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Post by K-Box on Jan 3, 2009 1:50:27 GMT -8
or as the first black James Bond I don't think many people would have a problem with a black Doctor -- youd shout down anyone who would -- but I remain convinced that audiences would not accept a black James Bond. Not for at least another 50 years. File off the serial number and change the name (heck, make it a spin-off "Agent 005 Donivan Carver") and give him a Bond-type script, and you might have a successful movie. But not as 007 James Bond. Sadly, I think you're probably right, considering the fact that I've actually seen several "non-racist" fans online object to the notion of a black Doctor because "the Doctor is quintessentially British!" (yes, those were the exact words used). Um, what? He's a FUCKING ALIEN. |
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Post by jensaltmann on Jan 3, 2009 2:29:28 GMT -8
I don't think many people would have a problem with a black Doctor -- youd shout down anyone who would -- but I remain convinced that audiences would not accept a black James Bond. Not for at least another 50 years. File off the serial number and change the name (heck, make it a spin-off "Agent 005 Donivan Carver") and give him a Bond-type script, and you might have a successful movie. But not as 007 James Bond. Sadly, I think you're probably right, considering the fact that I've actually seen several "non-racist" fans online object to the notion of a black Doctor because "the Doctor is quintessentially British!" (yes, those were the exact words used). Um, what? He's a FUCKING ALIEN. Uhm, you missed something. I wrote, they WON'T have a big problem with a black Doctor but they WILL have a problem with a black Bond. Who is not an alien. |
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Post by K-Box on Jan 3, 2009 4:14:40 GMT -8
Actually, we're half-agreeing and half-disagreeing here - I agree that they'd have a big problem with a black Bond, but the reason I believe that is because (contrary to you, and contrary to my own much earlier post on this), I've seen a number of people who DO have a problem with a black Doctor. Therefore, if they have a problem with a black Doctor, they'll have an even BIGGER problem with a black Bond.
HOW big a problem will they have with a black Doctor, though? Therein lies the question - meaning, I don't know the answer, but again, I've already seen that SOME people DO have a problem with it, so it can't be discounted entirely.
Maybe a black Doctor will herald a sea-change in British fiction, and make it easier for UK audiences to accept a black Bond later on (probably MUCH later on).
I think it'd be healthy, because the sooner that UK audiences accept that "British" does not automatically equal "white," the better off their culture as a whole will be.
Yes, we Americans are still struggling with that one ourselves, but if nothing else, I suspect we're moving in the right direction.
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Post by paulpogue on Jan 3, 2009 4:59:48 GMT -8
I'd love to see Pertwee or Eifojor, although Joseph still seems like the best choice to mee. Pertwee is an out-of-left-field pick, but given that his name is being floated by Craig "broke the original Tennant story" McGill, it needs to be taken quite seriously. Which reminds me again for you Paul, who's going to be the 11th Doctor's companion? Or do you think we might be looking forward to an entire season of no companions? No clue, really. I was DEAD certain we'd see Sarah Jane in the TARDIS by now, to be honest, so I'm no good at these guessing games  . I'd lay heavy odds on a transition companion, though. NuWho is not known as a show that likes to take risks, especially with the BBC upper management (who, at one point, were convinced that the show's popularity was primarily due to Billie Piper.) I'll be absolutely stunned if they hit us with a new Doctor and a new sidekick all at once, on top of a new showrunner -- effectively rebooting the series from ground zero. That's a pretty big risk for BBC's cash cow. It's not inconceivable, but unlikely. ESPECIALLY if it's a black doctor, with the whole x-factor of how audiences will really deal with it. (I think they'll deal with it better than we expect, but there's going to be twice the usual griping -- endless bitching from fanboys who hate ANY change, combined with bitching from the racists.) |
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Post by Anders on Jan 3, 2009 7:33:24 GMT -8
I don't think you could have a black Bond until it's common enough with non-whites with the type of background Bond has, which won't happen in at least fifty years. That or we get colour-blind enough that skin colour matters about as much as hair colour - remember the uproar about the blond Bond?
I agree that a black Bond-clone would work right away, though.
