#chibbs

[autistichalfblood]

DOCTOR WHO: The Power of the Doctor teaser

[13thdoctorposts]

I would love to know the general public sentiment on 13 era Doctor Who.

In the online fandom it seems to be that the majority of people think it’s ‘bad’ for whatever that means to them, but the online fandom is only one small part of the viewing public. And even if you don’t take into account that the way we watch tv has drastically changed in the last 5 years and just looked at viewing figures as a number with no context, Flux was pulling in over 4mill in overnights in viewing figures… and yes you could compare that with no context to previous series and say it’s bad compared to years gone by but… 4 MILLION + people tuned in to watch it. You can’t tell me that 4 million people were hate watching it. That’s absurd.

So even if it wasn’t as popular I don’t think you can honestly say it was hated as much as online discourse would have you believe. This coupled with Jodie’s comic con appearances over the last year bringing in bank in the tune of a lot of ££, and her lines being crazy with people wanting to meet her, I just wonder how much of the online sentiment is real in the real world.

Because honestly if you do really love 13 era Doctor Who your opinions aren’t really welcome in the fandom with out people being horrible, making out you’re stupid for liking it, or just down right calling you toxic, the amount of times I’ve seen a ‘Jodie Stan’ being labeled as ‘toxic’ is ridiculous. I think a lot of people who love the era would rightfully check out and just not bother engaging with the online fandom. Which is sad because I think it skews the discourse to the negative, because people don’t want to have to defend their positive view to be inundated with negativity, and hate and on top of that if they call out bad behaviour be labeled as toxic.

The UK has a population of approximately 67.33mil so if over 4 mil watch an episode that seems like a lot especially once you start cutting out kids who are too young to watch and might be in bed when it airs, people working shift work while it’s on, people having family commitments and a host of other reasons that would take them away from watching tv. And then you have to remember sci-fi is niche, it’s definitely not everyone’s cup of tea.

I think 13 era is more beloved then we can see because it’s drowned out by the online fandom which only represents a small part of the viewing public in total.

You can’t even go to the official Doctor Who social pages and say you love yaz or 13 without an onslaught of crap thrown at you because Doctor Who social is completely inadequate at protecting it’s actual fans, it’s creatives and the show as a whole. So having a real understanding of how well liked 13 era Doctor Who is in general seems like it would actually be hard to know.

[nightmanatee]

ok so apparently jodie's sent these pics as a reference to her doctor's costume:

and like... yes. it is 13

[lariskapargitay]

Me thinks that someone on the writing staff had a bit of a choking/bondage kink regarding 13/Jodie bc like idk if I never noticed it with the other doctors but this was a weeee bit excessive

[ibroughtyoumybullets-ningy]

must an episode of Doctor Who be good? is it not enough to simply make Classic references for an hour and a half while having the worst script imaginable and also the master dances to ra ra rasputin?

[tennant]

ah, now this headline make sense with the latest episode huh

[ssaalexblake]

Yazmin Khan has spent 3 seasons watching and learning from 13. In this episode, 13 seemingly dies and Yaz is left to pick up the pieces. She does. She flies the tardis, gathers the troops, formulates a plan and sees it through and saves the doctor’s life. Temporarily (it’s always temporary). Saves the world. Saves the creature. Saves so many others who would have been effected by this. 

Meanwhile, the master, having a total breakdown and Still trying to bring the doctor down to his level so they are the same again, attempts to Be the doctor to do it. But. He has no idea who the doctor is and never has. He’s doing a grotesque echo of what was done to Missy, he shapes the doctor into him as the doctor attempted to shape Missy into him.  But How the doctor views the master and how the master views the doctor in these instances are not the same. 

He’s parading around in her outfit and with her genetics and putting on a show while yaz watches in disgust and knows deep in her bones that she is better at being the doctor than he is because she actually knows what it means. 

The juxtaposition of a woman who has spent 3 seasons looking and learning and managing to become the doctor by learning who she is even while 13 wasn’t entirely sure to the master, who is desperately clutching at gaining that level playing field with 13 at the top of the pile  he sees her on, even if it kills her. The master chose to degrade 13 to nothing but her genetics and therefore when trying to Be the doctor all he does is kill her and steal said genetics. But those genetics have Nothing to do with the person the Doctor is. 

