I really liked Whittaker’s casting at first, but...
It became evident really fast that this wasn’t a genuine creative decision, reading staff and cast interviews, but an ideologically motivated one.
Not all the potential was explored yet.
Ever since Tom Baker's Doctor had Romana as a sidekick, I've wanted a Doctor Who show that features a female Time Lord companion where The Doctor plays a minor role.In my opinion, they should have retired or at least sidelined the original doctor, then freely design the female doctor as a new timelord. That would have gotten me personally interested. Instead I instantly feared the worst, especially since the change came after/at a time where the whole *turn established charachters female* woke party was in full force.
Sadly, it came true and it broke my already shaken relationship with Doctor Who. The Sarah Jane Adventures (RIP Elisabeth) I will remember fondly in comparison.
On a far more cheerful note, and because my wife is awesome, I got home to find this waiting for me:
She's done with this Doctor Woke retardeness too basically.
Hey now, Michelle Gomez's Missy is easily in the top three versions of the character, and is exactly the kind of reimagining of a character we want: not woke, just competent casting.Just reading random stuff about the series and I got a laugh out of the pictures of The Master on Wikipedia lol, pretty easy to see when we hit current year. Female Master, PoC Master, where will they go next?
It's totally down to Chris Chibnall, the 'genius' that gave us Torchwood's "Cyberwoman" - why they gave the keys to the franchise to him, I don't know. Then again, while "Orphan 55" was the weakest episode I've seen for a while, it's not like Doctor Who isn't peppered with weak episodes every season, even in the golden Tennant era (looking at you, "Fear Her" & "Love & Monsters").
For what it's worth though, I think that Jodie Whittaker is good at the part - you could pretty much replace her for Matt Smith in any of his episodes and get much the same effect. It's the writing that's at fault. While Steven Moffat kind of ran out of steam at times towards the end of his run, he did write some of the strongest episodes going back to the first series of the 2005 revival. Now that he's gone, there seems to be a bit of a void.
If you didn't stick with Capaldi after his rough first series though, I'd recommend at least watching season 9's "Heaven Sent" - it's possibly my favourite ever episode of Doctor Who and shows what Capaldi can do outside of the awkward writing of his early episodes.
I haven't seen the past couple of episodes, but even my gf said there's too much "teaching" in the show now. She leans pretty much to the left politically and has been an environmentalist for 15-20 years and was very aware of the climate change things already over 10 years ago and was actively trying to do her part in helping what comes to that issue, and even she thought the show suffers from being preachy. She especially mentioned the show trying to teach about climate stuff and was annoyed by it. She said she liked the first couple of episodes of this season (which I also saw) where it was more about the Master and less about trying to preach anything.
We both like the new Doctor's performance and have no issues with the Doctor being a woman, but I guess the show getting preachy is quite a problem if even my gf thinks it is.
Hey now, Michelle Gomez's Missy is easily in the top three versions of the character, and is exactly the kind of reimagining of a character we want: not woke, just competent casting.
My wife got hounded on Facebook because she belongs to a Doctor Who group and said she was sick of the new show preaching so much and that for that reason she preferred the older series - in particular the Tom Baker era.This isn't a unique phenomena. My wife's to the left of me, fairly woke tbh but even she has hit a point of boredom with the overt preaching to be found on some shows (The Last Leg really pissed her off with this stuff).
I left a Witcher group on facebook after I called out a bunch of people accusing others of racism when they complained about the woke casting choices. Even after I pointed out that labeling people as racist is a pretty cheap way to win an argument and just used to silence dissenting voices.My wife got hounded on Facebook because she belongs to a Doctor Who group and said she was sick of the new show preaching so much and that for that reason she preferred the older series - in particular the Tom Baker era.
She got dogpiled by all the "Well you must be some kind of Trump-loving bigot" comments that she left the group and we decided we just won't be watching the new episodes and have officially given up on Doctor Who. All this "if you're not with us, you're against us" rhetoric of today get so, so tiresome.
