As I understand it now that Davies has taken over again Doctor Who will technically be produced by his Bad Wolf production company instead of the BBC, so arguably it's as much of a new era as the 2005 reboot/relaunch was. But I think the renumbering is more of an effort to help new viewers into it since the new episodes be airing on Disney Plus. "Series 1" is much less daunting for a new viewer than "Series 14" or "Series 41," especially since the older series won't be on Disney Plus as far as I know. (Comic books do the renumbering thing all the time. Action Comics #1000 might be an exciting milestone for adults, but it's an intimidating number for kids thinking of starting out.) And Davies is too much of a nerd to wipe the slate properly clean like that. Just look at him.
the UK needs to come up with a children's spin off for Dr. Who. It needs a cute animal humanoid main girl character, and it has to be called Dr. Why. Every fucking episode is this annoying cute little girl wandering around and asking all the adults why in their english accents until the child in the audience drives their parents to kill them in a family suicide pact. What? it would be great and lower the population in a drastic and needed way. Who needs an asteroid when we can do this now. Oh, and if we can get the baby shark people to get some earworm jingle to go with it that would be awesome.
So Davros showed up in the Children in Need special as a regular looking guy with working legs, which is fine since it's supposed to be a prequel to Genesis of the Daleks, but now Davies is saying that Davros will continue to be able bodied in any future appearances so that the kids don't associate "disability" with "evil." That's the second stupidest choice he's made in the last year. (The stupidest being not letting Tennant wear Whittaker's old clothes because he's scared of TERFs.) Kids aren't that dumb, and if British kids somehow are, just add more disabled good guys ffs. What's next, skinny Slitheen that don't fart? Can't be discriminating against the overweight or the lactose intolerant, can we?
Oh...DW is really, really gone from BBC America. I thought they would just premiere on Disney+ and trickle down. Whelp, no more DW for me then. Goodbye forever, Dr. Who thread. Goodbye.
Anakin / Vader's offensive life support suit will soon be retconned away. He respected the high ground. Burn victims worldwide - rejoice. ----- This is seriously next level BS. RTD spoke of how many of the production were "uncomfortable" with the idea of a disabled Davros. Were there any disabled folk on the production? I haven't seen a positive word from anyone wheelchair-bound (at least those who claim to be) about making Davros able-bodied. This decision is the embodiment of so much of the nonsense that runs interference with just making a decent show that people enjoy. It's one thing to be mindful of the trope going forward, but this is absolute, utter tosh. Also, if we follow the same logic, shouldn't this also have implications for The Cybermen?
They may as well retcon the Daleks, as well, since they're basically brains in wheelchairs with guns. Jesus wept.
Instead of chanting "EXTERMINATE!" Daleks will be chanting "EXCRUTIATE!" because of how bad these changes are
It was one of the dumbest things I've heard, not only that, but it pretty much excludes anyone with a disability from taking on a villain role, which are frequently the fun and meaty roles. If he was so upset about it, just have another parallel world story, and this time have Liz Carr - who is getting in to all the franchises - as a female Davros with good Daleks. There you go, positive disabled role model, a new enemy for the OG Daleks and a potentially interesting plot with future ramifications.
I had a friend with cerebral palsy in elementary school, and he didn't give a shit about wheelchair characters one way or another; he was more obsessed with cyborgs, because he wanted to be turned into one. So, yeah, good Daleks, good Cybermen, that'd be his jam.
"Everything has it's time, everything dies" was such a big recurring theme during Davies first tenure, with many of the villains being villains exactly because they refused to accept that. Tennant himself briefly became a villain when he refused to accept that. Davros being reduced to a rotting half corpse was a good illustration of that, but he was still threatening because his brilliant mind was intact. Give him a normal working body again that looks like a regular guy, and that's just a shittier version of the Master.
Oh, and is this really the 14th Doctor, or just the 10th Doctor Part 3? That "allons-y" gave me pause for a moment. I know Ten ended Christmas Invasion by saying "fantastic" and that didn't make him Nine, and they made a big deal of him actually being able to say he loves someone for a change... But still.
If we want to not limit it to letting go of regeneration/timey weirdness and just the general idea that blokes won't let go of power, then the Doctor has been doing that his/her whole life: ran from the Presidency, rejected Missy's offer of a Cyber-Army...
Let go of his floating psychic Jesus powers after restoring his youthful body and disarming the Master.
I was gonna mention that but decided it was ambiguous as to whether that was letting it go or just that humanity couldn't maintain the collective psychic focus that long.
Well, that was a helluva lot of fun despite some very silly stuff. I quite enjoyed it. But this iteration of Who is definitely going to alienate a lot more fans than Jodie Whittaker ever did. It's almost like the BBC said to the fans, "Oh, you didn't like a female Doctor? Hold my beer."
Yeah the hate was mainly for the story quality among anyone who WASN'T just spouting misogynistic crap. Jodie's Doctor was fine, just badly served by the scripts. She's got a special spot in my Who love for doing this short to reassure kids during the COVID lockdown: https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1558181641016162
What? Not being on Twitter means you’re in a positivity bubble. Fuck that shit. In fact, I wish more creators and writers were off Twitter. Assholes love it when they can hang bang.
Chibnall would be well served by some sort of ADHD medication. He loves creating these new, unique, genuinely interesting characters and concepts, then almost immediately neglecting them in favour of an even newer character or concept he just came up with.
Great to see RTD hasn't lost his ability to do nightmarish bottle episodes. There's that theory that most regenerations are at least partially based on what their predecessor wished they could be, so 14 being so open with his feelings and such makes me even sadder for 13.