Doctor Who II

[Derfel Cadarn]

43 minutes ago, Ghostlydragon said:

Some people! That's the point. It may have been a terrible place and the equivalent of some of the worst towns and estates in England, but are we honestly supposed to believe every white person was a terrible person. Just give us a conversation where Ryan says something like how he can't believe this is how it was and the doctor assures him not everybody treated black people terribly, or show someone being sympathetic to black people.

Just something to show that not all white people are racist pieces of sh1t.

Will no one think of the white people?!?!?

[mormont]

1 hour ago, Ghostlydragon said:

It's stuff like this that has made so many fans angry and turned against the show.

Again, what evidence is there that this is true to any significant degree?

[Spockydog]

13 minutes ago, mormont said:

Again, what evidence is there that this is true to any significant degree?

Angry, middle-aged neckbeards, ranting elsewhere on the interwebz.

[Ghostlydragon]

10 minutes ago, Spockydog said:

Angry, middle-aged neckbeards, ranting elsewhere on the interwebz.

Insult us all you want. First of all, I'm 35. Call me middle aged in about 5 years please. And yes we are angry. For a good reason. The show meant a lot to me and many more of my neck-beard associated - what does that even mean? - You keep watching a preachy show led by an unlikeable lead character for as long as the show goes on. I'll just winge to my friends about how the show has never been better 

[Spockydog]

3 minutes ago, Ghostlydragon said:

Insult us all you want. First of all, I'm 35. Call me middle aged in about 5 years please. And yes we are angry. For a good reason. The show meant a lot to me and many more of my neck-beard associated - what does that even mean? - You keep watching a preachy show led by an unlikeable lead character for as long as the show goes on. I'll just winge to my friends about how the show has never been better 

Jesus H Corbett. If you hate the show so much, why the fuck are you continuing to watch it, let alone expending so much energy bitching about it to strangers on the internet?

Watch something else, ffs.

 

 

 

[Derfel Cadarn]

41 minutes ago, Ghostlydragon said:

Exactly. The Doctor was always different. He wanted to stop evil and help people compared to the other time lords who just wanted to watch things happen. And some people called him a lonely god, and other terms for his different attitude to the rest of his people, but there is a difference in being a literal god (who isn't even Gallifreyan now). The Doctor is just an ordinary time lord. It's why he was born on Gallifrey, has time lord biology exactly like anyone else and would die at the end of his thirteen lives without a new set of regenerations.

It's stuff like this that has made so many fans angry and turned against the show.

Except that’s not consistent with the show. The Doctor is hardly a god. We know nothing of their true origin; does all their species regenerate? Are they a mutant? Is it the Nameless One from Planescape Torment escaping the Abyss having found another way to cheat death? Is it Lucifer after being cast out of Heaven?

No mention of being a god. They have no other powers.

It may never be revealed, but it gives more mystery to the character. And their role in shaping Gallifrey was pretty passive; it was the scientist Tectuan who found the child who kickstarted it, genetically altering the people with DNA from the Doctor.

Compared to the Other origin story where the Doctor is a shadowy figure working behind the scenes to create time travel with Rassilon and Omega. It is clearly remarked in the last season if Old Who that the Doctor is no ordinary Time Lord.

Hell, the TV movie claimed the Doctor was half-human, on his mother’s side, which was quietly set aside in the revival.

New Who ignored the regeneration limit for years. 10 aaid he wouldn’t die, he’d just keep regenerating. 11 (in Sarah Jane show) told someone he had about 500 remaining regenerations. Then he suddenly decided he had none and woukd die. After meeting a future incarnation who told him he’d re-use some of his former faces (“just the old favourites, eh”). 

The Doctor has literally saved the universe on multiple occasions (prevented  most of it falling victim to entropy in Logopolos, prevented the ship that started the Big Bang with an exploding fuel tank from destroying it with a second exploding fuel tank in Terminus).

If anything, the Whittaker incarnation has been pretty low-key.

 

[sifth]

6 hours ago, polishgenius said:

I genuinely can't believe you had the nerve to type that out and still sit there presumably pretending you're not racist. At least Ghostlydragon's criticisms, as much as I think he's got his priorities all skew-whiff and biases leaking in, are in some way based on the actual quality of the show. You've just outright said that portrayals of Jim Crow era places are unfair if you don't highlight that not every single white person was for them. 

Why because I believe stereotyping people is wrong, regardless of their skin color? Because I believe people can be good or horrible, regardless of their skin color or where they were born?

I said no such thing, that the Jim Crow era was a good thing. I was just saying there were people who were white who hated it, just as much as their were people who were black. Nothing more and nothing less.

 

[Ghostlydragon]

21 minutes ago, sifth said:

Why because I believe stereotyping people is wrong, regardless of their skin color? Because I believe people can be good or horrible, regardless of their skin color or where they were born?

I said no such thing, that the Jim Crow era was a good thing. I was just saying there were people who were white who hated it, just as much as their were people who were black. Nothing more and nothing less.

