's own perspective. They come and they go - maybe the public loves them or hates them - but to the show and the Doctor, they are all the most important person. The Doctor doesn't love Jo more than Sarah Jane or Romana more than Adric. They all have different relationships - some are closer than others, but none are invaluable.

Which comes from the nature of the show itself. Doctor Who is based on a premise of change. Companions come and go. The Doctor and the Master regenerate. It can go on forever because that was written into it's lore from the first time someone wanted to leave.

For me personally, this makes it difficult to take romantic relationships between a being hundreds or thousands of years old and humanoids that live a hundred at most, seriously. Because as soon as you start saying "the Doctor is in love with this person" where do you go? They can't stay together forever, the companion will eventually have to leave and the Doctor will eventually have to regenerate.

That's not to say that I don't ship the Doctor with anyone - I do, with several different characters, I've commented on them in my posts - but it's something that for me works better in fanfiction than on screen.

Because I don't want love triangles where the Doctor gazes moonily at his companion when she goes to have dinner with her boyfriend. I don't want the Doctor treating his next companion like shit because he's still heartbroken over the last one.

So, try as I might, I can't like Rose Tyler, because to me she's not the most important character in the history of Doctor Who and the show's insistence that she is just makes my dislike everything about it.

[liamgalgey]

Overall, I’m just kind of disappointed in the politics of Doctor Who this year.

In terms of quality, I thought the show was pretty good.  It’s a step down from recent years, to be sure.  Chibnall simply isn’t as good of a writer as Moffat or Davies.  But I still enjoyed it.  I thought the back half of the season was far better than the front half and I loved Graham.

           And I think that’s where the problem lies.

           I loved Graham.  He was my favourite character.  He was funny and entertaining and had the best character arc of any of the cast.  And he’s also an old white guy.

           Doctor Who, for whatever reason, had decided to take a decidedly lazy political stance this year and I think it can be summed up in the fact that the most interesting character is an old white guy.

           People complain about Moffat a lot, but there is no denying he had a hugely leftist streak to his writing, particularly in Series 10. Sure, the season ended with a black, gay companion being turned into a Cyberman, but that was the point.  Being forced to conform.  To fit what a society says you have to be.  The worst thing that could happen to someone different and it wrung every inch of the horror and tragedy out of that situation that it deserved.  And then… she was saved.  And got to live out the rest of her life travelling among the stars with her girlfriend, in a deliberate echo of what happened at the end of Series 9.

           In Series 11, we got at least three blatant examples of Bury Your Gays, all in episodes written by Chibnall.  In Ghost Monument, the female pilot mentions her dead wife, in Arachnids in the UK, Mr Big’s assistant is killed after mentioning being gay and, in the most blatant example in Resolution, a security guard is killed after mentioning his boyfriend. Considering Doctor Who’s longstanding queer fanbase (existing long before RTD invented gayness in 2005), this is simply not good enough.

           I’d like to take a moment here to acknowledge the good the show has done, however, in terms of representation both on screen and on the production team.  There has never been such a diverse team making Doctor Who on either side of the camera. Which is why it’s so baffling some of it turned out the way it did.

           In a world that’s taken a pretty horrific turn to the right in recent years, Doctor Who has taken a similar one.  In 2017, seeing the way the world was going, Series 10 opened with the Doctor offering a black, gay companion the TARDIS as a safe space, assuring her she’d always be safe inside it.  In 2018, Doctor Who makes the argument that you should forgive your abusively negligent father.  Twice.

           Honestly, this post doesn’t really have much rhyme or reason to it.  I’m just listing off a lot of red flags.  Like having an entire episode defending the work practices of Amazon (seriously, what the hell?) or in a world where fascism is on the rise and most western countries are facing a migrant crisis, you actually go ahead and call a Dalek a refugee. Y’know, not the blatant Nazis they’re meant to be.  A refugee. Now is the time you could do something really interesting with the Daleks.  Have people make the argument that Daleks should be able to make their points as well, don’t try to silence them, they’re people too.  There you go, I’ve just given a more interesting Dalek concept than the show has managed in years.

           There was also the way Demons of the Punjab seemed to present the horrific fallout of Indian partition as the result of native grievances rather than the result of colonialism and imperialism that it was.

