[tv show] Doctor Who

[Arthur]

[Garacesh]

😦 👎👎👎

 

M'MEEP! M'MEEP! M'MEEP!

 

Aaanyway...

 

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I quite enjoyed Arachnids In The UK.. It was a nice step away from the heavy and more towards the inconsequential-but-still-fun type of episode that's refreshing after a one that was as big on the heavy as 'Rosa' was, but still did a little bit to have a moral in there. I know a lot of people are still whining about Doctor Who being 'too PC' or 'too liberal agenda' etc but to be honest I don't see a problem with a little bit of 'don't dump your waste into landfills' shoehorned in there.

 

Spoilers below

I'm genuinely surprised that Ryan and Graham are sticking around, though. After Graham going home and clearly starting to grieve for Grace, and Ryan's remark about not liking his Dad using the term 'proper family', I thought we were going to see Ryan really warming up to Graham and, in reflecting that if his Dad was 'proper family' but never there, maybe 'proper family' doesn't quite mean as much as he once thought it did, which is a message I can certainly relate to. But I'm kinda happy we still have our little foursome together. They've all grown on me.

Edited October 28, 2018 by Garacesh

[Rob_D]

I did think some of the moralising in this Arachnids... was kinda silly. The Doctor doesn't want to kill the spiders, but locking them up so they can starve to death is okay?

Otherwise it was fun but fairly un-memorable. Love Graham's ark though, Bradley Walsh is the standout actor of the series for me.

[Ephelyon]

I'm finding quite a lot of this writing rather rushed.

 

We don't really get proper closure on the spiders; their fate is merely hinted at and then, as though the dramatic (though predictable) slaughter of the mother spider somehow implies the end of the rest of them, that's it. No more screen time for this episode's Big Bad, even if they weren't all that bad (and I can't stand spiders).

 

The second episode felt similar at the end... we slightly get to know these two supporting characters, then *whoosh* they're gone... I guess if that's the pace that's needed to package each story into a single episode (as the producers indicated would be the case throughout this series), then maybe it's not such a good idea ... ?

[Rob_D]

I'm finding quite a lot of this writing rather rushed.

We don't really get proper closure on the spiders; their fate is merely hinted at and then, as though the dramatic (though predictable) slaughter of the mother spider somehow implies the end of the rest of them, that's it. No more screen time for this episode's Big Bad, even if they weren't all that bad (and I can't stand spiders).

The second episode felt similar at the end... we slightly get to know these two supporting characters, then *whoosh* they're gone... I guess if that's the pace that's needed to package each story into a single episode (as the producers indicated would be the case throughout this series), then maybe it's not such a good idea ... ?

 

I've noticed the same problem all through New-Who. Even in otherwise great episodes, we get 10 minutes from the end with no resolution in sight and then it's rushed through.

[sparkeh]

I did think some of the moralising in this Arachnids... was kinda silly. The Doctor doesn't want to kill the spiders, but locking them up so they can starve to death is okay?

Yeah we found that a bit odd. Pitching it as giving them 'a humane death', made no sense to us. Also with the big spider slowly suffocating to death, you could argue that shooting it was merciful.

Bradley Walsh is the standout actor of the series for me.

Agreed, he's doing a great job.

[ITGuyNW]

The theme I'm getting this season is that they are annoying the main antagonist each episode. That Stenza bloke was sent back after being pushed, the guy who ran the competition was annoyed, the time guy from Rosa was sent somewhere and this Trump-esq character just walking off. I can see them all coming back at some point.

[Ephelyon]

I've noticed the same problem all through New-Who. Even in otherwise great episodes, we get 10 minutes from the end with no resolution in sight and then it's rushed through.

 

It was better prior to 12 and 13 though, I thought.

[LeMarchand]

I know a lot of people are still whining about Doctor Who being 'too PC' or 'too liberal agenda'

 

By "people" do you mean The Daily Mail? "Who" has always been fairly liberal - I'm not sure why this is considered a valid complaint now.

 

I did think some of the moralising in this Arachnids... was kinda silly. The Doctor doesn't want to kill the spiders, but locking them up so they can starve to death is okay?

