#rtd was just like 'i'm going to have a scene where jack shows off his sweaty body for the Doctor

[wild-at-mind]

I liked that post about people neglecting the Doctor Who part of Superwholock when it comes to gay representation, but then tumblr kept showing me a tonne of additions of people going on about fucking Moffat era gay relationships and like.......look I hate to break it to you but Moffat fucking sucks. This is opinion obviously and I’m not very good at articulating why I don’t like his work, and I’m hardly the first person to point out that he sucks, but everything* from DW from the (mind numbingly long) era when he was showrunner makes me full body cringe. I react exactly the same way to Sherlock, and also my brain turns off during both, I just can’t follow the intricately bullshit plotting he tries to do, and why would I bother because he never resolves his plotlines.

This is all to say that yes there were canonical gay relationships in the show during the Moffat era but that doesn’t make them good or well written, you know? You don’t have to argue that people are ignoring them because they aren’t m/m or whatever, it’s highly likely to be they are just poorly written characters and poorly written relationships. Moffat is somehow even worse at writing relationships that feel real and genuine than JK Rowling and that is saying something.

For example, I thought Bill Potts had real potential as a great companion and from what I saw the performance was great, but oh my god the horrendous dialogue they had her say, in just the one episode I watched. One of the first things she says in the show is telling an anecdote about how she fancied one of her customers when she was working at the canteen, so would keep giving her extra chips, and then one day this woman comes in and she’s (gasp) gained weight and Bill doesn’t find her hot any more. And Bill says something along the lines of ‘I’d done this, I’d fatted her’. Like, wow. FUCK YOU Moffat. Was that meant to be a cute relatable anecdote? Can you write anything without making it weird?

RTD era Who was genuinely foundational to me as a young teenager for queer representation and I’m hardly the only one who has said this. But I really doubt if Moffat era Who was what I grew up with, I would have said the same for it. I’m not sure anyone would.

*except Vincent and the Doctor because I’m not made of stone. Moffat didn’t write it and I guess the script was good enough that him being the showrunner didn’t ruin it.

[becausegoodheroesdeservekidneys]

Doctor Who, but Chronologically: 35

It's 1941! The Second World War is now underway, and we, lucky things that we are, get the glory that is Christopher Ecclestone's Doctor back as we reach the Empty Child.

Incidentally, if you were a young Welsh adult in 2005, this episode absolutely blew your tits clean off even more effectively than Margaret's email. We held WATCH PARTIES for the second part. This was THE story we all went feral for, and it is fascinating revisiting it now, almost two decades later, as part of this incredibly pig-stupid watch order. It looks so dated! Everyone is so young! Richard Wilson has a role for a single scene and completely steals not just the show but the entire fucking series! That hospital is the Old Infirmary in Cardiff! Those train station steps are at Cathays! I'm having THE BEST time

Okay anyway

So this is the first of a two-parter - the Doctor and Rose chase a spaceship that's on Mauve Alert (aliens consider Red Alert to be camp, apparently) through the time stream to land in London, 1941, except they land a month behind it. On landing, the Doctor meets Nancy, a homeless woman who spends her time breaking into people's houses while the air raids are going and stealing food for a horde of adorable homeless urchins, except they're all being menaced by the titular Empty Child, who it emerges is a creepy gas mask zombie that used to be Nancy's brother - until a month ago.

It follows them and has Bluetooth. Likes asking if they're its mam. Connects with phones. There's a fun bit where it makes the TARDIS phone ring, which reactivated an 18 year old memory in me of me fucking GASPING at the time.

Eventually the Doctor makes it to the bomb site. The Old Infirmary I'm sorry a definitely real London hospital is nearby, and Richard Wilson is playing a Doctor inside (some SUPER FUN bits where Nancy says "You need to meet the Doctor" and we're all like "Whoa, another Doctor, say what -" look this episode BLEW OUR TITS CLEAN OFF, okay, it's so atmospheric and mysterious). He's the only one still alive - the wards are filled with rows and rows of people, gas masked like the Empty Child, and equally empty. This is where Nancy's brother was first brought, we're told; and the next day, everyone who touched him became like him. Within the week, so were all the patients. They now all have the exact same injuries, and they lie dormant, like creepy zombies.

It happens to Richard Wilson right in front of us and it's so, so creepy. Fuck me this is a good episode. Like I know, I know, it's a Moffat one, and I'm not going to pretend there aren't the occasional troublesome bit, but the fact is that the man does his best work when he has a talented editor who tells him no and takes the pen out of his hands before he wrecks his own stories. Moffat-edited-by-RTD produces some great stuff, and this is one. Yeah I said it. AND I'D SAY IT AGAIN)

MEANWHILE Rose immediately wandered off after landing ("Just once," the Doctor mournfully tells a random street cat he sees and instantly scoops up and cwtches, "I'd like someone who doesn't wander off. 800 years and it's the only thing that would still surprise me"). She decides to climb a random rope up a blimp for no reason other than The Plot Requires It (curse you, Moffat), and then gets rescued...

