#we still don't know the full story on the moffat years

[doctornolonger]

It seems that Britbox is losing Doctor Who outside the UK. With it now nearly certain that Disney+ will be snatching up the Who back catalog – not just future releases, as has been officially confirmed – it’s time to start thinking about how they’ll be splitting up NuWho into separate tiles! After all, surely Disney doesn’t want viewers to think they have to watch all of it before starting the Tennant specials and Gatwa series.

Ways they might do this, ranked from least to most cursed:

They restart the numbering so Gatwa’s first series is 1. “NuNuWho”?

One tile per Doctor, so series 5 is rebranded as “The Eleventh Doctor: Series 1”. This would extend nicely to Classic Who as well, but it’s a bit misleading, since starting with the Tenth or Twelfth Doctors wouldn’t make any sense.

One tile per showrunner era: RTD 1.0, Moffat, Chibnall, and RTD 2.0. Given that handovers have coincided with soft reboots in the past, this would make perfect sense; my main worry would be what names they’d come up with for each era…

One tile per showrunner, so RTD 1.0 and 2.0 go on a single tile. Viewers are encouraged to go straight from The End of Time to the 2023 specials. (If this happens, expect the first Fourteenth Doctor special to begin with a Twice Upon a Time-style long-range “Previously on…” flashback to series 4 (this might happen anyway tbh).)

One tile for series 1–4 and 14+ called “Doctor Who”, and one tile for series 5–13 called “Doctor Who: Legends”.

BIG FINISH ON DISNEY+ B  I  G  F  I  N  I  S  H  O N  D  I  S  N  E  Y +

Have I missed any? Which is most likely?

[paulrobinsonshotel]

Another one for the fine people who claim Dhawan's Master is ignoring Missy's arc.

"The Drumming" was absolutely central to Simm!Master's arc, but was never mentioned once in Missy's episodes. Even when Simm!Master returned in World Enough and Time/The Doctor Falls, the Drumming wasn't mentioned.

Is this a problem? No. Because its very clear that despite it not being mentioned directly, the Drumming arc is deeply relevant thematically to Missy's arc and Simm!Master's Moffat era appearance.

Simm!Master's character arc in Ten's episodes is one of discovery, the mystery of why the Master turned to evil in the first place, culminating in the reveal that he was cursed with the Drumming so that Rassilon and his goons could escape the Time War. And in the final moments, he spares the Doctor's life and directs his rage at Rassilon for ruining his life.

But the next time we see him, the Master hasn't renounced his evil ways or his hatred for the Doctor. Because, despite now knowing why he is the way he is, and despite sparing the Doctor in favour of taking action against the one responsible, he's still too spiteful and stubborn to admit to being wrong and make amends with the friend he has fought for so long. Remember, this is the incarnation for whom the Doctor's forgiveness is the ultimate insult. So he doubles down, sneers at the very prospect of kindness, and kills his future self to destroy any possibility of reconciliation with the Doctor.

So Missy wakes up, with little memory of the events on the colony ship, but full memory of discovering how and why she is the way she is. She's still deeply evil and cruel, but the spite and pride of Simm!Master has gone. For the first time, Missy is willing to admit she wants her friend back, and seeks to get him back, first in her typically twisted way, then at last, through trying to learn how to be a good person.

Did any of the above need to mention the Drumming arc and how the Master was cursed with insanity to help and insane dictator escape an eternal war? No. Because viewers don't need to be bogged down with continuity from years previous. But the Drumming arc, the understanding of why the Master is the way they are, is heavily factored into Missy's desire to reconcile.

In much the same way, Dhawan!Master's story doesn't need to mention Missy's arc directly, because we don't need to waste minutes of the episode telling viewers about how the Master spent decades in a vault learning to be kind. Moffat used Missy's arc as a study of the Doctor/Master friendship, and the most crucial element of it, which is that their friendship is one of equals, that they understand each other on a level that no other Time Lord or Human could compare to.

Dhawan's Master being so utterly broken by the fact that he is not in fact the Doctor's equal is entirely built from what is explored in Missy's storyline. That's why he's so utterly wrecked and wants nothing more than to die. Because he wanted to rebuilt their friendship. He wanted to stand with the Doctor. But then he found out they weren't the same at all, and it destroyed everything he thought he knew about himself and the Doctor.

[roxannepolice]

K, celebrating the fact that my humble supplication for another four months to deal with the freaking paperwork required to present the fruits of my labour was accepted, here's an appendix to the TDF rant.

So, the usual interpretation of Saxon killing Missy is that it's a metaphor of holding yourself back from changing. OK, fair-ish. I'm going to leave aside the whole idea of "cut yourself off from your past if you are to improve as person" and how therapeutically bonkers it is, and focus on the episode tripping in on itself again. Because its whole point, spelled out to the audience just in case they started thinking or something, is that, and I quote "this is where [the Master's] always been going"! As in, you know, we're ignoring all the fucking times over nearly half a century when the Master has in fact stood with the Doctor, and focusing on the brave new world of possiblities that totally weren't there until Missy got cured, praise God!

... Except the episode also acts like they were there all along, just waiting for the Master to "hear the music", whatever that means?

Basically, which one is it, Steven: a change so radical that it would require a hard break from everything you were or the direction this character was on since day 1? Yeah if we go meta on this then the initial intention was for Delgado!Master to go out in a glorious sacrifice, but that didn't work, so going back to that plan is pretty much like limiting Moriarty's part in the sherlockiana to a couple of second-hand relayed statements. Something which you yourself couldn't bring yourself to do.

The bottom line is, TDF was written as a hard full stop for the Master. Finita la commedia, mehrere Leicht, the rest is silence, this is the end my only friend the end. Except that obviously wouldn't work, would it? Like, do you really think that it's viable to actually kill that cockroach of an archetype? There's been lots of ink spilled on how Moffat can't handle never ending story format, resorting to ex machinas over and over after writing the "perfect endings" - and I am not denying! they are perfect! - for characters that are ending-immune, but this is hands down the worst offender.

Like, this is why in the year of our lord 2024 there are still speculations about the Master's regeneration order, even after Chibs explicitly confirmed Spymaster comes after Missy, but then again it's he who did the equivalent of writing "New Earth" with Ten willy-nilly introducing the Master with no explanation after the whole Eye of Harmony shenanigans, not as a sexy doll but an actual biological individual (and again don't get me started on the whole "the Master always just comes back without an explanation"; not in a new body, not after narrrative fullstops, that only happened in 2020, three weeks after somehow Palpatine returned). The idea Thirteen's attitude towards him is rooted in s10 events is its own "yeah, that's deep ignoring a tonne of plotholes that would entail", but I suppose my "Master got evoked from the matrix again to hack Rassilon's PC for love letters to Omega and thoschei smut" headcanon will never get onscreen confirmation either.

