#i can't believe RTD actually did it

[madfantheyinablueblog]

THE MEEPENING HAS BEGUN

#meep meep motherfuckers #mwahahaha #i can't believe RTD actually did it #doctor who #dw #doctor who eu #doctor who extended universe #doctor who expanded universe #new who #doctor who comics #doctor who spoilers #dw spoilers #beep the meep #my gif #meme #shitpost #beep the meep my beloved

[dreamcaught]

I saw a post earlier where the OP went on at length about how TenDonna is the true ship, how they 'won', how they are the proper love story, and not platonic. And lots of people agreed! I was dumbfounded. Don't get me wrong I get that she was his best friend but love interest? Nah GTFO. Going on about how they were keeping their relationship quiet to protect her.. clearly never heard of show don't tell.

I also can't help but feel there's a bit of retconning going on as well by RTD. Fourteen saying losing Donna killed him, over and over again. Erm, did it? Yes it clearly made him very sad there's no disputing that. But Ten going mad after JE was a result of losing everyone - Donna AND Rose yet again. I just.. don't get some people

I agree! While I don't think that RTD did us too wrong, I understand that he was trying to wrap up a story from his last era in a way that made sense to his viewers, if you know what I mean? He couldn't do much with the intervening showrunners' work without stepping on their toes, so going back to Donna - a person who was literally out of action for the past 15 years - makes perfect sense.

RTD loves his ending with Tentoo/Rose because it was the Doctor's romantic arc. Donna has always been more like the Doctor's sister, from start to finish. There is - in my opinion - less than zero romantic chemistry between them, and it's blatantly shown and told within canon. If you look back, he almost denied her traveling with him because he was worried she fancied him (like Martha did). He only wanted to travel with Donna because she could be his friend! Why people change that to mean "that he's keeping their relationship a secret" is the same kind of delusional crack-ship thinking as people believing Ten and Martha were a thing. It's just silly and so not intended.

In some ways, though, the 60th specials were absolutely DoctorDonna fanservice, and that's not so bad if it's interpreted correctly. I would have lost my mind if it had been Tentoo fanservice instead, so I can't begrudge them their happiness. It's the misinterpretation of their very obviously platonic relationship that feels icky and kinda disrespectful. I mean, Donna's actually married? Fourteen is (likely) gay? It's all lined up to express their relationship as familial and still people think they've got some secret romance going on.

"It killed me, it killed me, it killed me" is a beautiful line that expresses how vulnerable Fourteen is in this body, but it doesn't actually mean it killed him three times. It's an exaggeration, like how Fourteen seems to express lots of things. If people want to think that it somehow means that the Doctor regenerated three times thinking of Donna every time, well, they can go right on ahead with that little fantasy headcanon because there's very little we can do to change their minds at this point.

#thanks for talking to me! #doctor who #dw spoilers #fourteenth doctor #tentoo x rose #donna noble #rtd #rtd2

[transmasc-rose]

Thinking about an AU where the Doctor tries to avert companions deaths by giving them regenerations. (I think @quietwingsinthesky wrote a bit about this once!)

There is mild precedent for this--RTD wrote a story about the Time War as though it was the last few pages of a book, in which the current Doctor believes he's going to die, but was actually given the spark of regeneration by a different dying Time Lord. In the narration he muses about doing this for someone else one day.

He then does the whole blowing up Gallifrey and regenerating into Nine bit.

I think an arc written for the show itself would deal with the idea of avoiding death/being immortal being unnatural for humans, nd that everyone has to die one day, but I think a more interesting exploration would be about why the Doctor does it and how the companion feels about it.

The Doctor, time and time again, believes he knows best--for the world, for his people, for the humans he takes care of.

And so he believes the same here. Saves them in a desperate moment, because he can't stand losing them.

Maybe he saves two companions. And he thinks things can go back to normal.

And one adjusts well. Takes to their new body with excitement. It isn't easy, but they work through the issues together. And the Doctor thinks, ok, the next one will be like this too!

But it isn't. The second companion wilts. They had no choice in this, no control, and no preparation. They're shoved in a new body they can't begin to understand (is it more Gallifreyan than the first?), one they didn't ask for.

And the Doctor doesn't understand. Because he did this for their own good. Don't they understand that? They'd be dead without him.

And they point out that they'd be alive without him too. If he'd never come at all. But now there's not even a body to send home.

#rose rambles #doctor who #doctor who au #dw au #lets play with the moral complexities of the doctor together. take my hand.

[onewomancitadel]

A smattering of general updates:

I played Tears of the Kingdom. I didn't really enjoy it. I understand why it was popular though; I'm just not the demographic for these types of video games anymore. I didn't find it creatively rewarding and after a time I sat there thinking 'I would rather be writing right now', and since then I have learnt that writing is made easier by doing things which are not writing, because it makes me miss it. My dad also doesn't really like it but for some reason has played hundreds of hours in it. I don't know either - I think he will take anything called Zelda at this point.

I spectated the Doctor Who David Tennant Special and watched some clips of the new season. I'm not a fan of RTD, and not a DW fan anymore (not for a long time), but it was an interesting study in how studios try to attract old and new fans.

I read a lot of books, and that lie people tell you about all books being good for you is a lie, because a cyberpunk anthology of short stories made me so angry I got heartburn. I think people who say that are saying so because they wish that they could read a lot, in which case I say, yes I think reading is a gift and we should engage with it, however, sometimes I get so physically angry from something stupid/bad I've read because bad writers exist that it gives me actual pain. I am reading Howl's Moving Castle right now and it's very joyful; I am very surprised by the liberties the animated film took! However so far I do think both experiences are worthwhile, and if you enjoyed the Ghibli film, I very much recommend checking out the original book if you want to revisit that world again. The prose is straightforward but a little whimsical, and Howl is very, very funny. I have laughed aloud a few times.

Well, you know I rewatched Dark, and it's funny that during my exile I said 'this is like if RWBY got the ending it deserves' and then, er, I found out it's not renewed yet, and that's still up in the air, which for the entirety of RWBY I have only had one true moment of doubt of such a thing, and that was a while ago.

