Series 11 Dr Who

[matthewfarmery]

Yeah, the episode wasn't bad, not the greatest, but not bad, Jodie is certainly becoming a good Doctor, as for the TARDIS, I don't mind the new look, its had worse, and better.

[Aye Capn]

****ing rubbish all of it. Note how this thread is constantly assaulted by this "not at all sexist driven discussion".

It's not. You're a victim of the anthropic fallacy, or what TVTropes would describe as fantastic racism, specifically anthropocentrism.

Their species is not like yours. Whatever concept "sexism" might have in their society would bear no relation to anything we would understand, at least not without thinking it through. I recommend doing so.

[Antilogic]

****ing rubbish all of it. Note how this thread is constantly assaulted by this "not at all sexist driven discussion".

It's not. You're a victim of the anthropic fallacy, or what TVTropes would describe as fantastic racism, specifically anthropocentrism.

Their species is not like yours. Whatever concept "sexism" might have in their society would bear no relation to anything we would understand, at least not without thinking it through. I recommend doing so.

Wow. Truly enlightening. Please, regale me with more of your crap.

Actually nevermind, got a good use for one the forums new features.

[Aye Capn]

Regale you, eh? If you insist.

Ask yourself this question: was The Doctor retconned or did he regenerate into a she?

[Antilogic]

Isn't the ignore feature great.

In more interesting news, behind the scenes of Jodies ear thingies! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=msSdDdhA1qk

[red assassin]

Hmm. Quite enjoyed this episode on the whole, but as others have said there were a number of annoying bits.

Spoiler

Show

I particularly enjoyed "no other life" followed immediately by a wide shot of the lake, which pretty clearly showed green vegetation on the distant shoreline. While understandable, I also liked the three suns clearly casting a single shadow.

There were a couple of slightly unsubtle references I'm not sure I liked or not as well - shortly after being rescued from floating in space by a passing ship at the last possible moment, someone said "don't panic"; while the mysterious exposition left in an underground chamber by its deceased former inhabitants ended with "they are coming".

I'm with Bishop on the aesthetics too - I think the new TARDIS is really interesting. And I want a spaceship that produces custard creams!

[Antilogic]

I love some of the fan videos the community comes up with. Doctor Who | Incredible Change https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ur898NZWZ4w

[Bishop149]

Their species is not like yours. Whatever concept "sexism" might have in their society would bear no relation to anything we would understand, at least not without thinking it through. I recommend doing so.

This argument really doesn't work when the story in question is written by humans, for humans . . . . as of course all media is. Any and all characterisation is a reflection and commentary upon the human nature and society, even (perhaps especially) if that characterisation is "Look how inhuman this character is!"
In the specific case of Dr Who its doubly invalid because whilst the character is supposedly an alien this is not apparent for 99% of the time, time in which "human from the future with magic technology" would work perfectly well as a description of the Dr.

I love some of the fan videos the community comes up with. Doctor Who | Incredible Change https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ur898NZWZ4w

Watching that made it seem really REALLY weird that the Dr has only been a woman once . . . . I'm becoming more and more of the opinion that this was LONG overdue.

[Aye Capn]

Their species is not like yours.

This argument really doesn't work when the story in question is written by humans, for humans . . . .

Wrong. Mardukans are a species written by humans, for humans which are nonetheless portrayed through the lens of their own quite alien evolutionary biology. At one point the "females" -- if you could call them that, which is itself anthropocentrism -- demand to be called "males" because of their interpretation of human sexual dimorphism. To maintain diplomatic relations the humans reprogram their translators. None of the terminology really makes sense anyway, so why not? Aliens are alien.

The Doctor's species is even more alien, if not in morphology than in evolutionary biology. Imagining that aliens who routinely change sex would have a nonsensically human evolutionary biology with equally nonsensical "gender roles" [against which our "female" doctor presumably rebels] for a species for whom monosexuality whether hetero- or homo- would be abnormal is the height of intellectual laziness.

