Doctor Who: Christmas 2016 and through to the End of the Moff Thread.

Chat about stuff other than Transformers.
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Tetsuro
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Post by Tetsuro »

Skyquake87 wrote: Blowing up the TARDIS whilst regenerating does seem a very foolhardy thing to do - I got Tenth doing it to spite whoever came after him after his carrying on about regenerating to Wilf, but here...I didn't see the need. Maybe its something to do with the psychic link the Docotr has with the TARDIS or something something.
It's also like what, the fourth time they've done it? The Doctor regenerates, the TARDIS blows up and crashes.

Next time, s/he should just regenerate outside.
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Post by inflatable dalek »

(Moved posts to the end of Moff thread, mainly because we mods don't get to do much these days so it keeps me off the street)

That had a lot to like. I don't think it was particulalry good as a Christmas special (which probably needed a bit more going on. This felt quite cheap in places with its small cast, minimal location work and main featured set being the largely made from stock 60's Tardis), but if it had gone out at the end of season 10 as that sort of subverting expectations contemplative finale US shows sometimes do (Buffy season 4 or the final Babylon 5) it would mostly be quite watchable.

Bradley and Capaldi had great chemistry, Gatiss could do that sort of role in his sleep and was very entertaining (and amusingly the copyright holders of the Brigadier are pissed this was done without their consent and are working to make this a Great Uncle of the Brig rather than the Great Grandfather in their spin-off books!) and the idea there wasn't really a threat was a nice twist. Though what was going on was basically a benign version of Missy's plot in Death in Heaven. But then the poor Moff run out of new ideas about two years ago anyway.

Also, whilst I think revisiting a 51 year old story was insane (opening with a "709 episodes ago" caption of 4:3 black and white feels like it should have been off-putting to casuals), the recreations of the Tenth Planet we did see were stunning. Just a shame most of that was cut out after they'd gone to the effort! I've a feeling the recap was originally going to be all refilmed before they hit on the morph idea as a way of including Bill.

And Whitaker was fine in her brief scene, though I was mainly glad it was too the point after the lengthy goodbye from 12, I still remember being worn out by Matt Smith going on and on after Tennant's goodbye tour had passed the natural end point of the episode.

The regeneration itself though felt a bit rubbish, too close to End of Time without being as impressive. I think the final speech itself was also hurt by Murray Gold, in what his apparently his last contribution, just slapping stock music over the top of it that never seems to quite relate to what's on screen.

But the big thing for me, and probably disproportionately I must admit, was the First Doctor as a sexist. Not only was it not true to his original character. Across three years and a 100 odd episodes you can find biggoted stuff representing the time, but it's very much the in the minority for an irascible but likeable character who could be patronising to the young and perhaps humans generally. Hell, there's probably more racism from the character (though still not a lot) and the episode didn't dare touch that (well, apart from the comment about the French. That's the First Doctor who ****ing loved the French and was excited both times we went there), as if sexism is just funnier.

Now I've had it argued to me that the recreated First Doctor was just being used here to channel and discuss 1960's attitudes. And as an idea I'd not have a problem with that, indeed it'd probably be more Christmas than anything else in the episode. How many people watching were stuck with an Aunt or Uncle that voted Brexit or thinks Nigel Farage deserves that knighthood? Deconstructing that awkward thing of dealing with relatives with antiquated views could have been very interesting.

But the episode didn't do that. The Bradley Doctor doesn't go on a journey where he learns his views are wrong. He shuts up when he learns Bill sups from the furry cup, but he seems to cheerfully go to his death thinking women should do the cleaning (and Polly having to do domestic stuff comes from Troughton, where she had to make the coffee. Once. Which she then used to kill Cybermen as it was Nescafe Gold Blend) and are very brittle things.

Worse than that, the 12th Doctor doesn't actually make any arguments against the sexism. He just keeps pulling sitcom "What are you liiiiiiiiiiiiike!" faces (oddly when his counterpart is quite reasonably explaining to a First World War soldier that men can be nurses) and going "You can't say that!" without ever coming up with any reason why he shouldn't.

Compared that to the actual Hartnell era where whenever he went to far in his behaviour his companions would completely rip him apart (Barbara in the Edge of Destruction, Steven in the Massacre and so on).

