Doctor Who vs the face-aches

  

The days when Spiked never used to criticise the BBC are long gone. 

They have a piece today about a Kirsty Wark-fronted programme called Womanhood which they say was “close to trans propaganda”: 

The BBC’s Womanhood presents trans dogma as truth and biology as lies. It treated a feminist activist appallingly, while letting males define what womanhood means. The BBC seems to think biological sex doesn’t matter.  

Meanwhile, another piece tackles “prejudice against the ugly” on Doctor Who under the headline Diversity: the ugly truth. Prejudice against the ugly is the last unchecked prejudice of our time. But who’ll stand up for the face-aches?:

It’s no secret that Doctor Who has been oddly tactful of late, with the thrills of time and space travel often seemingly taking a back seat to climate-change finger-wagging and lectures about historical racism / sexism. So I was a bit surprised to find myself irrevocably ‘triggered’ by something I saw in episode two of the new series: the Doctor, confronting an enemy whose features are entirely obscured by a battle helmet, yells, ‘Take your hat off, mate!’ – but when the enemy complies, revealing the hideous face of a Sontaran, she sneers, ‘Urgh – on second thoughts, put it back on!’. 

Harmless? Perhaps. But only if there isn’t a single child anywhere in this country who looks even a little bit like a Sontaran – and, frankly, we all know that there are plenty. So why does the BBC feel it’s okay to show something that could lead to those kids getting bullied in the playground, when it is clearly so pathologically cautious about anything that could endanger any of the others? The answer, I’m sorry to say, is that ugly people have become the last under-represented minority on British television.

Indeed. Us beautiful people need to be 'allies' of the homely and the ugly, and Dame Cressida Dick should have a word with Doctor Jodie about her hate speech towards that poor Sontaran. There should be no place in our society for Sontaranophobia, even if Sontarans want to conquer the Earth and enslave us all.

Another post about 'Doctor Who'

I commented earlier that I don't watch BBC dramas anymore. 

I don't, but - as regular readers will know - there's one exception: Doctor Who.

Yes, its rating have been falling off a cliff under showrunner Chris Chibnall, but I've still largely kept watching - though mainly in my capacity as ITBB's Doctor Who Bias Correspondent. [Sue is Special Correspondent for other BBC dramas.] 

Viewing figures have fallen so dramatically that I rather suspect that the bulk of the small audience still watching are a mixture of those who have watched it since childhood, woke types doggedly supporting it [even if they don't actually like sci-fi], quite a few non-woke types watching it in a mood of unhappy critical antipathy [including YouTubers and bloggers], and a residual number of people who tune in simply because it's on their TV around primetime. It's quite 'niche' these days.

As regular readers will also know, Doctor Who has become Doctor Woke under Chris's tenure - a badly-acted, preachy disaster zone with at least as many plot-holes are there are UK potholes...

...and most of them stuffed with 'clunking great fist', politically-charged points about racism, climate change, feminism, diversity, 'Orange Man Bad', the evils of big business, how wonderful immigrants are, plastics polluting the sea, how Hindus in contrast to Muslims behaved badly during India's partition, etc, etc, etc,...

...culminating in an episode, The Timeless Children, when the entire lore of Doctor Who was chucked out, just so that the first-ever incarnation of the Doctor - erasing pale, male, stale William Hartnell - would be a black female child.

To paraphrase Queen Victoria on Gladstone, “Doctor Who under Chris Chibnall speaks to BBC viewers as if they were a public meeting.”  

This funny parody, which I've posted before, remains uncanny in its send-up of the recent box-ticking, virtue-signalling series. It's one of the most spot-on satires of the BBC I've ever seen, and if you've not already seen it, I urge you to watch it - even if you regard Doctor Who as a worthless children's programme. It's a subtle satire that sums up BBC drama:

The Chibnall era is coming to an end and the man who revived the show in 2005, Russell T Davies, is returning to try and save the programme, but Chibs is going out with a 6-episode bang/whimper. 

The first episode, though typically 'diverse', was a confused mess, but also surprisingly free of woke preaching. 

Today's second episode, however, shows that Chibs is unrepentant and that the BBC is still indulging him, and that he's doubling-down for the umpteenth time, with the BBC nodding along. 

War of the Sontarans is set during the Crimean War. [The Sontarans are egg-headed warmongers from another part of the universe, if you're wondering]. 

But guess which historical figure is going to be one of the main characters in this episode of Doctor Woke? 

Florence Nightingale?

?

Of course not. 

Yes, according to the Radio Times, the answer to that question is just who you'd think it would be if you guessed that the present-day BBC was behind it: that ultimate poster girl of the identity politics brigade here in the UK as far as revisionist, factually-dubious history goes: 

Mary Seacole.

We're firmly in 'you couldn't make it up' territory again. 

Chibs, with his clunky, clumsy scripts, has evidently ticked another box on the list. 

He's well aware, no doubt, that doing so is the perfect virtue signal to épater les gammons and earn him brownie points.