I railed myself up, but, again, these are my vents for the sake of warming up my lagging keyboard before more serious work, so as always welcoming pointing out errors in my logic!

[razglowe]

Fandom Recap! - Raglowe's 2022 Edition

OKAY, THIRD ATTEMPT AT WRITING THIS WITHOUT TUMBLR EATING IT, LET’S GO!!

I’ve been back for about a week or so and I’m settling in nicely. Genuinely enjoying being back so much! I'm using the queue more and having a lot more of a relaxed time here than when I was active last.

Thank you so much for sticking with me!

Since it's been awhile, I wanted to do a rundown on my interests. ! It’s also super fun to reflect on how things have changed in fandom over the past few years.

Let’s get to it!

OLD STUFF I AM/WAS INTO

---------

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

“Riiiiise of the--”

Ninja Turtles is so entwined with my DNA at this point, even if I can’t watch things on the regular any more. I’m still here though! Happily vibing away passively.

While I haven’t watched Rise of the TMNT series yet (tried the first ep, wasn’t my cup of tea, but I want to try again), I’ve managed to sit down and watch the movie.

D u d e.

RotTMNT, genuinely, has some of my favourite takes on the main cast. Changing things up while still keeping everyone true to character is such a hard needle to thread but I think the creative team stuck the landing. Especially with Leo being more chill and arrogant without the pressures of being a leader. I love it!

I’ve also been keeping up with IDW. If you’re a new turtle fan and want to get into more of the franchise, I can’t recommend it enough. It brings in some fresh takes on old characters while giving room to new characters as well.

Being a turtle fan is fantastic right now between Rise and Shredder's Revenge, and I do really feel we are in a new renaissance period. Keeping an eye out for Mutant Mayhem news next year!

Batman/DC Comics

“I am vengeance. I am the night. I am—“

I was originally writing this the day before word broke about Kevin Conroy. It’s… rough. And it really made me reflect on how I have been feeling about Batman recently.

These past few years saw me fall out of love a bit with Batman and DC Comics. I love these characters and this universe so much but I started to feel lost with it. From the movies through to the Nu52 comics, I just really wasn’t vibing with the darker tone I was seeing more of. But I always had that familiar, comforting thought that we had some of the old regular voices still reprising their roles.

That has certainly changed now.

Kevin Conroy was a man that I didn’t – and still don’t – know about in detail save for glimpses into his personality from interviews and his close friends sharing memories of him. He was kind. Empathetic. Talented and insightful. Full of love, passion, and genuine joy and admiration for his fans all over the world. And he was probably one of the few people who fully understood Batman dual nature on a fundamentally deep and personal level.

I want to revisit Batman again after hearing these stories about him. His joy and celebration of DC and Batman is truly infectious, especially after seeing his interviews.

I’m keen to give new things a go too! Batman 2022 in particular looks like a fun take on things, and I’ve been falling back in love after seeing The Suicide Squad (2022) and Peacemaker’s TV series. Genuinely, thank you James Gunn for reminding me how much I love DC, and thank you Kevin Conroy for reminding me how much I love Batman.

Especially Kevin Conroy. Thank you. So much.

Doctor Who

“Allons-y!”

Boy did I pick a time to come back to Doctor Who.

Around the end of 11’s run I was getting weary with Doctor Who. I really wasn’t liking Moffat’s writing style and wasn’t a fan of how I was being a wet blanket about it. Chipnal’s run wasn’t for me either. So, I took a step back. I checked out some of Capaldi and Whitaker’s episodes between then and now – I love their takes on the Doctor so much! I don't think most of the eps are for me, but I love the highlights I've seen!

But here we are now, with Russel T Davis back and David Tennant back (at least temporarily).

As much as I love Tennant’s Doctor, I’m honestly far more excited to see Ncuti Gatwa finally get his chance to show us his Doctor. I’ve heard nothing but praise for his acting and really excited to see what stories he will get to weave with Davis. (Though having Tennant back as the Doctor temporarily is a fun bonus too!)

I've otherwise been having a great time listening to Big Finish stories. Been a great way to experience the older Doctors and gaining a love and appreciation for all of Who these days. Really happy I did that!

Pokemon

“So, what? I'm lower than a Pokemon?! I already got self-esteem issues, man!”

While Scarlet/Violet have been buggy as all hell, I’m having a ton of fun with Pokemon! I haven’t missed a game still and I’m so excited to see what direction future games will head in. (Also please Game Freak, slow your mainline game rollout so people can fix the bugs more… please…)

Round up via generations! From most recent to least!

GEN 9 - Scarlet/Violet: About a third of the way through Scarlet right now. Really starting to like more of the new Pokemon designs. Grafaiai is a current frontline favourite for Gen 9 with me!

Legends of Arcus & Pokemon Snap: LoA was such a highlight for me. It was super fun and I’m still needing to get through end-game, but I’m having a ton of fun when I get the chance. And the new Pokemon Snap was a fun surprise to boot! So many fun ways to see Pokemon in the wild again.

GEN 8 - Sword/Shield: It was a fun time! I think this game does world building the best of all the games so far (yes, even over Scarlet/Violet). The gym leaders in them are probably some of my overall favourites so far! I wasn't as sold on the story, but man, seeing Pokemon as an actual competitive sport like soccer is still one of my favourite things to see

GEN 7 - Sun/Moon: Did you know that I was completely unaware that Guzma was a Tumblr Sexy Man until the Tumblr Sexy Man voting meme went viral? Hell yeah everyone good taste. On a serious note - loved these games a lot, and I think Team Skull became my favourite evil team after playing it. Love these knuckleheads.

Gen 3/4 Remakes: I played a lot of Alpha Sapphire when it came out! Really loved how they did shiny hunting with it. Wasn't so keen on Diamond/Pearl's remake, which is a shame since I really love those games. Still at the first gym with it... hopefully I can get time to play soon!

Hopefully we can see some bug fixes with Scarlet/Violet. I'm so keen to see what else is ahead in this game!

Warcraft/Overwatch

“The world could always use more heroes!”

