Late to the party on all fronts, and a diehard Doctor Who fan here. For those not in the know, the most recent season finale, The Timeless Children, decided to overwrite 57 years of television history for a cheap plot twist. The main character was now always destined for greatness, had always been a suitably diverse woman first and foremost, and the reason that nobody mentioned this up until now is "hurr durr she had her memory wiped". As you can imagine it did not go down well with longtime fans, but the SocJus crazies ate it up, most likely because of the flashing colors and lights.
I only mention this because I recently came across a review on the dedicated Doctor Who review site for the episode in question which epitomises the infestation currently in the show and in all other facets of media. Exerpt as follows:
"Now let’s be honest here. People hate Chibnall [showrunner and episode writer]. And I’ve held off on saying my peace but I won’t anymore. Chibnall has changed Doctor Who forever. People hate him and love him, but you can’t ignore his vision. He may have made the show far more geared towards children, but he also added messages. Yes, even as a diehard libtard myself I find them often shoehorned in and annoying, but they will alter how the next generation behaves, and I can’t applaud that enough. As for those who think Chibby Boy hasn’t grown since last season or who think he’s gotten worse… how? It’s not what you like, boy oh f*cking boy does it have issues. Yes, he has completely rewritten continuity… but need I remind you of the BS that our last two showrunners did? One wrote out the timelords, the other wrote in 2 characters who have always been by the Doctors’ sides AND retconned the writing out of the timelords. I think Chibnall has grown, he’s far from the next John Nathan-Turner, he grows. He listens to criticism and grows. He went from too slow to too fast and I hope that next time he will get things perfectly. I thought he’d improve, I called that he would be better this time, and he was. He’s not perfect. His run is a massive change. And if you don’t like it, fine. I think it’s one of those things that you can just leave behind, but don’t ruin the fun for those who like it, and let the kids enjoy it at least. I think we can all learn something from this new era and the reaction it’s had… but let’s move on."
Emphasis mine, and it should be noted that despite the author acknowledging that it's poorly written with a mess of pacing, they still give the writing and every other aspect of the episode a 9/10.
So, if ever you get told that the comics about SocJus folks invading a space then kicking out the old guard are a strawman, or the criticism that there are those who think that brainwashing the kids comes above everything else is not representative of how any real person thinks, I hereby provide you with a counterexample.
In the meantime I'll go back to enjoying the niche and far reaches of Doctor Who which remain largely uninfested by this crap.
Even when the appalling, politically charged bad writing is staring them dead in the face, it doesn't matter so long as the media is producing "the right message."
Devoted little Jacobins, aren't they?
I must admit I had to look up the word Jacobin. Unsurprisingly the wikipedia preview paragraph on the search for it isn't the start of the article, it isn't a description, it's this little quote buried deep within the article itself.
Start with Robespierre and work outward. Note the similar arc with today's "movements", the schisms, committees, councils, & pronouncements. They love all their little procedures & declarations. But finally, they eat their own. Their diktats eventually paint them into a corner -
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maximilien_Robespierre
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maximilien_Robespierre#Downfall
Revolutions eat their own. It is a constant in history.
It also shows how completely empty and shallow they are. Theres no worry that the future generation might notice how poorly written and stupid the stories are, which would make the intended message less effective or even counter to what they want. But to them, if it's on the TV then obviously they will internalize the message as good and correct, no critical thinking at all.
It certainly helped alter my opinions - in the precise opposite way they intended.
Here's hoping that'll be the mainstream effect.
Welcome to the pit. Everyone who even shows a hint of hetrodox thinking vs. 'The Narrative' winds up here, eventually.
Keys to the time machine are kept above the windshield screen. Remember to keep the screen down when orienting yourself towards the future, so you don't go blind!
Oh rest assured I've been here a long, long time. I just rarely see something which so perfectly epitomises what we're up against.
The lurk is real.
Unfortunately, so is the Leftism.
The ride never ends.
