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MrL_JaKiri posted:It sounds good until you change what he's saying and the context of what's happening There’s a definite tension here. Dr Who is not Trek. Who is, amongst other things, a historical educational show, a modern day soap opera, and only relatively occasionally a high concept morality play sci-fi show. That’s part of what makes me eyeroll at the ‘What? Black people? In London!?’ commentary. Yeah. There were black people in London. There was always black people in London, going all the way back to it being Londinium. History, as 12 said to Bill, is a whitewash. Who is as good of a format as any to actually educate people. That was one of the original purposes of the show! That line was a little bit unfair, mind. Like the previous poster said, Racism against black people in it’s modern form often has its roots in transatlantic slavery, as a way of justifying why it’s suddenly ok to subjugate another man when all men are supposed to be made in the image of god. If you go back before that to the 1200s, and ask someone what the difference between the Western Europeans and Africans was, they’d be much more likely to start talking about Christendom versus Islam than skin colour. If you started trotting out 19th century racist ideas about black people, they’d be very confused. Black people as they’d have known them were generally either rich traders or skilled and educated specialist labour sent from Constantinople to help build up Western Europe kingdoms so they can stop the Vikings raiding East. Nobody wrote about Black People particularly because very few people wrote, and the few who did didn't give a poo poo. Like, check out this Knight of the Round Table from a 13th century telling. /https://tf-cmsv2-smithsonianmag-media.s3.amazonaws.com/filer/9e/db/9edb8c4d-980b-42a7-afa9-55e61b92332b/01-16-14-sir-morien.jpg) All the monk who wrote it said was he was 'dark of hair and features'. They didn't write a lot about black people in Britain because no-one particularly gave a poo poo at the time. He was Roman, and Christian, the vikings were Pagan and Germanic. That's what they cared about. Now, a woman who has no husband and didn’t get the recent plague so they must have done it themselves and it’s definitely not because their cat was killing all the mice that went near her house. Or that 6-year-old kid who stole an apple last week. Or that person who owes you a penny. They definitely are all agents of satan and need murdering horribly, immediately, in the name of Jesus Christ. Who definitely went in for that sort of thing. Treks whole thing of ‘we created magic food dispensers and all humanities problems went away, now we just learn the flute and gently caress magic lightbulbs all day’ is cute, but ultimately childish. Who is at it’s best when it has something to say. Like, the episode about Yaz in the partition of India, which I think was 13s run at it’s best, partly because we don’t get taught about that clusterfuck at school. Don’t hide from it. Explore it. Show black people in the 1300s. Have the companion ask. Have the Doctor explain the history of Black people in the UK. Laugh as the your weird uncle has a facebook meltdown. Things like that was one of the whole points of the show!
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Nov 21, 2023 21:40
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| # ¿ May 21, 2024 00:23 |
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Random Stranger posted:Honestly, I thought it was a decent but not great episode (however, all hail the Meep!). It's a bit sloppy, a bit too pat in the resolution, and gets kind of clunky. It's the kind of thing that characterized a lot of the Russell T. Davies era. It wasn't a brilliant episode, but it had several great moments that helped carry it. The episode's biggest strength is that after Chibnall and even most of Moffat, this is such an enormous step up. I'm kinda more excited for RTD the show runner than RTD the writer for this reason. His plots do tend to be kinda clunky, but good lord the guy can create really great, really authentic feeling characters and relationships, and the show is historically at it's absolute best when someone who is better that plots then has those characters to play with. And it's not like his plots are bad, just a bit clunky at times. Like, just the relationship with Sylvia and Donna in this episode. How their relationship has grown and moved on so much since and there's warmth and love but still that little spark of antagonism is still buried in there that they both have to work around, just like most real family relationships usually have that little sore spot you just try to never poke. Moffatt just made all his characters magic orphans so he didn't have to deal with any of that, and I think that was a loss. Chibnall of course kept throwing middle aged men into the Tardis instead. Write what you know, I guess. The Doctor is real, and she's your friend, and any day now you'll go on adventures together. Keep dreaming the dream mate. I was wondering going in why a trans woman, who I assume picked her own new name when she transitioned, would have ended up being called Rose. But that's the inherited Metacrisis acting on her subconscious. Nice. Clever piece of foreshadowing, that! I hope we get more of badass unit science lady and her rocket launcher inspector gadget wheelchair. She owned.
