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The Doctor Who Thread.....


Greg1138

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Yes, Hartnell didn't fall out with them ... he thought he'd be continuing, with fewer lines of 'gobbledegook' as he was struggling badly with those due to his illness. Them coming up with regeneration was news to him, to say the least.   

Baker's attitude is admirable, I think ... he clearly sees that the show is a whole other thing now, and that grudge-bearing is pointless. As he's put it about the specials 'Doctor Who hasn't been Disneyfied, it's been Russell T Davies-ified. And that's a good thing'.    

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Agreed.

I turned it off, halfway through.

It's DOCTOR WOKE.

It's not the fact that they did it, that bothers me, it's the fact that RTD felt that he had to justify it.

Is this what entertainment in the twenty-first century has come to? Explaining every decision you make, so that it doesn't offend anyone?

As @Tallguy says; "for fuck's sake".

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Except who would he be offending if he didn't explain himself? It's supposed to be for a charity event that's made to raise money for disabled children, so like, isn't this exactly the reason he'd be making that statement? To reassure and not disturb those in which the program is supposed to be supporting?

 

In any other instance, I could understand the decision being a contentious one, since I certainly tend to think that these kind of choices can easily imply that certain groups are incapable of evil (plus some have pointed out how much Davros more easily mirrors the Daleks in his original appearance, so it's thematic loss on that end). And yet for this particular case, I really don't think there's a harm in reassuring the disadvantaged kids that their disabilities don't automatically make them a worse person as a result, since you now have a definitive display of someone who was just like that beforehand. It is a family program after all, so why leave out the children?

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3 hours ago, Naïve Old Fart said:

It's DOCTOR WOKE.

 

I've been told woke has no meaning. Probably here.

 

2 hours ago, HunterTech said:

Except who would he be offending if he didn't explain himself? It's supposed to be for a charity event that's made to raise money for disabled children, so like, isn't this exactly the reason he'd be making that statement? To reassure and not disturb those in which the program is supposed to be supporting?

 

In any other instance, I could understand the decision being a contentious one, since I certainly tend to think that these kind of choices can easily imply that certain groups are incapable of evil (plus some have pointed out how much Davros more easily mirrors the Daleks in his original appearance, so it's thematic loss on that end). And yet for this particular case, I really don't think there's a harm in reassuring the disadvantaged kids that their disabilities don't automatically make them a worse person as a result, since you now have a definitive display of someone who was just like that beforehand. It is a family program after all, so why leave out the children?

 

I suppose it's the insistence that this is some message that "People in wheelchairs aren't evil." Noted? Who, in this target audience, was even thinking about Davros before this special? "Hey look! He's walking around and can see! And he's STILL a right bastard!" Um. Message? You don't have to be disabled and disfigured to be evil?

 

I'm sure that people of color, the deaf community, and anyone else who isn't Julian Bleach should be reassured. (I'm MUCH taller than Julian Bleach! I feel seen!)

 

"It's 2023!" And before that we were all knuckle dragging morons? Imagine what we'll think of 2025.

 

I'm also glad to see that the Kaleds were a diverse group of people. Interesting choice for a Nazi analogue. Are we going to start making WWII movies with a more color blind perspective?

 

I grew up with Tom Baker / Peter Davison / Colin Baker / (sorta) Sylvester McCoy. i.e. the era where one simply didn't do Dalek episodes without Davros. So I've been just fine with leaving him to the side. So if it's such a terrible message, why include him here?

 

But clearly none of this came across. Because all we got out of it was "Oh. This is BEFORE whatever happened to him happens to him. That's kind of fun. And we get to see the actor out of the makeup. Always neat." And RTD knows we wouldn't get it because he felt the need to explain it.

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Have to admit that this did seem a bit pointless (and I am very much a member of the tofu eating wokeratie…) as it could simply have been left for everyone to assume that he turned himself into a half dalek at some later date. Maybe he was crippled by his own invention so turns himself into one of them. Or something. It’s a bit of retconning but nothing worse than the usual for DW. Then it kinda “fixes” the “evil disabled person” issue and still works within what has been established beforehand. What’s perhaps more annoying is that it’s distracted from a fun 5 minute jokey DW snippet for a good cause (although don’t get me started on the rich people asking everyone else for money marathon that is Children in Need) that is otherwise rather jolly. God I didn’t realise how much I missed David Tenant. 

