#its like ryans dyspraxia

[rearranging-deck-chairs]

i wonder what would have happened if we had more time for yaz to come to terms with being queer and the doctor's response to that. bc like i do think a lot happened in the time between sea devils and potd but imagine if we could have seen that

bc now what happened was yaz came out to herself, to her you know companion i guess in the dw way but also just kind of the classical way, sort of was outed or at least i think experienced it that way a little bit to the person she loved, in the space of a day WHILE saving the entire world WHILE trying to navigate who knows what exactly and what are they thinking about me about it. thats a lot. thats really not ideal circumstances to come out in i'd say. and im just now realising being at the bottom of the fucking ocean is a nifty metaphor for the pressure theyre probably both feeling at that moment nice

anyway, thats not ideal. and they had some time to like come to terms with The Thing Between Us, but i dont think they talked about it really. at least not in any more specifics or depth than the conversation the beach. 13 did a pretty good job being like "im cool with the gays! all of my wives are bisexual!" but i dont know if she, in all her anxiously attached Please Dont Talk To Me About Feelings glory, would be able to offer a whole lot in terms of integrating freshly realised queer feelings into your overall identity. i dont think yaz would be able to accept it if she could offer, seeing her own disposition, right? like, dan might try to offer to help, but i dont think yaz would accept a lot

so while they seem to at least somewhat come to terms with the non-relationship, im not sure yaz in potd would have processed all that much in terms of the sense of "im queer" you know what i mean? like im not expecting her to walk back home like Im Gay Actually. like no. im not even sure how much of that she even could start to integrate into a sense of self until shes processed all the grief

but then like imagine if there was another series between flux and potd. so that everything that happened basically in just eotd and sea devils could be done more gradually over the course of 10 episodes. i think it would be super interesting to see how like, that would play out

the friendship between yaz and dan, the elaboration of the supportive sentiment of "including my wife!" spread out across episodes. yaz wrestling with "why not?!" + "not even myself" + "can we just live in the present" + "if it was going to be anyone, it'd be you" over the course of episodes. the frustration and the grief and the fear and the hope and the confusion. we could really see the effect 5(?) years of "i cant fix myself to anyone" has had on yaz and more importantly the doctor would see it. and dan already knows but he'd be there to see the doctor realise it too which i think could lead to some really good scenes too

we could see yaz wrestle with sort of the spectre of home behind the spectre of the doctor dying bc she Knows somethings up. it'd be like that motif that rtd put in his seasons where like life with the doctor is like an analogy for queer life in that you might die but you have to choose it. like you cant not, if youre a companion. after the doctor dies (which is this a whole terrifying prospect in itself but even after youve sort of managed to come to terms with that) she will have to go back home. and theres a closet there she fled. you know what i mean?

yazs story is this incredibly multifaceted complex coming of age thing where you can really feel how much like the transition from adolescence to young adulthood is less like finishing school and starting work and more like,,,,,,,im trying to think of a metaphor but i cant come up with anything that rings as true as yazs story does so *gestures at it*. just survival i think is what it is. it's a fight for survival. like every day. every day there might be a dalek and The Doctor WIll Not Save You. thats yazs story but we barely skim the surface of it because chibnalls era is mainly about the doctor. theres just sooo much more story left in her character i feel like

i feel so bad for yaz in sea devils. poor girl didnt deserve that

[13thdoctorposts]

has anyone else noticed how reactions and consensus on 13 has been RETROACTIVELY negative? I know there's been an intensely misogynistic hate campaign since Jodie was announced but I also noticed that when you look at old posts from when s11 especially was freshly aired, there was a lot more good faith engagement with the show and genuine excitement in fandom. It seems like covid gave the bad faith actors the opportunity to take over fandom and force their narratives on everyone.

Yeah a really great example of this is if you look back to tweets from the night Rosa aired the praise was very very high, now if you bring it up in the fandom you would think it was terrible and racist.

On YouTube I was told the writers, both of them Chibs and Malorie Blackman were incompetent because they doesn’t show how bad the racism really was, yet the episode starts with one of our companions being physically assaulted and told to be careful so not to end up like Emmett Till, some one who had just been murdered acting as if the show was sugar coating what life was like back then. Oh and of course with the Chibs slander that he’s racist because he may have hired a woman of colour to write the script, but she is English not American and he should have made sure it was an American or not done the episode at all

Malorie Blackman is an award winning author claiming she’s an incompetent writer is pretty incredible accusation.

Here’s some of the tweets from articles praising the episode.

I think 2 things hurt 13 era who and they weren’t Chibs and Jodie. It was the unhinged toxicity the fandom constantly spewed and then even after things got praised as you said people would go back and nitpick to a level they never ever do with any other era and 2nd not having a big enough marketing budget and brand manger series 12 and 13 suffered most from this because the BBC did put the marketing money into series 11 even if they didn’t have a brand manager, and Chibs mentions this in the Radio Free Skaro podcast from last year that the BBC put a huge marking budget into series 11 but series 12 and 13 basically the budget was… you can only advertise on the BBC because there’s no money for anything else.

Rosa is just one example but there was a lot of praise for the work at the time of release and it’s quite possible general public viewers may have just stoped engaging on social after series 11 because they would then be piled on, and people in the online fandom knew they couldn’t go to social saying they loved an episode so they started picking it apart before putting their thoughts out there so they could be on trend with the haters who were gonna pile on if they didn’t fall in line.

Seriously if there’s ever a down fall to doctor who the ‘fans’ will be it because they would rather hate on the thing they supposedly love than love it. And ever era has its super questionable moments but if you bring them up for any other era you just being petty, or it isn’t that big of a deal, or ‘it’s of the time’ it’s just excuse after excuse.

I’ve seen people upset about the fact that RTD dead named Rose in the star beast, something very legitimate because now all the right wing idiots of the fandom use that name and the people who were upset get piled on if they say anything because they should be happy that RTD is trying to give them representation… but these same people when Chibs tried to give rep though a female doctor, or an episode like Rosa or Ryans disability, say Chibs is a right wing capitalist, sexist, racist, ablest, you don’t hear them saying hey he was really trying by getting people of colour to write their stories, by getting directors with the same heritage to direct episodes, he work with a dyspraxia organisation to help write Ryan, brought in the first 2 female Doctors and the 1st Doctor of colour who was also a woman, the 1st master of colour, the first Doctor who admitted to having feeling for a companion of the same sex and the episode where the doctor admits those feeling is co written with a queer woman, oh no Chibs gets no grace for tryi neg he did everything wrong but RTD everyone should be thankful for.

I don’t understand the level of hate. Not liking something is one thing but a part of this fandom has made 13 era who seem like the anti christ of Doctor Who, when really it tried a lot harder to involve more people in it then ever before.

[etherealspacejelly]

i feel like infodumping so here is my opinion of every new who companion!!

Rose Tyler

shes the og, shes That Girl, she is the moment! (lol, get it?) Rose was one of the best companions fr. her love story with the doctor is so beautiful and so tragic and honestly, he Needed her. ninerose >>> tenrose i said what i said. 9/10

Jack Harkness

very fun character! they kinda ruined him in torchwood a little bit. some of the earliest explicit queer rep in mainstream media i ever saw, if not the first! i loved his dynamic with rose and nine. 8/10

Mickey Smith

my sweet boy, my babygirl. he deserved so much better fr. dont get me wrong, i love Rose, but the way she treated Mickey was so mean. also the doctor hated his ass for no reason other than he was competition for Rose's affection. plastic Mickey was iconic. 8/10

Martha Jones

ICON!!! QUEEN!!!! i Love Martha soooo much. she was the only companion to Get Out and i love that for her, she deserved it. she slayed fr. however i do kinda hate that most of her character was simping for ten like. girl. stand up. 9/10

Donna Noble

Oh My God, incredible. cant wait to get her back!!!! the adipose scene through the windows???? hilarious, i can quote every word!!! she gave the doctor a run for his money and i love that for her. she was exactly what he needed after Rose and Martha, just A Mate. 10/10

Amy Pond

my favourite companion!!! eleven was My Doctor tho so thats probably why. every episode of season 5 is a banger. i love that she and Rory and River became a family to the doctor. love her. little Amelia is so cute and grown up Amy is a total badass. fish custard/10 10/10

Rory Williams

my beloved <3 hes so boyfriend fr. raised my standards as a kid. he waited 2000 years for her ;-; 10/10

River Song

hello sweetie :)

i love that her story was told backwards, very interesting narrative choice! knowing that she was always doomed to the library was so tragic. learning all of her secrets over each series was very fun and satisfying!! 10/10

Clara Oswald

hmm. not one of my favourite companions. she's ok i guess? the impossible girl thing was kinda cool but i dont really like her as a character. 5/10

Bill Potts

YESSSS! i love lesbiabs. lessbiens. women. her ending was super sad tho :(

she was cool and fun and gay 9/10

Yasmin Khan

hrm. boring. didnt have much of a personality, not really her fault the writing was just so shit. she had potential!! thasmin 4 lyfe! 4/10

Ryan Sinclair

yea. no. dont like how they made his dyspraxia a fun quirky thing that he just. magically got over somehow??? its a literal disability. my brother has it. it could have been so interesting to see how that manifested over the course of his travels with the doctor but its almost like they just. forgot about it?? also he was boring as hell. 2/10

Graham O'Brien

i literally didnt even remember his surname, i had to look it up. he was just kinda. there. a little more interesting than Ryan i guess?? but. still. 2/10

Concluding remarks

looking forward to Donna coming back and meeting the new companions!!! i hope the writing is better in this season :/ chibbers was Not It. anyway. thanks for reading my silly little ramble!! special interest go brrrr

[thegodcomplcx]

5 least favorite companions?

from better to worse

5. graham. honestly he was fine i guess i just went into s11 expecting more of a focus on ryan since they framed the season with him and his relationship to his grandmother and his struggles with dyspraxia, and it feels like the show chooses to focus on how grace’s loss affects graham and grahams storyline rather than ryan’s.