This is… a rough one. I love Warcraft. I love Overwatch. I love both worlds. However, I’m not keen to be in those worlds much these days.

For Warcraft, I’m not a big fan of how the storytelling is going. And that’s fine! If it’s not my cup of tea, I’m happy to step back. Same with character direction in Overwatch. Again, nothing wrong with this. At times you and franchises you love grow into different things. The time together is none-the-less treasured.

There’s also external issues with Blizzard that have been well documented. I won’t be going into them, but they do not align with my morals (to say the least).

Always happy to reblog any Junkrat art or Warcraft silliness if I see them, but for now I'm done with both. They’ll always be a part of me! But I'm happily moving onto other games in the meantime.

Homestuck

“Dave: oh shit”

Yes, I know about the Epilogues and HS^2. Yes, I read them. No, they aren’t for me and that’s okay.

Other stuff

I’m still into a lot of things still! Still loving Lupin III, still happily reflecting on Mass Effect (haven’t played Andromeda still, just need time to play it!), and just having a grand old time living life.

If you want my thoughts on anything I’ve missed here, give a shout and I’ll reply!

Meanwhile, I’ve gotten into other things too!

NEW STUFF I’M INTO!

---------

FFXIV

“Remember us. Remember that we once lived.”

I’m not kidding when I say this – I genuinely think that FFXIV is going to be looked at as “video games as epic literature” one day in the far future. But with more big tiddy bun girls.

It’s such a wonderful winding tale where every character feels full of an important weight and value, ranging from minor characters through to major players. It is so wonderful to see and it’s such a contrast to what I’m used to with Warcraft!

I’ve been playing for about a year now, even though I originally picked up the game in about… 2018? 2016? It’s been awhile. But I needed a hook. So, I powered on through with friends and that was the hook I needed at the end of the day. Shadowbringer has been the peak of it all for me, but each expansion just keeps building up and up!

There have been so many character journeys that I’ve become attached to, and a lot of character growth that feels natural and earned. Won’t ramble too much here, but I have been enjoying everything immensely!

Splatoon

“Stay Fresh~”

I’ve always been interested in Splatoon but never quite really jumped on. I was a bit too late for the hype for Splatoon 2 (alas, never really experienced a proper Splatfest in there) but I really fell in love with the world. Hearing Splatoon 3 get announced got me excited and I’m so happy to see how much love it’s getting!

Also, no joke, the deep lore on this game is wild. I love it. Please read it one day if you get the chance. It’s hilarious and heartbreaking. Look, if we all wipe ourselves out, just know we’ve got squid kids to learn from our old memes at least.

(Also, Off the Hook is the best idol group, I’m sorry Deep Cut!)

Borderlands

“I just bought a pony made of diamonds! Because I'm rich.”

Tales From the Borderlands was running rings around me back when I was on Tumblr, but I just couldn't afford to play it back then (my computer was struggling to run smaller games ahahah;; ). I was curious but never enough to play it. So in my time away I eventually went “alright, show me what you’ve got”.

Yeah… yeah I regret not getting into this sooner.

Borderlands in general is such a fun world! I’m so glad I got to eventually experience it! I’ve played through the whole catalogue save for Pre-Sequel, Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands and New Tales now. Original TFTB also has the honour of being “game that made me cry with laughter” so that’s a big tick in my book.

I’ve defs played through Borderlands 3 as well. Gameplay was great! Story was good but I was missing some of the dramatic meat, but it absolutely brought the heat with DLC.

And yes, can confirm, Handsome Jack is an absolute bastard, 10/10 fantastic horrible dude, deserves all the hate and love.

The lack of a presence on the Tumblr Sexyman list when he had such a chokehold over Tumblr back in the day is a travesty :(

Genshin Impact

“Hey Traveller! Over here!”

So, I’m not so much into Genshin right now but I’m slowly warming to it. More here for the vibes and fanart than anything else.

Not too sure what else to say really. The characters seem fun! And people seem to be having fun with them. I think that's neat!

[loupettes]

Do you remember that moment in 'Partners in Crime' where Donna tells the Doctor he looked older? Brilliantly written, because not only does it explain obvious things (DT does look older in s3 and 4, but can I just say - HOT AF?😁), but also.... grief tends to age people? And he's grieving Rose.

It's honestly beyond me how writers just sit there all night long and think all of this stuff through: those little bits and bobs that just come together so beautifully

Sorry I'm only just getting round to this! It's been a busy week 😂

Thank you for sending me this ask!! Okay so, right. Ten is FLAWED, do not get me wrong, and he's not written consistently (thanks Moffat) but his character arc is so good. And it's because, by the end, he's just so tired.

Everyone thinks of Ten as either this adorable little loved up puppy, or this stern 'does it need saying' git, but actually, watching his story is so draining and that's what makes it so good?

We watched him just... fall. The Doctor everybody looks back on fondly, thinks of as this adorable eccentric tight suit (space noodle by @alwaysdramatizing sums him up perfectly!), but he was only that way at the beginning.

He's so full of joy and love at the start. He's fresh out of regeneration, a man who went from grief and loss to complete unadulterated love, he regenerates into somebody with hope for the first time. And bit by bit it gets taken away from him.

Losing Rose was only just the start. It set him back, all the way back to how Rose first found him, only worse. She was his last hope, his saviour, and she left him.

But Rose taught him to trust, she taught him to give people a chance. He was reluctant with Martha, and you can see he really didn't want to, but he did. He told her about Gallifrey!! Only a few hours after meeting Martha, he's sitting down with her and opening up to her. You can see how tired he is, but he tries.

I think we're quick to say Ten's grieving Rose in series three, which is true, but I think he's mostly grieving who he was and the hope he had. It's hard to pick yourself back up again — that one loss we all experience where life becomes separated into a 'before' and an 'after'. He's a completely different man in series three because he's the version of himself that's 'after' he loses Rose.

But it's more than that. He's exhausted, emotionally drained, and it's there all throughout series three how reckless he is with his own life because he really doesn't care about himself anymore.

You only really notice it when you're a bit older, I think, because I certainly don't remember thinking Ten was suicidal when I watched this at 13 years old. But series three is dark for Ten. Martha saves him, multiple times, and I think he knows it by how much he tries. It's like he's got somebody to look after again, somebody who he knows loves him and he owes it to her to love again.

And then he loses Martha. Whether or not you think he pushed her away/it was his fault, you can see that he's still devastated.

