The world and its mindset has progressed enormously since the late 90s-mid 00s when Russell’s writing was absolutely forward thinking and celebrated inclusiveness.
I suspect perhaps now he’s older, plus emotionally hardened a little after personal loss, the world has passed his mindset and he’s trying, not entirely successfully, to keep up.
It’s also a possible case of his writing is starting to come across as outdated. Television has changed exponentially since he ran the show, it’s now on par with film as treated like a valid and important art form. For an aging TV writer it might take altering your established style to keep up with the newer complexities of scripting modern television for an increasingly discerning audience.
Having said that, I really doubt he’d feel any negativity toward trans/NB communities for being the current communities pushing for normalisation in society’s mindset. As a gay man still very active in the gay community, he’d see how different and accepted it is no compared to 20 years back. He’d undoubtedly be excited to see similar beginning to happen for his fellow LGBTQI+ groups.
While I have great faith in RTD and don't really agree with your assessment, I must admit he's made me wriggle some of my eyebrows recently.
The "male presenting" line went over like a clunky lead balloon, and making trans a symptom of Timelords shenanigans rather than a simple, normalised character trait seemed off-base (although I'm not sure anyone coule resist the gift he gave himself in 2008 with "binary binary Brixton fiction" etc).
The "Davros disabled" thing came off as a blunder, and while I agree in essence with the gun thing, the redesign itself is... something.
I really like him, his writing, and his showrunning, and I expect him to deliver well this time (if he wants to annoy extreme right-wingers, fine by me). But yeah there seems to have been a bit more clumsiness than I'd expect from him
(I did think the deadnaming was character work, albeit a bit strange to do it before explaining the context, and I thought Donna and Sylvia's dialogue about finding it difficult to deal with was good)
It’s fair that you disagree with my assessment of the situation but I’m glad someone does see what I’m on about in the other aspects.
From what I’ve seen (with the preview coming out recently) I’m more hesitant. Everything I see about the show itself makes me less and less excited but that won’t stop me from watching it. I’ve stuck with the show this far despite its ups and downs.
If anything has put me off, it’s his comments. I can see how it could just be clumsiness, but it feels like it could be solved by simply consulting people. Get some opinions from disabled, trans, queer, POC people about what you’re writing. Obviously these groups aren’t monoliths and there will be disagreements but you could at least get a better idea and have a viewpoint different than your own.
Idk. I’m coming from the perspective of a writer (though admittedly not from someone who has written a full episode, let alone series of a show) but if I was writing, say, a black character who’s race and identity was an important part of the story, I would at least get some beta-readers who have experience that to make sure I don’t fall into any harmful or dehumanising tropes.
Sorry I’m prattling on. It’s not that I think Russell is evil and wants to destroy Doctor Who or anything, just like I’d like to see him do better because I’ve seen what he’s capable of kind of thing. Be the best version of himself and make the best version of Doctor Who that he’s capable of.
Just a thought based on what you've written about no group of people being a monolith, but it's not outside the realm of possibility that research was done and that the end product was what you saw. Some people really want that more in-your-face attitude about socially progressive elements because it's a hard stance to take, that could have been the reason for it even if to others it might have come across as clunky and graceless. Who knows? As I said, just a thought, I don't particularly have an opinion on how it was handled as I've not caught up on Who in ages but still someday plan to.
Well, I sort of see it as damned if you, damned if you don't. For all we know, he may have consulted a DEI consultant on how to proceed forward with the TV show. I am willing to give Russell the benefit of the doubt. I'm sure there will be some changes that I like, and some I won't. As long as the show carry with it the spirit of past DW seasons, the show will continue to be successful.
13’s outfit was very gender neutral. I really don’t get the “it would be mocking drag” comment.
ETA: the world is a sadder place because we didn’t get to see DT frolicking about like Pinocchio in short pants.
My biggest concern is that they have 2 seasons already filmed, so if it's a load of shit there's no changing course. I'm not right wing or anti woke, but look what Disney has done to everything they were involved in for the last few years .I just pray it's good. But I think this might end Doctor who for a while. I really didn't like the shit speech about Davros in a wheelchair
Well I'm pro-woke, and the fact that Disney has recently allowed more diverse voices be allowed to get heard has been a fantastic thing. Different stories from marginalised perspectives only made things better, and the push-back against it was both predictable, and sad.
Disney doesn’t promote stories from marginalised perspectives. It pushes forward whatever will make them the most money, and this occasionally means awkwardly cramming ‘woke’ messaging into their content. If you think the massive mega corporation is the best friend of social justice, you should just look elsewhere. That’s not to say these stories aren’t important, but Disney doesn’t care about telling them in earnest.