4. rose: (s1 rose this isn’t about you baby) s2 rose is just so fucking annoying to me. watching s2 honestly feels like her and ten are bullying me. like she had negative character growth and i don’t really feel they did anything interesting with it. and her appearances in s4 were so unecessary

3. nardole: didn’t like his vibe.

2. river song: i don’t feel i need to explain any further my issues with her. she’s just poorly written and her relationship with the doctor (which is the only thing she can be defined by) is boring to me

1. rory: I HATE THE WAY THAT YOU TALK I HATE THE WAY YOU WALK I EVEN HATE THE WAY YOU DRESS I HATE THE WAY YOU SNEAK DISS IF I CATCH FLIGHT ITS GON BE DIRECT

[quietwingsinthesky]

like okay easy example. s11 is a weird season in that there's practically no references back to anything before it, no reoccuring villains, just the doctor and her tardis to keep the show doctor who. and that's fine, i like that actually, i think it was fun. but! it does mean that when resolution comes around and there's a dalek! that should be a big thing!!!

and i'm not gonna compare it against thee Dalek episode of all time because that would be cruel.

so im gonna compare it against an episode i don't even like to prove i'm not being biased here. power ranger dalek spectacular: victory of the daleks.

victory of the daleks is not a good episode, but it is a good episode for mining out moments about the doctors relationship to the daleks and how their ptsd shapes their interactions with even a seemingly friendly dalek. (<- guy who has. at least twice now. seen that daleks can change.) which is to say: he starts beating the fucking shit out of it when it won't react the way he wants it to. and in the end, fucking himself over by doing so, giving the dalek what it wants.

DOCTOR: You are my enemy! And I am yours. You are everything I despise. The worst thing in all creation. I've defeated you time and time again. I've defeated you. I sent you back into the Void. I saved the whole of reality from you. I am the Doctor. And you are the Daleks.

thirteen doesn't really have an equivalent moment with the dalek. not that im saying she needs to start hitting it with a hammer, that would be weird for her specifically, but it's all very. rote, i suppose. her interactions with it don't really create the sort of unease that characterize the doctor's interactions with daleks in nuwho. there's very little drawing out of her worst sides to face this thing.

she does have one moment, towards the end, that i'm insane about, specifically. but i don't think i was supposed to take it as seriously as i did. this one:

DOCTOR: No, it won't. No matter how many times you try, no matter how long you wait, I'll always be in your way, backed up by the best of humanity. Now, final, final, final warning, cos I'm nice. I really do try my best. Stop the signal, get off this planet. DALEK: You are not my commander. DOCTOR: I tried. You heard me, right? I tried! I gave it a chance. YASMIN: Yeah. RYAN: Yep. GRAHAM: You did.

because this entire exchange is framed as a comedy beat. funny, the doctor turning to her companions and wanting affirmation that her murdering something in cold blood is fine, actually, because she gave it a chance to surrender. that feels like it should be an huge moment for thirteen, who just last episode was threatening to throw graham off the tardis for wanting to kill the guy who killed his wife. it should be off-putting that the doctor not only is going to kill something but wants to be told that she's doing the right thing. but it isn't. we pass over it in a moment. the dalek goes in a supernova (do not get me started on ryan & his dad's thing, do not, i don't have time to talk about how badly that's handled) and we move on.

i'm not saying that thirteen needs to yell at things more. because it makes the moments she really snaps in the timeless child, when she loses her cool and shove the master onto the ground, all the more startling in how uncharacteristic that feels for her and yet, how right. but i'm saying. i don't know. i wish she was given more space to lean into her being the kind of person who genuinely thinks eternal imprisonment is a Good Option. who will kill something herself but wants reassurance that she was right.

(extra side note: but it often feels like the show both wants the benefits of doctor who's legacy of decades of television while also wanting to be detached from it. for as much as i like the timeless child twist, this is it's biggest weakness. it wants to recontextualize everything about the doctor's history and gallifreyan society. but it also burned gallifrey to the ground so that we don't have to reckon with how knowing this would change it. you see it a lot with the master, too. like we can all make conjecture about how you get from missy -> spymaster, and damn good conjecture too! the actual show is not interested in that history or how that's shaped him. again. again. i know i've said this before and thing that appeal only to me alert but! the doctor's not the only child experiment of gallifrey. the master was, too! but nary a mention of that in the whole episode, though you'd think that would color everything about how he perceived the knowledge of the timeless child. (and to be clear, i don't mean 'i think he should have been more sympathetic', if anything i think that you could use his history with gallifrey using and rejecting him to make an even better case than the show does for why he burned gallifrey to the ground.)

okay. i think i've put my finger on what i don't like about thirteen's era. not that i don't like thirteen's era as a whole, mind, i still greatly enjoy it. but the problem is, i think, that there sure is a lot happening! it's all extremely surface level, though!

[daggersandarrows]

okay so like. here's the thing. i love doctor who. i know that it's always been flawed. that's what makes it charming. i don't care about the bad cgi, i don't care about the cheesy dialogue, i don't care when the solution to the alien invasion planning to invert the known universe involves three grapes and a sock. it's sci fi from the 60s. it's always been silly.

things that i DO care about:

the companions being Actual People with strong opinions: rose's constant defense of the service worker and attempts to get them to unionize, donna's impenetrable stubbornness, rory's unfailing common sense. i want them to fuck up too. i want them to not listen to the doctor. obedient companions are so boring.

egregious racism. i get it, it's mainstream tv, there's gonna be some. but man sometimes i can't even pay attention to the plot in these chibnall episodes. rtd wasn't great either but mickey and martha felt like Real Actual People. no i didn't care for the pair the spares bit nor did i care for the family of blood/human nature two parter but good lord at least martha behaved like an actual black woman

"look at me i'm so Special and Good" performativity. doctor who has always been a bit ahead of its time with characters like jack and the very casual references to queer partnerships and nonbinary characters and trans characters. for the doctor's first run as a woman to be filled with so many wink wink nudge nudge back pat type lines about how the show is sooo good at feminism was massively eye-roll-y. also how come ryan only has dyspraxia when we need to feel sorry for him

and last but not least: i care about the master. like a lot. like an unhealthy amount. and their characterization doesn't have to be perfect, but i think that they have to embody the following: 1) they are at least a little bit camp, 2) they are obviously in love with the doctor, 3) they are kind of supervillain cartoon evil, where they never do anything TOO fucked up, but their grand scale plans always involve taking over the world or making everyone think that they're god or something (their most cruel plans are reserved exclusively for the doctor) and 4) they are kind of just a petulant child. at the end of the day, they just so so so badly want the doctor's attention.

so thus far chibnall has massively failed my first three things, and as far as the master goes, he has horrendously obliterated point three but surprisingly hasn't totally wrecked anything else. all this to say: i think i hate his seasons.

[nerdyenby]

Blue time :D I’m watching H

Pregame

We love the confidence :))

H is hungover, this can only go well /lh

Dave 3v1!!!

Callum is MCC’s collective imaginary friend, real and true

H sounded like such an angry parent when he said Shane’s name lmao

Callum: “Hello team!!” Kara and Sausage: “Hello” Callum: “and- and others others” H and Pete: “that’s me!!” I love this pre-event practice amalgams of a group :)))

Callum telling Shane he can’t name two things Callum is better at than him and Shane just calling him handsome

This is so chaotic, I’m so happy right now you guys

Tubbo is such a menace

“I didn’t even know it was freaking March” “it’s May” “ITS MAY?!???” realest thing tubbo’s ever said lol

This call is such a mess /pos

TUBBO BANNED LMAO

Oh this team is gonna be so chill, I’m so ready

Eret being so confused about Krinios “winning” $1.5k

Ryan breaking their monitor with a controller 😭😭😭

Rocket Spleef

Them talking about how Jojo was on both the first all-women and all-spanish teams

“Who do is still need to collect?” “Collect?!? Like they’re trading cards” “They are trading cards to me” 😂😂😂

I could totally see H doing a TCG pack opening stream

“I don’t think, I just do” *immediately falls to the bottom of the map*

I agree with H saying RSR is a bad first game, it think belongs mid-event

“No one’s dead yet, I don’t like that” “I’ll be the first if you want” Ryan 😂

I actually love the compass idea so much

HOW did H die there??? Lmao

Eret movement game anti, as she should

That was a solid third round

Everyone being so happy for/proud of Ryan getting top ten :))

TGTTOSAWAF

Talking about the lack of game music “Alone with the demons in my mind” Ryan 😭

The Krinios puns are so bad /pos

“I’m gonna say it, I’m gonna say it” “Say what?” “I hate tgttos” the entire team: *surprised pikachu face*

I never wanted to hear “sexy chicken, baby” come out of Cub’s mouth, ever

Parkour Warrior

“God, I love that logo” based!!!