Otherwise it was fun but fairly un-memorable. Love Graham's ark though, Bradley Walsh is the standout actor of the series for me.

 

I'm finding quite a lot of this writing rather rushed.

 

We don't really get proper closure on the spiders; their fate is merely hinted at and then, as though the dramatic (though predictable) slaughter of the mother spider somehow implies the end of the rest of them, that's it. No more screen time for this episode's Big Bad, even if they weren't all that bad (and I can't stand spiders).

 

The second episode felt similar at the end... we slightly get to know these two supporting characters, then *whoosh* they're gone... I guess if that's the pace that's needed to package each story into a single episode (as the producers indicated would be the case throughout this series), then maybe it's not such a good idea ... ?

 

I'm feeling that too. Maybe we could have some two-parters? They could have spent more time with the scientist and had her come up with a cure or at least a humane death for the spiders. Totally agree that starving to death wouldn't be preferable to being shot, but once again the "resolution" was very passive.

 

The theme I'm getting this season is that they are annoying the main antagonist each episode. That Stenza bloke was sent back after being pushed, the guy who ran the competition was annoyed, the time guy from Rosa was sent somewhere and this Trump-esq character just walking off. I can see them all coming back at some point.

 

You're probably right, as New Who has to have a series arc.

[Garacesh]

By "people" do you mean The Daily Mail? "Who" has always been fairly liberal - I'm not sure why this is considered a valid complaint now.

Who said anything about it being a valid complaint? I just said it was a complaint I'm seeing. I think it's utter tosh myself and complaining about nothing.

And it isn't just the daily fail (well, could be them too, dunno, don't read it, don't care to), I just see it from generic Internet folk in general. I'm not going to rope them all up under one banner 'cause I can't, but just 'some people'^{[Weasel Words]}.

 

I did think some of the moralising in this Arachnids... was kinda silly. The Doctor doesn't want to kill the spiders, but locking them up so they can starve to death is okay?

I'm finding quite a lot of this writing rather rushed.

 

We don't really get proper closure on the spiders; their fate is merely hinted at and then, as though the dramatic (though predictable) slaughter of the mother spider somehow implies the end of the rest of them, that's it. No more screen time for this episode's Big Bad, even if they weren't all that bad (and I can't stand spiders).

 

Yeah, gonna have to agree with that one. I mean, I'm enjoying the series but that doesn't mean it's beyond criticism. It's not always the same parts that are feeling a bit rushed, though. The ending to Rosa didn't feel rushed, but how they dispatched the Big Bad of the episode certainly felt it. In 'Spiders..' it was the ending/'resolution' that felt rushed, though that might have been because we spent so much of the episode not knowing what was causing the spiders to grow so huge (which I have to say I liked). I wouldn't say that the ending to The Ghost Monument was rushed, it was just... not satisfying. It was an ending, not a resolution, and it just made the episode feel sort of.. "Well that was all a bit pointless then wasn't it?".

 

Also with the big spider slowly suffocating to death, you could argue that shooting it was merciful.

Kinda, maybe, but I don't feel like it could be. I think for a mercy killing to be a mercy killing the intent of it being a mercy killing has to be there rather than it being arguably 'better' for the thing being killed. This one didn't have that, it was just your run-of-the-mill "I'm an American, I have a gun, I don't like you, KABLAMMO!" type of killing. I'd argue that The Doctor 'killing' the Star Whale (The Beast Below) would've been a mercy killing even though it wouldn't have been dead, and didn't even need to be 'killed'. But tha's just me

 

 

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In other news!

Mandip Gill (Yaz) will be doing an AMA on /r/DoctorWho this afternoon, at 4:30PM UTC.

Edited October 29, 2018 by Garacesh

[Ephelyon]

Who said anything about it being a valid complaint? I just said it was a complaint I'm seeing. I think it's utter tosh myself and complaining about nothing.