On that topic, yes, I still ship Jaune/Cinder, believe Cinder's redemption is likely, etc., although there are some more external concerns I would wager now than before. Before I thought it very possible to do without any commercial influence, and it depends what compromises they do or don't end up making or having already made. My analysis of Jaune's arc in V9 may not hold water as much (e.g. if you lean towards the view there were rewrites to cater to growing the audience, or perhaps it's two ideas married? I'm not sure) so I'm going to think about it more, and there always has been a tension in RWBY between what is being expected/baited and what is foreshadowed/said/actually happens.

I figured out how to write again and what was blocking me, so there's that. To talk about it a bit more, since my break I have worked every single day on writing. My key takeaways are that you need a delicate balance of delusion and self-doubt to get anything done - you don't know you can do something until you actually do it - and every excuse I invented for not writing was not the reason I was not writing. I can write with a migraine beginning to set in on an uncomfortable desk where I can't even rest my elbows properly on the end of a bed with no back support without aircon in the middle of summer before I've even taken my hair out from bedtime plaits in my pyjamas. I didn't even expect to get my fic done right before midnight, actually I was like 'well lol that's not going to happen, I'll write anyway though, fuck New Year's' because I wasn't doing anything, and then I finished and looked at the time and was like ooooh. I actually completed my goal! So I'm very proud of that. Anyway writing is breathing, to me, I go crazy if I don't do it, no matter what it is, and every single piece of nonsense advice of productivity was not helpful, ever, but I did figure it out. Also admittedly I got a fire burning under me again because I found out I was actually right about Raven, in which case I took that as a sign from heaven I was on the right track. One should hope.

I am excited about Dune Part Two, yes, although I am trying to avoid Villeneuve talking about the film because I know all the marketing is basically directed at people who aren't Dune fans, and I have to see it for myself to see what it's worth. I enjoyed the first film, and Villeneuve seems excited to direct Dune Messiah, in which case I am willing to do whatever possible to make that happen. Because that's about as complete a story you're going to get in a major motion picture adaptation and it would be So Fucking Good.

#seraphina party hour

[lovelacefc7723]

Martha Jones

It wasn't Ten who wasn't good to Martha, in some part it was actually Russell T Davies.

Martha Jones is a phenomenal character and a wonderful companion. She is brave, persistent, smart, independent. Fiercely loyal to the ones she loves, extraordinarily proud of who she is.

As a companion, she did what only the greatest companions do, she trusted and she believed. She believed in the Doctor so much that she made the whole world believe in him too. But I also think in the end she wasn't meant for the TARDIS. Because Martha Jones is a believer but not a dreamer, for how I see her.

Martha Jones is a strategic mind, she's made for the action, for the battle, for walking the Earth to complete a Mission. I also think she was the Companion who actually saw lesser wonders of the Universe or of Space and Time than the others. Other than Shakespeare, she found herself on pretty much always dystopic realities, on an infinite underground highway, on a ship soon to crash in the sun, on a Dalek-led New York, at the end of the Universe, her adventures were dark! But generally speaking, noticing also how her character evolves after S3, she really was meant for missions and operations, she was meant for UNIT.

The greatest weakness of her characterization is her love for the Doctor. Not that loving the Doctor or love in general is weak or bad, it's the fact that somehow she loved him more than she loved the life he was offering her. It was somehow easy for her to step down the TARDIS because she was there for HIM, not for journey. Many companions have fallen in love with the Doctor but in my opinion, the greatest of them loved first their lives on board of the TARDIS. Rose, Clara, Donna, they would have never left, till the end they had stars in their eyes, they wanted to see, to discover, to know, to live, they wanted wonders and dangers and madness out of space and times. And I never had the feeling that Martha wanted all of that.

That's where RTD did her dirty. Martha Jones was more than her love for the Doctor and her time on the TARDIS should have been funnier, more colorful. The Doctor never treated Martha badly, he was grieving Rose, you can't blame him for that, at the time I was grieving Rose too. But he cared for Martha, not like she wanted him to but he cared, the Doctor always does.

(gif not mine)

#doctor who #martha jones #the doctor #tenth doctor #david tennant #freema agyeman

[metacrisisdoctor]

everytime i read a quote about the doctor and river it makes me rub my temples in frustration while also making me so so so deeply grateful that the doctor and rose's story ended how it did.

putting this under the cut, so if you do ship the doctor and river you don't have to read this.

the thing is: the doctor and river's relationship was a cool idea that moffat completely half assed, but at the same time he made it so that river is meant to be seen as more important than all of his other relationships up until his final life (without showing us the journey there) and i find that so insulting to the nature of the show. they are both locked into this "marriage" with such little choice in the matter, if any. it makes me sad for BOTH of them.

so according to moffat in the "end" river is uploaded to the library and the doctor is allegedly there too, his mind uploaded to the moon or whatever. but wtf kind of ending is that for the doctor? that's so odd to me. i don't ever WANT to know how things end for the doctor because the story should never have definite end, but moffat wanted to have the very last word in 2008 ig.

it confuses me further that he decided to write a pretty overt romantic storyline with eleven and clara in s7 which then continues onto twelve and clara. not because the doctor can't be in love multiple times or because i think it would bother river but because it makes it the relationship that is actually developed for THREE seasons.

i understand rtd being accepting of river during s4, since he was going to step down as showrunner seemingly forever. and i genuinely think that this is why rose and her doctor were sealed off the way they were even if he's never actually said it.

it's such a large part of why, to me, tentoorose is such a gift. it's so beautiful. because the "original" doctor has this future that is set in stone that tentoo never has to be part of. he is not only free from being essentially immortal, but he is free from being manipulated into a marriage with river and from being potentially uploaded into the library. and rose has the gift of having the last version of the doctor who does not know river aside from one episode. this doctor loves rose and rose alone. he will never be married to river, he will never have whatever romance went on with clara and yaz either. and i do believe that the doctor is allowed to fall in love multiple times in their many lives, which is where both doctor/river and "rose and all the doctors" does not work for me at all but then again, it doesn't matter because rose got her happy ending with the freest and happiest version of the doctor there ever will be and i'm so grateful for that when i remember how bonkers the plot became after season four.

some people say they dislike je because tentoo isn't rose's doctor when it's the complete OPPOSITE by now, and i cannot imagine rtd ever having a reason to undo that so when people suggest he would break them up for rose to be back with the "real" doctor i'm just like, you understood NOTHING. he wanted them to be safe and happy and HUMAN tucked into their own world that no one else but him would or could ever touch. because of journey's end the doctor and rose truly end up together in the most even, healthy and honest way possible. i just still feel so lucky 😭💗

#rambles #anti moffat #anti doctorriver

[marley-manson]

New Doctor Who episode reaction post in a pros and cons list. Overall I really liked it.