Philza made minecraft, real and true

Are you “I need music in my brain 24/7” adhd or “forgot music existed for two weeks once” adhd

The twitch rivals shade 😂😂😂

I too love the moving platforms but I also feel like I could cry if I was trying real hard and couldn’t get it

The absolute silence after “‘the edgy posts’ follow me on twitter” 😂

The “hi Cub… bye Cub” is sending me

“Don’t explode Ry- uh, Eret” “I’ll try not to” “I will, however, explode” Ryan 😂

“That’s my bad, guys” “What do you mean it’s your bad, it’s our bad, we both suck” Eret my beloved

Parkour Tag

Parkour tag my beloathed /aff

H did so good against lime!! He got all three in 35 seconds!!!

H’s comms are insane

I love how there’s not really a designated leader here, like H might be the default assumption but they’re really all equals in how they interact and communicate. It’s not a given that a certain person in is igl, they ask/say “ok I’m gonna take charge here” when applicable, I love them

Cub don’t know his lefts and rights /lh

17 SECONDS???? THEYRE INSANEEEEE

Cub’s jukes!!!

H getting onto Ryan for not carrying hard enough 😂

Grid Runners

I’ll say it every single time, grid runners is a freaking amazing game

Eret immediately crashing oh my lord

That was painful to watch 😬

“Sorry about that guys” “Nah, now we have fun” I love H, he’s not taking any of Eret’s apologies

Good comms :)))

Listen to Eret 😭😭😭

H misunderstanding the task and talking over everyone else, that’s my streamer /lh

Best grid runners in history lmao

NOT LAST!!! :D

Meltdown

I too would die for HBomb94, so true Ryan

Awww lime flanked

Yeah that was a solid play

Eret going through it, rip

That was such a good fight against orange

Ayyyy first place!!!!

H’s flank there was INSANE

The purple/Purpled distinction messed em up lol

One of the most fun meltdowns I’ve seen :))

Eret needs to stop beating herself up about not getting better at movement, doesn’t she have dyspraxia? They literally can’t help it

Survival Games

Ryan just wanting to sot with H :((

I was gonna say it’s impressive that they all got out of that alive and then bam

Rip

H hyping up sand keepers, as he should!!!!

Sot antis only take Ls

Sands of Time

H encouraging Walli <333

Ryan getting full on yelled at for saying they’re gonna offhand carpet 😂

I don’t like how quiet Eret’s being but I trust him

They’re all so attentive and on top of it :)))

THEYRE SO GOATED!!

“It’s the last game, Ryan, have a little fun” “okay” “Play a little risky, have fun” “okay” his freaking voice

“I trust you” “Youre good a minecraft, I believe in you boss” “really?” Ryan is peak 🥹 energy

They’re swimming in sand

RIP IT CUB!!!!

We’re having so much fun here

YOOOOOOOOOOOO

6KKKKKKKKKK

DUBFAN!!!!!!!!!!!

That felt so freaking good, I’m so happy man

Dodgebolt

They’re all so excited for red :))

People predicted blue low?? I placed them first lol

“I’ve never actually spoken to Wallibear, so I’m gonna say that I hope he’s a great guy”

The confusion over Capitan’s skin is killing me lol

“We english speakers SUCK” real

Hi Illumina :)))

H gently elbowing Cub into believing in himself lmao

Let’s all team with Illumina

They’re like kids fighting over the most popular toy

I would actually love to see a 5-player team event, it would be so fun and so scuffed if they just barely changed anything

Great vibes great times :)))

[companion-showdown]

#ok hot take but i think ryan has a chance guys#1. this is hand to hand combat only. ace is without her nitro 9#2. ryan probably does not know how to fight in any way that is comprehensible#he would try to use regular fighting techniques and would end up doing something completely different because dyspraxia#this would seem like a disadvantage and it probably would be#but also. ace would NOT be able to predict his next move#because he wouldnt be able to predict his next move#i think ultimately ace would win. but i voted ryan because he has a fighting chance#and even after winning the fight ace will probably walk away thinking 'damn wtf was that'#which in a way is its own victory

tags by @harps17

Do not vote for your favourite!

Who would win in a fight (hand to hand combat only)?

TOURNAMENT MASTERPOST

[starsbythepocketful12]

the way selfie nights have been happening for over a year and it wasn’t until recently that it occurred to me to include my learning disability when i post for disabled selfie night

[lord-radish]

I think the most disappointing aspect of Chibnall's run was how Ryan was handled, paired with how it felt like a competition between Yaz and Ryan as to who would receive character development from episode to episode. Graham too, but he tended to be a more "well-fed" character-wise than either Ryan or Yaz up to a certain point.

Like, Ryan had an arc with Graham in the first series. I thought it was very cliche and hokey, I didn't wholly buy in, but it was a story arc. Yaz's character suffered significantly in that series, even getting overshadowed by her own mother making a one-off guest appearance. Her, Ryan and Graham basically took turns having nothing to do while the other two characters had more exchanges and story relevance.

In that first series, Yaz arguably suffered the most. Her character evolved a lot that season, and I think her fanbase grew because of a very natural evolution in her characterisation, but she would often be relegated to a flat role and paired with the Doctor simply for the sake of Ryan and Graham advancing their "granddad" arc. However, that really turned around in the second series, because once Ryan and Graham had that moment in series 11? He really wasn't given that much to do.

The most egregious part of series 12 is that Graham seems to mourn Grace more than Ryan??? Like I get that he loves her dearly and her death still weighs heavily on him, but she was basically the only family Ryan had for years. His mum's dead and his dad was absent - Grace was all that Ryan had for a long time. And yet Graham seems to get the most scenes about mourning her.

And aside from hitting on ladies in episodes like Orphan 57 and being a good friend in the Halloween episode of series 12, Ryan just sort of... blends into the background. And then he leaves the TARDIS and Yaz is still on a high about being with the Doctor, only to tear up when Graham decides to leave with him. The show seriously devalues Ryan as a character, and he goes out with a total whimper.

He gets one scene that's meant to be him overcoming his dyspraxia to take out some Cybermen, and then he leaves unceremoniously. And then he doesn't even show up in the Centenary Special.

I was bothered when Yaz got the short end of the stick in series 11, but after this run has run its course, I feel a lot worse for Ryan. Chibnall absolutely shafted him in his run, and he deserved better.

[quantumshade]

a criticism of chibnall era doctor who but i don’t hate women

this is gonna be a long read. i’m adhd and i know how hard this kinda shit is to read, but I worked super hard on this and i’d appreciate it if you gave it a chance :) tl;dr chris chibnall hasn’t bothered to develop any of his characters past two dimensions and it’s left the show wanting. also this is all my opinion you are legally allowed to disagree with me no hate mail please and thank you

I’ve been a fan of Doctor Who for a long time. Not as long as some, mind, I was two years old when the reboot began airing. I’ve never seen Classic -- I’d like to, just haven’t had the time, which is ironic -- but I don’t think that makes me any less of a fan.

For a long time, Doctor Who has been one of those “nerd things,” yknow? My dad knew somebody in high school in the 80’s who dressed like the 4th Doctor every single day. Scarf included. Not that my generation was any better -- I had a friend in middle school who wore suspenders and a bowtie for like 2 months straight until they got tragically “lost in the wash”. Doctor Who demands attention from its fans, and rightfully so. It’s a whimsical space romp with all the best elements of sci-fi. It’s funny at times, and heartbreaking at others. It explores so much, and by its nature, is constantly changing.

That changing nature is why it chafes with nerd culture so much, I think. Nerds HATE change. Just think about how star wars fans are every single time new content drops. And Doctor Who is changing every single episode. The title character is an ageless, godlike being who can change their face and personality almost at will. Companions come and go, as do writers, composers, directors, et cetera. It’s Theseus’ ship. Or Theseus’ TV Cult Classic, I guess. 

So when a fan complains about “doctor who isn’t the same anymore” or “[blank] ruined doctor who”. Of course it’s not the same. If you want consistency, this is not the show for you. Things are constantly retconned, resurrected, developed, and then undeveloped, done and undone, and then done again. That’s something I’ve always loved about it. The constant change means that if you don’t like the show at one point, you’ll just have to wait a few years and maybe you’ll vibe with it again. Gatekeepers can’t really talk about the “real” canon because there is no real canon.

All this being said, let’s get into what the Chris Chibnall era is doing wrong.

Let’s start with Team TARDIS, or as the Doctor likes to call them, her fam. I like them, I really do. I think the actors are incredibly talented and they obviously have fun making the show together. The problem is, well, it’s in the writing. 