High fives around many parts of the BBC and damn the historical facts, no doubt...

...though it probably won't help raise the ratings from near the floor, or help save a drowning franchise. 

Doctor Who has been falling off a cliff ratings-wise in the US too. That's a key market for the BBC as far as the show goes. Wiser heads at the Beeb are doubtless holding their collective breath and hoping that Russell T will work his magic again and save their dying cash-cow. 

Russell T Davies is hardly less obsessed with identity politics than Chris Chibnall though, albeit more for personal rather than career-advancing reasons, but at least he doesn't make you think his Doctor is talking to viewers like a social activist primary school teacher, and he/him also clearly much better understands the concept of 'subtlety' than Mr Chibs, and he can write a good story.

And that, you'll probably be very relieved to hear, is all I intend to say on the matter. For the time being...

Update: Or, as this is a blog, I could live-blog...

And it's just started and I'm already chuckling about the dialogue between the Tardis 'fam' [family]. Even I could write better dialogue. 

They've been chucked into a snowy landscape with a dead Crimean War soldier and are saying 'plot development' things that don't sound remotely natural but might advance the plot.

And here to the rescue, straightaway, roaring in, is a woman with a strong Jamaican accent. Mary Seacole to the rescue. 'All of dem dead'. 

And, inevitably, 'You are too close to the front to be with Mrs Nightingale. She won't come this close to Sebastopol.' 

Attacking Florence Nightingale and bigging-up Mary Seacole is basic paint-by-numbers 'wokery'.

And now Doctor Jodie is absolutely delighted to meet Mrs Seacole. 

Enter the egg-headed Sontarans. 

Both the biggings-up of Mary Seacole and the digs at Florence Nightingale are continuing. 

You get the drift. We're less than 10 minutes in...

And now about a hundred Sontarans have started shooting at John Bishop and every one of these most-deadly warriors missed him, even though he was taken off guard and right in front of them and dithering. Even I wouldn't have missed at that range, and I've no coordination [according to my secondary school teacher of 40 years ago].

Hm, maybe people are right to tell me it's a children's programme.

The acting isn't improving and the dialogue is dire and everything's getting complicated.

I'm tempted to turn off, but I'm ITBB's Doctor Who Bias Correspondent...

The bigging-up of Mary Seacole is continuing. And continuing and continuing. Doctor Jodie is in awe of her, declaring herself her ''assistant''. 

John Bishop's back in Liverpool The Sontarans are taking over Liverpool Docks. Meanwhile, Yaz Khan is channelling her actress's inner wooden plank. 

It's all very confusing, and the dialogue is getting ever less plausible, and Doctor Jodie's waggling her sonic screwdriver around again.

Aha, it's bad white British Crimean War officer time. He's behaving badly, like a woke person's idea of a British Crimean War officer. He's clearly a baddie. Inevitably. 

Good gawd, the dialogue is so corny. I'm doubting even the worst episodes of the classic 1960s-1980s series ever sank to this level dialogue-wise. It's so ''puny'' it's making me laugh. And the music's booming out. And it's all getting ever more grandiose and confusing. 

The Sontarans are wiping out the British Crimean War soldiers, but Mary Seacole's there and the Doctor is so grateful to her for being there, and then heaping even more praise on her. 

Now John Bishop turns up and sees Mary Seacole. He's absolutely over the moon to have had the chance to meet Mrs Seacole.

And now the toothy Buffy the Vampire Slayer-like big baddies are attacking wooden plank Yaz.

And now Mary Seacole's back and The Doctor is blaming the British officer corp rather than the infantry for their defeat at the hand of the Sontarans. 

And Mary Seacole is brilliantly advising our Time Lord on how to defeat the egg-heads - and the Doctor's giving her huge credit for doing so.

It's now all going wrong for the Sontarans. They are going 'aargh'. And Doctor Jodie is sassing them as they withdraw. And Liverpool Docks are out of their hands. 

But the bad, white British officer does something mean and blows up the retreating Sontarans and Mary Seacole tells the Doctor to run and the Doctor runs. 

The Doctor then echoes that [in]famous Russell T Davies era phrase about the General Belgrano in Falklands War as reimagined as a retreating alien force, ''But they were retreating''. 

Yes, really. 

The Doctor then despairs of the bad, white British Crimean War officer, whose bellicose badness makes her wonder why she helps humanity, but then she sees Mary Seacole again, and expresses her thanks to Mrs Seacole again, and hopes that her and Mrs Seacole will meet again. 

And now the Doctor is waggling her sonic screwdriver again as the tension builds towards an amusingly uninvolving cliffhanger focused on plank-impersonator Yaz Khan.

If you're losing the will to read reading this, thank you for still being here. I wouldn't have blamed you if didn't make it beyond the second paragraph.

Doctor, Doctor

Desperately specialist subject territory perhaps, but as discussed on the open thread...

