The feminisation of Doctor Who

19 August 2018

No, this isn't another post about a female Doctor. This is about the audience.

When I first accompanied my husband to conventions back in the early 1990s I was very much in the minority as one of the very few women present.   Probably the biggest change in Doctor Who since it returned in 2005 has been the rise of the fangirl.  The gender balance at conventions is now far more even.

I was reminded of this change whilst watching Kill the Moon  just now.  When I watched it originally I was so incensed by the ridiculous storyline and Clara's tantrum at the end, that I missed a throwaway line that really encapsulates this change in the audience.  Clara says that the school secretary hates her 'because she thinks I gave her a packet of Tena Lady in Secret Santa.' If ever a line was designed for my demographic (middle-aged female) that is it.  My other half still doesn't get it.  I suspect the Twelfth Doctor didn't either.

Even now, it seems odd that they managed to get away with a line about incontinence pads in a family show, but it is not the first time that the post-2005 show has had lines aimed at a female audience which would not have been considered appropriate for a family audience in the show's earlier years. There was a  joke about breast implants in Rose, and another in The Doctor's Daughter about turkey-basters.

I can't wait to see where this goes next.

It's all thanks to the Monks

Saturday 3 June 2017

*Spoilers*

I didn't write much about last week's episode because I really didn't like it that much.  I've mentioned before that I prefer self-contained smaller scale stories to big story arcs and the whole planet mobilising against a threat.  I particularly don't like the idea of the Doctor being made President of Earth.

Anyway, tonight's episode picked up events six months later, and our hero has apparently turned into a sort of modern day Lord Haw-Haw, broadcasting about how the wonderful Monks have always been there, shaping humanity's progress.  I wonder how they got on with the Fendahl, Fenric, Scaroth and all the other aliens who have been guiding humanity over the millennia?

Ha! Trick question!  Because of course they didn't get on with them at all, as they weren't really there. It is all a lie. Martha still knows this, but struggles to keep her grip on reality.  Of course the Doctor must be a prisoner, and being forced to help the Monks, mustn't he?

Until the end of the scene on the prison ship, the episode promises much. But having thrown everything at what turns out to be a gigantic fan wind-up, it rather runs out of steam after that.  There are some obvious parallels between this episode and Last of the Time Lords. Both start from a point where the earth had been taken over by aliens at the end of the previous episode, and the action starts some months later with the companion, the  being in the aliens' power. The ultimate resolution, using the alien's telepathic gizmo against them, is also the same.  And they both feature the Master (or Mistress.) The one significant difference here is that Missy is not responsible, and having (almost) turned over a new leaf, she provides the Doctor with the clue to the Monks' weakness.

All in all, despite great performances from Pearl Mackie, Peter Capaldi and Michelle Gomez, I found this rather dull.

Knock, Knock

Saturday 6 May

Tonight's episode was apparently named in honour of a joke so old that we were telling it in the playground when I was at primary school. Are 'knock, knock' jokes still a thing in the 21st century, or as they as dated as Angel Delight and blue PE knickers?

Bill is moving into a house share and the Doctor is helping.  Is this the first time  that the TARDIS has been used as a removal van?  But whilst she is happy to have assistance with transporting her things, she really doesn't want the Doctor interfering in the normal part  of her life and embarrassing her in front of her new housemates.  You don't get rid of the Doctor that easily, though, and it turns out the suspiciously cheap house is not at all normal.

It looks nice enough and has large rooms and lots of potential.  It's surprising that it hasn't been snapped up by a property developer - all it needs  is central heating and rewiring. Or does it? Something nasty is lurking in the woodwork, and it isn't just deathwatch beetle.

This was a classic creepy (or creaky) house story.  It reminded me of the X-Files episode War of the Coprophages,  but with added Scooby-Do, even down to the sinister caretaker, sorry, landlord, played brilliantly by David Suchet.  Scooby-Who, perhaps?

Thin Ice

30 April 2017

*Contains mild spoilers*

In last night's episode the Doctor and Bill find themselves at the last great Frost Fair on the river Thames. But something nasty is lurking below the ice....

In a way this episode could also have been called The Beast Below if that title had not already been taken. There are some other similarities with that story in that both involve a giant creature being abused by humans. But unlike the starwhale, we learn little of the nature of the monster in the Thames.

The real monster in Thin Ice is, it turns out, not a giant creature, or even an alien, but a human (though not humane) being, Lord Sutcliffe. Sutcliffe was very much a pantomime villain, but whilst the allusions to slavery and imperialism struck me as a little heavy-handed, we had the opportunity of seeing the Twelfth Doctor give another of his rousing speeches, whilst demonstrating an impressive right hook.

Overall, I enjoyed this episode far more that last week's.  The frost fair, complete with elephant, was well-realised, and this time the Doctor and Bill had people with whom they could interact throughout the episode. If there was something of a fairytale ending, what is wrong with that?

Personal Tutoring

Friday 28 April

As a university administrator, I have been worrying that the current series may give a slightly unrealistic impression of what can be expected from a personal tutor. One of my colleagues has been doing quite a lot of work recently on personal tutoring arrangements, so I asked for his views on the Doctor's arrangement with Bill.

It turns out that there are quite a few problems:

• Giving tuition to a non-fee paying unenrolled student (unless the Doctor went back in time to sort out Bill's UCAS and Student Loan applications)
• Favouritism
• Teaching outside core hours (tutorials at 6.00 p.m.)
• Daily tutorials, which are not scalable in today's mass higher education system and are not sustainable from a resource point of view
• 'Field work' undertaken without a risk assessment or ethics  approval
• MASSIVE health and safety concerns

His conclusion?  "Mind-blowing educational experience notwithstanding, this clearly calls for a solid bureaucratic crackdown, BUT if ownership of the bigger-on-the-inside technology reverts to the university* then  all is forgiven."

* This would depend on the university's intellectual property policy.

Thanks to Dr Arne Hofmann for kindly giving me permission  to post this.

Smile!

22 April 2017

Smile  is another one of those episodes where perfectly normal behaviour suddenly becomes perilous, as in don't blink!, don't breathe!, stay out of the shadows! but to my mind is rather less successful than such stories as Blink and Silence in the Library.  I may be rather biased, as unlike Bill,  whose face is always 'doing expressions' when she doesn't want it to, my face tends to look naturally glum, whatever I am thinking.  Often what I am thinking is homicidal thoughts about the passing strangers who interrupt my perfectly happy thoughts by calling out "cheer up love, it might never happen!" so a world in which you have to smile or face being composted was hardly likely to appeal much.

It started well, with the Doctor sneaking off in the TARDIS with Bill whilst Nardole was making the tea, and the futuristic city looked fantastic.  However, there was something not quite right about the pacing.  A large chunk of the episode involved Bill  and  the Doctor exploring on their own, without all that much happening, and then the ending,  once the colonists awoke, seemed oddly rushed.

It seemed rather out of character to me for the Doctor's first instinct to be to blow the city up, rather than to fix the robotic malfunction.  Even if he believed that the colonists were arriving in a separate ship, what did he think would happen to them when the colony ship arrived to find a bomb site rather than a functioning city?

My biggest problem though was with the whole 'smile' thing.  The mood badges were placed on the back.  The implications is that they sensed mood (like those mood rings that used to be popular), so how would a faked forced grin make any difference?

Overall,  some nice ideas, but could have been so much better.