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Kite

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  1. Yup, one of the things I loved the most growing up with the old series was the idea of endless corridors. The title sequence often reflected that. Running through infinity. But horses for courses. The show is too eclectic and long-running for anyone to like everything always.
  2. Uhhh first impressions, but I was annoyed about the bi-generation thing. A bit too much Tennant Doctor content during Whittaker's run, an intercedent imma let you finish but—, and then the dude doesn't even actually go at the end, and Gatwa feels like a secondary character during what is generally a really momentous passing on of the torch. Okay audience, you needed some hand-holding, is that it? I've really enjoyed Tennant's Doctor, don't get me wrong. Just come onnnnn, not another splitting him into two thing, and this one gets to hang around in Gatwa's arena. Let it go, RTD! Any other impressions of the ep still percolating while I process this. EDIT: Okay, I’ve now seen the trailer for the Christmas special and I’m feeling somewhat more positive. I’m calling it here, the Master will come back as a dude and the onscreen unresolved sexual tension will be off the charts. Or rather, jilted lover tension, guess who.
  3. Oh who cares what the colour of his skin was, it's not significant to the story. Too often biracial people are treated as one race or another based on the colour of their skin, so white folks aren't really concerned about the accuracy of race so much as focusing on appearance. No one talks about the fact that the Fifth Doctor was played by a biracial man who attributed his acting success partly to the genetic lottery of pale skin. Biracial figures of history routinely get whitened (such as Beethoven). Perhaps race and skin colour don't need to have significance attributed to them unless in a specific cultural context. Maybe just "I was born in Cheltenham" is the most important thing about someone's culture, and they get to determine what their particular ancestry means to anyone. Europe was historically faaaaaar from homogenous in terms of ethnic origin and skin colour, because of incursions, trade, migrations and slavery. And modern understandings of common national and ethnic identity, and the focus on skin colour and perceived ethnic origins as fundamental dividers/categorisers, are just that. There's always been tribal us-and-them instincts, but the basis for division is not as today. In Newton's time, a casting director would likely have a whole set of different criteria to focus on, because skin shade alone was not yet considered one of the fundamental dividers to be "faithful" to. Seeing as you can't get the ACTUAL person in. This has also been used endlessly to argue the Doctor should only be cast as a white man, as opposed to a bunch of other criteria. It's important to ask why it's so uncomfortable. Maybe that's the point? Listened to the excellent TARBIS podcast yesterday on this episode, where they WILL focus on race politics in the show, and the Newton casting didn't even rate a mention. It really is mostly white folk getting tangled up in knots over a skin tone and nothing else, why? Go pick on the hairstyle, the apocryphal nature of the apple story, the fabric weave and dye colour authenticity, the social status cues, lol, why is this what takes you out of the story.
  4. Ah yes, the classic ‘across the pond’ terminology difference: “wank”! Teehee!
  5. I never found it odd. For me I thought it’s a chameleon circuit that adapts to its surroundings and what people psychically expect to see. It doesn’t stay neutral. This is the Doctor’s TARDIS, and to the 13th Doctor, she saw what to her looks like the Doctor’s TARDIS. (And TARDISes have sensitivity to the future and destiny too, they’re a bit magical.) To the Fugitive Doctor, its shape is unremarkable, an earth shape, it constantly changes, assuming they’re seeing the same things which they may not be. It’s quite possible (and my head canon too) that this is actually the same TARDIS which was stolen later on, and One did not remember it. Anyway, Chibnall did say in some interview there was a perfectly logical explanation, and it did really sound like it was going to be revealed later. I was annoyed when it didn’t, but also a lot of content ended up on the cutting room floor when the pandemic happened apparently, he has said it was pretty horrible and was tempted to walk away for a while. EDIT: Pretty sure the between 2nd and 3rd Doctor theory was discredited by Flux, with where Fugitive Doctor was placed in Gallifrey’s ancient timeline?? Or?? I had kind of checked out of wild fandom speculation by that time, I overall enjoyed Flux and wanted to do so in peace! But I sure don’t remember the details now.