Forget plummeting through sci-fi wormholes. The BBC's Doctor Who's ratings have in scientific reality hurtled down the plughole in recent years. 

As Buzz BBC would say - ''To infinity and wherever what we flush away goes to and beyond!''

Departing box-ticking, white, middle-aged, big-boned 'woke bloke' Chris Chibnall's unsuccessful reign as showrunner, with Jodie Whittaker as his Doctor [The First Female Doctor], saw the gradual fall-off under their immediate predecessors [Steven Moffat and Peter Capaldi] haemorrhage into an either-switch-off-or-turn-over avalanche of desertification of Biblical proportions. 

[Not that they had avalanches in the Bible.] 

Episode 1 of the first Jodie series began with well over 10 million viewers while the final episode of series 2 ended up sinking under 4 million. 

Many have claimed that this is classic 'Go woke, go broke' territory, with sledgehammer political point-making taking over from good story-telling and proper character development, and viewers switching off as a result - quite literally in their millions. 

And there's certainly a lot of truth to that. 

Some of the scripts truly stank to Skaro - and to Betelgeuse and beyond. 

The ticked-off, plodding, half-baked 'wokery' went far off the scale in episode after episode after episode with almost comical regularity, including actual out-and-out tell-not-show lectures from Doctor Jodie on everything from climate change to racism.

--------------------

But questions of box-ticking and 'woke'-pandering aside, the acting also left a lot to be desired. 

People keep being nice to her - as they should. But, being kind, Jodie Whittaker has been a poor Doctor Who impersonator at best, aping the most popular recent incarnation David Tennant and failing. The role hasn't suited her, and she's not suited it. 

And yet the BBC, reporting her and Big Useless Chib's departure in 2022 today, has been accentuating the positive. 

They claimed, via a 'woke' gathering's Radio Times poll, that she was the second most favourite Doctor ever - which only proves that echo chamber polls are worthless.

The ratings contradict that Radio Times poll - a dodgy poll, which the BBC New website's report on this story cites.

I've a pretty clear idea of who the online Radio Times demographic consists of. So I think this poll is pretty much as context-reliant as any poll on this site might be in answer to a question about whether the BBC is biased or not. 

Of course people who respond to Radio Times polls are going to say 'Jodie Whittaker' as their second favourite Doctor Who. Their chosen mag has been one of her biggest cheerleaders after all, and their [small] demographic is just the sort who, even ever really bothering about the programme, would vote Jodie above Tom Baker or Jon Pertwee, or even Matt Smith with a click just for purely ideological reasons.

And most True Whovians think Jodie's been next to useless too, failing to embody their favourite character.

Yes, the freefall viewing figures and all those popular YouTube channels despising the Chibnall era's 'ruining' of 'fandom lore' are probably a far better guide. 

Many long-term fans would happily set the Daleks onto Mr Chibs to do unto him what Daleks keep on endlessly repeating what they want to do unto everyone else.

ExChibinate. ExChibinate. 

And multitudes of hardcore, lifelong fans didn't admire Jodie's bizarrely hostile attitude to the show's past and fans when she said, on being first made The Doctor, that she'd not watched the show before but deplored its male gaze.

------------------------

Still, in fairness to Jodie, her diverse companions have been even worse. 

Offended pieces of wood have complained to the Met about 'hate crimes' after being compared to Jodie's companions' acting abilities - with the possible exception of Bradley Walsh, who dialled it in as well as anyone could given the rubbish scripts and the paint-by-dots-not-very-well characterisation given him by Chibs and Co. 

Despite heavy competition from Ryan - the thumb-sucking black lad with a deadbeat dad and dyspraxia who mostly stood around like a jammed door, except when turning into Clint Eastwood and unerringly overcoming his disability and blasting just-stand-and-take-it guardian robots and pathetic cannon-fodder Cybermen to hell....

....the worst companion in recent years and Doctor Who history has been Yaz, the under-characterised female Muslim police officer, who has done nothing whatsoever except to be dull, and flirt with her female Doctor, and be useless and obnoxious. 

The scriptwriters, in a truly cringeworthy moment, even had Bradley's character call her pretty much the most wonderful person in the universe in an episode in which she did nothing except say things the merest minimum the plot required her to say while Chib's hapless Cybermen rampaged around helplessly getting easily popped off - like men in most BBC dramas do these days.

Ms Perfect - our boring, useless, Muslim female Yaz who does nothing yet is the BBC's poster gal for Doctor Who. 

--------------------------

Still, however dull and unsatisfying Yaz and The First Female Doctor have been, some fans of box-ticking still wish them well. 

[SPOILER on the The First Female Doctor thing, if you're a year behind and not a nerd. 'Woke white bloke' Chris Chibnall wrote the last episode for the last series and 'revealed' that William Hartnell wasn't the first Doctor. The first doctor was a little black girl. I kid you not.]

One such said yesterday, ''Have to confess I still hold out a hope to see these two marvellous women adventure on their own in the Tardis for a while before Jodie leaves.'' 

