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| Tim Brooke-Taylor and (in the background) Bill Oddie - i.e. The Goodies. |
As regular readers will probably know, I don't really watch BBC drama these days, except for Doctor Who, the ultimate BBC family programme, famously geared for kids - and, even more famously, geared for dads (via the female assistants and the whole sci-fi thing) .
Yes, I know. I'm nearly 50 and shouldn't be watching such things. But, in my defence, I'm claiming it as my only such sin.
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So here I am live-blogging tonight's Doctor Who - 'Demons of the Punjab'.
It features (Muslim) companion Yaz travelling back in time with (female) Doctor Jodie, and (black, dyspraxic) Ryan, and (stale, pale, male) Bradley Walsh to Partition India in 1947 to see her marvellous Pakistani granny (introduced as the first Muslim to give birth in the new Pakistan and the first Muslim woman to work in a cotton mill in England) get married.
And Bradley Walsh says he's really looking forward to ticking Pakistan off his to-do list, tourism-wise. (Don't we all? I particularly fancy the northern border with Afghanistan. Very scenic I hear. Check out Talibanholidays.booking.com).
Ah yes, it's a 'jolly hockey sticks BBC romp' with 'sad bits' homing in on the massively murderous partition of India and Pakistan, when Muslims and Hindus slaughtered each other whilst Labour's Attlee government (unmentioned) tried to do the right thing (unmentioned).
(Bad Lord Mountbatten got a mention though.)
So that's the context. And Bradley (speaking on behalf of his Chasers perhaps) is now saying heart-tugging things about us all coming together. And Doctor Jodie (no back end of a bus her) is now talking love. Aw!
(Bad Lord Mountbatten got a mention though.)
So that's the context. And Bradley (speaking on behalf of his Chasers perhaps) is now saying heart-tugging things about us all coming together. And Doctor Jodie (no back end of a bus her) is now talking love. Aw!
Good grief, call me Peter Hitchens, but it's like watching a children's programme on history, with added trendy school assembly moral messages laid on top of it.
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Oh, and the Hindu brother - the main flawed human baddie, who spent too much time listening to the radio (hint, hint, social media nowadays?), - turns out to be a mean, murderous Hindu hardliner who wants separation.
(A Hindu. Not a murderous pro-Pakistan-independence baddie Muslim, of course).
(A Hindu. Not a murderous pro-Pakistan-independence baddie Muslim, of course).
And the murderous armed men who come at the programme's climax and do the murderous deed (too late to warn of SPOILERS?) are Hindus.
(Hindus. Not murderous baddie Muslims, of course).
(Hindus. Not murderous baddie Muslims, of course).
For yes, it transpires that it's they, the Hindus who kill (our hero) Muslim-marrying Hindu Prem, who are the real Demons of the Punjab and not the aliens, who may look like demons and speak with classic TV sci fi 'alien baddie' voices but turn out to be really, really nice and are only there because they're concerned about the unknown victims of violent conflict in the universe and want to be "witnesses" for them, bless them.
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| Doctor Jodie and Team Tardis |
Interestingly, Britain only got the blame for messing up India, dividing it up, in passing - though it was poor ill-fated Prem (the hero of the story) who said it. I expected much more of that.
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Is it rude to the writer of this episode to say that it was an extremely clunky script?
It could even be called 'didactic'. And maybe the BBC intends it to be used in schools.
It could even be called 'didactic'. And maybe the BBC intends it to be used in schools.
Gawd, possibly even more rudely, it's like being whacked over the head by a BBC-branded fish.
Education, education, education.
Education, education, education.
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I know you know, even if you don't watch it, that Doctor Who has had its agendas over the years and has made the odd political point from time to time, and that it's got worse in recent years, but this series really is something else.
It's pure sledgehammer stuff.
Even the last Doctor, Alastair Campbell, didn't have the massive pile of PC poo piled on him that poor (no back end of a bus her) Doctor Jodie has had piled upon her young, attractive, female white face by the BBC.
It's pure sledgehammer stuff.
