Discussion YMMV / DoctorWho

In regards to Salvaged Story, can I just point out that the idea of “exploring trauma over being the Timeless Child” was all over the place in Flux, it was one of the big plot points?

Maybe save Win Back the Crowd RTD-wise until he actually starts? We have no idea how the ratings will be, a lot of people are disappointed that it's not someone new, and Chibnall era hasn't even finished.

"Some in the fanbase believe Thirteen became more insensitive and ruthless for no clear reasonnote , Yaz remains a non-entity, and Graham and Ryan have far less compelling arcs."

did they really make the massive Trauma Conga Line not clear enough? and Yaz is going down Clara's road.

Just asking, why was the Timeless Child section on They Changed It, Now It Sucks! removed from the YMMV pages? Apologies if I did something wrong (I was the one who added that, I know Broken Base wasn't allowed but I didn't know anything about TCINIS!), but I have only seen people complaining about the twist outside of professional critics in the media and people who used to/currently do work on the show (though if it is actually a point of contention then apologies for my ignorance).

I'm a bit new to adding YMMV tropes, so I figured I should ask first, but should we be putting Creator's Pet and Designated Hero for the Thirteenth Doctor (or at least Base-Breaking character)? Just to establish beforehand, I have no issue with a female Doctor at all, but I do have some arguments in favour of the two which I have seen certain people talk about: -Point for both: She suffers no consequences for all the horrible things she does and is shown as having the moral high ground most of the time (spoiler-y examples include her forcing the spiders into a confined space to "humanely" asphyxiate rather than quickly and relatively painlessly just letting the hotel tycoon shoot them in Arachnids in the UK, glossing over Kira's death like it didn't even matter and served the greater good in Kerblam! (I think the latter two could also count as a Broken Aesop both towards the messages of the episodes they're in and 13's general abhorrence of killing), wiping Ada and Noor's memories in Spyfall, cruelly putting down her companions as beneath her in the Haunting of Villa Diodati and not even having to go through with killing the Cyber-Masters thanks to Ko Sharmus' sacrifice in The Timeless Children) -Points for Creator's Pet only: This is in certain expanded universe material, but in some of the expanded universe material she is presented as being superior to the other Doctors, specifically when she lets Daughter of Mine out of the mirrors in the Chibnall-penned sequel to the Twitter watchalong for The Family of Blood because what 10 did was bad (despite Daughter being, you know, an alien monster who basically murdered and possessed a little girl) and her apparently telling 10 off for constantly referencing Rose around Martha in a new comic (I'm afraid I don't have the name of the comic as I heard this off a trustworthy friend). There's also the fact that she's the first to stop the other Doctors arguing in Doctors Assemble on the Doctor Who Lockdown channel, but I'm not sure if that one counts or not.

So is this enough for those entries or do we need more evidence?

• Some Anvils Need to Be Dropped:
  • Some of the episodes during the Third Doctor's era which have a very political stance. A good example of this is "The Mutants". While the message about not treating other races badly and of colonialism being bad seems obvious, at the time there was an apartheid regime in South Africa.
  • While a heavy-handed episode, "The Sun Makers" does highlight the oppressive nature of an out-of-control bureaucracy especially when it's revealed the Usurians are using the system to work and tax the human race to death.
  • "Turn Left" is one of the most mature depictions of modern fascism that you'll ever see on mainstream television because it specifically avoids positioning an Obviously Evil dictator in a convenient villain role. As the episode points out, oppressive regimes don't just rise to power because of evil people with evil agendas, they rise to power when a populace becomes too scared and beaten-down to question its authority figures. Far too often, it just takes a few random disasters to rob people of their hope.
  Wilfred: "Labour camps". That's what they called them last time. Donna: ... what d'you mean? Wilfred: It's happening again. Donna: What is?
  • Sure, "Vincent and the Doctor" was basically a Very Special Episode about depression - even the monster that provides the plot can be read as a metaphor for van Gogh's mental illness - but it was handled so maturely that it falls squarely into this category. Even knowing that his paintings will be incredibly famous and loved in the future, Vincent still kills himself, because it's not a matter of cheering him up: he's got a disease that nobody in his time understands.
  • "Kill the Moon". Humanity gave up on space exploration, and then found they were in desperate need of it.
  • "The Zygon Invasion" and "The Zygon Inversion" have a lot to say about warmongering and the integration of immigrants into society, which have become even more relevant since the episode aired in light of the terrorist attacks that occurred shortly afterwards and the subsequent rush to demonise all Muslim immigrants from certain elements of society. As long as prejudice against immigrants exists, it is quite likely that the Aesop of the story will remain relevant.