That tweeter posted an image of Doctor Jodie and Yaz - the worst Doctor and the worst companion, according to many fans. But both women.

So the presence in the next series of a white, middle-aged male like comedian John Bishop - which prompted that comment - clearly leaves this person feeling disappointed. 

She evidently wanted the just cosplay First Female Doctor and her personality-free-yet-strangely-obnoxious female Muslim companion to explore the universe by themselves, without a male. 

Old-fashioned feminist girl power maybe, and it almost makes me hope than a transwoman [i.e. a man] is made the next Doctor. 

Well, if it's any consolation to this tweeter, if the trailer is anything to go by John Bishop will play the new archetype of middle-aged, white masculinity - a bumbling, absolute laughing stock - so everything will be fine.

And if you're wondering who tweeted this, yes, it was BBC Newswatch's Samira Ahmed - the impartial BBC's impartial watchdog.

------------------------------

So now everyone's guessing who the next showrunner and Doctor will be.

In the spirit of GB News impartiality and blogs hereabouts, I'm naming Dame Katie Hopkins as the next Doctor and Sir Nigel Farage as the next showrunner. 

I'm hoping for an episode featuring the Sea Devils and Silurians floating across the English Channel in dinghies and The Doctor using his/her/its/gltiqt+/wtf sonic screwdriver to defeat the evil people traffickers and deliver the Sea Devils and Silurians back to the place of safety from whence they came.

France. 🐌

The BBC's Real Official New Year's Message

I didn't know this until Charlie mentioned it, but between Doctor Who (which I watched, and after which I immediately switched the TV off) and Eastenders on New Year's Day came an extra item - a New Year's message, not from the Queen, or the Prime Minister, or the Archbishop of Canterbury, but from Sir David Attenborough, the patron saint of the BBC. And it was a campaigning message too:

Hello. I'm David Attenborough. I'm speaking to you from my home because, like many of you, I've spent much of the last year indoors, away from friends, family, and access to the natural world. It's been a challenging few months for many of us but the reaction to these extraordinary times has proved that when we work together, there is no limit to what we can accomplish. Today we are experiencing environmental change as never before. And the need to take action has never been more urgent. This year, the world will gather in Glasgow for the United Nations Climate Change Conference. It's a crucial moment in our history. This could be a year for positive change, for ourselves... ..for our planet... ..and for the wonderful creatures with which we share it. A year the world could remember proudly and say we made a difference. As we make our New Year's resolutions, let's think about what each of us could do - what positive changes could we make in our own lives? So here's to a brighter year ahead. Let's make 2021 a happy New Year for all the inhabitants of our perfect planet.

Just as The World at One was signalling yesterday that it approves of Black Live Matter, so BBC One couldn't let New Year's Day pass without signalling its commitment to urgent action on climate change at the United Nations Climate Change Conference. 

Admittedly, probably because Doctor Who isn't what it used to be, the audience for this was under 5 million, so its reach wasn't anywhere near what it would have been even a few years back.  

On which theme, here's the BBC's Lizo Mzimba:

The Doctor Who New Year special Revolution of the Daleks was the BBC's most watched show last night with an overnight audience of 4.69 million. The two most watched programmes overall were ITV's Coronation Street with 5.02m and the ITV Evening News won the night with 5.54m.

Lizo then added a coda:  

Doctor Who's overnight figure is up by almost a million from the previous episode, March's series 12 finale The Timeless Children.

This is an area I know a bit about. The Timeless Children was the second lowest-watched Doctor Who ever, only beaten by the episode which preceded it. It 'achieved' a meagre 3.78 million viewers. Jodie Whittaker's first episode had got 8.2 million viewers, so the programme had lost some 4.4 million viewers under her - and showrunner Chris Chibnall's - tenure. Doctor Who seasonal one-offs always get higher figures. Peter Capaldi got 6.34 million for his in 2014. This year's 4.69 million, therefore, is dire for Doctor Who. To say it isn't the audience-puller it used to be is a considerable understatement. 

So Sir David's homily won't have been seen by the VAST majority of the public, and those catching up with Doctor Who on the iPlayer won't be catching it either.

The BBC doesn't have the reach it used to have.

Doctor Maitlis will see you now

 

As the blog's official Doctor Who correspondent, I did watch the New Year's Day edition, Revolution of the Daleks. 

Of course, I was only doing so in my official capacity, so I could report back to you, dear readers. 

The last two series, under the showrunnership of Chris Chibnall, earned the programme the nickname 'Doctor Woke' in some quarters. 

Its endless string of politically correct messages, its clunky scripts, its dull companions, its so-in-your-face-that-it-almost-pops-out-of-the-back-of-your-head 'diversity casting', its endless box-ticking, and its re-writing of sacred Doctor Who lore (so that the first-ever Doctor wasn't William Hartnell but a black baby girl) also saw a falling-off in viewing figures so drastic and undeniable that even the BBC must have been seriously alarmed - though they publicly defended the show. 

