MORE Doctor Who thoughts
Jul. 17th, 2017 02:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenayI've now had twenty-four hours to digest and my brain is still a bit stuck on squee and joy and squee and joy.
I mean, I woke up this morning and a night had passed and IT'S STILL TRUE. JODI WHITTAKER IS STILL THE DOCTOR. IT WASN'T A DREAM.
There was a teeny tiny bit of me that was half-expecting to find out that it had somehow all gone wrong and Kris Marshall was the Doctor after all.
But I also have more thoughts. Some of them I am going to end up ficcing. I've got a Bill and Thirteen plot bunny nibbling my ankles that I'm going to need to play with.
Other thoughts, I just need to noodle through. The first is related to some discussion I saw yesterday about how this should have happened sooner and Moffat should have done it, and I have feelings about this.
There was, predictably, outcry over the casting. There always would be. But you know what none of the butthurt fanboys (and girls, sadly) could do? They couldn't claim it broke canon.
That's huge. HUGE. If Moffat had done it for Twelve, people would have thrown a wobbly *and* yelled about canon. Until that point, we'd had a vague hint about the Corsair and a possible hint about the Doctor being a little girl once (or that might have been something Missy said about the Doctor, I get confused). Someone had to establish, without a shadow of a doubt, that Time Lords can change gender when they regenerate. Someone had to do it with another established Time Lord, so Moffat created Missy. Someone had to show a regeneration onscreen that included a gender and race change. Moffat wrote the General's regeneration in Hell Bent. Someone had to push it in our faces, in ways that couldn't be ignored, that Time Lords are flexible around gender and it's not a big deal for them, so that when we finally had a woman cast as our Doctor, the fans who complained couldn't use canon as a reason to whine.
That's what Moffat did. All that work, which took years, paved the way. He shepherded this in as much as Chibnall, and all that work guaranteed the complainers would look incredibly foolish to anyone with a brain. It was important. Is Moffat perfect? Hell, no. Nobody is. But what he's done over the last few years was important and shouldn't be forgotten or overlooked.
The other thing is that I've seen talk about is the way this casting leaves out fans of colour, because Jodi is a white woman. Someone posted a tweet along the lines of "I cam simultaneously be overjoyed at the casting we have *and* critical that it's another white actor" and that's very, very true. I don't want to harsh anyone's squee. Heck, I don't want to harsh my own squee, because it's so wonderful to feel this squeeful.
I'm also aware that I have the inbuilt privilege of being a white woman, so I'm not feeling left behind.
(Although one critique I saw that totally forgot we've just had a season with a prominent WOC, who was centred a lot *and* got to be a queer black woman in a major role, which is still rare...well, I was glad to see that (white) writer get corrected.)
Honestly, when I was thinking about this, I knew we wouldn't get a WOC. We'd get either a (male) POC *or* a woman. The BBC had to go outside the white male box this time, but it was inevitable that they wouldn't be able to smash it into too many pieces. One of those identities had to be challenged, but not both at once.
And out of the two options, I really thought they'd go with a black or Asian male actor, because casting a woman felt too daring. Too far. A line they haven't crossed yet. It's part of why I was so surprised, so overjoyed, because at no stage did I ever think they'd do this. Not this time. Not yet. For Fourteen? Yes. I had hope. But I expected them to push through the race barrier first, not gender, particularly after everything they've done in the last season to highlight and talk about race and privilege in the text.
And trust me, I would have been every bit as overjoyed right now if that's what they'd done. The only way I was going to be unhappy was if we had another white man in the role, because we've had thirteen of them and if a character can change skin and gender, and it doesn't signify to them, then why would they only ever look like a small section of human society?
I hope they'll cast a WOC for Fourteen. I really do. It's the next logical step. And it really sucks groups of fans feel like they're always being told to wait, that change has to be incremental, because in an ideal world it wouldn't. In an ideal world, the Doctor would have been played by Archie Panjabi or Shelley Conn after Tennant regenerated. I wish we lived in that ideal world.