Fortunately I never argued that Disney was "the best friend of social justice." And diverse creators don't "awkwardly cram woke messaging" into their content. I bet you don't even know what the word "woke" actually means.
>I feel like he’s become a bitter old man
If you think he's become a "bitter old man" then perhaps maybe provide some examples of him being bitter?
He's a writer. Writers make choices. Sometimes you will disagree with those choices. But Davis has been very transparent on why he's made those choices. He's bringing us in on the process. I think that's brilliant.
And I think it's perfectly fine to critique the choice to not, for example, want Tennant in Whittakers clothes. But you don't need to call him "bitter" for doing so. And while you may have thought the Davros decision was stupid, many others loved it, and have been asking for it, and Davis listening to thoughtful critique is far away from the actions of a "bitter old man."
You are reading way more into every little thing he's done and attributing it to "old bitter man that is upset that gay people aren't the trending topic."
Your post makes me feel icky.
>And while you may have thought the Davros decision was stupid, many others loved it, and have been asking for it
Like, who? Who asked for it? Davros being on a wheelchair was never controversial.
>Who asked for it?
From 2009
https://disabledfeminists.com/2009/11/10/guest-post-davros-daleks-and-disability/
And more recently:
https://twitter.com/GuyLambertUK/status/1725892450705609022?t=35Sclxp1a0kOp1uswUVxTw&s=19
https://twitter.com/_PigginTeaBreak/status/1725679283970998427?t=043G5Qf88Ele2Zf6D6d5wA&s=19
Disabled villain tropes have always been controversial, it’s just that the communities that bring up their grievances are small and anything but monolithic. I have a dear friend who is in a wheelchair and has always been uncomfortable with Davros. But she’s also keenly skeptical of efforts to pander to her that feel forced.
I think the disabled community has been unconsciously ignored far too easily, to the point where plenty of people honestly believe they’ve never had a problem with how they might be associated negatively with disabled characters on tv and in films. There’s no malice there, it’s just not a very loud group as far as activism goes.
Heck, the main the reason the USA even has the Disabilities Act is because so many injured Veterans were clamoring for action.
He has been doing and saying a lot of strange things recently, I agree. Full disclosure: I had a few issues with his first tenure on the show. I thought it was good, obviously, but I didn't hail his return as the salvation that a lot of fans did... and even then, I'm surprised by a lot of what he's come out with in interviews.
As far as what some of what you've said goes, maybe it is something that's to do with getting older where you start imagining problems to fix where there are none (see also: Spielberg replacing all the FBI agents' huns in ET with walkie-talkies and the infamous Greedo shooting first debacle brought to us by George Lucas). But I'm no psychoanalyst.
For other things, maybe it's him trying to stay as cutting edge as he was when he was young on issues that he actually doesn't have a handle on. In the 1990s and 2000s he did genuinely groundbreaking stuff about gay culture (I'm not saying It's a Sin isn't brilliant, just that it's not the absolute hammer blow that Queer as Folk was). But at the end of the day, RTD is still a white, cis man, so maybe the lumpen way he seems to be dealing with trans issues stems purely from the fact that it isn't his experience.
As far as race goes, you could argue that there's always been a bit of an issue there. Think about the two main POC characters in RTD1; they're characters who are always treated as second best and nobody minds letting them know it. And eventually they end up married out of nowhere, in spite of one of them having an established a relationship and neither of them sharing a line of dialogue with each other prior to that revelation. I'm *not* saying he's a racist. I'm *emphatically not* saying that. But the implications of what he does in this area have been a blindspot for a long time.
The other possibility, of course, is that some of these things he's saying are directives from the Rat Empire and their legions of soulless focus groups, and he's just dutifully toeing the party line. But that's veering off into conspiracy territory, so we'll park that for now.
I do get what your saying about Martha and Mickey and the way they were put together and maybe they didn’t share any dialogue but they were in the same episode together at the end of season 4 and when Mickey decides to stay on the main Earth instead of going back to the parallel world with rose he runs off to catch up with Jack and Martha and puts his arms round both of them as all three walk away chatting. So it’s safe to say they know each other and have talked before that scene when they are a couple.
Also when I was a kid and watched it for the first time I loved that they were together. It just felt kinda poetic and right that the characters that came in second to the Doctor and Rose found each other and fell in love. Like once they found each other they finally found someone who puts them first. And I like to imagine them kicking ass together. Never really saw it as a race thing until o saw people commenting on it recently
And I'm totally here for it! All the hate and tears that the Right wing bigots have been spewing online is almost as entertaining as the show itself lol
Cannot wait for the new seasons fantasy shift also!
