This was supposed to be a homage to 60 years of Doctor Who. Doctor Who is a much loved British science fiction drama that started in 1963. It won hearts, but more so minds, and solidified a firm and vast fan base.
The 50th Doctor Who anniversary brought together David Tennant’s Doctor and Matt Smith’s Doctor. This anniversary special introduced The War Doctor, the Doctor who fought in the Time War, played by the fine British actor John Hurt. Billie Piper surprised us as all, not playing her character Rose at all, but playing a consciousness that challenged The War Doctor and his morality. At the end, we were treated to Matt Smith’s Doctor meeting Tom Baker’s Doctor. Tom Baker played one of the most recognised, iconic and loved Doctors so this really was a treat.
Both David Tennant and Matt Smith grew up as Doctor Who fans, and it showed in their performances. They had a reverence for the role, as well as deep knowledge of the lore, which neither Jodie Whittaker nor Ncuti Gatwa have attempted to learn and both show no respect at all for the show nor the fans.
Jodie’s run could have worked with good writing. Good stories. But they weren’t good stories. They were childish. Not stories with a childlike innocence, but childish and amateurish. The only thing that kept many British people watching was the hope the show might return to its former glory plus Bradley Walsh doing his Knees Up Mother Brown routine every week which was endearing, mostly because Bradley Walsh is loved in the UK.
OK, let’s move to the The Giggle.
Neil Patrick Harris playing the role of The Toymaker was a fantastic choice. He clearly enjoyed the role and had a lot of fun with everything he was given to do in the episode.
As for the writing, it felt, just as Wild Blue Yonder did, that The Giggle had a lot of promise. Two episodes with potent, creepy, science fiction premises. Two episodes that wasted every opportunity they were given. RTD had great germs of ideas. The problem was he did not infect the rest of the script with them.
Stookie Bill’s giggle being inside everyone’s head was a great idea. The giggle, stuck, on a loop, that drives humanity mad is a great idea. Turning it into another thought control a la The Master in series 10 is not a great idea and many a grandma as well as a TV reviewer on Youtube has pointed this out.
The puppets made of Logie Baird’s assistant and then The Doctor’s head on marionette bodies were fantastic and creepy. The assistant begging The Doctor to not let his loved ones see him in that state as a puppet was human, emotional and true. It was a great opportunity. Stookie Bill’s wife Stookie Sue was fantastic. The accent choice with the rhyming couplets – wonderful. There are many Scottish accents, and the one chosen for Stookie Sue was the perfect choice as she stepped forward out of the dark.
The Doctor was always compassionate and saved people directly from their predicament. Tennant’s Doctor in this episode did the opposite. He ran away and gave the victim no more thought.
There was so much talent available, so many good images and wonderful plot points, so much promise in the premises, and we were let down.
Mrs Wheelchair was Mrs Wheelchair, doing nothing scientific unless you count looking at a screen as Doing Science. Oh and she made some Wheelchaire Points. She was simply Mrs Wheelchair again.
Why wasn’t Bonnie Langford – a former companion of the Doctor – used more? In the 80s and 90s, Bonnie Langford was a big name in UK TV. She is a very talented lady – singer, musical, dancer, actor, an all round cheerful lovely type. We could do with more of her in our lives, and with her talent she should have had a much bigger role, especially as a former companion of the Doctor. Bonnie Langford was just wasted in this episode, kept in the background, fiddling with buttons. There should be a specific law against this in the UK.
RTD wanted women in boss roles. OK. Having four women stood around in the background looking at screens is not empowering. It’s showing that you have nothing for women to do and women can’t really do STEM. Women can be window dressing in a STEM environment, but they can’t actually do STEM. I understand now. Thank you RTD.
Back to Das Toymaker
I thought a more genuine German accent could have been a benefit to the story as a disguise. However, the German accent and German words mixed in with English so we can understand The Toymaker pandered to low intellect and a lack of basic comprehension skills. I am sure we could all have figured out various meanings if The Toymaker had kept entire sentences in German.
Think back to The Stolen Earth when Martha had the Osterhagen Key in Germany, and she was spoken to in German. Fans had the gumption to go and look up what was said to Martha by the keeper of the castle. The Toymaker’s silly use of a German accent is just lazy.
In the UK, people make comments when they see me reading a book in French or doing Chinese practice on Duolingo and say how “intelligent” I am. I tell them I am not, and it is normal to speak at least three languages. People balk at that, and I explain that in most countries in Europe and around the world, everyone in those countries speaks three or more language. In Belgium, people speak French, Dutch and English. People on the East border speak German, and everyone chooses a fourth language at school.
In Morocco and Tunisia, everyone speaks Arabic, French and English, and in high school they must choose another European language because tourism is their major industry.
