If you watch Doctor Who expecting anything approaching proper science, you're in for a bad time. At best you can hope that the magic pretending to be science is somewhat consistent. I mean really, every time the Doctor takes a companion to the future they should almost immediately die of the common cold, and every time the Doctor takes a companion to the past they should almost immediately kick off a new plague.
At an early job of mine, they had an old blueline machine that worked with ammonia. Stupid 19-year-old me lifts the bottle to my nose to see what it smells like. It smells like burning, burning fire is what it smells like. One of the engineers, seeing my agonies, said "Idiot, what if that had been sulfuric acid?" He was right.
Thinking about the "box checking" discussion from another thread, Doctor Who casting is an excellent example of box checking that the usual suspects never seem to complain about. Despite being depicted as an alien that can drastically alter it's appearance while regenerating, every single Doctor until very recently has been played a white actor from the UK, and 13 out of the first 14 actors have been men. Other than the rumours that Capaldi was only cast after a black male actor declined the role, it's was an open secret for five decades that non-white, non-male, non-UK actors need not bother applying. Where were the critics of box-checking hiding all that time?
I wasn't sure about Whittaker's emotional arc before, but from this first episode of Flux it finally clicked into place. Every Doctor has a flaw, hers is that she's refusing to open up or let anyone get too close to her. It completely makes sense after how broken Eleven was after getting deeply attached to and losing Amy, and how Twelve let his attachment to Clara drive him to unhealthy extremes. Twelve tried keeping Bill at arm's length, but that didn't work and he found himself so broken when she and Nardole died that he was ready to give up and die himself. So I get why Thirteen is doing everything she can to keep closed off, intentionally bringing in a bigger group of companions so they'd bond with each other and let her maintain more of a distance. But now Yaz is getting frustrated and trying to break through that. I hope her time ends with her finally letting people back in.
That's actually true about a lot of acids. When you boil them the water portion turns to steam and what remains in the container is concentrated acid. And I'd like to point out that Ammonia is a weak base, not an acid.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAA and that preview for next week: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA About fuckin' time!
I've been impressed with this series so far. It's had plot holes/daft bits but then all Who has that, the trick is keeping the story engaging and the characters believable. Jodie has been given some real material to sink herself into this series and she's far more Doctor-y than at any time barring her introduction and the first Dalek story. Was your "About fuckin' time!" aimed at the preview or just in general? I didn't see anything majorly "Wow!" in the preview (except UNIT are back, yay!)...
I've started re-watching Whittaker's episodes from the beginning (I had only seen up through Arachnids in the UK in any case) and on re-watch, they seemed much better than I remember. I just finished Kerblam!. Looking forward to getting around to Flux one day.
Yeah, UNIT. Kate especially. I didn't expect either to basically get written out of the series after Capaldi's last story, especially not as the punchline of a joke. Glad they're back.
Well Brexit jokes are obligatory over here. Whether the UN in UNIT still means the actual United Nations or UNified in Who continuity is up and down, but if it's the UN the Brexit thing doesn't really count. The "we've replaced a vital service with a hotline" thing from the Dalek special was a jab at the NHS 111 phone service, which is notoriously crap. I never doubted UNIT would be back, but at least Chibbers gave some in-universe reason as to why they don't always show up for obvious alien weirdness (they've have been RIGHT on the case when all those Judoon showed up in Gloucester last series). Government bollocks.
Thirteens first holiday episode had a scene revealing their UK funding was eliminated because there hadn't been an alien invasion in a while. Probably why the Dalek had no problem waltzing into the Black Archive. I read theories that they scrapped UNIT because Kate looked too similar to Whittaker, but nothing would have stopped them from sending in Osgood or Magumbo to lead the charge.
14thDoctor is not me and vice-versa. Question is will he have to update to 15thDoctor when Jodie regenerates?
Jodie is technically the 14th if we're starting with Hartnell and including the War Doctor but not Tennant's second regeneration, but the whole Timeless Child thing makes the numbering system pointless. Martin is probably closest to my own personal style.
Brutally kill several Judoon in close combat and then wave a gun in someone's face? Not how I like my Doctors. Six only JUST gets away with it because Cybermen.
I meant literally fashion-wise, but honestly? Most of them have killed loads of enemies just as effectively as if they'd used a gun or a pointed stick, either with some makeshift weapon or by getting someone else to do the sticking for them. I'm not saying I want a Doctor to walk around like Scarface mowing down wave after wave of Daleks, but at this point the difference is mostly academic.
Loved the first two episodes of this series; can't say I'm enamoured with the third and fourth episodes. There seems to a disease in the Doctor Who writers room, whereby they have a great set up but then can't seem to follow through.
Female doctor deprives British boys of role models, says Tory MP (BBC) All they have left is Tommy Shelby.
Haven't watched the show since the season eight with Capaldi. I'm currently subscribed to HBO Max. So probably a good time to start watching again.
1. I'm on the record as saying "representation matters," but I bet this guy would never accept that premise if someone asked him about minority kids or girls wanting more role models that look like them. Suddenly diversity is stupid and racist if anyone but white cis dudes want representation. 2. The name of the show might be Doctor Who, but the Doctor himself/herself has always been a piece of shit to at least some extent and a terrible role model, with Colin Baker/Sylvester McCoy at the top and David Tennant/Matt Smith somewhere near the bottom. In the revival especially, it's the mostly female companions that are actually kicking ass and saving the day in a heroic inspiring fashion.
I don't know the show, but this supports my belief that Tommy Shelby is a superior role model anyway. Word hard; take care of your family.
Finally finished season 11. Tolerating this Jodie Whittaker chick alright so far, but does the writing for the 13th Doctor ever get any better? Even Capaldi seemed to have more to work with.
I think she does, but there's a serious trend of Chibnall trying to make Whittaker as ineffectual as Peter Davison was back in the day. It was a bad move then and it's a bad move now. But most Doctors are only as good as their enemies, and the enemies get a lot better after her first season.
Whilst the recent Flux storyline was a narrative mess, it had the best out of Jodie as her Doctor was able to get much more proactive and assertive.
The New Year's special was decent (although the "Groundhog Day" stuff has been done to death) and I think I'm now in love with Aisling Bea.
