Meh, the last two seasons weren’t any worse than many of the ones before. It’s just that fandom got a bit toxic with the change of The Doctor to a woman. Gender/political concerns were baked into the show since it’s revival almost 20 years ago.
There were some good stories in there. Demons of the Punjab was one of the best SF/Historicals the show did in a while.
Horseshit. Go and watch “The Green Death” (1973) or “The Sun Makers” (1977), for example, and then tell me that Doctor Who never used to be political.
Pretty sure every incarnation of the Doctor had some kind of gender identity.
He was remembering a man from Pompeii, who was played by Capaldi - an episode that also had a minor character played by Karen Gillan.
Timey Wimey, probably.
You can go back further with “Planet of the Giants” a first season story with ecological concerns.
Longtime Classic Who writer Malcolm Hulke was a dyed in the wool Socialist. He put political messages in his stories. Most obviously in Colony in Space, Frontier in Space and The War Games,
The people who say “Doctor Who used to be non-political” are probably the same folks who think Star Trek used to be non-political.
That’s a great show. We’re in the middle of season two right now and very much enjoying it.
Yeah, at first I wondered if the politics in Old Who were subtler or something and people just missed them…but then I went back and rewatched 15 minutes of it. It’s ALWAYS been a political show, with the only difference being that the idea of a charming straight (?) white male savior was intact as the center of it all.
Haters gonna hate, I guess, but I enjoy NuWho every bit as much as I did the old stuff. And that’s speaking as someone who started with Pertwee (though it was actually in Late Baker; my local PBS kept looping through).
All right, you caught me. I stopped watching during the Matt Smith years.
Like I said, haters gotta hate…
Since at least the 3rd doctor, in many ways. The Pertwee era was FULL of political content.
No see, when it’s a white man, it’s just normal, but everyone else has a “gender identity”…
Um - a Scottish accent is one of the many British accents. Perhaps you meant English, but there are many different variations of that too.
Happily. Scotland is part of Britain, and will be, geographically, even if it becomes politically independent from the United Kingdom.
Yes, as others have noted, there were always political stories in Doctor Who. And I have no objection to that at all.
But the last few seasons have had several episodes which had very weak plots in blatant service of some painfully obvious modern political metaphors. Rather than writing a good adventure yarn and dealing with the politics as it arose, it was almost (in some cases for a few weeks in a row) as if they’d said “what’s this week’s political topic? Ok - here is a list of all the points we want to make, now let’s write a story around them.”
Cart before horse.
“One thing is consistent though and this is why the show is so beloved by geeks and nerds. It’s all about the triumph of intellect and romance
over brute force and cynicism.”
C. Ferguson
Those politics have been baked in since the start. Environmentalism, anti-authoritarianism, and rights of oppressed people are political stances that have been in it since at least the early 70’s. But if you enjoy cynicism, feel free. It being available as a free perk on Amazon+ has nothing to do with a show’s quality, many good shows are on streaming services other than Amazon, many many many bad shows are on Amazon+.
Baker was the one I watched as a kid. I actually haven’t watched any of the new stuff. I support all the people who love it, though, and maybe one day I’ll get around to it. But it’s never had a huge appeal for me.
While there is definitely, absolutely a deeply toxic side to online fandoms, I am convinced that a lot of so-called fans who complain about Star Trek, Star Wars, Doctor Who, insert-long-running-franchise-here being ruined by the woke agenda and whatnot are not actually fans, and know the franchise in question only from cultural osmosis and like ten minutes on Wikipedia. They’re only using the franchise as the latest vehicle for their “WOKENESS IS DESTROYING EVERYTHING WOE IS US” whining. See: all those dudes who were like “I used to watch He-Man/She-Ra all the time when I was a kid and the new woke version is ruining my childhood!” - hahaha right, sure, how old are you, again? (I know these shows have been re-run, but let’s be realistic.)
That aside, “political” has pretty much taken to mean “handles issues/themes that I’m uncomfortable with”. Like, adding diversity to franchises is political. The lack of diversity from earlier version of some of those franchises? Not political whatsoever. /s
I don’t care about Doctor Who at all (not my cup of tea whatsoever), but I may or may not have just gone “nyahahaha” when hearing the news.
Respectfully, I must disagree with the implication that earlier Who was only political incidentally. A number of stories were written deliberately to address a particular political theme. “The Sun Makers” was a vicious satire on Thatcherism capitalism. “The Mutants” was a very thinly veiled take on British (de)colonialism and associated racism. The politics was the cart.
Well, I guess a Scottish Doctor is allowed then!
I’m certainly not going to tell them no: they might say something witheringly Celtic at my sorry English self.