...their diverse show of choice at the moment
And in Doctor Who's 50 plus year history, we didn't have a regular POC character until Noel Clarke's Mickey Smith in the NuSeries premiere in 2005. And then the first true companion of color arrived in 2007.Pretty off topic, but this just made me think about Dawson's Creek which I've been watching lately, and it is kind of mindblowing in a 2020 sense how white that show is. Not a single black character for like the first 3 seasons. It wasn't all that long ago that huge mainstream shows could get away with this. What dark ages! I'm on the like fourth season and they just finally brought in a female PoC character that is the exact same as Dawson but smarter, wittier, and a better film director.
I haven't seen those portrayals so I'm not saying they're bad until I have, my point was that you can clearly see when wokeness became a factor in casting. That woman actually really looks the part though from some pictures I've seen, she's got the eyes.
And in Doctor Who's 50 plus year history, we didn't have a regular POC character until Noel Clarke's Mickey Smith in the NuSeries premiere in 2005. And then the first true companion of color arrived in 2007.
Not that I minded. I thought Martha Jones was a good companion and while they did acknowledge her skin color in some moments it was done in a fun manner and not really made a big deal out of. What made her stand out though was that she had an actual personality and was played by a good actress like Freema Agyeman.
These two new POC companions? I couldn't give a shit about them. Hell, I can't even remember their names because they're so dull and uninteresting. Chibnall and his writers forgot to give these POCs any actual character to make viewers relate to them. The old white guy is actually the most likable one but that's probably because Bradley Walsh is such a good actor.
My problem with him is that he was intentionally downplaying the quirky aspects of the character. Every iteration basically had a physical quirk or something interesting about their costume.
10th Doctor eschewed the costume quirks entirely, and literally is just a dude with a leather jacket. He did not look out of place on modern Earth 2005 in the slightest, and that's what I found off-putting. Eccleston was really good actually, but his Doctor didn't look enough like what I know the doctor to be.
Yeah he was good but felt very normal, he was also short lived and followed immediately by tennent so that likely didn't help his long term rep.
Ok, each to their own and all that, but if we're going to start throwing accusations of gurning and twattery around, there are plenty of examples of both in Classic who.I never found any of the new Doctors likable, they just seemed like gurning twats to me.
Ok, each to their own and all that, but if we're going to start throwing accusations of gurning and twattery around, there are plenty of examples of both in Classic who.
Most notably in Tom Baker infact, whose greatest ever portrayal of the character, is a Brian Blessed level massive ham who switched between acting like a borderline psychopath one moment to as if he had suffered some form of brain damage then next, and was bloody glorious.
Regardless of whether it was deliberate acting or good casting, the behavior was still a part of existing Doctor Who characteristics both durint and even before Tom Baker, with Patrick Troughton and John Pertwee making use of overly exagerated facial expressions as well as both scripted and interpreted rude and eccentric behaviours during their runs, both traits continued by Colin Baker and Sylvester McCoy.Tom Bakers performance worked because he is an eccentric person in real life. By his own admission he was just playing himself most of the time. The new Doctors were trying to act eccentric by shouting and pulling funny faces, and it was awful to watch.
Is it possible to have a series run for this long and continue to be good? Legit question.
In the US, the sets were numbered based on the actor playing the Doctor - for example, season 10 was released in the US as "Doctor Who: Jon Pertwee Complete Season Four"
they need a Missy spin off show. she is easily one of the best characters in the entire show's run.Hey now, Michelle Gomez's Missy is easily in the top three versions of the character, and is exactly the kind of reimagining of a character we want: not woke, just competent casting.
pretty much impossible. iirc the BBC had destroyed or lost many tapes for the Doctor Who show over the decades it has been on. this is especially for the early seasons. often we have an entire show's audio but no video, possibly storyboard or still photos. every now and then new episodes or footage surfaces from the collectors scene, and it gets included by archivists in new releases. sometimes you will get partial episodes made from what content is available at the time. count in the idea that they were releasing stuff in all the decades, and it's a bit of a mess lol. Tom Baker is always a good choice IMO.I don't get why they just don't start at Doctor 1 and do them chronologically
Just bought Tom Baker Season 1 blu ray. I fear I may have fallen down a very deep rabbit hole here lol...