The fam are extremely two dimensional characters. We meet them, we’re told basic facts. Graham is a retired bus driver. Ryan has dyspraxia. Yaz is a cop (why??). The audience doesn’t learn much about their personalities, their goals, their ideals. We don’t really get a sense of why they want to travel with the Doctor. Sure, they want to see all the wonders of the universe, but what else? Amy was running from her wedding. Rose was escaping a life she found unsatisfactory. Donna wanted to be appreciated. There’s almost always another reason why they travel, and that reason is integral to who they are as people. Sure, the audience is told the fam’s reasons, but what the Chibnall era doesn’t understand is saying something doesn’t make it true. You have to show it. And you have to trust that your audience will understand. You can’t spoon feed them through clunky dialogue the whole time.

We’re told that the fam are friends, that they trust and love each other, that they like being around one another. We’re told all this, but we’re not SHOWN it. Their interactions remind me more of three people sharing an UberPool and chatting with their wacky driver. In past seasons, we’ve seen those friendships develop. The Doctor meets somebody. They have an adventure. They invite that person to come along. The person agrees. The person learns that life with the Doctor isn’t as glamorous as they’d thought and are often freaked out by the fact they don’t know much about the Doctor at all. The companion challenges them, argues, demands to know more, and through this, they become friends. For Rose it’s The End of The World, for Martha it’s Gridlock, Donna, Fires of Pompeii. Amy, The Beast Below. I could go on.

(she just sits down and stares him down. martha jones i love you)

I honestly think Ten and Donna are the best example of platonic soulmates ever written on TV. She’s not in the least bit attracted to him, and she loves him deeply, and he loves her the same way. Donna is there for him after he loses Rose, she convinces him to keep going. She challenges him in Pompeii, not intimidated in the least by his whole “Last of the Time Lords” schtick. And in return, he shows her how brilliant and capable she is. She doesn’t believe in herself or her abilities, but he treasures her input and her company. She loses all of that in the end, but while she’s there, they have fun together. They are believably best friends, but the narrative doesn’t keep having to say, “Hey look at these two best friends!!” Instead, we see it in their interactions, in what they do for each other, in how they solve problems together.

We get something similar later, with 12 and Clara. With 11, Clara doesn’t often stand up to him or tell him off, and that puts a barrier between them. They’re friends, but it’s distant and awkward at times.I could write eight more pages about my problems with Clara in series 7. Her role in that season is so fucking stupid. I hate the impossible girl stuff. When 11 regenerates, though, I think that’s when Clara’s character arc really takes off. She’s distrustful of 12 at first - and rightfully so, he’s kind of a dick in Deep Breath - but by the end of the episode she’s accepted that he’s the same Doctor and still her best friend. And she’s his; Twelve, the emotionally distant, no-hugging Doctor, calls Clara his best friend out loud.

Clara’s arc later in Series 9 is her becoming too much like the Doctor, almost forgetting that she’s human, and that leads to her death on Trap Street. In her own way, she becomes her own Doctor, travelling the stars in a TARDIS with a companion, and she’s allowed as many years of adventures as she wants before going back to trap street. Series 9 Clara is leagues different from Series 7 Clara. She grows and changes so much over her 2 and a half season run. (Quick sidebar, I’m not saying these seasons are perfect. I could write a whole other essay about the problems with the Moffat era. Hell, I might do if this one gets any notes. Kill The Moon is un-fucking-bearable except for the one scene where Clara rips the Doctor a new one. Peter Capaldi and Jenna Coleman played so well off each other, even when the writing of their seasons got… Moffat-y.)

Chibnall doesn’t seem to follow through on a lot of stuff, actually. I think the best example of this is Series 11, Episode 7, Kerblam. Woof. This episode frustrates me to no end. I remember, actually, the week before the episode came out, I was chatting with some friends on Discord about how excited I was for another anti-capitalist episode. Doctor Who has a lot of these, Oxygen from Series 10 being the most recent. 

But then the episode aired, and it literally resolved with the Doctor talking about how “The System Works! People Are Just Using It Bad!” And… no. The system’s working exactly as it should. Kerblam was so strange because I felt like it was setting up for that anti-capitalist message, and then it does a 180 halfway through to suck Amazon’s dick. I don’t know if the network made them change it, or if it was just shitty writing, but it’s unsatisfying. The Doctor also�� leaves and allows the antagonist of the episode, Charlie, to die in an explosion, which just seems very un-Doctor-ish. Again, I don’t know if it was shitty writing or if it was an intentional choice, but I didn’t like it. 

Something similar happened in the next season with Orphan 55. Holy shit, that episode had the subtlety of a sledgehammer. It also tried to make the viewer feel personally responsible for global warming, which is just fucking stupid. Global warming is the fault of corporations. Hence why anticapitalist episodes are so popular with Doctor Who. And literally nothing is gained by making people working minimum wage jobs feel bad about not doing enough to stop global warming. It’s just such a cold and privileged take which was forced directly down the viewer’s throat. You have to show and not tell. The Doctor’s speech at the end of the episode really just shows us how much Chibnall trusts his audience -- which is to say, not at all. 

We haven’t gotten any complex character arcs from the fam, I don’t think, and it’s left the show wanting. They have stories, but they go unexplored and underdeveloped. The companions aren’t given much to do at all, which sucks because there’s three of them. The TARDIS feels almost crowded. Don’t get me wrong, I love Yaz, Ryan, and Graham, I really do, but I’m just… not as emotionally invested as I have been with other companions. As a result, I’ll be honest. I don’t totally understand the people who ship 13 and Yaz. People who do ship them are 100% valid, of course, but I just don’t see it. I’m not opposed to Doctor/companion romantic relationships; I’m a big fan of romantic Doctor and Rose, and I liked romantic Doctor and River (which is to say, my personal fanon Doctor/River where River has a real character arc). The difference is River and Rose both knew the Doctor very well. They knew who they were, what they’d done. The Doctor shared their feelings with both of them, Rose especially. I feel like with how secretive 13 is, and where she is emotionally, I really don’t think she can do a romantic relationship right now. Also, as I said before, I barely believe 13 and the Fam are truly friends, I wouldn’t really be able to believe a romance.

I hope series 13 changes my mind. I’m a lesbian, I would LOVE a romance between two female main characters in my favorite show. I want to be able to root for that to happen. As it stands now, though, between the lack of depth from Yaz as a character and the Doctor’s emotional unavailability, I just can’t. (All this being said--let 13 kiss a girl!!) I was hoping we’d have a Yaz character arc since it would just be her and the Doctor, but they’re adding another white man into the mix, so we’re gonna have to see.

I don't think Chibnall really thinks about the consequences or implications of a lot of the choices he makes in his writing. I think he’s decided on a story that he wants to tell and doesn’t care what comes of it after he’s done telling his story. 

[Deep breath] I’m talking, of course, about the Master.

Spoilers ahead for series 12.

The Master is reintroduced at the very beginning of Series 12. He’s mostly there to kickstart the Timeless Child arc - more on that later. The reveal that O is the master is one of my favorite scenes in the Chibnall era so far. The Doctor slowly working out that he isn’t who he says he was had me on the edge of my seat, and then when the Master realizes he’s been made, he immediately drops the act and you can actually see the 180 degree alignment shift on his face. Kudos to Sacha Dhawan for that, cause holy shit. I want to reiterate that all of the actors in these seasons are incredible, and they’re doing the best they can with what they’re given. 

No, my problem with the Spymaster doesn’t lie with Dhawan, I think he does an excellent job portraying the Master’s general chaos. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, my problem is once again with the writers. Sidenote, as I wrote this, I kept trying to put this particular topic off because a.) I hate it and b.) it makes me SO angry. But I was three pages into the Google doc and I just needed to rip the bandaid off.

Remember that fun part in Spyfall part 2 where the Master, currently being played by a person of color, wore a nazi uniform and like, colluded with nazis? Uh, yeah. Hey Chris? Uh, hey. Hey Chris? Chris?? What the fuck was that??

I’ll be straight with you, Chris. I’m Jewish. I’m gonna be uncomfortable with any scene with nazis. Seeing swastikas in any setting sets the fucking Kill Bill sirens off in my head. Putting the Master in that position was not in any sense okay. He wears a nazi uniform AND uses a perception filter. But why does he need both? If he has the perception filter, he shouldn’t need the uniform. That implies that he’s literally just wearing it for fun.

The Master is, and to my knowledge, always has been, a silly and campy villain. In Series 3, he turns the Tenth Doctor into a very old man for… seemingly no reason? Just to fuck with Ten, I guess? Then he turns him into a wrinkly Dobby-man with the worst special effects I’ve ever seen on TV to date, including the Season 2 Buffy werewolf costume. And then after that, he literally CHOOSES to die in the Doctor’s arms to prove a point while the Doctor screams and cries over him. Holy shit. Total whiplash. The RTD era is absolutely off the shits, I love it. 

Sure, John Simm’s master is… incredibly evil. He murders millions and takes over the planet. Then later he, uh… eats people? End of Time is a weird episode. I don’t like him much as a character, but I think he’s a good villain and a good foil for 10. My favorite Master that I’ve watched so far is Michelle Gomez’ Master. I LOVE Missy. She’s fun and chaotic and evil (and pretty), but her goals have shifted from world domination to purely fucking with the Doctor, which I think is far more interesting. In Series 8, arguably the only season she’s an antagonist in, she says as much. 

“I need you to know we’re not so different!”

