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picnokinesis · 1 year

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DOCTOR WHO POSITIVITY DRIVE

Hello everyone!

Alright, so I recently got the chance to go to Gallifrey One, which was absolutely incredible, but what struck me the most was just how positive the atmosphere was. I went there worrying that there would be a big, obvious divide between people who liked one era and people who liked another - but there wasn’t at all. Everyone was so friendly and nice, and it was such a celebration of the entire show, old and new. And it’s only really hit me now that I’ve come back to the online fandom after that experience that the reason I felt that way was because recently a lot of people seem to be either focusing on the parts of the show that they hate, or hating on other parts of the show to say why the part they like it good. And I’m tired of it - this is a show that tells us to see wonder in the universe and be kind to one another! - and after talking to a few people, I think a lot of folks are. And so I came up with this idea - a positivity drive!

Here’s how it works: if you want to, make a post about any part of Doctor Who that you like! Maybe it’s a specific era, or a specific character, or maybe multiple different things or just the show as a whole. Whatever you like - and then encourage other people to do the same! It can be as short or as long as you like. There are just a couple of rules:

Rule 1: Don’t be negative about any part of the show in order to say something positive about another part. This is about celebration, remember.

Rule 2: If someone else posts something for the positivity drive that you disagree with or that you actually really hate about the show - leave them be. Of course, if you want to make your own critical post, I’m not going to stop you, but the last thing I want is for people to start arguments on posts that are meant to be about celebrating the show. We’re all a community of people with different opinions and tastes, and so we like different things! And that’s okay!

Rule 3: Tag your post with #dw positivity drive so people can find posts and share the love. It’ll also help me because I would like to reblog as many posts as I can! And if you feel like encouraging other folks to join in too, that would be really awesome! I want this to span across as many eras and aspects of the show as possible

I’ll start everyone off by saying what I like about the show, but I’m going to put it under the cut because otherwise this will get too long. But if people are happy to reblog this and/or share it with folks in other ways, that would be really helpful! I just think it would be amazing if we could recreate that sense of love and joy that I felt at Gallifrey One - because isn’t this what fandom is all about? Sharing joy for the things that we love? I think it should be!

Since I’ve been watching the show since 2005, I thought I’d say what I liked about each showrunner era, because I love the RTD, Moffat and Chibnall era for a bunch of different reasons. And to be clear, if I say something I like about one era, that doesn’t mean I think it’s bad or not done well in another era - it’s just a particular thing I like about that era!

RTD ERA

I really love RTD’s characters - they’re always so vibrant and real, and he’s really good at establishing the characters quickly and giving us a really clear and consistent sense of who they are and what matters to them! It’s also really satisfying to watch the story arcs of these characters - I think of Donna in particularly, because I really love how she grows from a character with so little confidence in herself to someone who manages to save everything that she knows. And yes, I know she loses her memory too, but I lowkey love that - especially in the context of the recent series, with the Doctor suddenly discovering that their own memories have been erased - because the pain of it is so brutal and real, and it somehow feels even worse than if she’d died. I love angst and tragedy when it’s done well, and that’s another thing that RTD is excellent at! (Like the whole thing with the TIME WAR, guh, it’s such a good way to bring back a show that had been off the air for so long)

On that note!! He brought back the show!! And he did it with a wheelie bin burping what an ICON

RTD tends to put his themes and his message at the heart of the story he’s telling, and I really love that because it just resonates through the whole thing

Ok this is a silly thing but as a kid I always loved it when RTD would like...have a word or phrase that kept cropping up and you’d spot it in lots of episodes and it would suddenly become relevant in the climax? Like in s1 it was ‘bad wolf’, and then in s2 it was ‘torchwood’, and then less of a word/phrase but how in s4 they kept bringing up about the missing planets? It was just really cool and excellent storytelling to set up for what is coming for the end of the series

There are so many stories that I love in this era - it’s one I’m very fond of because I grew up with it, and honestly I think it inspired me so much to like sci-fi as much as I do now

MOFFAT ERA

The episodes in this era are always so bombastic and spectacular! There’s such a cool sense of scale for the universe, and so many cool new monsters and worlds are brought in that I really enjoy (like the christmas episode with the flying sharks? HELLO? I’m absolutely obsessed with that). And yet we also get this really cool dichotomy with the home life of the characters too, and seeing how their relationship with the Doctor and how their lives at home don’t always work well together, and it’s such a cool theme to really dive into.

Early Moffat era - especially s5 - has this really wonderful like...fairytale vibe, I guess? Just the themes of s5 are really nice, and I particularly love how we see them woven throughout the narrative and also just the style of the show and how the stories are told. It’s awesome

Moffat era has some absolutely CRACKING two-parters! I think one of my favourites are probably the crash of the Byzantium two-parter, but then the s10 finale is just absolutely BRUTAL but so, so well done. On that note, I absolutely ADORE s10 on the whole, like just Twelve, Bill and Nardole as a TARDIS team? And then everything between Twelve and Missy? I’m obsessed with it, it’s so so good.

The Doctor speeches!! So many iconic lines!!

Moffat has some REALLY awesome concepts that he delves into in his era - like the idea of a crack in time! The Pandorica! The confession dial! Aliens that make you forget you even saw them! Aliens from a two-dimension universe trying to invade ours! And then, of COURSE, the way he uses the black hole and time dilation in the s10 finale? Absolutely INCREDIBLE, it’s just SO cool!

