Doctor Who : Eaters of Light
Jun. 17th, 2017 11:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethSomeone at the BBC needs yelled at.
The Doctor and Bill arrive in Scotland in Roman legion invasion times.
Bill meets a black man
He dies.
I consider stopping the episode right there, but remember with a sinking feeling I never do that.
Bill meets a second black man ! This almost never happens ! And he's gay !
... guess what?
If you guess he dies, well, that's... that's certainly how I read that ending. That is what appeared to happen. There's room for hope, but, he basically goes bravely to his death.
I know this is spoilers but the spoiler is 100% of the black men die AGAIN
and not only does the internet need to know
someone needs yelled at a LOT for this continuing pattern.
I have been watching Doctor Who all my life and I know I'll keep watching, and right now I'm just a bit ashamed of that.
I have other thoughts about the episode but they are a very distant second to
STOP killing off all the black male characters!
There's stuff in this one that needs thinking on. I'm not sure that 'grow up and fight your own battles' is the message I'd want from Doctor Who. I mean, he runs. What happened to 'coward, every time'? Looking for alternatives is what's known as a good thing.
And there should be alternatives. There's a crack in the world. How the hell is the only solution literally stone age? And why did the technological limitations change by the end of the episode? At one point the gate opened when the light hit it because it was the only way to stabilise it, bleeding off the pressure. But then too many people went in at once and it went unstable and collapsed the cairn... in a good way? Why does that only happen with people? Couldn't they chuck rocks between worlds until it closed?
Except no, because Doctor Who has ceased to be science fiction, it's a fairy tale, and the logic of noble sacrifice applies.
I'm very irritated by that, and forgot on first writing to mention, wtf stealing light from bodies makes them melt? That... that is not science. No. It's not even a good handwave. Just say energy and move on.
The Doctor deciding to take on the never ending battle single handed is so entirely in character I just want to hug him. I can't object to the characterisation there, that's a hell of a bird.
And the others teaming up to knock him out and take up their own battle to protect themselves is a solution to the problem as presented here. Very brave.
And it's second lion logic. He will be there for the next threat, doing things they cannot. They've got this one.
But it's become necessary because the Doctor slipped so far to singular saviour. Wait and believe and he'll sort it out? That's the extreme end of a peculiar view of him. He was the scientific consultant. The knowledge other people needed to make their decisions, and then to make them work out. So this is part of an answer to earlier stories. But... there's always a way out. He didn't give them science. He just gave them knowledge of the stakes. And once they knew how many were in danger, they stepped up to save everyone.
By fighting and dying.
Fighting side by side instead of fighting each other seems like progress.
But here's where the layers don't fit well to me. All that about communication and Bill and the Doctor bringing people together able to understand each other... that's a good bit. That's the great bit. But if the Doctor's great strength here is understanding and allowing others to understand...
... the difference between raman and varelse is not in the creature judged but in the creature judging.
Nobody tried to communicate with the light eater. The one they'd dragged into their war. The one they treated like a thing.
If you can't make peace there's only the war, forever.
Maybe that's the point it's making. Peace made between enemies, working together. Fits with the last scenes.
But why stop with the human looking? Or the earth types, even the crows got voices. Was that to clear up that the voiceless monster really was mindless? Because that story I'm not loving.
I miss when the creature was an ambassador. I really, really do.
But, the Doctor has been making dodgy choices and acting darker. Like, this seems like a deliberate theme. For all he's influencing Missy, she's influencing him.
I like pretty much everything about the story with Missy. It's going to go poorly for someone, but, hope.
I'm really looking forwards to the next couple of episodes.
There was a bit in there as well about assumptions. I liked how Bill thought the Romans wouldn't understand and then they talked like the modern to Romans default setting was bisexuality. That was treating the past as if it's full of actual people.
Or actual grown ups. That bit about everyone sounding like children, you know why the Doctor would feel that way, but it was a bit much else. But then on this story's terms the 18 year olds refuted it.
By deciding they were old enough to go to war.
I'm just going to loop on that. I know Doctor Who does that, I know it ends with fighting quite a lot, I even know this and anything with dead UNIT soldiers has quite a lot in common.
I just would have rather he'd run through some other options first. Smart technical options. Ways to use one's brain and not die.
Would I feel this way if only half the Romans died? If the ones that lived included at least one black guy?
I've watched the ending a bunch of extra times now, in case there's a way to pretend it did that. But I don't think it meant to.
And I know the Romans were the invaders here, and yaay independence and not being killed by the neighbours, but there's problems layered up in there.
Doctor Who is not being the show I would want it to be. On several levels.
And then I'm too annoyed to sort those levels out.
I read that Doctor Who is doing color blind casting. But that just means nobody's consciously thought through who they're killing off. It's still a problem.
There's lots about Doctor Who I love.
But that means I get proper worked up when it does something that feels wrong.
I'm hesitating hard before posting this. I'm tagging it because it's in my journal, but if it was tumblr I wouldn't want to put this on a fandom tag. I'm tempted to lock this to my access list.
But I'll just say it and see how that works out.
