#rtd can fuck off with that

[secretagentsagainstwhatever]

Minor Doctor who spoilers i guess but not really

did Space babies give anyone else The beast below vibes??

[crookedfivefingers]

3.13 | ᴛʜᴇ ʟᴀꜱᴛ ᴏꜰ ᴛʜᴇ ᴛɪᴍᴇ ʟᴏʀᴅꜱ

link to the post I accidentally wound up prattling endlessly about in the tags 💀

[donttouchtheneednoggle]

this just in: uplifting people just by virtue of their assigned gender at birth in the name of feminism found to be transphobic so now we're just gonna shit on those who CHOOSE to be male presenting bc it's a CHOICE right so we can tell them they're inherently inferior right guys??!!

bioessentialism found to be transphobic so we're jumping straight into gender essentialism which is totally cool as long as it's pretending to be feminism!!!!

[laniidae-passerine]

I’m finding that the laziest moments of Doctor Who’s writing are the ‘retroactive twists’ - when the show runner reveals something happened way back over there, in the past, before they were even running the show. And we swear it happened, way over there, far back, and you didn’t see it because of reasons but it’s definitely been happening! And it totally makes sense and I absolutely didn’t just pull it out my ass to justify my paper thin plotline! All this kind of writing does is make me miss self contained season length plots. We’ve had people complaining that Moffat was guilty of the “this thing is big and scary and it’s going to happen, oh god it’s showing up, we’re going to discover what it truly is….. next season!!!!!!” plotline (and yes. he was. twelve is my fav doctor but yeah Moffat loved a mysterious horse and a big stick) but now suddenly when RTD gets out his own mysterious horse and a big stick, it’s got to be genius! everything is eventually going to make sense! and we’re absolutely not being had by a man who used to be able to write this show and is now a hack!

[velichorus-k]

JOURNEY'S END WHAT. WHAT. WHAT WAS THAT. FUCK OFF

[phyrexian-lesbian]

day whothefuckknows of wanting the doctorverse being scrapped as a headcanon.

[mwagneto]

finished rewatching rtd era. literally took me uhm. two and a half months. in fucking shambles rn

[buildoblivion]

listen ik we’re all entitled to have opinions about classic who but if one more modern production member talks shit about the 80s run I’m gonna have to chew glass

[frogmascquerade]

Doctor who spoilers in the tags ! Empire of death

[oreo102]

No bc it literally pisses me off so much!

forever bitter that jodie is the only doctor that didn’t get to pass on her outfit

especially after everything she did to say that anyone can wear her outfit and then the comments that rtd made

[lucky-clover-gazette]

i don’t think dot and bubble was trying to do both “phone bad” commentary and race commentary. i don’t think it was trying to do “phone bad” commentary at all. the episode wore the veneer of a mediocre black mirror clone to lull the viewer into expecting something predictable and bland—haha they can’t walk without their phones! mid-tier episode but good enough—and then it hits you with the fucking gut punch of that ending, and the Why of the episode falls into place.

i almost wonder if the real “phone bad” commentary has to do with the experiences of people of color in fandom, where they’re having fun with the story and feel a sense of belonging and then boom. they realize that there are racist people and ideas in a situation that previously felt predictable and safe. i’ve heard princess weekes discuss that experience before, and she even made a video essay about martha jones in doctor who. and of course that experience goes far beyond fandom, in much more serious ways, but it’s the technology stuff that made me think of it specifically. and now that i think of it, there are hints dropped about those much more serious ways in the episode—something about a very modern-day-esque police institution existing in this far-off future utopia, and the way lindy called for them, had already rubbed me the wrong way.

maybe this episode was rtd’s attempt to grapple with the ways he failed martha jones and mickey smith in his original run. acknowledging that an adventure can be destroyed in a second, with the realization that everyone else on the adventure sees you as less worthy than your white counterparts. ncuti performs the doctor’s realization and reaction extremely well. i’m glad that this episode exists.

i’m going to rewatch this immediately, i think. please feel free to add your thoughts.

