Kite

Let me be clear, I was in online fandom (rec.arts.drwho on usenet...), and virtually NO ONE liked the movie. The kiss was almost universally despised (although Moffat was on that forum and maybe he liked it haha) and NO ONE liked the half-human stuff. And there was a general feeling of disappointment because while good Doctor, the movie quality sucked. Everyone was there in fandom because they grew up with it, hoping the movie would help bring it back after being cancelled and comparing to that yardstick. It sold out to the Americans culturally because of their money and didn't satisfy them either. I did the sensible thing for a young person with other things to do and forgot about the show again. When the show came back in 2005 you got new fans coming in and a lot of enthusiasm and joy. Moaning from the corner and a whole lot of homophobia and sexism but that dropped off over time as those fans realised they either better get with the programme or do something else*. Unfortunately these days we have right wing culture warriors algorithmically boosted. *Well most of them! There's a hilariously memorable fan still moaning vigorously on twxtter today who was 1. informally paid in merch in the 80s to advise the show on how to bog it down in canon and get no one watching except nerds 2. largely responsible for the cringiest song in creation to try uncancel the show 3. heavily rumoured to be the inspiration for character Victor Kennedy 4. once told by RTD at a presser to "Fuck Off".

All the times the Doctor has locked lips with someone is exhaustively detailed in this TARDIS wiki entry: https://tardis.wiki/wiki/Kiss (it's a lot) I was one of those nerds Very Upset about the '96 tv movie kiss at the time, but ehhh I've largely gotten over it, the Doctor can have their fun, it's character development! At least it's not with an alternative timeline version of oneself like happened in Herron's Loki (though I don't think she was the one pushing that story).

Viewing patterns have really shifted, especially for younger audiences. I would be more interested in chart positions in the UK - does anyone have them? I know Flux rated VERY well in UK chart position including +28s but not absolute figures compared to previous series, showing how less and less people have been watching tv - but those that did chose Flux. Top watched story-based show across its run I think? So that's a good example of how statistics can be manipulated to say different things. In terms of Disney, Doctor Who is in the top ten streamed almost every day. Phenomenally well. The long-running narrative that its ratings are tanking is a fake one reliably propagated by right wing media who are desperately trying to prove "go woke go broke" and not really succeeding in convincing people except for suckers.

Wow, that's a pretty full on opinion, I'm sorry you're not enjoying the show, not worth continuing? What is it about the character this episode that was "destroyed" for you? Most people don't seem to have noticed.

Super gendered language you're using there buddy. As if having seen the destruction of billions, you should necessarily be unemotional and stern, as opposed to full of grief and determination to do better. If you have an issue with the Doctor's compassion, it did start rather a long time ago, trying to save irredeemable characters and monsters. Why would you think aliens are unemotional? Daleks are born screaming. I get it if it doesn't work for you, but it's not inconsistent.

What sort of crying is deemed manly enough for you? He was crying because of the sanctity of life, and the enormous, universe filling empathy he has, and the waste of it all due to petty silly hatreds and lies. Have you ever looked at images of a warzone and felt the same? Do you need to believe only one side is right to believe they should not die? I dunno, I'm not religious at all but I have practised loving kindness meditation where it feels I could embrace the whole universe with love. That's what the Doctor feels most of the time. That's what keeps driving them on and makes them so brave, and not quite a real person, more a myth descended to earth that struggles sometimes with humanlike foibles. (By the way, Twelve/Capaldi is my very favourite Doctor in nearly half a century watching, and he's a grumpy rude bastard, so what I said doesn't mean sunshine and rainbows and kittens. Dude was enormously empathic. Just a very different way of channeling it.)

Oh please, Doctor Who has been doing "Black Mirror" long before Black Mirror, which owes a big debt to it. That's what sci fi does. Doctor Who in its long time has done plenty of dystopian cautionary tales using modern technology and foibles and prejudices taken to its extreme. Eg homocidal satnavs. It just tends to add more layers of cheese than Black Mirror. I would like to give a signal boost to the TARBIS podcast, which is always great, but also for their super thoughtful and nuanced take on this episode from a Black perspective, which is not that common to find online in this fandom. They have some criticisms/reservations and interpretations I had never considered from my standpoint. Of course, they could see straight away where this episode was headed. Doctor Who is uniquely intensive to film because it is a bunch of genre shows rolled into one, with a different bunch of sets, actors, and other creatives each time. It is pretty slow and intensive. RTD famously nearly worked himself to death trying to produce 14 episodes a year at the start of the reboot in 2005 (one reason why his finales were so fever dream, they were hella rushed), and it started to get more and more spaced out as time went on with the showrunners. 9 episodes a year seems to be is what RTD reckons is reliably and sustainably possible. Including for the lead actor. I'm sure he would have preferred Ncuti be in this season more, but they decided to go with Ncuti over the actor they had lined up despite the initial availability problems because they thought he was so fantastic.

I can't see most politicians getting the codes and immediately wanting to launch them. I just can't. Only someone completely insane. The way the UN has been set up with vetos for the major powers to prioritise peace over justice is because everyone knows what would happen if they were launched. The Cuban missile crisis was averted because the major powers actually said: do we want to do this? end it all? and fortunately cooler heads with it. This politician wouldn't have the insanity and machismo of war. It would just be a death wish to launch no pretext and RTD knows that, like me living through the Cold War, so why was it implied "oh no he's about to get THE CODES NEXT WEEK" like it's a brink if the dude is not insane.