There is still good Who to be had, even right here and now. It's just not in the form of the main show.
I similarly dipped out of the main show when Chibnall became showrunner but there's still enough out there for me in the form of audio dramas and classic show.
"Don't ruin the fun for those who like it", as said by the people that ruined the fun for people who used to like it.
I really can't even bring myself to watch any TV produced in the last couple years. Good scifi books are way way way more thought provoking and enjoyable than anything coming out of Hollywood anyway.
I've been meaning to get back into reading... Can you recommend a few?
Pretty much anything by Robert Heinlen, The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson, Robert Silverburg, Philip Jose Farmer, any of the big-name pulp sci-fi writers really, Altered Carbon by Richard K. Morgan (but don't bother with the two follow-ups he wrote), The Lensman series by E E Doc Smith, Gun, with Occasional Music by Johnathan Lethem. Those should keep you busy for a while.
I've just recently decided to sit down and work through Heinlein's entire catalog. Seems like the time to do it. I've been reading a lot of old sci-fi lately. It's so refreshing reminds me of when I wasn't so jaded and sci-fi was about asking open ended, big questions, and not space socialism.
Thank you Sir!
If you like really heady scifi, definitely check out Blindsight by Peter Watts. It's pretty conceptually dense, but has a good punchline. Solaris by Stanislaw Lem is my favorite scifi, but it's slow moving and philosophical. Hyperion is a fun romp and considered one of the greats, couldn't recommend it more.
Is there anything you're looking for specifically that you tend to gravitate to?
Thanks!
Not really looking for anything in particular. I used to read quit a lot but that's a decade ago now. Back then I would read mostly canonical works. Wilde, Fitzgerald, Kerouac, Dostroevsky, Dickens, Hemingway, Poe. Stuff like that. Of those I'd say I liked Dostroevsky and Poe the most. Maybe also Wilde for the prose and Fitzgerald for the short stories.
Then one day I just stoppd reading.
I think like many here I'm just tired of the constant propaganda and would enjoy some respite in entertainment.
I think I need something more fun and light to get back into reading. Sci-fi would be nice. Was never much into fantasy, but I love LOTR and The Hobbit (so much so that I decided not to watch the Hobbit movies).
Fun scifi, I'd say Hyperion is the way to go.
Iain Banks also wrote some pretty fun and eccentric scifi stories. Player of Games is very enjoyable.
There's always Hitchhiker's Guide.
And if fun fantasy is your thing, anything by Terry Pratchett is golden.
I'm aware - I was still back on halfKiA when it happens if I remember correctly. It's a shame that they infest so much but at least a handful of them are dumb enough to not hide their agenda even remotely.
I've had bad luck with sci-fi writing. I feel like 90% of the time the book falls into one of three categories.
Childish bullshit. See, like, every single Star Wars novel ever written. Looking back I'm embarrassed I was into that shit.
The opposite of #1: Sci-Fi that gets lost up its ass in complete bullshit, because the writer heard that sci-fi is supposed to be about 'messages' or 'themes' or something.
The writer is clearly making shit up as he goes along. See: every Rama novel after Rama 2.
Yeah, that's why I decided I tend to prefer to watch my fiction, but read my non-fiction. Except where books turned into movies are concerned, of course. But even then, there's exceptions (Freejack is much more fun than the boring-ass book it was based on.)
Oh, and speaking of the damn Rama sequels, don't forget the page-padding with pages of unnecessary personal nonsense that has no bearing on the story, and other rambling bullshit. (And why did they go through all that bullshit nonsense crap about the breeding? They acted like they were the last humans in the universe, ffs.)
I kept watching DW through Peter Capaldi but never watched any of the last iteration. Once Tennant left each new one was like revisiting your old hot girlfriend years later. "Oh, she's gotten really fat.", etc.
You know, I now don't think I made it that far.