And it isn't just the daily fail (well, could be them too, dunno, don't read it, don't care to), I just see it from generic Internet folk in general. I'm not going to rope them all up under one banner 'cause I can't, but just 'some people'^{[Weasel Words]}

 

I think what's getting under people's skin is that there's a certain sense of insistence about it, of moral posturing but with a very particular agenda at hand. I'm all for moralising, but there's a particular rulebook that's being followed here and that does come across. It's not just "doing good" - it's doing what SJWs would describe as good and playing very close to that tune at all times, which does grate on you after a while if you're not of that persuasion yourself.

 

But this isn't just something to throw at Chibnall/Whittaker. The first time I noticed it was in a comment by the Twelfth Doctor along the lines that there are some bad things that happen in the world that you just can't predict, like X, X, X, "or Donald Trump". That really, really annoyed me, not because I have any truck with the man myself, but because Doctor Who is largely for children and the unwritten rule has always been that that means it should never, ever be political.

 

But, see, that's the thing with SJW-style moralising: rules like that get torn up and thrown out the window, because they've decided their particular brand of moral posturing is so important that the old rules - which were there for a reason - get thrown out. If you disagree with that, you're wrong!!1!one!

 

And that's how you can tell the difference.

[Bompalompalomp]

Calling anybody an SJW is ridiculous and makes your entire argument look like a child wrote it.

[Ephelyon]

Anybody at all? Or anybody involved in what we're talking about?

[6Foot2]

...The first time I noticed it was in a comment by the Twelfth Doctor along the lines that there are some bad things that happen in the world that you just can't predict...

Not by the 12^th Doctor and not political, but seems to resemble what you are referencing:

 

Edited October 29, 2018 by 6Foot2

[Garacesh]

It's not just "doing good" - it's doing what SJWs would describe as good and playing very close to that tune at all times

Well yes, but generally speaking my issue with the extreme-liberals/SJW/whatever-else-they-get-called isn't so much what they say it's how they say it.

 

Yes, Doctor Who is doing a bit of moral posturing, but Nu-Who always has, but it's not so rabidly devoid of nuance that plagues what I'd call 'the stereotypical SJW mindset'. And whilst in principle I often agree with the opinions of that crowd (and liberals in general), in practice I cannot in good conscience support them because they're too dramatically black-and-white and you're never allowed to challenge it or ask 'what if'; they have such a 'You're either with us or against us' attitude that you can't ever really debate anything; and even if you try they tend to just resort to ad-hominem and shouting in louder numbers than you.

 

The thing is.. I don't feel Doctor Who does that. I feel that Doctor Who does tend to add nuance and ask questions, for the most part. Sure, in 'Rosa', they were hardline Racism = Bad without any nuance but I feel that's acceptable because racism is something we (at least the western world) tend to universally agree on is bad, but as a whole I feel like Doctor Who more often than not tries to drum up some sympathy for the 'baddies' sometimes and shine a light on the fact that maybe it's not so clear-cut as we'd like to be.. First example off the top of my head is the Silurians.

 

I do think the Donald Trump remark in 'Spiders...' was a bit of low-hanging-fruit though. Could've done without that.

 

But anyway, the people that I've seen complaining about it (who I wholeheartedly do not agree with, for the record) have been remarking things like "Oh look, they've shoved even more mixed race people in. So much for equal representation, barely any of the cast is white now.".. "Of course it's the white guys that're the baddies, I knew SJW's would ruin this season!" etc. Proper petty stuff.

Edited October 29, 2018 by Garacesh
fixing typos

[Ephelyon]

Not by the 12^th Doctor and not political, but seems to resemble what you are referencing:

 

 

Not really. That comment is very generic (and very wise), which was always in the spirit of Who. Another unwritten rule has always been that contemporary real-world people (and to some extent events) are not referred to explicitly, which is precisely because it's almost impossible to refer to them without appearing to make some sort of comment. So you have the British Prime Minister and Cabinet referred to in Aliens of London as all being killed by the spaceship crash, but not who they are or which party is in power. It's also why Yes Minister constantly referred to the Prime Minister, but never by name or by party. And why J. K. Rowling made occasional references to the Muggle Prime Minister throughout the Harry Potter novels, including one scene in Prisoner of Azkaban where he's present and has dialogue, but again, no further details. The only thing we know about him from the Potterverse is that, at that time, the Prime Minister is male.