We're also clearly supposed to still like the First Doctor, even though someone who kept saying things like that after being repeatedly asked not to is just a dick.

It feels as if Moffat is so annoyed at the accusations of sexism that are frequently aimed at him (somewhat unfairly IMHO, though I've not seen Sherlock which apparently has some hum-dinger moments in it) that he's snapped and started screaming "BUT LOOK AT THE OLD SHOW!!!!!"

All he's really leaving himself open to is not having any room to complain come the 2047 episode where the recast 11th Doctor barges in going "Ohhh, very clean Tardis. I guess you've no bad girls with sexy bums about the place then! Now, find me a lesbian to kiss against her will until she has to slap me". It certainly feels a bit rich for the writer who shouted "YOU WILL BE ERASED FROM DOCTOR WHO" at Caroline Skinner to take an era of the show kickstarted by Verity Lambert to task for its sexism.

Now, compare all this to a film I'm planning to watch tonight as a contrast: Star Trek VI. Which also uses 60's TV icons to explore the inherent bigotry of that generation.

Now, there are Star Trek fans who loath that film (as did Gene Rodenberry) because Kirk and company were never that racist towards Klingons. And there's a point there, even in the films Kirk was prepared to offer his hand to rescue the Klingon bastard who killed his son and the previous movie ended with everyone getting blind drunk with a Klingon crew.

But it works because the film has a point to make, about how even generally good people can be bigoted without even realising it because of the culture they grew up in and it can be hard for them to adapt as society changes around them. But it is possible to change and become a better person if you keep open to new ideas no matter how old you get. No one has to be a dinosaur.

Next to that you've got "Women eh! Like glass. Just ignore the fact that I don't actually know I'm turning in to Patrick Troughton yet and by the rules of regeneration this episode is working to for all I know I could be about to become a woman so my attitude to women literally makes no sense whatsoever" and it's just oh **** off.
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Post by Skyquake87 »

The sexism is just bizarre, isn't it? It kind of washed over me, if I'm honest, but I'm sure on repeat viewings, it'll be incredibly jarring -especially when the First Doctor was just going around being "old and important" more than anything else.

I'm surprised to hear Moffat's been accused of sexism in Who and Sherlock (the latter, I admit, I don't watch). But I'm puzzled by this. At least judging by his body of Who work (and stuff like Coupling, Press Gang and Jekyll), there's nothing overt or obvious to suggest this. Maybe some of the stuff with Amy Pond (which seemed to me not to be taken seriously, and that that character's confidence with her sexuality meant it never felt crass or vulgar and was part of who she was), but other than that? Am I missing something, some subtext or something? Or is this the usual tiresome grind of social media and the influence that brings to bear on bloody everything these days? And that we're rapidly entering an age where you can't say anything without someone being offended, or worse, taking offence on behalf of others ... like that woman who now thinks Sleeping Beauty and all fairy tales should be banned on account of them featuring (in Sleeping Beauty's case) non-consensual kissing , irrespective of the context of the story and why that's happening.
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Post by Tetsuro »

This is the first I've heard of anybody accusing Moffat of sexism too.

Maybe it's some kind of an offscreen thing like not paying the female actors as much or something. I mean, I'm assuming that whoever is accusing him of it also bothered explaining why.
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Post by inflatable dalek »

I think the problem is Moff is, like pretty much every writer, a guy with a certain set of stock character types he either falls back on or thinks he's especially good at which is fine in isolation but over eight years of running the show becomes a bit overwhelming. And his fondness for crazy psycho women (River and that character from Time of the Doctor being exactly the same character. I gather Irene Addler and Sherlock's sister were little different in their own show) really annoys a lot of folk unintentionally.

Of course, things like that really odd Radio Times interview (which, to be fair, he disowns in the podcast I'm about to link to, but he talks about the headline being inaccurate when I have to say I read the full thing and he came across terribly) when he talks about how he couldn't have cast a female Doctor because it would have been "pandering" (because women and mninorities are only ever "Pandering", right?) and he couldn't have followed the love machine Tenth Doctor with a girl anyway didn't help.

