#dw analysis

[slypstream]

i think quite a few people actually missed what the original midnight episode of dr who was about! the creature made everyone turn their backs on each other. this was the first interaction it had with any kind of life, and the message it learned was that power to one comes when people are divided. the first time it met the Doctor, the lesson it came away with was that the way to gain power is by making others turn on each other. the people become monsters, and do the work for you. it became what it is precisely because of what they did to each other, and the original episode was intended to highlight exactly this concept. also, likely why the doctor was so incredibly haunted by it originally. he's seen the best and the worst of the universe, and yet, life doesn't change.

[fbpanimations]

little(actually kind of long) rant about why i think shelly is the way she is because ive seen people bash her writing and while yes i can understand some of that, i wanna give my perspective as someone who heavily relates to shelly's mental problems and sees her feelings as incredibly reasonable.

i see people say that shelly has no reason to feel so unloved from a writing standpoint because she has more friends than a lot of other toons do and they dont have these issues, which, yes! does make a level of sense! but i would like to propose the idea that shelly is likely already very used to the idea that she's less valuable than her peers by the time the game takes place. she's a main toon, meaning she has higher expectations placed on her than most other toons. Unlike most of the other mains though, her character has a big focus on being a people person. she's a (metaphorical) cheerleader, she's supposed to be there for others, it's one of the parts of her personality she was actually created with. I think it's also important to note that shelly (and by extension every other toon) have literally no life experience outside of their purposes in gardenview! this is literally all they exist for. they weren't created to live like normal people yet they seemingly experience emotions like normal people would. because while we don't know how toon brains specifically work, i feel we can safely assume based on other characters' developed traumas that they are capable of internalizing certain fears and insecurities that they Were Not created with.

okay so that to say! shelly does not live up to any of her expectations. she's not popular with guests- who don't buy her merch and generally don't care for her much as a character, and she's not doing great socially- she's kinda bad at comforting people (as evident in her interaction with squirm) and she gets overlooked and ignored a lot by her peers. my personal headcanon for that is that she had been deemed the weird girl who talks way too much about dinosaurs by most other toons early on and so they decided she wasn't really worth getting close with. that is leaning more towards fanfiction territory so i will not use that as an actual point here though. but y'know, food for thought.

so anyways yeah she's not good at what she was literally made to do and i think already that's a pretty strong foundation for her low self esteem and self worth to rest on. even though she does seem to have people she enjoys talking to and probably has good history with and who treat her well, it's not enough to break that foundation. i would say it takes a pretty solid support system to even start to get rid of it and guess what shelly Does Not have!! yeah like she gets along with a lot of toons just fine and has people she considers friends but lets be real, tisha is the only toon that sufficiently reciprocates shelly's support and that simply will not be enough. not when she's still being ignored by people and treated as though what she has to say doesn't matter. not by everyone of course, but even just a few people doing that is enough for someone like shelly to continue internalizing this sense of worthlessness. take it from me, it is SO easy for your brain to over-analyze situations and go "see see look they/you did xyz which means you're yet again just taking up space here and they don't actually care about you cuz you've always been The One That's Fucked Up like of course duhhh" when you're already so used to feeling like you're not good enough. it's so fucking easy to get stuck in that mindset and it's so fucking difficult to get out of it even if you have people telling you it's wrong.

also she lost her fucking mom. that too. nobody mentions shanon when talking about shelly and it baffles me because like hey did you read the note that she left for shelly right before gardenview shut down? she loved her so fucking much. i need you to understand how important shanon had to have been in shelly's life. judging by the note shelly was already very obviously feeling like an outsider in her own friend group even when gardenview was open. when shanon left she lost what was likely one of, if not her biggest support system out of nowhere with no explanation and no goodbye. we don't talk about how much the shutdown must have fucked with everyone on it's own but with all of this combined i'm like genuinely so surprised shelly still has it in her to be this optimistic. how does she have the will to smile every day if this is what her life is like. actually how. People say that she's whiny and takes things too personally but honestly i think she's incredibly strong and brave for pushing through this well when she is perhaps at the lowest point in her entire life. i don't think people understand how much sheer determination and willpower that must take. i love her. i love her so much.

