The "Incredibly Impossible to Derail This Thread" thread | Page 1131 | Fab Forum | The Beatles Bible

Beatlebug said
*please note I do not watch or know very much about Doctor Who so take everything I say with a grain of salt

@QuarryMan said

Side note: I have to say I thought the whole backlash to Jodie being cast was really dumb. It’s literally a character who regenerates into an entirely different body and personality every few years, somehow out of.. how many has it been? 14? 14 incarnations, the idea of the character never having been female before seems way more logical than the contrary would’ve been.   

My vague impression at the time was that it wasn’t so much about her being female, but that people were concerned that it was going to be one of those situations where they put a woman into a role that’s traditionally been male for the sake of having a woman, and call it a substitute for decent acting/storytelling/etc. Like I said, I don’t watch Doctor Who, but everything I’ve heard about Doctor 14 seems to confirm that, unfortunately. And it’s a shame. Women deserve better representation than just crappy representation for the sake of it.

Mhm, I do agree, particularly with that last part. I think that whole viewpoint would definitely be more understandable in a franchise like James Bond for example, but I always just found it a bit ludicrous when people opposed it on the grounds that ‘the character has always been a man and that’s the way it should stay’ as if this was a totally ridiculous idea given that, as MMM said, it’s a show about a shapeshifting alien with a time machine..

More generally, in regards to Doctor Who I think it was important to switch around the roles so it wasn’t always depicting a male genius saving the helpless damsel in distress. I always found the episodes where they reversed dynamic that to be quite powerful. I know you don’t watch the show, but for those who do, this is why Martha was one of my favourite companions – she was very capable and outspoken in a way that felt realistic and relatable, and two of her stories in which her role was basically to save the day in the story (Human Nature/The Family of Blood and The Sound of Drums/Last of the Timelords) are largely considered to be some of the very best in the revived show. 

meanmistermustard said
I detested how Martha got everyone to think of or say the Doctor and that saved the world as the Doctor was able to become younger again. The storyline was so good up to that point and it ruined it completely for me. Tho was nowhere near as infuriating as that little brat singing to save the universe (forget the episode but was during the Matt Smith era). I lost a lot of interest after that. I cannot express on here how much I hated that without having to be banned from this forum.

Aw, I like that ending, I thought the idea of Martha having to travel the world for a whole year and only spread a single message was pretty awesome, even if the special effects of the Doctor returning from his Dobby form weren’t exactly great. I have a similar gripe with the ending of season 4 and the Doctor-Donna hybrid thing, which sets itself up so well, only for Donna to somehow save the universe by pushing a bunch of buttons on this weird console that happens to be in Davros’ basement, for some reason, that has the ability to destroy the entire Dalek fleet… apparently. I loved those episodes up to and beyond that point, but I thought that bit was the biggest cop out ever. 

I’m also of the feeling that Martha was pretty useless as she mainly spent the entire series looking at the Doctor with bedroom eyes whilst wanting the bad things to go away so he would go to bed with her, which would never happen because of the whole Rose thing (which bored me by the end).

Here’s the thing, though – she realises that it is never going to happen, and decides to live her own life rather than to spend her whole life pining over him. The scene where she tells him this is very poignant imo – I think most of us will have to ‘get out’ at some point, I know I’ve had to. It was also a refreshing change to have a companion decide to leave the Doctor out of their own volition rather than being torn away by some cosmic force. 

Also, I completely disagree that she was useless, in fact I’d say she was more capable than most of the other companions. As a character she was a medical student (the moment where she told the Doctor ‘as far as I’m concerned you have to earn that title’ was pretty badass, c’mon), and several of her storylines involved her having to take the active role in saving the day when the Doctor was incapable of doing so. Human Nature & The Family of Blood are great examples of this – she had to work as a cleaner in 1913 England, and as a woman of colour endure all manner of horrible racism & sexism directed her way, while the Doctor in his human form was swanning about having a fairytale romance. That and the whole thing of travelling the world on her own whilst it was under the tyrannical control of the Master is more than enough for her not to be considered useless, in my opinion.

On another note, can we have some appreciation for the most beautiful scene in the revived show? (If you’re not a Doctor Who fan, watch this anyway, it’s pretty universal)

Beatlebug said

@QuarryMan said

On another note, can we have some appreciation for the most beautiful scene in the revived show? (If you’re not a Doctor Who fan, watch this anyway, it’s pretty universal)

W h o a

c i n e m a t o g r a p h y

That is really beautiful, thank you.