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43 minutes ago, Tom Guernsey said:

tofu eating wokeratie

 

Gotta say that's awesome.

 

43 minutes ago, Tom Guernsey said:

although don’t get me started on the rich people asking everyone else for money marathon that is Children in Need

 

I'm unaware of the specifics.

 

44 minutes ago, Tom Guernsey said:

God I didn’t realise how much I missed David Tenant. 

 

"as the Doctor." There was a while where EVERYTHING we watched had David Tennant. Good Omens, Ahsoka, Ducktales. (Older Doctor Who.) The man is a miracle.

 

Didn't someone (him?) say that he was going to be playing 14 (I swear I can't keep the numbers straight anymore) with his natural accent?

 

1 hour ago, Naïve Old Fart said:

Davros in a wheelchair (or whatever) was good enough in 1975, 1979, 1984, 1985, 1988, 2008, and 2015. Why change now?

 

While I'm not in the "Everything old must be changed because they were ignorant and hateful" camp I am also not blind to what we might consider less than enlightened by today's standards. Even if we often go too far in another direction. (YES, women can be starship captains.)

 

OTOH misanthropy can be so much more relaxing. ;)

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I had considered mentioning Christopher Reeve turning down Gary Oldman's role in Hannibal as an example of a disabled person being unenthused with the part written for them, but I was quick to realize that there could easily be other reasons that wouldn't pertain to him being personally offended that this is what a major motion picture does with a wheelchair bound person.

 

That being said, given that he was considered the real life Superman for a reason, he likely did think that it just wasn't the sort of image he wanted to show as someone who was a prolific disabled actor and activist in his last years. Plus, there is no denying that people with facial deformities tend to only be considered for villain roles, so I don't think pivoting away from these things are unwarranted (if the reasoning a bit clunky in this particular case).

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I'm firmly in the camp that doesn't see the problem RTD is trying to 'fix'.

 

He says he doesn't want a disability/disfigurement to be emblematic of being a villain... what about the every single other villain that's fully abled. By his logic, they could never have a villain with any sort of disability, distinguishing features, etc, because it now victimises whatever the 'distinguishing' thing is. What utter rubbish. Hook's a villain and he's only got one hand... so do we ban Peter Pan now because we can't be seen to be declaring amputees as evil?

 

Problem he's caused now is that viewers of my generation, who only ever saw Davros in one or two episodes of series 4, as disfigured and wheelchair bound, see this character doing something with a Dalek... and have no clue who he's meant to be because they've changed the nature of the character.

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People are jumping to a lot of bizarre conclusions. RTD can say what he likes, but let's wait to see how this manifests if at all

 

So far we have a depiction of Davros that is believably pre-accident in a minisode, if we see him again who knows what form that'll take?

 

Reasoning aside, I would be interested in seeing a different take on Davros as he's starting to become quite old hat by now, like The Master sans regeneration

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By the looks of it in Australia the specials are going to be released on Sundays instead of Saturday. I hope they don't do this with the Christmas special because what is the point of releasing an Xmas Special on Christmas but watching it on Boxing Day

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2 hours ago, TBO1711 said:

By the looks of it in Australia the specials are going to be released on Sundays instead of Saturday. I hope they don't do this with the Christmas special because what is the point of releasing an Xmas Special on Christmas but watching it on Boxing Day

 

Yeah had a feeling it would be simulcast, otherwise Aussies would get to it first

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3 hours ago, TBO1711 said:

By the looks of it in Australia the specials are going to be released on Sundays instead of Saturday. I hope they don't do this with the Christmas special because what is the point of releasing an Xmas Special on Christmas but watching it on Boxing Day

 

In that case, it will be a Boxing Day special :)

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Did a rewatch of The Power Of The Doctor (Whittaker's tenure was a mixed bag, but she got an undoubtedly spectacular send-off) followed by the minisode, which was a hoot (the idea that the Doctor inadvertently named the Daleks and was responsible for them having the 'plunger' arm tickled me). 

Agree with what RTD's saying about why Davros is depicted that way in the minisode being absolute bollocks. Don't recall anybody complaining about No Time To Die's villain having facial scarring, and that film's only 2 years old.       