The only other person, in the whole universe, he's ever told about his home planet. Actually no, Rose isn't in that universe anymore — Martha's the only person in his world who knows what happened to him. I do think Ten loved Martha — obviously not in the way she wanted him to — but he showed it in all the times he kept getting back up for her. By the end, he was just starting to care again, and she left him at the point where he was just about able to stand on his own two feet.

By the time he meets Donna again, he's just shattered. And I love that it's mentioned, that Donna catches it. I don't think it was a way to explain the fact that David Tennant had aged as much as it was just Ten's character. RTD wrote him to be the tired hero, and by the time he dies in End of Time he's so exhausted that he just... lets go. Even his goodbye, the fact that he clung to that regeneration in the end to say goodbye to everyone who saved him, the fact that he's staggering by the time he makes it back to Rose is exactly Ten's ark. It's so striking that he is at his worst when he's with Rose in his last few minutes because she was the one who brought life to him. It's the perfect way to show the audience what life did to him, by having him so completely broken when he's with Rose in the end.

I could go onto a rant about how RTD wrote his Doctors with full character arcs when Moffat and Chibnall didn't quite have the same ideas, but I won't! I'm just glad you've given me the space to talk about Ten's!

[valc0]

while I don't see the master being full evil again in this story I can't really see him becoming good or the doctor and him becoming true friends again there's to much history bad history to much has happened for them to truly trust or be true friends again

I really don’t know if the “story” you mentioned is the canon material or my comic…

If it’s the canon material...okay? You don’t need to think anything different? But since you sent this message to a Thoschei blog knowing full well what you were doing, I’m gonna indulge you.

If we are applying real life standards to a sci-fi story I think the Doctor would have all the right to never talk with the Master ever after he: *checks notes* enslaved everyone on earth, watched humanity cannibalize itself into evil floating heads, turned him into a raisin man, put him in a cage and on a leash.

But eh...we got Missy and that was fine for a lot of people...I guess murdering Gallifrey is too much—except the Doctor did the exact same thing and we stanned him for about 10 years before Moffat said “Syke! No he didn’t.”

And that was only counting what the Master did in Nu Who, man can you imagine what the totality of their crimes amount to in their whole career?

Listen, if you think the Master is irredeemable is fine, I agree to an extent. The Point of Doctor who is that its continuity basically asks you to forget it exists in order to consume and enjoy it. Yes; I know I’m making it about canon again, but it’s literally it.

The Doctor and The Master have been hot and cold with each other for over 50 years now...and the Master is, by all means and purposes, an antagonist, they are gonna do some bad shit during their run and then they’re gonna forget about it as soon as they regenerate. Much like the Doctor.

But Missy—

Missy had a redemption arch? Oh yeah, forgot about that/s. A pity she got a redemption arch in “The End of Time” as well, albeit shorter, and then suddenly forgot about it when she *checks notes* resurrected dead humans to create a Cyber-Army and tried to get the Doctor to kill Clara Oswald oh and she probably indulged in some *REDACTED* with her past self if we wanna add that to the count of her capital sins.

Honestly, DW keeps resetting over and over every single time a new actor or show runner take over. Considering the continuity of DW in its entirety and the character development throughout the series as consistent and consequential will just give you a migraine. The Master will never be redent and will never stop doing bad shit to the Doctor which will just pile up and up and up, but that’s just how the show works with everything. Like... the Doctor has experienced grief and suffering and loss so many times now I’m amazed they can still feel a thing at all…

If this was about H&D... eh...I’m not really trying to convince anyone Thoschei is canon or okay or good or whatever with my story. H&D requires you to at least partially believe the ship is somehow canon in the first place, so...

[immaculate-benediction-batch]

Sherlock season 5 - what the heck is going on?

Three years and counting...

BY ABBY ROBINSON

 21/11/2019

Where is Sherlock season 5, eh? Come January 2020, it will have been three years since we last saw Benedict Cumberbatch as narcissistic genius Sherlock Holmes on our screens.

The BBC series first kicked off back in 2010 and ran for four seasons (plus a special), but there's been zilch since the beginning of 2017, which has naturally caused confusion among fans of the show given the complete absence of any concrete updates.

Showrunners Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss (who also plays Mycroft Holmes) have always taken their time with the show's rollout – a year and a half between seasons was the minimum viewers were made to wait.

But Sherlock series 5 still hasn't materialised.

So, what gives?

In a recent interview with Radio Times, Gatiss did acknowledge that there is scope to continue, but it's not top of his list of priorities at the moment.

"You could go back," he said. "But there are no immediate plans."

*sighs*

In a previous interview with Radio Times, Moffat also echoed the same sentiment: "We've never said necessarily goodbye to Sherlock. No, we'll see!"

Gatiss added: "One thing at a time. Dracula occupies a lot of headspace."

The pair have teamed up once again for a brand new TV adaptation of the Bram Stoker novel of the same name, which will air first on BBC1, before heading over to Netflix for viewers outside of the UK and Ireland.

Sherlock season five is also heavily dependant on whether its stars would return.

Both the central cast (and the writers) are all currently in demand, tied up in other projects, with more on the horizon.

Benedict Cumberbatch has had his plate full with Marvel, Brexit: The Uncivil War and Patrick Melrose, to name just a few, while Martin Freeman (John Watson) has been busy with A Confession and Black Panther.

But if the pitch was right, Freeman would happily sign up.

"If it's something really special, and if it's something really meaty and interesting, then I think we'd all be open to that," he told Collider.

"We couldn't come back with something that was quite good. It would have to feel really, really special. It was that kind of show."

He added: "They're few and far between, the discussions about Sherlock, just because Mark and Steven, the writers, and Benedict and I, are all lucky enough to be not only working on stuff that we like and are interested in, but we know what Sherlock is.

"You don't look that gift horse in the mouth 'cos that sort of stuff doesn't happen very often in someone's life. It's a huge, huge, worldwide hit, and way beyond anything we could've imagined."

Andrew Scott (Moriarty), who has since 

appeared in Black Mirror,��Fleabag and Modern Love, would also be game for round five if both the timing and the narrative was right.

Speaking exclusively to Digital Spy, Andrew said: "I think everybody's sort of doing their own separate thing just at the moment," he said. "I know Stephen and Mark have done a version of Dracula which I'm looking forward to seeing.

"For me, the door is never fully closed. It's closed at the moment, but that doesn't mean it can't be opened at some point in the future. But it's definitely not something that's on the agenda in the foreseeable future."

He added: "I would just listen to what their idea was, and just put forward a couple of my suggestions.

