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Doctor Who S11E01 'The Woman Who Fell To Earth' discussion thread
So... New Doctor, new companions/friends, new showrunner, new composer. What did folks think?
I'm going to leave my initial thoughts for a comment.
So... New Doctor, new companions/friends, new showrunner, new composer. What did folks think?
I'm going to leave my initial thoughts for a comment.
I liked this new Doctor. She reminded me of some of the previous good Doctors: Tennant, Tom Baker, even Capaldi. She's quirky and smart and just crazy enough to be fun, without being overly arrogant about her abilities. Jodie Whittaker owned this role right from the get-go.
I really liked that her companions seem to be just plain ordinary people. And I'm loving the hints that we might go back to having a Doctor who's a traveller, who enforces fair play, and who fixes things. I want that Doctor back! We can do without a Doctor who is The Most Important Person In The Universe, and companions who can impossibly exist throughout time and space, or who paradoxically give birth to the Doctor's wife. The show was getting so self-important and so self-referential under Steven Moffat that it nearly disappeared up its own arse. Let's just get back to the Doctor going random places and fixing random shit in a random way.
I do have one meta-question, though... now that the Doctor has been both male and female, how do we refer to him/her/them? Obviously the Thirteenth Doctor is female, so I can say something like "She has three companions." The Twelfth Doctor was male, so I can say something like "He had one companion." But how do I refer to the ongoing character of the Doctor: "He/She/They always seems to acquire companions."
I think that's what I liked about this episode. I've always found it strange that Moffat wrote some of my favorite standalone episodes/two-parters, but it was when he started running things that I started slowly losing interest. It's not as if Davies didn't do overarching plots or callbacks, but Moffat's run felt... Overly complicated.
Yeah, Moffat just seemed to lose perspective when he was put in charge of running the whole show. Every season finale had to be bigger and more important than the previous one, and the Doctor became so much more arrogant about their abilities and their place in the universe. It was off-putting.
this video covers it pretty well
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkoGBOs5ecM
Moffat is good at buildup and solid concepts but it never wraps together successfully.
Dude wrote one of the best Doctor Who episodes in 50 years (Blink) and then pulls shit like magic time travelling doctor helper dalek clara mcRetCon
remember the series 6 finale where the plot consisted of the doctor showing up and then suddenly every bad guy in the whole universe runs away and then he finds like River Song's cradle. why did any of this happen? why did the cracks in time in S5 never pan out? Who thought Dinosaurs on a Spaceship was a good idea?
So, no pronoun? That could make life a little difficult.
I kept watching the show during Moffat's tenure, but I stopped buying it. I bought all the DVDs for Davies' tenure, with Eccleston and Tennant (and I just upgraded them all to Blu-ray last week, because they were being sold very cheap in the lead-up to today's new season). But I haven't bought a single disc from Moffat's tenure, with Smith or Capaldi - although, I might be convinced to buy the last season, with Bill Potts (that season was okay)
How could you not love Donna? Rose was a sentimental favourite. And, of course, who could forget Sarah-Jane from the olden days. But Donna was brilliant (to coin a phrase). She was the Doctor's equal, even before she became the Donna-Doctor. She called him out on his shit, and it was good.
I would say neutral pronouns when referring to the Doctor as a whole. Like when referring to the Doctor's overall experiences that aren't specific to a given regeneration. Example:
Which this makes sense when you think about each regeneration as being a wholly different body and personality but connected by a common experience as being "The Doctor".
Also when referring to a specific regeneration of the Doctor they could be referred to as the gender of the regeneration. Example:
Human language unfortunately is a little limited in regard to Time Lord experiences!
I think "they" is sufficient. So "They always seems to acquire companions". It works with any singular Doctor too, and makes speaking about them easier. And if you feel weird using it, there's the added bonus that one can think of the Doctor as multiple "persons" anyway. ;)
There's a tildes thread about gender neutral pronouns floating around somewhere with more discussion, and this seems like a situation where it's clearly useful.
The other option I have seen people use, is to use the gender of the most recent Doctor. So currently "She always seems to..." I personally find using "they" cleaner though.
I assume you mean this recent topic. ;)
The main reason I asked this question was not to get an answer but to start a discussion. I thought it would be interesting to talk about whether the Doctor is a "he" or a "she" or a "they". Is the character defined only by the latest regeneration's gender, by the gender of the majority of the regenerations, or is the character now ungendered?
Perhaps Time Lords/Ladies don't really have genders per se, and as humans (both the audience and the characters) we're just projecting human genders onto them when they appear a certain sex to us, and they just go along with it. (I'm not necessarily saying I think this is true, but as you said it's an interesting thing to think about and discuss~)
I'm not sure what I've been doing with pronouns so far. "She" for the current doctor, "he" for previous doctors, probably. But "they" makes a lot of sense...
Here's another question that flashed through my head earlier today: is the Doctor now a Time Lady, like Romana was? Is the Mistress ("Missy") a Time Lady?
Well, the latest Doctor has already made a couple of comments about being a woman, rather than being a man. So they recognise gender at least to that degree.
Yeah, I've been jumping all around the place on this. It's confusing!
I'm pretty sure she used that at some point herself.
I personally think that Time Lords perfectly understand the human concept on gender, and use it and play with it when interacting with humans. Some of them may even "own it" somewhat. But it's not really part of their own culture. Time Lord/Lady is just English translation of their own word for themselves, and they probably find the need to gender Lord/Lady somewhat amusing.
So coming back to the pronoun discussion, I don't think The Doctor really is she or he or they, the pronoun is just something that is part of English, and we choose the most appropriate one for the present situation. And as said, personally I find "they" the simplest one.
