Has the Doctor ever been a dick to humanity?
- Thread starter Gingerbread Demon
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It’s more complex than that...though it cribs the imagery...largely because it’s talking about ISIS as being people given homes and communities by a host...Britain..before going off to wage war on those nations. The scene with the boy bundled into a bag is horrible tbh.
It’s trying to do very complex things before having a set piece with a crashing plane. The Osgood characters is the ultimate expression of a more middle approach, in some ways. The ‘bad’ zygomatic are refusing to integrate, which causes bad blood from the indigenous inhabitants....Osgood is sign of full integration on both sides, completely invisible.
Well, he's been a dick to individuals and left them worse off (the 7th Doctor and Ace).
But, the whole world? Yeah, he has. He allowed a Zygon Invasion, let them nest, and then didn't remove them when they went evil. He preferred to make a shitty speech that didn't fix anything instead, while also allowing a pair of Zygons basically run UNIT (because the Brigadier's daughter is an incompetent doofus). He could have taken the damn zygons/arranged their transportation to probably a lot of uninhabited worlds, instead he let them stay on Earth then doubled down on supporting them when they proved they were just as bad as the Daleks or Cybermen when it came to being a threat to Earth.
He also almost let Clara Oswald kill the entire human race because they didn't want to hurt an animal even to save 7 billion lives, because one moon animal is more important then the entire planet Earth apparently.
So, basically, Doctors 1-11 could be dicks to individuals or groups, but rarely the planet. 12 almost got the Earth destroyed by being a dick and/or being an idiot several times.
But, the whole world? Yeah, he has. He allowed a Zygon Invasion, let them nest, and then didn't remove them when they went evil. He preferred to make a shitty speech that didn't fix anything instead, while also allowing a pair of Zygons basically run UNIT (because the Brigadier's daughter is an incompetent doofus). He could have taken the damn zygons/arranged their transportation to probably a lot of uninhabited worlds, instead he let them stay on Earth then doubled down on supporting them when they proved they were just as bad as the Daleks or Cybermen when it came to being a threat to Earth.
He also almost let Clara Oswald kill the entire human race because they didn't want to hurt an animal even to save 7 billion lives, because one moon animal is more important then the entire planet Earth apparently.
So, basically, Doctors 1-11 could be dicks to individuals or groups, but rarely the planet. 12 almost got the Earth destroyed by being a dick and/or being an idiot several times.
Hmm.
Ace wasn’t worse off. She got to blow up her fears, defeat them, find out she was right about Gabriel Chase, and come to terms with her love/hate relationship with her mother, then finally give up the home that had been bad for her, become a nomad like th Doctor through choice rather than circumstance.
The zygon thing is...yeah...complicated. And political. But as president he has permission to share the planet I guess..and we see why no one person should make that choice later.
The moon.
Yeah.
That was a really bad idea. Though it’s entirely likely he knew precisely how that unfolds, because of later fixed points (one of which is he’s screwing with his own time line if the earth gets destroyed at all now....he’s seen its final boom.)
There's nothing "complex" about The Zygon Invasion/Inversion. It's a very heavy-handed allegory on Islamophobia in which the Zygons are stand-ins for Islamic people and the evil Zygons represent ISIS, which culminates in a Moffat Monologue which over simplifies some very complex and difficult issues in the real world.
Hmm. So there’s nothing about integration of a migrant group in there except through the lense of Isis? Nothing about groups trying to integrate while some of their number want instead to rule by force?
I think it’s much more complex, I think...especially following on from the Day of the Doctor which started the whole thing, that there’s a layer there that’s about how much of ‘us’ there is in the ‘them’ and vice versa?
I think it chose it’s imagery in line with the popular portrayal of Muslim communities in Britain, at the same time as talking about Isis. It’s never as simple as ‘it’s about isis’ Because what about Isis is it about? The groups in the Middle East? The home grown jihadis that leave to go fight there? The ones that bring their brand of warfare to the community that took them? The bit where it’s the descendant organisation of some that were once ‘allies’? The bit where they whoosh in to a vacuum created by the intercession of foreign powers?
There’s a bit more to the episodes, and to the situation that some violent people with black flags and YouTube accounts.
Eh, the "political" parts of those episodes failed miserably in my opinion, because I am on the side of what I think the episode wanted to say, but it was just done so badly. There are so many planets, in so many time periods, that there is absolutely no reason for The Doctor not to just find an empty one for the Zygons. He made things more difficult and dangerous by not doing that, and he left zygons basically in control of the planet. I'm not saying the Zygons situation wasn't sympathetic, but the episode did it all wrong and ignoring the most obvious solution helped really just make the whole thing really frustrating.
