14th Female Doctor for the wrong reason not the right

[anthorn]

Remember when people used to hate on RTD? We all thought Moffatt was the best writer, but he's ended up the worst. His inability to remember what he wrote a year ago with storylines and inconsistency being the worst. Also messing up the regeneration cycles.

I think too much effort was put in to portraying the 1st Doctor as a sexist they could point out how modern they were by having a female Doctor. I just feel like they've only gone with a female Doctor so they can jump up and down screaming we're not sexist, especially after this episode in which nothing really happened at all.

I mean, he's already said that the Doctor can use his regeneration energy as a weapon and at will, so why not the 1st Doctor is sexist. Obviously there was a woman's revolution on Galifrey between the 1st leaving and the 4th going back


Also before anyone complains.

Doctor has 12 regenerations.
1 William
2 Patrick
3. Jon Pertwee
4 Tom Baker
5 Peter Davison
6 Colin Baker
7 Sylvester Mcoy
8 Paul M.
9 John Hurt
10 Chris. E.
11 David Tennant
12 David Tennant
13 Matt Smith
14 Peter Capaldi
15 Jodie

 

[Glaysher]

Not sure what you mean by messing up the regeneration cycle. The Doctor got a new cycle of 12.

 

[Dave]

Personally, I still don't agree with William Hartnell being the first, despite what he said in Twice upon a Time, or anywhere else recently. He must have just forgotten, just like he has forgotten many other things in his 15,000+ years of travelling in time. The Brain of Morbius clearly showed previous regenerations (whether that was a mistake, or it wasn't signed off, or you think they were only regenerations of Morbius, it happened and it's tough! )

And we have also had this 'Rule of 12' argument here before: Regenerations questions?

The 12 Regenerations was a rule imposed by the Time Lords. It is not a physical, biological, physiological limit. It was a legal, bureaucratic, social convention. The Time Lords no longer exist (supposedly ) to enforce the rule.

 

[Amelia Faulkner]

Not sure what you mean by messing up the regeneration cycle.

Probably (rightly) the fact that Tennant's doctor was so arrogant that he burned an entire regeneration just to stay himself.

And the insertion of a throwaway "war doctor" who did very little other than gobble up yet another regeneration.

Romana may have been young enough to view those things as disposable, but the Doctor isn't.

I think too much effort was put in to portraying the 1st Doctor as a sexist

My eye twitched the moment Moffat said in an interview that he was writing the First Doctor just like the real thing instead of this "romanticised" view we have of him as a "crotchety old man".

I mean, if you want sexism, you can go to the 2nd and 3rd Doctors with their obsession with getting pretty women to make tea for them. The 2nd even (IIRC) did it to Zoe, the smartest woman humanity ever produced.

But 1? He had Barbara and Susan. One of those was a schoolteacher who regularly took the Doctor to task, and the other was a bloody Time Lord. Early Doctor Who was a standout show for phenomenal representation of female characters - so much so that it's downright shameful how long it took to get a companion who wasn't white when you consider that overt feminist Sarah Jane Smith was one of the show's most popular and enduring icons. The first Doctor wasn't sexist, he hated everyone equally for making him go out and do adventuring instead of sitting down with a nice cup of tea and reading books.

 

[Amelia Faulkner]

The 12 Regenerations was a rule imposed by the Time Lords. It is not a physical, biological, physiological limit. It was a legal, bureaucratic, social convention. The Time Lords no longer exist (supposedly ) to enforce the rule.

If that's the case why did the Time Lords have to intervene to give Matt Smith some new regenerations as he lay about dying of old age?

 

[Dave]

If that's the case why did the Time Lords have to intervene to give Matt Smith some new regenerations as he lay about dying of old age?

Very poor scriptwriting???

But honestly, I think this argument is pointless, since canon was never, ever, a strong point in Doctor Who anyway, and in the last ten years (or since that other thread was started and I asked the 'regeneration questions') they have simply thrown away the book of canon and quite obviously couldn't care less anymore. It would be impossible to keep canon without some dedicated script supervisor, who had more power than the actual showrunner, and who was old enough to even remember. I think we just have to accept these constant retcons, but that is difficult to accept when they keep returning to actual events, previously shown, but then blatantly disregard them.

However, I'm in total agreement with you about the sexism aspect - both Barbara and Susan were strong female characters and the 2nd and 3rd Doctors made far more sexist comments.

 

[Serendipity]

hm... many arguments there have been... doesn't stop there being bundles of timelines where each bundle is ruled by a different Gallifrey and hence have different rules about Doctor regenerations... of course Doctor could find a way to slip from bundle to bundle... (there's nothing like a good bit of expansionist imagination, is there?)

 

[Amelia Faulkner]

Very poor scriptwriting???

Robert Holmes must be spinning in his grave.

 

[anthorn]

Not sure what you mean by messing up the regeneration cycle. The Doctor got a new cycle of 12.

Because he rushed through the regenerations in one episode. Instead of Matt Smith being the 11th he became the 12 and final incarnation and which ruined the whole fall of the 11th at Trenzalor, a question will be asked, thing from season 6 which now means, David Tennant obviously visited Trenzalor before Matt Smith because he was the 11th Doctor.

 

[anthorn]

Because he rushed through the regenerations in one episode. Instead of Matt Smith being the 11th he became the 12 and final incarnation and which ruined the whole fall of the 11th at Trenzalor, a question will be asked, thing from season 6 which now means, David Tennant obviously visited Trenzalor before Matt Smith because he was the 11th Doctor.

But then again Moffatt has proven that he doesn't really put much care into what he writes.