That precipitous plunge in ratings surely explains why this one-off episode largely eschewed all the earnest lecturing. (Yes, surprisingly, there wasn't even a bended knee for BLM anywhere to be seen!). 

Of course, the human baddies were Chris Noft's returning pantomime Donald Trump-like character and Harriet Walter's scheming, security-focused British PM (with shades of Andrea Leadsom. Deliberate?) and the main human victim was a well-meaning black scientist, but - to be fair to Chris Chibnall - lazy stereotypes of wicked American billionaire politicians and wicked Tory politicians and nice, hand-done-by black people are a given in BBC dramas these days, aren't they?

Anyhow, this episode went instead for a CGI-heavy story about one set of dopey daleks easily exterminating another lot of dopey daleks and both getting very easily outsmarted by The Doctor, which was fun - though there were also lots and lots of dull soap opera style stuff with the dull companions to to pad it all out for another three quarters of an hour. 

The entertaining, Big Daddy v Giant Haystacks-like dalek v dalek stuff struck me as a would-be crowd-pleasing rehash of one of the most popular battles of the David Tennant era: the daleks v cyberman battle in Battle of Canary Wharf, when the two sets of monsters bad-mouthed each other and all the cybermen got blown up. Lesson for Chris Chibnall?: If you urgently need a success, shamelessly copy and paste something that's worked before and was popular. 

P.S. The programme featured a cameo appearance from Emily Maitlis, interviewing the double-crossing Trump character after he blagged his way out of seemingly betraying Planet Earth to the daleks.

Fake Newsnight! 

Going for woke

Jodie, waving her sonic screwdriver around 

It's the Doctor Who season finale tonight. If you won't be watching you won't be alone. 

The season's viewing figures are now well below any other season since the show came back from its long hiatus in the mid 2000s, and as this series has gone on the ratings have kept on falling. Apparently, the figures are now back to the low they reached just before the programme was axed in the 1980s. 

It's just one of those things that the last two episodes have been the best of the season by some margin, but the damage was done with that string of truly terrible episodes earlier in the season and, unfortunately, they used up their supply of good faith. People switched off, and even word-of-mouth that the series has picked up again probably won't encourage many to switch back on. 

What's the problem? Well, there's all the heavy politically-correctness for starters, made worse by the fact that it has sometimes been accompanied by actual preaching. (Who wants to hear Doctor Who lecture the audience as if they are in a classroom? Listening to Doctor Jodie in full flow reminds me of what Queen Victoria is said to have said of Gladstone, "He speaks to me as if I were a public meeting"). But many also cite awful scripts, a Doctor lots of people find unconvincing, unengaging companions, and poor acting (particularly from the companions). 

The BBC is, of course, doubling down. The first female Doctor can't be seen to fail, so she's getting the now-standard third series. As is showrunner Chris Chibnall. And Piers Wenger, controller of BBC drama commissioning, is quoted as saying:

I worked on Doctor Who myself and produced it for many years and I can honestly say I don’t think it’s been in better health editorially. The production values have never been better.

I think someone's been on the Pan Galactic Gargle Blasters. 

To end: a funny video. There's a lot of truth in it.

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.

Reminder to self

It may have been today or it may have been yesterday, but I saw somewhere a comment from someone saying something to effect of:

Are you spotting that, all of a sudden, lots of BBC programmes are ending with public service announcements referring viewers to the BBC Action Line for help and advice? Is this the BBC's latest ruse to save themselves, promoting themselves as a new Citizens Advice Bureau or Samaritans?

I can't say I had spotted that, so I moved on and thought nothing else about it. 

But - as is my way - I've just been watching tonight's Doctor Who and it ended with an announcement over the final credits saying "Details of organisations offering information and support with mental health are available on the BBC Action Line website". 

My jaw dropped (metaphorically).

Reminder to self: Never just dismiss criticism of the BBC that sounds over-the-top because it could just be true. 

Preaching to the Dregs

I saw a tweet today from journalist Nigel Pauley)..:

Doctor Who’s ratings decline a big worry for BBC bosses .. despite being sandwiched between rating hits Countryfile and Call The Midwife it managed just over 4m viewers .. over 1m down on both shows.

...to which the SDP's Patrick O'Flynn replied: 

Another victim of the Woke Orthodoxy. It's become a major turn off. I vote Laurence Fox to be the new Doctor - and watch those ratings soar.

The latest series reached peak 'preachy wokeness' last week with Orphan 55, an episode with a a Planet of the Apes-style 'twist': It was as Earth all along. The message? Do something about global warming now or you'll destroy Planet Earth and 'left behind' humanity will evolve into Dregs - monsters with bad teeth and no dentists. 

