changed my mind about how i wrote that paragraph actually. his introduction maybe isnt outright ableist, but the fact that his disability is basically glossed over the rest of the time (including later on in the same episode) definitely is.
if i think about this too much harder its gonna give me a headache lmao chibnall irritates me SO much
Oh yeah I kind of forgot about that. I guess I have been more invested in Nyssaās further storyline from Big Finish and have glommed on to that chain of events as the ācanonā that I subscribe to.
Thereās also apparently some things with their sleeping arrangements in the TARDIS that lead to questions, like them sleeping in the same room that sometimes has two beds and sometimes oneā¦
I think itās important to remember that Doctor Whoās approach to ācanonā has always been that everything is up for grabs and can be added to, ignored or reinforced in any way whatsoever.
One brief aside in an online short is about as important to the showās production team as an entire story from the 1970s. Itās about telling the story each individual writer wants to tell and picking and choosing what works for their story.
Iād always be extremely cautious about labelling anybody as anything based on what they may or may not have āignoredā from the sprawling universe of Doctor Who.
Itās always important that we listen to how each of us may feel about something, though, so thank you for sharing your ācontroversial opinionā.
honestly i think the introduction couldāve been resolved in a way that isnāt ableist but i do think it was the wrong way to introduce a disabled character, especially if thatās almost all we see of his disability. and i think it sets up a pretty rough dynamic between ryan and grace and graham, which again the show doesnāt acknowledge.
but yeah honestly like i went into chibnall era really excited and i still love thirteen in a lot of ways but at this point i really canāt stand the eraā¦ such is life i guess.
ā¦i really donāt care about EU canon in general. my impression is that both tegan and ace are widely regarded to have been coded as lesbians/WLW in their respective eras of the canon show, and i used the EU example as a way of saying that at least one person who has written for the show recognizes this as a popular perception of the character. i havenāt seen teganās era, but i have seen ace, and i know for a fact that at least one writer has explicitly said that she was trying to include lesbian subtext in aceās era. i donāt think chibnall knew about the EU canon, but i also feel that if you are unaware of the widely recognized lesbian subtext in aceās and teganās runs you probably need to be talking to more WLW and LGBTQ+ fans because honestly itās all i knew about either of them before i watched aceās run.
mostly, i bring this up because a lot of fans used teganās and aceās presence in POTD as evidence that there would be thasmin contentāie. bringing back two WLW-coded companions to support a love story between two women. because, again, at least in LGBTQ+ fan spaces there is a common perception of both tegan and ace as WLW. the fact that POTD then did not even explicitly acknowledge thasmin, and then went out of its way to establish heterosexual attraction for both tegan and ace, is extremely unaware at best. if it were just about tegan saying she had two ex-husbands i wouldnāt care. it is about the combined effects of all three of these elements (thasmin, ace, and tegan).
very true very trueā¦ probably couldāve easily solved the issues with that scene if they just made it clear that it was something ryan wanted to do but had gotten frustrated with rather than it seemingly like his grandparents are forcing him to do stuff he has a hard time with for no particular reason lmao.
very much crossing my fingers for some big finish Thirteen stories that deal with the seriesā issues better than the show didā¦
yeah itās really just frustrating to me that itās not ryanās choice and then heās framed as unreasonable for throwing the bike. likeā¦ yeah, iād throw it too!
Stranded has good parts and on paper I like most of the ideas but the execution thereof is terrible. The pandemic episode was incredibly insulting and unnecessary and the fact they were so excited about ābeing the first people to try this in fictionā at the time did not help that.
Once And Future was extremely mid. Between the AI cover art drama and the extremely big hype surrounding it, the stories were very average and didnāt live up to the hype.
Iāve never liked Charley Pollard and I cannot get into her audios for the life of me.
On that same note I am tired of Companion/Doctor shipping. It just doesnāt make sense to me and I cannot get into it regardless of the angle.
Iām so tired of the nostalgia gotchaās. Iām tired of seeing David Tennant everywhere. Heās a great actor but can we please move on to something new and fresh.
Iām sure I could go on for a while, but off the top of my head, these are it!
I strongly agree on both of these counts.
Shipping is fine if thatās your thing, but I donāt enjoy it when shipping from a part of fandom suddenly gets ācanonisedā because the production team becomes aware of it from various internet and convention comments. Friendship is actually possible even if you are romantically/sexually compatible.
And while I enjoyed the 3 60th specials there was no reason for it to particularly be Tennantās Doctor - the whole āWhy did this face come backā went absolutely nowhere - sure the Doctor may have needed a bit of R & R but that could have been any incarnation with any companion, no in universe reason for it to be 10 and Donna.
The big, multi-format arcs are crap. The number of releases and with no easy to understand order make me think that I am constantly missing out on something. It reminds me of the really big comic events where you had a random title that in reality was just a panel or a couple of pages that related to the ongoing event.
Companion/Doctor shipping is annoying but I will say the show does it mostly to themselves by having the longing looks from companions etc Crack shipping is fun and silly (Missy/Clara and Clara/Clara ftw), sincere shipping is almost cringy.
I thik if DT was a genuine surprise it would be different. The reveal at the end of Thirteens run was great, but months of talking about DT wasnāt. (This is a light take from me as he is always fun, but I just think its overplayed)
or done a 3 episode version of Once & Future with multiple Doctors appearing and trying to figure out how āthingā happened. Then have Gatwa as the final doctor to save the day. Passing the torch and a cool event.
edit Tie into flux as the thing that caused the hopping between regenerations to happen.
I donāt think this is controversial at all - from what I can tell, the majority of BF listeners, myself included, feel exactly the same as you. It was a hugely disappointing.
Yeah, mostly donāt like Doctor/companion shipping, though I make an exception for Jamie (largely because of how enjoyable the two are together). Was not into the Doctor/Rose as a couple, hated how the Doctor treated Martha, and was very relieved when the Doctor was absolutely not romantically into Donna.
Yaz, well, if the Doctorās going to be in a relationship, Iām happy for it to be a gay oneā¦ but the relationship barely happened, Yaz was shoved off unceremoniously, and she was criminally underused in a lot of the era.
(In fact, if I was rewriting the era, I mightāve made the initial TARDIS team be Yaz and Grace, with occasional stops to see Graham, then had Grace leave to stay with Graham [His cancer came back?], and get Dan earlier. More time for Yaz, Grace, and Dan sounds great, less time with Ryan also sounds great, and Iād miss Graham, butā¦)
This is actually really comforting because what Iāve been seeing was the exact opposite
On a Big Finish note though, I hate that most of their news comes over Twitter as I donāt have Twitter anymore. I find myself out of the loop so often and itās really ffing annoying. I had to hear about the shipping delays re: O&F from a friend and likeā¦ apparently that had been shared ages ago on Twitter and somehowā¦ I had thought mailing everyone you KNEW to have ordered would have been a more logical move but who am I to judge their business practices I guess.
Yeah - the shipping delays and cover issues have been really poorly communicated for O&F. Iād love to know where you were seeing positive feedback. Iām pretty active over at Gallifrey Base and got exactly the same vibes there too.