‘Doctor Who’ Star Peter Capaldi Responds to Online Backlash to Jodie Whittaker and Ncuti Gatwa Castings: ‘I Don’t Know Why People Take it So Seriously’

Donna telling the Doctor he couldn’t understand because he wasn’t a woman, when he was literally a woman 10 minutes ago.

It’s crazy because I’ve literally never heard a trans person say “did you just assume their gender” except to make fun of the phrase lol.

The way Rose Noble is written is genuinely offensive to me 

> Like having a trans character make a "did you just assume their gender?" comment which does nothing but reinforce stereotypes. Or having the character in a wheelchair press a button to use a f****** turbo boost and a ramp being added to the TARDIS with some forced "this took too long to happen" comment. Or as you said, the gay Doctor being the one doing all that stuff. It's all of the bad of his first era with absolutely none of the good, with characters that range from shallow to offensive and hamfisted commentary that feels out of touch. wait, did all that actually happen?

I made this exact comment a year and a half ago and got downvoted into oblivion. I thought I was taking crazy pills. The character development is so two dimensional that it’s insulting to the audience and insulting to the people they are trying to represent in film.

The thing is, it’s not that Russel T Davies can’t write the lived experience and complex tribulations of being gay in the world into good engaging stories. Because Queer As Folk was *incredible*. I’m straight, it’s not representation for me (well, Manc representation, also very important…), it’s just really good television. And it helped the wider world understand the world of these marginalized characters and feel more comfortable with the community and lifestyle, which was really important. But Queer As Folk was also made 26 years ago. I think it is that, back then, he was writing with a deep understanding of the community and culture he was writing about. Because it was his. Russel T Davis doesn’t get the modern queer culture. Because he is old. Like, even if he wasn’t a rich TV dude, he would still be the old man who will never really get it like the Kids These Days do. It’s just the way it is, I’m kind of old as well, I get it. And I imagine he would accept and admit to that, though he might have a “but I still can live it because I’m gay…” etc. defence as well. It feels like he is trying to do the same kind of acceptance driving awareness raising that he did 26 years ago, and maybe that is coming from a good place. But because he not only doesn’t “get” the culture itself, he doesn’t really get how the way the language and fashion propagates and warps in a digital culture is totally different, and how visible and dynamic the stuff he is using already is (compared to originating primarily in some Canal Street club). So it comes across as forced, clunky and almost parody. Thereby distracting from the story and the development as the characters as rich and real feeling.

I think people saying Russell t davies went woke forget just how much he used to try to get away with in his original run. It basically established that the doctor is a bit of a pan imp himself and slides in supportive joke about gay people often.

The episode wans't bad, just the villian was. But its also  a missed oppotunity to inform, Rosa didn't spontaneously refuse because her feet were tired.  It was a preplanned opp by a media trained "perfect victim". Showing that would have beem better.

That episode was part written by Malorie Blackman too, who wrote some super successful books about racism. I was surprised her episode about racism would spread misinformation.

I watched lots of Doctor Who. I gave up after 5 episodes of Jodi. As a rule even if I give up on show I tend to wait a while then watch the highest rated ones. I mean shows like The Simpsons that are not heavily serialized not The Walking Dead types. Doctor Who is monster to the week enough to do that The Simpsons I gave up in S12 but I saw many good episodes since. I saw the highest rated Jodi ones and liked maybe 2 and then I saw Rosa was among the higher rated ones and gave up

Yeah, I really liked her characterization in that first episode, felt like a real manic introduction like Matt Smith's doctor. But then she was given next to nothing to work with or build upon the next few episodes (which is as far as I got). I wonder how much of it is timing for how critical the show was in someone's formative years for the people who were working on the show. Like the writers and directors in 2005 were probably kids or teens watching the show in the 70s and 80s. Then you get to the late 2010s and the majority of the staff were people who were kids or teens during the era without who (from 1990-2005), and the show just needs to go away for another 10 or so years to wait for the people who were passionate about the reboot to be the right age to work on the show.

Respectfully disagree. I personally dont think the entire era is to be thrown to the trash. Yes, the finales are dreadful and RTD has dropped the balls on many things, but there's still some very good "middle" episodes : *Lux, Boom, The Story and the Engine, The Well, Joy to the World, Church on Ruby Road, 73 Yards...* these are all solid episodes imo.

