I was interrupted half-way through the Rosa Parks episode, but no hurry to watch the second half. As it's still The Adventures of Sonic the Screwdriver. Arrive on Earth, 1955: Start waving Sonic about to ascertain there are unusual amounts of zektronic energy in the area. Wave Sonic at Rosa Parks to ascertain something fishy is going on. Wave Sonic to unlock a warehouse (fair enough). Wave Sonic to make an invisible suitcase appear (f**k off). Wave Sonic to delete some writing from a wall. Wave Sonic to make the writing reappear.
Then my viewing was interrupted. They could have just ditched the feeble alien menace guy and made it entirely about observing and experiencing history/racism. Oh, and that stupid magic wand should be banned to force Chibs to come up with more cerebral and feasible ways of getting out of trouble.

Quote: Firkin @ 22nd October 2018, 7:59 PM

Good point well made and brief. The BBC sells to a world audience and China, India and America are big markets. Dr Who has to regenerate for the current viewers, or it would die slowly with its audience. I though Capaldi was a hark back to the past, but that didn't work.

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True.
There are certainly many valid criticisms to be made about the new series. But to drone on about women, minorities, northerners or the working class being in it as one or two are doing, do not rank amongst them.

Quote: Chris Hallam @ 23rd October 2018, 6:49 AM

True.
There are certainly many valid criticisms to be made about the new series. But to drone on about women, minorities, northerners or the working class being in it as one or two are doing, do not rank amongst them.

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Now, now, now.

I don't think anybody is droning on or complaining in any way about the presence in the series of women, minorities, northerners, or the working class.

My own contributions to the thread have made clear (to most readers, I hope) that I am not disturbed in any way by the casting of a woman or a northerner or a member of the working class in the role of Doctor Who. I hope I have also made it clear that I am not disturbed in any way by the casting of ethnic minorities as other characters in the series.

For the benefit of those to whom I have failed to make myself clear, I will repeat that I am unhappy with the casting of Jodie Whittaker as Doctor Who not because she is a northern, working-class woman but because she, personally and in when in character, lacks the gravitas and the charisma I associate with Doctor Who.

I am also unhappy that, in episode one, the casting of ethnic minorities in so many of the prominent roles gave a hugely false impression of the concentration of ethnic minorities in South Yorkshire and its police service.

Quote: Chris Hallam @ 23rd October 2018, 9:07 AM

I wasn't referring to you!

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I am relieved to hear it.

Quote: Kenneth @ 23rd October 2018, 1:43 AM

They could have just ditched the feeble alien menace guy and made it entirely about observing and experiencing history/racism. .

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How? You haven't got that much conflict here, Kenneth. Someone sits on a bus, someone can't sit on a bus. You need some kind of menace from outside. It's strong for the people who experience it, but would it sustain an hour of a sci-fi programme?

I take Kenneth's point and Paul's too.

The entire purpose of the episode was, in my view, to tell Britain's youngsters (and all the adults who've been living in a cave since birth and have only just found themselves a television set and an electricity supply) that racism was in the past very much a way of life in the southern states of America. Viewers who were sufficiently interested might then have googled the subject and found that, since those days, things haven't improved quite as much as many people hoped.

The snag is that, since its inception in 1963, Doctor Who has been a science-fiction programme and viewers might very well have noticed (and objected to) the absence of science-fiction from that particular episode.

Accordingly, in order to get away with what was essentially a blatant exercise in political and social indoctrination, the BBC was obliged to throw in a bit of science-fiction.

I thank you.

Racism as you seem to agree - was a way of life in the southern US of the 1950s. I don't think Malorie Blackman or anyone else involved would suggest that racism isn't still a problem today or in the US or elsewhere. Nor did the episode suggest that.

Quote: Chris Hallam @ 23rd October 2018, 12:23 PM

Racism as you seem to agree - was a way of life in the southern US of the 1950s. I don't think Malorie Blackman or anyone else involved would suggest that racism isn't still a problem today or in the US or elsewhere. Nor did the episode suggest that.