[iceinherheart-kissonherlips]

RTD: yo, Steven, my friend, I am back as DW showrunner, would you like to come back Moffat: nah, I am done RTD: but it will be sponsored by Mickey Mouse Moffat: ... Moffat: okay, so The Doctor will step on a FUCKING LANDMINE, won't be able to move for the entire episode, because if he does, the whole planet will FUCKING BLOW UP. I will need a hole in a ground, five people. The whole theme? How war is evil and pointless, and how big corporations and some even bigger countries profit from war and how they don't care about people; and how capitalism is the driving force of war and suffering, and how faith can be awful and evil if it stops you from thinking for yourself; I will beat the shit out of the fact that when it comes to money, people's lives do not matter and only the money counts, and how the organised religions Are Not That Great and that they often are the cause for suffering and violence and it's been like that for AGES; everything will give off a slight whiff of the US; and there will be an opportunity for a love story, BUT one person will be KILLED by the evil machine that was supposed to heal - just to drive the point home that WAR IS POINTLESS AND EVIL AND STUPID. I will also kill a FATHER OF A SMALL GIRL, BUT in the end the hope and love of a parent will save everyone RTD: I don't- Moffat: oh and I will fucking KILL the companion. It keeps them humble

[the-desolated-quill]

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

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

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

[13thdoctorposts]

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

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

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

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

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

[timeagainreviews]

The Hyperfixations of Steven Moffat

Leading up to the Doctor Who Christmas special, I was surprised to see people expressing indifference toward the prospect of new Doctor Who. There were the usual shitbag “Not my Doctor,” homophobes and racists who add nothing but noise to the background radiation of the fandom. But there were also ride-or-die fans expressing disinterest. And it’s not like I don’t get it. The first season of RTD’s return was a bit jank. For me, it was a marked uptick in quality, but it also felt like it was trying a bit too hard. We’re also coming off the tail end of a Hell Year™, and we’re tired. Honestly, I kind of hate anyone whose biggest problem in the world right now is the Superman trailer. But I also recognise the need for escapism. Which is why a Doctor Who Christmas special and Wallace & Gromit double feature was such a welcome reprieve from Hell Year™. That was my Christmas sorted. And you know what? I had a lovely fucking Christmas.

My greatest takeaway from this double feature was that Wallace is a bit of a menace in his own right, and Moffat is a man with hyperfixations. When I say this, I don’t mean it in a judgemental way (except for Wallace, he should take more care), but rather to highlight what I think is Moffat’s main quality as a writer. Recently Moffat disclosed that he has been diagnosed autistic. As a neurospicy individual myself, I appreciate a good hyperfixation. Let this blog be exhibit A. You give an autistic or ADHD person a hyperfixation, and it’s like a dog with a bone. You can see this in the way Moffat writes about time travel. I’ve mentioned it before, but Moffat writes time travel like a young boy who got hyperfixated and couldn’t stop thinking about the implications of time travel. 

What are some of Moffat’s hyperfixations as a writer? How about names beginning with “Os”? What about women who look like Elon Musk’s mum if she were a burlesque scientist? Or young people who meet older people and become obsessed with them into adulthood? (I’m not gonna get into it, but it’s weird that it happened three times) While some of Moffat’s preoccupations are distinctly Steven, others are more widely shared. I still remember being nervous around a hobo statue my grandmother had in her basement. I used to run past it as though it were going to spring into life the moment I took my eyes off it. I understand Weeping Angels. Fear of the dark gets us the Vashta Nerada. Steven Moffat is a writer whose fixations are at the centre of his work. And part of that work lands him in hotel rooms where he has plenty of time to lie there and think about the room he’s in.

About a month ago, we were given our first taste of “Joy to the World,” with the opening scene of the Doctor going door to door in various locations attempting to deliver a ham and cheese toastie and a pumpkin spice latte. I don’t usually watch scenes ahead of their time, but the costume geek in me really wanted to see the latest variation on what has become the closest thing we’ll get to a signature look for this Doctor. I loved the butterscotch tones with the wide legged trousers. Such an iconic look. This may be one of my favourite costumes Ncuti has worn thus far. However, beyond a glimpse at the new costume, I was curious to see the Fifteenth Doctor with a different companion from Ruby Sunday. I adored Nicola Coughlan as Clare in Derry Girls, so I had to sneak a peak.

It was rare in classic Doctor Who for a Doctor to go into a situation with no companions. The Third Doctor was alone before meeting Liz Shaw. The TARDIS engines had hardly cooled between Leela and Romana. There were also the Eighth Doctor and Grace. But for the most part, there was always a companion bridging the exchange. It’s far more common in modern Doctor Who to see the Doctor without a companion at the beginning of a story. These moments interest me because its a chance to see the Doctor’s vulnerability. With no one to impress, the Doctor feels somehow less confident. The Doctor doesn’t always need a companion to remind him when he’s gone too far, but also to remind him to feel love. Here, we see the Doctor still not used to being on his own. He pops into a hotel lobby for a couple cups of coffee before remembering he only needs the one.