"I feel very protective of him. I'm very proud of what we did on that show. If it's the right time, we'll all talk about it again.

"But at the moment, I do think it's provided such great opportunities for everybody in the show. So everybody's got to do their own thing. But the idea of doing that at some point in the future is not an unhappy one."

But if you are in desperate need of some more Sherlock action, there is an unconnected series in the works for Netflix, titled The Irregulars, which follows a group of crime-solving street urchins. The show sees Holmes claims their successes as his own. Charming.

They are based on the Baker Street Irregulars boys, who appear in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's books as intelligence agents for the protagonist.

"Sherlock Holmes [in the books] had a group of street kids he'd use to help him gather clues, so our series is what if Sherlock was a drug addict and a delinquent and the kids solve the whole case whilst he takes credit?" said writer Tom Bidwell to BBC Writersroom.

"It's my dream project and my oldest idea. I've been pitching it for 10 years.

"Netflix are incredibly supportive for our vision for the show, and it's allowing us to be very ambitious with the way we're telling our stories."

The cast were recently papped filming in Liverpool's Georgian Quarter, and production is expected to continue until May.

Here's hoping it's a success because it could be the only slice of Sherlock we'll be getting for a long time.

Just whatever.

I love these inside scoops about Sherlock.

Will they or won't they?

Not!!!!

[scifinal]

DW s12e10: It's Quite Unfortunate That This Child Keeps On Regenerating

It's only fitting that the first post on a blog called "SciFinal" should be about a season finale.

Not that fitting is the fact that in said post I'm going to begin where it all started for me.

Part One: How I Even Got into This Mess of a Show in the First Place

While I call myself a huge Doctor Who fan, even a – *gasp* – Whovian, I must admit I am not as familiar with the franchise as I would like to be; I've seen the new show, I've seen Torchwood (though, admittedly, I had to force myself to finish the fourth season – but that's a story for another day), I've listened to a handful of audio dramas (including Kaldor City, which I consider to be canon for both DW and Blake's 7) – mostly Torchwood audio dramas, but who cares, – I've read a couple of comics, I've got a novel or two somewhere on my bookshelf, I've seen the first couple of seasons of the classic show, but that's about it. I can't say I grew up with it – it wasn't on TV when I was a kid, there isn't an official Ukrainian dub, et cetera, et cetera. I first heard about it when I was about thirteen, when my classmate did a project about something they liked – and was pretty dismissive of my peers' hobbies at the time, believing myself to be somewhat above them, so I didn't pay much attention.

Then somebody finally pressured me into watching it (I believe I was fifteen or something back then) and I loved it. The first two episodes of the first season, I mean. I watched those, texted my friend something like "consider me a Whovian now!" and abandoned the show completely only to return to it maybe several years later.

I loved it. This time, for real.

Doctor Who has been with me ever since that time, it has a big soft spot reserved for each and every Doctor ever in my heart, and for each and every companion. I know full well it's cheesy, and it's stupid, and it's technobabble-y, and it's glorious in all of its cheesy technobabble-y stupidity.

And I hate this finale.

Part Two: Doctor, Why

I hate this finale – because I hate Chris Chibnall. Mind you, not the gentleman himself (I don't even know what he looks like, and I can't be bothered to Google), I hate what he did to Doctor Who.

Now, when it was revealed that the would replace Steven Moffat I felt... nothing. What did you expect? I had no idea who the man was. I know now he's made Broadchurch, and I know he wrote a bunch of stuff for Torchwood back in the day, including Cyberwoman. I had to drop Broadchurch because of how well-handled the depressing atmosphere was, and I love the flawed, dumb, sexy-cyber-bikinied, almost-fifteen-minutes-of-Ianto's-whining-including (I know because some time ago I literally cut almost every single moment of Gareth David-Lloyd whimpering, moaning, groaning, screaming, and mugging at the camera out of the episode and made those bits and pieces into a beautiful clip show called "I HATE THIS" to explain exactly why his face was and still is so punchable) mindless fun that is Cyberwoman (this is also one of the two episodes in which they actually do something fun with the pterodactyl living inside Torchwood's underground base). The latter also led to the creation of one amazing in how it develops Ianto's character audio drama entitled "Broken". I love Broken. I am now forcing you to look at its cover because of how much I love it.

Here we go. Now, back to the point of me rambling pointlessly

In his video "Sherlock Is Garbage, and Here's Why", a well-known YouTuber hbomberguy pointed out how Steven Moffat's problem is that he is more than capable of writing a good one-off episodes, but ultimately fails at managing multiple complex, overarching stories, as visible when you look at the difference between Moffat's individual episodes and his run on the show.

Now, I believe that Chris Chibnall suffers from the same affliction: he's a good screenwriter but a terrible, terrible showrunner. Sure, he's made Broadchurch, but Broadchurch, in its essence, was a complete singular story with a beginning, a middle, and an end. There were no bigger, incomplete arcs expanding at the expense of other episodes, and the show did exactly what it was originally designed to do: it told an uninterrupted story.

Here comes Chris Chibnall's run on Doctor Who.

Now, while Steven Moffat was ultimately not very good at managing overarching stories, he tried to do so nonetheless, and the fans seemed to like his attempts. And while I can't be sure as to whether it was Chris' original vision for the show or he and his co-writers were merely trying to emulate Moffat, he attempted the same. A friend of mine has even pointed out how, to her, it was painfully obvious how the writers of the finale were desperately trying to copy Moffat's style (to give you some context, she grasped it from a 30-second clip of the CyberMasters' reveal, and that clip basically consisted of me filming my laptop's screen and laughing at their design, making the video wobbly and the audio distorted). At the time of writing this post this friend hasn't seen a single episode of Chibnall's era and, as far as I know, has no wish to do so – mainly because of two reasons that both have something to do with the finale:

Somebody's already spoiled it for her, so who cares;

I ranted to her about how shit this finale is and now she hates everything about Chibnall era.

I am very sorry for the latter, since I genuinely believe there are some nice episodes in these seasons, and I especially like the "historical" ones, they really are quite a lot of fun, I like Nikola Tesla and Thomas Edison fighting badly CG-ed alien scorpions, I love Lord Byron and Mary Shelley running around a haunted house trying to escape from a Cyberman (even though it's all too similar to the Agatha Christie episode from Russel T Davies' run), I adore that episode about Rosa P–– oh, wait, no, that one was crap and ripped off Blake's 7... Anyway, I love Jodie Whittaker's Doctor, I am a big fan of Graham, I like Ryan just fine, and I can put up with Yaz, even though it's been two seasons and I've still got no idea what's her personality supposed to be, and I absolutely love the new Master (he reminds me of a cute little pug with a big Tommy gun). There is plenty of good stuff in these two seasons, they are lots of fun to watch, but this finale... Oh god, this finale.