[grandadtwelve]

was going through old posts and happened upon this one about how the doctor has a deep tendency to latch onto the first face they see after regenerating and, specifically, how the first person thirteen interacted with was grace, who immediately died. and how that kinda fits with the sense of unmooredness her regeneration has.

and now I’m just thinking about the implications of the first face the fifteenth doctor sees being his own. the person he has the strongest attachment and feeling of responsibility to, the person he draws the most comfort from, being himself.

[i-like-media]

THIS episode was DOCTOR WHO again, finally! Inua Ellams is the only one this season who understands how to properly weave politics and social commentary into a story without completely taking you out of it. BY FAR my favourite 15th doctor episode!

There are so many good things I can say about this episode, but I need to talk about how utterly shite the other episodes have been first to fully drive home how phenomenal this episode was..

The robot revolution builds up this whole story about this oppressive world being ruled by robots, you know how it goes... There is a mystery with Belinda and you want to know why they need HER of all people. the story builds up and up and then towards the end it makes the big reveal that, the problem isn't oppressive dictators or the system of a society that oppresses a certain group of individuals......... it's incels. Yeah the truest and purest form of evil is incels and they should just be turned back to a sperm and killed with a vacuum cleaner YES QUEEN. I'm sorry. Since when has ANYONE been the ultimate evil in doctor who besides the Daleks and Cybermen. Why does this guy not deserve a second chance? Especially since you can look up studies about how guys in Incel communities are also really hurt people and that they can get OUT of this mindset with proper help? Why did that one alien that looked into the time vortex and became an egg get a second chance, but this guy should just be sucked up and killed? miss me with that. but you think, oh that's just one episode. what does the next one have to say?

Lux has a whole scene that takes you out of the narrative with doctor who fans who have a whole conversation with him about how he's fiction and also these are their favourite episodes. Scene went on way too long and made me forget what they were even there for again.

The well is just a good story thank god

then we have Lucky Day..... There's once again a whole narrative going on with aliens. there's a mystery, you get invested. But turns out, the whole problem isn't aliens who want to eat you, it's cancel culture! yep! oooooh the scary people online that are writing google docs about you and making podcasts! ooooh wouldn't it be scary if they ENTERED YOUR HOUSE and tried to TAUNT you right to your face? It reads as a vent episode the writer wrote after he got some negativity online. Instead of adding nuance and asking "where do these opinions come from? Is there any truth in what people are saying", they are instead all painted as outrageous villains who want to DESTROY UNIT. It's completely ridiculous and I should've expected nothing less from the person who wrote Kerblam! Had an eerily similar message when you think about it.

The Story & the Engine is FINALLY another breath of fresh air and a story that's WRITTEN WELL ENOUGH to not take you OUT OF THE NARRATIVE WITH ITS MESSAGES. This episode has perfectly woven it into the story! It is up front about what it's about, honest, and the story moves along with it. It is about the unique alienation black people experience and the tight COMMUNITY that formed because of it. It is about black hardships and tales of horror that shall forever be tightly bound to one's heart. It is about the meaning and value of black hair and the stories each strand carries. It is about what drives us and what keeps us alive. and just, so much more. When it mentions slavery, village fires, racism, the black community and how horrible the internet is, it doesn't feel like it's supposed to be a shock or like something the show is trying to score social points for. It's just, the narrative. It's life. Every day life, casual but awful facts. It focuses on the beautiful people born from it and the innovative ways people survived it. THAT is empowering. Every show and movie should take notes. THIS IS HOW IT'S DONE!

Inua Ellams, everyone.

[lucky-katebishop]

I was confused at first why they were being killed one by one because that didn't really make sense and then I realized it's because last names are what they are born with. Last names can dictate influence, especially when it comes to wealth. Lindy used her last name as an advantage over Ricky because September was just a stage name- his last name came before hers so he had to die first. I think it's interesting that something so simple is actually so complex and no wonder the Doctor was so confused by it. The dot used what so many rich people take for granted (their last name) in order to punish them for it.

[sundialdotjpeg]

Spoilers for Doctor Who s15 ep04 “Lucky Day” & s15 ep02 “Lux” under the cut

Near the end of Lucky Day, the Doctor takes conrad into the TARDIS and chews him out. When I was first watching this I clocked the “MY world” as hella racist… and I was thinking about why.