 

3 letters. WTF?

[Ghostlydragon]

35 minutes ago, Derfel Cadarn said:

New Who ignored the regeneration limit for years. 10 aaid he wouldn’t die, he’d just keep regenerating. 11 (in Sarah Jane show) told someone he had about 500 remaining regenerations. Then he suddenly decided he had none and woukd die. After meeting a future incarnation who told him he’d re-use some of his former faces (“just the old favourites, eh”). 

 

Ok I'll admit the regeneration thing has been an issue for a while. 11 saying he could regenerate 500 times was clearly a joke. And when exactly did ten say that? Was that the scene in School Reunion when he says to Rose that he doesn't age, he regenerates? That still doesn't mean there is no limit. And at that point he had another three regenerations in him. I'm sure that at the time Eccleston or Mcgann were the time war doctor with no plans for a 'war doctor' so before the aborted regeneration in Journey's End he had a few left.

11 is an issue though. He said to the cybercontroller in Nightmare in Silver that he could easily regenerate and that was in the same series that just two episodes later he had used another regeneration in the time war so obviously Moffat had prepared for that (unless John Hurt showing up in the Series 7 finale was added at the last minute), same for the fake regeneration on the beach at the start of s6.

But by the end of 11's run, I was glad Moffat went with thirteen lives due to 10 regenerating twice and the war doctor adding two lives but it did feel like at the start of 11's run, 11 had one more life as I always believed that the aborted regeneration would count because tbh, it had to. The Doctor can't use the regeneration, even if he didn't change his appearance, and have no consequences to it other than leading to a duplicate of himself.

[john]

That’s not really how tv racism works, you need unfair treatment on tv coupled with unfair treatment in real life to generate outrage. White people complaining only about their tv representatives being treated unfairly, or it being pointed out they were historically racist? Come on, it’s a bit lame.

[john]

1 hour ago, Derfel Cadarn said:

Except that’s not consistent with the show. The Doctor is hardly a god. We know nothing of their true origin; does all their species regenerate? Are they a mutant? Is it the Nameless One from Planescape Torment escaping the Abyss having found another way to cheat death? Is it Lucifer after being cast out of Heaven?

How do you know Jesus isn’t a mutant from another universe?

She literally came from beyond creation as a child and was the genesis of the most significant group of people in the universe. It’s fully embracing god mythology.

[sifth]

1 hour ago, john said:

That’s not really how tv racism works, you need unfair treatment on tv coupled with unfair treatment in real life to generate outrage. White people complaining only about their tv representatives being treated unfairly, or it being pointed out they were historically racist? Come on, it’s a bit lame.

I mean I personally love the Star Trek DS9 episode Far Beyond the Stars and felt it dealt with racism better than any episode of Doctor Who and it didn’t portray everyone with light skin who wasn’t from the future as a mindless bigot and didn’t portray every person with dark skin as a saint. It’s honestly one of the greatest hours of tv I saw and I was crying by the end.

[polishgenius]

3 hours ago, sifth said:

 

I said no such thing, that the Jim Crow era was a good thing.

I never said you did say that. 

 

[Werthead]

 

 

Quote

11 is an issue though. He said to the cybercontroller in Nightmare in Silver that he could easily regenerate and that was in the same series that just two episodes later he had used another regeneration in the time war so obviously Moffat had prepared for that (unless John Hurt showing up in the Series 7 finale was added at the last minute), same for the fake regeneration on the beach at the start of s6.

Not quite last minute, but the War Doctor was supposed to be the Ninth Doctor, and they got some way into negotiating with Eccleston before that fell apart, so they switched it to a new, secret incarnation.

Quote

Again, what evidence is there that this is true to any significant degree?

Lots of angry people posting on the Internet.

On the other hand, we have the Audience Appreciation Index, which the BBC commissions via a daily survey of thousands of viewers on the appreciation of UK shows. The AI has a somewhat warped counting system (given it was instituted in the 1950s), but it generally works as a score of below 55 is very poor, 56-60 is poor, 61-70 is average, 71-80 is good and 81-90 is very good and 90+ is exceptional. Virtually nothing bar the Queen's coronation in 1952 and some sporting events have scored well over 90. The lowest-ever scores are for party political broadcasts, which sometimes score in the 20s.

On this system, which actually provides hard data to be going on with, the lowest scores achieved by Doctor Who's modern era are the first two episodes, Rose and The End of the World, which scored 76. No episode of Doctor Who has since scored less (though Love and Monsters matched that score of 76). Whittaker's reign has averagely scored around 81-82. Rose is the joint-highest scoring episode of the era (along with Fugitive of the Judoon, The Woman Who Feel to Earth and Arachnids in the UK) at 83.

The supposedly-horrifying and maligned Timeless Children scored a very healthy 82.

The AI score does reflect some review trends though: Orphan 55 at 77 points is the lowest-scoring episode of the Whittaker era.