In the meantime, I hope the TARDIS team won't be overwhelmingly white. I know that I'm not getting Bill back (although my dream is a whole season of Bill and Thirteen travelling together, sometimes flirting, while Bill boggles at her old grandpa figure having turned into a hot woman she can't keep her eyes off), but let's not mess up the progress that's been made so far.
Cast the first Asian actor as a companion. I mean, if the BBC is committed to diversity and reflecting British society as it truly is, then someone with South-East Asian heritage is long overdue. This goes double if they cast a male companion, to ensure "gender balance" in the TARDIS, because we do not need a white dude in the TARDIS right now.
We've had thirteen* male Doctors, let's have thirteen women as the Doctor and have them as diverse as possible. All colours. All shapes. All presentations. No Doctors who are identified as male. No cishet white male companions unless they're part of a big multi-companion TARDIS team.
I think the fandom is ready.
* including the War Doctor.
I mean, I woke up this morning and a night had passed and IT'S STILL TRUE. JODI WHITTAKER IS STILL THE DOCTOR. IT WASN'T A DREAM.
There was a teeny tiny bit of me that was half-expecting to find out that it had somehow all gone wrong and Kris Marshall was the Doctor after all.
But I also have more thoughts. Some of them I am going to end up ficcing. I've got a Bill and Thirteen plot bunny nibbling my ankles that I'm going to need to play with.
Other thoughts, I just need to noodle through. The first is related to some discussion I saw yesterday about how this should have happened sooner and Moffat should have done it, and I have feelings about this.
There was, predictably, outcry over the casting. There always would be. But you know what none of the butthurt fanboys (and girls, sadly) could do? They couldn't claim it broke canon.
That's huge. HUGE. If Moffat had done it for Twelve, people would have thrown a wobbly *and* yelled about canon. Until that point, we'd had a vague hint about the Corsair and a possible hint about the Doctor being a little girl once (or that might have been something Missy said about the Doctor, I get confused). Someone had to establish, without a shadow of a doubt, that Time Lords can change gender when they regenerate. Someone had to do it with another established Time Lord, so Moffat created Missy. Someone had to show a regeneration onscreen that included a gender and race change. Moffat wrote the General's regeneration in Hell Bent. Someone had to push it in our faces, in ways that couldn't be ignored, that Time Lords are flexible around gender and it's not a big deal for them, so that when we finally had a woman cast as our Doctor, the fans who complained couldn't use canon as a reason to whine.
That's what Moffat did. All that work, which took years, paved the way. He shepherded this in as much as Chibnall, and all that work guaranteed the complainers would look incredibly foolish to anyone with a brain. It was important. Is Moffat perfect? Hell, no. Nobody is. But what he's done over the last few years was important and shouldn't be forgotten or overlooked.
The other thing is that I've seen talk about is the way this casting leaves out fans of colour, because Jodi is a white woman. Someone posted a tweet along the lines of "I cam simultaneously be overjoyed at the casting we have *and* critical that it's another white actor" and that's very, very true. I don't want to harsh anyone's squee. Heck, I don't want to harsh my own squee, because it's so wonderful to feel this squeeful.
I'm also aware that I have the inbuilt privilege of being a white woman, so I'm not feeling left behind.
(Although one critique I saw that totally forgot we've just had a season with a prominent WOC, who was centred a lot *and* got to be a queer black woman in a major role, which is still rare...well, I was glad to see that (white) writer get corrected.)
Honestly, when I was thinking about this, I knew we wouldn't get a WOC. We'd get either a (male) POC *or* a woman. The BBC had to go outside the white male box this time, but it was inevitable that they wouldn't be able to smash it into too many pieces. One of those identities had to be challenged, but not both at once.