Pulled these. Some Anvils Need to Be Dropped is not about relative importance of the message. Examples need to establish that the lack of subtlety improves the example compared to less overt methods. Leaving it here in case anyone wants to rework them.

• For the Twelfth Doctor, Series 9 has so far improved on Series 8. His prickly, pragmatic, and sometimes callous nature has softened (owing to serious Character Development over Series 8) and his whimsical side is getting more screen time. Now that she no longer has Danny, Clara is no longer a Romantic Plot Tumor or Spotlight-Stealing Squad; instead her and the Doctor's relationship is full-blown Merlin and Nimue. And a focus on 2-part stories means bigger action and scope, less-rushed plotting, and better-developed guest characters.

Removed this for a couple of reasons. It's only been four episodes, I've seen a lot of people disappointed with the underuse of Clara, and the last two parter especially was criticized for Pair the Spares and Stuffed into the Fridge.

Captain Obvious Reveal: There were fans who made the connection between the name Missy and the Master as soon as her name was revealed, which was pretty early into the season. By the time The Reveal actually rolled around, most fans had already guessed it weeks in advance.

______________________

Really? Before the final I saw lots of theories like Missy being River Song, The Rani, Romana, Clara from the future, The Valeyard, etc. Her being the Master was just one of the possibilities that happenned to be correct. It wasn't Thatobvious.

What do you think?

It looks like Broken Base is long enough for its own page.

• Double Standard: The Ninth Doctor got some massive retroactive hate from big fans of Martha who claimed that his relationship with her was "toxic" (with some exaggerating it to the point of emotional abuse, as if Martha never got over the Doctor). His crime? Not returning her feelings and just wanting to be friends with her, because he was still wounded over the loss of Rose, who he loved and who he assumed he'd never see again. While his mourning did go on a little long, it doesn't change the fact that his detractors' argument could be summed up as a "friend zone" argument, and if the roles were reversed, the same fans would feel disgusted that a relationship would be "toxic" because a woman didn't want to be romantically involved with an interested man.

I think describing it as "emotional abuse" and a "toxic relationship" is a bit harsh, but I get where they're coming from. At times, he tended to give Martha mixed signals. For instance, in "The Shakespeare Code", he was fine with them sharing a bed one minute and then going on about how Rose would have said something clever to save the day in the next minute. I get that the Doctor's an alien and that that kind of obliviousness is part of his personality. I get that he was grieving from Rose. I just think that from Martha's perspective, it was a little insensitive.

That being said, I don't think that the Tenth Doctor was obligated to be in a relationship with Martha, though.

Can we do without the obvious bias against Eric Saward and JNT and needless comments about the FIFTH Doctor's era (unless it's saying that literally all of season 19-23 fell under this for a majority of fans, which seems unlikely.) Also, Eric, while script editor for the majority of this period, actually wrote THREE out of the Fifth Doctor's 20 serials, and TWO of Six's eight (or eleven, depending on how you look at it) serials. This sounds like a review more than anything.

• The Sixth Doctor's tenure had its issues, but many of them are rooted in the Fifth Doctor's three-year run. Under Eric Saward, the series became less utopian and more willing to explore darker subjects. And while the modern series has no trouble juggling camp with high drama, the eighties-era Who had its share of maladjustment. Saward would frequently pause the action so he could ditch the goody-goody Fifth Doctor and toy around with his original characters, usually gung-ho space marines or suave anti-heroes like Gustav Lytton. You would think that the regeneration into the wild, unpredictable Colin Baker would smooth out that problem, but no dice; by this time, the Doctor and his companion actively disliked each other, and the show's black humor reached overkill proportions in a bid to compete with everything else on television. It's entirely possible to enjoy the Sixth Doctor's adventures, but only in spite of the scripts.
  Phil Sandifer: The cliche is that Baker's Doctor is in many ways a self-portrait of John Nathan-Turner. This is, I think, a bit strong, but there's a strong sense in which, in 'Trial', he's an inadvertent stand-in for the series itself...a fatally flawed idea too arrogant to admit to the possibility of his failings even enough to defend himself. That only Baker's Doctor could be in this story is, in some sense, the point.