           Overall, the show made a big song and dance about being inclusive and diverse.  But it really failed where it counted.  That being – the characters.  As stated, Graham was my favourite character.  Honestly, he was very well written and Bradley Walsh brought something so, so special to him.  And then we have Ryan.  Who is almost, but not quite, an interesting character.  Take, for example, his dyspraxia.  It’s pretty important early on.  And then just… dropped.  Much like Yaz being a cop.

           Oh, yeah, also… Yaz being a cop.  Honestly, I don’t dislike Yaz.  Mainly because there’s hardly anything there to like or dislike.  She’s almost characterless.  Quietly ambitious, sure.  Early on.  But then, just dropped.  Oh, and she’s a cop.  A cop, an authority figure who the Doctor takes an immediate like to.  What’s that about?  And in an era where we continually take police forces to task for abuses of power, we just kind of leave her to be what she is.  Imagine Doctor Who taking on police corruption and brutality. Now, that’d really be something to write home about.  No, instead, we get not-Trump opening a hotel with giant spiders.

           But the biggest problem is with the Doctor herself. Well, no, not the biggest problem. But she’d indicative of the biggest problem.  And that’s that she, and the show, are too nice.

           The Doctor is an asshole.  They have always been an asshole.  Tennant was the charismatic asshole.  Capaldi was the grumpy asshole.  Baker was the loud, ‘look at me’ asshole (both of them).  Davison was the quietly bitchy asshole.  Whittaker’s Doctor is not an asshole.  And something is missing.  And, honestly, I think it’s because she’s a woman.

           This was my biggest fear going into the show with a female Doctor.  That they’d strip her of her defining character trait of being an asshole. Sure, she’s kind and brave and clever and funny and all those wonderfully Doctory things.  But the Doctor needs to be an asshole.  It’s where half of their comedy comes from.

           And the show is too nice because of it.  It’s less willing to actually punish villains, to an almost absurd degree.  Remember when the Doctor made the argument that it was kinds to let spiders eat each other and then starve to death rather than kill them quickly?  And all of this is indicative of the show’s politics. The show has always had a huge streak of anarchism to it.  It’s all about toppling regimes and going along your merry way.  Go and burn down Rome.  London too, while you’re at it.  Blow up Skaro.  Commit genocide against those who would seek to do the same to Earth.  But not anymore.  The show had gone from anarchism to liberalism.

           Sure, it’s still left of centre, but in a nice, non-threatening, easy to swallow way.  It’s about being nice to baddies and not killing them because that makes you as bad as them.  Cops are there to help, authority figures are to be trusted, forgive your abusers, you don’t know what their going through.  And, at the end of it all, remember that the person you should trust the most is the old white guy.

           Thanks, Chibbs.

[gen-is-gone]

1,2,3,11,22?

1. Top 3 Doctors:

Eight (obvs) Eleven, and Twelve has actually managed to beat out Two over the course of the last two seasons

2. Top 3 companions:

Let’s just say Fitz and Anji can share the top spot because honestly there’s no way I could choose other wise, Amy, Clara (Bill and Jamie round out the top five, though choose top/bottom lists are super hard for me)

3. Favourite quote:

link here: http://gen-is-gone.tumblr.com/post/150431949438/but-you-havent-rebutted-my-argument-which-is

…this has also become my most reblogged post holy shit

11. First Doctor you saw: Nine, bless ‘em, about three years before I actually decided I was up for taking the plunge

22. Least favourite Doctor (why?)

…uh, hoo boy, this can of worms. Ten, because they’re the synthesis of RTD’s understanding of Who The Doctor Is and How The Doctor Works, and I find his particular view at best over-simplistic and a little grating, and at worst, absolutely the antithesis of why I like Doctor Who.

Can be summed up I think with the metaphor of the audience focus and The Pyramids of Mars: So in PoM, Sarah is rooting around in the TARDIS wardrobe and comes across a lovely antique dress that so happens to be one of Victoria’s that she left on the TARDIS probably decades ago, but obvs Sarah doesn’t know this. So she tries it on and wanders out to show the Doctor, and Four’s reaction is a bit of a low-level early-mid-life crisis, because Gah, it’s been years, Victoria’s been gone so long, you humans live such short lives etc. They say “But I’m Time Lord. I walk in eternity! You don’t understand the implications!”