Pros:

-- That's my show!!! That's my faves!!!!!! They're right there on the screen!!!

-- Donna Donna Donna Donna Donna Donna Donna Donna <3333333333333333

-- Gorgeous TARDIS interior, I cannot believe it's an actual 100% physical set god damn, I'm in love. I think it's actually better than the old coral

-- Rose was a great character, love her. I think Davies did really well writing her as trans, the scene with her shitty classmates and Donna being protective was a great moment imo that was just the right amount of transphobia to feel grounded without feeling gratuitous, and Sylvia second guessing herself about calling Rose gorgeous was also a nice moment. Felt real but also warm and loving.

-- I liked that Rose feeling like she's from an alien planet isn't a trans thing, it's a secretly has timelord genetics thing lol

-- oh god the Doctor saying he's a friend of Nerys was incredible, amazing writing, so fucking funny, love that continuity

-- Shaun was great too, love his amiability

-- I liked the Meep being the twist villain, you could see it coming a mile away but I'm always a fan of these kinds of twists

-- I also loved that one of the hints was that Shaun's car wasn't affected by the energy weapons because during that scene I was like 'lol wtf why are their weapons so weak come on' and then 2 minutes later I got an explanation. Love when that happens

-- I liked that Sylvia chilled out a lot and is much better but still isn't a perfect parent (taking a moment before reassuring Donna that she does know how Donna feels about Rose eg), and Donna partially overcompensates with Rose because she didn't get enough praise from Sylvia, and Sylvia seemingly trying to make up for her unsupportiveness of Donna by being very supportive of Rose. Man I love how Davies writes people, yk?

-- I got teary when Donna got her memories back <333

-- RTD always showing the big dangerous effects of the aliens through the pov of innocent bystanders <3 Mainly the neighbour kid in this case.

-- UNIT's scientific consultant was great. I forget her name, but again I enjoy how RTD wrote her representation-wise. She does have a disability, she can't take the stairs and that's a plot point at one point, but she also has some awesome ways to help not just in spite of her disability but because of it. Again, a great balance between grounded and uplifting imo

-- Catherine Tate's performance as a half-timelord is just so fun <3

-- I really loved the revelation that Rose inherited some of the timelord stuff and so she helped save the day as well as keeping Donna alive longer, it was a great exciting moment

-- I was spoiled for the Doctor's line where he tells Donna he loves her and then goes 'oh do I say those things now?' and I was prepared to be annoyed at the gender essentialist implication that it's from ~the female doctor~ but in context it did not feel like a reference to Thirteen being more open, it just felt like the Doctor reflecting that this regeneration isn't exactly the same as Ten. I haven't seen Thirteen so I can't say what her personality is like exactly beyond some vague osmosis, but it could be read as a contrast since he just regenerated from her and that's the kind of stuff a new regeneration says in comparision to the last one. Which I dig.

-- I liked the psychic paper giving him a 'mistress' title and the Doctor saying "oh catch up." Actually in general I enjoyed the occasional Thirteen references, the Doctor was a woman, not anymore, cool. Good, light touch. I am primed to be easily annoyed at how sci-fi gender changes are handled, so I was pleasantly surprised.

-- Oh, I like that the 10 clone thing is gonna be an ongoing mystery over these three specials. I didn't like the concept when I'd heard about it (I was like c'mon can't we get Ten II up in here if we're going to bring Tennant back?) but it is the only way to have a Ten+Donna adventure at this point in the story without handwaving the aging and making it a multi-doctor story featuring 3 Doctors idgaf about, and it's def worth it, so I'm glad they're making it a mystery to be solved rather than giving an offhand easy explanation at least.

Cons:

-- This is on me, but having not watched the show aside from like 5 episodes in the last 15 years, I'm not sure which elements are RTD originals and which are from Moffat and/or Chibnall. Like the sonic screwdriver being able to draw in the air and create forcefields? I don't like that.

-- Also on that same note, UNIT's Judge Dredd swat team vibe? What's up with that? Not a fan, not sure who to blame tho.

-- But yeah this lack of knowledge of what came before left me feeling a little lost sometimes, unsure what I'm supposed to roll with and what's supposed to be new and cool. I'm hoping RTD does more of a clean new start overall because I'm not willing to watch previous DW for the sake of this series.

-- RTD's thing with... puns as (usually retrospective lol) foreshadowing? Always one of the sillier things about his writing, eg YANA, the Doctor-Donna being an actual thing rather than an idiosyncratic speech pattern, etc. Anyway he did it again with the binary/non-binary thing and I thought it was silly again.

-- Biggest con probably is that the resolution to the half-timelord thing was underwhelming and I realize this was meant to be a bit of a feminist statement but came across as gender essentialist as hell too. We're women so we understand we can just let the power go??? At LEAST make it crystal clear that this is only an option now that it's dispersed between two people and not something Donna could've done 15 years ago lol.

-- The editing felt a little off? Scenes cut off a hair too quickly, causing the pacing to feel rushed during a lot of it. There were a few good emotional and character scenes that had room to breathe ofc, but the action/plot scenes felt a little too crushed together, yk? Gimme half a second after a line of dialogue before you cut to the next scene pls.