 

[MemoryTale]

Because he rushed through the regenerations in one episode. Instead of Matt Smith being the 11th he became the 12 and final incarnation and which ruined the whole fall of the 11th at Trenzalor, a question will be asked, thing from season 6 which now means, David Tennant obviously visited Trenzalor before Matt Smith because he was the 11th Doctor.

They meant the fall of the eleventh Doctor. Ten had two goes at it, but he was still the tenth Doctor, and although the War Doctor was a regeneration of the same Time Lord I'm pretty sure they said in his episode they didn't consider him a Doctor due to his actions in the Time War - I could be wrong about that part I haven't seen it since it came on the first time around but I'm usually good at remembering trivia like that.

 

[anthorn]

They meant the fall of the eleventh Doctor. Ten had two goes at it, but he was still the tenth Doctor, and although the War Doctor was a regeneration of the same Time Lord I'm pretty sure they said in his episode they didn't consider him a Doctor due to his actions in the Time War - I could be wrong about that part I haven't seen it since it came on the first time around but I'm usually good at remembering trivia like that.

But he was the 12th Doctor. 10th regenerated in Journey's End but kept the same face, meaning he was the 11th Doctor. And he's still a regeneration so the War Doctor counts, especially when they say to him, you were the Doctor when it was impossible to get it right.

They are called the eleventh and twelfth Doctor because it is their 11th and 12th regeneration. So yeah, he messed it up.

But then Moffatt has always written episodes because they sound cool rather than if they gel with what he's written before.

Example of the type of writing he does.

Woman hates Doctor because she has been raised to hate him. Appears in last episode of season whichever. Vows next time she sees him to kill him and to never stop killing him. Come Christmas Special they're all best mates and she loves and will die for him without any explanation as to why she has gone from hate to love within the space of an episode.

 

[TheDustyZebra]

The first Doctor was sexist. Along with a number of others. The Doctors, the companions, the portrayal of relationships, were all hideously sexist. I got to start watching the old shows for the first time this year, so it's all pretty fresh in my mind. They were a product of their times, just as modern episodes are a product of theirs. But oh, how hard those old ones are to stomach.

 

[anthorn]

The first Doctor was sexist. Along with a number of others. The Doctors, the companions, the portrayal of relationships, were all hideously sexist. I got to start watching the old shows for the first time this year, so it's all pretty fresh in my mind. They were a product of their times, just as modern episodes are a product of theirs. But oh, how hard those old ones are to stomach.

I've never thought of it like that. The people of this generation are usually claimed to have short attention spans, and thus explains why Moffatt seems at ease with ignoring continuity. So why bother following through with something he wrote or stated before when the audience won't remember what happened an episode ago.

 

[Calum]

To be fair unlike the Eleventh Doctor One never slapped his companion's bum, kissed a Lesbian against her will, exposed himself in the nude to a young woman without her consent or made leachy aides about Clara's skirt. Some claim that these incidents weren't sexual since the Doctor doesn't understand human behaviour, but reading about Melody Malone's cleavage in the Angles Take Manhattan clearly turns him on, so we can assume he's got some level of understanding when it comes to human sexual mores, certainly enough to appreciate the link between sex and nudity. Of course these episodes were written by a bloke who explicitly linked Feminists to the KKK (See Sherlock: The Abominable Bride) so perhaps we shouldn't be surprised.

 

[Dave]

I think I might have said this already (if so I apologise but I can't be bothered to re-read this old thread again.) If I did, then my view has hardened further since then.

It seems to me that rather than any enormous change and the much lauded "ability to tell new stories" by having a female Doctor, the show is going to continue on exactly the same footing as it almost always has in the past (bar a few exceptions) i.e. an older, father-figure, (possibly sexist) man paired up with a young, outspoken (possibly feminist) but attractive woman. All they have done here is to reverse the roles. They are also adding a young man to do the physical stuff that an older man cannot, much as they did in the past, while Jodie Whittaker could be quite capable of doing that stuff.

I think they have missed the chance to really shake things up, and it appears to me that this was therefore only done as a fob to those calling for a female doctor, rather than any intention to really make some serious changes.

 

[Onyx]

Having a female Doctor is fun. I don't understand why it is a change only worth making if it is also "important".

 

[Edward M. Grant]

And the insertion of a throwaway "war doctor" who did very little other than gobble up yet another regeneration.

Wasn't he a Big Finish creation? Certainly John Hurt did a bunch of Doctor Who audio stories with them, but I'm not sure whether that was before or after the TV version. And, frankly, I found the Time War idea one of the most interesting things about the reboot.

But, yes, it all became pointless when Moffatt found Gallifrey hidden under the sofa cushions.

 

[farntfar]

Oh, calm down everyone.

Rule 1: the Doctor lies.
Rule 0: The creators of Dr Who don't let the facts get in the way of the fiction.

If we stuck to the original 12 regeneration limit, the Doctor would now be absolutely dead and finished and the argument would be over.
I doubt anyone who's posting here and can be bothered to argue about the count or the sex of the new Doctor actually wants that.

As Onyx says, it's meant to be fun. And at least until we've seen some of the new series, that's what I'm looking forward to.

 

[thaddeus6th]

I don't have much of a dog in this fight, as I stopped watching a few episodes into Capaldi's time (no problem with him, I actually liked his cantankerous older Doctor style, but the writing...), but it peeves me that, even if you believe a female Doctor is a good thing, it didn't happen when Matt Smith got his Gallifrey ex machina extra regenerations when it could've fit in very nicely.

Also, serials are better than one episode adventures.

Edited extra bit: Dave, inclined to agree, although it's possible that was the Other.