The Good Doctor
The Good Doctor was fun but ohhh the resolution - I mean. Aren't they lucky that the Doctor was around? How many resistances failed and were killed in the previous 600 years of oppression? How can you judge these people for fighting? Killing? When they could never have expected to have been saved by a magic fae Doctor dropping by again?
That is to say - I do. And I think it is right to say that killing is never justified. To live it.
But holy heck it's understandable.
And that last roundtable - more than half the people there were not just complicit as part of the system but SLAVE MASTERS - who never questioned the horrors of their world. Why would they agree so very readily to change the ways that guaranteed their superiority? - divine threats? I guess? They weren't good people - but it certainly pissed me off that they were presented a little as such - just because they weren't as bad as Mykados.
You can't just remove a figurehead, have them sign a peace treaty AGAIN (went so well last time), and leave it that. You're going to need some NEW institutions that ensure Loba equality - not old ones that enforced the inequality - like - that is going to take a total rewrite of culture - extremely sexist and racist norms - totally internalised by the oppressed - and power inequalities. The implication was that the Mayor raped his Loba servants!! For crying out loud!!! Now he's promising to investigate the Temple because they might have kept something from him? Right. That's gonna do so much good. Well, maybe that's the political scientist in me speaking. I don't see how they qualitatively did anything different the second time around - their intervention might as well have left the planet in racist misogynist shambles again.
It was a nice exploration of the hell that is patriarchal white supremacy in a barely sci-fi jacket.
But I suppose it really is .... Like. It really WASN'T the Doctor's fault. All she really can do is intervene again, and hope the people do better. Put in some failsafes. Hope.
It really did go into the core.....motifs I'm gonna say of series 11: love and hope. Used well here though.
Really really enjoyed the hugs between the companions and the Doctor and the way the Doctor got chained up AGAIN and then won an arena duel to the death by not fighting. Love!!! It!! The way she takes back her Doctor name and how repeatedly, everybody listens, defers responsibility, does as she says - because she possesses that Doctor Authority.
Both these writers (combat magicks) were better at writing her in that sense than Chibnall is....which is ridiculous.
Sad Yianna as a character didn't come back. Actually not sure in retrospect what purpose her scene served.
Anyway I really really like futuristic doctor who stories quite a lot more than historicals GENERALLY I've found out. Really enjoyed this book. Also really enjoyed the characterisation and the way the story was split along the companions - best attempt yet in my opinion. Also I love Ryan.
So counter intuitive, but Ryan is ACTUALLY my fav companion when he actually gets to do things.