Doctor Who

Quick question. When you say the Doctor is a 'silly cartoon character', what do you mean by that exactly?

@alliterator: Yes, there are many who seems to be just puppet accounts, though the same can be said pf the positive reviews, in fact most of the reviews that only give star rating but no comment are all positive.

In fact the reviews from official critics seem to significantly composed of people talking about how happy they are that the Doctor is a woman and other superficial qualities as opposed to the show' quality itself.

"The fact that this season, the first to star a woman in 55 years, was so interested in how long it takes to effect change — and how many people have to suffer in the process — played like a response to the history of the show."

"I'm now too old for the Time Lord's adventures; a great weariness came upon me as she explained her sonic screwdriver to her charisma-free new pals... But still, I couldn't be more glad that the Doctor is at last a girl."

"It's the show it's always been, only now there's better representation (there's still work to be done, but this is a much-needed step in the right direction) and fewer Daleks."

@kkhohoho: The Doctor is inherently whimsical, they have what basically amounts to a magic wand and they fly around in a spaceship that also travels in time. They fight all sorts of monsters of the week, they tend to trend towards being morally righteous and they get up to a bunch of mixed-up, sci-fi chicanery all the time. And much, much more often than not, the Doctor wins - and I honestly like it that way.

The Doctor as a concept isn't much more than you would expect from a zany cartoon, rather than a semi-dramatic live action TV show. And I say that as a fan of Tennant's theatrics and the more serious bent that the show tends to take, and as someone who initially felt that Matt Smith's Doctor was entirely too hamfisted and forced to be enjoyable. The Doctor is a cartoon character with gadgets, time travel and a tendency to engage in episodic adventures with all sorts of colourful new adversaries and complications. And it's been like that since well before New Who, if I'm not mistaken - and it's persisted well throughout the new series as well, from day one.

I don't say any of this derisively by the way, and I'm well aware that cartoons are more episodic and arc-driven than ever nowadays. It's fine.

Edited by MrMallard on Dec 19th 2018 at 6:18:38 AM

Just because they gave no comment doesn't make them puppet accounts. And, again, there are far more negative comments in the vein of "OMG IDENTITY POLITICS HAS NO PLACE, THE BBC IS RUN BY SJWS" then there is comments giving five stars because "The Doctor is a woman now."

And now you are just conflating things — because a critic can say whatever they want about how happy they are that the Doctor is a woman now (I'm happy the Doctor is a woman now, I saw that a lot of fans were happy that the Doctor is a woman), but each episode gets a review and those reviews are all about the episodes themselves. In fact, go read some episode reviews and see how much they talk about the Doctor being a woman as the reason for a good grade.

I've shown you the evidence that there is a campaign to downvote Doctor Who from internet misogynists and "anti-SJWs." The evidence is right there. The more you insist otherwise, the more it looks like you are the one that has the problem.

Also, looks like we did get a Christmas special.

Edited by alliterator on Dec 18th 2018 at 12:11:36 PM

As someone who has watched nearly all of DW, this is accurate. So why did you initially say it like it was a bad thing?

...I give up. Anyone who uses the term "PC culture" unironically and thinks that the idiots that left those comments have some "credibility" is someone whom I really don't care about their opinions and never will. Good luck watching Doctor Who, a show that you don't really seem to understand at all and probably never will.

Congrats for using the term "NPC" in the way you are using it, which is what I consider one of the most offensive of the new pro-Trump memes. But yeah, thanks for not seeing me as a real person, that's not dehumanizing at all.

Edited by alliterator on Dec 18th 2018 at 2:43:32 AM

Except the only people who use the NPC meme are alt-Right, pro-Trump 4chan/Redditors who want to mock people who don't like Trump. Read the article I linked to. If you truly think that people on the left are using it, you are demonstrably wrong.

Also, "political correctness" is just a scary buzzword that, again, right-wing people made up in order to scare people. Being "politically correct" means doing things like "not using racial slurs" and "using the correct pronouns that people would prefer," things that in regular society is called "being polite."

And now I'm done.

Oh, also: I like the fact that the Doctor is a woman. Even if all the stories were bad (which they weren't), I would still like that fact.

Edited by alliterator on Dec 18th 2018 at 2:58:06 AM

When you say that a man "nearly" went to jail, what you really mean to say is that someone falsly accused him of "racial abuse" and when the police found out that it was a false report, they let him go. If this was really "PC culture," the police would have book and charged him, but they didn't.

If "mostly right wing" people use it, if it's something they invented, if it's a right wing meme used to discredit people who disagree with them, perhaps don't use it?

They were giving false information about the midterm elections. That is voter suppression.