If you’re still reading this, and you haven’t gone to my inbox to call me some slurs on anon because you disagree with me, thanks! I appreciate it. But now, regrettably, I’m gonna have to make everybody mad. 

Let’s talk about the Timeless Child. 

I feel like I should warn for spoilers again, just in case. MAJOR Series 12 spoilers ahead. 

Possibly the most divisive thing to happen to the Doctor Who universe in at least the past 25 years, The Timeless Child is the reveal that the Doctor isn’t a Time Lord. They’re an eldritch being from another dimension who, we assume, can regenerate endlessly. The Time Lords of Gallifrey experimented on the Doctor as a child, eventually finding a way to allow themselves to regenerate using the Doctor. The Doctor has had many lives that she doesn’t remember at all, even meeting one of her past, pre-Hartnell selves who had been Chameleon Arched and hiding in Gloucester as a woman named Ruth. I will say, I liked the Ruth!Doctor. She was cool, and I hope we see her again on the show, or maybe that she even gets an audio series or spinoff. That’s one pro to the Timeless Child stuff - it opens up the extended universe of Doctor Who even wider than it already was. Presumably, at some point in her future, Ruth!Doctor’s memories will be erased and she will be forced to regenerate into a child, thus beginning the story we know about the Doctor.

I’m not 100% sure how I feel about this storyline yet. I haven’t made up my mind. I will say, a lot of people who don’t like it see it as changing the Doctor’s entire backstory… but… I disagree. The Doctor we know, the one we have known since the 60’s, was raised on Gallifrey and believed they were Gallifreyan for, what, three thousand years? Do we even know how old the Doctor is now? That’s besides the point. They’re still our Doctor, the one who stole a TARDIS and ran away, the one who traveled with Susan and Sarah Jane and Ace and Rose and Bill. They’re still the alien who went to see the stars and fell in love with the human race. I really don’t think it changes much of what we already knew, but it does make their past a mystery, which I think has the potential to be good if done correctly. 

Again, I’m not entirely sure how I feel about this storyline yet. Series 13 is gonna have to work really hard to convince me, to sell me this huge universe change for my favorite show. I was worried that it was just a dumb, convoluted way to give the Doctor unlimited regenerations, and then Chibnall would just brush it under the rug and move on, but Revolution of the Daleks actually gave me hope. 13 had a deep, insightful conversation with Ryan. I can’t find a clip, but it was a really nice conversation. That was an excellent scene in my opinion. That’s the kind of conversation we should have gotten back in Series 11. The Doctor tries to push it off, but Ryan does something unprecedented for a Chibnall character. He challenges her. He insists that they talk about it, and they do. The other interesting thing is 13 admits to feeling angry. This incarnation of the Doctor rarely shows any emotion other than bubbly excitement. It’s a direct opposite to 12, who often used his anger to show the gravity of a situation -- think Zygon Inversion war speech.

But 13 doesn’t often let her emotions show, so her admitting to Ryan that she’s angry is… big. That’s what gives me hope. Chibnall, the king of not following through, is hinting at Emotional Followup. I might be setting myself for disappointment again, I don’t know. I’m willing to give the Timeless Child stuff a chance. Doctor Who canon doesn’t have much grounding. It’s a massive, horrifying mess and everything contradicts everything else.

People who hate the TC stuff and want to Marie Kondo it out of their personal canon are valid, as are people who love it and accept it as canon. That’s something the Doctor Who fanbase -- and fandom spaces in general -- really need to learn. Different opinions are okay. Not everyone is going to agree with you all of the time. We need to be more accepting of different opinions in media, so long as those opinions are not harmful. 

Chris Chibnall, on the other hand. Chris, I am speaking directly to you. Don’t screw this up. Don’t bone this one. You’ve boned two seasons so far, Chris, and if you bone another, I... don’t know what I’ll do. But I’ll be really sad, so. 

I’m begging you, man. Here, I’ll even give you a free storyline you can use! If you recall, Chris, in Series 9 of the television show you are the head showrunner for, Doctor Who, the 12th Doctor, as portrayed by Peter Capaldi, banishes Rassilon and the rest of the High Council from Gallifrey. This implies that leaving Gallifrey is possible, and other Time Lords or even other Gallifreyans could be out in the universe. In my opinion, it would be very interesting if the Doctor ran into some of these people, most likely Rassilon and the High Council, somewhere in the universe. It turns out that they found out that Gallifrey was attacked again (because you and I both know, Chris, that planet isn’t staying destroyed forever) and worked out that the Timeless Child cat is out of its metaphysical bag. I think it should be revealed that THEY sent the Judoon after her and sent her to prison because they’re scared of what she’ll do now that they don’t have any power over her. And the Doctor said she’s angry. Let her be angry. Let her find the High Council and tear them a fucking new asshole. They’re afraid of her, but they don’t need to be, because she’s the Doctor and she’s not a god, nor a vengeful one. She never has been, and this new information isn’t going to change that. I want the narrative to SHOW that she’s still the same Doctor. She isn’t her genetics, she isn’t their lab rat, she is her own person. That’s something your Doctor has struggled with. She doesn’t seem to know who she is. Make her realize. 

After that, get on your knees and beg Michelle Gomez to reprise her role as Missy. Have her come back to the show, post the Cyberman ship they were on in The Doctor Falls. She knows about the Timeless Child and she knows that the Doctor knows because the Dhawan! master was her previous regeneration. Have her apologize and let her tell the Doctor that she tried to stand with her and wants to continue to do so. Maybe let them kiss, I don’t know. 

You should also let Yaz see the Doctor’s darker side. Let her realize that the Doctor isn’t a god, or a superhero, or a perfect genius. She’s a person. She’s flawed. She has questionable morals sometimes. And she’s so, so old. She’s lost so much. Let Yaz see that. Let her do what other companions have done and challenge the Doctor. You keep telling the audience that they’re such good friends. Now show us that. Give Yaz more character and a significant character arc. She’s been here for two seasons, and I feel like I barely know her. Oh, and have her quit being a cop. 

The Doctor should deal with the information she’s learned. She should relearn who she is. Because she’s not perfect. She’s just a person passing through, helping out, learning. An idiot with a box and a screwdriver. She’s not always a good person, but she always tries to be. She’s been dozens of different people for God knows how many millenia. She is all of them. That’s what her confrontation with the High Council should result in. And let Jack come back again and allow the Doctor an honest, emotional conversation with him. He of all people should understand, since he left the Time Agency because they stole two years of his memories, and he knows the burden of living forever better than anyone. They’ve known each other for so long, let them reminisce about Rose and the good times they had together. Reaffirm their friendship. Reaffirm who the Doctor is. She depends on her friends. For the Doctor, in this season, I think those friends are Jack and Missy. I think they understand her and what she’s struggling with. In my perfect world, you would bring back Rose and River as well because I love them (I just think they’re neat!) and I think they could help her. Or someone else from Classic Who, I dunno. The Doctor feels as though her world has changed. This season needs to show her that it hasn’t.

And basic criticisms, Chris: stop being so fucking preachy all the time. You don’t need to spoon feed the message of the episode to the audience. I realize Doctor Who is often a show aimed towards kids, but kids are so much smarter than we give them credit for. They’re not stupid. I promise they will understand. And not every episode even needs a message! You’re head writer for the dumbest, wildest, best sci-fi show on the planet. Just make a goofy sci-fi episode. Doctor Who episodes that are just stupid and fun are good. Boom Town. Unicorn and the Wasp. Flatline. 

And take more risks. I understand that casting a woman as the Doctor was a big risk, but for fuck’s sake, quit being a coward. It’s been nearly three years. People are used to 13, they’ve accepted her. Timeless Child was a risk, but it wasn’t a fun risk. Do a weird anticapitalist episode. Bring back an old monster other than Cybermen or Daleks. Have an episode with, I don’t know, the Racnoss or the Ice Warriors or the Silurians or something. Come up with a fun new monster. You have so much potential there that you just don’t use. Be better. I know you can be a better writer, man. If you can’t do any better, well, then maybe it’s time to step down and let someone else take the reins.

I’ll always love Doctor Who. It’s been an interest of mine for well over a decade. I’m not giving up on it, but these seasons have just failed to grab my attention or my emotions, and quite frankly that makes me sad. There’s so many options moving forward. I have hope that this show can hook me again. The writers just need to try harder. Hire more women and people of color and lgbt+ people. A diverse cast of writers will always make a show with diverse characters better. Segun Akinola is an excellent composer. Utilize his music more. This scene clip of 13 escaping the matrix at the end of s12. had the Doctor Who theme in the background. Which was fine, I guess, I love the theme. (Fun fact: the theme was realized by a woman with the same first name as me!) but Akinola wrote this theme for 13 and I don’t remember it ever making an appearance in the show. It would have been perfect for that scene! 

https://open.spotify.com/track/1kNyixkRpA8QEN7SFzPCeG?si=23e74ae95320427e

Series 13 has so much potential. I truly believe that. I have so much hope. Please don’t let us down again. I’m not just being a pissy fan. I know there’s literally hundreds of these posts and videos and whatnot complaining about these seasons, but again, I’m not here to complain about it getting “too political” or “ruined by sjws'' because that’s bullshit. Doctor Who has always been political. All I’m saying is I think you can do better. I know you can do better. 