The Doctor does not look in his thirties there?? People have been falling over themselves to comment on how young Gatwa looks. And several of the actors in this episode are in their thirties, and in my opinion, look it. The Doctor just doesn't look like an outlier wrt age, and not the way he dressed either there (though it was a bright/definite/strong colour palette and hence different), so I find it hard to believe ageism was meant to be part of it. Talking of age, haha wtf at Lindy's mum being the Susan Twist character. Loving this mystery.

Interesting thought. Though what do you think - the show played up the "he's getting the nuclear codes next week!!" like it was a cliffhanger and Ruby had to intervene fast. I don't understand why it would do that.

I don't think there's anything literal that would cause Ruby's loving mum to turn on her like that, and say she was tainted even at birth. Or the trained soldiers to run away and stoic Kate to reject Ruby. Whatever they heard, it had a full psychic force behind it to get away from her, to blame her for every kind of badness they ever experienced. I've encountered this sort of thing a lot in old spooky northern European genre/folk fiction - liminality over literalness. The unspoken and implied has an incredibly heavy atmosphere and you have to keep up with your imagination. Magic does not have formulaic rules like science. So idk I didn't have any trouble with that. I'm choosing to believe the Welsh pub people were under the magic influence/sincere at some point when talking, or at least the old lady was. Two things at once being simultaneously true. Liminality. I am a bit "meh" on the ending with Ruby becoming the old woman, it just wasn't quite emotionally full circle for me. I also thought the "not only does he want to blow up the world, he's a domestic abuser ooooooo" was a bit ... ummm, like, domestic abusers are everywhere, completely everyday people. Also, if he's actually insane and wants to literally go nuclear on everything, I would have appreciated actually seeing something in that. Instead, I saw your average fascist, which is a bit different. They tend towards self-preservation.

Really enjoyed this one, or rather, appreciated it. I thought (or was hoping) something was up with the lack of not-white people, didn't seem like a casting oversight. My young kid early on watching the ep said he thought from the trailer that all the colours meant it was going to be in a children's hospital, and he's right, the setting is meant to be sterile and soothing and infantilising. I laughed when the Doctor had to apologise for treating Lindy like a child. I was watching her trying to walk and said "damn I'd hate to see what a kindergarten full of bubble kids would look like". Yes, Lindy is very much not a child, and the great thing is seeing how the annoying tics become horrifying by the end. It seemed to be about damn kids on their phones at first, but it's more about a politics of privilege, a determined malignant kind of ignorance. The Doctor's grief and anger here was perfect. It NEEDED to be extreme. It NEEDED to be passionate. Never be cruel, never be cowardly. Hate is always foolish, and love is always wise. The Doctor endlessly represents life, hope, love. The Doctor wasn't grieving for himself, he was grieving loudly, messily, passionately out of love! And that is a powerful statement against the seeming utopian puritan toxic positivity that was/is only about sterility, exploitation, control, lies, hatred and death. “Winning? Is that what you think it’s about? I’m not trying to win. I’m not doing this because I want to beat someone, or because I hate someone, or because I want to blame someone. It’s not because it’s fun. God knows it’s not because it’s easy. It’s not even because it works because it hardly ever does.. I DO WHAT I DO BECAUSE IT’S RIGHT! Because it’s decent! And above all, it’s kind! It’s just that.. Just kind. If I run away today, good people will die. If I stand and fight, some of them might live. Maybe not many, maybe not for long. Hey, you know, maybe there’s no point to any of this at all. But it’s the best I can do. So I’m going to do it. And I will stand here doing it until it kills me. And you’re going to die too! Some day.. And how will that be? Have you thought about it? What would you die for? Who I am is where I stand.. Where I stand is where I fall. Stand with me. These people are terrified. Maybe we can help a little. Why not, just at the end, just be kind?”

Oh wow! I hadn't heard that! I didn't realise that was the trigger for talking to Herron, I'd gotten the (wrong) impression it was initially for creative reasons. I heard Herron talking publicly about gingerly getting it past Disney before I heard RTD criticising it. Herron's subsequent dignified response about feeling like she got the most out of Disney's limits, and identifying as bisexual, may then have even been before they talked.

I think you've missed the zeitgeist, my friend. This isn't considered radical any more (nor considered "committed communism"). I've seen a LOT of fandom opinions about this episodes from a variety of places and apart from the insane "I hate black people and gays" brigade, you are the first fan I've seen to consider it as being really out there. Most people are just low key "well that's what weapons manufacturers and big corps are like innit". It's a not controversial take any more to be critical of a system producing billionaires etc. That said, it's a bit spicy for the US milquetoast Disney. But obviously not enough any more to be vetoed. The US is being polarised and Disney is being blasted as on the liberal & godless side of it, so I'm guessing they just aren't as much "playing both sides" cautious any more. RTD blasted Disney over their cowardice in queer representation a few years ago, and look who's funded now. I mentioned it in another thread but it was only due to Kate Herron's careful advocacy with Disney as the director and one of the main creatives of Loki season 1 that there was ANY acknowledgement that Loki was bisexual on screen. But it's pretty clear that she, as a queer person, thought it was a slog to bring up, and that they didn't go far enough. (She also chose not to continue on S2, not officially related.) That's when RTD gave Disney an absolute public serve over what we got on screen with Loki. It's also when RTD and Herron had a conversation and he asked her to write for Doctor Who. (Rogue in a couple of weeks with Briony Redman!) I'm excited about that because she's a big Doctor Who fan and her influence on Loki season 1 was "Doctor Who on a big budget" as far as I can see.

Yeah, it goes "ding" when there's stuff. The Doctor always has new (to us) random mysterious Time Lord technology and senses around time, the thing which clearly makes very little sense when you think about it. Also nicely bookends Ten's annoying "don't step on any butterflies then" to Martha which was clearly an unsatisfactory answer and made me assume he had some minor way to mitigate that.