Even the last Doctor, Alastair Campbell, didn't have the massive pile of PC poo piled on him that poor (no back end of a bus her) Doctor Jodie has had piled upon her young, attractive, female white face by the BBC.
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Well, maybe forty years too late, I'm now at the point where I think watching Doctor Who is something to stop watching...
...but here's my excuse if I don't follow up on that:
As an example of the decay of the BBC, caused by a sub-standard, ultra-social-liberal, identity-politics-obsessed, soggy-left mindset which sits several-parsecs-and-some-beyond-the-next-but-two-galaxies-away (at least) from the views of most of the licence-fee-paying-public, it's a consistent QED-worthy example.
And I'm expecting the viewing figures to fall even further after this episode.
As an example of the decay of the BBC, caused by a sub-standard, ultra-social-liberal, identity-politics-obsessed, soggy-left mindset which sits several-parsecs-and-some-beyond-the-next-but-two-galaxies-away (at least) from the views of most of the licence-fee-paying-public, it's a consistent QED-worthy example.
And I'm expecting the viewing figures to fall even further after this episode.
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Bradley's still very good though. He's putting his heart and soul in it, ignoring all the dross around him.
I like Bradley, but I think he's better than this.
Thanks Craig for watching it so that I and others wouldn't have to, in order to understand just how shamelessly pro-Sharia the BBC have become in 2018.
ReplyDeleteThe only good thing about this is that, ironically, by having to deal with a real historic period (as opposed to pointing to some blissful pie-in-the-sky future which is the usual approach), they are going to mightily offend the Hindus with their biased take on events some 70 years ago. This could actually lead to a riot...and if they had targetted Sikhs rather than Hindus, it definitely would.
For the record, it was the Muslim leaders who made the running on partition. The formation of the Muslim League, breakaway from Congress was the key event.
Mountbatten rushed things for sure, but that was on the basis that things could only get worse if we let things drag on. Probably the right judgement call.
Pace Walsh, I was rather put off visiting Pakistan by the taxi driver I engaged in conversation who reminisced about his university days when he and fellow students would head off into the wilderness with their AK47s and basically slaughter any moving wildlife bigger than a mouse. Still I hear Karachi is beautiful in springtime. :)
Aren't the BBC wonderful?
BBC - promoting Sharia since 1923.
This Is What We Do
DeleteI like Sci Fi, the UK has a world leading special effects industry and yet the only thing the BBC can make is this dross? It’s dire PC box ticking.
ReplyDeleteThe entire point of Sci Fi is to create new worlds, with completely different societies etc etc Pah! This is more akin to Nazi party propaganda, different message, same principle.
The Famous Five take their Great Western train to a Class G Planet near Cardiff... and Beyond! Netflix will be bricking it now. Extiniction... Annihilation... Altered carbon, The Expanse... pah!
DeleteWhat's the current betting on the next Tardis incumbent being black?
ReplyDeleteThe most edgy choice? A white pale and stale Male....
ReplyDeleteIncredibly dire stuff. I enjoy reading your reports on Dr Propaganda in all its glorious cringeworthyness. For that reason, I hope you keep watching and reporting.
ReplyDeleteExcellent piece, Craig. After 55 years of loyalty to this show, I can't bear to watch the all-white-men-bad/all-wamen-and-people-of-colour-brilliant social justice warrior borefest that it's become any more. The multiculti-authored scripts are abysmal, the cast appointed on the basis of their gonads and skin pigmentation, the "regenderated" Doctor a fourth rate Doctor Who tribute act in drag doing a bad impression of Chris Eccleston's and Matt Smith's incarnations, and the character development virtually non-existent. My adult kids and grandkids have also bowed out - this episode was the final straw, although I knew this was coming.
ReplyDeleteI was going to start a #CancelDoctorWho movement, but then I realised this was merely attacking the symptom, not the disease. The movement that really needs to pick up speed is #CancelTheBBC.
That licence fee has got to go. This is a pure example of the BBC peddling postmodern neoMarxist intersectionalist feminist dogma dressed up as "entertainment." Isn't that what the Soviet Union used to do?