You think being a woman is a "superficial quality" in a world that is very much anti-women?

The reason why so many people care about the Doctor being a woman now is quite simple - women largely do not get cast in the leading role in movies and television (not always, of course, and there have strides forward in this regard, but this is largely still the case), particularly in SF. This means women do not have as much variety in what sort of roles they can play compared to men.

In regards to Doctor Who, women have chiefly relegated to the role of secondary protagonist. I certainly don’t intend to denigrate the companions - many of them have been very strong characters in their own right - but they’re almost always the ones the Doctor has to rescue or explain the plot to (though, again, many get their moments to shine). Women never really get a chance to play the role of the wise, brave hero, which is particularly noticeable in the case of the Doctor, who changes actors every few years.

Let’s be real - women often have very different life experiences than men do. But by casting a woman as the Doctor, we can help provide a voice for those experiences to a very popular science fiction icon, and open up a role to an even wider array of actors.

Now, this doesn’t directly affect everyone who watches Doctor Who, but considering one of the show’s primary ethos is caring about other people, I don’t see why we can’t take others’ feelings into account.

(Pretty much all of this also applies to racial and ethnic minorities, LGBT+ people, etc., btw)

Oh God! Natural light!

Exactly.

...So uh, quick question: does someone who just now started watching the series with this new Doctor have a right to be here in this thread? Or do I need to make the time to binge-watch older stuff?

(if this seems sarcastic it's not I've just been observing this thread and I genuinely cannot tell if it's appropriate for me to add my two cents)

Yes, exactly that!

Edited by MisoraMiyazaki on Dec 18th 2018 at 7:02:29 AM

/crawls back under rock

There are plenty of people here who haven't seen everything Doctor Who-related. You don't get bonus points for every episode you watch, so you know just discuss what you've actually seen.

Nope, you don't need to big a long-term fan to post here. In fact, I think most fans haven't seen the entire show, since a lot of early episodes are still missing. But if you are just starting the show with the Thirteenth Doctor, feel free to post here and ask any questions you want.

Edited by alliterator on Dec 18th 2018 at 4:05:50 AM

That being said, if you are interested in eventually watching the older stuff and you're anti-spoiler, I would suggest you being a bit cautious. Given the age of the show, those do tend to get thrown around quite a bit.

I still need to watch a lot of this series, but from what I’ve seen and what I’ve read, this would be a very good jumping on point - you shouldn’t have to worry about too much continuity or anything like that.

Oh God! Natural light!

And seeing as there are 36 previous series/seasons, there are no doubt a lot of them.

And no, you don't really need to watch anything else Doctor Who to understand this season. This is as good a jumping on point as any.

Edited by kkhohoho on Dec 18th 2018 at 6:09:43 AM

Yeah, I think season 11 is probably the best jumping on point in the new stuff aside from seasons 5 and 1 (to a lesser extent, 10).

I'm not worried about spoilers. Part of the reason I haven't really started watching Doctor Who until now is Archive Panic. Well that and I'll confess I'm not sure how much, if any, of Moffat's stuff I want to see because I've got a general distaste for his style, I'm afraid (I uh... really didn't care much for Sherlock nor have I particularly liked how he writes certain characters from what I have seen).

I remember watching bits and pieces of the Tenth Doctor's episodes when I was younger because my mom watches it religiously. It's been fun watching this new one with her.

Also this is random but I'm shipping the Thirteenth Doctor with Yaz and my only explanation is I'm gay and I want to*

• I actually think they have chemistry

/crawls back under rock

Well, then, I would recommend starting with the Ninth Doctor's first (and only) season. Russell T. Davies was the showrunner and while Moffatt wrote some episodes, they are generally considered to be his best episodes. Plus, I love the Ninth Doctor — he was my first Doctor.

That’s perfectly fine. I personally like Moffat’s stuff, but if you don’t think they’re to your taste, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. With Doctor Who having lasted as long as it has, every series has its fans and detractors - that’s part of what makes it great, in my opinion. The real problem, as you might expect with fandom, is often keeping it civil.

Edited by KarkatTheDalek on Dec 18th 2018 at 7:17:35 AM

Oh God! Natural light!

I mean, I don't like RTD's style outside of his first season, but I like Moffat's, so to each their own.

Edited by kkhohoho on Dec 18th 2018 at 6:20:44 AM

I'll confess some of my distaste for Moffat comes from comments he made about asexuality awhile back (something about it being a boring "lifestyle"/not "dramatic enough"). I mean, I still didn't care for what I've seen of his writing, but unless he's retracted those statements, I really don't care to give him another chance.

I'll admit that probably sounds really petty.

/crawls back under rock