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15 hours ago, Brónach said:

the obvious problem is RTD likes dalek stuff to much. we're going to have dalek for breakfast, elevensies, lunch and dinner. It'll never end.


He has recently said that he thinks they need to be rested for a while. 

Something else about the Davros thing has occurred to me ... as well as him in 'classic' form, RTD also brought us John Lumic in NuWho's first Cybermen story and Max Capricorn in Crimbo special Voyage Of the Damned during his first showrunning stint. Funny how he's decided it's *problematic* now, isn't it? 

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13 hours ago, Sweeping Strings said:


He has recently said that he thinks they need to be rested for a while. 

Something else about the Davros thing has occurred to me ... as well as him in 'classic' form, RTD also brought us John Lumic in NuWho's first Cybermen story and Max Capricorn in Crimbo special Voyage Of the Damned during his first showrunning stint. Funny how he's decided it's *problematic* now, isn't it? 

 

...That's exactly what he's saying. What was fine then he doesn't see as fine now

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I alluded to this in a previous post, but disfigured actors have admitted to primarily getting villain roles as a result of their appearance, so the notion that it could create a particular impression by association shouldn't be considered that far fetched.

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If Davros was in a wheelchair, and now he's walking around like a regular guy, how is RTD going to explain that, canonically?

The whole idea of "Wheelchair = bad" is complete bullshit. Look at all the paralympians, out there. I like what RTD has done with the show, but he really fucked this one up.

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1 hour ago, Naïve Old Fart said:

The whole idea of "Wheelchair = bad" is complete bullshit.

 

a chair is supposed to give freedom and autonomy. i haven't paid attention but this is a problem if true.

 

(and also, rtd is making me nervous for a different reason)

 

5 hours ago, HunterTech said:

I alluded to this in a previous post, but disfigured actors have admitted to primarily getting villain roles as a result of their appearance, so the notion that it could create a particular impression by association shouldn't be considered that far fetched.

 

this is also true because there are several things going on!

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It has been a thing in the past in some movies, TV etc (Bond mockingly asking Dr No if 'toppling' the rockets really compensates for having no hands, for example). But as I said, I don't think it's ever been made out that it's Davros' 'motivation'.    

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2 hours ago, Naïve Old Fart said:

If Davros was in a wheelchair, and now he's walking around like a regular guy, how is RTD going to explain that, canonically?

The whole idea of "Wheelchair = bad" is complete bullshit. Look at all the paralympians, out there. I like what RTD has done with the show, but he really fucked this one up.

We'll have to wait and see, if it ends up being a story set after Davros' accident

It's not 'wheelchair = bad' it's that in fictional media (don't know why you're bringing up the paralympics) there is overwhelmingly disabled/disfigured characters as villains which sends a certain subliminal message

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45 minutes ago, DarthDementous said:

It's not 'wheelchair = bad' it's that in fictional media (don't know why you're bringing up the paralympics) there is overwhelmingly disabled/disfigured characters as villains which sends a certain subliminal message


Which is precisely the kind of thing you want to avoid at a charity event, since you want the children it's for to come away understanding that isn't the case in reality whatsoever. I suppose the way the featurette is framed makes this reasoning a bit too charitable (hah), but it's the only real takeaway I can have that makes reasonable sense to me, given what I mentioned earlier about implications that could easily arise from explaining the decision.

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7 hours ago, HunterTech said:

I alluded to this in a previous post, but disfigured actors have admitted to primarily getting villain roles as a result of their appearance, so the notion that it could create a particular impression by association shouldn't be considered that far fetched.

 

The "disfigured as villains" goes back a long way, there's Shakespeare & Richard III of course, but far back as when disfigurement was considered a curse from the gods. Disfigured villains were a big thing in Hollywood cinema in the 70's & 80's.

 

It's something deeply rooted in the human psyche. We tend to look at anything different as bad (thank you, evolutionary biology) and disfigurement is just different to the nth degree.

 

That said, I'm not sure this necessarily extends to the wheelchair bound, and I've personally never saw a link between being in a wheelchair and being a villain. Why in any way would be putting a villain in a wheelchair be problematic?