-- Oh I was meh about the opening titles, but honestly that's just because I like how simple the old RTD credits were and these feel overdone in comparison. But that's a super minor complaint lol, I don't really care.

That's about it though honestly, I actually enjoyed it a lot more than I expected to. I mean I was vascillating hard between high and low hopes lol, but yk. I try to keep my expectations moderate, and those expectations were exceeded. Before this I wasn't sure if I was going to jump back in at all, but now I'm genuinely looking forward to the next special, and the next Doctor after this anniversary stuff!

#text post #marley on doctor who #doctor who spoilers

[cringecompanionapologist]

So, there's a lot going on with Doctor Who right now, and I'm not sure it's all gonna work out, but I really want to give RTD the benefit of the doubt right now, because he's got a nearly impossible task here.

The show went through a dip in ratings and he was brought back in to rescue it. He revived the series from the dead in the first place. But, he now has to create something keeping a very diverse audience in mind. I don't mean "diverse" in a race/gender/sexuality sense, though that's certainly also true. I mean diverse in what they actually want from the show. I mean, you've got:

Fans of the Classic series who generally hate everything new.

Long time fans who like the new series, but weren't really into the Chibnall era.

These can be divided between "We didn't like Chibnall and we want things to be like they were before him" and "We didn't like Chibnall and we want something completely new."

People who stopped watching the show some time between 2010 and 2022 who want to get back into it, because it looks like it did when they were watching it.

Literal children who just watch Doctor Who.

Fans of the Chibnall era that don't like that it ended.

Fans very critical of the first RTD era who just don't want him back in general.

Fans who think the Chibnall era was "too political"

Fans who think the Chibnall era played it too safe politically. (Compare the treatment of capitalism in Oxygen to the treatment of capitalism in Kerblam.)

And I'm definitely forgetting some people here. He has to make the show like it was in the classic era, like it was the last time he was running things, like the Moffat era, like the Chibnall, and like something completely new. Something different, but not too different. Something inoffensive, including to people who get offended by attempts to be inoffensive. Something that appeals to children without seeming too childish for adult fans. And it all has to bring up ratings and turn a profit.

So everything he's done so far that you don't like was done in an attempt to cater to someone else.

David Tennant's back for the people who stopped watching after he left. This is stupid to everyone else.

Series 14 is a new Series 1 for new people who feel weird starting a show in its 14th season, who we don't want to binge 13 seasons to catch up. It ruins the numbering system for anyone keeping track.

13's cloths changing when she regenerated into 14 was an attempt to avoid controversy with one group which created controversy with others. Same thing with all the Davros stuff recently.

Meanwhile, you have Tales of the TARDIS, a popular dw comic villain appearing in the show, and the return of a one-off villain from 1966 to appeal to classic series and eu fans, as well as make new fans curious about those things.

He's trying to do something for everyone, but some things that are for one group are against another. Still, I can't be mad at him for trying. He's being giving a near-impossible task of saving a sinking ship, which wasn't sinking for half of its passengers, and already underwater for a good portion of the other half. Things are going to go wrong in there somewhere.

I'm still going to wait and see how this next season goes before calling it a success or failure. I don't believe Doctor Who can be Ruined Forever. Even if it's cancelled, it'll come back eventually. It's already happened. And even if it's not on TV, we're still got a lot of other stuff. This show, even if it's doing things you hate, is unkillable.

I know I have absolutely no sway over this fandom, but I think we should try to be patient. Even if you didn't like the RTD era, he's still trying here. If you didn't like the first RTD era, don't be surprised if you don't like this one. This era will end and you might like the next one. If you don't, whatever you do like will still be there.

Everything's gonna be fine by someone's standards.

#rtd2 #doctor who #this fanbase is incapable of being happy

[joju-but-trek]

Doctor Who Season 14, Episode 1: Space Babies

Well, that was a lot.

This episode had to do two things: it had to introduce this era of Doctor Who and it had to tell a good story. It did both of those well, but I think it was better at the first than at the second.

I do recommend this episode to people, and if you've never seen Doctor Who before it is a very good place to start.

I'm putting specifics and spoilers under the cut.

As I said, this episode had to do two things. It had to introduce the era and it had to be a good story.

It did the first of those really well, with a very effective opening scene answering all the questions about what Doctor Who is and who the Doctor is. I like that the Doctor is past the past traumas, and accepts that they happened but isn't overly focused on them. It's a good continuation of the specials and a fun angle.

The second one is the ultimate question of if this is a good story. And I think structurally it is. I liked the mystery and how it unfolded, and the twist with the boogeyman is effective. I just don't particularly like the space babies - something about them just felt off to me and didn't work. I also don't like that they save the semisentient pile of boogers with the power of a collective fart.

Doctor Who has always been incredibly weird, and that's part of what I like about it, but the specifics in this episode felt like they were trying too hard.

I really like the Doctor here. I like that he loves what he's doing and Ncuti Gatwa does a really good job at getting the audience as excited as he is. I also like Ruby, but I would like to see more of her outside of the mystery hook.

Here are some of my favorite weird details of the episode:

The TARDIS has a butterfly compensator now. I'm here for that.

Jocelyn was fun, and I like that she managed to swear

I can't believe that they got away with a fakeout child death in the first regular Disney episode

A lot of the budget is going to make the TARDIS actually move. On camera. That's nice.

Did anyone else think that the Doctor taking Ruby to visit a space station with new life was a cool parallel to the Doctor taking Rose to the end of the world in the last first RTD episode?

I don't know if I'm going to blog all the new episodes like this. I'd definitely like to, I just don't want to commit. I haven't even seen episode 2 yet. It might suck and I'll have to call off this whole project.

In case I do make a numbering system, 7/10.

#doctor who #review #15th doctor #doctor who space babies

[mulderscully]

I need help processing my dislike of River. At first I thought it was because I loved Rose/Ten so much that I couldn’t accept any other relationship, but then Clara showed up and I instantly loved her and the Doctor.