The "rebels" against "gender roles" would be "out and proud" monosexuals and transsexuals as we humans would understand them. Yes, the dream of becoming the sex that matches your gender transforms into a nightmare once you regenerate into the "wrong" body. The "normative" standards would be bisexual and genderfluid. Would "transsexuals" as we humans would understand them commit suicide in order to get the body that matches their gender identity? The temptation would certainly be there. Imagine how a society with the fetish for order of The Doctor's would treat such "aberrations".

The Doctor makes more sense as an LGBT-positive figure than a "Feminist" one. She's not a woman; it is a bisexual genderfluid hermaphrodite.

Isn't the ignore feature great.

Self-congratulations are truly in order. To the triumph of open-minded intellectualism: Huzzah!

[Bishop149]

@Aye Capn
Ok, firstly I think you've missed my point so I will restate it, but I will also address those you make about the fictional positioning of aliens later.
If you cast a woman where you previously cast a man it is IMPOSSIBLE not to be simultaneously make a statement regarding gender equality . . . . whether you want to or not, the back story or species of the character in question is completely irrelevant. I suppose if the gender of the actor was completely masked by prosthetics / SFX etc and if it's just a minor character whose casting received no press, then prehaps no one would notice and you'd get away with it, but a lead role? Forget it.
Taking this further even if you cast a gay man into the role of a straight man, who was previously played by a straight man you would STILL be making a statement as long as the audience knows that's what you did.
The fiction does not exist in a separate universe isolated from that of the audience, and thus can not be judged in such isolation in anything other than a purely academic manner.
Nor can you accuse an audiences perception as being "wrong" based purely upon the fiction, fundamentally because Jodie Whittaker is NOT fictional.
BTW I do also think your interpretation of this change in Dr as LGBTQ positive is a good one, I just also think the feminist one you dismiss on the basis of the fiction is equally as valid for the reasons I explain above.

Right, fictional positioning of aliens.
Your analysis of how all these "aliens" are immediately likened to and paralleled with human characteristics is exactly the issue, even (especially) if the point being made is that doing this is incorrect.
It is near impossible for a human to write a character and avoid this, even the very act of saying "I will write something unlike a human" implies that you will bring your own ideas of "what humans are like" into the process.
Your example is a case in point, your aliens object to being misgendered. . . . . and then align themselves with the other pole of the human gender binary. Oh how very alien, I don't think.
A more "alien" response would be; "What the hell is gender?" and once it's explained "That's stupid why the hell do you do that?!". But then I wrote that and therefore it reflects MY opinions on the issue. See how that works?
We literally can't not do this, we do it in our fiction, we'd do it if we ever met an extraterrestrial alien, and we do it on a daily basis with the aliens we happen to share our planet with . . . many of which are DRAMATICALLY different to us in regard to things like sex and associated behaviours.

So I said "near impossible" earlier and I will just qualify that, I have read a few short stories which I think did a pretty decent job of truly imagining an alien perspective . . . . and guess what, those stories were near nonsensical and INCREDIBLY hard to read. By being moderately successful in creating a truly alien perspective the author simultaneously rendered their story almost incomprehensible to me, a human reader. Its an impressive literary feat but does not make for good or popular fiction.

Edit: I'll actually expand this a little further. . . . biologically speaking we can draw inspiration for aliens from other species on our planet. We can say "Oh these aliens are haplodiploid and therefore eusocial, they're basically like bees", however when it comes to sapience until recently we had NO source to draw on other than humanity. So if we want to depict a sapient alien it then becomes "What if like bees that thought like humans" or "What would eusocial humans look like?". Its interesting to note that we have now managed to meaningfully communicate complex ideas with a sapient non-humans, (great apes via sign language) and despite being so very close to us in evolutionary terms some very significant cognitive differences were found. They don't "think" like us. More limited communication has been achieved with dolphins but primary reason the communication is so limited is because these differences appear much much greater . . . but also harder to pin down due to the limited communication, its a little catch 22.

