14th Doctor Announced

[hammerofglass]

The BBC has doubled down - the only surprise I have is that its not a black woman in a rainbow coloured headscarf. Can't let the fans have what they want! A traditional Dr Who in the vein of Tom Baker or Matt Smith! Then we'd have, like, viewers and stuff.

Oh well. Another Dr Who I don't intend to watch. I already have no hope for Russ Davies bringing back the glory days.

Dude.

One, the character is an alien that regularly changes bodies, not a human.

Two, do you REMEMBER the Smith era??? When Smith was playing an eldritch abomination but being written as a space prettyboy by the hack showrunner?

Smith's Doctor was a straight white guy.

If there's more to this I'd love to hear it, but I'm pretty sure that's what he means by "traditional".

[Lazerlike42]

I think the issue some people might have with this casting is subtler and more nuanced than worrying about what a "traditional" Doctor would be.

Consider Bill. I realize that the standards are different for a companion vs. the Doctor, but still, Bill is almost the incarnation of what the kind of person who would stereotypically hate a casting choice like this new Doctor would hate: she's black and she's gay - but, at least once the series got going, I don't remember very many complaints about her casting/character and I think the big reason for this is that while those traits were a part of her character, they never made them the primary reason for her character. In other words, they tried to first tell good stories, and if those traits were relevant to the story then so be it, rather than first trying to focus on those traits and letting good story be an afterthought.

On the other hand, with the 13th Doctor you had the predictable back and forth when the casting was announced, but once the series started airing there continued to be lots of complaints that the character's identity or politics were the primary motivating factor rather than good storytelling.

I think that's the concern thatmost people who are unsure about this casting have (of course I'm sure some are just racist/whatever). It's a really unfortunate catch-22 type situation these days where anytime you cast a minority/a woman/a gay person/whatever people are going to wonder if the only reason you did it was the politics, but it does make sense since so often that is what's motivating casting decisions like this.

I think that ironically, if a casting choice like this had been made for the doctor in the 1970s there would have been far less skepticism than there is today because people wouldn't see it as a political move. If anything, it might have been seen as a bad political move and so therefore more clearly done for artistic reasons.

Personally, I think we'll have to wait and see. If the 14th Doctor features good stories and a likable Doctor, then who cares what the background of the actor is? On the other hand, if every episode is some repetitive variation of the Doctor dealing with racism in some different time period, then I think it would probably rightly be met with a lot of criticism.

[Frustration]

Now, it was a man in yellow face, which is unfortunate but officially, K'anpo changed ethnicities.

Yes, it WAS unfortunate - but I think people underestimate the difficulty of getting an Asian actor in 1960s Britain.

Ultimately, I don't think the choice of actor matters much. Obviously, any incompetent actor in the role is going to be a bad thing - but given the mess that's been made of continuity, it's hardly the biggest problem facing the show. And Doctor Who has far less continuity than any other franchise, since it's canonical that time is mutable and often inconsistent. That's the only reason the franchise has managed to last so long, and even so it's drowning in the contradictions of its own backstory.

Historically Doctor Who has had weak special effects but excellent characterization and writing. Lately they've been pouring money into effects - really, they're the nicest they've ever been - but the writing has been short-sighted, uninspired, and tedious.

[Frustration]

Look, the issue isn't whether a black man can play the Doctor, the issue is whether his race is truly going to be treated as incidental or whether it's going to be a diversity showpiece like Bill's lesbianism. That's not something we can determine beforehand.

Matt Smith was an unknown, a former football player who was going to go professional before sidelined by an injury. And he was a brilliant performer who also got great writing to work with. (Also some bad writing, but that's true of every Doctor in places.)

The problems lie with the people producing the show, not with the actors portraying the characters.

[sayla0079]

The thing is though the show needs to adapt and change and that includes the doctor, rather it's gender or race. If the show doesn't adapt to attract new audiences it will fade away.

[Lazerlike42]

The thing is though the show needs to adapt and change and that includes the doctor, rather it's gender or race. If the show doesn't adapt to attract new audiences it will fade away.

This is a pretty common line of reasoning that gets said about many different things, but in pretty much all of those cases reality doesn't seem to agree with this way of thinking.

For example, it's often said in religious contexts about different denominations or subsets of different religions as a reason for adapting whatever given religion to more modern sentiments, but generally speaking the denominations/groups which go that route tend to decline in membership while more traditional groups fare a lot better, at least relative to the groups that try to "be with the times."

Doctor Who itself is another example, because the show was doing well enough prior to the 13th doctor and has fared worse since trying to attract new audiences. That doesn't mean that the show couldn't succeed with a female doctor or with whatever other "adaptation" one might imagine; the point is simply that at least in this case it was doing better before it tried to adapt or attract new audiences and so that definitely doesn't seem to be an imperative.