Part Three: We Had All of Time and Space at Our Fingertips and We Ended Up with This

We are getting to the point of this whole thing. I would love to begin with the obvious, the twist, but there's so much wrong with this who-cares-how-many-parter than this one big thing.

It is inept. It is impotent. It is incompetent. It is bad at almost everything except its okay camera work, somewhat good (for a British TV show, I mean) effects, and its really solid performances.

Its editing is tone-deaf to the extreme. There is a moment in the final episode where Ko Sharmas asks who will be the first to cross the Boundary and step into the unknown, and immediately it cuts to Yaz walking towards it, all fast and silent. I would love to show you a clip of it, but I don't have one and I can't force myself to download the episode and sit through this shitshow again just to present you with a ten-second clip. Nonetheless, that part is not edited like a dramatic moment. You edit comedies this way. Bad comedies. Bad editors edit bad comedies this way.

Its plot is incoherent. There are several plot threads in this finale, and they're managed in a way that doesn't make the viewer care about all of them at the same time, rather the viewer goes "oh, I've completely forgotten this was happening" and then, before they can even begin to care, the show cuts to something else. It's all over the place and oh so annoying.

The plot armour is painfully obvious despite every attempt to disguise it. There wasn't a single, solitary second when I believed the Doctor was really going to sacrifice herself and, lo and behold, here comes the old guy ex machina to do it for her. The only questions I was asking at that moment were "How are the writers going to prevent the Doctor's death now that they've seemingly created themselves a way to go on forever?" and "How can Whittaker care so much about her performance in this scene she's literally almost crying?". I wholeheartedly related to the Master asking "So why are we still here?" and shout–– hiss–– mumbl–– whatever-ing "Come on, come on, come on!" – at that point I've suffered through at least forty-five minutes of utter nonsense, people going preachy, religious Cybermen with Dalek motivations, that absolutely ludicrous scene in the previous episode when the show was trying its worst to make me perceive autonomous flying Cyber-heads with laser eyes as a serious threat, a shit twist and... Oh.

I've got to finally touch on the shit twist, haven't I?

It doesn't make sense. No, I mean it. I guess it makes sense from the show's writers' standpoint to retcon everything in a way that would allow them to go on forever without having to come up with a way to circumvent limited regenerations, yes. And I won't be touching upon all the lore people say this twist has ruined. No. It doesn't make sense as it is.

The twist is revealed to us by a madman that claims to have hacked into a database, claims to possess control over the Doctor's mind, and gives the Doctor and the audience no actual solid proof that the Timeless Child is, indeed, the Doctor. We have Ruth, sure, and she's nice enough (damn, I want that vest), and she's a Timelord that happens to own a TARDIS that looks like a blue police telephone box, and she calls herself the Doctor. Here's Ruth:

I really like Ruth. She also makes no sense from the show's timeline standpoint, since the Doctor's Type 40 TARDIS only got stuck looking like a police box in 1963, so there's no reason for the Doctor to not remember being her.

We also know that the Judoon have identified Ruth as "the Fugitive"... except in one of their previous appearances in the show they weren't able to identify their targets exactly and thus were seeking out non-humans. There is a possibility that they were only looking for a Time Lord on Earth.

You know what? It's possible that Ruth is actually the Master messing with the Doctor. I have just as much proof of this as I have of the fact that the Doctor is some kind of an endlessly regenerating superbeing.

But this is not the most maddening thing here. I loathe it, but I don't loathe the twist itself: I loathe its lifelessness, I loathe how empty, how unemotional, almost robotic it feels. When somebody'd spoiled the finale for me, I got angry, and I started asking questions, and when later I saw the actual thing...

This gif. I can't even explain how accurate it is. I stood there, in the middle of my kitchen, episode paused, holding a cup of cold tea and desperately looking around as if in my surroundings I could somehow find that emotional reaction that this show failed to evoke. I was ready to burst into tears of how empty it felt, and how empty I felt, and how the same show that has Christopher Eccleston go from literally foaming at the mouth with pure hatred to shocked silence in a matter of second because of one sentence that you, a viewer, can't help but be astonished by failed to make me feel the tiniest speck of literally any emotion. And slowly, I felt that vast void in my chest fill with sheer, pure, flaming hatred for the person who made me feel nothing, for the story that left me not bored – but empty.

And the next moment, in its own unique way of being absolutely tone-deaf, the show introduces the CyberMasters, looking ridiculous, being asinine in concept, making me burst into laughter with their dumb design. Wow.

So.

Chris Chibnall's Doctor Who is no longer a show. Chris Chibnall's Doctor Who isn't even, as somebody on Stardust said, a fan fiction. It's a rollercoaster. A lackluster rollercoaster that lifts you from the vast caverns of frozen hell, devoid of any life whatsoever, soulless and abandoned, to the heavenly torture of being so bad, so utterly awful and ridiculous, that you can't help but laugh as you watch something you used to love be distorted and deformed to the point where you can't recognise it anymore nor really care. This is what Chris Chibnall's Doctor Who has become. And I'm going to continue my ride on that grotesque rollercoaster. I'm going to pirate that ride and get on it again. Because I'm a masochist. Because I want to feel something, even if it's hatred towards those that make me feel nothing.

Because some time ago my fifteen-year-old self watched the first season and learned a lesson that I hold dear after all these years – that I can't abandon hope, and that someday, somehow, things are going to get better. That the future is being written right now. That the future can change.

[representativecharacters]

You reblogged a confirmed bisexual post but is river song actually confirmed bi? Don't remember them saying that and I always thought she was pan or omni? Also Clara isn't confirmed bi her actress just said she was OK with that interpretation. I always want rep but too often people refer to things as confirmed or canon when it's speculation or a headcanon that an actor is in favour of. Just gives false hope is all

Think it’s worth noting that river song was only “confirmed bi” in a tweet from Moffat that also called jack harkness bi when he’d previously been confirmed in the books to call himself omnisexual and they used the pan definition for him in an episode of torchwood. So I don’t know if we can call that confirmation when Moffat obviously thinks mga sexualities are interchangeable

My apologies for Clara, anon; I remember getting an ask about her earlier this year but she completely slipped my mind; that’s on me. Actor confirmation can in some cases be considered canon in this blog, but in the case of Jenna Coleman, it wouldn’t be as she says it’s up for interpretation, so I’ll add an “ambiguous rep” tag in the gifset and add in that it’s for Clara. 