[Aye Capn]

Thank you for a very thoughtful response.

The "Mothra-Singer Twins Meet Our Mister Sun" episode was so cringey I swore never to watch Dr. Who again. I'm still of the assumption it has permanently jumped the shark. However, if the new Woman-Aspect Doctor were actually treated by the writers as a bisexual genderfluid hermaphrodite -- "straight" by the norms of her culture and species but of no other -- I'd come back for that. What a lonely life to be the last of that. It would even [retroactively] explain a lot of The Doctor's seemingly quirky behaviors.

The point of science fiction is that you're supposed to try to imagine alien things, not that you will or even can 100% succeed. I'd settle for a cool 10%, which if fans of "Female" Doctor Who [that isn't] are any indication fails miserably even to attain that. She's not female, not in our limited human conception of the word. She could identify as a woman and you could call her that, but she's probably doing that for your convenience. Except she's not portrayed this way, is she?

The most interesting character now that the entire species has been retconned into hermaphrodites is Romana. The Doctor has been coy with every potential romantic partner except her. Is it because she is one of the few who is totally okay with Time Lord sexual biology?

But back to the point, judging from how the fans are receiving the character the alien aspect has been completely ignored and the writers are phoning in cheap SJW talking points to keep their audience. This could have been done so much better.

whether you want to or not, the back story or species of the character in question is completely irrelevant.

Counterexample: Sandy Duncan's Peter Pan

Your various declarations betray a lack of imagination, but to your credit you recognize this -- although you attribute it to all science fiction fans rather than to yourself.

I'll enter myself into the record as someone who while quite anti-Feminist would love a good story about a hermaphroditic alien slumming it monosex style with the humans -- if only someone would write one. Imagination, not Social Justice, is what separates Science Fiction from all other genres and why I am a fan.

It's certainly of great convenience when hermaphrodites are portrayed to use the gender pronoun of the sex of the human portraying it, but that doesn't make it any less alien or hermaphroditic. Foolish humans are always taking shortcuts.

Your example ... your aliens object to being misgendered. . . . . and then align themselves with the other pole of the human gender binary. Oh how very alien, I don't think.

What's wrong with that exactly? How would you imagine anyone not bisexual and genderfluid would fare in a sexually restrictive society of hermaphrodites? I portrayed The Doctor as a social reformer -- which is canonical -- from within what I imagined her society might be like for someone like her to rebel against. She's taken a liking to Earthlings, sure, but she didn't spontaneously [re]generate from a Divine Act of Creation. She had parents, she had an upbringing, she was part of a culture, she lived in a civilization. Of hermaphrodites.

Imagining what her civilization must've been like is absolutely the most interesting part of retconning her species so radically. The writers have struck gold, which they've discarded onto the tailings pile because they're mining for lead.

The only other character like The Doctor is Frankenfurter, except his civilization was very different. His society seemed a lot more freewheeling than The Doctor's. True he is executed, but he has to actually kidnap people and use them sexually -- not to mention creating a sex-slave clone -- to be considered a problem. I doubt his civilization could've produced a personality quite like The Doctor. But what would? I'm ready for a new perspective on how else a society of hermaphrodites might evolve.

So what do a bunch of stuffy stick-in-the-mud types, as The Doctor views her civilization and fellow constituents thereof, how exactly do their reserved social attitudes manifest in the rules and norms governing their sexuality? What does hermaphronormative look like? Isn't that an interesting question?

During their medieval history which ones were considered expendable in war? The "male aspect" variants? Taking the long view they're just as valuable as the women, or almost as. No wonder they developed such advanced technology so rapidly. But I'm just speculating, which is more than the writers of this poorly-thought-out show seem to have done.

[red assassin]

Well, I think tonight's episode was done really well.

[matthewfarmery]

Well, I think tonight's episode was done really well.

It was a good history lesson, and honestly, should be a lesson to everyone.

But I also quite liked the episode.

