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"It feels different this time..." - The new Doctor Who Thread

Zef

Find Your Reason
(He/Him)
I completely skipped Series 12 because 11 was such a disappointment. Should I make an effort to watch tonight's "Re{insert verb here] of the Daleks" if the last episode I watched (and bailed at) was The Battle of Rancors At Klondike? Did series 12 do right by Thirteen, or did she shill for mega-corporations again?
 

Kazin

did i do all of that?
(he/him)
Was it any good, @Kazin ?

Just finished it. MASSIVE spoilers for Revolution of the Daleks, which I guess is basically episode one of series 13? - Chibnall takes a fantastic image - Daleks as police - and gets some great shots with them, gets me excited for some sort of relevant social commentary, and then completely squanders it on some light fanwank and does absolutely nothing interesting with Daleks as police (which itself is a fucking fantastic idea, I'll give him that much). I mean, the fanwank was somewhat enjoyable, I guess, but as usual, it's Chibnall, so he underwhelms even with that. Jack namedrops Rose and Gwen. The Doctor sees some old enemies in the prison she's trapped in, basically cameos. The season arc from series 12 is referenced a little bit but not really followed up on, other than Ryan reiterating to the Doctor that she's still the Doctor.

Worst of all, the Doctor lets the fucking Donald Trump analogue go again. This time she even says, pathetically, "where are you going? Get back here!" She doesn't even try to stop him beyond that and it causes her to have to bring more Daleks to Earth in a stupid plot twist that results in her having to blow up Jo Martin's fucking TARDIS with a bunch of Daleks inside (or making it collapse in on itself, whatever).

Ryan and Graham leaving is done super boringly, too, and I feel bad for the actors because they, like the rest of the cast, deserve better.

EDIT: Jesus christ, I just remembered the Harry Potter reference. The Doctor, talking to herself in prison, says she wants to tell herself a story, "a classic," and then begins reciting the first few lines of the first Harry Potter book. In 2021. While recently JK Rowling went full-ass transphobe. Maybe reference literally any other fucking book or something? It's not even timely. Ugh


My wife, who missed the entirety of series 12, was bored about a half hour into it and I could hardly blame her, which dovetails into Zef's post:

I completely skipped Series 12 because 11 was such a disappointment. Should I make an effort to watch tonight's "Re{insert verb here] of the Daleks" if the last episode I watched (and bailed at) was The Battle of Rancors At Klondike? Did series 12 do right by Thirteen, or did she shill for mega-corporations again?

Tonight's episode will be fairly coherent to someone who missed series 12, but honestly? Unless you're jonesing for some Doctor Who flavored television, I'd just... do something else with your time. The cast is still wasted on Chibnall's writing.

Hopefully sfried or someone else watches it and likes it and gives you the other side of the argument, the pro-Chibnall one, because I'm unable to.
 
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Zef

Find Your Reason
(He/Him)
Hopefully sfried or someone else watches it and likes it and gives you the other side of the argument, the pro-Chibnall one, because I'm unable to.

I read your spoiler summary and I was "meh" at "ugh" at most of it, then I read the bit with the HP reference and I just went "OOF."

I'll just watch some of the best Twilight Zone eps on Syfy instead.
 

Vaeran

(GRUNTING)
(he/him)
EDIT: Jesus christ, I just remembered the Harry Potter reference. The Doctor, talking to herself in prison, says she wants to tell herself a story, "a classic," and then begins reciting the first few lines of the first Harry Potter book. In 2021. While recently JK Rowling went full-ass transphobe. Maybe reference literally any other fucking book or something? It's not even timely. Ugh

Yeah, this was really gross. I can't help but read it as a message of support from Chibnall towards Rowling's bullshit.

The rest of the episode was pretty whatever and felt like it took forever. But (and maybe I'm just an easy mark) seeing Jack run around with the Doctor again was kind of fun.
 

Kazin

did i do all of that?
(he/him)
Yeah, this was really gross. I can't help but read it as a message of support from Chibnall towards Rowling's bullshit.

Hard to read it as anything else, yeah. I mean presumably this episode was shot before she outed herself as an open transphobe, but still... edit it out!

The rest of the episode was pretty whatever and felt like it took forever. But (and maybe I'm just an easy mark) seeing Jack run around with the Doctor again was kind of fun.

This (and a few monster cameos at the beginning) were just about the only pleasure I got out of the episode. I did laugh at the Doctor saying "I was in space jail," the first time she saw her "fam" in ten months lol.
 
Oh my God, so you're totally against the work just because the author said some inflammatory things?! There's nothing hateful in the books
 

Zef

Find Your Reason
(He/Him)
"Some inflammatory things" is a major understatement of the personal campaign JKR has waged against an entire, already heavily disenfranchised, demographic.