Yaz, however, knows the doctor is not their genetics and she is, in this episode, 13′s true successor. 

She Is The Doctor because she knows the Doctor is the sum of their actions, not her parts.

He is a mess of genetic code because he reduces her to her genetic abilities, just as Tecteun did originally. 

Yasmin Khan is The Doctor. 

[nutmeggery]

look i'm just gonna the the rude one and say what we're all thinking:

RTD could do the flux

but chibnall could never do wild blue yonder

[swinging-stars-from-satellites]

if you dislike someone's writing that much just shut up about it smh

[thirteensfavoritetoy]

Thirteenth Doctor's era ends with emotionally-unsatisfying conclusion to Thasmin hundreds dead thousands injured

[princessmisery666]

So I have a question. If I'm writing a new Jax story and it features Opie and Chibs...am I writing fanfic or am I writing the story of a parallel universe where me, you, and @dawn-petrichor-world can actually hang out together?

Both?!

@dawn-petrichor-world what you reckon?!

Looking forward to reading it 🤗

[13thdoctorposts]

chris chibnalls era was the most conservative nuwho has been. remember when he made the first non-white master dress up as a nazi, and the white protagonist purposefully reveals his race with the intent of getting him sent to a concentration camp? or when he queerbaited thasmin? or when the female protagonist knelt down to a man and called him her master? or when yaz instantly shut down ryan when he was talking about his struggles as a black person? or the concept of a pregnant man being used as a joke? please try to see through the performative activism.

Thanks for the question. I think most of the questions are rhetorical because obviously I’ve watched the show and saw these things, I think the question is just asking me to see through the performative activism. I don’t think it was performative activism but I thought we could go though each part of the question together as I’m happy to breakdown my thoughts on the situations mentioned. This might be TLDR for some people just warning you now 😅

chris chibnalls era was the most conservative nuwho has been.

I find it interesting the asker is saying the show is conservative while also saying its performative activism so essentially that it was trying to be woke.

Personally I don’t think Chibbs was trying to make a ‘Woke’ show, I also don’t think he was trying to make a ‘conservative’ show. I think he was trying to make a show with diverse stories. I think series 11 did this best. The ending of Keblam! was definitely not ‘Woke’ so all the talk about the show itself being ‘Woke’ I don’t think is correct but I also don’t think the show was trying to be actively conservative either since it was talking about issues like racism and partition of India and Pakistan, and making fun of a trump like figure, for example. It’s just a show about time and space, sometimes you see politics in it sometimes you don’t. I’ll talk about my thoughts on ‘performative activism’ during the Chibnall era at the end.

I think its important to remember Chibbs is just a dude going to work doing a really big job trying to use his position of power the best he can… it doesn’t mean every decision is going to be right… sometimes I make a bad calls at work, we all do… people are human… I can empathise that people can try their best and sometimes get it wrong but also often get it right, the world is nuanced not black and white. However this doesn’t make a whole show bad, can anyone name a show with 3 series that doesn’t have any bad decisions… can anyone name a different Doctors run that was perfect and no mistakes or mis-steps were made?

remember when he made the first non-white master dress up as a nazi, and the white protagonist purposefully reveals his race with the intent of getting him sent to a concentration camp?

I most definitely do remember this, and I think it was a bad call. However I can also acknowledge that Sacha was hired when everyone was already in South Africa a week before shooting Spyfall, which means the script was already written and pre production was well under way so they probably didn’t have the ability to change a major chunk of the script, thats just the logistics of shooting a TV show. It would have been great if Chris had unlimited money and time to change things but thats just not the case. I would think this logically means they couldn’t change the fact that they had the Master in a Nazi outfit… I also think its possible when writing the episode Chris probably wrote it with the subconscious bias that he was going to have a white male as the Doctors Master. Although Chris was very good about hiring diverse actors, subconscious bias sits in us we aren’t always aware we are doing it, hence the subconscious part. This isn’t great on Chris’s part but I don’t think he was being deliberately malice either. I think they also thought once they had Sacha that they needed to acknowledge race… and they did in the worse way possible, it was unnecessary and was a terrible look for the Doctor.

or when the female protagonist knelt down to a man and called him her master?