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Post by K-Box on Jan 3, 2009 16:29:07 GMT -8
Meet Eleven, Matt Smith: I'm going to echo the masses by noting that a) I'd never even heard of this guy before, b) he looks way too young for the role and c) I'm not exactly blown away by what I've seen of him so far. My fear is that he was cast so that they could bring in a new Rose (or, worse yet, bring back the original Rose), and thereby permanently cement the Doctor/companion template of NuWho into an Edward/Bella "romance," which would attract a whole new wave of batchippers (and possibly even draw back in the "old" batchippers), and I do not want every new companion to be a teenaged or twentysomething girl who's yearning for a boytoy Time Lord who has a timey-wimey sparklepeen, thank you very much. That being said? There are ways to make this work, and with Steven Moffat at the helm, there's at least some outside chance of them happening. First off, if the casting of Smith as the youngest Doctor in history means that Eleven is following in the footsteps of Eight, Nine and Ten by being quasi-romantically involved with (almost) all of his companions, let's play with that. After all, Moff has already explored the timey-wimey side of time travel, so why shouldn't he explore the timey-wimey side of Time Lord aging, as well? If he wants to convince me that Smith really is centuries old, let him hook up with an older woman! I've already seen it said that Smith's casting automatically makes River Song "too old" for Eleven, to which I say, bullshit! Not even Sarah Jane ( especially not Sarah Jane) should be "too old" for Eleven to look at in a romantic, or even sexual, way (even if she might feel awkward about looking at him in those same ways). Yes, it's a younger actor in the role, but it's supposedly the same character who got engaged to Cameca in "The Aztecs"! And yes, it would create a bit of cognitive dissonance to see a character who's outwardly so young hooking up with women who appear to be more mature than him, but much like the timey-wimey twists and turns that Sally Sparrow and River Song had to wrap their heads around, that's the point. Doctor Who should be a show that broadens our minds, by making us see the world, and even ourselves, in ways that we might not be used to, and it'd be a sad commentary on our society if it turned out that we could handle the timey-wimey pretzels of comprehension involved in time travel, but that we were still uncomfortable with seeing a younger-looking guy stepping out of the TARDIS with a relatively older gal on his arm (especially since the character of the guy in question is still supposedly old enough to be the distant ancestor of any human woman, regardless of her age). Will any of this happen? Who knows? We've been lucky with David Tennant, who's had astonishingly good chemistry with women his age and older (he and Lis Sladen sizzled onscreen together, and his rapport with Catherine Tate was so wonderful that I remain convinced that Ten and Donna were "friends with benefits," no matter how often they denied their couplehood), and if Smith is similar to Tennant in this regard, we could still be seeing some smoldering hot stares exchanged between Eleven and River Song, or Eleven and Sarah Jane. But as of now, I can't really get any sort of read on this new guy. I'm trying not to be negative here. That having been said, if Eleven hooks up with somebody like an 18-year-old cashier named Willow Taylor, I'll join everyone else in calling bullshit on it. |
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Post by paulpogue on Jan 3, 2009 18:58:10 GMT -8
Meet Eleven, Matt Smith: Not even Sarah Jane (especially not Sarah Jane) should be "too old" for Eleven to look at in a romantic, or even sexual, way Heh. My first thought upon hearing the news (okay, the second thought after "WHAT?") was, "Wow, a Doctor actually born after Lis Sladen LEFT the show the first time, who could still plausibly hook up with Sarah Jane. Kirk's dream has at last reached its zenith." My second thought was "I'd bet my lucky Dalek toy that some enterprising Who fan has already cobbled together a fan video combining the announcement of Matt Smith with one of David Tennant's famous "What? What? WHAT?" takes." |
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Post by jensaltmann on Jan 4, 2009 7:56:20 GMT -8
Okay, first of all, I'm disappointed. I come here, expecting a thousand posts slamming the new guy and everyone in an uproar.
And nothing.
You let me down.
My take, after seeing that interview? That haircut has to go. But in mostion he looks more like the love child of Peter Davidson and David Tennant than Big-Hair Emo-Kid, so I'll give him a chance.
