S12.E06: Praxeus

[formerlyfreedom]

Quote

Team Tardis investigate the connection between a missing astronaut in the Indian Ocean, birds behaving strangely in Peru and a US naval officer who washes up on a Madagascan beach.

Airing Sunday, February 2, 2020.

[DanaK]

Jake Willis: Warren Brown

Adam Lang: Matthew McNulty

Suki Cheng: Molly Harris

Written by Chris Chibnall and Pete McTighe

Directed by Jamie Magnus Stone

Next-time trailer from the BBC

Another version

 

[DanaK]

 

[DanaK]

More promo pics

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p081mpnr/p081mq43

[Llywela]

Hey, Matthew McNulty! Took far too long to place him - in most of the stuff I've seen him in, he usually has more beard than that!

This was an entertaining episode. I don't want to poke too hard at the plot, because I'm pretty sure it'll fall apart, but there was a lot of character movement in this one that I appreciated. I'm still undecided how I feel about this new trend of the Doctor dropping her companions off here and there all over the world and leaving them to run a sub-plot there for a bit while she does something else, it's a very different way of approaching Doctor Who storytelling than I'm used to, but hey - at least it splits up the cast and gives them all something to do. I'm not entirely sure what it says about this Doctor and how she feels about her little group that she sends them off on solo missions the way she does, but it's an interesting development.

There was some nice subtle work with the characters here. I especially loved Graham's little granddad chat with what's his name, the ex-cop - Luke, was it? Lovely work by Bradley Walsh because you could see clearly in his face that Grace was on his mind throughout the conversation, but he very carefully didn't mention his own experience, avoided making it all about him, and just sat and listened and gave the guy the comfort and advice he needed. That was nicely done. And Yaz is interesting me at the moment - you can see her drawing on her police training in all kinds of quiet, subtle ways, and she seems to be gaining confidence all the time, branching out on her own more and more. Less naively trusting of the Doctor, in a sense, the more she learns and the more she learns to trust herself. I'm interested to see where all that's going (if anywhere).

Weird story, but entertaining. I already know the anti-'SJW' gang will hate it, so I'm just going to note for the record here that Doctor Who has been running storylines based around the pollution issues of the day since the 1960s.

ETA I was a bit annoyed that no one seemed to notice they'd lost a man on the beach in Madagascar - but then again, was he human or another of Suki's alien colleagues? I knew he was a goner the moment he said he'd stay outside and watch the birds. Should've stayed close to the door, instead of wandering so far from safety!

Edited February 2, 2020 by Llywela

[HauntedBathroom]

It was competant, if you didn't think too hard. It's as good as something with Chibnall's name on it can be.

[Joe Hellandback]

Watching in the UK so SPOILERS for US/Commonwealth;

1.  Oh great, another socially conscious lecture, this is becoming truly tiresome. 

2. Really liked Suki and Jake, would prefer them to the Doctor's current companions.  

3. Gabriela was quite funny too, like so many internet 'stars' unable to grasp folks hadn't heard about her. 

4. Liked Yas' little double take when it's revealed Jake is a cop, plus her superior. 

5. Nice revelation in the end, no actual villain this week. 

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

11.

12. Not much else to say?

7/10

[Sakura12]

This one was okay, the decision to split up the Doctor and her companions is a strange one. Since we haven't really seen them bond too much anyway. Plus the Doctor not telling them anything about herself. She seems to bond with everyone else besides them. 

I am interested in where Yaz's story is going. She seems more and more interested in the investigating alien weirdness. I don't think she'd be able to go back to regular police work. Jack's back maybe he can restart Torchwood and hire her. 

 They need to find more for Ryan and Graham. They get things to do but they still seem like they are just there. 

[Prower]

I actually liked it. Story was pretty good, cinematagrophy was actually kinda decent for a change (still not very good, but small blessings) and even the acting wasn't bad.

Glad this didn't turn out to be a case of bury your gays (warning TVtropes).