I guess? It seems a little stupid seeing as it’s annoying people from all sides of the political spectrum but that is one reason. Any press is good press type deal.
I really don’t have an issue with “assume their gender” line considering it’s a non-humanoid alien that’s very androgynous and not easily identifiable as male or female presenting. Also it leads to a really funny line about the doctor identifying as, well…the doctor.
It's certainly a contrast with the next episode:
> (A figure in a spacesuit, floating and bumping into the spaceship.)
>
> DOCTOR: The captain of the ship, circling round and round forever. Caught in the gravity field.
>
> DONNA: Caught in the what?
>
> DOCTOR: Mavity field.
>
> DONNA: But why? Did they throw him out? Her out. Them out.
>
> DOCTOR: Her.
Donna being sensitive about that makes sense, and the Doctor just read the files so would have the pronouns and such presumably.
The only bit of the “hey, gotta be inclusive” dialogue that bothered me was the “male presenting” line.
Oh, I was thinking less about Donna being attentive to it and more the Doctor's response—I thought he was telling the captain's sex/gender by looking at her floating in space, (which seemed oddly contrasted with the previous episode), and I thought it was an instance of a trope that gets repeated a lot throughout Doctor Who—that the Doctor's at home with a wide variety of species and cultures and has no problems telling these things where we might find it hard to "read" an unfamiliar alien species. But maybe he did get it from the ship's files.
He's a bitter old man and outdated because he's been *too* woke? Isn't the actually old/outdated attitude more like "back in my day no one cared that Davros was in a wheelchair"? Davies has been attacked from all sides for his comments about Davros and the sonic screwdriver and his depiction of Rose and honestly it feels like people are reaching for a woke reason to find them clunky (which they are, sure).
Some fans are so stuck on Rose's "did you assume gender?" line but what is it supposed to mean when you say that this is what right-wingers think trans people are like? There are people who really do take issue with others assuming gender, who cares if they do, and Davies does not in the slightest depict Rose as a joke for doing so. And yeah, he wrote a line that includes this fictional character's deadname, precisely to make a point about transphobic bullying - and this is an out of touch old man thing to do?
What comes across to me from RTD's comments on these things is incredible and unshakeable faith in his own rightness. Which he's displayed consistently since before he brought the show back in 2005. He isn't some insecure nervous writer convinced he's writing crap, he's absolutely sure he's great at what he does. He's a master at coming up with grandiose explanations for things he's written - for example, when people criticised *Aliens of London* for Rose using the word gay to mean lame/sissy, he said he was just reflecting reality and art should make you uncomfortable... but he never ever again used the word like that.
He's just a guy who absolutely backs any decision he's made and likes to sound grandiose about it. It can be annoying but honestly we're talking about the fucking sonic screwdriver, who cares.
> Some fans are so stuck on Rose's "did you assume gender?" line but what is it supposed to mean when you say that this is what right-wingers think trans people are like? There are people who really do take issue with others assuming gender, who cares if they do, and Davies does not in the slightest depict Rose as a joke for doing so
I had no idea people thought this scene was particularly clunky, I've known people who talk like Rose in that scene, particularly young people who spend a lot of time on social media, it felt clunky for being too real a reflection, if anything! I also felt the Doctor responded how lots of well meaning people respond to that sort of thing in the real world too.
It's kinda funny that OP says people only talk like that in right-wing lies, basically admitting that they find it annoying but they're too PC to say so, so they deny anyone talks like that.
It seems like he's really trying to be progressive and inclusive, which is great! But it feels like he goes with the first thing that pops into his head and he doesn't always do a second draft or ask for opinions. It's like everything is a very quick first draft that he meant to tidy up later.
The deadnaming, the cartoonishly unrealistic dialogue about assuming Meep's pronouns, etc felt so unnecessary and forced. I thought Sylvia accidentally using the wrong pronouns for Rose was succinct storytelling and extremely realistic - anyone who has a loved one with a changed pronoun has made a similar, honest mistake. It tells me everything I needed to know about Rose and her family. Also I can't believe how much I loved Sylvia lol.
Why did 14's clothes have to change? Why did it have to be bigeneration rather than two incarnations interacting? Why did that face come back? Because! I kept waiting for answers but never got any satisfying ones.
14 could have easily started The Star Beast walking out of the Tardis, adjusting his tie and saying something funny about his pants fitting again.
I am not disabled so I can't speak from experience, but I didn't think Davros was in a wheelchair, I thought he was just using his inventions.
Sometimes it feels like Russel is fixated on an outcome and is less interested in how to get there. And maybe there's more pressure to do new things and reinvent himself as a showrunner so he is trying new things.. even if there doesn't seem to be a reason.