If you’ve made it this far, thank you so much, holy shit. I really appreciate it. You can come talk to me about this in my inbox, or shoot me a message, or whatever. Just… please don’t be too mean to me. I already get enough anons calling me slurs. This is all my opinion. I know not everyone is going to agree with me, and like I said, you are welcome to whatever opinion you have so long as it’s not harmful. We’re all here because we love this stupid, wonderful show that takes us through all of time and space and made us fall in love with the stars. Let’s hold our show to the standard and hope for better.

Thanks for reading.

[prettyblubox]

I love this. Just to add some more thoughts on Kerblam - I do think that Kerblam wasn't the best episode since, in the end, it did feel like a sell-out for major corporations. But like op points out, it does raise a few interesting questions about AI and its role in our world. I wish it had ended with them acknowledging that the system at large was at fault, not just that one disgruntled employee. The doctor didn't have to solve that problem she just needed to point it out. It felt like the episode was more interested in keeping the status quo - ppl need work to survive - rather than asking why ppl needed to work to survive in the first place.

Like why did the ppl on the planet so desperately need to work in such hostile environments to survive? Having automation/AI should free up humans to do things that are easier, better, more fulfilling, and less dangerous, not push them to poverty and starvation.

I wish the episode had continued for a little longer, y'know? It really didn't stick the landing.

It's so unfortunate that they kept focusing on that one stupid employee too because this episode could have explored Ryan more, since he was a warehouse worker himself. His reluctance to work and the way he explained how he did things despite his dyspraxia were interesting, and they could have added more - making him more central in that episode.

Kerblam feels like a lot of wasted potential and I'm sad that such an interesting story had such a boring ending.

I feel like 13's era is much more grounded in reality than the others. I think that throws people. It's still ridiculous and fantastical but it leans far more into the idea that This, for however silly it can be and that the doctor is real here, is the world You live in. These are your problems be it societal or personal. The doctor can and will help, but they can only do so much. They cannot magically fix a societal issue no matter how much they want to, they can't solve us killing our planet. They cannot stop violent people using violence for the sake of it. They can't solve systematic poverty. There is optimism in hope in that 'hey You can fix this if you want to and try' but the Doctor isn't expected to have an answer. They cannot come up with a band aid to fix. Societal issue in one fifty minute episode but they sure can yell at people about it.

It puts it on Us.

Which honestly, the state of the world? It's not a bad challenge to issue.

[templedragon]

Doctor Who: Revolution of the Daleks

Summary: Too much mansplaining

Review: Chibnall supposedly has a plan, and given there were numerous references to episodes within his tenure and before it, he's demonstrating that he has the ability to write consistent development. But this highlights what he cares about, and what he doesn't. He doesn't care about women, as the Doctor and Yaz are spoken to a lot in this feature length episode by men (mansplaining). We're back to the complaint that just having the titular character as female doesn't mean it's good representation. Having the first Asian character in the TARDIS in itself isn't good representation. And apparently, Chibnall can't imagine the TARDIS without a white cis man in it, with the introduction of John Bishop as a companion. I had been looking forward to an all female Who Crew. Alas.

Racism is alive. The deaths of the two black characters are prolonged torture porn. The white woman is killed quickly. The tea lady survives despite being a murderer. The returning white male villain got a lot of dialogue and screentime, and on the back of Wonder Woman 1984 writers automatically default to writing about white men. I can't help worrying that the long term plan of Chibnall is this white American squaring off with John Bishop, the white Scouse. The immortal white Captain Jack Harkness doesn't die from having a Dalek face hugger, so I wonder why he was given the dialogue mentioning it if it wasn't being utilised. Are Daleks high stakes if no good guys die?

The return of Captain Jack brings nostalgia from the RTD era, and the inevitable comparison of show runners. Most of the audience found Doctor Who with RTD, who had companions' hearts at the centre of his stories. RTD had fantastical settings for us to reflect on current issues. RTD had the companions use their abilities (often compassion) to save the day. Contrast this to the current Who crew. What did Yaz, Ryan, of Graham do to save the Doctor, or the day? Yaz had ten months to figure out the TARDIS, when previous companions ripped it apart to with upon its heart. It was all Captain Jack, with his technology, pep talks and team leadership. Jack saved the Doctor from prison, Jack had the vortex manipulator and squareness gun to get to and into places. Jack had the explosives to take out a Dalek ship. Jack had the advice of loving the Doctor being worth the pain of living without her.

Ableism is also alive. Ryan has dyspraxia, but it's only ever stopped him from riding a bike or shooting a basketball hoop outside of adventures with the Doctor. Everything else he's been able to do when necessary without ill effect. This discrimination is minimisation. Ryan becomes the third black companion to willingly walk away from the Doctor (Mickey Smith and Martha Jones before him), with Graham the first white person to follow him. Ryan accepting Graham as his granddad was nice character development in their first season, but nothing new happened between them in the second. It's more development than Yaz has had. What have her family thought about her disappearing for nights in a detached suburban home? Her role is to thirst after the Doctor, and hopefully Thasmin will be canon as I'm not going to watch another woman of colour have unrequited romantic feelings for the Doctor. If you're homophobic and think I'm imagining it, check out John Barrowman liking tweets about Yaz and Jack bonding over loving the Doctor.

Jodie Whittaker continues to give stellar performances with poor material. On the back of the series' finale, she is having a huge identity crisis. As the prison was irrelevant for decades, she's still stuck emotionally where we left her. Cue Ryan mansplaining feelings. Later, she declares she's the Doctor but with no compassion in her eyes - she's defining herself as a killer of Daleks. In one moment, she laments that Gallifrey is gone, and in the next she's killing a TARDIS - a TARDIS that had other people on it but Chibnall has already forgotten. Killing fascists and having innocents as collatoral is bad messaging. Usually when the Doctor goes off the deep end, the companions reign them in with compassion. But where was the human voice?

[thebraxiatelcollection]

*ahem* THOUGHTS ON THE CURRENT ERA OF THE LONG-RUNNING BRITISH SCI-FI SHOW "DOCTOR WHO"? (I'm prepared for the sodium chloride. I'm ready.)

can y'all send some asks that are like “thoughts on ______”

-

*Cracks knuckles*

I’ll be completely honest.

I love the 2005-2017 Era of Modern Who. To me, that is my Doctor Who and even though the show did have its issues, it was nowhere near as bad as it is now and nor does it have as much terrible writing, moral of the week storylines that we do not need forcing down on us.

Sigh.

Chris Chibnall for me has completely rebranded the show and the direction it’s going in is really not doing it for me. I know he acknowledges Lungbarrow and the classic but with the Timeless children,  I felt he just did a big fuck you to the classic series and the lore and just did his own take on it and I think mainly, for his and the BBC’s political gain.

I watched an interview with him where he was on a talk show and he’s talking about Pip and Jane’s Baker era of the show and he goes: “It could be slightly better written.” IRONIC for he can’t write for shit.

They have dumbed down the scripts way too much for the audience (and even some kids I know have completely stopped watching it because of this) and the companions are useless (I do like Graham but I wish he would stop praising Yaz because Yaz does fuck all and I do not get the Yaz/13 shipper thing as they don’t have any chemistry) and flat.  The characters he writes lack development and it’s been two seasons now and I am bored to tears by them. Also, Ryan dyspraxia storyline seems to have been thrown out of the window and the writers seem to forget about it when writing him. 

Doctor Who has always been political, don’t get me wrong but it handled it beautifully and was for everyone on different sides of the political spectrum. These moral of the week storylines don’t do it for me and whilst I think the message they are trying to get across to people is important to learn, I just wish they didn’t dumb it down for people and didn’t just use the “white males are the villans” for the majority of the episodes. 

Chris Chibnall needs to take hints from the fans and acknowledges that his era of the show is losing ratings and fast and they need to do something about it soon otherwise I think the show will go on a long hiatus with the way it continues and it’s losing more and more fans with each episode. 

Also, what the heck was the point of bringing Jack back other than to try and get the ratings up and do a bit of fan service? 

I also hate the new TARDIS that Jodie has. It’s too chunky and messy and I much prefer Jo Martin TARDIS even though if she does come before Hartnell (It pains me to write that), why does she have a Police box as her TARDIS?

I’m point blanking refusing to accept his version of Doctor Who as Doctor Who. It doesn’t feel like the main show but a spin-off.

I won’t be watching any further episodes or if I do, it will only be clips that the BBC post on their youtube channel.

I’m just sad that my favourite show is going in this direction.

I am so glad people are still loving it and finding it to be their escapism but this new era of the show is not for me and I am done.

I have a lot more issues but I won’t discuss them here but if you want to PM me, you can do. 

I’ll be sticking to my big finish and doctor who books :D

[chucklestheechidona]

Doctor Who: The Jodie Review

(Long post)

(Sorry)

Introduction

I decided, still being locked down, to watch some Doctor Who.

Hadn’t watched it in a while, told myself I’d always catch up when I had the time, and the universe decided to give me a lot of it.

I had stopped watching Matt quite some time ago, but caught up about 4 years ago to Capaldi’s first season. I had meant to carry on with it but slow-going times and I forgot and all the other jazz that fills in the space between not doing things.