  6. The conspiracy theory is that RTD is obviously lying and going out of his way to lie. He didn’t have to put such a strong continuity and emotional acknowledgement in, and right away, you know. He could have just ignored it or given the briefest nod at some point. He didn’t have to be quite SO enthusiastic about the idea in interviews. Who knows for sure, but the point is, you don’t, and at this stage it’s violating Occam’s razor to insist your interpretation is the obvious one. When the show came back, I had a hard time getting used to the fact that the Doctor was so special, he killed off all the Time Lords and Daleks and is now living with the galactic guilt from that. Before that, he was just some guy (except when he was president but, you know). RTD was a huge cheerleader for 13 too, he was the first to drop a hint it was a woman through hiding it in a cartoon in a published book. Plenty of fans insisting the obvious interpretation was he was only being polite.
  7. Are you trying to imply there’s some kind of conspiracy theory where RTD is unable to honestly admit he doesn’t like the part of the backstory you don’t like and is forced to pander to it lol? I mean, the alternative interpretation is that RTD likes the part of the backstory you don’t like and is expressing his creative freedom, which he’s never been shy about expressing before ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
  8. Thanks for this. Stats obviously reflect eastern vs western hemisphere in terms of days vs time zones. Nice to see Australia and New Zealand being the loyal colonies we are in terms of Doctor Who viewership. Though I'll bet a great deal of Australian fans sailed the high seas like they said they were going to after our Auntie lost the rights to it, and D+ is so expensive. Interesting, very popular in Turkey, or at least popular with D+ subscribers there.
  9. Ten was way more Casanova (as played by Tennant for RTD), self-involved, cocky, prideful, almost aggressively distancing when it matters. He's not entirely not that here, I mean, last ep with the "it killed me" instead of an actual apology to Donna. But he's more emotionally available/open this time, more aware/empathetic, his ego gets less in the way, he seems to be a more mature reflective and subdued version of Ten. A Doctor for a good time but not a long time for a story arc, imo.
  10. Well, youtube was barely starting back in 2008, and it was a lot of silly memes and so forth, still pretty niche. Social media in general was pretty decentralised. And not a career choice. But if you're saying DW fandom wasn't full of polarised vitriol 15 years ago, you'd be dead wrong, unfortunately. It was full of raging fans raging about how terrible the show was and how woke the show was and calling for it to be cancelled and the latest producer fired. I know, because I was there. And 25 years ago. Whenever I felt masochistic enough. It was just confined to very particular nerd parts of the internet. And before that, the drama was mostly conducted via fanzines and meetings. It's unfortunately been traditionally quite a toxic fandom, and I think it's actually got a lot better over time as spaces diversified and more people came in and younger people got better at critical analysis and just less bigoted. What changed in 2005 was an influx of (mostly) female fans who formed their own spaces which were actually a lot more positive, but endlessly mocked and discredited. Plus there was Jacob and his essays at TWOP. But they weren't THE main fandom space and its satellites back then, where people involved in the show like Steven Moffat used to hang out (although he wisely cleared off before his 2005 episodes aired). It's not much of a secret that RTD based the Abzorbaloff on a very particularly terrible ascended fan, and had very little time for how gross the fandom was.
  11. Interesting, since I couldn't stand those relationships in particular out of all new Who, but what bothered me there I didn't see here.
  12. RTD does it again, that was great. Clipped along at a great pace, centred the characters (thankyou!), nicely weird as befits the show, and very different from last week, which also befits the show. And if you're going to bring Tennant back, torturing him to bring out his emotional arc in the short time he's here is definitely the way to go. It was really a good move to focus the middle episode primarily on the Doctor and Donna's relationship. Next week is going to be hectic again. Visuals were off-the-charts fabulous (at least to my unsophisticated eyes), and there was a lovely Classic feel to much of the episode, probably the bottle aspect and all the space corridors. There is definitely destiny in these three episodes, and probably beyond. I wonder if the "half the universe destroyed" will be acknowledged again, surely it will? It was SO ANNOYING how that was barely? not at all? mentioned after Flux, like, fans were wondering if it was actually still destroyed, and that's just not a good place to leave a little plot detail like that lol. So thankyou for finally getting an acknowledgement and some emotional payoff... in the next era. Bonus if there's more Gallifrey/identity angst somewhere down the line, although I'm probably in the minority. Just as long as it's a fresh way to do it haha. Bring back exiled Rassilon and make him the Doctor's problem. The Fourteenth Doctor really showed how he is not the Tenth Doctor, which is quite surreal, and kind of beautiful with his reactions. I wouldn't want this incarnation to go on and on, this is a coda. EDIT: Also, just watched the preview for next week, and was reminded there was a reference to the main villain in the previous era (Can You Hear Me?), which seemed to confirm his particular place in the cosmos.