Was the Toymaker’s German accent supposed to remind us of The Var? The only point of reference of evil that most people in the West have is The Var. We’ve had Osama, we’ve had the Ayotallah, but it’s always mid century Germany that people reach to. Again, Doctor Who is pandering to people who have no concept of history, which it never used to do. Doctor Who used to keep us informed as well as entertained, treating us as people who still had the brains they were born with.
As for the “I am anti-Zeedex”… Please do hit me over the head once more with your hammer of subtle metaphors.
People thinking for themselves, and thinking for themselves without censoring themselves is how this episode portrays insanity. Again, RTD tell us you are infected by the mind virus without telling us you can’t write a decent script anymore when you used to write the best stuff out there.
A Game of Catch
What game would you play with a godlike entity for power and rule over the universe and all that is in it? Some 3D chess in the vein of Star Trek? Some 4D chess of which some people claim Elon is a keen player? 4D chess with Harry Potter style magical chess pieces that smash each other to smithereens?
No, we resort to a simple game of catch. How thrilling.
Perhaps we are supposed to notice Ncuti’s naked legs and butt cheeks instead of noticing how crap an idea a game of catch with a godlike entity for power and rule over the universe is?
The Spice Girls Dance Routine
It wasn’t even a dance routine. Neil Patrick Harris is not a dancer and he did well with a couple of stumbling cross steps, but that was it. Again, NPH did the very best with what he was given. None of this is his fault.
Yes, Doctor Who back when Ten was Ten had Voodoo Child playing… as The Master sent The Toclafane to Earth to murder 1/10 people. Here come the drums – the drums referring to the drumming noise in The Master’s head since childhood.
Sacha Dhawan’s Master did a good Rasputin dance as stuff exploded. That “WTF” look the Dalek and the Cyberman gave each other was beautiful.
There was stuff going on when Voodoo Child and Rasputin were playing. Stuff was exploding, people were getting decimated. Nothing was going on when NPH was lip sinking to the Spice Girls. It was just a scene that was there for no particular reason. It was fun, but it could have been better if there had been a reason for it.
Now For The Gay
I’m bisexual. Do I expect my favourite shows to be glaringly bisexual? No. I am a grown up. I have an IQ over 50. I am not insecure. I don’t think everything in the world has to be about me.
Do I like the fact that the Doctors have all now BIGENERATED?
Just chuff off.
I remember years back in Blackpool, a straight vicar saying that one downside to homosexuality being so open is that it has damaged friendships between men. He said that when two men walk down the street together, people will assume they are a couple, not two friends. This was in Blackpool, where – at the time – it was said that one third of people were LGBT.
Ten years previously, one of my colleagues in Blackpool had said she had been to Harrogate and she was taken aback because, as she said, when you see two men walking together in Harrogate, they are just friends, but in Blackpool, two men walking together were together.
Whether you like this point or not, this Doctor Who episode proves this point. A round of applause for RTD.
The Toymaker dancing with The Doctor takes on a new dimension now, now that The Doctor Is Gay. It could have worked well in a creepy way, a kooky way, before the Doctor was Gay. Now that The Doctor Is Gay, we see gay, not creepy. The whole tone of the story is affected.
The Gay ruins the Doctor’s proposal to The Toymaker; the proposal of playing games across the universe forever. In the past, The Doctor proposed that he and The Master travel space and time together, forever, and there was no gay undertone, overtone, big clanging bell of a tone because there was no gay. Now that The Doctor Is Gay and The Toymaker seems to be too, the proposal to play games across space and time seems to be a euphemism for bonking. It undermines The Doctor and the proposal he may have been making.
“The Time Lord and The Toymaker?”
Bonking.
Is it possible for The Doctor to be gay and not Gay? Yes. Totally. I think bisexual is more likely, and it was more than hinted at when Matt Smith’s Doctor and his wife River Song were flirting by talking about all the famous people in history – male and female – they had had relations with, and they had had relations with the same people. The exchange between Eleven and River was one of spousal competition and fun, and it was not the whole of the show. It was a part of a conversation that was interrupted by their prisoner rolling her eyes, saying with disgust, “Oh no, they are flirting!” and asking for Eleven and River to focus on her and their possibly fatal predicament. The bi was not the whole show.
The Toymaker’s talk of mind games seemed to be another Gay reference. It could have been regular mind games, but The Toymaker was giving a negative speech about dating mind games; “ghosting, the deceit and the control.” This is supposed to be a family show. Why are kids hearing about people cheating and ghosting, deceiving and controlling others?
“And yet, I have fallen in love with humanity.” The Toymaker isn’t talking about love. He’s talking about bonking. Bonking and dumping. One night stands in other words. Which is lovely for the children sitting at home, smearing chocolate down their Christmas Pyjamas as they ponder The Doctor and The Toymaker being “celestial” together.
Yes, this is the (cover my mouth so I don’t vomit all over my steam powered laptop that is doing a sterling job of still powering up after the fourth time of restarting it) bigeneration.