The thing is, he knows that certain things can destroy Earth, even if he's a seen a future where the Earth was fine. The 4th Doctor showed Sarah Jane that, even though they had been to a Future Earth that was fine, they still have to take action where they were or that future could get erased and replaced by something bad. If only one future was "fixed", The Doctor would not be able to do anything and all his actions would either be predetermined or meaningless.
So, even though he'd been to Earth far in the future of the moon thing, that doesn't mean that Clara couldn't have easily destroyed the Earth with that whole BS. The Doctor having been to the future doesn't generally help him when dealing with problems in the present or the past, because very few things seem to actually be fixed moments in time.
Yep. Like I said, I don't think I disagree with what they were going for (that refugees aren't bad, and that racism is bad, etc), but it was done so badly it completely screws up whatever message they were attempting.
Moffat's intention was that Missy was the final incarnation of The Master, and that was indeed the final death of The Master. No bullshit. No trickery. Missy straight up died. This was possibly always his plan once he decided to come back for the extra year to give Chibnall time to finish Broadchurch, but the actress's desire to depart the series with Moffat and Capaldi probably played a role too.
However, Moffat left a little wiggle room to allow future NuWho and Big Finish showrunners to bring the character back. While Missy believes she regenerated from Simm Master to Missy, it's left ambiguous as to whether she's right or not. We never see the regeneration, and she herself isn't even 100% sure on the matter. There could be a dozen incarnations between them for all we (and they) know.
Not that Missy could never come back. It would just have to be earlier in her timeline, from before The Doctor takes watch over her and the vault. We never saw how she escaped from Skaro, after all.
Oh I agree. But the only ‘fixed points in time’ introduced, all related to earth. Pyramids of mars has its scene a little changed.
How? Was that mentioned in the Zygon episodes, and leaving two Zygons in charge of UNIT, and Kate was not like her father the Brigadier she seemed less capable then he was.
I don’t think two zygons were left in charge. One. Maybe.
Really? I thought Both Osgoods were Zygons.
Oh and on that Osgood was a character of cliches
History of Osgood:
There was one Osgood at the start of Day of the Doctor. A Zygon took her form (keep track of the inhaler to know which is which).
Missy killed one of the Osgoods in Dark Water.
There is one Osgood at the start of the two-parter, but at the end, the Zygon who took Clara's form becomes the "new" second Osgood.
There was one Osgood at the start of Day of the Doctor. A Zygon took her form (keep track of the inhaler to know which is which).
Missy killed one of the Osgoods in Dark Water.
There is one Osgood at the start of the two-parter, but at the end, the Zygon who took Clara's form becomes the "new" second Osgood.
That is what the episode tries to imply, but IMO that really doesn't make sense at all. It's best if we just assume Zygon Osgood was the one killed by Missy, meaning we still have the human one.
Two other outs for Missy could be the Cybermen 'fixed' her, or simply she some how remembered the Simm Master would shoot her (like she 'remembered' to have dematerialization circuit with her) and did something to prevent her from dieing from the shot.
Where have we seen her cliches before? I suppose Lee Evans character way back when was a sort of Proto osgood...but...cliches?
The point in Osgood and Zygon Osgood, is that it doesn’t matter, because they are both Osgood. Their prime identity as it were, before being human or being zygon, is to be the self.
Yeah, I know that's the message the episode is trying to pedal but it just doesn't make sense. I don't care what the episode tries to change about how Zygons shapeshift or how they stay in their form, the basic fact of the matter is that maintaining another form must take a degree of effort on the part of the shapeshifter, and the episode is implying that both Osgoods and the other Zygons are getting their brains fried by Kate Stewart's memory wiper over a dozen times since Day of the Doctor, surely in the moments after their minds are wiped the momentary confusion should be sufficient enough to cause a breakdown of the effort expended to maintain the disguise. But no, in Moffat scripts, an emotional explanation is more readily accepted over a rational, and avoiding establishing which Osgood is real and which is a Zygon comes in handy with his obsession with being vague and avoiding establishing anything definitive.
Just the whole nerdy scientist with breathing problems / astma needing an inhaler, it's a cliche and an unfunny one IMHO
I loathed Osgood. She was tolerable when she had only a minute or so of screen time in DotD, but after that she was beyond obnoxious, whether she's a zygon or not. A lot of the NuUNIT stuff is pretty lame at best. It doesn't help that the brgadier's daughter is really just not good at her job, and in my opinion is not a particularly interesting or competent character.
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