  13. To be fair, I think labour brings out the Donna in a LOT of people going through it. Speaking with first-hand experience. It was an easy but very funny comedy shot with Donna asking her husband if he’d be jealous if she went with the Doctor, husband eyeing him up and answering in the emphatic negative, and the Doctor’s offended face hahaha, the Ten in him was …OUCH.
  14. YES!! I KNEW IT!! When Kate Herron quit Loki, seemingly prematurely, I thought to myself “I wonder if she will pop up in Doctor Who?” I had a very strong feeling Herron would have had much to talk about with RTD, given: 1) Herron, as a queer person, was responsible for proposing and pushing the queer content, such as it was in Loki, at a reluctant Disney management 2) RTD specifically took aim at Disney for their cowardice in not going far enough with this. RTD has a professional lifetime of trying to push the queer envelope with network execs. 3) Herron is a huge Doctor Who fan and has name checked it as an influence on her work. 4) Everyone called Ep 3 of Loki S1, with a heavily British creative team, “like Doctor Who if it had a Disney budget”. 5) Wasn’t long after that that RTD started dropping excitable hints online and apparently talking to Disney. i am not familiar yet with Briony Redman! But I love how Doctor Who pulls in a diverse bunch of writers to suit its diverse genres and styles! EDIT: Lol, should have read article properly, this is pretty much what happened apparently: “I was a huge fan of Loki and reached out to Kate to say so - she then introduced me to Briony, and it was all systems go!”
  15. I enjoyed this one a lot. I went into it without much in the way of expectations, because although I loved Ten/Donna, I’d rather the show keep moving forward. Well, this episode kept moving forward at a brisk cheerful pace, and was a lot of fun. I miss the Whittaker era, and I’m looking forward to Gatwa, but fiiiiiine I’m enjoying this and damn it’s great to have Doctor Who back on screen. And quarantined somewhat from the Tories, thanks RTD. I’m guessing the Meep is gonna be talking to the Time Lord who is about to make this Doctor’s life way more fraught. I’m a sucker for Time Lords so that’s an easy sell. Also their lore but I’m guessing RTD will probably maintain his allergy to Gallifrey hanging around, oh well. I’d rather they be there causing periodic trouble and annoyance for the Doctor. And the Sisters. You really don’t believe in destiny by now, Doctor? Come on, what show are you in? It’s full of prophecies and magical coincidences despite its rationalist sheen. The TARDIS is the very embodiment of that. I agree with the on-the-nose nature of the pseudo-feminist “let it go” thing. Sigh. One of the things I did not miss from the Moffat era, but here it is. Still, TERF island needs to get clobbered over the head with positive messages about trans people so I hope it hit its mark. I think the TARDIS wanted to have some chaotic fun with Donna and the Doctor. Totally wouldn’t put it past her. A tame little hop? With so much history and emotion flying around? No sir, destiny awaits! I don’t know how long it will be before that fobwatch in the depths of the TARDIS will be mentioned, if it will take years or decades (it will, because writers, even though of course we can’t really get the full answer), but I’d love if it would be sooner than that. Even if just a whispered babble of voices and a dark look. My kids might even like this episode. Which I’m absolutely sure RTD is heavily aiming for. EDIT: I really doubt RTD will kill off Donna, because A) he’s indicated in the past he wants to redo Donna’s ending to serve her better, B) RTD is leaning heavily into feel-good family-friendly plus fan-pleasing nostalgia to get people back in, C) Doctor Who doesn’t actually do major sympathetic character death that often. The exception was Moffat and he gave them all happily ever after. And Adric. Everyone hated Adric until he died, and that was decades ago.
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