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Something is going wrong here, Chris. Either you are failing totally to understand what it is I'm trying to say or I am failing totally to imbue the things I'm saying with any degree of clarity.

There was absolutely no suggestion in the recent episode of Doctor Who that racism is no longer a problem in the American South, neither did I suggest that there was such a suggestion.

Anyone who knows anything about the southern states knows that racism today isn't as bad as it was 60 years ago but it is still nevertheless prevalent to an extent that most people in Britain would scarcely believe. If today you live in the south and you're black, your daily chances of coming to serious harm at the (white) hands of a person or persons unknown are far from insignificant. I'm sure Malorie Blackman would agree with me and I'm sure it was her hope that many people who watched her episode would look further into the matter and thus discover just how bad the situation is.

Yes, racism (and particularly its physical manifestations) should concern us all very deeply but Doctor Who is not, in my humble submission, an appropriate platform from which to shout the message.

Quote: Paul Wimsett @ 23rd October 2018, 11:43 AM

How? You haven't got that much conflict here, Kenneth. Someone sits on a bus, someone can't sit on a bus. You need some kind of menace from outside. It's strong for the people who experience it, but would it sustain an hour of a sci-fi programme?

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Easy. Either give us pure history lessons or give us allegory with sci-fi. Fonzie with the beard felt tacked-on and contrived. Doctor Who in the past has done purely historical stories without any elements of sci-fi (apart from the TARDIS and its crew). And without the omnipresent magic wand, Sonic.

Quote: Rood Eye @ 23rd October 2018, 12:14 PM

The snag is that, since its inception in 1963, Doctor Who has been a science-fiction programme and viewers might very well have noticed (and objected to) the absence of science-fiction from that particular episode.

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There have been several sci-fi free episodes in the past.

I did slightly misunderstand you. Apologies!
However, as there was nothing very contentious in the episode, I didn't object to it.

Quote: Kenneth @ 23rd October 2018, 12:59 PM

Doctor Who in the past has done purely historical stories without any elements of sci-fi (apart from the TARDIS and its crew).

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That's true, actually (if memory serves).

The snag is that today's audiences are accustomed to magic and special effects from Doctor Who and might well object to their absence.

Another snag is that the episodes to which you refer demand a far higher degree of writing skill than do the episodes that are full of sci-fi wizardry. Accordingly, I suspect Chris Chibnall will be avoiding trying to write such episodes for fear of being unmasked in much the same way as was the Wizard of Oz.

Things are worse than I thought, and I thought things were bad enough with Jodie Whittaker as the Doctor accompanied by an elderly white man, a black teenage boy and an Asian woman copper flitting through time and space on a tour of historical occasions upon which white people have been less than kind in their treatment of other races. It was the American blacks last week and I think it's the Indians (the actual Indian ones, not the red ones) next.

Those unfortunate enough to be watching this new series have now learned that Ryan (the aforementioned black teenage boy) suffers from dyspraxia.

Where will it end? Hopefully before anybody suggests letting this absurd monument to political correctness and social justice go into a second series.

Quote: Rood Eye @ 28th October 2018, 7:27 AM

dyspraxia.

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You might be onto something here Rood, Dr Who viewers don't want to learn new things, they want to see the very same programs their super cool parents watched.

We need suggested changes. I'll go first, Mina Anwar (Thin Blue Line) as the female copper and Tom Baker in drag as the Dr, John Cleese as the old(er) man. How would you change it ?

Quote: Firkin @ 28th October 2018, 7:56 AM

How would you change it ?

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Your suggested changes would improve the program out of all recognition.

I hereby second them.

I think I watched the first one and then I haven't bothered one way or the other.

OK - just catching the end of it. Giant Spiders. There's a novelty. They've only had giant spiders or insects in the Saint, The Avengers, The New Avengers, X-Files, amongst many others and also old series of Doctor Who.