Now, long-term fans of the programme will recall that the Jon Pertwee era had a strong environmentalist agenda at times and that his Doctor could wag his finger at humanity from time to time, but this was a huge clunking fist being rammed into viewers' faces, culminating in a long speech from Doctor Jodie that could have been read from a U.N. lectern. No wonder people called it 'the Greta Thunberg episode'. "Tonight's episode of Doctor Who was brought to you in association with Extinction Rebellion", someone else wrote. Subtle it wasn't. 

I was away from the blog last week but still managed to monitor the social media reaction (via my mobile phone). I've never seen such an overwhelmingly negative response. About half the people though it too preachy and too badly-written but, curiously, a good chunk of those sympathetic to its message also felt it failed because of its badly-written heavy-handedness. Few people seem to have just enjoyed it, with most of those wholeheartedly approving of it doing so simply because of its message and the stridency of its advocacy. 

None of that will have helped its viewing figures. 

Oddly though, this week's episode (focusing on Nikola Tesla and Thomas Edison) was pretty good, and by far the best of the Chris Chibnall era. (He didn't write it).

Anyhow, for fans of funny, sweary videos, here's someone else's take on Orphan 55 (h/t Biased BBC). It is spot-on:

Katanga my tick box companions!

One of the Sunday Times's quotes of the week comes from Sir Lenny Henry:

“They would rather have a dog do Doctor Who than a black person” 

The actor Sir Lenny Henry is not optimistic that BBC bosses would consider an application from him to play the Doctor.

I doubt that Sir Lenny is right about that. I suspect that the famously 'woke'-friendly BBC would love to have a black person as Doctor Who - and, after the first female Doctor departs, I'm betting they appoint one. And, further, I suspect their reasons for turning down Sir Lenny's application would have nothing to do with race. 

Ex-cor-iate! Ex-cor-iate!

OMG!

Oh yes, I did watch Doctor Who on New Year's Day, and it featured a Dalek. 

(Spoilers). The most terrifying creature in the universe was eventually defeated by a microwave oven and by the love of a dyspraxic son for his previously deadbeat Afro-Caribbean dad - the very same deadbeat Afro-Caribbean dad who'd earlier come up with the microwave oven idea and, thus, already saved Planet Earth - even before the heart-warming climax where his son (in return) saved him from the defeated but vengeful octopus-like naked Dalek. At which very point the anti-violence Doctor let the gobby Dalek piece of nude calamari fall into the Sun and die a horribly painful death.

I was at this point originally going to write:

No offence, but the writing by Chris Chibnall was so clunky that it almost feels insulting to the word 'clunky' to associate it with such, er, not-very-good writing. And, frankly, if the word 'clunky' wants to report me to the police for a hate crime here I'll fully understand.

(My plotting is impaired, I cannot write! My plotting is impaired, I cannot write! I cannot write, my plotting is impaired! I cannot write, my plotting is impaired! Warning! Warning! Emergency!) 

But that would be far too rude to Chris, so I won't.

That said, it did feature this 'classic' piece of writing from Our Chris, after our Dalek friend had done something bad to the internet:

White working class kid 1: The Wi-Fi's gone off!
White working class mum: Everything's gone off. No Wi-Fi, no phone signal. It's all down.
White working class kid 2: Not even Netflix?
White working class mum: Nothing.
White working class kid 1: What do we do?
White working class mum: [shocked] I suppose... ..we'll have to have a conversation.
Both white working class kids: [horrified] What?! 

Who needs Ibsen, or Shakespeare, or Tom Stoppard, or Frank Muir and Denis Norden?

The Twitter reaction was overwhelmingly of the opinion that the whole thing was rubbish and a low point for Doctor Who - and, for once, the bulk of Twitter opinion was right.

One tweet that made me laugh came from Mark J Farnon: 

BBC: Lets make Daleks scary again! (For the umpteenth time.) 

Chris Chibnall: How about one turning people into mindless slaves, with a shell made of farm scrap, that can be almost destroyed by a microwave oven? 

BBC: Yeah, go on then!

Meanwhile, even the Guardian, though broadly supportive, was wise to the programme's politicking:

So liberal-friendly has the show been, it was a surprise in this special that the Dalekian inner jelly didn’t turn out to be called Jacob Rees-Blob, or that when the extraterrestrial glop was enclosed in a plastic bag, it wasn’t the packaging that proved to be the biggest threat to the planet. 

With 88 days to go until the UK is supposed to leave the EU, however, there was one pointed political reference. When the Doctor tried to call on the cross-border Unified Intelligence Taskforce to help save Sheffield from extermination, she learned that Britain was no longer a member after falling out with her “major international partners”. Another satirical gag was aimed at the cross-planetary force threatening to exterminate the BBC.

Ah but, Mark Lawson of the Guardian, hold you mouth! All of us, hold our mouths! 

Impartial, left-leaning BBC Trending editor Mike Wendling has something to say, so pray silence please!

