Nice one 
That took me waaay longer than it should have done 
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Heathen Moomin lover
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Does that mean that @MrColdStream is a Heathen who loves Moomin or that he only loves Moomin who are Heathen… 
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I’m so happy to read this. For so long, those of us with a love for season 15 were outliers, shamed for not following the so-called crowd in dissatisfaction at the apparent decline in quality following the departure of Hinchcliffe and then Holmes, yet…
…whilst I have always adored the Hinchcliffe/Holmes run, it was never the golden ideal that many seemed to remember it as. It was wonderful, but still had its wrinkles. I treasure those years, but I also still feel the vibrancy and sheer creative excitement of Williams’ tenure as Producer. That started with season 15. Including all-time great stories such as; “Horror of Fang Rock”, “Image of the Fendahl” and “The Sun Makers”, it’s also inventive and fun with “The Invisible Enemy” and gives my favourite iteration of Borusa (John Arnatt). Plus, for all its flaws, “The Invasion of Time” does really bold and interesting things with the Doctor, shows us beyond the Citadel for the first time, has a great cliffhanger at the end of episode 4 and is very reminiscent of the sort of scale we have come to expect of modern finales. All in all, it’s a great season and heralds the beginning of a very creative period that I enjoy immensely.
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Allow me to join in on the “Season 15 is amazing Love Train 
” 
And without season 15, we wouldn’t have K-9! And without K-9 we would have no… K9…
That doesn’t really work does it?
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Oh my god! Season 15 is the reason K9 (the series) exists! I hate that season now!
Just kidding, I would never do that 
Season 15 is amazing in its variety - Horror is the Hinchcliffe leftover and Fendahl another spooky tale; The Sun Makers is Bob Holmes doing political satire (who said Doctor Who hasn’t been political before?), and The Invasion of Time is ambitious and not very good 
then we have The Invisible Enemy, which I’ve always had a soft spot for. It’s silly but it’s also enjoyable. And it gave us K9, which gave us the show, which I’m hating on despite never having seen it!
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Every silver lining has its cloud
Oh @MrColdStream you must join us K9ers, we need some more life in that thread (and I need another reason to keep going)! 
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I have been trying to convince myself to watch K9 for so long, but I’ve never dared to do it!
If you do your horror movies in preparation for Halloween, I could do the Doctor Who horror spin-off, K9!
I’ll begin next week
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You know you want to!
Muhahahhaha
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Lots of people (though fewer than they’d like to think), but they’re people who’ve clearly never really paid attention. Vocal yet devoid of a meaningful argument.
This is actually a “Doctor Who” ick for me (see how I got back to the point of the thread 
). It’s when the frequently bigoted and baseless rantings of this vocal minority (for I genuinely believe they are such) are reported by the press as “Fans slam woke Doctor Who” etc.
People often cast aspersions on others for not being “true fans”, typically for daring to disagree with them. It’s an unhelpful charge to level at someone. How dare people say that someone else is less of a fan? However, in this case, I think there is an argument to be made. If you’ve happily watched Doctor Who and not noticed the frequent messaging in the show right back to “The Daleks” and its pretty on the nose messaging about nuclear holocausts and fascism, then I genuinely do think your claim to fandom should be taken with little more than the proverbial pinch of salt.
Yes, a very vocal group of people. Funny, I think there’s a line about people like that. Now, how does it go?
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Olay, now I have to do this. The effort you put into persuading me is admirable!
And you said it very well, @realdoctor. People complaining about modern Who being too political and “woke” (I loathe the term) always rub me the wrong way. Sure, the political messages can sometimes be a bit on the nose, but the show has always taken a stance against or for various themes - from fascism, communism and racism, to imperialism, bureaucracy, taxation, globalization, environmentalism, pacifism, warfare feminism, equality, AI and so on. That’s how it should be, and that’s great as long as they are part of great stories and fun adventures!
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I know some quarters found the on-the-nose message of stories like Orphan 55 or Praxeus too much to swallow but I really think those people are forgetting two things: 1) this is for a family audience and sometimes the message needs to be obvious for the younger ones to understand and when it’s a message about something that will affect their future like the state of our environment it needs to be clear; and 2) no one has been listening to subtle messages and look at the mess we’re in so sometimes being beaten around the head with it is what we need if changes are going to happen.
If such an blatant message bothers you so much you probably need to ask yourself why it’s bothering you.
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The other thing I don’t get about people who relentlessly complain about these episodes that are ‘too political’ or ‘too blatant’ or ‘pandering’ or whatever, is that there is so so much DW. You can literally just choose to watch a different episode. It’s not like there aren’t enough. Sometimes with the way people whine on, you begin to wonder if they even like the show at all… 
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What happens there is that they like the version of the show that is in their heads - often one which is formed from rose-tinted childhood spectacles.
They ignore what the show is actually like, from Hartnell through to now, preferring to imagine a show which made them feel like it did when they were 11 and failing to understand that that is what they are doing.
No real life version of the show will ever measure up and those stories which they do like are carefully curated to fit their imaginary version and anything contrary to it is ignored or handwaved as excusable.
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In all honesty, some of the people that jumped in on the whole hate train about the 13th Doctor being a woman and then started hatewatching the Chibnall era probably weren’t Doctor Who fans before that…
I do tend to feel there are people watching things just to call them out as woke these days.
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I often wonder where these hatewatching people get their time and energy from - I can barely watch stuff I actually want to see!
And so true @deltaandthebannermen. I think there is a part in all of us who adores that first Who we watched above all, but the mental hoops some people seem to be jumping through to justify why they’re bothering to still watch at all astounds me
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This, this, this! It’s the big one for me. I get why some people don’t enjoy when things are a little too on the nose, but with the world we live in certain topics really deserve all the subtlety of a sledgehammer.
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Also River is’nt really a Companion she’s more of a family member character
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@deltaandthebannermen, as always your points are well made.
I think point 1 is hugely important. Doctor Who, much as it is a show for all, has always courted a young audience (and with good reason). The show also cares enough to want the children to understand about these matters and to see the Doctor’s moral standpoint. Of course sometimes the subtext needs to be, well, just text, especially when, as you say, these are matters that will impact on their lives and futures.
Then, point 2. My GOODNESS! 
Those of us who work in academia, particularly those in fields of ecology, biodiversity and environment, have been trying to get many of these messages home for DECADES and still no-one really paid heed (well, not the people who really needed to listen). I mean, Carson’s “Silent Spring” was published in 1962 (clear influence for “Planet of Giants” surely?) and still the EU flip flop about tightening up restrictions on pesticides (even those with proven ability to cause harm to already declining bee populations) whilst the UK happily roll back environmental policies (thank you soooo much Mr Sunak 
)
Honestly, it’s like they never learned! Maybe (now here’s a thought), just maybe they should have paid MORE attention to the messaging in Doctor Who when they were growing up! Because they sure as hell never listened to the experts!
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