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30 minutes ago, HunterTech said:


Which is precisely the kind of thing you want to avoid at a charity event, since you want the children it's for to come away understanding that isn't the case in reality whatsoever. I suppose the way the featurette is framed makes this reasoning a bit too charitable (hah), but it's the only real takeaway I can have that makes reasonable sense to me, given what I mentioned earlier about implications that could easily arise from explaining the decision.


Correct, RTD made specific reference to Children In Need in the Unleashed video
 

28 minutes ago, Nick1Ø66 said:

 

The "disfigured as villains" goes back a long way, there's Shakespeare & Richard III of course, but far back as when disfigurement was considered a curse from the gods. Disfigured villains were a big thing in Hollywood cinema in the 70's & 80's.

 

It's something deeply rooted in the human psyche. We tend to look at anything different as bad (thank you, evolutionary biology) and disfigurement is just different to the nth degree.

 

That said, I'm not sure this necessarily extends to the wheelchair bound, and I've personally never saw a link between being in a wheelchair and being a villain. Why in any way would be putting a villain in a wheelchair be problematic?


Literally for the exact reason you just so eloquently described for disfigurement
 

1 hour ago, Brónach said:

i don't want more davros! fucking rtd i swear

I really doubt we're going to see any more of him soon

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3 minutes ago, DarthDementous said:

Literally for the exact reason you just so eloquently described for disfigurement

 

I guess I've always seen using disfigurement itself in movies & TV as a kind of lazy, visual shorthand for "bad person" (e.g. The Hills Have Eyes).  But I don't see that association for the wheelchair-bound (which I don't think of as "disfigurement"). 

 

In fact, thinking about it off the top of my head, when I think of the wheelchair bound in film, I don't think of villains at all. The first thing that comes to mind is Professor X.

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I'm not bothered by the canon aspect either, except if the change is a reasonably significant part of recognising who a character is, in which case you might need to take another look at your writing.

 

We Brits get cast as baddies all the time and I just find it amusing. Apart from anything else, when surrounded by American accents and in a dramatic scenario, I reckon British accents do sound oddly unsettling, and that can be cinematically effective.

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1 hour ago, iamleyeti said:

That's basically the thing. Visiblity is so low for minorities, whatever the minority, that you cannot be just picked as "the villain" or "the guy who dies first all the time".

 

No doubt, not being a minority limits my view. I just don't get a personal sense that the problem exists for DW to the extent that RTD reckons it needs change, for this character. For other shows and other minorities? Absolutely.

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3 hours ago, mstrox said:

I don’t have a stake in this thing at all since I don’t care at all about the idea of canon in anything and I don’t have this particular disability, but it’s a bit of a complex issue - the representation question for people with this particular disability.  Is there a stereotype of people in wheelchairs being evil?  It’s not one I’ve picked up on, but it’s also not an issue I’m keyed into.

 

Well put. I don't know if "chained to the wheelchair" is a common expression in English, but it is in German, and I've often seen complaints by wheelchair users about the phrase, because it evokes an image of some other person forcefully restricting them, when in fact the wheelchair increases their freedom. Which is to say that there are lots of issues that "we" "normal" people (without disabilities) are blissfully unaware of, but which to the people affected are so pervasive that they do affect their lives.

 

In this specific case I've never before thought about it, and I personally wouldn't have an issue with the Davros in the wheelchair - but I also don't have a big issue with Davros *not* in a wheelchair. In short, if RTD's reasoning is perhaps a bit out of proportion (maybe it is, maybe it isn't - see above), the outcry about it also seems to be so just as much, if not more.

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1 hour ago, Marian Schedenig said:

In short, if RTD's reasoning is perhaps a bit out of proportion (maybe it is, maybe it isn't - see above), the outcry about it also seems to be so just as much, if not more.

 

I think RTD's reasoning is understandable - three villains in wheelchairs over the years, let's get rid of it for this bit, no problemo. For me, that BTS struck me as spending two minutes explaining why a wheelchair is bad now, instead of talking about the story, background, etc. Just, as you suggest, a little out of proportion.

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Hello!

 

I am doing a The day of the Doctor rescore with Murray Gold's intended score.

 

I managed to restore all of the tracks except this one : 

 

 

Anyone has any idea where it's supposed to fit? I assume it's with the portals and fez scenes given the title but I can't make it fit anywhere. Maybe it's because of some cut scenes but the rest of the CD album dits perfectly without any edit necessary so I'm not sure.

 

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