Doctor Who: "Twice Upon a Time", aka "How in Rassilon's name do we not have a thread for this yet"?

[The Romulan Republic]

I think the fact the regeneration trashed the TARDIS has more to do with the Doctor being tossed out then her being a woman.

Oh yeah, I agree.

But you know there are going to be dumbasses making "women driver" jokes.

[Lost Soal]

Yeah its called the Daily Mail, their useless. As I said its Chibnall literally throwing everything out in order to start fresh. Whether the stories will be fresh is another thing entirely.

[Hillary]

Enjoyed the episode - gave it a 4.

Bradley was excellent and the overall plot was nicely constructed. I liked the fact that the threat turned out to be something benevolent. Rusty's return was unexpected but done well. I even thought Clara's brief appearance was handled with the right touch.

Gatiss was great as the officer and I really didn't expect the Brig connection - that was pretty awesome. Good that Bill got a swansong in a way that wasn't "ha, I'm alive again by some miracle - everybody lives!". She was a great companion and it's a real shame she didn't get a longer run.

I also enjoyed the old footage of Tenth Planet cut into the episode.

Finally - "Oh, Brilliant!" - fabulous first line. Just fabulous - can't wait to see more of her.

The only minus point for me was that they massively overplayed the sexism of Bradley's Doctor for me. As we've all been arguing, the Doctor being female fits in with the show because Time Lords can change gender. Why would a Time Lord be sexist when he can be a woman him/herself. It didn't make sense and cheapened the memory of the first Doctor.

A minor quibble

[Eternal_Freedom]

I think the sexist thing was to lightly poke fun at how attitudes have changed since Hartnell played the role. And I suppose one could argue that the First Doctor may have spent some time on Earth in 1963 and adopted the common attitudes to women as a way of avoiding standing out.

[The Romulan Republic]

Aren't Time Lords in general pretty disparaging/condescending towards humans in general? From that perspective, for the First Doctor, looking down on only half the species might actually be considered a step up, in a twisted way.

Still not defending it, of course, but the Doctor does have a different perspective than most.

Of course, the real reason is that the show was made in the early '60s. I'm just trying to figure out an in-universe explanation for why a Time Lord would have those attitudes. Or, yeah, adopting local culture to blend in works.

Then again... there's a fair amount of evidence that Time Lord culture is sexist. Even the name "Time Lord" uses a masculine term for their race, and the Simms Master sure as hell seemed more than a little misogynist IIRC.

[Eternal_Freedom]

The Time Lords in general seem to be very insular, backwards socially and cloistered. Up until Thirteen comes along, we've only seen a handful of female Time Lords/Time Ladies, Romana, the Rani, Thalia, Flavia, the President of the Court, and a few in the 50th special. The highest we see one rise is Chancellor and that's it, despite a number of stories set on Gallifrey. It's not inconceivable that the Time Lords are rather sexist.

As I recall, Rodan (I think that's her name) in The Invasion of Time was grumbling that she'd graduated with top marks and was relegated to being a space traffic controller, though I don't know if she's a Time Lord or just a Gallifreyan, it's never been made clear what the distinction is.

[The Romulan Republic]

Yeah, it would be funny if interacting with early '60s Earth actually made the Doctor more, not less, progressive.

I mean, everything we've ever seen of Time Lord society says its fucked six ways to Sunday. Rassilon might just be one of the few Presidents who could make Donald Trump look good by comparison.

[Eternal_Freedom]

It's an entirely alien culture that revolves around beings with mastery over time and lifespans at least ten times our own. Trying to assign human values to a character is ridiculous. Hell, given that Time Lords can change gender when they regenerate, it's questionable whether sexist/misogynist can even be applied as descriptors.

[The Romulan Republic]

It's an entirely alien culture that revolves around beings with mastery over time and lifespans at least ten times our own. Trying to assign human values to a character is ridiculous.

If that were the case, any discussion of characterization whatsoever would be pointless.

Fortunately, that's not really the case. The Doctor is not human, but he has often interacted with humans, and shares certain human values, enough that meaningful social interactions with humans are possible for him.

Hell, given that Time Lords can change gender when they regenerate, it's questionable whether sexist/misogynist can even be applied as descriptors.

That's a fair point, although it may be that some forms are generally seen as "better" to regenerate into among Time Lords.

[Solauren]

I think the fact the regeneration trashed the TARDIS has more to do with the Doctor being tossed out then her being a woman.

Oh yeah, I agree.

But you know there are going to be dumbasses making "women driver" jokes.

But those are the same dumbasses that are just dumbasses in general, so they don't matter.

[Crossroads Inc.]

Sooooooo.........