I don’t understand why I find River/the whole thing so off putting?

man, i really don't want to shit on doctor/river bc i have a lot of mutuals who ship them but i will explain why i don't like their relationship in a respectful way.

so personally, for me, it was never about ten and rose because i always loved tentoo and rose, and felt like they got the best ending possible. i felt (and still do) that the version of the doctor who loved rose so much died when ten regenerated. so, i was actually pretty excited to see their relationship and watch the doctor fall in love again.

then, i just did not like them.

i have various reasons for this:

1. i don't feel like matt and alex had very good chemistry. which makes sense, they didn't do chemistry reads. i think they are both fantastic actors, but there was no spark between them for me which i think is in part because how eleven is written as completely differently from how he is described by her when she meets ten for the first time.

2. i really cannot get invested in their relationship when i feel like the doctor is not invested in it either. i just... don't feel like he loves her. and i don't really blame him because he doesn't actually know her, or he doesn't known that he does know her. or who she really is at any given point. we don't see them fall in love so how can we believe it? we're just TOLD instead of shown, which is my #1 turn off when it comes to ships. they may be married, but he is not devoted to her. and he TRIES. like he asks her to travel with him, but of course she can't so how can their relationship ever be organic? it can't.

3. the overall premise is weird. i feel like he was essentially manipulated into marrying her. he meets her, he knows they're married so now he is trapped into this fate. it doesn't matter if he loves her, it doesn't matter who she is: she knows his "real" name so that means she's his wife. river loves him as almost this god like figure, when the whole point is that the doctor is just Some Guy. and bc of this he has power over her. that, to me, is icky. it's also icky that he married rory and amy's daughter, who he knew as an infant but moffat does this with every love interest the doctor has. has him meet them as kids, and i hate it every time. i hated it with rose and clara too, but with melody/river it's weirder bc it's not a passing thing: he KNOWS them. like why 🤢

i have other issues but those are my main ones.

it sucks because i actually like river as an individual character when she gets to shine on her own. i think alex kingston put her everything into it and i think she deserved a better and more empowering storyline.

i am also a doctor/clara shipper, and while i do feel that there are some issues in how their relationship was written when i met clara i felt this huge sigh of relief because i felt like THIS is the doctor actually falling in love again. this is in part because jenna had great chemistry with both matt and peter, but also because while their relationship becomes toxic and dangerous to them and everyone else because of their love and devotion to each other, that is explicitly addressed and handled appropriately imo.

anyway. that's my pov. i'm excited to see what lays ahead for the doctor now that rtd has the freedom to make him explicitly mlm tbh!

#reply #anonymous #anti moffat #anti doctorriver #idk how to tag this sorry buds

[andthedaysthatnevercame]

now there are some of us out here who think that even though that era has obvious problematic elements as all media does, hbomberguy was wrong (or at least, surface-level, more informed by Tumblr discourse of the time and that infamous Guardian piece than a deep reading of the work that came before and after it in order to make a more revelatory comparison than ‘RTD good, Moffat bad’…he’s a good political pundit and a much less effective media critic IMHO) but even if I thought he was mostly right, I don’t think it’s been a good thing that fandom opinions are now calcified by regurgitating that video rather than making their own minds up. Met more than one person who can quote that video but hasn’t watched S6!

i can respect everything in the hbomberguy sherlock video essay because i'm at least sure that he did his own research and formulated his opinion, even if i disagree with some of his points. the RTD vs moffat war is more largely subjective than people want to believe it is imo. (like yeah yeah we've heard of moffat's misogyny. get back to me when you have something meaningful to say about RTD's racism.)

but you're absolutely right in that i HATE how so many people take what he said as truth or as the correct opinion just because he was articulate and funny. more people need to do their own critical thinking. like i'm not arguing with someone who can't even be bothered to actually watch the shit they complain about. you watched a yt video. youre not an expert.

i bet people would like eleven's era more than they thought they would if they rewatched it now. like i watched the first few episodes with one of my friends who is an RTD stan and she was like "wow this is a lot better than i remember it being"

and i get it. doctor who has been around a while and of course everyone's going to have opinions and it's been a fucking decade since s5. but watch the show for what it is and not what you misremember it being. and don't just puke up someone else's opinion.

#anyways. no one is allowed to talk about eleven except for me and mutuals. everyone else SHUT UPPP #thanks for letting me rant anon i completely agree with you #mailbox #doctor who

[escapaldi]

So… I followed you a long time ago, and then I left tumblr. I can’t remember if we interacted much back then, but since you’re also active here I have to ask: what did you think about the specials as a Capaldi fan?

Hello! I know I've seen your name around before, so welcome back! Even when I wasn't posting on this blog specifically, I was still on tumblr posting fic and stuff, so even though there is a gap I've always been here.

Now, as far as the 60th anniversary specials: I haven't watched them and don't plan to for a long time. A long-winded and salty rant by me is under the cut.

To be honest, I haven't felt the need to watch any new Doctor Who since Capaldi and Moffat both left because it all sounded like boring and cringey fan fiction (derogatory) I wasn't really jiving with. If that makes sense? Then RTD came back on as a showrunner and I was severely disappointed because it felt like such a step backwards. Plus that Tennant was going to be in it? No thanks.

Like... I get that to a lot of people, his return makes these specials "feel like Doctor Who again". I've seen that statement a lot from both randos and people I know. Which, fine, whatever, I'm not begrudging people for it, but for a lot of folks saying that, the statement includes a bunch of the show that doesn't feel like Doctor Who to me. I came in w/s5 because of a series of events that turned me off to the show early on. I was nearly sixteen when s1 premiered in the UK. That should have stuck me in the prime demographic to not only love s1-4, but have a sort of nostalgia filter over it to help facilitate excitement over the 60th specials. Well, there's some problems with that.

I can't stand Rose Tyler and any reference to her as something positive makes me cringe. Doctor/Rose in any form makes me viscerally nope out of anything. She was not as likeable as people lead others to believe.

