Why Doctor Who Needs to Stop Making Characters So Important
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- Опубліковано 7 гру 2020
- Since the show’s revival in 2005, writers have got into the habit of increasing the intergalactic significance of their characters to the point that every few weeks, we are introduced to the most important person of all time. Rose Tyler, Donna Noble, River Song, Clara Oswald and Ashildr are all victims of this. And with story arcs like the Hybrid and the Timeless Children, not even the Doctor is safe. In this video essay, I take a look at this phenomenon and why I find it so frustrating.
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Thank you for being so patient, everyone! The gap between uploads was unforgivably long and it's so reassuring that you're all still here being supportive. I'll get to work on the next video!
Don't matter about consistency, it's the quality we're here for old chap 👌
It just makes me cringe when an antagonist is referred to as the most dangerous thing in the universe, like how many most dangerous things are there????
"I am the most dangerous thing in The-"
Yeah yeah, get to the back of the line
@ThePandoricaOfFandoms literally lol, wish they had more victories 😂
@ThePandoricaOfFandoms The lose almost as often as the Borgs.
If you kill the most dangerous thing, then the next-most dangerous thing is the most dangerous thing. So every time you have a new big bad "most dangerous" villain, they logically must be less impressive than the last. Oops
@@SerratedSkies Ah, good way of thinking about it.
Completely agree, I think the reason why Rose's Bad Wolf worked the way it did was because it was entirely her own actions that lead to the payoff. Her breaking open the heart of the Tardis wasn't something she knew would give her superpowers, it was just something she tried of out desperation. Also the fact that the Doctor regenerates as a consequence of these actions helps prevent this from feeling like a perfect fairy-tale ending.
I loved Clara due to her personality: but you're defs right on the overblown importance Moffat made her lol
Clara was great when she was just Clara, trying to be the doctor, and how that ends. Clara was at her worst when she was the most important woman in the universe.
I’m just glad to see people appreciating Clara! She gets hated on too often :(
I really didn’t like Clara, I found her way to bitchy.
thank you!
That's Moffat's weak point as a writer
Mary Watson became worse and worse the more important he tried to make her
I kinda disagree about Amy and Rory as I love the whole fairytale thing, I agree about Donna and Clara to extent. But man alive, I hate The Timeless Child - and not for any stupid canon reasons, but because it goes way too far and makes the Doctor way too important - rather than "An idiot with a box and a screwdriver"
I think that was Steven Moffat's intention. It goes back to Peter Pan and Wendy. Amy Pond meets this magical being and she leaves her home and goes with him on magical adventures to different places and strange new worlds.
Except the Doctor is no idiot.
Yes.
I think there's something to be said about the two kinds of importance - earned importance and given importance. The Timeless Child is all about letting the doctor have given importance. Clara also had a lot of given importance, and it does play out as very relevant for the plot. Donna also had given importance but it ended up not being too relevant? Like they could've just had any reason for Donna to step out of companion, so it was a bit of a fill-in-the-blank and in that way, I don't feel that it was too egregious; like it wasn't that she was being given a privilege that steps on thematic boundaries.
Moffat was all about the distinction between these two types of importance, that was pretty much the main point of the Doctor for him: it's this person who has just been setting things all right for 1000 years spread all across spacetime and earned all this massive respect and fear and renown in the world and sometimes regrets or even resents that fact. It's very much earned importance. The Timeless Child steps all over that.
@@sibionic By human standards? Absolutely, they aren't an idiot. By Time Lord standards? Maybe they are.
5:19
"River Song, by her very nature, dominates the Doctor......'s life."
Brilliant
I'm glad people like that joke because it took ages to get right in the delivery
@@Joe_Brennan_ you got it spot on, mate!
I feel like the 10th doctor Midnight episode really demonstrated that simple stories with phenomenal acting can be some of the most impactful and the show doesn't need to keep going over and beyond to keep our attention, it just needs good writing and good character development
"You know, in 900 years of time and space I've never met anyone who wasn't important"
-The Doctor
Yknow i was gonna say that bad wolf was the only time making a character super important to the fate of the whole universe actually worked for me, but in retrospect it definitely set a tone for the companions, that EVERY companion had to live up to rose's importance.