 

That said, there's a very long-winded discussion of it here, with lots of different opinions in the mix:

 

 

My own opinion is probably closest to this comment from that discussion:

 

There's a huge difference between going "lol so-and-so sucks" as an off-hand comment in an otherwise-unrelated plot, and political commentary via extended analogies in World War 3, The Happiness Patrol, Survival, the Peladon episodes, The Zygon Invasion, etc etc. I'd rather have more of the latter than the former.

[LeMarchand]

Who said anything about it being a valid complaint? I just said it was a complaint I'm seeing. I think it's utter tosh myself and complaining about nothing.

And it isn't just the daily fail (well, could be them too, dunno, don't read it, don't care to), I just see it from generic Internet folk in general. I'm not going to rope them all up under one banner 'cause I can't, but just 'some people'^{[Weasel Words]}.

 

I knew I should have worded that more carefully, but I'm tired, had a half-term and it's busy. We're on the same side; I meant that DW has always been liberal, it's not as if Chibnall has suddenly changed things.

 

Got more, but not thinking straight...

[Garacesh]

No harm done @LeMarchand

 

On a lighter note... I can't seem to stop reading 'Chibnall' as 'Chinball'

Have to double-check and remind myself of the proper spelling whenever I type his name lmao.

[Ephelyon]

Well yes, but generally speaking my issue with the extreme-liberals/SJW/whatever-else-they-get-called isn't so much what they say it's how they say it.

 

Agreed.

 

Yes, Doctor Who is doing a bit of moral posturing, but Nu-Who always has, but it's not so rabidly devoid of nuance that plagues what I'd call 'the stereotypical SJW mindset'. And whilst in principle I often agree with the opinions of that crowed (and liberals in general), in practice I cannot in good conscience support them because they're too dramatically black-and-white and you're never allowed to challenge it or ask 'what it'; they have such a 'You're either with us or against us' attitude that you can't ever really debate anything; and even if you try they tend to just resort to ad-hominem and shouting in louder numbers than you.

 

The thing is.. I don't feel Doctor Who does that. I feel that Doctor Who does tend to add nuance and ask questions, for the most part. Sure, in 'Rosa', they were hardline Racism = Bad without any nuance but I feel that's acceptable because racism is something we (at least the western world) tend to universally agree on is bad, but as a whole I feel like Doctor Who more often than not tries to drum up some sympathy for the 'baddies' sometimes and shine a light on the fact that maybe it's not so clear-cut as we'd like to be.. First example off the top of my head is the Silurians.

 

I don't feel like it ever used to do that, no, but the worry is that it might be starting to. The initial signs are usually quite small.

 

And the other trouble is - and this is what makes me think "SJW" sometimes - is that actually no, there is no such thing as something we "all universally agree on". In a truly liberal society, there cannot be. There must be laws of course, yes, and people must be protected from harm, but liberalism means that literally no subject is untouchable, no philosophy or moral is absolute, and no opinions should ever be shouted down. The instant you rip up that unwritten rule, for any topic or any reason whatsoever, the decline has begun. SJWs do not understand that, and the way they get their claws in is quite insidious at first. The initial signs tend to look something like this:

 

I do think the Donald Trump remark in 'Spiders...' was a bit of low-hanging-fruit though. Could've done without that.

 

... and the worry for some people, I think, is: on its own it's nothing, and not something to start ranting about, but... is it a sign that we're going to have more of it?

 

But anyway, the people that I've seen complaining about it (who I wholeheartedly do not agree with, for the record) have been remarking things like "Oh look, they've shoved even more mixed race people in. So much for equal representation, barely any of the cast is white now.".. "Of course it's the white guys that're the baddies, I knew SJW's would ruin this season!" etc. Proper petty stuff.

 

Well, that's when the cynicism kicks in for some people, I guess. I mean, I understand what they're getting at, but it doesn't really bother me. Then again, that's always going to be subjective depending on one's past experiences.

Edited October 29, 2018 by Ephelyon

[Garacesh]

I don't feel like it ever used to do that, no, but the worry is that it might be starting to. The initial signs are usually quite small.