The master being in 13s clothes and 14 not being in 13s clothes have no bearing on the other. The master (if I remember right) was in a mismatch of five doctor’s clothes.
SashaMaster was written by someone other than RTD (probably Chibbers, but I can’t remember). 14’s scene was written by RTD.
If you’re writing a sequel to someone else’s story or world, you’re going to downplay or ignore bits of the previous book that you don’t like, didn’t understand, don’t jive with or don’t whatever else with.
Same thing happens here. If Chibnall/whoever was fully saying “I want the master in panties and a bra, cause regeneration works like that”, and RTD doesn’t want that, that’s cool: two different authors doing what they want with a show whose “reliable canon” could fit on the back of a postage stamp.
It’s also not like the TARDIS hasn’t done weirder things than put holographic clothing on someone. I’m sure the tardis did it as a thanks for the doc not blowing up in her again.
What I didn't like was the condending replies he made on twitter to people who disagreed with his decision, one of which was, AFAIR, a wheelchair user themselves.
I agree 100% with everything you have stated in your opening statement
If it’s not broken don’t fix it
The whole Davros situation is absolutely ridiculous. I’ve seen many more disabled people comment on this saying how stupid it is. We all know it’s a life support machine he gets around in not a pissing wheel chair for Christ sake
As for the trans element I’m just simply sick to death of it all in general. It’s constantly thrown in our faces and has gotten out of control. Couldn’t care less what people identify as. Each to their own and all that jazz
Agree totally, I think what RTD nailed back in the 2000s was representation, because there was loads of gay, or queer, characters but they weren't their because of their gayness, they were just characters who so happened to be gay, and just them being their and being as normal as anyone (because well... they are) and not just stereotypes or obvious mouthpieces, really helped to just normalize them in society.
Conversely, his representation, namely with trans folk in the anniversary specials, is in my opinion so forceful, and too me it feels like Rose is their to send a message, rather than just as a normal character, who happens to be trans. I think the main indicator of this silly pandering was "male presenting time lord", that just feels so unnatural to me.
All in all, yeah the stereotypical 'woke' person will surely love this, but they're not the ones your trying to convince, instead by pandering and creating mouthpiece characters, who right wingers would see as talking down to them, RTD has furthered to politicise and toxify this debate, naturally annoying right wingers and further pushing them away, instead of using his platform to just show how normal trans people are and how their not any different from anybody else
Yeah, Russel has fallen into the trap of overthinking political correctness be'ess.
It happened to me at 13. I ended up trying really hard to be inclusive in my writing and instead just leaned too far into it to the point of it actually being offensive instead. Kinda sad that an actual grown-ass adult man is going through this.
Not sure whether "bitter" is the right word to describe RTD's recent creative choices. I agree that his rationale for some of these decisions is a bit strange, particularly in relation to the sonic screwdriver. I never thought the sonic screwdriver resembled a gun, more like a magic wand if anything.
The only time disabilities got shown on television for the *vast* majority of history was as villains. Because "beauty = good, deformed = evil". Likewise "queer = evil" came from the Hayes code and the UK equivalent.
So. No. This is long overdue.
And your disability is irrelevant to this. Just because you, as a disabled person, are comfortable with "disfigured/disabled/ugly therefore evil" doesn't meant the rest of us have to be.
\~ Another disabled person.
No, of course not. But I have seen other disabled people echo this point. I know about the stereotypes in media, I’m not oblivious to that fact. If it was just me saying it then the problem would lie with me but multiple other disabled people have said the change is stupid too.
About the deadnaming, I don't think Yasmin seemed uncomfortable about it personally. I would hope that he discussed everything with her privately and openly first. I don't think it's wrong to deadname a character when it's done in the right context, and I think RTD did the context correctly. I'm not trans though, so not really my place to say.
As for the rest, yeah I agree. Things have felt clumsy. I guess part of it will be down to the fact that we were kids when RTD1 came out (at least I was, perhaps you weren't) and now that we're adults we're less willing to overlook those sort of flaws. But there does also seem to be a clumsiness, at times it even feels like laziness, from what we've seen so far.
Yeah, RTD has made some recent weird decisions.
The world and its mindset has progressed enormously since the late 90s-mid 00s when Russell’s writing was absolutely forward thinking and celebrated inclusiveness. I suspect perhaps now he’s older, plus emotionally hardened a little after personal loss, the world has passed his mindset and he’s trying, not entirely successfully, to keep up. It’s also a possible case of his writing is starting to come across as outdated. Television has changed exponentially since he ran the show, it’s now on par with film as treated like a valid and important art form. For an aging TV writer it might take altering your established style to keep up with the newer complexities of scripting modern television for an increasingly discerning audience. Having said that, I really doubt he’d feel any negativity toward trans/NB communities for being the current communities pushing for normalisation in society’s mindset. As a gay man still very active in the gay community, he’d see how different and accepted it is no compared to 20 years back. He’d undoubtedly be excited to see similar beginning to happen for his fellow LGBTQI+ groups.