I've never ever considered (nor do I really see why) that that scene from "The Christmas Invasion" to be a "straightforward Humans Are the Real Monsters message". I've generally seen it as "both sides have their points, but both went too far in expressing them". The Doctor taking Harriet from power definitely isn't portrayed especially positively (especially after Harold Saxon comes into play).

This was under Awesome Ego, but I assume this was supposed to go under Author's Saving Throw. Either way, deleted.

• Some people interpreted the 11th Doctor's speech to Clara before he regenerated as this. 10 claiming regeneration was a death and his last words of "I don't want to go" were very controversial, a lot of people feeling the Doctor came across as cowardly here and that it caused trouble for the fans in accepting Matt Smith. 11, by contrast, says change is natural, he won't forget being the Doctor and regenerates happy.

Interpreted the speech as what? It says absolutely nothing about the Tenth Doctor's regeneration, and doesn't really acknowledge or retcon The End of Time in any way beyond some shared music cues. The different incarnations have always reacted to the process in slightly different ways. Even if he has a different idea of regeneration to Russell T Davies, Moffat isn't shunning or shutting away "I don't want to go" or Ten seeing regeneration as death. There's tons of examples where Moffat calls Russell some variant of one of the best writers, and he reused RTD's line near the end of "The Day of the Doctor".

Pulled this mess:

• The Scrappy:
  • Adric. Apparently, the purpose was to create a character who reflected their prime fan base, so the production team came up with a snotty, pompous, whining, arrogant and almost entirely unbearable maths geek, and then gave the part to a Promoted Fanboy who had only acted in television once and (to speak generously) failed to distinguish himself in the role. It doesn't help that, despite being incredibly arrogant about his intelligence, he has a tendency to either screw up the Doctor's plans or, as in one notable case, gets suckered into helping the bad guy's Evil Scheme, despite it being very transparently evil, thus making his reported intelligence something of an Informed Ability.
  • To a lesser extent (in that no one appears to have written fiction actively killing her), Mel also suffered from this, largely due to perceived miscasting, as the actress playing the character (Bonnie Langford) was known primarily from on-stage pantomime and her acting style (and character) was seen as contrary to the show's strengths. It didn't help her case that the two seasons she appeared in are generally considered the worst in the show's history, either. To be fair though most fans agree that she was Rescued from the Scrappy Heap in the Big Finish audio plays where her character received some much needed Character Development.
  • The Master, much like The Doctor, has also had incarnations who are considered Scrappies by certain members of the fandom. In particular is the version played by Eric Roberts for the 1996 movie. Roberts' hammy performance doesn't help, nor does the fact that the film in-and-of-itself is a Base Breaker. John Simm's Master is also considered a Scrappy to fans of the classic series who feel he's too much of a Large Ham. It doesn't help that Simm's incarnation was revealed to be a Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds rather than a Card-Carrying Villain like both the Delgado and Ainley incarnations.
  • Donna especially got a lot of heat for being a scrappy at first. Her first appearance was composed of her mostly shouting and slapping the Doctor, and her abrasive personality was a major turn-off for a lot of people. She was also played by Catherine Tate, and people who didn't like her comedy show felt they'd dislike her on principle. When she returned as the official companion in series 4, people were not happy. However, she soon became a crowning example of Rescued from the Scrappy Heap; writers mellowed her personality, put her through some major character development, and Tate showed of her acting prowess, being both very emotional and also comedic gold with David Tennant. Also, her controversial fate of having her memory wiped boosted her popularity magnificently.
  • Elton Pope, the one-off character from the extremely divisive and controversial episode Love and Monsters, gets this treatment frequently.
  • Martha gets a lot of hatred from Rose fans (which is a vast part of the fandom). Martha is easily the least popular companion of the new series, largely because of her being a foil to Rose and being the companion to come after the exceedingly popular Rose. Fans often will call Martha selfish and clingy and the irony is that Rose herself was equally if not more clingy and selfish. Still others will tell people to simply skip Martha and claim her season is just a waste. Martha gets similar treatment to Ginny Weasley.
    • Amy is often no better, because of her love of girly attire and her behaviour to Rory and the Doctor in her first season, which was, once more, a twinge of irony as Amy's relationships with Rory and the Doctor mirror Rose's to the Doctor and Mickey, the difference being Amy chose her human love interest over the alien.
  • Francine Jones, Martha's mother. She's rude to just about everyone right from the get-go, and ends up selling out the Doctor to Harold Saxon, a.k.a. the Master. Luckily, it doesn't keep, but the fans weren't terribly happy with her for all of that.
  • Sylvia Noble, Donna's mum. Her arrogance, smugness, constant belittling of her daughter, and inability to say the words "Thank You" left a bad taste in the mouth of many a fan.
  • The Slitheen. Shoddy costume design, out-of-place toilet humor and the fact that the characters themselves were generally seen to be more irritating than menacing.
  • Angie and to a lesser extent Artie became this in record time during "Nightmare In Silver", for being both The Load and in Angie's case a Jerkass. Within the first minute of Nightmare in Silver, Angie called the TARDIS a "stupid box." Of COURSE the fandom hates them.
  • The Doctor himself hasn't escaped Scrappy-dom, either; the Sixth Doctor (as played by Colin Baker) is considered a Scrappy by certain parts of fandom. These fans find him to be obnoxious, abrasive, and an empty attempt by the producers to make the show Darker and Edgier... not to mention his costume. This mainly applies to his television portrayal, however, which debuted in a particularly difficult era of the show's history which affected the way he was introduced and presented. It's widely agreed that the various Expanded Universe media featuring Six (along with a less gaudy suit) has largely contributed to him being Rescued from the Scrappy Heap.
  • David Gooderson's Davros who was randomly Scottish, and didn't act anything like Michael Wisher's Davros or Terry Malloy's.
  • Any Doctor or companion is the Scrappy to a lot of people.
  • Despite being one of the most popular companions of the New Series Rose is the scrappy to many. The accusations are she is a Clingy Jealous Girl who gets angry at any girl even looking at the Doctor, she was RTD's Mary Sue who he had to make a canon perfect companion, and despite acting really selfish she ends up getting her own Doctor, and that she was incredibly rude to Sarah Jane Smith, one of the most popular companions. Also Doomsday and Journey's End imply she was willing to destroy two worlds just to get the Doctor. And yet she never gets called out on this. A lot of people think Rose started out fine in Series 1 but became unbearable in Series 2.

This trope becomes meaningless if every single New Who main character is listed. Get it together, folks.

• Rose Tyler was pretty well-liked when she was actually on the show, but after she left and was constantly brought up as The! Greatest! Companion! Ever! who no one else could come close to, the fans turned on her very hard.

Are you sure about that? (And Brits preferring Sarah Jane over her in the second link doesn't say much when she still made to the final two of a tournament).

I want to amend the Seasonal Rot bit regarding series 7, but I'm not sure how to go about it without going "you're wrong, you're not paying attention, that didn't happen, Clara has a ton of fucking characterisation", because that's how I've always felt about the whole thing. The mystery of Clara is that there isn't a mystery. The entire point of Clara was that she wasn't a mystery to be solved and that the Doctor was portrayed negatively and as being in the wrong for thinking she was. I think that was a running theme throughout of "Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS", and strongly hinted at in the prologue of "The Rings of Akhaten".

• Also, a shapeshifter turns into a German officer, then takes his glasses to complete the look.

Removed, as I'm not all that familiar with Team Fortress 2. I know the gameplay doesn't really have a plot, so was this from one of the "Meet the..." videos or something else?