Yaz is the worst. When she turned around the pad for Graham and he switched from "behind that wall" to "behind that door", that was actually a funny joke. Made me laugh. Then she had to ruin it with the "you're welcome". Yes, we get it writers, women are super special and better than the men on this show and they also have to rub it in, apperently.

Then she makes a face because she is "only" on the bottom of the fucking ocean and not on a different planet. Also I don't think touching a transmat button qualifies as discovering an alien planet on your own, in any universe... especially if you weren't alone while you did it!

Honestly seems like Ryan is slowly improving and Yaz just keeps getting worse and worse. I would still be happy if the writers got rid of both and instead got anyone of te surviving people of this episode, but Yaz is clearly the worse of the two.

Edited February 3, 2020 by Prower

[John Potts]

I like the idea of "The Fam" splitting up to attack the plot from multiple points, liked Yaz acting like a cop and that the Villain wasn't so much evil as callous and self interested, but other than that, I thought it was awful. It's not that I disapprove of the subtle underlying message (don't know if anyone else caught it) that pollution is bad, but the episode seemed to be trying to have me hating the guest stars (just because you're a blogger doesn't mean I've heard of you, just because you want more to be done doesn't mean everyone in the world is going to feel the same way, or even know what you want*). The only guest star I liked turned out to be the villain! Also, I couldn't help wondering why they set the autopilot at the end when they could have put the TARDIS on the ship and used it as an escape pod - no heroic sacrifice needed (and if we're going to have another "Adric" moment, have the courage to actually kill the character)!

ETA: I also wondered why the guy left "Watching the birds" felt the need to not only do so outside, but to go even further away from (relative) safety. Beyond the "need" for him to get horribly killed!

* I almost wondered if it wasn't intended as a parody of Millennial attitudes of "It's all about ME!" but I think that's giving the writers too much credit

Edited February 3, 2020 by John Potts

[PWHCHCH]

Episode 7 (next week) was initially marked as episode 3 by the Official Dr Who YouTube channel before being corrected. Makes me wonder if there was a shuffle around of the episodes. Obviously could have been a simple mistake but it would answer why this week had no relationship to last weeks big events.

[Sakura12]

34 minutes ago, Prower said:

Yaz is the worst. When she turned around the pad for Graham and he switched from "behind that wall" to "behind that door", that was actually a funny joke. Made me laugh. Then she had to ruin it with the "your welcome". Yes, we get it writers, women are super special and better than the men on this show and they also have to rub it in, apperently.

I saw a theory that maybe Yaz was changed by the aliens in the first episode since she's acting more like Barton in wanting to know more and be powerful. I could get behind that as an arc. The Doctor never scanned her to see if she was still all human. 

[marina to]

I really enjoyed it but was unsettled that after asking that guy to watch the birds, they completely forgot about him. Like splitting up the team to get answers faster, hope they use that more often.

[elle]

I was disproportionately distracted by Jamila and Gabriella actually camping amongst all that garbage.  It was not sanitary or safe.  Those birds would freak me out.  It really would have made more sense for them to camp away from the river then have Jamila step out of the tent see the bird to check it out than to ask us to believe anyone would pitch a tent in a garbage dump.

I wonder if is just a coincidence that Praxeus can be a homonym to Praxis the Klingon moon that blew up due to over mining.

Edited February 3, 2020 by elle
verbs

[Suzysite]

3 hours ago, Joe Hellandback said:

 

1.  Oh great, another socially conscious lecture, this is becoming truly tiresome. 

 

Exactly.  We get it already.  

After last week's greatness I pretty much expected a filler episode, and we got one.  

[Prower]

47 minutes ago, elle said:

I was disproportionately distracted by Jamila and Gabriella actually camping amongst all that garbage.

Yeah that was dumb. But there was a lot of dumb in this episode. Better not to think about it too much. But since we are at it:

- A double dose of bacteria isn't a thing. Either you are infected or you are not.