While this is a nice re-introduction to the Doctor’s current emotional state, I was a little disappointed by this being the reason the Doctor was at the Time Hotel in the first place. It’s funny that he steals coffee from hotel lobbies on the reg, but it’s a flimsy device for a story setup. Then again, that is Moffat’s way. During his run on Doctor Who it was always impressed upon us that the TARDIS always took the Doctor where he needed to be. He even reiterates this concept during the Doctor and Anita’s conversation about her sat nav. That’s sort of the Doctor’s whole thing. Go somewhere innocuous on the day when everything went to shit. Henrik’s Department Store operated for years without incident until the Nestine Consciousness showed up and the Doctor had to blow the place up. Besides, how else are you going to draw a guy who time travels and has no need for a home into a time travelling hotel? Those are like the two things he needs the least. So yeah, the Doctor steals coffees like they were TARDISes.

Along with Nicola Coughlan guest starring as Joy, we get an adorable turn from Joel Fry as the charmingly dim Trev Simpkins. While his screentime is minimal, I fell in love with Trev almost immediately. Sadly, Trev wouldn’t be long for this world, but the stars are a completely different story. Having been conscripted by the Doctor to spy on a strange man in the hotel lobby, Trev quickly becomes embroiled in the journey of the mysterious Villengard suitcase by becoming its next host. This is how we’re introduced to Joy Almondo, a young woman staying at the Sandringham Hotel, which is a bit of a flophouse. Once again, we’re reintroduced to another Moffat hyperfixation which is a weird “women be shoppin’” attitude when Joy nervously asks Anita if its obvious that she’s single. I rolled my eyes at that line, and it’s made slightly more egregious when you consider the reason Joy is by herself in this run-down hotel on Christmas Eve. Why would she be thinking of men on the night she’s very clearly mourning the loss of her mum? The brief conversation between her and the fly in her room endears us to her far more than her anxiety about finding a man in this economy.

Ultimately, the Sandringham Hotel proves to be a lot more interesting of a location than the Time Hotel. Which is saying something considering that out of the Time Hotel’s many doors into different periods of time, one of those doors is some kind of Hobbit door. In contrast to the wacky voyeur tourism of the Time Hotel, the Sandringham Hotel was where the emotional core of the story takes place, even if I find Moffat’s conceit about hotels a bit contrived. You see, I can imagine the genesis of this story came from Moffat lying in a hotel room and considering that weird door that won’t open. We’ve all wondered about it. But he loses me a bit with his take on why people stay at such hotels.

Back in 2016, my friend Gary came and visited me from the states. We planned a trip down to London where he could see Abbey Road and then onto Cardiff for the Doctor Who Experience and up to Liverpool to see John Lennon’s house. It was a bare-bones trip over three days that required some sacrifices in train times and accommodations. We needed a good hotel in London, but what was most important was a place to hang our heads for the evening, so we went with cheap. The hotel we ended up with, we lovingly referred to as the Hotel Mos Eisley because it was a wretched hive of scum and villany. The rooms were numbered with a devil-may-care randomness. At the top of the stairs was a slashed canvas depicting Marilyn Monroe. One of her teeth had been blacked out and a swastika was drawn on her forehead. We had to sleep with toilet paper in our ears for fear of roaches. But we met so many characters in this hotel that we remember it as a fond memory of our trip. We still laugh about it to this day. My point being, sometimes a hotel room is just a means to an end. Also, some people are just poor. It’s not that deep, Steven.

I will however concede that this isn’t lost on Steven Moffat. As I said before, a lot of humanity can be found in the mundane setting of the Sandringham. Spoilers for the Bible if you’ve not read it, but that sentiment is reiterated with the humble manger where Mary gives birth to Jesus at the end of this episode. Furthermore, the Doctor was merely making Joy angry in an attempt to wake her out of whatever control the Villengard briefcase has over her. I had read about a week ago that Moffat wanted to bring the Doctor’s meanness back into the character, something which I have been waiting for since Chibnall decided to make the Doctor constantly stoked on life. I’m not going to go back and count the number of times in this blog where I mentioned wishing they would make Jodie scarier, but it was often. The Doctor is an alien and basically a god, it’s nice to be reminded of that on occasion. Eccleston is a good Doctor, but he became a great Doctor when we saw him lose his shit in “Dalek.” Even if it was being mean to save Joy’s life, it was nice to see the manipulative cosmic being we saw in the Seventh and Eleventh Doctors.