Yes, BBC Trending guru Mike Wendling sent out this highly characteristic, ultra-impartial tweet the other day to set you Mark, and all the rest of us mere mortals, straight on the matter:

As our old friend D.B. replied, "Let me know when the BBC (paid for by threat of imprisonment using presumption of guilt) shoehorns anti-EU pro-Brexit propaganda into its drama output. I won't hold my breath."

Really?

Bradley from The Chase, getting lifted out of the...er...by Ms. Khan.

(If you're wondering why a Muslim female character constantly wears tight clothing and appears to be bisexual, well, the actress isn't a Muslim. (She's a Sikh). #justsaying)

Well, Russia and Ukraine look as if they might be about to go to war tonight and Herr "Jean-Claude" Juncker is doubtless, at this very moment, getting his resplendently-dressed servants to crack open yet another of his spare crates of wine (sparkling or otherwise) - one of the fifty dozen or more he's got stored behind his private toilet in the Brussels Egg - to celebrate the EU's glorious victory over Theresa's UK...

...but I know what you really want from ITBB tonight.

Yes, obviously, yet another post about Doctor Who.

Is Doctor Who a children's programme? Was it always a children's programme? Well, it felt like a children's programme tonight. 

But, ah, don't all the 'adult sexuality things' and all the 'PC things', such as King James I flirting with the black 21st Century lad, and all the feminist stuff, prove that Doctor Who is an adult programme too? 

(Rhetorical question?)

Probably not, if we believe what we read in the papers about some schools - even primary schools - ramming such things down the throats of children. 

Ergo, being the lead sellers of the very same spirit, why wouldn't a primetime BBC family show not try to promote such things?

Live Blogging 'Doctor Who'

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.

*******

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!

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.

*******

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). 

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).

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.

*******

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.

*******

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. 

Gawd, possibly even more rudely, it's like being whacked over the head by a BBC-branded fish.

Education, education, education.

*******

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.

*******

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.

*******

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. 

Opinion

Ah yes, Jeremy Clarkson! I remember him well. He's got a piece in The Sun about the falling ratings for Doctor Jodie and Team Tardis amid complaints about its "ham-fisted attempts to ram Lefty dogma down our throats", plus BBC bias in general, and adds this along the way:

I heard one of its news reporters this week explaining that fat-cat businessmen who pay themselves too much should think twice. 

He may have a point. It may be something many people agree with. But his job is to report the news, not give us his opinion on it. We get this constantly these days.

He's not wrong about that. Wonder who the reporter was though? (TV Eyes is failing me here). 

Doctoring

Confession time. 

I've been a massive Doctor Who fan since my youngest days. 

I even remember - I really do - first seeing Invasion of the Dinosaurs (from 1974), with its famously unsteady-on-its-feet T-Rex rampaging very, very slowly through London under the concerned eye of Jon Pertwee, when I was five. 

I actually think that might even be my earliest vivid TV memory. (God help me!)

'Doctor Who', 1974

And I'm still watching. 

And I've watched tonight's episode too. 

And I'm being very serious here when I say that tonight's episode was the worst I've ever seen.

And I've seen nearly all of them. (Some are lost).

There's a problem here perhaps, because this blog might be seen as a blindly anti-BBC blog.

I don't think we're any such thing - far from it in fact - but I'm sure that's how we might be seen by some passing dunderheads (no offence). 

But even so, if I - as a lifelong Doctor Who fan -  now say that tonight's episode was the clunkiest, stupidest, most banal, most obvious, most badly-written, most tick-box-obsessed-in-terms-of-multicultural-casting piece of Dalek waste product I've ever seen, I might still be seen as being just some Beeb-bashing obsessive bashing the Beeb. 

'Doctor Who', 2018

But no. Whatever issues I have with the BBC I'll still watch Doctor Who. 

And this latest episode really was the clunkiest, stupidest, most banal, most obvious, most badly-written, most tick-box-obsessed-in-terms-of-multicultural-casting piece of Dalek waste product I've ever seen. 

The PC ticks were a Gallifreyan mile high (and Gallifreyan miles are big!). 

Lord Hall and James Purnell might well be high-fiving themselves tonight as a result - if they watched it. 

Which they almost certainly didn't, but just as long as the multiculturally-diverse boxes are ticked I suspect Lord and James will be happy.

It was still quite entertaining though. And non-bus-end Doctor Jodie is fun to watch. 

Coda: Even the the usually-supportive comments at the Guardian are heavily trending towards calling this episode "drivel" and "garbage".

And P.S. I forgot to mention that tonight's episode made a lot of a man giving birth. I kid ye not.

Woo-Who

The Doctor v The Donald

Tonight's Doctor Who kept me entertained for 50 minutes.

With its giant spiders and eco-concerns it was almost back to the John Pertwee era ('The Green Death' and 'Planet of the Spiders'), but it was overlain with modern (BBC drama) concerns too, targeting US gun laws and neo-liberalism among other things, and featuring as its real villain of the piece a US businessman who wants to be President in 2020 and who own lots of hotels in Britain and around the world and who just happens to share some of the mannerisms of Donald J. Trump. 

