Spoilers The Timeless Children grade and discussion thread

Jodie's doing a great job as The Doctor. I just like all the whiny fanboys who complain all the time that they won't watch the next episode yet tune in the following week to whine more.

 

Nope.

Maybe they're just as much fans as you?

 

But you're not a fan of what Jodie's doing, by your own admission.

 

I haven't been convinced by the writing that she's the Doctor. She's a good actress, but she's playing the Doctor too passively for my tastes. I feel like I'm watching her acting like the Doctor, instead of being the Doctor.

But that doesn't mean I'm not a fan of the show. You mean the above equals this?

 

A real fan respects the opinion of others which is thankfully 90% of the board members here. Then there are the children (most of them on Youtube) who scream "get woke, go broke" or that a black doctor is a form of racism against whites.

BTW I hated "The Timeless Children", Where are the people who made "Demons of Punjab" and "It takes you away".

 

That's because showrunners have been trying to copy Tennant since he left. It almost worked with Matt Smith but then it just became sad with Calpaldi. Whittacker has great range but she can't be a female Tennant.

 

Well, they're all actors, but I feel like she's being the Doctor at least as well as any other actor has in the revival era. By the way, if you said the words that she's "acting like the Doctor" in a vacuum, it would sound like a compliment, like she'd nailed the character. Yes, she's very much acting exactly like the Doctor; so much so it's as if she is the Doctor. I'm very much sold on her interpretation of the character.

 

There is acting like A Doctor and acting like THE Doctor. Watch "The Fugitive of the Judoon". Ruth-Doctor is totally believable as The Doctor. In fact her presence is so strong, she literally overshadows Whittaker. That's how weak her Doctor is.

 

Wow.

(Yeah, I saw that episode.)

I'm pretty sure I said that I see Whittaker as "acting exactly like the Doctor," or THE Doctor, if it helps you see the "the" more easily.

 

Whittaker is great, but just like Capaldi she has been undermined by weak writing and that is really unfortunate.

 

They were interesting when they appeared in other media.
Here they were made into weaponised shite.

 

Her part of the job is almost irrelevant. The character on screen these days really *isn’t* the Doctor. Remember when Eleven was going to lobotomise a space whale? Yeah.

‘Never cruel or cowardly’

Under this team, the character is both of those, and now appears to have a fair amount of Jack Harkness’ backstory grafted on.

As to why people keep watching?
That would be the difference between a ‘fan’ and a ‘viewer’.

 

That's utterly ridiculous.

 

Yeah, Ruth Doctor is a much better Doctor than Whittaker's. Its almost unfair, but she is better, pure and simple.

I do agree those people are morons. And fascists.

 

It is fact.
A fan, short for fanatic, tends to carry on supporting the object of their fandom *even if* things are going badly. Go look at football fans. They may desperately chant for ditching the manager, but they still turn up, wear the scarf etc. They care.

In this case, many fans will still watch, even though they hate what it’s become. Fandom is about something being important to you. If you watch the show, even if...(and this drifts close to gate keeping) you call yourself a fan, but *do not understand why people keep watching* then you are a viewer. You don’t participate.
Of course there’s a fair amount of middle ground, especially when there’s recent fans versus long term fans and whathaveyou', and fair weather fans etc. Fandom *by its very nature* implies a certain relationship.

Granted, my relationship with Who at the moment feels like something out of Eastenders, but it’s inbuilt. Fans keep at it, unless they lose their fannishness for some reason. Look at Chibnall on Open Air.

 

And Twelve was un-phased when a child was frozen under the Thames.

And Eleven used a nuke to blow up David Bradley.

And Ten cursed people to live forever as scarecrows/ in mirrors.

And Ten plunged the Sykorax leader to his death.

And as far as they know Nine and Ten firmly believed they'd used The Moment and wiped out billions of Timelords.

Remember when Six smothered Shockeye? Or joked after plunging a couple of guards into acid?

Or when the First Doctor was moments away from bashing some caveman's skull in?

 

Well, the idea was that the Doctor was beginning to go on a darker path. The Seventh embraced it surely, and while Eight rejected it because he disliked the idea of being a master manipulator anymore, he still had to basically go that route, but deeper - hence the Warrior, the Doctor who wasn't the Doctor. It makes sense that NuWho Doctors would have a darker streak to them - story-wise, they're all post-Time War survivors, traumatized perhaps forever by that endless conflict, and production-wise, most of the writers of the RTD/Moffat eras grew up on or with the Seventh Doctor, creatively most of all.

 

Anyway, want to know my objective view of Jodie?

I think she's a very good actress and that, when given the right material and not overshadowed by Walsh and a billion guest stars, she acts very well as the Doctor, but I think she lacks screen presence and at times thanks to the material and Chibnall filling the screen with actors, she can fade into the background and appear passive.

The difficulty is that someone like Eccleston, Tennant or Capaldi given ropey material could make it work by sheer force of will, and Matt just so naturally inhabited the skin of the Doctor that it hardly mattered if the material was poor. You only have to see how much Jo Martin owned the screen in a few minutes to see what could/should have been with a female Doctor. And it isn't that I think Martin is a better actor than Whittiker, it's just screen presence. It's like comparing Martha and Donna, I don't think Tate is a better actress than Freema, but by god you can't take your eyes off her whereas Freema tended to fade into the background.

In conclusion Jodie is a decent Doctor. She's also the weakest modern Doctor, but this isn't remotely her fault, and if she and the material improves as much between series 12 and 13 as they did between 11 and 12 she could still be a great Doctor.

 

^ Absolutely right.

 

All of those are fine in context *except* the Capaldi one, because I walked away from Who for a while at that.
And not one of them falls under ‘cruel and cowardly’ except that moment.

Edit: and while I am at it, the six attribution about acid is...as ever...inaccurate to the point of being wrong. And I grew up in that era when the violence and nihilism in Who under Saward was getting out of hand. Even he didn’t damage the Doctor like this showrunner has.