To which Sarah, standing just outside of their line of sight, rolls her eyes theatrically and goes “Oh I know you’re a ~Time Lord~”

And I think one can easily sum up the difference between Moffat and Davies by imagining that while watching that scene as young boys, Little Russel saw the Doctor, walking in eternity, and Little Steven saw Sarah, refusing to be impressed by that. And so Davies’s era refuses to acknowledge the utter shit Ten pulls from literally day one, that disgusting piece of misogyny at Harriet Jones, and the narrative doesn’t bother to ever ask if what the Doctor is doing is ever wrong.

No, Ten gets to be tortured over Rose’s getting trapped in Pete’s World, never mind how she feels about it, never mind that they know damn well she would’ve sold her soul for them and they were too much of a dissembling coward to tell her one sentence, give her one thing to hold on to. Ten treated Martha terribly for an entire season and in the end all she could do was walk away with her dignity, because even after walking the earth to deliver legends of them being fucking Jesus, downplaying her own accomplishments the whole damn time, it still never entirely sunk in that they had something to apologize to her for. And Donna. I really don’t think any more needs to be said at this point, eight years later, about why the Doctor mind-raping a companion being written as a tragic but necessary sacrifice with Ten’s pain more narratively relevant than hers was a fucking appalling authorial choice. We’ve all had that damn discussion, way too many times. (And clearly Moffat hated it so much he spent the entire end of series 9 and the first and last eps of series 10 defying, deconstructing, and utterly destroying the very concept. Yes, at this point I should maybe just admit to being a teeny bit biased, but whevs.)

The Doctor was never meant to be a totally correct, always moral character. Hell, One was a consummate Trickster who had to be talked out of straight up murdering a dude in their first serial. And Ten provided a great deal to work with on that front. They’re likable, bubbly, beautiful, and certainly David Tennant is an enormously talented actor. But RTD couldn’t bear the thought of telling us that the Doctor was anything other %100 right at all times, even with vast evidence to the contrary. So no, even now, I don’t actually like Ten. But they are still the Doctor. Just a massive prick.

/sorry that got waaay too long and waaay too real

[havesomereviews]

Doctor Who 2x03: School Reunion

Writer: Toby Whithouse Director: James Hawes Main Cast: David Tennant, Billie Piper, Elizabeth Sladen, Noel Clarke, Anthony Head, John Leeson

Synopsis: Mickey calls the Doctor and Rose in to investigate a school with children who are much cleverer than they should be. But they aren’t the only ones who have noticed the odd occurrences at the school.

Monster of the Week: Krillitanes. Beings that salvage the best parts of the species they consume. At the moment, the look like huge bats.

Quote of the Episode: “The missus and the ex. Welcome to every man’s worst nightmare.”

Standout Moment: David Tennant captures the moment the Doctor sees Sarah Jane again perfectly! You can see it all on his face. The surprise of seeing someone you never thought you would see again. The relief that she is still alive and kicking. And how proud he is of her because she is still curious and resourceful - she is still the woman he knew all those years ago. He basically shows us everything that the long time fans are feeling at the sight of the familiar face.

Cringeworthy Moment: The whole idea that Sarah and the Doctor’s relationship had been a romantic one just came out of nowhere.

Main Review: The first ever Doctor Who episode I saw was one with The Fourth Doctor and Sarah Jane and because of this, she will always hold the title of “favourite companion” for me. So needless to say, I was thrilled to see her back. Elizabeth Sladen is still just as superb as she was when she first came into the show in 1973 and Sarah Jane is still the curious journalist we all know and love.

The addition of K9 follows on from the unsuccessful spin off series, K9 and Company, so if you don’t know about that, you maybe confused as to why he is with Sarah Jane (or maybe you remember him from The Five Doctors and are just going with it). It’s not a very complicated story, the Doctor just sent her K9 Mark III as a gift.

But this episode is not solely about nostalgia. We also get to see what happens to those who travel with the Doctor and then have to go on with their normal lives. Something which hasn’t really been touched on before. Unfortunately, it isn’t dealt with as well as it could have. The right premise is there, but it’s the wrong companion. I don’t believe that Sarah would have put her life on hold to wait for the Doctor. Even though she is still investigating and doing what she has always done, she still believes her life after the Doctor to be wasted. However, she lets the Doctor go at the end of the episode, realising that everything ends and the universe has to move forward. She makes him actually say goodbye this time and she gains some much needed closure.