BY CAPTAIN JACK HARKNESS!!!!!!!!!!!

:D :D :D

We're getting this in order!!!! We haven't met him before!!! But oh, we have had him TEASED to us, haven't we - we know he gives Whittaker a warning to beware the Lone Cyberman, or billions will die. We know he'll "get round" to Me. And now we're meeting him!!!! Fantastic.

He is, too, he's the epitome of Be Gay Do Crimes. He's a conman. Turns out the spaceship they were chasing - which is somehow causing the gas mask people - was sent by Jack, because he thought they were time agents and wanted to fleece them. It's an ambulance! Though he made sure it was empty, so no clue yet how Bluetooth gas mask zombies are the result. Rose spends the majority of this episode absolutely horny on main for this guy; I mean it's very, you know, Moffatt writing, but also Jack is very fun and sexy so fair enough, girl, he's a sure thing and you got needs you chase that dick. He saves her from falling to her death, too, so that's fun.

Anyway the episode ends on a big cliffhanger. Nancy is found by her empty zombie brother, who corners her in a house and is asking her if she's his mummy. It wakes up all the zombies in the hospital, though, so they start menacing the Doctor, Rose and Jack. There were seventeen of us packed into a tiny student flat to watch the resolution of that, back in 2005. I sat on a cushion on the floor. I am very nostalgic.

Other things hinted at: the Doctor lost a son and a grandson, and knows what it's like to be the only child out in the cold. And Mickey is only Rose's sort of boyfriend, whatever that means. Not many new plot threads - only the cliffhanger really, but we'll be watching that immediately (waiting a week in 2005 was AGONY). But! We can remove the one asking who is Captain Jack Harkness! Fun fun fun.

“She” (an unknown person) is returning (perhaps River returned as Missy. Maybe Me? Maybe Clara???!)

There is something on Donna’s back

An entire planet, Pyrovilia, just… disappeared, somehow. (Maybe because the TARDIS is exploding??? Saturnine was also lost, and that WAS because of the TARDIS exploding. The lion man’s planet was also lost but he was a bit of a knob about it if I’m honest.)

Amy is maybe dead (she’s not)

The Doctor has been cubed (he’s out, but how?)

River is possibly blown up  (unless she’s Missy. NEW INFO: she is definitely not blown up)

The TARDIS has blown up  (It’s fine now. Except it’s sort of melting now because it’s corrupted, but it’s fine again)

The universe appears to have ended  (the universe is back again)

The Doctor has employed(?) Nardole

(And Nardole was “reassembled???” Nardole had glass nipples and invisible hair?? WHAT THE FUCK IS HE)

There’s a vault in the TARDIS and it contains Missy but we don’t know why (sometimes she knocks for the bants)

There’s an immortal Viking girl now. Her name is Me and she’s now looking after the people the Doctor abandons

Why was Rory entirely unconcerned by the entire world suddenly going silent when that is Not Normal and should have been, at the very least, extremely disconcerting?

What did the Doctor do to Queen Lizzie One?

Why is Amy seeing a one-eyed woman in a vanishing window? (She’s with the Silents, but we don’t know why Amy saw her)

Why is Amy’s pregancy inconclusive? (Maybe because the baby had Time Lord DNA?)

Who is Sarah-Jane Smith?

How is the Doctor Bill’s teacher and why/where does he have an office?

What is going on with the Cyber War and the Cyberium???

What happened with the Other Cyber War?

What happened with the Third War that deleted the void?

Why does Rose seem particularly important?

What order do these Doctors go in? (Eccleston, Tennant, uncertain, Smith, Capaldi, Whittaker)

Which companion just… forgot the Doctor, and how?

Yaz and Vinder are about to die as Mori/Mwri/Muuri

There is a Lupari shield around Earth.

What’s a Time War?

What’s the Rift?

What’s Bad Wolf?

In which war did the Doctor become a war criminal, and how?

Who is the Master?

Why has Amy forgotten Rory?

Is Rory plastic or not?

Why is the Doctor sulking on a cloud?

How exactly does the Doctor have a cloud?

What exactly happened with Strax to, uh, tame him?

Which friend killed Strax?

Which friend brought Strax back?

Where did this lesbian lizard and human couple come from?

What happened with Clara as Souffle Girl and the Daleks?

How does Clara actually join?

Why so many Claras?