I've been Pavloved into disliking Tennant due to the oversaturation of his interpretation of the Doctor in the series and the fandom as a whole, despite the fact he's just meh. The Doctor is not his best role and in general he doesn't do it for me in the looks department, especially as the Doctor. Which, it's fine if you like watching him (I'm sure Georgia loves watching him and she is a very good sport about a lot of shit) and I know my DW experience has been enhanced by watching the pretty but I am a demographic outlier lol.

What I did see of s1-4 before I got into s5 was Rose being an idiot, getting a deeply unsettling feeling over Jack Harkness, being pissed off for Martha and Mickey and livid about Donna, being irritated by the Master and the angsty space Jesus shite, and thinking Ten and Donna would make a good couple actually.

Oh yeah, and very specifically I'm mad because I watched The End of Time Part 2, like, almost soon as I could, and knew immediately that Martha/Mickey was Pair the Spares Race Edition even though at that point I hadn't watched all of s1-4 and for all I knew they hit it off in an unseen-by-me episode for a reason that wasn't getting drunk over their mid-tier white exes hooking up. Like, I clocked that shit back in 2009. There was a lot of shit I was not clocking in 2009, but I caught onto that, which should be an embarrassment.

...and, like, I'm on the internet, so I've seen spoilers. It's difficult to not see spoilers. Some of the spoilers I love to see hello Fifteen's THIGHS we love us a good slutty Doctor and I do have one UK-based friend specifically whom I've talked to at length about the specials. My fiancé also has been watching this entire time w/o stopping since 2005 (bc he caught it all as it premiered here in the US and at least he got to watch s1 Billie Piper; I fault him for nothing), so he's been giving me updates on what's going on as well. He is a good man who has done saintly things like drive me across three state lines to meet Peter Capaldi at a Doctor Who convention, so... he's generally trustworthy, but also a lot more forgiving than I am. But he was also the one who broke to me the news about Rose Noble because he knew I'd get upset that she's not Donna Jr. So I've got some good fonts of information. They tell me that I'd like the second and third more than the first, that we've just got some extra Ten-Donna adventures, and that generally everything's stepped up a bit from Thirteen.

...but to me, a step up from Thirteen is still not a step towards where we need to go.

You can't go from Eleven and Twelve, an ancient eldritch god trapped in a body with the grace of a baby giraffe and a legit punk who punches diamond walls for his wife and racists for his daughter, respectively, to a Tory apologist who never really got a scary "I am the Doctor and you're stuck here with me now what a shame :)" moment like Nine through Twelve got and think that "a step up" from that is going to catch me. I'm not enticed by the prospect of another Ten-Donna adventure done by the man whose writing and showrunning kept me away from Doctor Who for so long. I. could. not. care. less. There is literally no nostalgia filter making this okay to me. I cannot see what other people see.

I don't want to be an anti, I don't want to be a NMD, but they keep pushing my fucking hand and now I'm sitting here having not watched new episodes of what is literally one of my favorite shows since before the pandemic, watching from an arm's length as it sort of caves in around itself, going and absolutely pissing away their chances at having a really cool, massive-multi-Doctor bonanza like no other. You could have twelve Doctors. TWELVE DOCTORS. Eleven if our most venerable just kinda taps out like nah I'm done unless you give me Bill's job from the Three Doctors special. Like, the fuck, y'all. That got whizzed right down the fucking leg. Did they even try? Did they get rebuffed? Whose decision was the 60th specials? Do they even like Doctor Who? Or are they part of the set that thought that Tennant's Doctor would never be topped?

So... yeah... that's the gist of it. I'm sure it's gonna take being sat down for a marathon by Mr. Nehs before I get into Doctor Who again, which is honestly sad. The BBC has hated this show and been visibly trying to run it into the ground since they decided to make the divisive decision of casting Matt Smith (which worked out great in the long run but having been on the internet at the time as that announcement I can assure you it was not received well) and now they've got Mouse Bucks and some straight-up boring as sin seasons/series under their belts and idk what in the hell's coming for us now.

#replies #dielittlehero #sorry I kind of went off it's not your fault #a scary thing to consider is that by the time the 70th and 75th anniversaries roll around I might have kids old enough to watch #and not just watch but APPRECIATE as well #that's a terrifying thought considering everything #I'm not gonna tag w/fandom to keep it out of searches but yeah #and I swear to fucking God if they try to do a UNIT spinoff like they did to Torchwood I am going to SCREAM bc Torchwood is trash #I'm only vaguely 'in' the fandom rn and i feel freer for it tbh

[witchofthemidlands]

could whovians who probably have more braincells than me figure this one out with me?

is it just me or does the whole ‘an image of a weeping angel becomes itself an angel’ make no sense considering blink or were the angels in blink INCREDIBLY weak to the point where they just couldn’t do the stuff they did in the time of angels/flesh & stone??? because larry was full on staring that stone gremlin in the face, dead in the eyes & he was fine, sally also had pictures of the angels which she then gave to ten, so did the angel that zapped martha & ten actually come about because it jumped out of the pictures sally gave him? i am confused & considering how tightly woven the rtd-moffat era is to the point where you have to remember 30+ episodes to work stuff out, i can't believe they’d make their own lore make no sense.