Anyone who was in the fandom when the Ncuti episodes were airing remembers people loving it. Fan consensus was that Space Babies was an awful start, but then almost every other episode was great. But RTD did the thing he always does and fucked up the finales and suddenly the narrative out there was that there wasn't a single redeeming quality to the entire thing. Now everyone is talking like the era was nothing but Love and Monsters.

In my opinion, writing is the single most difficult artform that there is, and it is not even close. I've had this opinion for a while, and with all due respect to all other artforms and masters of them, writing is an artform that has so many difficulties that truly makes it the crutch of anything that involves it. Firstly, unlike most other artforms, it truly takes a gargantuan amount of actual physical and mental effort to write something, while this can be said for acting or painting/drawing/whatever, writing requires to weave this intricate web of many moving parts, ensure it all makes sense, and spend a large amount of time actually putting it on paper, it's no surprise the fastest writer did so while coked up to hell and back. Secondly, unlike other artforms, there is almost no way to 'stick to your guns' and keep creating stories the way you have been at the start, if someone now wrote stories in the way that classical Greek tragedies were written, 99.999% of people would not be interested in reading them, you have to keep up with the times, follow developments, and adjust your writing, not just the style but also how characters develop, common story beats and how twists and turns occur. Because of this last thing, it becomes dreadfully difficult to keep writing contemporary stories as an aging artist, ideally you would keep reading a massive mess of books and try to gain inspiration, but at this point in your life you are often occupied with many other things, it becomes difficult to stick with the flow. A painter however can keep painting their nature morts in the style they always have, and people will always appreciate it, an actor can use their skills to read the lines in a skillful and emotional manner, a sculptor is literally unable to 'lose their touch' unless they become physically uncapable to carry out their work, but this has nothing to do with knowing how to make something good. Writing is a thankless artform, an obscenely difficult one to continue being good and inventive at, and very difficult to really understand what actually makes it good at a glance, it is inherently an artform that requires more time allocated to perfecting or understanding it than any other artform available. I have nothing but respect for writers, even those who end up disappointing and/or boring me, I may not appreciate the work they made, but I cannot help but appreciate the effort. ...unless you do AI assisted writing in which case respectfully go screw yourself of course :p

Amen. Jodie was one of my all time favourite doctors, and I don’t even know if I finished her season fully, because the writing was utterly dogshit.

Yep. No respect for any kind of internal logic makes Dr WHo completed rudderless. If a god has no constraints other and temporary arbitrary ones, everything becomes trivial and superficial.

I thought Gatwas second season was fantastic, bad end though

Yup, all the others had bad episodes or bad arcs, too, and it's never been because of the acting. But when you're not frantically looking for excuses to hate something, you don't tend to find them quite as easily. Weird, that.

Jodie Whittaker was a good Doctor but I hated her as a Doctor anyway because she'll be forever associated with the terrible writing she had to work with.

Yeah I always hate that quote. Who else would hate a bad decision than someone who actually likes it? They want it to be good. Was casting those 2 a bad decision? No. I mostly blame the writers.

Its a stupid phrase that actually means the opposite of what people intend for it to mean. Who holds a franchise to higher standards but fans of that franchise? If you do something thats bad, or wrong and goes against the core set up of themes and lore of a franchise then you shouldn't be in the least bit surprised if those that make the biggest fuss over it will be the fans! But you also have to remember that its also the fans that will give you the most praise when you do something right. So if you want to keep your fans happy and get lots of support and positivity from them, then make stuff that they like and enjoy. Thats easier said than done but its amazing how many creators and runners of big franchises recently seem adamant to put their existing fans on the backend of their thoughts and then complain when they get backlash for their mistakes.

Bingo

That's not really it, the writing quality took a large quality dive + anti woke andies sort of latched onto the really poor implementation of political ideas in the show (and the diverse castings).

I had a doctor who cake at my wedding. I stopped watching. We had all the merch, the books. My family and I would often rewatch the seasons over and over. Everyone I know stopped watching. Chibnall was not a good steward of the franchise. It’s about the writing, the characters, and the tone. It stopped feeling like my favorite show. The episodes really didn’t click at all with me. And the time between seasons got worse. The main sub would heavily downvote criticism for years to the point where people wouldn’t bother with even engaging at all. Viewership dropped off massively. It was people who watched the show that stopped watching the show. Simple. You can’t say it was because anti woke people who didn’t ever watch the show weee complaining. That’s very clear by the episode ratings that previous viewers weren’t tuning in anymore. That doesn’t happen if there isn’t a loss of audience.