The Doctor and Bill arrive in Scotland in Roman legion invasion times.
Bill meets a black man
He dies.
I consider stopping the episode right there, but remember with a sinking feeling I never do that.
Bill meets a second black man ! This almost never happens ! And he's gay !
... guess what?
If you guess he dies, well, that's... that's certainly how I read that ending. That is what appeared to happen. There's room for hope, but, he basically goes bravely to his death.
I know this is spoilers but the spoiler is 100% of the black men die AGAIN
and not only does the internet need to know
someone needs yelled at a LOT for this continuing pattern.
I have been watching Doctor Who all my life and I know I'll keep watching, and right now I'm just a bit ashamed of that.
I have other thoughts about the episode but they are a very distant second to
STOP killing off all the black male characters!
There's stuff in this one that needs thinking on. I'm not sure that 'grow up and fight your own battles' is the message I'd want from Doctor Who. I mean, he runs. What happened to 'coward, every time'? Looking for alternatives is what's known as a good thing.
And there should be alternatives. There's a crack in the world. How the hell is the only solution literally stone age? And why did the technological limitations change by the end of the episode? At one point the gate opened when the light hit it because it was the only way to stabilise it, bleeding off the pressure. But then too many people went in at once and it went unstable and collapsed the cairn... in a good way? Why does that only happen with people? Couldn't they chuck rocks between worlds until it closed?
Except no, because Doctor Who has ceased to be science fiction, it's a fairy tale, and the logic of noble sacrifice applies.
I'm very irritated by that, and forgot on first writing to mention, wtf stealing light from bodies makes them melt? That... that is not science. No. It's not even a good handwave. Just say energy and move on.
The Doctor deciding to take on the never ending battle single handed is so entirely in character I just want to hug him. I can't object to the characterisation there, that's a hell of a bird.
And the others teaming up to knock him out and take up their own battle to protect themselves is a solution to the problem as presented here. Very brave.
And it's second lion logic. He will be there for the next threat, doing things they cannot. They've got this one.
But it's become necessary because the Doctor slipped so far to singular saviour. Wait and believe and he'll sort it out? That's the extreme end of a peculiar view of him. He was the scientific consultant. The knowledge other people needed to make their decisions, and then to make them work out. So this is part of an answer to earlier stories. But... there's always a way out. He didn't give them science. He just gave them knowledge of the stakes. And once they knew how many were in danger, they stepped up to save everyone.
By fighting and dying.
Fighting side by side instead of fighting each other seems like progress.
But here's where the layers don't fit well to me. All that about communication and Bill and the Doctor bringing people together able to understand each other... that's a good bit. That's the great bit. But if the Doctor's great strength here is understanding and allowing others to understand...
... the difference between raman and varelse is not in the creature judged but in the creature judging.
Nobody tried to communicate with the light eater. The one they'd dragged into their war. The one they treated like a thing.
If you can't make peace there's only the war, forever.
Maybe that's the point it's making. Peace made between enemies, working together. Fits with the last scenes.
But why stop with the human looking? Or the earth types, even the crows got voices. Was that to clear up that the voiceless monster really was mindless? Because that story I'm not loving.
I miss when the creature was an ambassador. I really, really do.
But, the Doctor has been making dodgy choices and acting darker. Like, this seems like a deliberate theme. For all he's influencing Missy, she's influencing him.
I like pretty much everything about the story with Missy. It's going to go poorly for someone, but, hope.
I'm really looking forwards to the next couple of episodes.
There was a bit in there as well about assumptions. I liked how Bill thought the Romans wouldn't understand and then they talked like the modern to Romans default setting was bisexuality. That was treating the past as if it's full of actual people.
Or actual grown ups. That bit about everyone sounding like children, you know why the Doctor would feel that way, but it was a bit much else. But then on this story's terms the 18 year olds refuted it.
By deciding they were old enough to go to war.
I'm just going to loop on that. I know Doctor Who does that, I know it ends with fighting quite a lot, I even know this and anything with dead UNIT soldiers has quite a lot in common.
I just would have rather he'd run through some other options first. Smart technical options. Ways to use one's brain and not die.
Would I feel this way if only half the Romans died? If the ones that lived included at least one black guy?
I've watched the ending a bunch of extra times now, in case there's a way to pretend it did that. But I don't think it meant to.
And I know the Romans were the invaders here, and yaay independence and not being killed by the neighbours, but there's problems layered up in there.
Doctor Who is not being the show I would want it to be. On several levels.
And then I'm too annoyed to sort those levels out.
I read that Doctor Who is doing color blind casting. But that just means nobody's consciously thought through who they're killing off. It's still a problem.
There's lots about Doctor Who I love.
But that means I get proper worked up when it does something that feels wrong.
I'm hesitating hard before posting this. I'm tagging it because it's in my journal, but if it was tumblr I wouldn't want to put this on a fandom tag. I'm tempted to lock this to my access list.
But I'll just say it and see how that works out.
no subject
Date: 2017-06-18 08:18 pm (UTC)Are you sure they all did? I wasn't counting but I don't think enough went through for it to have been all Romans.