#weeping angels #sally sparrow #larry nightingale #tenth doctor #martha jones #blink #the time of angels #doctor who #whoniverse #kat’s thoughts 🍄

[charlesemersonwinchesteriii]

For dating game: Donna Noble for a non Mash option from something I'm pretty sure I've seen you reblog stuff from, BJ, and Klinger

I can't believe I got 2 Donnas for this game and neither were the MASH one haha. And yes I AM a Doctor Who fan but like with Twin Peaks I'm only a shallow fake one because I only feel really passionate about RTD era :( sowwy again. I'm 0 for 2 today. But at least I didn't skip MASH s1-3 AND I didn't skip the 9th Doctor AND I read Laura's diary + Dale Cooper's tapes. So now everyone has to give me a little headpat and forgive me and say they're not mad at me thank you <3

Donna Noble

I couldn’t handle Donna QwQ I couldn’t match her energy it’s very sad :( I feel like I would do the exact opposite of what the Doctor did for her in terms of bringing out her most amazing qualities. And I do really try to highlight and praise the qualities of people in my life!! I just don’t know if I could help her reach her full potential. Which sounds like one of those weird therapy-talk approaches to relationships but unfortunately sometimes when you really admire someone you actually do start thinking about things like “am I supporting her journey effectively” and all that. But this is just a date right so it can just be a casual thing. I feel like Donna is someone with whom I could straight up be like Hey so I was never socialized properly and your last relationship ended comically terribly so do you want to like try practicing dating with each other? I think it could be fun! And then eventually she could move on to find happiness with Mr. Temple :)  

Wait actually sorry quick tangent if Donna doesn’t remember the Doctor what does she think happened to her fiance from way back when. Does she. Does she remember the giant alien spider or. Hang on--

BJ Hunnicutt

BJ Hunnicutt is the human equivalent of Disneyland. Everybody in the entire nation is absolutely obsessively feral over it it’s sooo beautiful it’s sooo fun you just HAVE to experience it it’s a quintessential expression of the American dream blah blah blah. But I will never attend this overpriced (constantly borrowing money) and overcrowded (too much competition from the rest of Mashblr) theme park. I do not care for its fastpass system (willingness to cheat on his partner) or its uninspiring coaster design (anger issues), and I am further offended to hear of the constant introduction of cost-cutting measures that harm visitor experience (growth of mustache). Not even the prospect of purchasing a fully functioning Cogsworth clock (chance to join the Punnihawk polycule) is enough to tempt me. It’s not happening. I am going to Dollywood (Maxwell Klinger).

Maxie my beautiful girl Maxie whomst is so very adored by me

My wife my kitten my sweet snuggly wuggly good time gal. My Dollywood. Know that I love and adore Maxwell for eternity <3

BUT. I must love her from afar because I couldn’t in good conscience waste her time when I figure there must be a more compatible match out there, ya know? Like, I know hardly anything about baseball and I wear the same clothes every day and I don’t eat red meat so I can’t even share those beloved hotdogs. Max deserves the Best as I’m sure we all agree, and we know he wants a serious long term partnership. I want the same thing, so I know that such a lifelong, committed relationship should be with someone who finds themself more easily compatible with Max’s tastes and interests.  

On an unrelated note, Charles sure seemed to get super into baseball in War For All Seasons, huh? :) And we know he cares a lot about his clothes, as we see him hiring a personal tailor at least once! :) And he was surprisingly eager to get to share in Max’s hotdog delivery in The Grim Reaper, too! :) So many random fun facts in this world \^w^/

#sorry 4 slipping in unwanted shipping content right under the wire like a youtuber rushing through a last minute plea to like and subscribe #I couldn't help it your honor :| #Asks that make you wrack your brains for 10 minutes straight only to give up and google what Donna's husband' first name is. It's Shaun. #I wonder if we'll see more of him in the New Content I am legit Excite wahoo #Starky loves answering questions #marley-manson #sorry for being so dismissive of BJ :/ it will happen again #also Idk if that joke made any sense. does anyone here still remember Vriska (Vriska). #mash #THE COGSWORTH CLOCK IS REAL BTW BUT IT'S $80 >:((( FUCK OFF FUCK OFF FUCK OFF I NEED TO STEAL HIM #HE BELONGS WITH ME!!!!! #also to be clear I've never been to disneyland obvs lmao I'm just a Jenny Nicholson / Defunctland enjoyer #I loooove watching stuff about the disney parks being bad and failing I know it's dumb and petty #but it's the only source of vengeance I get in this life #BTW did you know DOS purchased a house that used to belong to Walt Disney. idk if it was like on purpose or anything but he did #king shit I think. I hope he had crazy gay sex there. for petty reasons but also just cause he deserved that obviously. #The fact that literally anyone follows this blog and chooses to see these posts is a Bible level fucking miracle. #THANKS FOR THE ASK <3

[majorbaby]

And now I'm curious whether you're planning to check out RTD's second run on Doctor Who, or if you're wary and waiting to see how it goes, or if you're uninterested entirely. I admit I'm curious, but for me it probably depends a lot on how much it leans into Moffat and Chibnall's style of playing around with the show's established canon, vs how much it does its own thing and moves on from that. Plus RTD def has his own flaws too lol, though I've pretty much only heard good things about his post-DW dramas so I've got hope.

i'm gonna try this new thing where i actually answer the question being asked up front and then i put all my optional "and also" thoughts under a cut: i'm famously bad at watching things on my watchlist but what matters is i want to watch it. this has more to do with my love and trust of RTD's writing than it does with me wanting to go back to the whoniverse.

and also...

very very important disclaimer that it's been years since i watched doctor who but i've been meaning to recently for nine-hawkeye parallel reasons (cowardly hero, bad god) so some of this might be off: i'm so appreciative of my doctor who years because i really fell completely in love with that world and my love for the doctor is surpassed only by my love for a select few of the companions. i also learned from DW that you can definitely love parts of a thing without loving the whole and that's fine - in fact, i think that is what we are meant to do with DW specifically. there are themes to the character of the doctor and recurring motifs but they're all nodded to and i don't really think it's possible for such a long running show/character with so many writers involved to even have a singular arc for its protagonist.

i view it as being similar to comic books. what is the overall "arc" of batman? it's just the same guy in a billion situations, and your different 'actors' are your different writers who write him. i think you can say new things about the world with the doctor or say something about the doctor in a new way but i'm skeptical if you can say new things about the doctor with the doctor and i don't think he should be used that way and RTD seemed to understand that.

i also just generally prefer 'monster of the week' style to 'story arcs' and i found RTD did that more often. i'd go even further and say it's a better way to do doctor who because when i zoom out i find that dw's seasons are episodic, because of how much there is. the episodes are the seasons and the seasons belonging to an actor are the arcs because they're all playing the doctor their own way and what we refer to as 'eras' are moreso eras of main writer/showrunner to me than they are eras of actors playing the doctor. and i think RTD understood this too.