In what way was the Great Intelligence set up to be an evil counterpart to the Doctor?

• God-Mode Sue: The Doctor during the Russell T. Davies/ David Tennant era more so than any other era. The Doctor was constantly depicted as a savior even when he didn't do anything ("Planet of the Ood") and RTD even went as far as to depict Ten as a sci-fi Jesus in "Last of the Time Lords". Even at his egotistical worst, Ten could do no wrong and anyone who dared disagree with him (no matter how right they may be) was treated as an idiot ("The Christmas Invasion" and many others). A Base Breaker, since fangirls will use his woobie-ness to defend his actions.

OK, here goes.

The Doctor was constantly depicted as a savior even when he didn't do anything ("Planet of the Ood")

1. What has that got to do with anything? And 2. I thought the point was the fact that he and Donna befriended the Ood and were kind to them.

and RTD even went as far as to depict Ten as a sci-fi Jesus in "Last of the Time Lords".

Russell T Davies HIMSELF has said that this is people looking into things which aren't there. Plus, in this instance, it wouldn't have happened without Martha's help.

Even at his egotistical worst, Ten could do no wrong and anyone who dared disagree with him (no matter how right they may be) was treated as an idiot ("The Christmas Invasion" and many others).

Yes, he deposed Harriet, but he's clearly painted as dangerous and arrogant and threatening too by the writing. The intent is that both have their points regarding the Sycorax threat. He has his moments of superiority and hypocrisy, I get that, but the idea that "Ten could do no wrong" is not backed up by the scene where Ten brings down Harriet Jones. Not to mention that this also disregards Rose, Donna, Adelaide, Davros (the turning people into weapons speech), Elton. None of whom are painted as idiots for their disagreeing with the Tenth Doctor. From after Rose's departure, Ten becomes a much darker and anti-heroic figure, and that's clearly on purpose.

A Base Breaker, since fangirls will use his woobie-ness to defend his actions.

This is just loaded fan bashing language.

This was removed from Alternate Character Interpretation, admittedly for being factually wrong and ignoring the occasions River self-identifies as a psychopath, but if fans genuinely think either of these things about River, even if there's tenuous on-screen evidence, shouldn't the example stay? There are so many examples of dissention on and off this wiki, especially regarding the Russell T Davies era, where I go "was I really watching the same episode?"

Edit reason by emeriin: Did you miss the various talks about her being a psychopath?

• River Song: devoted wife who just wants to keep the Doctor safe at all costs with a penchant for teasing and flirting, or complete and utter Black Hole Jerk Sue Creator's Pet? Branching off the latter, perhaps a deconstruction of many a Mary Sue fan-made self insert character?

Yes, there is Arc Fatigue. Read most any critical review.

Moved from the character sheets:

• Designated Hero: As Peter Davison said, his Doctor often made things even worse than they were before he got there.

Someone making things worse than when they began isn't on its own villainous. Can someone give specific examples before I move this onto the page?

Removed example of Base Breaker until the reasons are properly and neutrally explained, and not giving undue weight to the shippers and anti-shippers.

• Although she's generally well liked in her first series, Rose Tyler quickly evolved into a love-it-or-hate-it character in her second series. Her fans saw her as the perfect companion and love interest for The Doctor, praising her chemistry with David Tennant, while her detractors cringed at what they perceived to be a Romantic Plot Tumor and branded Rose, who once got comeuppance for her occasionally terrible decisions, as a terrible girlfriend and a Karma Houdini once Mickey was shipped off to Pete's World.

Legitimate question: are these people actually rooting for Mickey legitimately as being better for Rose as the Doctor? Not to mention, Karma Houdini? For what? Not settling with Mickey? Calling someone out for upsetting her mum just because he was (initially) really after Rose? For making Mickey a murder suspect by making her disappear for—oh wait, that was the Doctor. Or the TARDIS. Take your pick. Mickey grew as a character, but he was wimpy and argumentative and, one could say, a bit of an idiot, when we first met him. Hell, even in series 2, he was "the tin dog". It was only during and after his departure episodes that we really saw the best of him.