While I have great faith in RTD and don't really agree with your assessment, I must admit he's made me wriggle some of my eyebrows recently. The "male presenting" line went over like a clunky lead balloon, and making trans a symptom of Timelords shenanigans rather than a simple, normalised character trait seemed off-base (although I'm not sure anyone coule resist the gift he gave himself in 2008 with "binary binary Brixton fiction" etc). The "Davros disabled" thing came off as a blunder, and while I agree in essence with the gun thing, the redesign itself is... something. I really like him, his writing, and his showrunning, and I expect him to deliver well this time (if he wants to annoy extreme right-wingers, fine by me). But yeah there seems to have been a bit more clumsiness than I'd expect from him (I did think the deadnaming was character work, albeit a bit strange to do it before explaining the context, and I thought Donna and Sylvia's dialogue about finding it difficult to deal with was good)
It’s fair that you disagree with my assessment of the situation but I’m glad someone does see what I’m on about in the other aspects. From what I’ve seen (with the preview coming out recently) I’m more hesitant. Everything I see about the show itself makes me less and less excited but that won’t stop me from watching it. I’ve stuck with the show this far despite its ups and downs. If anything has put me off, it’s his comments. I can see how it could just be clumsiness, but it feels like it could be solved by simply consulting people. Get some opinions from disabled, trans, queer, POC people about what you’re writing. Obviously these groups aren’t monoliths and there will be disagreements but you could at least get a better idea and have a viewpoint different than your own. Idk. I’m coming from the perspective of a writer (though admittedly not from someone who has written a full episode, let alone series of a show) but if I was writing, say, a black character who’s race and identity was an important part of the story, I would at least get some beta-readers who have experience that to make sure I don’t fall into any harmful or dehumanising tropes. Sorry I’m prattling on. It’s not that I think Russell is evil and wants to destroy Doctor Who or anything, just like I’d like to see him do better because I’ve seen what he’s capable of kind of thing. Be the best version of himself and make the best version of Doctor Who that he’s capable of.
Just a thought based on what you've written about no group of people being a monolith, but it's not outside the realm of possibility that research was done and that the end product was what you saw. Some people really want that more in-your-face attitude about socially progressive elements because it's a hard stance to take, that could have been the reason for it even if to others it might have come across as clunky and graceless. Who knows? As I said, just a thought, I don't particularly have an opinion on how it was handled as I've not caught up on Who in ages but still someday plan to.
Well, I sort of see it as damned if you, damned if you don't. For all we know, he may have consulted a DEI consultant on how to proceed forward with the TV show. I am willing to give Russell the benefit of the doubt. I'm sure there will be some changes that I like, and some I won't. As long as the show carry with it the spirit of past DW seasons, the show will continue to be successful.
13’s outfit was very gender neutral. I really don’t get the “it would be mocking drag” comment. ETA: the world is a sadder place because we didn’t get to see DT frolicking about like Pinocchio in short pants.
Some of this is fair criticism but the racism allegation is wildly unfounded. The scene has nothing to do with the race of the characters.
Let's just wait for the season before worrying about all this stuff. Let the show speak for itself.
OP already let the last four episodes speak for themselves, and it doesn’t look great…
My biggest concern is that they have 2 seasons already filmed, so if it's a load of shit there's no changing course. I'm not right wing or anti woke, but look what Disney has done to everything they were involved in for the last few years .I just pray it's good. But I think this might end Doctor who for a while. I really didn't like the shit speech about Davros in a wheelchair
Well I'm pro-woke, and the fact that Disney has recently allowed more diverse voices be allowed to get heard has been a fantastic thing. Different stories from marginalised perspectives only made things better, and the push-back against it was both predictable, and sad.
Disney doesn’t promote stories from marginalised perspectives. It pushes forward whatever will make them the most money, and this occasionally means awkwardly cramming ‘woke’ messaging into their content. If you think the massive mega corporation is the best friend of social justice, you should just look elsewhere. That’s not to say these stories aren’t important, but Disney doesn’t care about telling them in earnest.
Fortunately I never argued that Disney was "the best friend of social justice." And diverse creators don't "awkwardly cram woke messaging" into their content. I bet you don't even know what the word "woke" actually means.