And the lady who play Rosa, I give her full credit where credit is due, I think the real Rosa RIP, would have been proud to have been portrayed by this woman, the actress did a fine job.

[Antilogic]

That was pretty good!

I'm just laughing so hard right now. When Moffet announced he was leaving all the way up to Jodie's confirmation, there were all these anti-trans people, racists, sexists like "Yay all his stuff will be gone!"

And now we have this episode. I love it. This was, and always will be Doctor Who.

[matthewfarmery]

It was a lot more down to earth, sure DW isn't DW if there aren't any of the main bad guys, the usual suspects. But in truth, I felt that over time, Matt Smith and beyond (or even before that), some were over used. and things were going down hill.

So its nice to see new enemies, and how they just want to effect things.


Which really makes a welcome change. the episode was both a history lesson, trying to keep time intact, and not from the usual suspect pile of scripts either. This was a Doctor who simply wanted to make sure the everything was OK. And I'm warming to the Jodie, she has higher then Matt and many other actors who have played the Doctor, only Baker and Tennant are left. Will she surpass them? only time will tell?

[Bishop149]

I'll pick up on a few of your points.

I'll enter myself into the record as someone who while quite anti-Feminist would love a good story about a hermaphroditic alien slumming it monosex style with the humans -- if only someone would write one. Imagination, not Social Justice, is what separates Science Fiction from all other genres and why I am a fan.

I'm interested what your objection to feminism is.
You imply a little that it might be because you disdain the entire concept of gender and see feminism as being built upon it. Is this accurate?
I personally think that 98% of gender is socially constructed rubbish with little or no basis in reality and that we'd be better off without it, but I see feminism as a stepping stone towards that particular goal.

I'm ready for a new perspective on how else a society of hermaphrodites might evolve.

So what do a bunch of stuffy stick-in-the-mud types, as The Doctor views her civilization and fellow constituents thereof, how exactly do their reserved social attitudes manifest in the rules and norms governing their sexuality? What does hermaphronormative look like? Isn't that an interesting question?

Interestingly the Timelords would be sequential hermaphrodites, i.e. they are only male OR female at any one time rather than true hermaphrodites were an individual is both (both fertile) sexes at once. In the case of the former I can easily see such a society still having such a thing a gender, after all two distinct biological categories still exist upon which society can construct it's gender crap. In the case of the latter one might expect the concept of gender to be suppressed and I suspect it would be, but only up to a point. If you look at the real life examples of true hermaphroditism they is usually some form of competition (often rather violent*) to win the "prize" of being the "male" in any particular mating. This is because the male role is easier, it involves committing less resources to reproduction. Thus I'd expect such a sapient species to still exhibit some concept of gender.

*If you never have, seriously, google "love darts"

[Usenko]

I enjoyed the episode, but there was something about it that bothered me (No direct spoilers).

It's this: The Doctor is an incredibly powerful being. The Daleks - the most dangerous species in the galaxy! - call him "The Destroyer," and run scared when he turns up.

This character - this self-sufficient, powerful creature - is suddenly reliant on a Sheffield bus driver and his unemployed son (and a trainee cop). This seems somehow inappropriate. Weirdly, she is still sufficiently brilliant that the humans are scrambling to catch up, yet she relies on them to solve problems. It's as though she's giving them a pile of work to keep them busy that she could more easily and efficiently do herself.

Up against the big bad, we see that she has flashes of the uber-powerful Doctor we know and love, but often she defers to two men who she can think rings around. I think that ironically there's a little subconscious sexism in the script.

[Antilogic]

I enjoyed the episode, but there was something about it that bothered me (No direct spoilers).

It's this: The Doctor is an incredibly powerful being. The Daleks - the most dangerous species in the galaxy! - call him "The Destroyer," and run scared when he turns up.