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Post by Patty on Jan 4, 2009 12:00:25 GMT -8
Okay, first of all, I'm disappointed. I come here, expecting a thousand posts slamming the new guy and everyone in an uproar. And nothing. I was much of the same mind. Then again, from my perspective, I'm not going to see this guy in action until 2012 anyway, since I highly doubt I'll be able to afford cable TV or to invest in DVD sets before then. I am used to being patient. And I *am* patient about waiting to judge someone until I see their performance. =============================== My thoughts... * Mario actually pegged it for me over at Twitter. Just from the photos I've seen, I'm actually getting more of a Crispin Glover vibe from the dude rather than a TWILIGHT-guy-teen-heartthrob-guy vibe. * While I am disppointed that I'm not getting my older-Doctor preference, I am actually very pleased that this fellow is an unknown to me... it means I'm getting a blank slate with no preconceptions. What has been bothering me for what I've seen of David Tennant is that he is too much David Tennant... I haven't been able to separate him from the other roles I've seen [or heard - he did a fair chunk of voice work for Big Finish before getting cast as the 10th Doctor] him in. He is not as subtle and nuanced an actor as Christopher, and hasn't disappeared into and become the role as immediately as Chris did [and I'd seen a fair bit of Christopher's other roles pre-2005]. * That said, I hope that I don't see any of Matt Smith's other work until I see him as the 11th Doctor. |
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Post by Patty on Jan 4, 2009 12:08:41 GMT -8
That's a pretty big risk for BBC's cash cow. It's not inconceivable, but unlikely. ESPECIALLY if it's a black doctor, with the whole x-factor of how audiences will really deal with it. (I think they'll deal with it better than we expect, but there's going to be twice the usual griping -- endless bitching from fanboys who hate ANY change, combined with bitching from the racists.) Don't factor out the endless bitching from FANGIRLS who hate change - not me, obviously, but from too many of my colleagues. All the moaning and groaning I hear every day about the new BLAKE'S 7 being rubbish [B7 fandom having a huge female base] because it doesn't have Paul Darrow, and because the new Avon [Colin Salmon] is black... I have the inside scoop on this. They didn't pick Colin Salmon to be politically correct. They picked Colin Salmon because he's that damn good. Hopefully when we do get our black Doctor or our female Doctor, it will be because he or she is that damn good, not just for its "oooh let's shake things up" factor. If fandom isn't griping at all, it wouldn't be fandom. |
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Post by K-Box on Jan 6, 2009 4:37:31 GMT -8
Oedipus wrecks: K-Box does some digging on Eleventh Doctor Matt Smith, and, surprise surprise, I wind up liking what I find:
That Face: into the West End, raw power intact Oedipal games: Matt Smith and Lindsay Duncan bring a disturbing intimacy to That Face [...] The young dramatist has been blessed with a blazing, no-holds barred production by Jeremy Herrin, with a set dominated by a rumpled double bed in which the drink and drug-addled Martha plays chilling Oedipal games with the teenage son who has dropped out of school to become her traumatised, emotionally dependent carer.Lindsay Duncan, staggering around the stage in her night-dress with a bottle in her hand and a fag in her mouth, brings a raddled glamour and a predatory sexuality to Martha, with her pale skin and knack for the devastating slurred put-down. The intimacy of her scenes with her troubled son Henry are disturbingly incestuous and the jealous moment when she gives the boy she calls her "Russian soldier" a love-bite to match the one he has recently received from a girl of his own age creates a disturbing thrill.[...] Matt Smith is outstanding as the 18-year-old Henry, who is so pitiably desperate to save his mother from herself - his final scene of emotional collapse is shattering in its intensity.
... Okay, so, yes, my own proclivities are getting incredibly easy to peg by now, but you have to admit, if they brought back Catherine Tate, Elisabeth Sladen, Alex Kingston or even Lalla Ward as Eleven's full-time companion, infusing this sort of age-based frisson into their relationship would make the Doctor/companion dynamic about a thousand times hotter.  After all, Rose Tyler was basically projecting her Electra complex onto Nine, as was made explicitly textual in "Father's Day," so let's not act like there's no precedent for this in NuWho. |
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Post by K-Box on Jan 7, 2009 19:36:33 GMT -8
... And the Doctor Who comics have picked up where "Journey's End" left off, in issue 5 of Doctor Who: The Forgotten, by Tony Lee and Pia Guerra, in which the Big Bad is revealed ...  ... And WHAT THE FUCK. Quoth Jigglykat, from whom I stole this image: So, Paul Pogue's pet theory is now (kind of) in canon; Ten's human double is the Valeyard. |
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Post by paulpogue on Jan 8, 2009 10:43:46 GMT -8
Oh my god, I was about to post that!