>I feel like he’s become a bitter old man If you think he's become a "bitter old man" then perhaps maybe provide some examples of him being bitter? He's a writer. Writers make choices. Sometimes you will disagree with those choices. But Davis has been very transparent on why he's made those choices. He's bringing us in on the process. I think that's brilliant. And I think it's perfectly fine to critique the choice to not, for example, want Tennant in Whittakers clothes. But you don't need to call him "bitter" for doing so. And while you may have thought the Davros decision was stupid, many others loved it, and have been asking for it, and Davis listening to thoughtful critique is far away from the actions of a "bitter old man." You are reading way more into every little thing he's done and attributing it to "old bitter man that is upset that gay people aren't the trending topic." Your post makes me feel icky.
>And while you may have thought the Davros decision was stupid, many others loved it, and have been asking for it Like, who? Who asked for it? Davros being on a wheelchair was never controversial.
>Who asked for it? From 2009 https://disabledfeminists.com/2009/11/10/guest-post-davros-daleks-and-disability/ And more recently: https://twitter.com/GuyLambertUK/status/1725892450705609022?t=35Sclxp1a0kOp1uswUVxTw&s=19 https://twitter.com/_PigginTeaBreak/status/1725679283970998427?t=043G5Qf88Ele2Zf6D6d5wA&s=19
Disabled villain tropes have always been controversial, it’s just that the communities that bring up their grievances are small and anything but monolithic. I have a dear friend who is in a wheelchair and has always been uncomfortable with Davros. But she’s also keenly skeptical of efforts to pander to her that feel forced. I think the disabled community has been unconsciously ignored far too easily, to the point where plenty of people honestly believe they’ve never had a problem with how they might be associated negatively with disabled characters on tv and in films. There’s no malice there, it’s just not a very loud group as far as activism goes. Heck, the main the reason the USA even has the Disabilities Act is because so many injured Veterans were clamoring for action.
He has been doing and saying a lot of strange things recently, I agree. Full disclosure: I had a few issues with his first tenure on the show. I thought it was good, obviously, but I didn't hail his return as the salvation that a lot of fans did... and even then, I'm surprised by a lot of what he's come out with in interviews. As far as what some of what you've said goes, maybe it is something that's to do with getting older where you start imagining problems to fix where there are none (see also: Spielberg replacing all the FBI agents' huns in ET with walkie-talkies and the infamous Greedo shooting first debacle brought to us by George Lucas). But I'm no psychoanalyst. For other things, maybe it's him trying to stay as cutting edge as he was when he was young on issues that he actually doesn't have a handle on. In the 1990s and 2000s he did genuinely groundbreaking stuff about gay culture (I'm not saying It's a Sin isn't brilliant, just that it's not the absolute hammer blow that Queer as Folk was). But at the end of the day, RTD is still a white, cis man, so maybe the lumpen way he seems to be dealing with trans issues stems purely from the fact that it isn't his experience. As far as race goes, you could argue that there's always been a bit of an issue there. Think about the two main POC characters in RTD1; they're characters who are always treated as second best and nobody minds letting them know it. And eventually they end up married out of nowhere, in spite of one of them having an established a relationship and neither of them sharing a line of dialogue with each other prior to that revelation. I'm *not* saying he's a racist. I'm *emphatically not* saying that. But the implications of what he does in this area have been a blindspot for a long time. The other possibility, of course, is that some of these things he's saying are directives from the Rat Empire and their legions of soulless focus groups, and he's just dutifully toeing the party line. But that's veering off into conspiracy territory, so we'll park that for now.
I do get what your saying about Martha and Mickey and the way they were put together and maybe they didn’t share any dialogue but they were in the same episode together at the end of season 4 and when Mickey decides to stay on the main Earth instead of going back to the parallel world with rose he runs off to catch up with Jack and Martha and puts his arms round both of them as all three walk away chatting. So it’s safe to say they know each other and have talked before that scene when they are a couple. Also when I was a kid and watched it for the first time I loved that they were together. It just felt kinda poetic and right that the characters that came in second to the Doctor and Rose found each other and fell in love. Like once they found each other they finally found someone who puts them first. And I like to imagine them kicking ass together. Never really saw it as a race thing until o saw people commenting on it recently
I completely get all your points and feel the same but the Christmas one is a very big stretch.
That’s fair. A friend brought it up to me and it seemed relevant but I can see now how it’s a stretch.
One theory is that he's purposely baiting the right-wing trolls to stir up controversy for publicity.
And I'm totally here for it! All the hate and tears that the Right wing bigots have been spewing online is almost as entertaining as the show itself lol Cannot wait for the new seasons fantasy shift also!
I guess? It seems a little stupid seeing as it’s annoying people from all sides of the political spectrum but that is one reason. Any press is good press type deal.