Perhaps. But I don't think we can call 'initial signs', well, initial signs, without seeing the end-result, can we? I mean they can give you reason to worry, or say "I'm going to keep an eye on this.." but we can't for definite say "This is the beginning!" without taking a deep dive into a slippery slope fallacy. Feeling the ground shaking beneath your feet could be an initial sign of an earthquake... Or it might just be someone with a wrecking ball knocking down the shop at the end of your street.

 

And the other trouble is - and this is what makes me think "SJW" sometimes - is that actually no, there is no such thing as something we "all universally agree on". In a truly liberal society, there cannot be. There must be laws of course, yes, and people must be protected from harm, but liberalism means that literally no subject is untouchable, no philosophy or moral is absolute, and no opinions should ever be shouted down. The instant you rip up that unwritten rule, for any topic or any reason whatsoever, the decline has begun. SJWs do not understand that, and the way they get their claws in is quite insidious at first.

Yeah, OK, I'll concede that. It's a fair point. Which I think is where a lot of people challenge the idea that your stereotypical SJW is often called 'liberal', because they do refuse you the right to discuss certain topics and question certain ideals. But that's probably besides the point and I'm trying to stay wary of drifting the topic.

That being said, Doctor Who is still a television programme broadcast on the state broadcasting network. Can you imagine the uproar if they'd made this episode and it didn't outright say Racism = Bad? If they'd concluded that, 'Yeah, actually, $BigBad might be on to something there'.. There'd be outrage. They still have to play to the ratings. Maybe they could've made it work if they'd gone deeper into what made $BigBad a space-racist, they certainly could have made a good conversation piece that way, but maybe the limited timeslot prevented that.

 

... and the worry for some people, I think, is: on its own it's nothing, and not something to start ranting about, but... is it a sign that we're going to have more of it?

Well I suppose we just have to figure out where the threshold is between "A storytelling element that sometimes gets used" and "A recurring theme exposing an underlying agenda." But in the interest of fairness, I'll admit that's going to be subjective and we can't really quantify it, so we can't tell anybody theirs is wrong and nor can we say our own is right. I still think the people raising the complaints I listed previously have their thresholds set a little too low, but, y'know, that's like, my opinion, man.

 

To be honest, I reckon there'll always be people complaining either way. This episode had a few eye rolls and at least one "Oh of course the white guy is the villain! Hidden agenda!", except if it were a person of colour there'd be others declaring "See? Making the black guy a villain! Institutional racism!", but making every big bad an alien would have responses of "Another alien we're never going to see again. Why is Doctor Who so inconsequential now?" and repeating the aliens so much would get "Getting bored of the Stenza now, give us someone new would you?"

You can please some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time.. And a small subsection of people are just looking for outrage for outrage's sake.

Edited October 29, 2018 by Garacesh

[Garacesh]

 

Mandip Gill's AMA thread is up for anybody wanting to ask a questions or two

[jthompson]

I had a hard time trying to convince my OH that the American man was basically Donald Trump in all but name (wealthy American business man running a luxury resort hotel in the UK, going around summarily firing people and planning to run for President). She wasn't having it, and the fact that Donald Trump then got referenced directly didn't seem to help. I was hoping he'd get eaten off the toilet, like the lawyer in Jurassic Park.

 

I'm enjoying the funny quips in these episodes, especially from the Doctor: "Banksy doesn't have one of those..... or have I?!"

[6Foot2]

Link 1: BBC One - Doctor Who, Getting To Know Who: The Biggest Diva

 

Link 2: BBC One - Doctor Who, Series 11, Doctor Who on Snapchat (Snapchat filter)

[DalekSec]

dun dun dun, dun dun dun, oooooooo eeeeeeeeeee ooooooooooooooooooo, oooooeeeoooo dun dun dun, dun dun dun, oooooooooo eeeeeeeeeee ooooooooooooo

[Andrew_C]

On a lighter note... I can't seem to stop reading 'Chibnall' as 'Chinball'

Ballchinnyan - an alien from Men In Black.