Still, here's a really interview with Moff that was recorded right before the Special was broadcast, where he's just so tired and is very defensive against all the nasty lefty bullies who go after him. And of course there have been dicks on the left going after him, but so have all the dicks on the right, so focusing particularly on that is very interesting.

And of course, any bullying he has undergone for writing the odd bad script is as nothing compared to (to use a "Look at the crazy left fighting the wrong battle!" example in the show) the "Barbara" jokes trans people had to put up with in the '90's thanks to the League of Gentlemen.

https://www.bigfinish.com/podcasts/v/to ... -round-232
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Post by Skyquake87 »

Tbh, I can still get how casting a female Doctor is pandering to an extent. I wouldn't mind it if it felt more like there was a narrative drive for it (which, in fairness, there has been certainly in the last couple of series of Who) , but its been drowned out by all the clamour for it and just whiffs of caving to external pressures, whether that's frothing tabloid journalists or the BBC's own drive for diversity at all costs (especially in light of the horrendous publication of salaries it had to endure). That more than anything else has just made me unable to properly get behind the idea until very recently. It just feels like "There. We did it. Are you happy now?".

I think the only thing that Moffat has been a bit too reliant on is making his female leads somehow directly intertwined with the Doctor's life, which is why I think Bill was so refreshing - she wasn't stolen away at birth to become the Doctor's killer or key to being able to restart the Universe by having a life that didn't make sense, she was just herself and that was great.

Although I didn't much care for River Song and the Church Lady that got turned into a Dalek, I didn't mind them. Certainly not the latter, anyway who didn't stick around long enough for me to care. River is ostensibly a complex character and I don't think she was developed very well and really, what Moffat was trying to do with her, wasn't pulled off very well. There's too much to get into with that character and her complicated life and it just wasn't done very well. She really needed the sort of long-form storytelling you've get in a soap opera. Or her own show.

His worst offender for me was Clara. A character so thin and underdeveloped that her use as a plot point ultimately defines her, and it was a bit of a shame she came back for Capaldi's second series as her story was done and without any depth to her, there really wasn't any excitement for me at seeing her come back, despite Jenna Coleman giving it her all.

As for LOG, it's interesting that there's been such outrage for not only Barbara but also Papa Lazarou in the recent new episodes. Again, symptomatic of how times have changed etc etc but also that people can't recognise that some of these things are ripe for humour, whether you like it or not. LOG has always been a show about grotesques and caricatures of some of the very worst aspects of human behaviour, so to take offence at it seems very silly indeed. Or that you shouldn't be watching. And surely to God, if you're tuning in, you must have some idea of what you're letting yourself in for - the writing team does comprise people who wrote Psychoville and Inside No. 9!

I dunno, I just think people need to take a step back and think 'why is this upsetting me' before frothing at the gills about a work of fiction that they can take or leave.

There are somethings in life we absolutely should be bothered about; equality and education and health and our place in the world (especially here in the UK where Brexit is shaping up to be a right dogs breakfast, the government are seeking to curtail press freedom and have the sort of internet China does, amongst many many other deeply troubling issues), its good to be critical, but taking offence at works of fiction or cartoons or whatever the hell it is is aiming your ire in the wrong place.
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Post by inflatable dalek »

Skyquake87 wrote:Tbh, I can still get how casting a female Doctor is pandering to an extent. I wouldn't mind it if it felt more like there was a narrative drive for it (which, in fairness, there has been certainly in the last couple of series of Who) , but its been drowned out by all the clamour for it and just whiffs of caving to external pressures, whether that's frothing tabloid journalists or the BBC's own drive for diversity at all costs (especially in light of the horrendous publication of salaries it had to endure). That more than anything else has just made me unable to properly get behind the idea until very recently. It just feels like "There. We did it. Are you happy now?".
What actually would be the costs of diversity though? That's basically why women and other groups get so angry at this sort of thing, the idea that White Hetrosexual Male is the default and anything else is a bit odd and weird and quota ticking rather than just as valid.