As for River, that’s a very interesting point, but for the purposes of this blog, I would consider a creator tweet as a confirmation of representation, regardless of probelmatic aspects of it (although it can be included in an issues section). That’s the short answer of it, but if anyone is actually interested in what goes into that decision, I’ve included it under a read more! 

Canon representation (on this blog) goes through in a sense, three tiers: 

In-show canon confirmation (example: B99- Captain Holt saying “I’m gay” or Rick Sanchez confirming he’s autistic) 

Author/creator/writer confirmation (example: Rick and Morty creators confirming in a con that Rick is pansexual, Leverage creators confirming the trio were in a polyamorous relationship, etc.) 

Actor confirmation (for the purposes of this specific blog, it’s only if the show has evidence of the rep in their content - for example, Sara Lance, who was shown in m/f and wlw relationships and was confirmed by the actress to be bisexual - until finally it was stated in canon. Or for a non-LGBTQIA+ example, if actors confirm a character is autistic after the character has been autistic-coded). 

Obviously, #1 is the more preferable one - it’s more explicit, and more obvious to people who are casual watchers, but the other two can also count, as with #3 it can still be explicit (but unlabeled), and with #2 it’s from the very people who created the characters or are currently writing the show - therefore meaning that they have deliberately written the characters to be queer, autistic, have a mental illness, etc. - even if it is, unfortunately, perhaps too subtle or not mentioned in canon. 

Tweets can certainly be an issue - I’m not in the DW fandom, but I do follow Shadowhunters/The Mortal Instruments, and Cassandra Clare did the same thing Moffat did - she had a character identify as bi in the books, but in a tweet said he’d be pansexual. Then, she took a separate character, Raphael, and responded in tweets that he’d be aroace - which seems to be similar to the issue that you stated in your ask for Moffat. 

So, I tend to go through that tier. If the show/books/movies/etc. have the character say that they are bi, pan, gay, etc., then that is what they are, full stop. Unless the character changes their label in-canon, the show’s word is what fans who only consume that content will know, and that is what is portrayed to them. To me, an author/creator changing that after the fact means nothing - it ultimately means the same thing to me as JKR saying that Harry/Hermione should have happened. That’s fine, your opinion, but it’s not what happened in the context of the books, and it doesn’t change that - hence why Jack is pan, and why 

And, as for characters like River or Raphael, while the creator tweets can be problematic for characters like Jack or Magnus, it’s not for River or Raphael - there’s nothing being taken away from them, just rather representation being added. It’s not something I’d follow much on my personal blog (for example, I tend to ignore most of what CC says about representation or any headcanon she has about the books or show), but on this blog, I count creator/author/etc. canon and I tend to stick with that and the “tiers” of confirmed rep and don’t make exceptions - if I did it based on my own personal preference it ultimately wouldn’t be fair, because my own biases would inevitably get in the way and I can’t say that one type of rep is okay but another one isn’t, so I like to go through those rules - which, I know, is probably not the most perfect way to do it, but it’s the best one that I’ve considered. 

So, long story short, I would say that River would be bisexual if it was confirmed. If Moffat tweets or has tweeted that she’s a different identity than bisexual, then yes, it would lead to cause for concern and I’d probably ultimately make it “LGBTQIA+” rather than any specific label, but for now if he sticks with bisexual for River then I consider it canon, despite his problematic statements about Jack. 

[pasiphile]

hey out of curiosity for Doctor Who (which I used to live but stopped watching because I lost hope for it), what happened that fucked it up this time? I don't care about spoilers, I'm just curious about how Moffatt keeps ruining good things

Okay, so, I’m gonna try to sum it all up, but if at any poit you think wait what this makes no fucking sense, that might just be the episode rather than me not explaining coherently. 

So:

(cw: suicide, derealisation, dissociation. Seriously.)

Ep starts with the Doctor receiving an email with title “Extremis”. The screen then goes briefly static, opening theme starts playing like usual, and we’re up at the first scene, which is: a bunch of cardinals and the Pope, coming to the Doctor for help, because they don’t know who else to turn to. Apparently there’s an ancient text in the Vatican that used to have a translation, but the translation got lost after the sect who took care of the text committed mass suicide. Now, the text has been retranslated, but the translation’s gone lost again and everyone working on it has, again, committed suicide. So can the Doctor please come help? And why did they come to the Doctor? Apparently he got recommended by Pope Benedict the Ninth, who the Doctor describes as “a lovely girl” and “what a night”.

(Main offences: continuing the trend of the Doctor as basically Jack Harkness shagging his way through the universe; and using the fucking Vatican as the generic help-demanding damsels in distress. You know, I get already a bit miffed when they start using the Pentagon or the American President or Downing Street and portray them as fucking likeable and a bit helpless, but the fucking Vatican as the heroes?)

Next scene: Bill is taking a date home. A bit of haha-clueless-foster-mum as she tells off Bill for bringing a date home, then relaxes when she sees it’s a girl ‘cause obviously it’s not a date, then. Anyway, foster-mum (I think it’s her? No explanation whatsoever here) leaves and the girls go drink tea together. Bill’s date’s a bit nervous because “she’s not used to all this,” and Bill gives a lovely little speech about how “this isn’t anything yet if you don’t want it to be” and generally being full of reassurance and kindness and loveliness, well done Bill. She ends with “this is nothing to feel guilty about” - at which point the Tardis lands in another room in her house and the Pope comes storming in, talking in Italian. Bill’s date freaks out, runs to the other room, finds a bunch of cardinals in Bill’s bedroom and runs away in a panic. Bill, annoyed, tells the cardinals “they’re all going to hell”.

(Now, see, this would have worked for me if it was a thing they followed up on, like Bill being aggressively gay at the Pope and the Doctor choosing her side or something. But the way it’s played, it’s a gratuitous throwaway joke about religion and lesbian guilt, which, fuck no.)

The Doctor, Nardole (new sorta companion? idek how to explain him) and Bill go to the Vatican, where they’re keeping the text. The entrance to the hall of texts is a portrait of Pope Benedict IX, who turns out to be young and conventionally pretty and feminine. Doctor makes another flirty remark about her.