- The doctor made a big deal out of the fact that the virus-cure did not work for the aliens since they are not human (a bacteriophage wouldn't care about what the bacteria was in, but let's put that aside), but then spreading the cure around the planet cured all the birds? Last time I checked birds weren't human.

- There might be some micro plastic in our bodies, but it's not "poisoning us". Plastic is pretty innert. Also there is certainly not enough for a bacterium to form plastic-rashes, or whatever that was.

- How was nobody even a little afraid about getting infected? And souldn't everyody have been infected when they breathed in the exploded bodies?

[DanaK]

For some reason I wasn’t really feeling this episode and I can’t really say why. I don’t think it will end up as a favorite. Maybe I’m in a mood, but it seems others feel similar, though there seems to be pretty mixed opinions. I can’t say there’s much to complain about. There were a lot of good character bits as mentioned above and the gay couple didn’t die. It started off really slow for me until it picked up when the Navy guy died. I thought Jodie did well and the companions had things to do. With the team split up, they showed some confidence and some daring

[Cobb Salad]

I was hoping for a continuation of what we saw last week instead we got the Doctor Who version of the National Geographic cover story from a few months ago.  I also got a vibe of the Hitchcock movie “The Birds” when they were running from the lab to the Tardis.  
Unless I missed it everyone in the episode is touching potentially deadly stuff and not wearing anything to protect themselves.  

[sugarbaker design]

12 minutes ago, Cobb Salad said:

I also got a vibe of the Hitchcock movie “The Birds” when they were running from the lab to the Tardis.  

I was looking out for Suzanne Pleshette!

[DanaK]

4 hours ago, Joe Hellandback said:

Oh great, another socially conscious lecture, this is becoming truly tiresome. 

I actually didn’t feel it was very preachy, certainly not to the level of Orphan 55. 

I liked the cop even if he was a mess. At least he worked things out with hubby. I wouldn’t mind if we saw Warren Brown again. The vblogger was kind of annoying but not too bad overall. I liked that we had locations and associated characters in various parts of the world that Who doesn't typically get to. I liked that we had a gay couple and nobody made a big deal of it and that they got to survive and kiss at the end

[angora]

I enjoyed it. Doesn't match up to all the Excited Whovian Flailing from last week, but that's pretty typical for this show, and I thought it was a solid story. I liked the divide-and-conquer approach, and I liked the use of the communications device and the TARDIS for the companions to alert the Doctor to what was going on in one part of the world and then see her pop up there a second later.

It was one where everybody got at least one good moment. I liked Yaz staying behind to investigate the alien lair (and laughed when she was all, "don't freak out, but I followed a teleport to an alien planet," to the Doctor,) Ryan investigating the birds and trying to help Gabriella cope with what was going on, and Graham being a sounding board for Jake to get some stuff off his chest so he could be there for Adam. Meanwhile, I enjoyed the Doctor globe-hopping, geeking out over Suki's lab, and casually admitting she wondered why Ryan smelled like dead bird (ha!)

I liked pretty much all the one-shot characters. They didn't just feel like placeholders, cannon fodder, or figures for the Doctor to exposit at. Glad Jake and Adam seem to be on their way to mending things, and I smiled at Gabriella being so annoyed that none of team TARDIS watched her vlog. I also liked that "Suki" was desperate and self-serving but not really evil.

[DanaK]

An episode about a deadly (alien) virus is kind of bad timing right now

Note that Graham said Yaz is on sabbatical from her police job

[txvoodoo]

 

1 hour ago, Suzysite said:

Exactly.  We get it already.  

If we got it already, we wouldn't be in the state we're in. Just sayin'. I'm old enough to remember when we had ecology messages in all kinds of programming in the 70s, and that was effective for a while.

I too, am glad they didn't bury the gays. This is the first time in a VERY long time that they haven't. 

[elle]

4 hours ago, Prower said:

Glad this didn't turn out to be a case of bury your gays (warning TVtropes).