Yes, some people have included a hyphen. I won’t because I chuffin hate it when people put a hyphen in bisexual (bi-sexual). Please. Do you get to work on your bi-cycle? I’m an English teacher. Chuff off with your hyphenated bis.
Oh look! They are touching pee-pees. Their pee-pees are magical together! Look at their touching pee-pees!
Seriously. It looks so homoerotic. It looks like they are a couple. It looks sexual. At several points after this, I begged out loud, “Please don’t kiss!” Because at several points in the “story”, it looked like David and Ncuti were going to kiss.
Ncuti in his white pants; a young Black gay man in his white, figure hugging pants. Dalziel and Pascoe had a young Black gay man in his tight fitting white undies, which highlight every twitch on the butt cheeks, when Sergeant Wieldy was shagging a young Black guy way back when in 1996.
A gay man prancing around in his undies is nothing new, but it’s also not for children.
I have no problem at all with RTD wanting to write “MGM” as he put it many moons ago; More Gay Men. I have no problem with that at all. But not in Doctor Who, not in children’s TV and not in a family show that is supposed to be about a time traveller having adventures.
Ncuti kissing his teeth. He’s Black. Do you see? He’s Black. It’s funny. It’s a Black thing. Do you see?
Doctor Who used to lift up a higher level of culture. RTD showcased Shakesepeare, Madame De Pompadour and Queen Victoria enjoying Scottish folklore. Now we’re heading to The Streets for a mugging on a council estate.
Clifton Duncan is a Black American man who acted in Shakespeare plays on Broadway. My uncle, a Black African, was a concert level pianist and spoke perfect English with a middle class accent. Chineke! is a Black orchestra. Black people are perfectly capable of reaching to the same heights as white people. We don’t have to constantly lower Black people to The Streets’ gutter. Bit racist isn’t it?
Ncuti called Tennant “love” and “honey”. He’s gay! Get it? Ncuti is gay. He calls men “honey”. Do you understand Ncuti is gay?
I’ve had plenty of male gay friends. None call their friends, relatives, whatever “honey”. Those words are reserved for the special man in their lives. Nucti’s Doctor has spent his life in a specific London Metropolitan Gay Bubble where men do behave in ways that gay men everywhere else do not.
Ncuti trotting around in his undies, Ncuti calling Tennant “honey”, Ncuti’s Doctor embodying 1970s, 1980s homophobic tropes around behaviour, voice cadence and affectations a la Mr Humphries, there for everyone to laugh at, and people are laughing at Ncuti’s Doctor. Old fashioned homophobia repackaged for the Woke generation as Pride.
As for Ncuti’s Doctor getting rid of the baggage of the time war etc. No. If you have ever met anyone who has been in a war or any kind of conflict, it never goes away. The person can have therapy and get a full time job and a family, but the war never goes away. The pain, the destruction, the weight of living with having bumped off other sacred humans is always heavy and there are times the person has to lock themselves away and cry.
It was great to see the passion of the acting of David Tennant as he had a go at The Toymaker. This passion is never going to be seen in Ncuti. Ncuti’s Doctor wants an easy life, and, let’s be honest, Ncuti does not have the acting ability and range of facial expressions that Tennant has. Ncuti’s Doctor does not have character, he has no gravitas, he is simply a simple bloke who does stuff.
Think back to Matt Smith’s Doctor and the excited, fervent but gentle way in which Matt Smith encouraged people who did not know their own abilities. Think of Matt Smith’s petulant strops, his bowtie and fez, his bravado and his tenderness. We won’t be getting that with Ncuti’s Doctor.
Doctor Who has always had a big gay following. I remember being in gay Bible study back in 2007 and the host of the group realised he had not set the video for Doctor Who, so he got down on the floor to press Record.
Utter pandemodium broke out.
Two guys got on the phone to their wives to make sure their wives had pressed Record on the video player to record the episode. I started panicking that I hadn’t set the video to record, so a guy from my church said I could borrow his copy. Everyone went mental for around ten minutes because we all thought we might not have recorded the episode of Doctor Who.
Doctor Who always had a big gay fandom. The gay fans were genuine fans. There was no need to pander to the Wokerati.
Getting rid of the emotion, the baggage, the history, is a year zero for the doctor. Woke is all about trying to create a year zero in every sphere from which the Wokerati will build a new civilisation.
Everything that made The Doctor the greatest protagonist on TV has been wiped away. The Doctor has been lobotomised. That is RTD wielding the pencil, wiping away every ounce of personality, grit and gumption The Doctor had.
RTD was the finest screen writer the UK has produced. I have reviewed a number of his dramas. I loved RTD’s work. Like my friends who went woke, RTD has gone off the boil. His work is now mush. I’ve also seen some of his online behaviour and interviews. He doesn’t come across as the nicest person on the planet. Same with my friends who went woke.
In this one episode, RTD has done a wonderful job of making the arguments for all sorts of sexist, racist, ablist and homophobic ideas. It’s not my cup of tea.
catherinehume 