I think the Bad Wolf stuff is really great. Hopefully we can still enjoy it, even with the knowledge that it set a weird precedent
I think one thing that sets Rose's "super important fate" apart from that of many other companions is the fact that Rose's fate was self-created and self-fulfilled. It was Rose herself that spread Bad Wolf around in time and space, after she chose to look into the Heart of the Tardis. It was all her doing, but it ensured a retroactive "prophecy" that we saw throughout the first series. Therefore, because it was ultimately based on her own decisions as a character, it didn't feel nearly as contrived. Neither did it interfere with her just being herself and that alone being enough to make her worthy as a companion of the Doctor.
@@loststars6533 To be fair, the same is true of Clara. Her fate was self-created in that it originated from her choice to step into the Doctor's time stream. That said, she was a hell of a lot better when they abandoned that arc in Series 8.
The reasons I didn't mind Donna ending up being super important was because it emphasized her character but didn't effect it. She never thought of herself as important, never believed in herself and through her travels with the doctor gained more and more confidence until she became the DoctorDonna.. and then as soon as she could see how important she is (and always was because she didn't *need* all that power to make a difference), she loses all memory of it. The fact that she does have that impact on the universe makes the fact she lost the character growth even more heartbreaking.
(I also think the first tumblr post you mentioned was more pointing out that the criticism of Martha being bad because she wasn't important was wrong, because she was- and not saying *they* think that makes her a good character but that it should make the people they're criticising think she's a good character)
I loved Rose, Martha and Donna because they were just ordinary people. I thought the Davies era was always the best. So many friends, so many family members, all fun to watch. I did enjoy a lot of the Moffat era, but the show lost something when he decided families were really not important. One once or twice would we get a peek at a Mom or Dad, and then they be gone by the next episode. Chris Chibnall even created one of the best "family" members ever with Rory's dad, and he was gone, along with Amy and Rory, two episodes later because the Amy and Rory was over. I much liked normal Clara over The Impossible Clara. Bill was a breath of fresh air. But overall, Moffat seemed to want to make epic stories that, in the end, almost always fell apart or just withered away. As for the Chibnall era, the less said the better. I was done when it turned out that The Doctor had his mind wiped years ago, and that there were zillion of incarnations of The Doctor we never knew about. Screw all that. Give me a Doctor, a companion and a good villain to fight and I'm happy. I wish they would stop making everything epic!
I do feel like the popularisation of the word "epic" has a lot to answer for. It's lost all meaning. When everything is striving to be epic, nothing feels it
Donna wAsnT nornal she is 💯 % alien 👽 nobody knows but the doctor did
Martha was the most normal person out of them and she was amazing because of it. Rose became the Bad Wolf, which kinda hurt her being normal. Donna became Doctor Donna, which isn't as big as Bad Wolf, but it's still up there.
This comment is actually really great tho, the families are important, even in universe as the doctors morality pets
I consider there to be two Claras - the Mary Sue plot cipher version we got with Eleven, and the miles more human feeling Clara we get when Capaldi takes over the role. The "hybrid" arc feels like Moffat relapsing into his old ways, but is mostly saved by the genuinely rock solid relationship between Clara and Twelve.
Is "Mary Sue" some sort of American cultural reference?
@@owenshebbeare2999 It's a writing trope. You may not know the term but you've almost definitely encountered the Mary Sue (or her male equivalent, the Gary Stu) at one time or another. TV Tropes is your friend here, and always good for a laugh
Clara is my favorite companion from New Who, but I didn't like her too much in S7, but how was she a Mary Sue?
@@owenshebbeare2999 a mary sue is basically a character with no flaws (i don't agree that clara was ever a mary sue btw, not even in series 7).
Remember when the Doctor was just some random alien who wanted to go and explore the universe with his random mates?
The best interpretation of the character.
When the mystery was where they were and what was happening there, not what the existential nature of the main characters were
The doctor still is this, if you're like me, and only watch 1963 - 2009 Doctor Who....
As someone who was a Clara fan from the beginning, I definitely agree that she truly didn’t start working until after the “impossible girl” thing was resolved
Clara eventually became one of my favorite companions, I was kinda hoping to see a small spinoff with Clara and ashildr.
something that baffles me is why the information of the timeless child made the master so angry that he killed everyone. like it's not THAT bad
Yeah that's so weird lmao
It would make more sense if HE were the TC.