Rose's characterisation, no matter how little you may like her does NOT begin and end with "the Doctor's girlfriend" or "the Doctor's true love". And, do you know what? This applies to BOTH sides of the "is she a likeable character or not" argument. In several episodes after the departure of Mickey, she was responsible for saving the day, and also aided Donna in getting her out of the parallel world/timeline built around her after the Trickster's Brigade tried to change history. What innocent, i.e. non-Dalek, or non-demonic, lifeform has she killed or maimed to even come close to villainous or anti-heroic enough to get the Karma Houdini moniker?

Is the Seasonal Rot example really complaining (or validifying complaints) that post-"Angels Take Manhattan" Eleven has a different tone? After all, there is a considerable time gap between "Manhattan" and "The Snowmen"... Or is that just some really terrible and awkward wording?

The modern series has always had some reliance on camp, with instances of consistently serious like "Dalek" or "Human Nature" being very infrequent if not completely absent. What especially makes series 2 an "over reliance"?

Moved examples from Recap.Doctor Who NSS 4 E 6 The Doctors Daughter:

• Harsher in Hindsight: In-Universe, the Doctor threatens General Cobb very loudly that if one were to look up "genocide" in a proper dictionary, they'd find his picture. Given what he did to the Racnoss babies in "The Runaway Bride"...
  • Granted, he did say there'd be a caption under it reading "Over my dead body" but that becomes harsher too when you consider what would've happened at the Thames had Donna not been there...
  • Also the whole time war thing...

• Trapped by Mountain Lions: Sadly, Martha gets treated with this. Nothing she does in this episode actually has any effect on the main plot and she spends half the episode separate from the other characters.
  • On the other hand, the intention was to show that she is capable of acting on her own without the Doctor's help. Having her moving along at the same pace as two time lords arguably works for this.
  • It was also to show that humans and Hath can get along.

The first is not made clear from context how exactly it's an in-universe use and both are messes of natter and corrections.

• Unfortunate Implications: The Doctor is forced to become a parent against his will. And HE is the one in the wrong for not liking it.

Examples of this trope need citing due to misuse, or something like that, not a single editor going "I MEAN REALLY?"

Moved from Recap.Doctor Who NSS 2 E 13 Doomsday

• Hilarious in Hindsight: This dialogue with Cybermen and a Dalek about beauty.
  Cyberman: Your design is inelegant.
  Daleks: Daleks have no concept of elegance.
  Cyberman: This is obvious.

I'm not 100% what the point being made here is. Is it about them finding hate beautiful in "Asylum of the Daleks"? Because this doesn't really sound like the same thing at all.

Removed Zero Context Example of Evil Is Sexy from Doctor Who S7 E4 "Inferno". Anyone know which specific parallel UNIT members this means? I've not seen "Inferno".

Might it be an idea to split up this page into subpages? Like Old Doctor Who, Modern DW for example. This page is getting really long, and it's a bit hard to navigate through.

Actually, scratch that comment. The Slitheen AREN'T a race.

I know that Unfortunate Implications is frequently unintentional, but I think they're deliberately playing up what was said just to validate dubious claims of Moffat being misogynistic. A person going through a phase is hardly the same thing as "girls liking girls is a phase".

This from the Victory of the Daleks recap page:

• Hilarious in Hindsight: Look at the Power Rangers Dalek jokes above on this page. Now consider the Power Rangers Lost Galaxy episode "Green Courage", in which the space station Terra Venture passes through a meteoroid field at coordinates◊ which should ring a bell with classic Who fans: those of Gallifrey as stated in "Pyramids of Mars"...
  • Furthermore, the three-part finale of Lost Galaxy is named "Journey's End" and of course, our "Journey's End" just happens to involve Daleks.

Does this go here or on Lost Galaxy's YMMV page?

The second half of the Internet Backdraft entry: JESUS! Is EVERYTHING sexist or racist to Doctor Who fans nowadays?

I'm confused by the Seasonal Rot article, not just because it basically amounts to half of the most/second most popular Doctor's run, but also because Holmes left in 79 while Hinchcliffe left in 77.

As far as I know, Ian/Barbara and Ben/Polly never caused any shipping wars. That's my argument anyways.