i'm not saying let's throw out story arcs all together, RTD pulled off the arc of all time with 'i am the bad wolf' so it can be done well i just found moffat in contrast to be very 'this is an ARC', let me show you what an ARC is you sheeple'. anyway not to make this a steven moffat hatepost - but it is always correct to make a steven moffat hatepost is it not? this immortal post sums up my feelings about his writing pretty well and an obligatory: well if steven moffat writes so badly with such confidence then why can't i????

so no need for me to return to that world just because i've loved previous iterations. i'd go back because i really i like RTD a lot and it's also nice to be genuinely excited for who. i was excited for there to be a woman doctor because i remember a time when i genuinely believed there could never be a woman doctor but i was out of it for so many years by the time 13 came around and i was so disillusioned by the moffat years. so i sort of waved at the fandom when that happened, good for them!! about time!! i also like 12 a lot and i think peter capaldi is brilliant but when i watched it it wasn't the same for me as before. so actor appeal and world appeal don't really do it for me. it does come down to the writing.

all that said, i am a guy who loves when a story ends. i think nostalgia is overrated and bad and right now it's grip on cinema and audiences is very very bad. so i was kind of meh about david tennant returning. i like ten but he's not my favourite and he had a very good run and got his due, i don't personally need more of him. i would've liked more of nine because i felt he did not get his due, even though they still wrapped on nine very well. but it's clear to me that eccleston has moved on so i also would not want him back either.

donna, well, if there must be a returning companion from the ten years than yeah i'm happy it's donna because their dynamic is truly chef's kiss and catherine tate is brilliant and i'm not married to her tragic ending, i do think she deserved better than that. but i would still prefer someone new because i always lean towards 'new stories'.

if 'a returning character named rose' turns out to be anything other than a character who shares the same name as rose and the parallels are all projected on by the fans, then i will riot lol. rose's ending was perfect and i don't want it to change and just like you, i'm not interested in her being immortal or even coming back to help the doctor save the world again. if it were not for RTD i would not even consider watching more of "rose". it's true that some past companions have returned (my sarah jane <3) but i think if it's not kept to a minimum then that's bad for the doctor who ecosystem. new stories! new opportunities for other actors and writers!

other reasons i like RTD: he clearly still has a passion for doctor who, he's usually doesn't miss with his companions, he knows how to do tragedy and romance while having respect for his audience, he's smart writer and he's an overall strong writer.

tbh i should check out his other stuff because i like him so much and since i'm saying i'm coming back for his writing and not for the world as much. but also i'm really excited for ncuti gatwa's 15th doctor and i hope RTD stays on to write him, so maybe this is how i find my way back to doctor who.

#answering the question without getting lost in the sauce for once #thank you marley and im sorry about the long writeup don't feel obligated #dw #replies

[jakowskis]

Day 28 - Do you like how tragic Torchwood is, or do you wish it was more light-hearted? Do you think the ‘dark and adult themes’ were explored sufficiently?

torchwood's weird bc it exists in this place where, like, the creators + writers were all coming at it from different angles, and i think there was a lot of... internal confusion amongst individuals, too. like, a lot of the concepts in chibnall's scripts are actually profound and intriguing when it come to the characters themselves - but he's also the guy who put a cyberman in a bikini, and the guy who came up with the sex alien, so. rtd, idek his vision tbh - in the director's commentary of i believe the first episode, he says something like "everyone's talking about what a dark, edgy show it is, but we've got a pterodactyl. can we talk about that. like that's ridiculous - it's brilliant." so i think he was partially intending for it to be kinda silly from the get-go. but he also did push the dark edgy adult spin off angle, so idk. the show tried to do both and it's... kind of iconically bad, but also unique and, imho, endearing. you certainly don't see it elsewhere. i love my bad 2000s show.

as iconic as that edgy campiness is, obviously torchwood would've benefited significantly from simply picking a tone and being consistent with it. s1 was criticized for unevenness, but i think it was earnest in its ridiculousness, which i appreciate. it committed. s2 takes itself a bit less seriously and leans into the silliness, which some ppl like, but i find it less compelling. idk, s1 is just special to me; it's so experimental and tonally bizarre, but i love it. i always say torchwood's weird bc it's like they had gold but they somehow managed to bury it in manure. like there's a spark of something magic but you have to wade thru the shit to get to it and even then it's not there for the taking, you're like eternally digging for it and you're constantly finding little tiny pieces of it HFKDSF or at least thts my experience (<- guy who's a year into being insane about this fucking show. it is Not that deep im just ill.)

and a lot of that magic exists in the underlying darkness. torchwood isn't dark when it tries to be; torchwood is dark in the implications. it's haunted by it's own darkness but it refuses to look directly at it. watching it is, like, you're staring at smth simple and underwhelming, but there's something terrifying in your peripheral - but if you look right at it it won't be there. so you're fascinated by what you can't fully grasp at. again, maybe i'm just deranged, but that's how i feel about it. there's so many insane connotations in each episode that feel peripheral and unconscious. it's bizarre. it's probably just the result of bad writing, but i do not control what my bastard brain latches onto and decides is worth painstakingly deconstructing.

so what i'm saying? is where torchwood 'thinks' it's dark, it's not, and what's actually dark isn't even a consistently conscious thing and therefore isn't remotely touched on. so, no, they're not explored well at all. that's what fanfiction's for 👍 im very stimulated with this fixation still, after all this time, bc there's soooo many cool threads that i can pull from and actually put the work and time into playing with in a way the show wasn't willing to, and i love that. i love dark themes in general, i'm very naturally oriented towards miserable things, and torchwood's so tragic and dark but it doesn't live up to its potential whatsoever. so many good seeds that didn't get planted. that being said, i do like the silly shit. but if i could make it stick to a tone, i'd have it commit to the dark stuff, because i mourn what could've been. it's a ghost that follows me 🫵

#tdot #txt