Throughout Ncuti’s run we’ve seen a lot of social commentary, especially because he’s a black man. Just 2 episodes prior in Lux, racism plays a role in the plot, with the entire reason the The Doctor and Belinda are sneaking around at night is because they are POC, as well as the fake cops threatening them. This particular episode focuses around conrad as an alt-right grifter who manipulated Ruby for months to further his agenda. There are several other moments in the episode, for example:

The way that conrad tears down Ruby, mirroring the way that right wing influencers tear down their partners with misogyny,

The “Crisis Actors” narrative, pushed by popular influencers such as alex jones, who alleged that the parents of sandy hook victims were also “crisis actors”

The disgusting way that he treats Shirley Anne Bingham, a wheelchair user, playing off of the lazy disabled stereotype. (I wanted to call this the “welfare queen” stereotype but that is primarily focussed on black women… still kinda fits here.)

This constant signaling of right wing talking points leads me to the “MY world,” because it sounds very similar to “get out of MY country,” a popular anti-immigrant sentiment. Ncuti’s run is no stranger to this sort of anti-black/anti- immigrant social commentary, and while this line is never specifically called out, the surrounding context changed the meaning.

edit: I just learned that Ncuti himself IS an immigrant, he fled Rwanda b/c the genocide, which makes this comment even more impactful.

[paternostergays]

ive been a little bit behind on this dw season but i finally caught up and honestly ive been quite enjoying it! lots of thoughts so i thought I'd talk about belinda first

i like belinda a lot, she feels very grounded and honest and she cares so much. the fact she's a nurse and house sharing with a bunch of people she's clearly not good friends with with a shitty landlord is so real of her because that is how plenty of people in the uk are living well into their 30s like her. also the fact that she isn't like 19 is nice too, she's got a career and life experience and it's a good change from the typical companion archetype, which i felt ruby really embodied in the last season.

also, belinda matches the doctor in a different way to a lot of modern companions, who tend to become immediately enamoured with the doctor because they're longing for adventure and to explore the universe. her first instinct is always to care - to seek out the people, to help them - which other companions have too, obviously, but the excitement of these new places and times come secondary to her, and has developed over time. she didn't immediately jump in the tardis after the doctor saved her and travel with him. she just wants to get home.

belinda has only become closer with the doctor through necessity because he can't get her home and they're stuck together until he manages it. she clearly cares about the doctor but doesn't idolise him. and honestly I would enjoy the story arc of the current season even more if they'd drawn that out a bit; she calls him dangerous, right off the bat, and it could've been interesting if she'd taken longer to warm up to him - because she has a point, the doctor does have a habit of dragging people into danger even when they're trying their best to save them. fifteen is one of the most forgiving and openly caring doctors we've seen, and i think had belinda met, say, ten, she wouldn't be nearly as quick to trust him. i really hope we get an episode where she holds him accountable, because a lot of the recent companions haven't really been challenging the doctor as much as i think she would.

im looking forward to the rest of the season! lots of interesting plots so far. and i would absolutely die for belinda chandra.

[ghost-bison]

Aired: March 26th, 2005

Written & Directed by: Russel T. Davies, Keith Boak (respectively)

Main Cast: Christopher Eccleston as the Ninth Doctor, Billie Piper as Rose Tyler

Summary: Rose, a nineteen-year-old girl living with her mum, loses her job one night when a strange middle-aged man in a leather jacket and buzzcut blows up the mall after saving her from living dummies. He comes to her house the next day and when he leaves again, she still has no idea who he is. Or what he is. She only knows what he told her, that his name is the Doctor, and what she understands: wherever he goes, trouble follows. She sets to find him, but soon finds out that you don't find the Doctor: he finds you.

Opinion: for me, this one is a 10/10. I must have told this story a thousand times already, but I remember the night I watched it for the first time, in bed with a taco, and how it pulled me in immediately. How I had stars in my eyes. I didn't like science fiction back then, so I had no idea what I was getting myself into, but man did this episode pull me in. It's so camp, and the Doctor manages to be so silly, but also so impressive and mysterious at the same time that I couldn't possibly not like it. It gives you glimpses into his backstory, while also covering it up with the best crappy CGI you've ever seen as well as a hilarious and touching dynamic between him and Rose, and before you know, you're addicted. If you're looking for a place to start this show, look no more: this is it. There is no better starting point to New Doctor Who than the beginning, with Christopher Eccleston as, for me, the best Doctor Doctor Who has ever seen.