(THE DOCTOR IS NOT JACK FUCKING HARKNESS CHRIST FUCK)

 As they head to the secret room, they pass a strange glowy portal that briefly appears, then disappears. One of the cardinals stays behind to examine it, and as everyone moves on we can just see a creepy red-robed hand reaching through the portal for the cardinal - who is never mentioned again, nor does anyone feel like checking up on him. Anyway, they go to the cage where they keep the text, where they find a panicked priest - the last surviving translator, holding a gun. He panics and runs off, leaving behind his laptop, where they find he sent the translation of the text to CERN. CERN wrote back an email saying “Pray for us”.

(they use the fact that hard scientists revert to religion as a sign of how bad things are, but it’s just - stupid and heavy-handed and simplistic. Booh.)

Bill, Nardole and the Doctor discuss the text, the Doctor tries to send them away after the man with the gun. Bill says something along the lines of “we don’t even know if he’s still alive” - at which point we hear a bang, and the Doctor’s sensors give a “no life signals detected” warning for the guy. And there’s a line like “guess we know now”.

(suicide as a throwaway joke)

The Doctor convinces Nardole and Bill to go off exploring while he looks at the text. There’s a cringe-inducing moment where Nardole, the bumbling assistant, gives this meant-to-be-authoritative speech to Bill about how she needs to stay behind him for her safety. Bill is impressed and obeys, saying “Are you secretly a badass?” all admiring.

(Cringe. Ugh. There was something incredibly patronising about that speech.)

They find the portal, go through and find a round room full of glowy lights, with a circle of pillars in the middle and portals all along the wall. They head through a portal and end up in CERN, where they bump into a man in a white coat drinking from a bottle, who seems cheerful in a desperate way. He invites them along and they end up in the dining room, where a bunch of other scientists are all sitting looking scared, and a timer counts down from five minutes. Bill looks under the tables, where bombs are strapped. She gets into a discussion with one of the scientists, who tells her they’re killing themselves to save the world, that this isn’t the real world, and when she doesn’t believe him, he asks her to say a random number. Each time Bill says a number, Nardole says exactly the same number at the same time, and after the first few tries the rest join in, each time giving all the same numbers. The scientist calls it a shadow test. With only a few seconds left on the timer, Nardole drags Bill away. They run off, and the scientists get blown up.

They end up in the round room with all the portals again, where Nardole says the pillars remind him of projectors. He realises what the shadow test is for, saying it’s possible the people at CERN where right and that they are just a projection - but he doesn’t understand, because he checked the coordinates on the Tardis and they were real. Unless...  Then Nardole, with an expression of pure fear, muttering please let me be wrong, walks slowly to the pillars/projectors. As soon as he puts his hands beyond the projectors, he starts falling apart in pixels, screaming in terror I’m not real, Bill! I’m not real!

(do I... do I even need to explain how disturbing this is?)

Bill, in a panic, goes to find the Doctor. The Doctor has started to read the text but got interrupted by scary monsters in cardinal robes, who tell him when he yells this isn’t a game,  “this *is* a game”. But the Doctor escapes, with the text. Bill follows his traces through a portal which leads to the Pentagon, and the Oval Office, where the Doctor is waiting and someonelse  eis sitting with his back to us, slumped in a chair. “Is that the president?” “Was the president.” There’s a gun next to him.

(I lack the words, tbh)

The Doctor then finally explains. The text talks about how an Evil Monster wants to conquer the world, so it creates an exact holographic simulation copy of the real world to practice in, full of simulation-versions of real people. But the simulation is so good that the simulated people start developing independent intelligence. The people at CERN and at the Pentagon were simulations; their suicide wasn’t desperation but an act of resistance, preventing the Evil Monster from learning from them. The shadow test is mentioned in the text too; computers aren’t good with random numbers, so one test to see if you’re a simulation or not is to write down what you think are random numbers, then see if someone else got the exact same numbers. Bill, scared, says she gave the same numbers as the others too. The Doctor says I know, and Bill, terrified, dissolves into pixels. The monsters then come back in (they’re properly scary, btw, look like decomposing corpses) and tell the Doctor that he can’t do anything, that they’re keeping him alive to learn from his suffering. The Doctor almost gives up, then remembers something River once said (real goodness is goodness when there’s no hope, no reward and no witness) and he - somehow - sends an email with the entire recording of everything that happened since they went to the Vatican to the real Doctor (he was wearing his sonic sunglasses the whole time because he’s blind - long story, but they recorded what happened). 

Screen goes to static, and we’re back at the very first scene, with the Doctor receiving the Extremis email and looking at it. He calls Bill, asks her if she’s on a date - she’s not - and then encourages her to call up the girl from the date, even though Bill says she’s way out of her league, because Something big and evil is coming and we’re going to be very busy soon. Roll credits; writer: Steven Moffat.

There’s also a sideplot with Missy being executed, only the Doctor backs out of the execution at the last moment and instead locks her up in a vault for thousand years which he vows to protect. Missy begs for her life and calls the Doctor her friend, and at the end of the episode the Doctor leans in to the vault and asks for her help. Horribly out of character, in short.

So. Plotwise? Bollocks. Really. Nothing makes sense. A simulation complex enough to mimic the entire history of the Earth can’t do random numbers? (it’s the same trick he used in a Christmas Special, btw, where it was a Dream Test - originality is not Moffat’s strong point). Some people have to kill themselves, while others just dissolve? How does a simulation send an email to a real person? etc etc.

Then there’s the implications. The whole thing is steeped in derealisation, suicide is fucking everywhere and actually treated as a solution, the Vatican and the Pope are cuddly allies and religion is everywhere. I didn’t see the end of the credits but I do fucking hope they put in the usual helpline-thing the BBC adds after showing triggering content.

We’re right back at the worst of Moffat’s last few seasons. For five episodes we’ve had villains who turned out to be not actually evil but simply the victim of severe misunderstanding; we’ve had curiosity and wanting to help as the Doctor’s main motivation; we’ve had explicit pacifism; we’ve had enemies that basically come down to “capitalism”, “racism” and “the patriarchy” (no, really, I swear). 

And now, it’s another generic Big Evil Monster, it’s throwaway gay jokes with no follow up, and it’s arguably the most fucked-up underlying message I’ve ever seen in a Doctor Who episode. I mean, I thought the billion-years-of-repeated-torture was an unbeatable high in making me feel disgusted and uncomfortable, but I’ve never been as grossed out as I was during this episode.