Sunday 9 February 2020

Doctor, Doctor


Very easily defeated baddies (dark lighting)

As you may have gathered from the previous post, tonight's Doctor Who focused on mental health - another tick in the box for the programme's controversial, ultra-'woke', very BBC show runner, Chris Chibnall. 

Focusing on mental health is no bad thing of course, but doing it just to tick a box probably would be a questionable thing.

Chris Chibnall's Doctor Who does seem to be mainly a tick-box exercise though, with tonight's episode ticking several BBC boxes in one go. My favourite example was voiced by Preachy Doctor Jodie herself, visiting  medieval Aleppo in Syria under attack:
Bimaristan. It means sick place. This must be one of the oldest hospitals in the world. Of course, Islamic physicians were known for the enlightened way they treated people with mental health problems.
That's not me being satirical, that's actual Doctor Who dialogue. (Thanks Chris).

If you're not watching the latest series (and you're not alone if the ratings are anything to go by), this kind of thing is entirely typical. 

Last week's episode dealt with the global threat of plastics pollution (humans causing birds to go all Hitchcock) and featured a man-on-man passionate kiss on the lips. 

The previous week's episode introduced the new black, female Doctor and featured another man-on-man passionate kiss on the lips. 

The week before that's episode was Tesla-Edison episode, where the feared immigrant scientist was the goodie and the American capitalist scientist the baddie. 

The episode before that was the infamous Orphan 55 - the Greta Thunberg one, which the concluding preachy speech from the Doctor about climate change and human culpability. 

And, to start things off, came the two-part sub-Bond adventure, Lenny Henry-starring double bill Spyfall with the new BAME Master, some BBC social media-bashing, and a bit of feminist promotion of two great female scientists from history (one ethnic minority).  

Very BBC.

4 comments:

  1. All it needs now is loud annoying noise to drown out any dialogue and you have the full house. I have no idea as I've never watched the programme but I'm guessing.

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    1. The accompanying noise is very, very loud but, alas, still doesn't quite drown out the dialogue.

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  2. I'm loving it...is this a comedy show?

    Mihintale in Sri Lanka is actually claimed to be the oldest hospital in the world (several hundred years older at least than the Syrian hospital) but sadly for the BBC that is a Buddhist hospital and so to be despised. Of course the fact that Buddha came up with a much more practical programme of mental health (the 8 fold path) than Muslim physicians (who rely a lot on reciting verses from the Koran) is another mark down for Buddhism.

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  3. The programme may self-identify as Dr Who but it most certainly isn’t Dr Who.

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