For all its faults, and Russel T Davies is a raging lefty to boot, everything seemed to go wrong after Tennant and Russel went. I'm not sure how, but there was something about the way Moffat ran things that didn't sit right with me (the villains lost a lot of their edge, I notice). Dr Who has been rotting for over ten years straight, despite the superhuman efforts of Matt Smith and Peter Capaldi.
Davies, as much of a raging leftist he may be, has enough respect for his craft to prioritize writing a good story. He is able to separate his own politics from the script he is working on, and has the wisdom to know what will work and what will be instantly dated; and has the wisdom to know what, over the 50 years of Doctor Who, is hard canon not to be meddled with and what has more leeway.
It is a real shame his successors didn't share those traits.
I'd also argue the various monsters were treated far more seriously, regardless of poor execution (the Absorbaloff, as absurd as it was, killed about half a dozen people). For example, in Moffat's run we had a scene were the Daleks talk about hatred as beautiful, as a method of making us sickened by them (and as a hack explanation for why they don't just butcher the mental defects). They also then proceed to kill fuck all over his time as show runner, with many jokes made at their expense.
2005 Daleks could chill your blood with one word.
Oh, fuck yeah, I thought my skin was going to crawl off when I first saw that.
I stopped watching it when Capaldi came on. He wasn't a bad doctor, but I just couldn't stand the gay black chick and all the SJW crap being forced into every scene. I think the moment I turned it off was when they went to Britain in like 1700's and the entire city was full of black people, black guards, black peasants, black everything, except an evil rich white guy.
I quit watching Carnival Row when they introduced the fuckin' "Rich satyr character that everyone else in high society resents because he's not human", because they also had to cast him as a black guy.
Like it wasn't on-the-nose enough about the 'bigoted rich people hate the outsider' thing. They had to cast him a black guy while every villain was white, just in case it wasn't fucking on-the-nose enough for you.
I'm surprised there's no fuss over how they made a black guy into a goat-based beast-man, especially considering how rapey satyrs were supposed to be ... ;)
While I hated that Bill bitch, don't forget that Martha, when taken back to Shakespeare's day, was afraid that she'd be slapped in chains - on the streets of London. Imagine if the Doctor had offered to take a white guy back to Africa of, say, 1500 years ago, and he commented on being afraid of being grabbed and thrown into a big ol' boiling pot. :P
Of course, now it kind of looks like an in-yer-face to the new wave of cultists .....
"London was 50% black in 1608"
Well the Great Fire of London was in 1666 so the soot had to land somewhere after 4 days of burning
you came into our hobbies uninvited and perverted them for your own political ends, and you have the balls to say this?
I had to accept a hard truth a number of years ago. The last episode of Doctor Who was Survival back in 89. Everything since has been fan fiction. Some of it good, some awful.
The only scene I've watched from that show is when someone posted a scene on reddit with a title along the lines of, "This scene is a masterpiece and is the greatest scene in the history of television!"
It was a scene where a famous artist (Van Gogh maybe?) was brought forward in time to a present day art gallery so he could see how popular he got after he died.
It was the most cringey shit I've ever seen in my entire life. After I watched a couple of minutes of it, I went back to the comments assuming it was a joke title by the OP and that others were just playing along, but nope they were dead serious saying it was the best scene in television history.
Anyone else remember that post?
Typical hyperbole. And yeah, taken alone, that scene is pretty cringey.
BUT, when seen in context, with the emotional buildup and investment gained through watching the entire episode, for the first time, yes, it had the emotional "hit" it was meant to have.
That being said, I'd say the post about it is just a typical example of the over-emotional hyperbolic exaggeration that seems to be becoming more and more common in everything.
It's more likely I remember one of the reposts.
Wait they wrote out the time lords? Wasn’t that what Dr Who was or am I way off base?!
No no, in the original 2005 continuation they introduced the concept of the "Time War" which had happened of screen and had resulted in the destruction of all of the Time Lords and (nearly) all of the Daleks, with the Doctor being the only survivor.
Consider the following...science represents fiction within motion (reality).