Also, there's nothing wrong with rejecting any association with the work of a bigot, whatever other qualities said work may have. And in the case of the HP books themselves, they... actually do have some very toxic, regressive attitudes in the text, even divorced from the author's publicly stated ideologies.
 

Kazin

did i do all of that?
(he/him)
Oh my God, so you're totally against the work just because the author said some inflammatory things?! There's nothing hateful in the books

The author saying "some inflammatory things" as you put it is a perfectly a legitimate reason to dislike their work, first of all. But my wife still loves Harry Potter because she grew up with it, for example - but it's not an uncomplicated love nowadays because of Rowling's bigotry!

It is okay to like Harry Potter. It is also okay to dislike Harry Potter, including because the writer is a bigot. Same goes for Doctor Who, actually - plenty of people have sworn off the show for various reasons, many due to misogyny, racism, etc. of various production members/the actual show's text, even. Nothing wrong with any of that.
 

Zef

Find Your Reason
(He/Him)
It's... very difficult to read that thread bereft of context. I just got completely lost a few tweets in. But since I'm not watching the ep or the new series anyway, eh, doesn't bother me much.
 

Purple

(She/Her)
Oh my God, so you're totally against the work just because the author said some inflammatory things?! There's nothing hateful in the books

I had to actually take a big long fist clenching, foot stomping swear muttering break to keep my reply from being too aggressive here, so with all due restraint let me note that...

- Rowling is the public spokesperson for a group of bloody-minded fascists who has total control over the British news media and has exercised considerable influence on government policy in ways directly leading to a lot of innocent people, largely children, being outright dead, and thousands more dealing with medical problems you cannot conceive of that will impact them for the rest of their lives.

- It's particularly horrible to have a fictional trans woman celebrate the work of someone whose mission in life is the extermination of actual trans women.

- There is a truckload of hateful stuff in those books as people have spent years laying out, which is a hell of a lot harder to pretend was accidental now that she's just openly being a hatemongering bigot.
 

TyrMcDohl

The Goofiest Hrothgar
(He/him)
Rumors abound that Jodie is stepping down after this season. A real pity. She's really good.
 

Kazin

did i do all of that?
(he/him)
Rumors abound that Jodie is stepping down after this season. A real pity. She's really good.
It's from the Mirror, primarily, so grain of salt and all that, but it would be three seasons, which apparently is it for new series Doctors... And I agree. Whittaker is really good, and deserves better than she got.
 

Phantoon

I cuss you bad
Apparently the Mirror actually has good form on predicting this so it's probably true. The big question is what's happening to Chibnall, and I think he's staying. Which means he's doing the 60th.
 

Kirin

Summon for hire
(he/him)
Hopefully sfried or someone else watches it and likes it and gives you the other side of the argument, the pro-Chibnall one, because I'm unable to.

Well, I watched it, and I enjoyed a lot of things in Series 12, but... I'm not gonna defend Chibnall's writing here or anything, because I fell like all in all it's pretty "meh" as usual. The Doctor is great, the rest of the cast is great, some of the imagery is pretty great, the writing is just there. It somehow never quite manages the punch of earlier Dalek specials despite some good setup and a perfectly serviceable plot outline.

According to wikipedia it looks like Maxine Alderton was tapped as a "core writer" for Series 13; she did Villa Diodati which was pretty good episode, so perhaps she can up Chibnall's game a bit. Not as good as getting Vinay Patel maybe, but hopefully not bad.
 

Kirin

Summon for hire
(he/him)
Aside, the guy doing that long tweet-thread critique made it sound like there was a new companion reveal which I don't remember happening at all? Or was it maybe just a teaser that aired afterward on actual BBC? I bought the ep on Prime...
 

Kazin

did i do all of that?
(he/him)
Yeah, there was a teaser on actual BBC, some comedian I've never heard of (but who is popular in Britain, apparently). Chibnall had a chance for the main cast to be only women and flushed it down the toilet for another old white guy! It apparently is not Doctor Who without a white guy.
 

Phantoon

I cuss you bad
Ugh, and it's John Bishop who I personally can't stand.

It's going to be funny watching you lot try to cope with a scouse accent though, so it's not all bad
 

Kazin

did i do all of that?
(he/him)
Ugh, and it's John Bishop who I personally can't stand.

It's going to be funny watching you lot try to cope with a scouse accent though, so it's not all bad
Well, I survived Peter Capaldi's Scottish accent (which I admit took a bit of getting used to at first, I totally missed a few lines in his first few episodes because I couldn't understand him lol), so I'm sure I'll be fine. Having looked up Bishop on YT he's totally understandable, at least to me.
 

Kazin

did i do all of that?
(he/him)
Season 24 blu ray trailer:


Another trailer written by the Kerblam! guy, so that means another 7th Doctor companion winds up running a big business. Yes, I'm salty about a dumb trailer. The 7th Doctor companions deserve better. Fans do, too.
 
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