remindmeofthe | (no subject)

See, the problem with being forced to acknowledge and get angry over how explicitly problematic Doctor Who is becoming this series is that now I can't stop.

On the other hand, at least the Shining icon is extra appropriate this week.

Oh, look, the amazingly awesome woman of color didn't survive her appearance on the show. What a surprise. I don't know if the writer thought he was being funny by telegraphing her death with the Doctor's offer of taking her on as a companion, but he wasn't. Just to be clear. Also, as

erinpuff pointed out, having the woman of Asian origin's worst fear being berated by her father over her grades? Also not funny.

Bonus grossness: She was a Muslim who died because of the depth and sincerity of her faith. Really? Nobody looked at that and said, "Hey, that's a little awkward, maybe we could not do that"? Of course they didn't. Why do I have expectations?

In other news, Amy has clearly been replaced by a ganger again, this one of decidedly less sophistication. Fuck if I know how else to explain where her personality went or why the sole purpose of her existence in the last three episodes is to prop up the Doctor and Rory.

Or, apparently, to physically abuse Rory, as explicitly referenced for the sake of a punchline (if you'll pardon the pun, sorry) not once, but twice. Spousal abuse is hilarious when it's the woman beating the man! Because women should be weak and men should be strong! HAHAHAHAHAHAHA FUCK THIS SHOW SO MUCH GODDAMMIT.

I feel nothing about the Doctor taking them home. I feel no excitement at all about the impending finale that should provide resolution for the mysteries Moffat has been building for so long. I realized yesterday while looking at my amazing poster that I no longer care why the TARDIS blew up. I've never had such a sense of disillusionment with a show I've loved for years build up so quickly, but here it is. Moffat clearly has no plans to stop being gross, probably doesn't even know that he's being gross, and I'm just frustrated and exhausted by it. I should be dreading the fact that there are only two episodes left, but instead I'm relieved. Any more than two episodes and there would be a genuine danger of having my love for this show broken permanently.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Yes to your whole first paragraph. Just--yes.

I am frankly not prepared to credit this episode with much nuance, either. There were so many stereotypes and awkward bits of writing and gross, creepy jokes that by the time it arrived at Rita's death, I couldn't even think of seeing it as any more subtle or proportioned than anything else had been so far.

There were quite a few things in this episode that made me raise an eyebrow, but for the most part they seemed like awkward/isolated gaffes and the general ethos of the ep was much more nuanced. The thing is, though, it did that by setting expectations and then defying them--oh look, here's an awkward nerdy guy who spouts conspiracy theories he cribbed off the internet, of course his room is filled with popular girls laughing at him. Except no, his social outcast status and his history with bullying are more complicated than that, and the author turns around to make him in some part the hero of his own story and make any audience members who laughed at him feel a bit shit. Similar with Rita--oh hey, here is a pretty South Asian medical student who is sharp as a tack, we wouldn't want to feed any stereotypes so of course we will ignore her race and religion, she is 100% rational and secular and fully assimilated British and--oh, wait, scratch the secular. Oh, wait, wow. And the thing I really like about this episode is that the demonstration that faith can be a source of courage and dignity and strength happens almost simultaneously with the realization that faith is what the monster's really after.

Basically I think what struck me is the refusal to victim-blame? Often when the characters who are, for whatever reason, most suceptible to the monster are the first to die, there is a sense that oh, no, they might not have deserved it but they did have it coming. And this episode almost sets that up with the gambler and the conspiracy theorist, neither of which is a particularly well-regarded form of faith. But then even as it reveals that faith is what's getting people killed, it refuses to imply that faith is a weakness or that you should keep yours in check unless you want to be monster bait: it is something that people have in varying forms and degrees, and the people who have more of it do get zapped up to the Space Hotel California and are more vulnerable to the minotaur, but that is due to the nature of the predator and not due to anything they should've done or changed.

So, bottom line--fridging minority characters is never, ever a good thing, and I almost punched the screen when I realized Rita was going to bite it, but it is one of many factors in the balance of an episode's quality. Everyone's got a different balance. It is anyone's right to never want to watch this episode again because they're just sick to the teeth of the disproportionate minority body count, but for me personally, I thought it came out rather well on lots of other factors that mitigated the disappointment somewhat.

I have to say, you were about eight hundred percent more patient with the episode than I was. I came to it really wary after the way the last episode had made me seriously confront how disgusting this season as a whole has been, so I was ready to check out if it too proved disgusting. Which it did. By the time it got to nerdy conspiracy guy's time in the spotlight, I was just throwing out everything that was upsetting me, including him because of his room. I didn't even see the room as a jab at him; to me it was just more gender fuckery (in this instance, I read it as resentment that his nerdiness precluded him from being "entitled" to female adoration).

So, yeah, I definitely stopped picking up on any positives or giving the episode any credit pretty early on in large part because of my growing anger over the direction this season has taken. I will freely admit to that. In the mindset I'm in right now, it simply isn't enough for it to do some stuff right. I need this show to stop fucking up before I can let it make me happy again, and right now I am invulnerable to the hotel because I have no faith that that will ever happen. Definitely not as long as Moffat is running things.

I didn't even see the room as a jab at him; to me it was just more gender fuckery (in this instance, I read it as resentment that his nerdiness precluded him from being "entitled" to female adoration).

I saw it as a combination of both, really, or rather--it's a stereotype presented up-front without comment, which means a bunch of offensive shit all tied up with a hot-pink ribbon. It's a stereotype that ultimately dehumanizes both nerdy guys and popular girls and reduces them to ugly caricatures, which is why I appreciated that it was eventually subverted or at least fleshed out.

But then I do have some faith in Moffat left, because I suspect the way this episode works is the same way the season works as a whole: set up a condition or relationship or character trait that is pretty disturbing when you look at it properly, start it out innocuous and let it fly under the radar, let it build and play it straight until the audience starts to notice and worry, then bring it crashing down in flames. He's already doing it explicitly with Eleven's hubris and namedropping tendencies, the gears are setting in motion for his tendency to handpick companions who need him and adore him and don't question him in the ways that hurt (and to be standoffish with companions who don't fit that mold), and I dearly hope that "Time can be rewritten" is next up on the chopping block. That, and some consequences for his lack of attention to the baby-Melody situation.

And the fact that these are all slightly-mutated holdovers from RTD era or plot gimmicks that could potentially cheapen the narrative make me hopeful that he is building them up so that he can put an end to them. A nice, satisfying, slap-banging sense of closure complete with fireworks show, the kind I expected after Waters of Mars and didn't get.

Yeah, I do like the direction Moffat is taking in a meta sense. He's a good storyteller, even if his stories don't always hold together under close examination, because he knows how to appeal to instinct and emotion and push the "FUCK YEAH" button.

I really wish I could believe that the overwhelming "woman as object" theme in this season was part of that, especially in regards to Amy. If it all did turn out to be a buildup to some kind of explosive subversion, I would fall in love with this show all over again. But the thing is, I'm a Moffat veteran. I knew him first as the creator of Coupling, which was one of my favorite shows for a long time. In retrospect, though, I'm realizing how much that show hangs on and revels in gender stereotypes, to the point where I don't think I should ever watch it again if I want to hold on to any of my love for it. Moffat sucks at gender issues and I am not at all convinced that he even realizes how creepy Amy's story arc this season has been, or how shatteringly depressing it is to reveal that an amazing woman like River Song (who has done so many things that are usually reserved for male characters) quite literally exists because of and predicates her entire life on the Doctor.

I think we'll see some good stuff from him on the themes you talked about, but I don't think he'll expand that to include the gender issues. If anything, I anticipate his making them worse.