CHIBNALL ERA

I know I keep going on about themes but I absolutely LOVE the themes of Chibnall’s era, especially in s12-13 and the way it digs so much into identity. It’s something that I myself really love to write about, as well as being something that really resonates with me personally, and so it’s just been an absolute TREAT to see it get dived into in a show I love so much, and done so well! I also really love how it explore memory and trauma and how that ties to identity, which is another topic I find really fascinating.

With Chibnall’s stories, I’ve really found that the more you dig into them and engage with them, and try and figure out how they tick, the more and more satisfying and enjoyable they become. It’s makes writing for and being in the fandom for this era in particular so wonderful, because even now, years after some episodes aired, I keep finding more connections and more things that I hadn’t realised about, and it’s AWESOME! I also really love how it’s all such a love letter to the show as a whole - the last episode in particular is a great example of that, but I really think the whole of this era is as well! There are so many references and connections back to both RTD and Moffatt’s era, but then also Classic Who as well! Like, for example, take the Timeless Child arc - the way it weaves threads that had been left hanging from previous seasons, taking inconsistencies that are natural for a show that has been airing for sixty years (!!) and make them fit in so beautifully into the tapestry of canon? It’s SO COOL!! And so satisfying! I think people sometimes say that Chibnall tore canon apart, but I actually think that’s the opposite of what he’s done - he took things like the Cartmel Masterplan and The Brains of Morbius and that one random scene in the Matrix from the Deadly Assassin...and he made them all FIT together! It’s amazing! And then in Flux too - I saw someone talk about how the Flux being created by Tecteun because of the Doctor actually makes the end of s5 make even more sense - because in the future, the universe is being destroyed because of the Doctor, and so all of Eleven’s enemies put him in the Pandorica! It’s brilliant. AND THEN bringing back Ace and Tegan for the centenary of the BBC!!! He finished off their story arcs DECADES after their last appearances, and it just the coolest thing

On that note! So many ties back to Classic Who!! We love to see it!! I also really appreciate the fact that Flux enabled so much Lungbarrow clowning, which I think had to be intentional because why would it have been there otherwise, plus we KNOW that Chibnall knows about Lungbarrow - so yknow. It’s silly but I love it yknow

This era is just so GORGEOUS, it’s absolutely stunning? Not just the CGI but also just the lighting and the amount of detail and love that goes into the set design and the costumes! There are so many details to enjoy and I love that

I love all the characters so much, they’re absolutely wonderful! Again, a lot of the characterisation feels quite under the surface, but the more you let the episode sit with you and look at the details, the more you see, and it’s wonderful. I’m also particularly attached to Thirteen for a lot of personal reasons, because it’s the first time I’ve ever been able to see so much of myself in a character - and yet she’s still open to interpretation, so other people can see themselves in her as well. And especially when at Gally One someone asked Chibnall about Thirteen’s autistic traits, and he confirmed that they were intentional - that was just SO wonderful, because as someone who is autistic, I’ve always found a lot of the way I see the world mirrored in the Doctor’s character, but this was especially true with Thirteen (it’s one of the reasons why I really love how she was portrayed alongside Telsa in s12 ep4). So to hear it confirmed as intentional was just awesome

I also really love how there has clearly been an intent to include more diversity and be more inclusive, both in front of the camera and behind it! Whilst there have definitely been slip ups, I think the right intentions have definitely been there, and I’ve seen the tangible impact that it’s had on real people around me. For example, with Demons of the Punjab, there were so many people (myself included) who knew nothing about the Partition of India, because it’s just not taught about in schools here (which is absolutely shameful!). I actually worked on a creative project about the partition after this episode aired, and the amount of people who said they only found out about it because of Doctor Who was significant. And I think it’s really great and really important, because it’s leading Doctor Who to explore parts of history that we don’t normally see portrayed or talked about. And Chibnall has also clearly worked really hard to focus the historical episodes on important women in history, especially ones who many people might not have heard about, such as Noor Inayat Khan and Mary Seacole! (I remember my Indian friend being so cross that she’d never been taught about Noor at school after watching Spyfall Part 2 - someone just like her, and she was only finding out about it in 2020!). I also hugely appreciate the fact that he baked into the lore that the Doctor being a woman wasn’t a one-off by introducing Jo Martin’s Doctor, who was also absolutely wonderful, as well as all the Timeless Child regenerations that we see. And then at the same time! Establishing that the Doctor hasn’t always been white! Chibnall gave us our first Black Doctor, and then gave us even more with the Timeless Child - and that’s awesome.

One of the things that has always struck me, but especially after going to Gally One, was how much love and joy there was for the show from Chibnall, Jodie, and everyone else involved in making it. They all talked about each other so positively, always praising and crediting other people for all the work that they did, and seemed to actively work towards making sure everyone on set felt welcome and included (even though Jodie claims that she was just nosy and wanted to talk to everyone haha - but regardless! The positive impact was so profound that every time people ask about how it was filming, every person mentions how wonderful Jodie is, unprompted). And Chibnall himself clearly cares so much about the show, and has so much of a passion for it - but is also just a really decent guy who just wants to encourage and enable other people, based on the interactions I had with him in person at Gally One. And I think that shows so much in his whole era

RTD2

We haven’t had much yet but NCUTI GATWA!!! AHHHH I am SO excited! He looks amazing already and I cannot wait

DONNA NOBLE COMING BACK?? IN 2023?? I’m not ready at ALL I’m going to cry

YASMIN FINNEY!!!

BEEP THE MEEP!! (but on that note!! How he’s bringing in obscure extended canon characters? Absolutely obsessed, I want more of it!)

The trailer just looks like so much fun and I’m hype

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