Makes me tear up every time, particularly Bill Nighy’s speech. I am now unable to find the comment that informed me of this, but if I recall correctly the painting Vincent focuses on at around 0:49 is a Monet (or some other impressionist, if there are any art buffs here who know for sure, let me know), whom the real Vincent was a big fan of, so the little detail of him stopping to look at it and have to be dragged on by the Doctor is true to life. I just love it when shows/films include neat little details like that. 

William Shears Campbell said

AppleScruffJunior said

The people who are still complaining about Jodie’s Doctor purely because She’s A Woman are incels who hate women- even if we had a woman who had the Tom Baker/David Tennant magnitude, they’d still be bitching about “THE DOCTOR IS A MAN”.

I dislike Jodie’s Doctor because she has horrible writing, “come on fam” *shudders* and her storylines are very uninspiring. I don’t think Jodie is getting the material she deserves to flourish as The Doctor, it’s no flaw on her part. In previous things she’s done, she can bloody well act.

I had a problem with the Doctor becoming a woman, as well as the Master becoming a woman when 12 was the doctor.  I absolutely hate when established characters are gender-swapped for no reason but to make a political statement.  That being said this isn’t because I am a woman-hater, because I think it would be stupid if established female characters were changed to male as well, however, the majority of gender swaps these days are characters going from male to female so that is what I complain about most.  The cannon for Time Lords to change their gender was just added in so they could make the Master and then the Doctor women.  It’s a poor excuse for a political statement to come in and ruin a show I enjoy.

As has been said previously, the show is about a time travelling alien who changes their entire body and personality every few years. It is not at all unrealistic for a character of this description to swap their gender. Although the idea of a Time Lord becoming a woman (or vice versa) was only introduced as canon in recent years, it is an idea which has been floated around by actors and producers of the show as far back as the 80s (Tom Baker, upon announcing he was leaving the role, said he wished the best of luck to whoever assumed it, “whoever he or she may be”), and in a 90s comedy special actually happened. At this point, I’d say it’d be more of a political statement if the Doctor didn’t become female at some point.

As for the ‘political statement’, Doctor Who has been a political show since the start. If you don’t have a problem with the Daleks (an obvious allegory for fascism, and in more recent years perhaps religious fundamentalism with the crazed, cult-like Daleks of 2005), the environmentalist themes which have featured in the show since the 70s (“It’s not the oil and the filth and the poisonous chemicals that are the real cause of pollution, Brigadier. It’s simply greed.”), or the quite clear feminism of the show as the Doctor’s female companions have gradually gone from damsels in distress to capable characters with their own flaws and storylines, then I really don’t see why anyone should have a problem with the gender swap, especially when it fits in so logically with the internal lore of the show. I’d say that its political references and allusions have been one of the show’s strongest parts throughout its run, to be honest. For example, the Master’s return as Prime Minister Harold Saxon, who had faked his whole history and brainwashed the entire country into trusting him, was a very biting satire on the career politician to end all career politicians, Tony Blair, and the spotless PR machine that had propelled him to power. Meanwhile, Captain Jack Harkness’ open pansexuality was an absolute riot to watch, and made him one of the most popular characters in the revived show. 

Now, I’ve heard that the writing for Whittaker’s season hasn’t been great, so I understand your qualifier about the writing, but I do think it’s unreasonable to oppose the concept in and of itself, particularly for a show like Doctor Who.

lovelyritametermaid said

Oui, ’tis a Monet (looks like a painting in the “Water Lilies” series to me)– I didn’t know about that until you pointed it out though, what a wonderful little detail

There’s also other Monets (The Portal of Rouen Cathedral, San Giorgio, and what looks to be Impression Sunrise but I’m not too sure…..) and a little bust of the artist himself in the background! 

I loooooovvvveee the Impressionism era– by far my most favorite art movement of all time! Every painting is just so gorgeous and wonderfully executed and I just can’t get enough of staring at them! The colours, the brush strokes, the subjects– all just so gorgeous! I especially love Van Gogh’s Irises and Roses and a lot of Monet’s work (my favorite has to be Woman with a Parasol though there a bunch of others that I adore)  

I feel the same way about the impressionist movement. They are so gorgeous and soothing to look at, it’s almost therapeutic. My arty friends have often poked fun at how much I like the style given that it could be seen as boring or bland from some angles, but to me it captures a very particular emotion where other styles don’t, something very summery and nostalgic. I also love the Fauvist movement, which does something similar except with bolder colours and brushstrokes. Here’s one of my favourites, The Seine at Chatou by Vlaminck. 

More typical of the style, however, would be his painting from the year before, La Machine Restaurant at Bougival.