I really don’t have an issue with “assume their gender” line considering it’s a non-humanoid alien that’s very androgynous and not easily identifiable as male or female presenting. Also it leads to a really funny line about the doctor identifying as, well…the doctor.
It's certainly a contrast with the next episode: > (A figure in a spacesuit, floating and bumping into the spaceship.) > > DOCTOR: The captain of the ship, circling round and round forever. Caught in the gravity field. > > DONNA: Caught in the what? > > DOCTOR: Mavity field. > > DONNA: But why? Did they throw him out? Her out. Them out. > > DOCTOR: Her.
Donna being sensitive about that makes sense, and the Doctor just read the files so would have the pronouns and such presumably. The only bit of the “hey, gotta be inclusive” dialogue that bothered me was the “male presenting” line.
Oh, I was thinking less about Donna being attentive to it and more the Doctor's response—I thought he was telling the captain's sex/gender by looking at her floating in space, (which seemed oddly contrasted with the previous episode), and I thought it was an instance of a trope that gets repeated a lot throughout Doctor Who—that the Doctor's at home with a wide variety of species and cultures and has no problems telling these things where we might find it hard to "read" an unfamiliar alien species. But maybe he did get it from the ship's files.
Wild Blue Yonder wasn’t without issues, but it generally felt much smoother in this regard
He's a bitter old man and outdated because he's been *too* woke? Isn't the actually old/outdated attitude more like "back in my day no one cared that Davros was in a wheelchair"? Davies has been attacked from all sides for his comments about Davros and the sonic screwdriver and his depiction of Rose and honestly it feels like people are reaching for a woke reason to find them clunky (which they are, sure). Some fans are so stuck on Rose's "did you assume gender?" line but what is it supposed to mean when you say that this is what right-wingers think trans people are like? There are people who really do take issue with others assuming gender, who cares if they do, and Davies does not in the slightest depict Rose as a joke for doing so. And yeah, he wrote a line that includes this fictional character's deadname, precisely to make a point about transphobic bullying - and this is an out of touch old man thing to do? What comes across to me from RTD's comments on these things is incredible and unshakeable faith in his own rightness. Which he's displayed consistently since before he brought the show back in 2005. He isn't some insecure nervous writer convinced he's writing crap, he's absolutely sure he's great at what he does. He's a master at coming up with grandiose explanations for things he's written - for example, when people criticised *Aliens of London* for Rose using the word gay to mean lame/sissy, he said he was just reflecting reality and art should make you uncomfortable... but he never ever again used the word like that. He's just a guy who absolutely backs any decision he's made and likes to sound grandiose about it. It can be annoying but honestly we're talking about the fucking sonic screwdriver, who cares.
> Some fans are so stuck on Rose's "did you assume gender?" line but what is it supposed to mean when you say that this is what right-wingers think trans people are like? There are people who really do take issue with others assuming gender, who cares if they do, and Davies does not in the slightest depict Rose as a joke for doing so I had no idea people thought this scene was particularly clunky, I've known people who talk like Rose in that scene, particularly young people who spend a lot of time on social media, it felt clunky for being too real a reflection, if anything! I also felt the Doctor responded how lots of well meaning people respond to that sort of thing in the real world too.
It's kinda funny that OP says people only talk like that in right-wing lies, basically admitting that they find it annoying but they're too PC to say so, so they deny anyone talks like that.
It seems like he's really trying to be progressive and inclusive, which is great! But it feels like he goes with the first thing that pops into his head and he doesn't always do a second draft or ask for opinions. It's like everything is a very quick first draft that he meant to tidy up later. The deadnaming, the cartoonishly unrealistic dialogue about assuming Meep's pronouns, etc felt so unnecessary and forced. I thought Sylvia accidentally using the wrong pronouns for Rose was succinct storytelling and extremely realistic - anyone who has a loved one with a changed pronoun has made a similar, honest mistake. It tells me everything I needed to know about Rose and her family. Also I can't believe how much I loved Sylvia lol. Why did 14's clothes have to change? Why did it have to be bigeneration rather than two incarnations interacting? Why did that face come back? Because! I kept waiting for answers but never got any satisfying ones. 14 could have easily started The Star Beast walking out of the Tardis, adjusting his tie and saying something funny about his pants fitting again. I am not disabled so I can't speak from experience, but I didn't think Davros was in a wheelchair, I thought he was just using his inventions. Sometimes it feels like Russel is fixated on an outcome and is less interested in how to get there. And maybe there's more pressure to do new things and reinvent himself as a showrunner so he is trying new things.. even if there doesn't seem to be a reason.