As for LOG, it's interesting that there's been such outrage for not only Barbara but also Papa Lazarou in the recent new episodes. Again, symptomatic of how times have changed etc etc but also that people can't recognise that some of these things are ripe for humour, whether you like it or not. LOG has always been a show about grotesques and caricatures of some of the very worst aspects of human behaviour, so to take offence at it seems very silly indeed. Or that you shouldn't be watching. And surely to God, if you're tuning in, you must have some idea of what you're letting yourself in for - the writing team does comprise people who wrote Psychoville and Inside No. 9!
It's a YMMV thing of course, but I can see the point in still doing Papa Lazarou as the basic message there is people who do blackface are ****s, and I don't think the name has ever become an actual slur.

Barbara on the other hand, we're in an era where transgender people are actively fighting harder than ever for their basic right to exist and there's an increasingly loud right wing voice calling for their total extermination (to coin a phrase). It's hardly surprising they'd find the return of a twenty year old incredibly negative "Man in a dress with a big butch voice" stereotype hugely upsetting and something to complain about loudly.

(Gatiss of course hasn't helped himself recently by attacking the casting in his last Ice Warriors episode with "I find it hard to imagine black people existing before 1950", which was a joke in an attempted point about not liking diverse casting in the Victorian army--even though it's actually broadly speaking accurate to real history--but still about the single worst soundbite he could have come up with)

Plus there's that twenty year old character. Twenty years before 1997 we had Bernard Manning and the like doing their terrible material. Young people today looking back at the stuff we grew up with and going "What. The. ****." when it's problematic isn't a fault with them (especially, as with Barbara, it's still being done today so there's no "Those were the times!" arguments to be made), it's that the world has shifted. Largely for the better, even if there are so many trying to drag us back. The problem was more a group like transgender people not having a platform in 1997 to talk about how things like this are hurting them and the people making the show never having that chance to realise it.
There are somethings in life we absolutely should be bothered about; equality and education and health and our place in the world (especially here in the UK where Brexit is shaping up to be a right dogs breakfast, the government are seeking to curtail press freedom and have the sort of internet China does, amongst many many other deeply troubling issues), its good to be critical, but taking offence at works of fiction or cartoons or whatever the hell it is is aiming your ire in the wrong place.
Oh they can multitask, I love the passion and take no shit attitude of people in their teens and twenties have at the moment to take down everything. I don't remember it being like that for my generation, maybe not having the unifying thing of something like Twitter was a factor there as well. I hope they can keep it up, when you're fighting against the real dark evil consuming the world right now we need that strength and determination more than ever.

And even if it's less important, never forget how important media is in shaping world views and how seeing people that look like you well represented can make a massive difference. We saw that this year with the ecstatic reaction to Wonder Woman and there's a similar build up to Black Panther. There was a great video the other day of several POC surrounding a poster with its one Caucasian Andy Serkis face on it and going "This is what it feels like for white people ALL THE TIME!" and dancing around with pure joy.
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Post by Tetsuro »

inflatable dalek wrote:(because women and mninorities are only ever "Pandering", right?)
It is when it's done badly. And it usually is when it's done by people who don't actually believe in the message they're trying to send, whether it's because they don't really care or know about this stuff but they're forced into paying them lip service by their superiors, or they're just doing it out of some misguided attempt at helping.

And it really isn't helping when you're suddenly changing the gender of a previously established character, one with a history spanning several decades at that. It just strikes me as a desperate attempt to try and look progressive, something which the new series already has a pretty lousy history with. Rather than working that stuff smoothly into the stories, it's often just "oh and I'm a <sexual minority> by the way" and that's it, like it's some kind of a gag in itself (and it has been).

And that's what worries me about future episodes; rather than pretty much completely ignoring the change and just treating her as just The Doctor, they treat her as The Female Doctor. And then make lame gags about it.
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Post by Skyquake87 »

Oh, absolutely, white male shouldn't be the default. Maybe it's just Who's profile and the hoo-ha surrounding it that's made me feel this way. It just doesn't feel that it's happened organically through the show - despite what it has done to try and promote the idea. Like anything else, diversity is great, so long as you're promoting it on merit and not just to fill a quota.