The Doctor is forced to go the long way to save Joy in the future by boot strap paradoxing the briefcase code to himself. I really loved this year the Doctor spends with Anita, working side by side at this hotel. As my friend Taryn quipped, they did more to build the Doctor and Anita’s relationship in one episode than they did Thirteen and Yaz’s relationship in three seasons. But in this relationship, I did find a few holes, and I don’t think I’m alone in suspecting they mean something. By now, you’ve probably seen a theory or two about Anita being Mrs Flood, and I’m right there with you. While she seems perfectly nice, there are some moments when Anita feels like she’s either a woman out of time, or not of this world. She didn’t recognise police boxes, which is sort of fair. I mean, here in Glasgow, they’re everywhere. But they are still a relic. She also didn’t know what Auld Lang Syne meant. Once again, fair dos, not everyone does. But growing up in the UK and not knowing who Guy Fawkes was? Very suspicious.

The Doctor stays with Anita for an entire year working side by side at the hotel. It gave shades of “The Lodger,” and “The Power of Three,” watching the Doctor stay in one place for an extended period while using his Doctory technology in service of mundane tasks. It was very charming and Christmassy to see the Doctor in this capacity. It only further drove home my belief that Ncuti Gatwa was a shoe-in for the Doctor. However, my internet addled-brain still laughed when they hinged a large portion of the episode’s emotional core around a hotel cuck chair. Moffat is clearly not suffering from the same brain rot as me. It’s Chibnall and VOR (see: vore) all over again. Moffat may have a lot to say about hotel rooms, but so does the internet. Sometimes, the fact that Doctor Who is made by middle aged Doctor Who nerds is entirely apparent. I suppose it’s what makes the show so wonderfully memeable. 

Trev uses the phrase “Everywhere, all at once,” in this epsiode and I can’t help but feel like Doctor Who is dipping its toe into the metaverse. Last season we had a character called Susan Triad who was played by a woman named Susan Twist. Then the characters dance while singing that there is always a twist at the end. If Anita turns out to be Mrs Flood, then we’ll have a woman named Anita Dobson who plays a character named Anita Flood. I’m not saying this is what is happening, but it can’t be lost on RTD. Then again, Moffat did give us Oswin Oswald at the same time we got Osgood and I’ll be damned if it didn’t feel related back then too. One of the recurring theories I see people returning to is that the Doctor is in the Land of Fiction from “The Mindrobber.” Perhaps they have included the Master of the Land into the Pantheon of Gods. If you watched the trailer for season two, you’ll have noticed the large animated character emerging for the theatre screen. It’s either the deepest Eighth Doctor cut ever (Crooked World represent!) or the walls between fiction and reality are bleeding into one another. What will that mean for the Doctor, a fictional character? Doctor Who may be a staple of British culture, but it also exists in a Britain so foreign to modern Britain because it never went through a phase of Dalekmania. None the less, I sense another shakeup on the horizon.

Speaking of Britains from a foreign reality, how about that COVID-19 representation? I say foreign from reality, because if you were to have watched Doctor Who during the pandemic, you would think that their fictional version of Britain never had to deal with the coronavirus. I’m not going to sit here and call Chibnall gutless for not including the pandemic into the storyline. I imagine it was a choice that required a meeting and they ultimately decided not to address it. If I were to guess, I would imagine they left the pandemic out of the show for two reasons. Firstly, they probably wanted Doctor Who to be a reprieve from death and despair. And secondly, they probably wanted to avoid questions like “Why doesn’t the Doctor just give everyone the cure?” So yeah, they probably did what was best at the time and left it at that. I can appreciate that. I can also appreciate them introducing it to give the Tories a proper bollocking.

I’ve seen some complaints about Joy’s decrying the Tories as her mother gasped her final breaths in the hospital. Some people (see: idiots) thought it was too political and woke. Which, if that’s your takeaway from this episode, I pity you. If anything, the Tories got off light. I have friends who lost their mums to COVID and I was happy to see the show finally address the very real situation we survived. I’m old enough to have lived through monkey pox outbreaks, bird flu, SARS, and mad cow disease. I never met anyone who got those diseases. I’ve had COVID three times. The pandemic was out of control in a way no living human had seen since the 1920s. Doctor Who has often struggled with finding the correct tone when tackling deep issues. But I feel like they nailed it here. Oddly, it being a Christmas story allows it the proper tone to reflect on holidays spent with late loved ones.