Thank you for including a warning.  Any link to TVtropes needs one. 😀

Quote

Then she makes a face because she is "only" on the bottom of the fucking ocean and not on a different planet. Also I don't think touching a transmat button qualifies as discovering an alien planet on your own, in any universe... especially if you weren't alone while you did it

On her own apart from the fam.  She did experience being transported to another dimension, so it isn't much of a leap to think you are on another planet.  This was after they learned about the alien virus, right?

Now once it sunk in that I was at the bottom of the Indian Ocean, any body of water, I'd have a massive panic attack!

[AnimeMania]

4 hours ago, elle said:

I wonder if is just a coincidence that Praxeus can be a homonym to Praxis the Klingon moon that blew up due to over mining.

This might be racist but, I thought they might have been making fun of the way Asians say "plastics".

The show picked up the pacing so that people don't have time to think about the plot holes. Everybody seems to think this makes it more like the Doctor Who they remember.

Yaz was interested in that device, did she every get it? Don't follow an alien with a breathing apparatus back to his home planet, you are more likely to be sorry you did.

 

[Llywela]

1 hour ago, AnimeMania said:

Yaz was interested in that device, did she every get it? Don't follow an alien with a breathing apparatus back to his home planet, you are more likely to be sorry you did.

Nope, she didn't get the device, but she did at least study it a bit and gathered some valuable intel from it which tipped the Doctor off to Suki being the bad guy, so I guess it was worth going back for it for that.

[Monners]

The lectures and pandering to political correctness are getting rather tedious now

[Chaos Theory]

Poor Yaz. Thought she discovered a planet only found a polluted ocean.

The birds.  The birds.   
 

And yeah you kinda gotta be crazy to follow The Doctor. 

 

[darkestboy]

I actually enjoyed this one and yeah, it was in danger of being overly preachy but unlike a certain episode this series, it managed to pull off it's environmental a bit more succinctly this time around.

Blogger girl was decent enough, had some good moments with Ryan and Yasmin.

Loved Jake and Adam. Can we at least see them in another episode? Oh go on, Chibnall.

Shame we didn't get the Sea Devils in this episode. It seemed perfect for them to return.

Yasmin was acting a lot off in this episode. It better be leading to something good.

The Doctor and Graham had some decent moments too, 8/10

[gonzosgirrl]

I didn't hate the lecture as much as Orphan 55, but it was a near thing. The astronaut's husband saved it for me. :)

I just found it weird that the Doctor isn't more focused on, oh, say, another version of herself running around out there? It really seemed like an out-of-order episode to me.

[DanaK]

Filming FYI: The various locations were filmed in and around Cape Town, South Africa. One article indicated they had to contend with fierce wind storms

[futurechemist]

The companions are hit and miss for me.  Graham has some snark to him - "well 1 of you is in for a shock".  Ryan and Yaz continue to be bland to me.  They attempted to tie Graham's knowledge of IVs to his previous medical treatments, but they don't really seem to have done anything with Yaz as a police officer or Ryan and his background or dyspraxia.  They didn't use Yaz's background last week either other than Yaz saying she'd speak to the Judoon officer to officer and then immediately ignoring it.  There also seems to be a frustrating tendency to separate the companions from the Doctor for much of an episode  - I think the Tesla episode is the only 1 this season where that has NOT happened.

Why does the bacterium make humans explode, but just make birds angry and not infect any other animals?

I was confused as to why a lab studying water filtration would have all that cool stuff the Doctor needed and Suki was also an expert on microbiology.  I assumed it was the trope that all TV scientists are omnidisciplinary, but was happy when it came around to be important to the plot.

As others said, it was jarring that nobody acknowledged Arumu's death. 

[gonzosgirrl]

21 hours ago, Llywela said:

Weird story, but entertaining. I already know the anti-'SJW' gang will hate it, so I'm just going to note for the record here that Doctor Who has been running storylines based around the pollution issues of the day since the 1960s.