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Nov 25, 2023 23:30
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RTD was equally, uh, unsubtle about gay representation in his first run, which is something I think he doesn't get enough credit for. Very few shows in 2005 were incorporating gay characters in a way that didn't make them cliche's or doing Gay Panic storylines, least of all family shows on Saturday evenings. Who is ultimately a show that's aimed at kids as much as it is anything else - some topics are worth being heavy handed about if it helps a 14 year old trans kid start to get to grips with how they are feeling. I know as a bi guy I certainly appreciated Captain Jack at the time, even if the whole 'he's bi, he'll bang anything' thing hasn't necessarily aged well. Although I was 19 and bi and 'this will stop you getting laid' was, sadly, my actual main concern at the time, so that was a message I kinda appreciated. Watching his GAY AGENDA!!!! moments back now through a 2023 lens, where having gay representation on screen is far less noticeable than it was in 2005 is kinda hilarious though. Random characters just randomly kramering into frame to mention MY BOYFRIEND for, like, no reason. Here's hoping in 15 years we can look back at this episode with the similar sentimental eye roll.
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Nov 26, 2023 09:13
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We don't know who is giving notes either. Disney is a very large company that isn't all just emotionless lawyer drones. They've got some genuinely passionate creative people too. Yeah, they sanded down any edges from Marvel or Star Wars. The also went to war with Florida's governor on defence of their LGBTQ staff. They're a massive company, big enough to hold multiple, contradictory positions at once depending on who's involved. RTD is absolutely capable of writing some stupid poo poo. Having an outsider going 'hey, uh, that's some stupid poo poo' might not be the worst thing, if it's coming from the right sort person for the right reasons. If anything gets sanded down, it's going to be the odd episode where Who show runners randomly decide to try and scare the absolute poo poo out of kids. Not sure how 'but it's tradition!' is going to go down with some American producer who isn't used to their shows randomly trying to traumatise 9 year olds.
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Nov 28, 2023 08:11
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Clara was written as a foil for Capaldis serious angry Tucker-Doctor. Problem with her first half-season is that it wasn’t with Capaldi, and her and Smith as a pairing just became sorta obnoxious. Plus she was one of the biggest examples of the weird gross women are the real mystery trope that Moffat had a habit of falling into. Once Capaldi showed up, Clara made a lot more sense.
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Dec 2, 2023 10:28
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The_Doctor posted:Yeah, the first Monk ep is fine, but the back 2 eps are the low point of S10. It's all great from then on, though. They weren't even especially bad in isolation. It's just Extremis did such a job of setting up this awesome new enemy and everyone got excited it was just some monster of the week killed with the power of love. 'When I'm on a date. Do not. Put. The Pope. In my Bedroom' was a great line though. LividLiquid posted:I liked both, but vastly improved the latter. He *really* came into his own in his second season. Riding a tank into an axe fight playing a bitchin' solo. Aging rock star fit twelve so well it's hard to imagine why they even tried anything else. One thing I really liked about Capaldi's run is he is really the only doctor who had a character arc. Every other one was pretty much the same character in their last episode than they were in their first, but 12 started being unsure about whether he's even still a good man at the start to giving monologues about the importance of kindness in the end, and that evolution never at any point felt jarring or that his character had been retconned. Slyphic posted:The only bit that didn't fit right was Tennant raging in the corridor, but maybe that's him trying to play up that he's not just 10-again, but a new '14th' doctor with a familiar face? But seriously minor quibble in an otherwise delightful good time. I read this as RTD trying to retroactively fix the absolute mess that is the Flux and all the Timeless Child poo poo. At least, fix in terms of how RTD see's writing. The plot itself is whatever, but one of the most damning things about that whole arc is The Doctor watched half the universe get destroyed and she didn't seem to give a poo poo. I bet RTD, a man far more interested in character arcs and emotional storytelling than tight plots, found that maddening. And it was. RTD did more in a 2 minute scene to sell the ramifications of The Flux than Chibnall ever did. And now we can move on. Sorta like how the first thing Moffatt, a guy more interested in tight plots than RTD was did was write in a bunch of event eating time cracks to explain away all the sloppy plot threads with giant Cybermen stomping Victorian London that RTD left him saddled with.