Precisely. Anyone who thinks Capaldi's era was a step down in quality from Tennant and Smith doesn't know what bad writing is. Seasons 2-4 are filled with some of the worst writing since the show was revived. Chris Chibnall's era was the universe going "oh, you think Steven Moffat is a bAd wRiTeR do you? get a mouthful of this."

It had its ups at the start of Capaldi's run, but took a nosedive about the time it introduced Bill Potts.

Who could have known it would be that bad though? RTD made a solid product last time, I expected similar this time

Totally agree. I'll never understand people like this who say 12's era sucks. I know it's a weird thing where most Whovians have totally recognised how much of a banger those three seasons are, while more casual fans are still spouting the Capaldi=bad writing tired narrative. Go rewatch those season mates. Yeah, series 8 can be rough on the edges (and even then, there's a shit-ton of beautiful episodes in it), but man series 9 and 10 are just absolute peak.

Ecclestone was peak

He just wasn't a twink for a good chunk of the audience to fantasize about 

There were also a lot of people who would treat any criticism of the show as if it was a veil to hide sexism or racism. People would be called bigots for being critical of the show, or lumped in with bigots. It wasn’t just drive by anti-wokers. It was the rabid toxic positivity fans that accused everyone of being anti-woke if they didn’t like the show.

But the show’s viewership fell off? So the fans aren’t supporting it either. I get what you mean but it’s not just a loud minority opinion if the fans aren’t watching it

Bullshit. “Should/will there be a female Doctor?” was a question that got asked constantly in the fandom for decades to often mixed results. It was a famous enough point of debate, and such an obvious inevitability after the revival, that multiple high profile Doctor Who alums weighed in on the topic during the 00s and 10s. Peter Davison moaned about it being an important role model for boys, Sylvester McCoy argued it would mess with the core structure of the series and would be like casting a female James Bond, and hilariously enough Billie Piper said it was a man’s role. All eventually gave the usual “she’ll be great!” comments and recanted or hemmed and hawed about their previous response; McCoy in particular had the balls to admit his views were just straight up a result of wrongheaded sexism. And this wasn’t just old actors: You can literally go back and [find threads from these incidents on fan sublistnooks](https://www.listnook.com/r/gallifrey/comments/2tzm8o/peter_davison_says_the_doctor_should_never_be/) where a ton of the top comments are in varying levels of agreement. Hell, in the one I linked a moderator literally says this is a common and controversial issue, with people on both sides. One of the most frustrating and aggravating things about the lifecycle of these kinds of conversations, is that after the fact the whitewashing campaigns begin like clockwork. Folks who were opposed to it from the start either just never admit they held those views and were wrong about it, or they hold onto them and hide behind an overemphasis on more common and acceptable criticism. Meanwhile the community at large insists that it never actually was that big of a deal, that all the people who didn’t want a female/minority lead were just culture wars tourists, and that if you suggest it could be affecting the tone of the conversation around the content then you’re just seeing ghosts. No one wants own up to being one of those people who thought a role should always be taken by a straight white guy, years after it’s been made clear that never really mattered and that the whole argument was stupid. And no fandom wants to admit they had/have problems with sexism and bigotry.

Any examples?

The problem was the show haemorrhaged so many viewers by then it was hard to pull back even with signs of improvement. To be fair asking viewers to stick around for nearly 3 seasons of mostly bad writing is a big ask.

This is Paddington erasure and I will have none of it 

Skins star Peter Capaldi 

I'll die on the hill that she was not a good choice for the doctor. The writing didn't help build a character for 13, so she floundered when she had to supply her own personality to the character. She was explicitly unfamiliar with the show and felt more like a bad pastiche of the 10/11th Doctor mixed with this weird exasperated exposition style. Seriously, she was always dumping paragraphs of plot while either amazed or out of breath. Just not a good fit for her, imo. That said, I think Ncuti was incredibly wasted potential. He was phenomonal when dealing with the Doctor's darker emotions, like in Dot & Bubble.