I wish these things had more organized releases. If you search on amazon for Doctor Who DVDs/Blurays, there is a ton of stuff and it's hard to know what has been released for purchase. I don't get why they just don't start at Doctor 1 and do them chronologically. Like you can find weird assortments of seasons on blu ray, you can get some seasons from pretty much every one of the doctors, but nothing is complete yet. Like they have Tom Baker season 1 and....7? wtf.
I mean I was digging around wikipedia pages for DW home releases, and it's just really deep and confusing....this is from an article on a doctor who wiki about the releases
Why can't they just pick a numbering convention and make it universal......
they need a Missy spin off show. she is easily one of the best characters in the entire show's run.
The show is over half a century old, has pretty much had constant new good stories made throughout that time, and has constant change built into its very core.I think the general standard of fantasy that we're exposed to is on such a steepening curve that Doctor Who has been running on nostalgia fumes for both the current Dr and Lewis Capaldi. I think the Tennant (and that guy before him) reboot had a shelf life and it expired around the start of the last decade. A new generation picked it up and were encouraged to love it by enthusiastic parents, but that generation is getting tired of it and the new generations are resistant to the strain~
The kind of rapid fire special effects and cgi of a tv series that is hugely repetitive.. what was once perhaps a series of episodic touchstones for us to soak up (the doctor's wit, the mortal companion's eventual savvy and mastery, the fate of the world in the balance, the returning faces with even worse savvy and mastery smirks...) now fails to stand up to comparison with a fair slice of the computer games that have been coming out.
And i have no idea but i guess Netflix would probably have something to do with it too~
BBC needs to figure out a way give the 8th Doctor his own series proper. It’s takes him all of three seconds to perfectly convey that he is the Doctor. These 7 minutes put to shame what we’ve gotten with Chibnall these last two seasons.
‘Bring me knitting’ was epic as fuck...lol.
BBC needs to figure out a way give the 8th Doctor his own series proper. It’s takes him all of three seconds to perfectly convey that he is the Doctor. These 7 minutes put to shame what we’ve gotten with Chibnall these last two seasons.
‘Bring me knitting’ was epic as fuck...lol.
I lost the little interest I had when this lady (who is a good actress) was cast in the role. Her accent and general portrayal is so far from the original idea of DW it just doesn't work for me.
Going back to the gender thing, this is another example of just casting (usually white) women in franchises that were formerly male fronted has crashed and burned. Ghostbusters, Charlie's Angels, MIB, Oceans 15 or whatever that shite was. The list goes on.
I have been a Who fan since the early 80's and must admit that series 11 sucked. This current series 12 is much better but still is tiring having a diverse cast checklist (regulars and guest actors). Jodie still doesn't feel like the Doctor to me (and I was all gung-ho with giving her a chance). Maybe it's the writing or maybe it's the acting, but it doesn't feel right. Also, as someone pointed out earlier, they have a time and space machine but have yet to go off Earth this year. Geez!!!
ye but the earlier stuff is good.This fire sale on Doctor Who content at Amazon still going strong, I really wonder why it's all being so deeply discounted for such an extended period.
I recently came into a small amount of money burning a hole in my pocket, and I couldn't pass up these sales, I ordered 4 complete Blu Ray seasons (2 Baker, 1 Pertwee, and 1 Davison) and The Five Doctors DVD. I'm trying to stop but everything is so cheap right now.....
ye but the earlier stuff is good.
Not sure why I fell off during the Tennant run, [....]
Heartwarming to see him call Davison "his Doctor."
The worst part about all this woke nonsense is that it's just bad and anyone who criticizes is labelled a sexist simply for saying how bad it truly is.