But I thought I’d storm through them and get them over with. I had heard bad things going onwards, but hey, I’m one of those sad losers that LIKE Love and Monsters. It’s not great but I thought what it did well, it did great.

So, off I went to finally catch up on a show that formulated so much of my younger self, my love for time-travel, interesting sci-fi that ended up getting me into the genre, and a love for character interactions and lore.

I went through Capaldi, and his last two seasons, yeah, they had an odd episode here and there, Sleep No More is a disaster, but I carried on through. I’m a trooper, I got through Fear Her after all.

But I fell in love with the Doctor again. Heaven Sent is easily the best DW has offered so far, the character building with him and Clara and Bill and hell, Nardole, are superb. The stories were interesting, the Doctor was great and evolved, and the companions were the perfect fit for Capaldi.

And then, after a brilliant goodbye, he was gone.

“Be kind.“

And here we go, we’re with Jodie, she’s northern, she’s confused, and she’s in need of some pockets, falling through the sky, yeah, 200 degrees that’s why they call her missus fahrenheit-

Not Jodie, but Chibnall

I’m not going to drag this out too far, I ain’t gonna make you read this for ages just to see if I like it. If you don’t want to see me complain about two seasons, this is your point to head out.

I think these are the lowest series of Modern Doctor Who.

But like the title says, it’s not Jodie’s fault. She’s an amazing actress, and she plays the part well. Hell, so does Bradley, Tosin and Mandip. Each one of them is a good actor and when the scene calls for them, they pull it off well.

The issue here is the writing.

And I feel I should go through why I think that.

But first, I think I should point out the good.

The Good: On historical topics and representation

This is the most diverse Doctor Who has been in a while. It was pretty diverse before mind you, let’s not forget the Doctor seems a bit flexible, the companions have been a mix of sexualities, gender, age and race, and each one of them is loved by many. Hell, Jack Harkness was so popular he got his own tv show.

But Thirteenth has gone and made sure that there was more.

Characters just pointing out they’re gay and it’s just a matter of fact. It’s a statement, not an argument, not being out there or subvertive, it just is. People are more than fine with this. 

I’m surprised Graham the bus driver is so accepting of everyone at the start, but it speaks testament to his character. He fell in love with Grace, he raised a son with a disability, he stands up for those that dare have a go at any of that. Graham didn’t have to grow to learn this in the Tardis, he was accepting from the get-go. 

Well, there’s some conflict about Ryan blaming things on Dyspraxia in the first episode but it comes out of a place of fear of their lives. But any tensions between them are resolved quite well, to the point they can count on each other.

Either way, representation is important and Jodie’s season has it in spades.

As for historical topics, the Doctor tackles them quite well. Honestly, the episodes in the past are her strong suit. And as she’s a woman now, she has a new battle against her. History wasn’t always kind, and the gag of them addressing Graham each time is a genuinely good idea.

Also, Rosa had the opportunity to be butchered. It could have been written badly, it could have been handled with hardly any care, but it was the standout episode of the season. Each character gets some good lines, the gang has to face moral decisions and it’s a genuinely good look into a past that America would sometimes like to forget.

As an aside, I think Bill, even as one character, explored the sexuality thing more and the diversity she faced from it, I think thirteenth doesn’t do a bad job. I liked the astronauts as shown above quite a bit to be fair.

Graham

The standout star of the show.

This will be unfortunately brought up in my negatives for the show too, but this is the good side.

Graham’s lost his wife, he has to connect to her grandson, his cancer is a constant worry in his head and he comes with the Doctor in an attempt to escape/confront all three.

He is the one who evolves the most as a character in the first season, coming to terms with the death of Grace is something he battles with throughout, he still blames himself. For whatever reason, even in the Rosa Parks episode, he gets the most emotional writing. Ryan and Yaz do get good writing in the same episode mind you, (which is unfortunately one of the few times Yaz does) but it’s heartbreaking to see Graham realise what he has to do.

The Acting

I unfortunately have to put Ryan, Yaz and the Doctor here in one group category. and I hate to do that, but I feel it’d be a disservice not to mention them.

Their actors can act well. When the script calls for it, they do amazing work.

The scene where Jodie is angry and confused at the other Doctor, where Ryan is actually there to support his friend, when Yaz is comforting Ryan about America, where Jodie is fucking pissed at the Master, all good scenes.

But this is a perfect segway into -

The Bad: Asides the retcon

Holy shit where do I start.

I mean, we’ve got the good out of the way, so you know where I stand on the issues a bunch of people wrong accused the show of being. A female doctor is more than fine, the diverse cast is great, the topics of exploring the past is done good.

And I’m not going into the retcon just yet, I feel like going ITS BAD BECAUSE OF THIS ignores so much of the problems to be had

But let’s start with

The Doctor

This should have been her outfit just saying

I find the best way of describing most of this doctors run so far is...

Imagine, if you will, that you need to write a Doctor Who book. They’ve given you a plot to go with, but they haven’t told you which Doctor it’s for. But tight schedules and they still haven’t told you, so you write up a draft. A template. But you leave the Doctor’s text ambiguous. A template for a Doctor. With some work, you could make it the 12th, the 5th, the 1st, once you add mannerisms and how the doctor would react personally in a situation. So you write in this template Doctor and go to sleep. But you wake up and your assistant has only gone and submitted it.

The Doctor is kinder than any other iteration of her Doctor, but that’s it. I get why the natural progression from Capaldi, and Jodie sells a nice Doctor superbly, but ... 

There’s nothing really there to distinguish her as her own Doctor. She’s nice, a bit confused, LOVES things and calls people fam.

But like, that’s it. Where the 9th had coldness, 10 had eccentric, 11 had old man and 12 was furious, Jodie has... nice. But a Doctor needs an edge. 

She’s quiet about her home life and she doesn’t really talk much to her companions about it, but like, that’s understandable, she doesn’t really talk one on one to them or even much about their home lives.

She doesn’t get an arc until Spyfall, and even then it’s largely just turned into “She’s well moody”, and apparently well moody is just being kinda quiet. Jodie says it right when she shouts at them in one scene “You don’t know me!”

And she’s right, but then the companions trust her with everything and they’re part of a FAM and super close but they don’t really talk with each other. Jodie doesn’t have these quiet talks like the other Doctors would have with the companions, it’s just... not there.

And because it’s not there we’re supposed to believe they think of themselves as a tightly knit group but also very apart as characters. And the companions, to their credit, try and confront her on it, but the conflict is over so quick as to not be there at all.

Yaz and Ryan

This is the best scene of them in, and one of the rare times Yaz makes an impact on a story which isn’t just supporting the Doctor

What they did to these two actors is cruel.

Ryan at least gets to join in on Grahams arc, because it is Grahams arc, not Ryans, really. There’s a plot about his Dad that’s done quite well, so that’s why Ryan doesn’t suffer the same poor fate as Yaz does.

Yaz has absolutely no agency. She wants to be a successful Policewoman but it’s not really much addressed outside of the first episode and the dream episode (which admittedly, is a good episode and explores each character). She gets told by everyone she’s the heart of the team and super brave and like, she hasn’t got an arc, she pretty much blindly follows the Doctor, she has no reason to be there much other than her family’s a bit annoying.

Her actress plays the scenes well, and there’s some touching moments with her in Rosa and the dream episode about how she is the way she is, why she does the things she does. But 2 episodes out of 20 isn’t enough.

Ryan gets a couple of good episodes, a touching one especially comes with horrors of the future and not being there for his friends plaguing his mind, and he manages to get help for his depressed friend, which is touching.

But the two episodes? That’s kind of it.

Ryan gets a nice Dalek episode though.

Orphan 55

The worst episode in Doctor Who. Took any good faith from Spyfall and plonked S12 in bottom tier before we even got to the retcon.

If I talked about everything it did wrong here this would go on too long.

It was just the worst 45 minutes of DW

At least Sleep No More was just boring.

Character Arcs, What Are They

Graham’s arms give out in season 1 for carrying the team.

The Doctor against Tim Shaw is laughable, there’s no conflict past killing a couple of people, so Graham has to have that moral dilemma instead, Ryan manages to respect him and call him gramps, but that’s more Grahams arc than Ryans. Yaz has nothing, the Doctor learns nothing.

But series 2, the Doctor’s given an arc, which is something, considering that before this it was a throwaway line about Timeless Child from a piece of cloth.

Gallifrey is gone again, the insurance rates at this point are through the roof on this planet, she’s been told the Master did it for learning a terrible truth. But she of course doesn’t explore the ruins until she has to, but ah well, we can live with that, that’s fine in Doctor Who. I’m not even being sarcastic, the Doctor through all iterations isn’t very clever.

It gives her a bit of a mood that’s not really explored too much past that, but then we’re given Jo Martin as The Other Doctor

My opinions on throwing in Doctors from the past aside, (I love you John Hurt but damnit), Jo plays a competent Doctor, and her attitude clashes so well with Jodie that both actresses get to act well in good written scenes.

But then she’s just very confused until Gallifrey rolls around again.

We’ll ignore the retcon, again, but once she learns she gets super fucking pissed. And for good reason. Against the Master, against the Time Lords, against everyone, she’s shouting at everything, lost in her life.