Why is Missy apparently in robo-heaven?

Why is probably!Missy pushing Clara and the Doctor together?

What is Trensilor and what happened there?

Who is Handles?

The Doctor is about to be dissolved by a beautiful geode man

The universe is being crushed by the Flux

Will the Doctor open the fobwatch?

Sontarans are invading Earth again

Who is Kate?

Who is Osgood? Another name of Clara’s again?

The fuck is the deal with the Grand Serpent

Does Martha get to go to an ice cream planet with 12-fingered massage aliens?

How did the Doctor forget Clara?

Who is Bill’s puddle girlfriend Heather?

How did Nardole die?

When does Bill get Cyberman-ed and die?

When does the Doctor shrink and enter a Dalek called Rusty?

Whittaker is falling to her death rn

Was that ring relevant?

Does anyone know the Doctor’s name?

When did Yaz talk to Dan about fancying the Doctor?

When did Dan talk to the Doctor about fancying Yaz?

What’s happening with the bees?

What happened with Donna’s ex and a giant spider?

What war wiped out the Daleks, and is it one of the ones already mentioned?

What did the Doctor mean when he said “The (Daleks) always live, while I lose everything?”

If Dalek Caan is the last Dalek left why are there more now?

How did the rest of the Time Lords die?

How and why did Amy melt?

What’s the question that will make silence fall?

Why do the Silents… want silence to fall?

How and why are Silents at war with the Doctor when he… hasn’t even heard of them?

How does Hitler get out of the cupboard?

What’s the significance of fish fingers and custard?

Why does the Doctor feel guilt about Rose, Martha and Donna?

What happened with the space whale?

When does Rory defend Amy for 2000 years?

How does the Doctor survive River

How does he erase himself from history

[quantumshade]

@kittycatfite first of all, no need to apologize for commenting, i post stuff like this in order to have these conversations! secondly i'm going to have to hardcore disagree with basically everything you've said.

while i appreciate your in-universe explanation for rory's disgust, i think it's... kind of irrelevant. at the end of the day that scene was kept in the final cut of the episode because arthur darvill's disgusted reaction to matt smith surprise kissing him was deemed funny by the people making the show. the disgust is the punchline regardless of why you think the character may have felt it.

i genuinely think you need to rewatch the scene where nine and jack kiss in Parting of the Ways, because in no way is it played off as a joke. now personally i believe the feelings there ARE reciprocated, but again, that's irrelevant, because the difference there is that nine doesn't look like he's about to yartz when jack kisses him. hell, he even leans into it.

honestly, look at this scene. it's nothing if not completely sincere. no music, no goofy sfx, nothing, just three people who have feelings for each other -- what those feelings are is up to you -- saying goodbye, because jack so firmly believes that he is going to die here. it's played just as seriously and with the same weight (if less dramatically) as when nine and rose kiss a few minutes later. jack harkness was a character rtd wrote in 2005 to "introduce bisexuality to tv" and this is how he did it. jack is flirty, promiscuous, a bit of a rascal, but he loves so wholly and deeply. he says goodbye to his friends of different genders the exact same way, holding their faces and kissing them gently.

i seriously do not understand the fandom revisionism going on where people believe this scene is anything but sweet and sincere. regardless of how you think the doctor feels towards jack, the ninejack kiss was not played as a joke by the show or done for laughs, and it's ridiculous to place it in the same category as stuff like eleven kissing rory or jack kissing graham.

as for the WLW kisses... what, all two of them? vastra and jenny, as much as i have a soft spot for them, don't actually get to kiss in a romantic gesture. they're allowed to be explicitly attracted to one another -- which is more than can be said for some Other wlw relationships on the show (cough, thasmin, cough) -- but when it comes to their "kiss", it's them "sharing air" in deep breath. again, i have a soft spot for this, it was very important to 11 year old questioning me, but it's not really the diversity win some people are pretending it is. conversely, bill and heather's kiss is, like nine and jack's, wholly sincere. it's the moment when bill is saved, when she's given new life, and given the chance to show someone else the universe the way the doctor showed it to her.

tl;dr i don't think sorting the show's gay kisses into boxes of wlw/mlm is all that helpful, we're really not all that different ;P and also i think the fandom could use a rewatch of series one a.) because it fucks and b.) because i feel like people don't really remember the context of some of this stuff.

gotta say, while i am enjoying everyone posting screenshots of all of doctor who’s gay kisses to clown on all those articles claiming rogue had the first one, i’m a little 🤨🤨 at all those people including eleven and rory and jack and graham on that list. like those are two scenes played solely for comedy where one person’s disgusted reaction to being gay kissed is focused on for the audience to laugh at. like i’m sorry but that is just homophobia.