I think the difference is, back in the day it wasn't coming at you from all sides like it is today. Don't get me wrong - I believe we have screwed ourselves and the planet six ways from Sunday, and we need some drastic changes before the choices are taken away completely - but it does get tiresome to get it from all directions.

21 hours ago, Llywela said:

ETA I was a bit annoyed that no one seemed to notice they'd lost a man on the beach in Madagascar - but then again, was he human or another of Suki's alien colleagues? I knew he was a goner the moment he said he'd stay outside and watch the birds. Should've stayed close to the door, instead of wandering so far from safety!

This was so dumb. The birds are in the sky, why are you running away from shelter to look at them, dumbass!!!

13 minutes ago, futurechemist said:

Why does the bacterium make humans explode, but just make birds angry and not infect any other animals?

Maybe because the animals aren't the ones causing the problem? Heh.

[gail56]

I loved the episode, it kept me interested through the whole thing, despite the don't make sense parts. Like the guy staying out to watch the birds. The hospital being empty, did they all get infected and explode or what?

Still, as the Doctor said, I love a romantic!

[Affogato]

22 hours ago, elle said:

I was disproportionately distracted by Jamila and Gabriella actually camping amongst all that garbage.  It was not sanitary or safe.  Those birds would freak me out.  It really would have made more sense for them to camp away from the river then have Jamila step out of the tent see the bird to check it out than to ask us to believe anyone would pitch a tent in a garbage dump.

I wonder if is just a coincidence that Praxeus can be a homonym to Praxis the Klingon moon that blew up due to over mining.

I camped in a gull nesting ground. Hell of an alarm system. 

[QuantumMechanic]

Episode had a great start and setup, but then just petered out in a sea of dumb choices by characters and technobabble.

[elle]

3 hours ago, Affogato said:

I camped in a gull nesting ground. Hell of an alarm system. 

I bet! 

I don't have a phobia about birds, but to see them swirling around en masse above me like that would make me look elsewhere to camp.  I also always look side-eyed at a group of more than two crows or ravens.

The CGI in this one was not good.  From the promos I thought they were bats.  Even I knowing they were birds, I thought they still looked like bats especially in the lab scene.

Was it my imagination or was there not a consistent way for the actors to pronounce the name of the virus? I heard Prax-E-us and Prax-US.

Edited February 4, 2020 by elle

[Lantern7]

Good episode. It felt hectic . . . but given the previous week, it felt like a "breather." "Great . .  .we're at the bottom of the Indian Ocean, I'm trying to thwart a virus that thrives on the minute plastics in the human body . . . and there's the Master and 'Ruth' making out with each other. I think that's second base. I haven't been to a baseball game in a long, long time. Hold on . . . is that River recording those two?!?"

It was fun to see the team split up. If the "fam" consists of four people, why not spread them over three locations on Earth? And swap them out when the plot calls for it? That's not a complaint . . . I don't think the writers of the original series would have done that given the limitations they faced. And if you want Yaz and her new friend to teleport themselves to a fourth site? Go for it.

Transformations were oddly fascinating. I should have figured Jake wouldn't die. The Doctor really, really, REALLY needed a win. Sure, she pulled the same "materialize the TARDIS around the guy" shtick with Jack way back in the day . . . but screw it, "Jack" and "Jake" are close enough, right?

I'm not regretting DVRing this to watch the Super Bowl. In a perfect world, BBCA would have moved the air time to before 6 . . . though I'm guessing legalities would have gotten in the way.

[Llywela]

2 hours ago, Lantern7 said:

It was fun to see the team split up. If the "fam" consists of four people, why not spread them over three locations on Earth? And swap them out when the plot calls for it? That's not a complaint . . . I don't think the writers of the original series would have done that given the limitations they faced. And if you want Yaz and her new friend to teleport themselves to a fourth site? Go for it.