Yeah, that's more what I was trying to propose; I have no idea if there are any canon bits and pieces on how they think about gender, but I think this is how I'm going to imagine it. I mean, why would an alien species with individuals that change so radically on a regular basis necessarily have the same concept of gender as us?
I posted this above as well but this is my take on it:
I would say neutral pronouns when referring to the Doctor as a whole. Like when referring to the Doctor's overall experiences that aren't specific to a given regeneration. Example:
Which this makes sense when you think about each regeneration as being a wholly different body and personality but connected by a common experience as being "The Doctor".
Also when referring to a specific regeneration of the Doctor they could be referred to as the gender of the regeneration. Example:
Human language unfortunately is a little limited in regard to Time Lord experiences!
In Capaldi's last episode a Time Lord regenerated into a Time Lady. Before realizing, someone addressed her as "sir" then quickly corrected that to "ma'am" when she got up. And I seem to remember the 10th doctor at one point bringing up other Time Lords that gender swapped occasionally.
Honestly I'd just use whatever gendered pronouns they're using at the time. If I'm not referring to a specific instance of the Doctor I'll be referring to her as "her" until the next time she's a dude again.
I really enjoyed it. I've been watching Doctor Who since the reboot, and lately I've lost interest. This felt like Doctor Who, but a bit fresher.
I'm not sure which new elements contributed the most, but I will say I definitely noticed a change in the music even before I'd read there was a new composer. The music felt less bombastic, and perhaps a bit more modern (in terms of atmosphere). Not sure if that will hold true on a relisten.
I guess Jodie Whittaker is the biggest change, but she just felt like the Doctor to me.
Yeah similar boat to you, watch Tenant and most of Smith, then lost interest with Capaldi. But I liked this new Doctor so I'm kind of excited for this season.
That's true. I expected a bit more fanfare and higher stakes in her first episode. Though that might be intentional and maybe they'll focus more on smaller stories instead of how Moffat was constantly trying to one-up himself.
Personally I found this new episode very enjoyable, and definitely a breath of fresh air. I must say that I've enjoyed Moffat's run much more than many commenters here, and found Capaldi's seasons very good. But I still think that Moffat had their run, and really appreciate the change of pace.
I haven't really enjoyed any post-regeneration episodes of the new series, so this one was clearly the best. If the trend of episodes getting better as a season goes on continues, I'm very happy indeed! It will be interesting to see how the more grounded approach works with more scifi-ey episodes.
Whittaker is of course, perfect. And their outfit is very lovely. I'm excited to see the new Tardis!
I’m conflicted. Jodie seems like a good doctor but IMO she’s channeling too much tennant/smith at the moment; perhaps necessary given the silly outcry, but I’m sure she’ll have her own distinct identity with time. I like Ryan and his grandpa, tone of the episode was chill but pacing seemed rushed in places, new sonic design is growing on me, I’m neutral on Yaz since she’s mostly been in the background thus far. Plot itself didn’t grab me, but then again I’ve never been a big fan of the new Doctor/companion openers. I look forward to the rest of the season.
I've got the sense that the scripts are written toward the tennant/smith approach now, and it might be difficult for her to find an idiosyncratic niche or "do her own thing" with it.
That would be a shame if it’s the case.
I had really high expectations but it just came off like any other show, and not a good one at that. I’m a huge Doctor Who fan, so I will give it another chance to find its footing, but this was not a great opener. There were tons of weird(or actually, not-weird is the problem) things about it, but I’ll just mention one. The music was way off and boring.
Ah, so it wasn't just me that noticed the music.
I actually quite liked it; after a 13 day marathon of Doctor Who on BBC America, I was getting a bit fed up hearing the same sorts of themes. But that might be because music gets stuck in my head easily (even just writing about it brings forth a very familiar snippet of the old music). I guess I'll have to see what I think going forward.
Episode 2 was great! Woohoo!
My previous comment was pretty negative about E01.. while I stand by that.. I realized that I usually dislike the first episode of each new incarnation :)
I have been a fan of the show for a few years now. I have only seen it from the reboot, not any of the older series'. My favorite doctor is Capaldi, and my favorite companion is Rose.
After seeing this episode, I have basically no strong interest in watching more of the show. Maybe I've been spoiled by the previous writers and actors, I just couldn't get past how mundane it was, compared to the first episodes for the previous three regenerations. I'm willing to give the actress' acting a pass since she's new to the role. It wasn't terrible, but it wasn't great.
Also "only losers carry knives"?? Getting really tired of tv shows acting as propaganda.
I thought it was just characterising the Doctor. He/She has always (usually?) been against violence and weapons. Previous Doctors have said similar things. To me, this was therefore just another touch of continuity, showing that this Doctor is like the previous ones.
What about her performance didn't you like? I'm curious, because I enjoyed that aspect a lot. I feel like she's got elements of previous doctors with room to grow.
Also I really didn't get "propaganda" from that line. In particular I remember a part in Eccleston's run with him really disliking weapons. Something about a weapons factory and bananas? (It's a common theme, but that bit always amused me.)
Frankly it's always been a refreshing part of Doctor Who where the default agent of power is not a gun or some weapon. So many shows and scenes will revolve around who has a gun or weapon and how the good guys use theirs to beat the bad guys's.
And a huge part of the Doctor's character is that he's weaponless. And it's pushed throughout the series that he's incredibly dangerous because/in spite of it.
Just rewatched Heaven Sent and Hell Bent the other day and a huge recurring saying was that the last thing that many people saw in the Time War was an unarmed War Doctor.
Watching Face the Raven now and the Doctor pointed a dismembered Dalek gun at the Daleks and they commented that he won't shoot because the Doctor doesn't use weapons.