This character - this self-sufficient, powerful creature - is suddenly reliant on a Sheffield bus driver and his unemployed son (and a trainee cop). This seems somehow inappropriate. Weirdly, she is still sufficiently brilliant that the humans are scrambling to catch up, yet she relies on them to solve problems. It's as though she's giving them a pile of work to keep them busy that she could more easily and efficiently do herself.

Up against the big bad, we see that she has flashes of the uber-powerful Doctor we know and love, but often she defers to two men who she can think rings around. I think that ironically there's a little subconscious sexism in the script.

Fair point I hadn't considered.

Shall be interesting to see how that goes as the story develops.

[matthewfarmery]

I enjoyed the episode, but there was something about it that bothered me (No direct spoilers).

It's this: The Doctor is an incredibly powerful being. The Daleks - the most dangerous species in the galaxy! - call him "The Destroyer," and run scared when he turns up.

This character - this self-sufficient, powerful creature - is suddenly reliant on a Sheffield bus driver and his unemployed son (and a trainee cop). This seems somehow inappropriate. Weirdly, she is still sufficiently brilliant that the humans are scrambling to catch up, yet she relies on them to solve problems. It's as though she's giving them a pile of work to keep them busy that she could more easily and efficiently do herself.

Up against the big bad, we see that she has flashes of the uber-powerful Doctor we know and love, but often she defers to two men who she can think rings around. I think that ironically there's a little subconscious sexism in the script.

That is a fair point, however, as she is newly regenerated, she still learning, while she retains her memories of her past lives, they are probably locked off, so she still struggling to remember stuff, especially about the TARDIS.

That would be my take on this, my other take on this, is that there are plenty of dimensions, no idea if she is the same dimension, as say, what Tom baker was in a lot of time, plus of course, there was the dimension reboot at some point in the past. so its probably a bit muddling, to say the least.

I think as time goes on, and her regen cycle is complete, she should remember a lot more, rather then a lot of black holes in her head.

At least that is how I would explain it, and we seen this in the past, after one regen, that the Doctor doesn't always remember who is is, at least for a while. I guess if you been around the block a few times, and had so many new lives, its hard to keep track of stuff.

Saying that mind, I do think they over did it with the amount of companions, its also possible, they been given stuff otherwise, they would be a filth wheel, and nothing to do for most of the show, which is where my earlier point stands, too many companions.

Apart from that, it was still a good episode.

[Bishop149]

This character - this self-sufficient, powerful creature - is suddenly reliant on a Sheffield bus driver and his unemployed son (and a trainee cop). This seems somehow inappropriate. Weirdly, she is still sufficiently brilliant that the humans are scrambling to catch up, yet she relies on them to solve problems. It's as though she's giving them a pile of work to keep them busy that she could more easily and efficiently do herself.

I dunno, I just saw that aspect as the Dr just delegating tasks to her companions which could be a rather nice change. Rather than the Dr just solving everything themselves whilst more often than not any effort from the companions only ends up backfiring into another problem for the Dr to solve single handed. Although:

Spoiler

Show

Wife and I did question the wisdom of sending the black lad off to convince everyone to wait for the buses. Given the theme of the episode the whole "How dare this black person try and tell me what to do!" problem was eminently predictable. Although charitably you could argue that the Dr complete lack of racism blinded her to a complication that would be obvious to any human

The episode is getting some critisim for its whole: "We just have to let history happen (and to do so be complicit in racism) as it did and not interfere" attitude. This is very much NOT how the Dr usually operates (bombastically waving their screwdriver around fixing anything and everything) and is rather troubling that the time the writers chose to employ this approach is when it required them to become complicit in racism of all things.

Bishop's rewrite: The bus driver (sorry I forget his name) actually turns round and goes "No Dr, sod off I refuse to become part of the problem in order to fix it" and leaves (or the Dr herself has a change of heart). Rosa is not forced to give up her seat but none the less ends up standing up for herself in some other way so the result on history is essentially the same. Thus showing that what was truely important was factor intrinsic to Rosa herself rather than the specific situation she was in.
Thank you BBC I'll take my check now.