Once upon a time it was completely normal for the Doctor and companions to split up on an adventure - I've been complaining that they haven't been splitting up enough, I don't like seeing the companions just trailing after her like so many ducklings with nothing to do but watch and listen. The big difference is that in the past - yes, due to production limitations - they were mostly split up within a single locale, and the splitting up tended to be circumstantial. The Doctor deliberately leaving companions in completely different regions of Earth so they can all investigate different things simultaneously, that's a very new development. And I'm interested in what the writers are trying to imply about this Doctor and her relationship with these companions.

Of course, once upon a time, the Doctor didn't have the finesse with the TARDIS to be able to achieve any such thing - if the Doctors of old had left their companions to investigate something here and took the TARDIS to investigate something else over there, chances were that companions would end up stranded because the TARDIS couldn't handle the short hops!

[John Potts]

23 hours ago, Monners said:

The lectures and pandering to political correctness are getting rather tedious now

'Twas ever thus. I refer you to an episode produced shortly after I was born, The Green Death. It was about as subtle (though spread over 6 episodes). It's also regularly championed feminism, vegetarianism, pacifism and multi culturalism. So it's not a new (or even a NuWho) thing

[Llywela]

1 hour ago, John Potts said:

'Twas ever thus. I refer you to an episode produced shortly after I was born, The Green Death. It was about as subtle (though spread over 6 episodes). It's also regularly championed feminism, vegetarianism, pacifism and multi culturalism. So it's not a new (or even a NuWho) thing

This. William Hartnell's Doctor had an entire three-episode adventure revolving around the dangers of chemical insecticides and the deadly impact they could have on the wider eco system - like, the central conflict in the story is, "we can't just save ourselves even though we're in deadly danger and one of us is actively dying, we also have to prevent this deadly chemical from being released and destroying all wildlife everywhere purely for the greed of man". That aired in October 1964 as the season two opener. Environmental messages have been part of Doctor Who since, literally, the earliest era of the show. Some of them are subtler than others, to be sure, but there is nothing new about the show exploring such themes - it's a big part of what science fiction is all about.

ETA I do agree, though, that the message tends to land a bit better if it isn't drummed home with a big long speech from the Doctor about how terrible humanity is - sometimes just a few well chosen words can be more powerful than an entire sermon, and Whittaker's delivery tends to be so breathlessly earnest that it can come across as preachy. I sometimes wonder how some of her lectures might come across if they were delivered differently.

Edited February 4, 2020 by Llywela

[Eulipian 5k]

8 hours ago, Llywela said:

Of course, once upon a time, the Doctor didn't have the finesse with the TARDIS to be able to achieve any such thing - if the Doctors of old had left their companions to investigate something here and took the TARDIS to investigate something else over there, chances were that companions would end up stranded because the TARDIS couldn't handle the short hops!

She seems to be getting the hang of it. This Doctor seemed to be in the next room after her telephone chats with the fam. ( I still don't know how Tesla ended up on the Orient Express.)

[libgirl2]

6 hours ago, John Potts said:

'Twas ever thus. I refer you to an episode produced shortly after I was born, The Green Death. It was about as subtle (though spread over 6 episodes). It's also regularly championed feminism, vegetarianism, pacifism and multi culturalism. So it's not a new (or even a NuWho) thing

Yes, but that was a fantastic episode! Pertwee with one of my favorite companions Jo. And it had much better writing. 

We watched Praxeus last night. Meh. I agree that shouldn't the Doctor be thinking about the other Doctor running around? The only bright spot was Yaz stepping up. I so see her going off to revive Torchwood or UNIT. 

5 hours ago, Llywela said:

ETA I do agree, though, that the message tends to land a bit better if it isn't drummed home with a big long speech from the Doctor about how terrible humanity is - sometimes just a few well chosen words can be more powerful than an entire sermon, and Whittaker's delivery tends to be so breathlessly earnest that it can come across as preachy. I sometimes wonder how some of her lectures might come across if they were delivered differently.