The score is useful because it reaches people who are not very online and give a shit about what morons are saying on YouTube and Reddit, including young children and older viewers. That shows that whilst there has been a decline since the David Tennant era (when The Stolen Earth two-parter somewhat generously scored 90), the show has never dipped below the somewhat lukewarm initial critical reception it got in 2005, and has been hovering around where it was at the end of Eccleston's run and the start of Tennant's, and again, very consistent with Capaldi.

[Ghostlydragon]

7 minutes ago, Werthead said:

 

 

Not quite last minute, but the War Doctor was supposed to be the Ninth Doctor, and they got some way into negotiating with Eccleston before that fell apart, so they switched it to a new, secret incarnation.

 

I don't get this. It seems likely in the episode Rose that he has recently regenerated going by his comment when looking in the mirror. So why not 8 be the doctor fighting in the time war. Mcgann certainly deserves more time and could easily pull of the skill required to show the doctor making the hardest decision in his life, and then the wmd The Moment would force him to live on as punishment, which would trigger the regeneration into 9 since the trauma of that action would most likely kill 8.

[Derfel Cadarn]

16 minutes ago, Ghostlydragon said:

I don't get this. It seems likely in the episode Rose that he has recently regenerated going by his comment when looking in the mirror. So why not 8 be the doctor fighting in the time war. Mcgann certainly deserves more time and could easily pull of the skill required to show the doctor making the hardest decision in his life, and then the wmd The Moment would force him to live on as punishment, which would trigger the regeneration into 9 since the trauma of that action would most likely kill 8.

That was weird. 9 definitely acted ‘new’, and McGann was happy to come back for the short (and the Fiveish Doctors) where he regenerated into War Doctor, so assume he would have happily played the Doctor who ended the time war. Which everyone assumed anyway.

Having the Doctor forget the War Doctor (and he was that incarnation for a long time; we see a youngish reflection after 8 regenerates) was weird, since 9, 10 and 11 banged on about the time war and eventually how they ended it. 11 even ‘brags’ about he killed all the Time Lords in The Doctor’s Wife (the Gaiman episode).

[john]

Well, Moffat needed an extra Doctor to make his plan work for Eleven to have used up his twelve regenerations and have no more until Clara’s last minute intervention. That just about makes sense.

Clara of course had visited the whole of the Doctor’s timestream but remarkably missed all the earliest incarnations despite the fact she specifically discovered one that he’d forgotten about.

[Derfel Cadarn]

29 minutes ago, john said:

Well, Moffat needed an extra Doctor to make his plan work for Eleven to have used up his twelve regenerations and have no more until Clara’s last minute intervention. That just about makes sense.

Clara of course had visited the whole of the Doctor’s timestream but remarkably missed all the earliest incarnations despite the fact she specifically discovered one that he’d forgotten about.

The Great Inteligence even missed that one. 

[john]

Now going back in my head over all the things in new who that make no sense, about 70% written by Moffat I’d say, much as I enjoyed his early run.

Related to what we’re talking about - how the hell is River Song regenerating under the retconed rules? The Tardis must have the Timeless Child’s genetic code in it too. And incidentally, River Song gave all of her regeneration energy to Eleven Doctor when he was dying, apparently that doesn’t count as one of his allowed 12 regens.

Finally, in Day of the Doctor, they resonate the sonic screwdriver across space time but only the 13 of them bother turning up to save Gallifrey, none of the CIA agent Doctors, you’d have thought they’d be useful and they’re literally tasked with protecting Gallifrey.

[Derfel Cadarn]

14 minutes ago, john said:

Now going back in my head over all the things in new who that make no sense, about 70% written by Moffat I’d say, much as I enjoyed his early run.

Related to what we’re talking about - how the hell is River Song regenerating under the retconed rules? The Tardis must have the Timeless Child’s genetic code in it too. And incidentally, River Song gave all of her regeneration energy to Eleven Doctor when he was dying, apparently that doesn’t count as one of his allowed 12 regens.

Finally, in Day of the Doctor, they resonate the sonic screwdriver across space time but only the 13 of them bother turning up to save Gallifrey, none of the CIA agent Doctors, you’d have thought they’d be useful and they’re literally tasked with protecting Gallifrey.

I assume Tardises were maybe programmed to ensure babies conceived on board got the necessary genes implanted in case it was a long trip from Gallifrey?

Regenerations have usually been portrayed as something ‘given’ to Time Lords (and presumably not the plebian guards etc, who never regenerated whenever they were killed).

Her regen energy seemed to just heal the Doctor’s present incarnation rather than allow him to regenerate.

Neither did the Curator or 13; presumably there was a ‘limit’. Presumably sonce Gallifrey was destroyed in 13’s timeline, she can’t go to it? And the Doctors wouldnt think to contact any incarnations prior to 1 (did he even have a screwdriver?  )

There is actually a fan edit on youtube i think with extra incarnations turning up.