Indeed, I loved the holy hell out of this series. I am absolutely stunned that Tony Lee got away with the stuff he did in a BBC-approved comic; hell, Ten told Martha in one panel vastly more about Susan Foreman (speaking of Pogue pet theories) than he's said in the entire televised series. (Of course, it wasn't really Martha, but you get the idea.) And bringing back 10.5 as a villain? GENIUS. I know the books and comics are allowed to get away with a lot of stuff that would never make it to TV (can you imagine what would happen if "Lungbarrow" made it into canon?), but I was still shocked that they let him use such a recent character -- not to mention a character with plenty of potential to return* down the road.
I have to admit, I am very rarely surprised by a plot twist in a comic. I LOVE being shocked to pieces, but most of the time things are telegraphed all to hell. But this one floored me. I knew it couldn't be who it appeared to be (all of the foreshadowing said it was the Anthony Ainley Master, which there's no way Lee could have gotten away with, especially as the book was apparently set BEFORE the Simm Master meeting Martha.) But once the twists and turns started in #5, and it was clearly taking place post-Journey's End, I got to thinking, "Holy crap, maybe it IS the Master!"
But right up until the panel before the reveal, I had NO idea that the Apex Predator was going to turn out to be 10.5, which gave me one of my first absolute Nerdglee moments of 2009.
*By the way, I'm placing my bet right now that during the inevitable Tennant return in for a teamup Series Six or thereabouts, "Ten" will actually turn out to be 10.5 running a scheme -- probably in the last seconds of the first episode, leading into the sting -- and 10.0 will end up saving the day.
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Post by K-Box on Jan 11, 2009 15:30:22 GMT -8
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Post by K-Box on Jan 11, 2009 15:35:04 GMT -8
Old & NuWho: One-off characters you wish could have been companions?Even though I grew up on the original series, my memories of a lot of those old episodes either aren't as sharp as they used to be, or else I wasn't as attentive a viewer back when I was an ADHD grade-schooler as I am now (probably a bit of both), so my apologies in advance for the fact that my list is slightly more NuWho centric, but I've been thinking for a little while now about which temporary supporting characters from the show's history would have been fun to see as more long-term travelers in the TARDIS, and here's the partial list I've come up with ... Fourth Doctor: Detective Duggan from "City of Death." The brawn to Four and Romana's brains, his bluntness made for a nice counterpoint to the Time Lord couple's Nick and Nora Charles-style smooth chemistry. Fifth Doctor: Dr. Todd from "Kinda." Her obligatory shrieking moment aside, she was a mature, level-headed, capable scientist and explorer, whose scenes with Five had the welcome rapport of peers on equal footing. Ninth Doctor: Jabe Ceth Ceth Jafe of the Forest of Cheem from "The End of the World." Regal yet flirty, compassionate and self-sacrificing, her interactions with Nine had a frisson of mutual attraction, and it didn't hurt that she was the sexiest tree I've ever seen (which is something I never thought I'd type). Tenth Doctor: Chantho from "Utopia" and Dee Dee Blasco from "Midnight." What Jabe did for trees, Chantho did for insects, and like Jabe, Chantho offered a perspective that was, in some ways, even more alien than the Doctor's. Both Chantho and Dee Dee were adorkable in their awkwardly upbeat enthusiasms, while Dee Dee was even more explicitly a nerd than Martha Jones had been, and dammit, nerdy girls deserve more love in the media, especially in sci-fi. Honorary mention goes out to the Doctor's longtime but mostly Earthbound companion, the Brigadier, who would have made a great addition to the TARDIS crew after "Mawdryn Undead," when he was no longer in charge of UNIT and could have traveled with the Doctor to meet aliens, rather than waiting for them to come to him by invading England Earth. So, those are some of my choices. What are yours? Oh, and I can't believe I forgot him, until flamingbentley mentioned him, but Private Ross Jenkins of UNIT, from "The Sontaran Stratagem" and "The Poison Sky," for the Tenth Doctor. He was loyal and funny and obviously completely new to extraterrestrial encounters, and even speaking as a straight man, I so totally wanted to see him and Ten have hawt secks, because they sparked off each other so well.
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