[dimensionhoppingrose]

I was wondering - you've mentioned before that your blog isn't Moffat friendly, and I've seen a lot of DW fans that haven't liked him much. What are some examples of him writing sexist episodes/badly developed characters? Or do you have other issues with him? Sorry, I'm just curious as to how you feel (I'm just starting season 6 now, but I couldn't tell why he's so hated, although I wasn't really looking out for it)

*deep breath* Oh boy it’s been a LONG time since someone gave me permission to go on a Moffat rant.

I’m sure it goes without saying that this is going to be extremely anti Moffat. Avert your eyes.

There are a lot of reasons I don’t like Moffat, tbh. I’m going to start with the simplest one – you could drive a truck through some of the plot holes in his episodes. The most obvious one is The Angels Take Manhattan. Okay, fine. The Doctor couldn’t go back to that specific date to save Rory and Amy. Fine. Go to the day after. Or the day after that. Instead of, you know, leaving them trapped in the past.

“But Sam, they needed to leave!”

They’re are at least five ways it would have been better to write them off without leaving the question of “why can’t the Doctor just go to New Jersey and pay for them to take a taxi to him?”

Next – Moffat’s episodes are all flash, no substance. They are undeniably pretty – he reaps the benefits of four seasons of excellent writing and got a bigger budget than RTD in return. But the writing is shallow af and is almost impossible to get emotionally invested in. His Doctors are selfish children who mistake being rude assholes for being “edgy,” and his “emotional” scenes fall flat.

“But Sam he won awards for his writing!”

Yeah, well. Donald Trump is president. People make bad choices sometimes.

Now on to his sexism. I did a huge post about this a while back, which I’ll link at the end of this, but the tl;dr version is:

Moffat’s women have almost no character. I mean, okay, okay, okay, Clara was bossy, River was “strong,” Amy was sassy, whatever. But it’s so two-dimensional. When the characters were written by other people they were fantastic – one of my favorite Moffat-era eps is Vincent and the Doctor. Amy was fantastic in it. The writing was fantastic. Everything about it was fantastic. I cried. Unashamedly.

But the way Moffat set the characters up…they had no lives outside the Doctor. They weren’t characters, and their entire lives revolved around the Doctor.

“But Sam the show is called Doctor Who! What’s wrong with their lives revolving around him? RTD’s companions’ lives did too. And besides they did have lives!”

Rose, Martha, and Donna, all had characters outside of the Doctor. They had families, jobs (okay, Rose didn’t because the Doctor blew it up and Donna didn’t because life sucked but at one time they had jobs!). They had friends, and families, they had pasts that were completely separate from the Doctor.

Amy – met the Doctor when she was…I’m not quite sure tbh. Six? Seven? Young. Spent the rest of her life obsessed with him, to the point where it actually effected her quality of life (four therapists in ten (or so) years is a lot).

Clara – The impossible girl, born to save the Doctor. Her entire existence was solely for saving the Doctor.

River – *pause*; *deep breath* I will never stop being angry about the potential River had that was wasted. She was literally raised to be obsessed with and eventually kill the Doctor. She translated that obsession into “loving” him, and tied herself to him in a different way. She literally said once that she lived for the times when she could see the Doctor. That’s not normal. That’s not healthy. And don’t even get me started on their sham of a “marriage” (HIDE YOUR DAMAGE IS NOT THE SIGN OF A HEALTHY RELATIONSHIP RIVER).

*grits teeth*; *moves on*

Moffat himself is a grade-A dick, which makes it pretty hard to watch his shows anyways. He’s been quoted as saying bisexuals are too busy having sex to watch his shows, that all bi people are just waiting for someone to make them straight, that asexuals are “boring” to write, he has literally insulted his wife before while she was pregnant (wondering when she would get back to her normal size), he renamed the Master as Missy because apparently Master is strictly a masculine term (never mind the sexual connotations that go with the term Mistress), the list goes on and on and on and on and on.

He queerbaits like nobody’s business – a perfect example being having Clara twice mention a relationship with a girl (once calling it “a phase”) but never showing it on screen, or having River reference relationships with girls but again never showing it on screen. And I know there’s a common misconception going around that Moffat created Jack Harkness so he can’t be homophobic, but…no, he didn’t create Jack. And yes, he is homophobic. He’s proven that multiple times.

And that’s about all I have time for right now. I’ll link some of my other rants below for you to peruse. If you enjoy his Doctor Who, that’s perfectly fine, and I am under no misconceptions that I’m going to change your mind. These are just my opinions.

My anti Moffat Tag (to see things I’ve reblogged and agreed with or added to)

Lack of emotional impact in Moffat writing

My BIG Moffat rant