And out of the two options, I really thought they'd go with a black or Asian male actor, because casting a woman felt too daring. Too far. A line they haven't crossed yet. It's part of why I was so surprised, so overjoyed, because at no stage did I ever think they'd do this. Not this time. Not yet. For Fourteen? Yes. I had hope. But I expected them to push through the race barrier first, not gender, particularly after everything they've done in the last season to highlight and talk about race and privilege in the text.
And trust me, I would have been every bit as overjoyed right now if that's what they'd done. The only way I was going to be unhappy was if we had another white man in the role, because we've had thirteen of them and if a character can change skin and gender, and it doesn't signify to them, then why would they only ever look like a small section of human society?
I hope they'll cast a WOC for Fourteen. I really do. It's the next logical step. And it really sucks groups of fans feel like they're always being told to wait, that change has to be incremental, because in an ideal world it wouldn't. In an ideal world, the Doctor would have been played by Archie Panjabi or Shelley Conn after Tennant regenerated. I wish we lived in that ideal world.
In the meantime, I hope the TARDIS team won't be overwhelmingly white. I know that I'm not getting Bill back (although my dream is a whole season of Bill and Thirteen travelling together, sometimes flirting, while Bill boggles at her old grandpa figure having turned into a hot woman she can't keep her eyes off), but let's not mess up the progress that's been made so far.
Cast the first Asian actor as a companion. I mean, if the BBC is committed to diversity and reflecting British society as it truly is, then someone with South-East Asian heritage is long overdue. This goes double if they cast a male companion, to ensure "gender balance" in the TARDIS, because we do not need a white dude in the TARDIS right now.
We've had thirteen* male Doctors, let's have thirteen women as the Doctor and have them as diverse as possible. All colours. All shapes. All presentations. No Doctors who are identified as male. No cishet white male companions unless they're part of a big multi-companion TARDIS team.
I think the fandom is ready.
* including the War Doctor.
no subject
Date: 2017-07-17 07:09 pm (UTC)I'd really like an alien companion, or one from the future.
They usually announce the companion in the fall, don't they?
I really wanted Bill to stay.
no subject
Date: 2017-07-17 11:19 pm (UTC)An alien companion or a future one would also be fab. We definitely had more variety in that way with the classic era!
I think they announce the new companion when they're gettig close to filming. So it probably depends on when Chibnall's first season airs and how much prep time he needs to get a production running.
I really, really wanted Bill to stay. I might just end up writing Bill fic forever, so I can pretend she's not really gone.
no subject
Date: 2017-07-18 12:55 am (UTC)Oh, right. I guess she won't be in the Christmas special, probably. I wonder how much Thirteen will be. The director announcement made it sound like more than just a handoff at the end.
no subject
Date: 2017-07-19 01:19 pm (UTC)I'm really hoping we get more than thirty seconds of Thirteen, the way we usually do with a regeneration. Placing the regeneration halfway through the episode would be fantastic, particularly with Rachel Talalay bringing her genius to it.
no subject
Date: 2017-07-19 01:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-07-19 01:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-07-19 01:53 pm (UTC)(This is what happens when I misremember Tweets seen on tumblr and then get over-excited, sorry. /o\)
no subject
Date: 2017-07-19 02:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-07-17 10:59 pm (UTC)Moffat's tenure as showrunner has been, for me, hit and miss, at best, but I think he deserves massive props for teeing this up as thoroughly as he has. Chibnall deserves credit too, for taking the ball and running with it, of course. But I do wish fandom hadn't jumped quite so gleefully on the 'Chibnall has saved us from that nasty sexist Moffat' bandwagon, because that's not what happened, like, at all.
no subject
Date: 2017-07-17 11:24 pm (UTC)I mean, I do remember how much people hated RTD at the end of his run. My memory isn't that short. And now he's a saint. They're doing the same thing to Moffat, I feel. He'll be a saint bt the time Chibnall's third episode airs.