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Dec 4, 2023 23:24
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Jerusalem posted:Loved his explanation for Clara. Ok I'm gonna be that guy. Did the Doctor even know that Clara was still out there? Or Bill, for that matter? (the answer of course is wibbly wobbly timey wimey)
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Dec 9, 2023 21:40
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The_Doctor posted:I thought his memory of Clara was restored fully in Capaldi’s final story? It was, but Clara only decided to not go straight to Gallifrey and fly off with Ashilda instead after she left the Doctor. So even if the Doctor got his memories back, as far as he knew, she went straight back to Trap Street and got Crow'd. I sure hope someone got fired for that blunder! Episode was dumb as gently caress. I loved it. I imagine the pitch to get Neil Pactick Harris in went 'What do you want me to do', 'Whatever the gently caress you want'. Donna decapitating the doll and then staring down her babies owned. The Bi-Generation was weird but whatever, Tennant has earned the right for the odd comeback episode no matter how tenuous the writing to get him there is. Lol at the Master, now in Tooth form. Pure RTD-Who fun loveable camp at its best. Sorta wished it was a twoparter though. They spent so long building the Toymaker up as this massive villain, and then ran out of run time and had to beat him so quickly with a game of catch it undercut a fantastic villain. Wild Blue Yonder was great, but there was no reason it had to be a 14 story aside from a couple story beats, you could have saved it for Gatwa.
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Dec 9, 2023 22:01
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I don't want to be dismissive of any black goons take on this, but I wonder if there's an element of American vs UK/Europe going on here as well? American TV and viewers often seem to default to any sort of nudity being read as explicitly sexual, but to me as a Brit it also read more as comedic. This is a long running cultural difference both sides of the pond. It's not sexualising a black man if it's not sexualising anything. But then, RTD has a bit of a history with putting guys up on screen to thirst over - who boy did he find ways for Captain Jack to get his kit off back in the day a well - Trinny and Susana-bot being the one that's aged the least well. Not that Barrowman particularly needed any encouragement to take his clothes off, alas. I guess that voice I'm especially listening for is how any black Brits felt about it.
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Dec 13, 2023 09:10
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Doctor Spaceman posted:Between the Spyfall reveal, the Tesla episode, Fugitive of the Judoon, and the Haunting of Villa Diodati you can almost convince yourself that Chibnall's second season is decent. It's just how the bigger picture shakes out that ruins it. Chibnall would occasionally setup a really interesting twist and then give it the most unsatisfactory resolution ever. Division-Doctor was a real  , like just that moment where The Doctor finds the Tardis, Ruth turns back into the Doctor and starts giving her the 'It can go anywhere in space and time' talk was awesome, and and the resolution of that arc was the Doctor was literally monologuing to the Master about how none if it loving matters and that she doesn't even give a poo poo.Like, what.
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Dec 17, 2023 09:30
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When Mel’s first regenerated into River I got all excited imagining this whole season with River as an antagonist, and then Moffat just blew through it and she was basically just the same character we’d been introduced to in the Library for every other appearance. Which, I liked River, but the idea of a character arc being out of order was really interesting, you could do so much stuff with a relationship where they are both married and Rivers past is also literally coming back to try and murder him and what does that do to a relationship and can he even really trust future River if he hasn’t himself saved her yet and doesn’t know for sure he ever does and….well, instead, we got a one dimensional Mrs Robinson that was saved largely by good dialogue, some decent individual stories and the acting chops of Alex Kingston. Eh. Maybe doing more is just too much to do with someone who wasn’t main cast when you’ve also got arcs for The Doctor and the Ponds to worry about.
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Dec 21, 2023 18:07
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Huh. Why didn't Clara immediately go on a psychotic murder spree when The Doctor took her onto the church ship thingy and she saw the Silence priest guys. I assume she had seen the space landing at some point in her life. She shoulda just frothy mouthed just ripping and tearing like loving Doom guy on there.
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Dec 22, 2023 16:10
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| # ¿ May 21, 2024 00:23 |
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Time Lords have long standing snobbery about any form of time travel that isn't a Tardis. That's nothing new. I'm not a fan of most of the Who Xmas episodes - they seem to assume your watching them on Xmas day, no attention span, half asleep with a belly full of way too much Turkey and Quality Street. Which most of the audience might well be, but they tend to feel both inconsequential, no depth and weirdly breathless if your watching them 2 days later on iPlayer, which is how I always watch them. RTDs were usually particularly bad for this, and this one was no exception. A little bit of me is worried that the reboot is a much deeper reboot than I'm hoping for. One episode is what it is, but this very much felt like a Disney show in a way I'm not hugely interested in, and if the specials were a way of ending the show to date to make way for this new rebooted show....eh. Not sure about it. I like how Who can simultaneously be the dumbest loving show on earth and weirdly clever at the same time. I hope they don't end up sanding all those edges off. Those edges are the point,. at least for me. But, then again, if I was judging the show by that one with Kylie Minogue and the Space Titanic I'd feel exactly the same way so eh.
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Dec 27, 2023 20:47
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