[sayla0079]

Actually, from everything I have heard the ratings have been going down since Peter Capaldi's run. Plus you also have to consider how ratings are factored in.

[Frustration]

The thing is though the show needs to adapt and change and that includes the doctor, rather it's gender or race. If the show doesn't adapt to attract new audiences it will fade away.

Assuming that 'adapting' will attract new audiences in the first place. If you assume, as I do, that 'adapting' is often a code word for showrunners promoting social and political stances that they think the audience will approve of - or poorly-thought out stances that they actually have - then it's not at all obvious that will happen.

Doctor Who was once very anti-authoritarian, but it was written by anti-authoritarian people, so even if it was pandering to late-60s sentiment it worked. It's not at all obvious to me that their social commentary is what the audience actually thinks - at best, it's what they think they're supposed to think.

Ultimately, quality writing and good stories will attract audiences, who may then be influenced by social commentary. Trying to attract people with social commentary but bad writing is doomed.

[clearspira]

The thing is though the show needs to adapt and change and that includes the doctor, rather it's gender or race. If the show doesn't adapt to attract new audiences it will fade away.

Assuming that 'adapting' will attract new audiences in the first place. If you assume, as I do, that 'adapting' is often a code word for showrunners promoting social and political stances that they think the audience will approve of - or poorly-thought out stances that they actually have - then it's not at all obvious that will happen.

Doctor Who was once very anti-authoritarian, but it was written by anti-authoritarian people, so even if it was pandering to late-60s sentiment it worked. It's not at all obvious to me that their social commentary is what the audience actually thinks - at best, it's what they think they're supposed to think.

Ultimately, quality writing and good stories will attract audiences, who may then be influenced by social commentary. Trying to attract people with social commentary but bad writing is doomed.

The irony is that being pro-LGBT, pro-diversity, pro-women etc. is now the government and majority view. Therefore it is actually impossible to have a truly anti-authoritarian character unless you go full anarchist.

Anyway, we'll know real soon with Fourteen what the deal is. If someone or something makes a big deal about his race within his first series then that'll be all I need to know. I remember how they handled this with Martha in ''The Shakespeare Code'' back in good old 2007:

Martha Jones : Am I alright? I'm not going to get carted off as a slave or anything?
The Doctor : Why ever would you think that?
Martha Jones : Well, not exactly white, in case you hadn't noticed.
The Doctor : Well, I'm not exactly human. Just walk round like you own the place, always works for me.

And that's all you need. A quick recognition, and then on with fighting the magical time travelling witches that we came to see. But... this is 2022. That's not how it works anymore. I'm calling it now: he'll be in or around a slave ship at some point. 100% guaranteed.

[Frustration]

The irony is that being pro-LGBT, pro-diversity, pro-women etc. is now the government and majority view. Therefore it is actually impossible to have a truly anti-authoritarian character unless you go full anarchist.

Oh, I don't know about that. I've considered myself a feminist since I was eight years old, but I think much of modern 'feminism' is largely nonsense. Still, ideas go in cycles, and there are older incarnations of feminism that I also think are nonsense. And of course I could always be wrong.

Martha Jones : Am I alright? I'm not going to get carted off as a slave or anything?
The Doctor : Why ever would you think that?
Martha Jones : Well, not exactly white, in case you hadn't noticed.
The Doctor : Well, I'm not exactly human. Just walk round like you own the place, always works for me.

The key difference, of course, is that a human can't detect that the Doctor isn't human without physical contact, while any alien with even moderate infrared vision can instantly see he's not human, and can likely see his two hearts. Martha's racial background is instantly obvious to other humans - although "blackamoors" weren't automatically assumed to be slaves in England at the time. Still not a comfortable place to be visually distinct.

I much preferred Martha Jones to Rose, in the sense that I think the Doctor shouldn't have romantic relationships with the companions, pretty young women or not. Because, as Four occasionally reminds us, the Doctor is an alien, with a very non-human perspective, and mental and physical abilities far beyond the human. Having sexual tension with a human being, when his senses constantly remind him that they're not even the same species... complicated. Unlike Jack Harkness, there's really no reason to think that the Doctor is omnisexual; I can see him not being concerned with gender, but not falling in romantic love with a human. Love, sure, just not sex or romance.

The Doctor is like a human who greatly respects dogs and believes they're better and more noble beings than humans. But you don't have a romance with a dog, and you don't have sex with them either.

Also why I disliked Twelve's relationship with Clara. Even with a transcendent temporal existence, she's not the Doctor's intellectual equal (no human is), and even if the Doc respected her morally, it doesn't make sense for him to be so attached to her that he'd place the entire universe in danger. It's just not who he is. River Song's doing so was glorious romantic idiocy, but she doesn't start out a hero but becomes one.