It’s rare when I watch an episode of Doctor Who when my closest network of friends and family who watch Doctor Who are all in agreement as to its quality. Usually one of us has a grievance to air. But everyone in my little circle really enjoyed the episode. This is surprising considering the somewhat cheesy ending with Bethlehem (though I did love the idea that the Time Hotel is why there was no room at the inn for Mary and Joseph). Myself and Taryn, both atheists, weren’t bothered in the slightest. My friend Alice, a Christian, wasn’t bothered by it on any religious grounds. It was a sweet moment afforded by the fact that it’s Christmas. Besides, if Baby Jesus isn’t invited to his birthday party, then maybe they’re doing something wrong. Other than the usual chuckleheads, I’ve not seen many people complaining about this episode. I did see that some people were let down by the lack of Silurians. The Silurian hotel manager, Melnak, had led some to believe that this Christmas special was going to be rife with Silurians. I never got this impression as he seemed like a one-off character. In fact, after watching the second episode preview, I thought it was implied that the Villengard briefcase hologram took the form of the dominant species during dinosaur times. It would appear that we were all wrong. Other than that and some of Moffat’s weird “women be shopping” brand of dialogue, it was a very solid episode of Doctor Who.

Along with the quiet moments of reflection, the deep connection between the Doctor and Anita, and Joy’s mourning her mother, we even got some exciting action scenes. We got a Jurassic Park style dinosaur with glowy eyes. We even got an exciting train scene. I love watching Ncuti in that flowing coat. He’s like a superhero in his cape atop that train in an ice storm. It was fun to watch him swinging a grappling hook to open the tomb encasing the starseed. But when the Doctor returns, both Joy and the starseed have ascended the stairs to the wild blue yonder above. While I had hoped for a little bit more of a presence of Villengard, I appreciated that this sentient star had more in mind than death and destruction. Villengard was so far from in control of the situation by that point and I loved that. Because, in reality, they’ve always been pathetic and small-time in the Doctor’s world. They acknowledge and appreciate the shared risk all sentient life takes with their actions. They like to think its the same worry people had when they fired up the Hadron Collider, but it’s closer in nature to corporations killing the environment we all depend on. “The Starseed will bloom and the flesh will rise,” wasn’t a threat, but a prelude to Joy’s ascent into the heavens. What’s more is that Trev and the other carriers of the star case will also live on forever in the sky. Leading the wisemen to Jesus and delivering Joy’s mother to the great beyond. If you think this episode didn’t make me cry, you’d be wrong.

The episode ends, but not before revisiting a couple of familiar faces. We see Ruby waiting by her phone for the Doctor to call, but instead it’s her mum. We can expect to see Ruby again, but probably not right away, which I’m fine with. It will give us time to get to know Varada Sethu as “Belinda Chandra,” a name which excites me on two levels. Is she related to Rani Chandra? And why does she have a different name from Mundy Flynn? Is this an Adeola/Martha cousins thing? Or is an Oswin/Clara different versions of the same person thing? Maybe it’s something more? The important thing is that I’m curious and excited to find out. I expect great things from Doctor Who, and if nothing else, chairs for the TARDIS. The future of Doctor Who feels bright from my perspective, I just wish the rest of the fandom felt the same way. 2025, or Hell Year™ 2.0,  is going to be a rough year for a lot of us. Like I said, I understand the need for escapism. You have my permission to feel good about yourself and to enjoy some Doctor Who next year. Fuck the haters. You have value and you deserve to feel joy.

[box-dwelling]

I have made like general joke about this but I really want to put it properly in writing. The reason RTD hits, moffat was hit or miss and Chibnal was so much a miss is because RTD's writing is emotionally coherent. He gets that the emotions are the core here. The sci fi can be whatever it need to be. It doesn't have to make sense logically. It's there to service a narrative and charcaters. And yes that's how DW SHOULD be. This isn't hard sci fi. This is one rung off space wizards. It doesn't have to make sense. It has to be a good story and make me feel shit and by god does RTD do that well. Is Bigenerataion lore consistant? Eh, probably not but who gives a shit. 14/10 got to have his happy ending. He got to have the life he longed so hard for with Rose but got it in a platonic way with his best friend. Donna got her memories back. They are actively acknowledging the emotional weight of what HAPPENED in chibanls run which was so neglected by chibnal himself.

Chibnal was terrible at this and moffat was decent at times when he took his fucking hand out of his pants long enough to write anything reasonable from his female characters. RTD is great at it. And that's all this is