But it’s sorted out very quickly by Jo intervention and then she’s much the same as ever.

Well, I say that, what I mean is “Willing to burn and kill all life on Gallifrey” with a button press. Yeah I know that the Time Lords are dead and the Master is about to kill everyone but you wouldn’t let a Spider be shot through mercy killing and you expect me to jump to “Would absolutely murder the Master and desecrate the bodies of the Time Lords”

It doesn’t matter anyway, for she has not the will to do so.

But she lets someone else do it

For fucks sa-

And at the end, what has she learned? That the thing she only knew half an hour ago shouldn’t affect her, so back to status quo

Wasted potential - Monsters

Imagine a super cool idea for a monster? Cool, add it into an episode.

And now get rid of it super quickly or butcher the premise.

REGENERATING CYBERMEN? Let’s have one shoot the other to show how bad it would be and then kill them immediately.

The Pting, capabale of disrupting a ships infrastructure an- Nah, just dick around with the lights.

A TIME TRAVELLING RACIST WHO KNOWS HOW TO FUCK UP THE TIMELINE

Let’s not even reference him 15 episodes later

Cyberman hybrid? 

You get the idea.

The Master, or rather, the Missy Issue

The Master is putting on his best Simms Master homage, and like, I get it. It’s a good Master, and Sacha really puts his all into it.

I can only hope that this Master is before Yana. Missy’s exit was poetic, done well. Of course, just when she could feel ok joining the Doctor, the obstacle in her way was herself. 

It’s not even the fact she died and why is he back now, it’s ... this Master has almost no nuance to him. He wants the Doctor to know the truth, which is at least some Master motives, but then its just wanton destruction for the sake of it. Like Simms but “what if we made him more crazy” The Master is more than this, can be more than this. It was nice seeing Jodie try and relate to him but this Master has thrown out three years of compelling evolution of the character. To throw it all out seems ... odd.

I can’t fault his performance though, he can be real damn quiet and sinister and really out there when he’s screaming at things.

The episodes themselves

Good cast, good side characters, good ideas, butchered in execution by not exploring the main cast, falling flat on the ideas and by the second season, losing the fun side characters.

Episodes I liked

Woman Who Fell To Earth

Rosa

Demons of the Punjab

WitchFinders

Takes You Away

Fugitive of the Judoon

Can you Hear me

Episodes I hated

Orphan 55

Arachnids

The Timeless Children

The Battle of Ranskoor Av Kolos (for cutting everything short)

Everything else was mostly unmemorable I fell asleep on Ascension of the Cybermen, had to rewind it.

The Retcon

You knew this was coming.

I put it last for I feel there’s a hundred and one issues here and it’d be cruel to just go for the obvious first. Maybe people would think I’d be against this one thing and that’s why I hate the rest. God no, I was so annoyed going into this episode, let alone for what it was about to deliver.

I don’t outright hate past Doctors. Hell, shove the brains of Morbius in there. It shits a bit on Hartnell and established lore a bit, but still.

“But the Brains of Morbius said-“

The eighth doctor said he was half-human, there are some bits of this canon we ignore.

But oh well, it’s not the main crux of the issue.

The Doctor, before this, was a Time Lord. He wasn’t much of a good one, by Time Lord standards at least. Ran from the schism, wasn’t as good as the Master in school, didn’t like the stuffy nature of his race, or their non-intervention policy. Ran off in a stolen ship with a knackered console and wanted to see the universe.

He flouted the rules. He stood up for people where Time Lords wouldn’t. Observe, don’t intervene. But the Doctor couldn’t, too curious, too inquisitive. He got a fondness for humans, god knows why. 

But this Time Lord was against his own people, he was kinder than them, but alien to us. He wanted to learn, and left his planet to see if there was good in the universe. He was a rather shit Time Lord but helped where he could, making a difference in other people’s lives, trying to be the best he could be, learning.

This got him into trouble with the Time Lords of course, but, hey, it’s a funny old universe.

And we like that, as British folk. An underdog common person just trying to help out and be good.

What we’re not a fan of is saying the the Doctor isn’t just some Time Lord that likes helping out, but a chosen one who is the reason that Time Lords exist in the first place and is of another dimensional world and there were 50 of them and they knew kung fu in the super secret Time Lord service but they wiped her mind because it was super secret guys and she can live forever and is immortal and-

I was annoyed when the 50th made a slight mockery of the Time War. I get we don’t always have to stick so closely to canon, but holy shit the Timeless Child.

The fact it was exposition dumped on us and then wrapped up 10 minutes after with NEW ADVENTURES AT CHRISTMAS was just the icing on the cake.

If you wanted to pull this off, this should have been the Doctor’s struggle for the next season, coming to terms that her life is missing, that the Time Lords did this, that she didn’t even know what was right or not

But no, resolved. Felt not like adding to the lore but upending it on its head to say he could.

It’s why I don’t blame Jodie, who does an excellent job. Or the cast.

I blame Chibnall.

And it wouldn’t be as bad if the writing leading up to it helped serve the episode. But there was nothing there. 

Conclusion

The writing is trash, the Doctor is underdeveloped, the cast outside of Graham aren’t explored, the setup for the finales are weak and uninspired, the retcons are going to cause major issues down the line and you’ve changed the very nature of the Doctor’s character and didn’t even have good writing behind it nor did much to explore it.

And I’m sorry it had to happen to such a good casting decision.

Here’s hoping you sign on to Big Finish and they give you some good storylines Jodie, you deserve it.

[theskyexists]

CHIBS' WRITING IS SO SLOW AND FOCUSED. IN A BAD WAY.

If I had these characters I'd have sketched out all of their arcs before we even fucking started.

Graham? Grumpy, closed off from the new or the difficult, lashes out when under stress. But also, playful and wry, wise, kind, curious and sensible. The adventures allow him to go from the former to the latter. Graham experiences devastating grief at the start and then recovers through creating and bonding with his remaining family. (So far, this is all that Chibs has written). Graham's explicit theme? He tries to figure out what Grace would have said and thought and done, and does it. In tribute, in memory, explicitly (I.e. the Doctor should have pushed: is this REALLY what Grace would have wanted, for you to put blood on your hands?). Graham is intimately familiar with death and haunted by its spectre AND is a grandfather. His relationship with the Doctor should be based in these things. He granddads her sometimes but she granddads him back sometimes. He finds out how old she is, that there was once a grandchild. He realises that they share a relationship with death. Maybe we get a competition in self-sacrifice, after all that IS what Grace would have done (Totally missing).

Yaz? Ambitious, righteous, just, wants more than anything to contribute and help, have the power to help. Loves her family, is annoyed by her family. Chose her job for the potential it has, dislikes it for the way she's constrained. An instant tension between all the roots she has in real life - and the magic and beauty of the universe, the Doctor's power that takes her away from it. Her explicit theme should be: be careful what you wish for. She should be allowed to wield Doctor-power, to right wrongs, to change worlds, save others, develop her present skills. And then, she should be faced with grey areas, with unclear situations, with morally grey decisions - made by the Doctor - and eventually forced to make these herself. Her relationship with the Doctor should be one of much clearer infatuation, imitation, attraction and eventual disillusionment, questioning, rebellion. A climax could absolutely be that she stops the Doctor from going too far. Or she does something she cannot forgive herself for (or both) - and the Doctor helps her - reveals what enormous sins are on her conscience. (it's not just fun and games, it's making a decision). That's part of it. Is it worth it? (Missing, missing fully missing).

Ryan? He's struggling with self-esteem, with a handicap and with abandonment. His story should have been about trust. Trust in himself, in Graham, in the fam - as everybody else has left him. His dyspraxia makes him rather unsuited to this life - running, climbing, etc. It puts him in danger. More than anything, the fam arc should have been his. That he can trust others to come back for him, that he can trust them not to die, that he can trust they will be there for him as he picks himself up. (All we've had so far is off screen stuff with him missing the basket but that's ok he'll get it next time as an indicator that's something's changed). His relationship with the Doctor should have been marked by serious parental vibes. Encouragement (check), explicitly giving him opportunities to grow and learn and have successes (missing). Try new things. Teach him how to work on the TARDIS, keep an extra eye on him. Let him develop his choice of career AND his talents - his sincerity being a way of connecting with others. Allow him ways to grow into Grace's legacy. Of caring for others and reproducing, maintaining, society, not on automatic, but consciously. More than anyone, his story is about finding his place, finding out what is the right life for him. Let it be a point of conflict and contention between Graham and the Doctor - she pushes Ryan and lets him do dangerous things, Graham wants to keep him safe. (Missing, missing, missing etc.)

And the Doctor? This all would work perfectly with the Doctor's arc! She's trying to keep running, spews platitudes about hope and love left and right but loses hope so quickly (suicidal Twelve). Wants to keep a distance from her companions, because she thinks herself dangerous perhaps - even more dangerous than the adventures she warned them about (Bill). But she NEEDS them. And if any of the above would have been written she would have HAD to connect, to reveal herself to keep them.

I just can't believe that we've reached the 1.3 series point and we've only had a little dig into Graham. It's like Chibnall isn't interested in his companions (or their relationships with the Doctor) AT ALL.