So, yep, giant spiders (who, naturally, turn out to be hard-done-by) and an evil Donald Trump-like billionaire baddie. 

The taster for next week's episode, The Tsuranga Conundrum, runs as follows: "Injured and stranded in the wilds of a far-flung galaxy, the Doctor, Yaz, Graham and Ryan must band together with a group of strangers to survive against one of the universe's most deadly - and unusual - creatures". At this rate I'm guessing that the creature will be a thinly-disguised version of Tommy Robinson.

Issues

Doctor Who

Peter Hitchens tuned into the first episode of the latest series of Doctor Who - the one where "a large clove of garlic from another galaxy was trying to take over the world by stealing people’s teeth" - and found it:

...a heavy-handed expression of equality and diversity propaganda, a comprehensive school, post-Christian, multicultural mish-mash, so full of pious messages that it left no room for a decent plot...

So I'm guessing he'll not be pursuing Jodie Whittaker's new Doctor much further. 

I have to say that I am watching and enjoying it, but it looks as if the "equality and diversity propaganda" is going to get even more heavy-handed. This week's episode will apparently see the Doctor travel to Alabama in 1955 where she'll witness Rosa Parks refuse to give up her bus seat for a white passenger before "Jodie's sidekicks then discuss the problems of racism today". And a future episode will explore sidekick Yaz Khan's family history during the partition of India and Pakistan in 1947. Sounds fun!

Leading the way

Maureen from 'Driving School'?

Who says ITBB doesn't lead the way in incisive commentary about the BBC? (Not me.)

Where I led on Christmas Day Peter Hitchens of the evil Mail on Sunday has followed on New Year's Eve (and with some brilliant jokes): 

As Nick Robinson would say, LOL!

Tut-tut!

Good grief, the BBC (in one of the main reports on its News home page) can't even get the name of one of its best-known creations right these days! 

Every other news outlet I've looked at just has managed to get it right. It's 'Doctor Who', not 'Dr Who'. 

It may be Christmas Day, but I'm still on my soapbox

As it was

Well, I don't know about you, but I'm already stuffed to (and beyond) the gunnels with fabulous food, especially pigs-in-blankets.

And I'm heavily merry with festive ASDA wine too. 

In fact, I'm undoubtedly far, far, far too merry with wine in that I could have sworn I've just seen my entire family turn into giant pink mice and Doctor Who into a woman. 

*******

Oh.

So the new Doctor Who really is a woman. 

About time! 

As I was only just this minute saying (on Twitter) to Laura Bates of Everyday Sexism and Jane Garvey of Radio 4's Woman's Hour, isn't it fabulous that a really good-looking young woman is the new Doctor Who? The BBC is listening to us!

I also tweeted that only Brexit-supporting misogynists could find fault with that, or even make an issue of it. (I thought they'd appreciate that. Especially Laura.)

The new female Doctor Who....

Hopefully the BBC will relentlessly continue the fight against institutional sexism, say by replacing David Dimbleby on Question Time with Ellie Harrison from Countryfile.

(Oh please, please let that happen!)

*******

I actually even saw that rarest of things today - an elderly female presenter on the BBC.

And she was truly excellent.

In fact, to be honest, she was by far the best BBC presenter I've seen all year.

Yes, HM the Queen was on BBC One and BBC Two this afternoon, delivering her annual Christmas speech.

Except for the even-more-regal Mary Berry, HM the Queen is possibly the first elderly female presenter to appear on BBC One since the infamous cull of those wellington-boot-wearing old bags on Countryfile and their replacement by fit young blondes and brunettes.

That's more progress!

I do hope that Miriam O'Reilly was watching. (Go Miriam!)

Queen Elizabeth II (no less)

*******

One step forward, two steps back though. 

Institutional sexism at the BBC, pace Samira Ahmed, remains rife. 

Firstly, as we know, far too many top female reporters and presenters at the BBC haven't been allowed to share in the massively over-inflated salaries of some of their male counterparts and, quite rightly, won't rest until they've become just as obscenely overpaid (at the licence-fee-payer's expense) as their non-privilege-checking male colleagues. 

Secondly (and far worse), on tonight's Doctor Who Christmas special the new female Doctor Who was immediately - quite literally within seconds! - shown losing control of the TARDIS.

Her driving was so awful that the larger-on-the-inside-than-on-the-outside time machine immediately careered off the space-time line and the helpless new Doctor found herself getting sucked out into time-space.

I haven't seen such dreadful driving since the once-famous Maureen on Driving School.

....takes over the driving. And this is what happens next. The Scream!

To me this is clear evidence of deeply ingrained sexist thinking at the BBC.

As we all know, women are wonderful drivers and such disgusting patriarchal thinking about their allegedly poor driving abilities only encourages misogynists to make stupid, flippant, deeply sexist jokes about so-called 'women drivers'.

I was absolutely appalled.

And offended.

And on Christmas Day too.