As for the transgender thing, I do understand why people are upset ...it's just have people seen what that character is about? Someone so enthusiastic about their gender-reassignment that they describe what will happen in graphic and painstaking detail. Then, in the revival shows, the whole 'militant liberal' angle of not wanting to use gender pronouns and so on - those are genuine things to poke fun at. It's clear that people haven't been able to divorce it from it seeming like the character is being held up as being what transgender though. I don't know, maybe I'm just not inclined to take things at face value so have a hard time understanding why everyone else gets so upset. Either way, let's hope there's not a Little Britain revival anytime soon or the internet will explode.

I don't mind the take down everything attitude, but it doesn't seem terribly productive - it's smarter in my mind to understand how things work and how we can make those things work better for people today. Nowadays, it just seems like everything is wrong and to be instantly mistrusted and so it must be gotten rid of.

It's interesting to read a lot of comment threads on newspaper sites and see how little time people now have to understand either each other or the mechanics of the world and are just looking for a quick fix for everything. This kind of thing seems only to be leading to-and encouraging- a race to the bottom, where everything is entitled and nothing is valued and no one accepts any personal responsibility.

I'm extremely interested to see how society develops as people who've grown up with social media age and enter into industry and politics and how this will change things. I hope it will lead to some genuinely positive things, and less of the corner cutting we see at the moment (Fracking , for example, looks set to become a genuine enivronmental disaster in the UK given what's happened in Blackpool recently, thanks to no regulation in order to kick-start the next big energy gold rush).
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Post by Denyer »

Skyquake87 wrote:I'm not a big fan of cameos like the ones here honestly, which felt a bit indulgent, and felt Bill's return rather undid her exit ...but I did like The Testimony, that was a cool concept. Basically preserving people - memories makes us, after all.
If that's of interest, an oblique turn on it is the Faction Paradox follow-on stuff that span off from the Eighth Doctor novels --

https://www.amazon.com/Faction-Paradox- ... 972595945/

Even knowing it was coming the Lethbridge-Stewart reveal was quite emotive, as was One's "good luck". Enjoyed it.
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Post by Skyquake87 »

Hmm...interesting, might have to check those out. Thanks!
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Post by Tetsuro »

Ultimately what annoys me the most about the casting decision is that it is almost entirely political - and what about the next Doctor? They can't cast a man in the role again without also making it political.

They've just opened a whole new can of worms that didn't need to be opened.
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Post by Skyquake87 »

I live for the day when we can all get over some of us having different genitals.
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Post by Denyer »

I'm much more put off, as I might have mentioned, by the initial wardrobe choice seeming to riff off the Davison outfit. Hopefully that goes and the red hair dye comes out (have we ever had a Doctor change hair colour mid-incarnation? Could play with that residual regen energy concept a bit.)

Can't remember what I've said already, but given that the Whoniverse includes the Master whose incarnations aren't necessarily the same species and that as a concept literally every story could exist in the same wiped/overwritten timeline and that "do overs" have happened repeatedly, this is a science fiction franchise it's very difficult to take the POV that genderflipping is somehow a radical or spoiling choice. It's fairly likely to be tokenistic (at this stage I'm calling it as likely to be a younger bloke next).

And on tangents, it'd potentially be a rich vein script-wise to have a Romana take the lead role instead, and would like to see an Iris cameo whilst Katy Manning is here to play it.

As far as the on-screen fiction goes, Who and Trek are both small-C conservative progressive narrative franchises, and pushing contemporary boundaries in a teatime TV way is what they do. If that pisses off Alf Garnett types, good.
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Post by Skyquake87 »

I'm not sure about the outfit either. It whiffs a bit of Rainbow-era children's presenter. But as my wardrobe largely consists of black, black and more black, I'm not really in a position to question anyone's sartorial choices.

Proof will be in the pudding though and I'm looking forward to see where this goes, all the same :)
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Post by Tetsuro »

Skyquake87 wrote:I live for the day when we can all get over some of us having different genitals.
So do I.
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Post by inflatable dalek »

Well, this is a step in that direction if nothing else.

A clip from her first episode has leaked online for those so inclined.
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Post by oneagainstall »

By the way, has anybody seen "The Woman Who Fell to Earth"? What are you impressed by?
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Post by Denyer »

Series 11 discussion's over here --

http://tfarchive.com/community/showthread.php?t=55888
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