The goodbye scene is one of my favourites because you can see that Sarah wants closure but the Doctor doesn’t. He doesn’t want to face the fact that she is leaving. Saying “goodbye” would make it true (he didn’t say “goodbye” last time either, his last words to her were “until we meet again”). But Sarah puts her foot down and in that moment, you can see that wonderful woman from long ago and how despite the years, she is still the same Sarah Jane Smith. And the Doctor can see it too and you can once again see the pride in his eyes and hear it in his voice. And, to top it all off, we get a beautiful parallel of Sarah’s final scene in The Hand of Fear. She walks away from the TARDIS and then sadly turns back to see it dematerialise. And then she has a conversation wth a dog. Although this time the dog can actually talk back.

But it is not just the Doctor and Sarah who have to deal with the fallout of leaving her behind, it’s also Rose. And this is where the story gains a few brownie points but also loses a hell of a lot more. The central dilemma is done right, when Rose meets Sarah Jane, she is given a look at her own future. She realises that she had been naive to think that she was the only special one and that one day, the Doctor will leave her too. In a brilliant scene we see Rose confront the Doctor about this and we get a good look of both sides of the coin. Rose’s faith in the Doctor is shaken, thinking that one day he’ll get bored of her and leave her in the wrong city and then go on to travel with other people who would never even know of she existed. But the Doctor tells her that it is so much more than that. He will outlive any human he travels with and eventually they leave him. Even if they want to stay with him forever, they can’t. They will grow old and die and he ends up alone. And we see that it is not just Rose that is getting a look into her future, the Doctor is too. Sarah Jane’s reappearance has given him a harsh reminder of the realities of travelling with a human. But despite this, he still vows to hang on to Rose for as long as he can.

However, this episode still has one fatal flaw. And that flaw is Rose. I wouldn’t call her “out of character” as such, more like her characterisation is just over the top. Rose has a jealous streak. We’ve seen it before but it has always been something she silently dealt with herself (like with Jabe in The End of The World and Lynda in The Parting of the Ways) but in School Reunion she’s not just jealous, she’s downright catty. And she is catty right from the moment she meets Sarah Jane despite the fact that there is no indication whatsoever that the Doctor may care for her more than he cares for Rose. And what’s worse is that the writers bring Sarah down to the same level. Thankfully, the two woman eventually realise how childish they are being and form a connection. Not a friendship per say, such a bond between companions, but it is enough for Rose to happily agree to the idea of inviting Sarah along.

And then it all goes wrong again. Because after Sarah declines the offer, Mickey asks if he can come instead. Rose’s reaction to this is something else that is just that little too much to be believable. There is no doubt that Rose wouldn’t want her ex-boyfriend travelling with her and the man she left him for but I don’t believe that she would be so openly insensitive towards the matter. Mickey is still her friend after all and she has supposed to have grown past that. Just a simple warning glance at the Doctor and a small shake of the head would have sufficed, she didn’t need to mouth the word “no”. And when Mickey asks if she is okay with it, she should have just shrugged it off with a dismissive “sure, why not” instead of sounding like a moody teenager. It’s hard to say who is at fault for this one. Is it the writers or is it the actress misinterpreting the scene? In the end, it doesn’t matter. It’s still uncomfortable to watch.

But I am glad that the Doctor ignored Rose and let Mickey come aboard. He deserves the chance to prove himself to be more than just “the tin dog”. And maybe he will get a chance to find a new place in Rose’s life rather than just the pining ex-boyfriend. Although, his pining days definitely seem to be over. He dismisses Rose’s assumption that he made up a story just to see her and actively helps in the investigation. He is (deservedly) smug about having been right about the Doctor, but maybe a bit too over the top with it. So while he may not be pining any more, he certainly still has a strong resentment against Rose for leaving him. Which is understandable but maybe offering to show her his “I-was-right dance” was a little harsh. But it’s nice to know that Rose and Mickey’s romantic relationship is definitely over and that it won’t cause any more love triangles.

Oh, one more thing. Anthony Head is amazing! I almost forgot to add this part in because honestly it should go without saying. He is just phenomenal actor.

Overall Rating: 7/10. This could have been a perfect episode if it weren’t for that one pivotal flaw of making Rose and Sarah Jane bickering teenagers rather than the strong women they have both have grown to be. Thankfully by the end of the episode they snap out of it. Well, mostly.