Exactly. We don't need a long lecture. We get it. 

[QuantumMechanic]

Re: messages

IMHO it works a lot better, both as storytelling/drama and as effectiveness of message, if the message isn't clunkily, preachily anvil-dropped but instead is organically in the story and the readers/viewers/whatever are given the opportunity to connect the dots themselves, perhaps with some hinting by the characters.

I'll again mention Genesis of the Daleks.  It's certainly not a subtle story, but it also doesn't have Four go on some staring at the camera rant explicitly telling us how Davros et al. are just like Nazis, etc., etc.  The viewers can make the connection for themselves and everything is better for that.

[Eulipian 5k]

4 hours ago, QuantumMechanic said:

The viewers can make the connection for themselves and everything is better for that.

Most of the people who criticize the messages say that they specifically are looking for entertainment and don’t want to think about any of that, much less connect anything to their life.

Funny, so many of them didn’t get “bored” when the show, and most media, was screaming anvilliciously, every week, that there are no blacks, gays, Asians, et al, on earth, in space, or in charge.

[DanaK]

I watched this again tonight and it played better for me than it did on Sunday. Still not great and not a favorite, but it was reasonably good and entertaining. It just had the misfortune of being a non arc good episode coming after a hugely entertaining arc episode. Lots of character stuff to like, especially the team split up and investigating things and Yaz taking a risk investigating the teleport

[AudienceofOne]

I enjoyed this episode a lot as long as I didn't think about it too much. I'll just hand wave the alien pathogen as "It's alien!" and that's why everything about it made no sense.

the thing about this episode - and in fact about a lot of episode since NuWho started - is that it needed to be a two-parter. Some things, like the circling birds in particular, could have been milked for menace. The birds from above, the aliens from below, the bacteria from within. The sense of all those things closing in on you could have been milked or horror  and we wouldn't have had a character death that everyone just... didn't notice... which I thought was kind of awful). 

As a two-parter, this would have been really good.

 

[DanaK]

I think some episodes need to be longer, but I feel a full 2 parter would be overkill for most of them as one or the other episode would end up with too much padding. It’s too bad the BBC can’t so easily just let the show have an extra 10 to 15 minutes whenever the showrunner wants it. I’m not sure this episode would have benefited much because more than a few people didn’t like it in the first place and it might have been more plodding in parts

[UNOSEZ]

On 2/4/2020 at 6:34 AM, Llywela said:

ETA I do agree, though, that the message tends to land a bit better if it isn't drummed home with a big long speech from the Doctor

I personally appreciate the sentiment and you reminding some of these folks how silly their complaints are.. But let's call a spade a spade here.. This message doesn't ring half their "oh political correctness run amok/ SJW/ feminism /forced diversity/ down my throat" bells when its a straight white guy leading the way and women and minorities in a more "appropriate " place this show has the gall to talk about some of the same issues Dr. Who has always touched on... But now its a woman saving the day... And two minorities helping her... Its too much for some and it's the same complaints for just about any show that dares to put up POC or Women or members of the LGBTQIA community in spaces that were previously only appropriate for white cis males... As to why that is... I dunno.. Bit I seen enough comments on enough different shows with the same complaints to notice who's complaining about what... 

Also yeah was Aramu another alien or did they just not care? 

[libgirl2]

17 hours ago, QuantumMechanic said:

Re: messages

IMHO it works a lot better, both as storytelling/drama and as effectiveness of message, if the message isn't clunkily, preachily anvil-dropped but instead is organically in the story and the readers/viewers/whatever are given the opportunity to connect the dots themselves, perhaps with some hinting by the characters.

I'll again mention Genesis of the Daleks.  It's certainly not a subtle story, but it also doesn't have Four go on some staring at the camera rant explicitly telling us how Davros et al. are just like Nazis, etc., etc.  The viewers can make the connection for themselves and everything is better for that.

I had that story run across my mind. It made such an impact on me.