Yeah I do also remember this, it was uncomfortable to watch, I think the purpose of the scene was meant to make us really dislike the Master, to kill any good will the audience was having towards ‘O’. Him killing people is horrible but its the Master its expected and random characters who are extras that we as an audience aren’t attached to isn’t going to have the same effect as him doing something horrible to a character we are attached to like the Doctor. I wish what he had done wasn’t this. I don’t think it’s a good look, a female Doctor having to be submissive to a male in this way. It’s not appropriate. However I have to praise Jodies acting here because she acted this scene in the most unsubmissive way possible. This is just a decision I don’t agree with, it doesn’t make for a bad show overall.

or when he queerbaited thasmin?

Thasmin wasn’t queerbait because the characters canonically admitted having feeling for each other. You can be disappointed with the way it ended… I am… but a bad ending isn’t queerbaiting. Queerbaiting is implying their might be something queer happening only for it to be dropped and often a heteronormative ending is what is actually depicted on screen and was primarily used by shows as a rating kick. I would say it would be the opposite for Doctor Who, since people were vocal about not wanting a female Doctor, not wanting the Doctor to ever have a love interest etc. it likely wouldn’t have given the show a ratings kick in the same way other modern era TV would hope to get when queerbaiting. Thasmin isn’t queerbaiting its just a disappointing end

or when yaz instantly shut down ryan when he was talking about his struggles as a black person?

I don’t think this is what Yaz’s intention was but people can read the scene as they wish.

or the concept of a pregnant man being used as a joke?

I don’t think it was being play with as a joke. I think Ryan and Graham’s reaction in this episode was how a lot of people would act and through the episode seeing them coming to terms with the idea a male can be pregnant is a reflection of society and you see them work through being uncomfortable, not really being sure how to act or what to say but in the end they get to where they need to be, seeing the miracle that is life. This also touches on Ryans father issues so theres a lot going on in this situation and although theres some comic relief moments I don’t think it was trying to make the whole situation a joke.

please try to see through the performative activism.

I don’t think the Chibnall era was performative activism because he wasn’t all words, he was actions. There were more diverse voices in major positions, in the cast, in the writers room and with Directors.

So what do I mean by this? Well we didn’t have a white man write ‘Rosa’ and then have an all white TARDIS team take on racism in 1955 and defeat it. That would have been performative activism.

First of all and most importantly we had a woman of colour hired and paid to write a story that was in a very well known TV show giving the story a huge audience on a platform its never had before… thats not performative, that’s actively doing something, Chris hired, paid and gave a platform to a person of colour to tell their story.

Giving people real opportunities in areas they haven’t had opportunities before on a large scale like Doctor Who and trying to create an environment where that is normalised and diverse voices are a common place has to start somewhere, it doesn’t just happen fully formed and Chibbs was clearly and deliberately trying to normalises having voices of women and people of colour in front and behind the camera in senior positions like actors, writers and directors.

I think it’s important to remember Chibbs was trying to be the beginning of this change so its not a fully realised idea, there aren’t as many writers and directors who are women and people of colour, so you bring in as many as you can, which I think Chibbs did, then you try and grow it from there. If more show runners did what Chibbs did in years to come we would have more minority writers, directors and show runners. It has to start somewhere and the more opportunities that open up the more people will enter these professions and so more voices will become normalised in the industry and more representation will be found in media for all of us. The fact he was trying to build this systemic change clearly demonstrates this isn’t ‘performative’ activism.

[montanabohemian]

"don't let me go back to being me."

oh wow that's heavy.

[nightmanatee]

dropping the new season on d+ BEFORE bbc one is for sure a choice that was made

[partywithponies]

ALL-TIME FAVOURITE DOCTOR WHO SHIP SEEN ONSCREEN IN SAME ROOM TOGETHER FOR THE FIRST TIME SINCE 1987 INCIDENT, 53 DEAD, 452 WOUNDED,

[cosmicallyavg]

jodie whittaker deserves to be in the 60th anniversary, actually!!!! so that stupid nmd fanboys are forced to watch her doctor against their will