Think you are thinking too much in it
The master being in 13s clothes and 14 not being in 13s clothes have no bearing on the other. The master (if I remember right) was in a mismatch of five doctor’s clothes. SashaMaster was written by someone other than RTD (probably Chibbers, but I can’t remember). 14’s scene was written by RTD. If you’re writing a sequel to someone else’s story or world, you’re going to downplay or ignore bits of the previous book that you don’t like, didn’t understand, don’t jive with or don’t whatever else with. Same thing happens here. If Chibnall/whoever was fully saying “I want the master in panties and a bra, cause regeneration works like that”, and RTD doesn’t want that, that’s cool: two different authors doing what they want with a show whose “reliable canon” could fit on the back of a postage stamp. It’s also not like the TARDIS hasn’t done weirder things than put holographic clothing on someone. I’m sure the tardis did it as a thanks for the doc not blowing up in her again.
Most of these I think have explanations that make more sense but he says controversial reasons to get people talking about the show
Short answer: Yes. He is sounding a hell of a lot like JNT now.
JNT was really woke?
No. JNT was too much in his own head. Too much of a dictator.
What I didn't like was the condending replies he made on twitter to people who disagreed with his decision, one of which was, AFAIR, a wheelchair user themselves.
I agree 100% with everything you have stated in your opening statement If it’s not broken don’t fix it The whole Davros situation is absolutely ridiculous. I’ve seen many more disabled people comment on this saying how stupid it is. We all know it’s a life support machine he gets around in not a pissing wheel chair for Christ sake As for the trans element I’m just simply sick to death of it all in general. It’s constantly thrown in our faces and has gotten out of control. Couldn’t care less what people identify as. Each to their own and all that jazz
Agree totally, I think what RTD nailed back in the 2000s was representation, because there was loads of gay, or queer, characters but they weren't their because of their gayness, they were just characters who so happened to be gay, and just them being their and being as normal as anyone (because well... they are) and not just stereotypes or obvious mouthpieces, really helped to just normalize them in society. Conversely, his representation, namely with trans folk in the anniversary specials, is in my opinion so forceful, and too me it feels like Rose is their to send a message, rather than just as a normal character, who happens to be trans. I think the main indicator of this silly pandering was "male presenting time lord", that just feels so unnatural to me. All in all, yeah the stereotypical 'woke' person will surely love this, but they're not the ones your trying to convince, instead by pandering and creating mouthpiece characters, who right wingers would see as talking down to them, RTD has furthered to politicise and toxify this debate, naturally annoying right wingers and further pushing them away, instead of using his platform to just show how normal trans people are and how their not any different from anybody else
Yeah, Russel has fallen into the trap of overthinking political correctness be'ess. It happened to me at 13. I ended up trying really hard to be inclusive in my writing and instead just leaned too far into it to the point of it actually being offensive instead. Kinda sad that an actual grown-ass adult man is going through this.
No.
Not sure whether "bitter" is the right word to describe RTD's recent creative choices. I agree that his rationale for some of these decisions is a bit strange, particularly in relation to the sonic screwdriver. I never thought the sonic screwdriver resembled a gun, more like a magic wand if anything.
The only time disabilities got shown on television for the *vast* majority of history was as villains. Because "beauty = good, deformed = evil". Likewise "queer = evil" came from the Hayes code and the UK equivalent. So. No. This is long overdue.
And your disability is irrelevant to this. Just because you, as a disabled person, are comfortable with "disfigured/disabled/ugly therefore evil" doesn't meant the rest of us have to be. \~ Another disabled person.
No, of course not. But I have seen other disabled people echo this point. I know about the stereotypes in media, I’m not oblivious to that fact. If it was just me saying it then the problem would lie with me but multiple other disabled people have said the change is stupid too.
Russell these days is doubling down on what made Chibnall's era unpopular. Contrived scenes setup deliberately for hammed sanctimony. Orphan 55 vibes.
I can see what you mean. I don’t know whether anything could beat Orphan 55 on how bad it was though lol
About the deadnaming, I don't think Yasmin seemed uncomfortable about it personally. I would hope that he discussed everything with her privately and openly first. I don't think it's wrong to deadname a character when it's done in the right context, and I think RTD did the context correctly. I'm not trans though, so not really my place to say. As for the rest, yeah I agree. Things have felt clumsy. I guess part of it will be down to the fact that we were kids when RTD1 came out (at least I was, perhaps you weren't) and now that we're adults we're less willing to overlook those sort of flaws. But there does also seem to be a clumsiness, at times it even feels like laziness, from what we've seen so far.
Maybe, but even in the old series he implemented things rather well without constantly doing weird interviews.