Not everything Moffat's done has been perfect. I try to forget about large chunks of season six and there are elements of Clara's story that annoyed me so very, very much. But he's done lot of great stuff, too, and the amount of legwork he's done to get everything in place for this casting needs to be acknowledged. Without all that, we'd either not be getting this day, or we'd have spent the last twenty-four hours trying to cobble together a canon-based defense that doesn't exist, and people really could point to it as gimmicky and unearned!
no subject
Date: 2017-07-18 01:13 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-07-19 01:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-07-18 08:04 am (UTC)Cast the first Asian actor as a companion. I mean, if the BBC is committed to diversity and reflecting British society as it truly is, then someone with South-East Asian heritage is long overdue.
Well, there's always room for both, but I'd say we're far more overdue for someone of Indian/Pakistani heritage, as that's our largest ethnic group and totally unrepresented in the main series so far, which is getting to the point of being unbelievable. Rani in SJA was lovely, but she could use some company.
Although, that said, I don't know if it's absolutely certain that Pearl Mackie has left. (I don't listen to production gossip and stuff, so maybe I'm just a month or so behind the times, but I got the impression that while she's probably not returning, it hadn't been decided 100% one way or the other, and her ending is open, after all. But, we'll either get a new companion or two, or Bill, or whatever, and there's always ALL THE FIC, so... :-D)
no subject
Date: 2017-07-19 01:24 pm (UTC)Indeed. They're getting *slightly* better with secondary characters, but honestly. They're so far overdue for a Pakistani/Indian/Bangladeshi companion is ridiculous. The Pakistani community in the town I grew up in was way bigger than the black community, and the same is true in a lot of places, so why haven't they been represented in major roles on Doctor Who yet?
But, we'll either get a new companion or two, or Bill, or whatever, and there's always ALL THE FIC, so... :-D)
That's the great thing about fandom - we can always fix stuff in fic :-D If we can't have Bill back, it would be great to have a TARDIS team again. I was surprised by how much I liked the dynamic of having more than one companion in the TARDIS. Hey, we could have Bill back *and* a new companion!
All I've heard is that it's not 100% definite that Pearl Mackie won't be back, but the chances of it happening are very small. I guess they might want to give Chibnall and completely fresh plate to work from, which makes sense. I just wanted to keep Bill for longer!
no subject
Date: 2017-07-19 01:40 pm (UTC)Well, exactly. They've turned up in plenty of guest roles over the years, but I'm stumped at thinking of even a single recurring character, barring in the spin-offs. I love Bill, but I had been hoping badly the new companion would be Asian last time, so come on, at least a recurring regular now, at once, please. :-D
I think you're getting a little more Bill for Christmas, although whether flashback, vision, or actual, only time will tell. (And I suspect, that with One and Twelve on board, Thirteen will get the usual end few seconds, though. But they will be history-making seconds!!!)
no subject
Date: 2017-07-19 01:52 pm (UTC)The spin-offs are the only place I can think of, too. The main show...nope. It really is time. I'll be watching any new companion announcements very closely this year :-D
I think you're getting a little more Bill for Christmas
Yeah, I did see something in Den of Geek, but it was implied that it wouldn't be new footage. It would be flashbacks, probably, which isn't enough.
(I'm fixing that by writing my own end to the Christmas special ahead of time :-D)
But they will be history-making seconds!!!)
But I want minutes! Multiple minutes! Particularly if the rumours are true and season 11 doesn't air until autumn next year!
no subject
Date: 2017-07-19 01:56 pm (UTC)No, it will be new at least, I just meant I don't know where it'll fit on her timeline: Pearl Mackie has been photographed filming on the Christmas special, and that bit I'm not lying about.
But I want minutes! Multiple minutes! Particularly if the rumours are true and season 11 doesn't air until autumn next year!
We have survived cancellations and hiatuses! We can wait for the promise of good things to come! But impatiently...
no subject
Date: 2017-07-19 02:08 pm (UTC)Okay, that makes me feel better :-)
But impatiently...
VERY impatiently :-)