Moving aside from the whole "Women" thing.
The episode was amazing for a number of reasons, but the one I would specifically like to mention was one that made perhaps the best joke of the show:
"It's not an evil plan!"
Because not everything HAS to be!
I was actually thinking that almost right before we meet 'Rusty' and the plan is revealed to us. I had that "So far no one is trying to directly kill the universe, or the Earth, or even the Doctor, there ins't a "Bad guy" and low and behold the Doctor himself confronts this himself.
Now to be fair, another writer could have TOTALLY treated it as an "Evil plan" and done a vengeful Doctor doing something like a:
"The dead should stay dead! how dare you mess with their memories and steal their knowledge!" or..something daft like that.
But instead we got a 'wholesome' episode that has been severally lacking from the newer seasons. And really is something I hope to see again.

[LadyTevar]

The episode was amazing for a number of reasons, but the one I would specifically like to mention was one that made perhaps the best joke of the show:
"It's not an evil plan!"
Because not everything HAS to be!

Totally agree! While to some it might not be quite kosher, it was really nothing more than recording history from someone who lived it. Except, instead of just recording an oral or written record, they download the whole memory-self. And give it a new body so those interacting with it felt like they were actually talking to a person.

Quite Brilliant, if you ask me.

[Parallax]

Downloading memories into a computer system for future use? Sounds a lot like the Time Lord's Matrix to me...

[Eternal_Freedom]

Actually it reminded me of something from one of the novels. The thing was called the City of the Saved, and at the end of the universe a vast city was built and every human from history was reconstructed to live there, as a real afterlife.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

I was hoping this special would have featured Whittaker for more than just the last minute to see if she's up to the job- and without the usual "next time" preview that provides a glimpse of what's up next we're still in the dark. Honestly she'll need to deliver a performance rivalling that of Ruffalo as Hulk if she's going to be welcome, IMO.

[Soontir C'boath]

I was hoping this special would have featured Whittaker for more than just the last minute to see if she's up to the job- and without the usual "next time" preview that provides a glimpse of what's up next we're still in the dark. Honestly she'll need to deliver a performance rivalling that of Ruffalo as Hulk if she's going to be welcome, IMO.

Regeneration scenes have always been minute though so that expectation is out of ordinary.

[The Romulan Republic]

I was hoping this special would have featured Whittaker for more than just the last minute to see if she's up to the job- and without the usual "next time" preview that provides a glimpse of what's up next we're still in the dark. Honestly she'll need to deliver a performance rivalling that of Ruffalo as Hulk if she's going to be welcome, IMO.

Honestly, I have zero concerns about Whittaker at this point, even based on the minute or two that we saw. If her brief appearance in the episode isn't enough to sell you, then it is still telling that, amid all of the whining, vitriol, thinly-veiled MRA/Alt. Reichist bullshit, and generic fan "they changed it so its ruined" bitching that happens with every regeneration, I have seldom, if ever, seen anyone attack Whittaker personally, either as an individual or as an actor. And you know that their are people who would, if they could find any pretext, however slim, to do so.

Which tells me that she's probably about as good as they get.

The implication that she somehow has a higher burden on her to prove herself than any other new Doctor (presumably because of her gender) is insulting, and not, I think, accurate, for the most part. The people who will be inclined to reject her for that have likely mostly made up their minds about her already, for reasons that have nothing to do with her individual talent as an actor, and are unlikely to shift. The rest of us are mostly already on board with her.

The only thing I can think of that would put such a higher burden on her and which she would be likely to actually be able to do something about, is the large segment of the fan base that's been alienated by Moffat's writing. A lot of those are people who have been alienated by the specific faults of Moffat as head writer, not the fact of a female Doctor or of the status quo of the show changing.

Though even there, I think more is riding on Chibnall than on Whittaker. Matt Smith and Peter Capaldi were both fine Doctors, I would say often outstanding, but for Moffat's critics, that wasn't enough.

So I think that, like every Doctor before, Whittaker will be fine, and the success of failure of this era of the show, and of her Doctor, will be decided primarily by the actions of management, and the writing staff, particularly the new head writer.

[The Romulan Republic]

A little example I saw today that I think is illustrative of the general attitude of the fandom:

A Doctor Who post on the official Facebook page today. The top two comments were sexist attacks, mocking the Doctor using gender steretypes, or saying that they wouldn't watch the show any more because the Doctor is a woman.

However, if you add up the likes/loves vs. the people who posted an "angry" smiley face, the positive responses outnumbered the negatives by over 22 to one.

Now, I admit that that's not a scientific census, but... I think what we have is a case of a very vocal angry minority who will hate the new Doctor no matter what, and a large majority of fans who are okay with it.