DoctorAtomic

Prior to the Doctor becoming a woman, the Doctor's main nemesis, also a Timelord, had regenerated as a woman much to the Doctor's dismay and bemusement. There were other Timelords who have been men or women. Prior to *that* an unnamed Timelord regenerated from male to female in a brief scene. *Prior to that* iirc, another one called the Rani, hinted that regenerating male or female or the other way sometimes happened. While the Doctor doesn't have total control over the regeneration (except once), I fanwank that their mental state does influence the regeneration. The Ninth kind of had post traumatic stress, so we see a more adventurous Tenth, for example. Why finally regenerate female? Maybe it was just time. There doesn't have to be a huge reason. At their best, the Doctor inspires traveling companions to be better, learn, and discover new things about themselves, hopefully to carry on to improve the world. Which, not to get too philosophical, hopefully we, as viewers, learn to be better too. Sometimes the companions turn it back on the Doctor and they learn something too. So there's no compelling reason why the Doctor had to be a straight (and they're moving on from that) white guy to be that person. However - because they are the most special of boys and we must take care to make sure fee fees are smoothed and there are never any any ruffles.

Even then, there's procedures in place that whomever has the 'codes' can't just push a button and they launch anyway. And there's no way Pakistan just sells their nuclear arsenal when the whole point of becoming a nuclear state was to counter India.

Isn't there an accepted theory who Zodiac was? But he died before they could do anything about it.

So maybe D+ is hedging on it.

Isn't this co-produced with D+ and BBC though?

Certainly with all this D+ money they could have at least made 10.

Like I said, which invariably forces the writers to dumb down the hero to keep the criminal out of reach. That's why White Collar was so great. Neal was this debonaire criminal who got away with a ton of thefts, but stuffy Peter caught him. Twice. And was reminded of it frequently. Different kind of show than what we're talking about, but still. Talking about Bundy, in his trial, didn't the judge basically fawn over him and say something like, 'oh you would have been a great lawyer?' I only know the Netflix dramatization, so I don't know if it was embellished.

There's only 8? Now I'm quite disgruntled.

I still can bring up a laugh when Miller plopped her scotch egg in Hardy's hand to answer the phone and he practically squawked.

That's it. I was guessing on season 3. They could have had copycats after, just not have them dominate the storylines. The Saw movies went on after Jigsaw's death with disciples. Dexter had different villains every season. Up until catching Red John, I thought they did fine. Jane wasn't on the top of his game with Red John due to the personal angle. iirc, we were all applauding the show at the time for solving the big mystery so early on.

'Woke' is thrown around the internet so much now that's it's basically lost all meaning. I mean, the original Star Wars was woke by that measure.

I actually made that same comment in the episode thread a little while ago.

My suggestion about switching the pov might have made me more invested because the Doctor would be freaking out he couldn't get to the people and they kept getting eaten. You could still have the microaggressions to indicate that something was off. I would have also liked to see Ruby's reactions to that. I don't know if the Doctor knew they were racist and didn't care, which would make sense, or just didn't know at all. Not that the Doctor doesn't know racism, but our modern Doctor (One to present) hasn't never been nonwhite, which was mentioned before. For me, the show is about companions traveling with the Doctor, learning, becoming surprised what they can do, being brave, and taking that back home. So having a conversation, for example, Ruby seeing enough racism in her own time from a very particular perspective, isn't concerned about a bunch of racists being eaten and the Doctor arguing that would have been more interesting. I think you could work in killing September, and you can still have same ending. I mean, ymmv. Clearly, there was still something to the episode for me because I'm still talking about different takes.

How do you do it with Eleven then? They're going to reject going with Amy because she's a ginger? I'm all for social commentary in Doctor Who; the war profiteering of the mine episode and rolling eyes over 'ok Miss Faith, *now* you want proof'. I've said before hurling 'woke' at Doctor Who as an insult is ridiculous to me because the Doctor has always been woke. In terms of the real definition about being aware to social injustice, not the internet definition used to troll. So I'm fine with the theme here. I think maybe it just didn't work for me because of the point of view. If we were from Ruby and the Doctor, you know they'd be talking a mile a minute in between contact and that would maybe liven up the show more. I think that might have been able to establish more suspense or impending doom or horror. I noticed most of the microaggressions, but I just didn't care about the fate of a bunch of racists. Maybe the Doctor would have made me care, but that was about 180 seconds of screen time. I also didn't pick up on that them sailing away was certain death. I'm not saying it wasn't, but I just didn't get it. This is kind of like the last episode where we're just supposed to take for granted that the Old Woman could cause the PM to fear Ruby so much to run away. I don't need everything spelled out, but you also owe the audience an internal consistency too. Again, Ruby might have been able to show that to us, through the Doctor, as it was said upthread about her being more aware. In the end, I liked it enough, probably better than last week, but I think 'didn't work' is fair criticism. I also think wanting to see the Doctor more isn't a hard ask.

And it made Jade have to be stupid to continue the plot.

I think the general consensus was they should have ended Red John with the guy they caught in the third season. He was only a disciple or something iirc.

I totally missed that, so that helps. I was underwhlemed largely because I was hoping that Doctor Who would actually feature the Doctor from time to time. Last week, we at least had Ruby. I also just wasn't buying in to the main character until she gave up Ricky, but before that, the episode just dragged for me. That's why at the end with the Doctor pleading for them, I just didn't care. It's too bad because it seems like everyone else liked it, but I couldn't get anything. Maybe if this one didn't come after 73 yards, I would have been a little more interested.

That's not a bad idea. I remember when Palpatine knighted him as Vader, and I was saying that it happened really fast.

Boston should be favored, but I do think the East was weak too. And they can't count on Dallas beating themselves, like the Pacers did. If everyone's shooting well, these games are going to be in the 130s.

All I've been saying wow Dallas.

And then they go to the park for their clandestine meeting.

Then he called the tree a Christmas cookie on a flag.

Sure, a show could just be not good, or some of the audience might not care for the stories regardless of the lead, but I don't think Doctor Who is probably a good example to bring up. Unsurprisingly, like the Star Wars 'fanboys' Doctor Who fans can also be way too toxic. When the Thirteenth Doctor was a woman for the first time, you can imagine the predictable response; 'woke Doctor', blah blah blah. The actor was lambasted way beyond legitimate criticism. I'd say the stories weren't the best, but they weren't total garbage either. There's one guy on FB that posts "Doctor Who was canceled at the end of Twelve's run" on every single article. Twelve was several years ago! Let it go. Not all fans are like that of course, but I think you all know the types I'm talking about. Here, the discussion on the show is critical, myself included, but not overboard. I get the sense that we're all enjoying both of the leads' performances. On the flip side, if someone just doesn't like a particular show for whatever reason, then it's not fair to call them racist either. Those are the people I'm talking about. There's already moaning about the new Star Wars show featuring women main characters "again" despite initial reviews raving about the show. The thing about Doctor Who is, if you don't like the current Doctor, then there's going to be a new one in a few years!

The whole bit freaking out what all the flags mean killed. "Punishing the sodomites; oh, ok yeah".

I got to live through the OJ trial daily on CourtTV.