Exactly, the only one who had a right to be mad was the Doctor. Also, I hate that they were killed off screen after all everything that happened to bring them back.
"They're all dead, I blew them up. Actually, no I didn't, James Bond is in charge of them and they've gone nasty. I'll just get rid of them again. Actually, I and me and me and me and me and me and me and me (etc) will bring them back again. Oh bugger, my ex pal who really fancied himself has gone and killed them all again. What a palaver."
@@sweariefaerie9621 Honestly it feels like it was intended for the Master to be the Timeless Child until a really late draft decided "hey wouldn't it be whacky if we ruined the Doctor's mystique by making THEM the TC instead?"
Nailed it mate. Just because you're important to the narrative, doesn't mean we actually care about what you as a character do.
Apparently Series 7 Clara was intended as a criticism of treating female companions as grandiose, impossible puzzle boxes. Intentional or not, she was still a bad character, and being overly important to the Doctor didn't help.
I tried to like Clara. I missed Amy Pond like hell when she left. When I watched "The Snowman" I was so confused when she got killed off and I thought Present Day Clara was a descendant of Victorian England Clara but it turns out Clara went into his timeline to save him appearing at different points in The Doctor's unnatural life.
And yet she ended up as a grandiose impossible puzzle box anyway...... way to mix up your metaphors Moffat.
I honestly think that Clara was Moffat's self insert. Her biggest contribution in Matt Smith's biggest story was to basically tell everyone that they were doing it wrong and so they changed more in line with how he wanted the story to go. I’m convinced he hated the Time War, and the fact that the Doctor ended it by killing everyone, so when it came to the 50th Anniversary and we build to a scene of Ten and Eleven coming to terms with their actions and ending the plot thread with their acceptance of the forgotten War Doctor, whilst it was not a good act it was a necessary act to end the madness, and we shouldn’t forget, we should..... and then Clara walks up and tells them that this is not what the doctor should do, so they don’t because Clara said so.
I think you can make the argument with Donna (and Rose and Martha) that they...became special because of how they changed through the Doctor - they grew and gained confidence and understanding and so pushed themselves into this "special" idea, which means that the average person still had the capacity for that. In contrast, Amy with the crack in the wall and Clara the Impossible Girl and all the rest are predetermined "special" people. I have the capacity to do good and be good and help people - I don't have the capacity to have a special multi-dimensional split in my wall that does...something...to me...that changes me. Or whatever the point of that arc was
River song by her very nature absolutely dominates the doctor...s life 😂😂😂
Insert the myriad of Moffat-y sexual innuendos here.
I feel RTD kind of overdid it with Rose and how much she was mentioned even after she left, but aside from that I fully agree, even the Doctor was affected before The Timeless Child with how much they made him seem as some sort of God in Series 3-7, but yeah The Timeless Child idea is the worse example, I feel like they will probably retcon it afterwards, but who knows.
I feel like there's a difference there because when Rose was mentioned after her departure it was because of the impact she had had on the Doctor as an individual rather than because she had some kind of larger role.
@@idek7438 Yeah, I get it but it still went over board. It made things harder for Martha’s character to shine because many fans saw her as the rebound girl and the story sometimes treated her that way. Than the show still had to mention her during the Doctor’s travel with Donna. Luckily it finally stopped.
@@shayla106 That's cause Martha literally was. Martha was the rebound girl then she grew on the Doctor.
Moffat's an absolute lad for making one of Clara's lines "I'm still blowing".
I agree completely. I also dislike when people cite the 80s Cartmel Masterplan as a basis for justifying the lacklustre reveal of the Timeless Child.
The whole point of the Cartmel plan is that Cartmel wasn’t stupid enough to actually reveal the Cartmel plan. Only in the novels did it go into it, and even Cartmel had no idea what the full plan actually was.
If Chibnall had hinted at the Doctor being the child, and instead allowed us the viewer to make our own assessments as to the implications would have been better. It could range from “the Doctor is Jesus” to “the master is a lying cuck”. But now we have a full reveal via the Timeless Child that they inevitably won’t do anything with.
But the Doctor was already the most important person in reality cause he knows CPR /s
Timeless Children made me furious and I decided to take a break from watching New Who. I may start watching it again after Series 13.
i think this really gets at why river didn't bother me but clara super did
I think my biggest gripe with the 13th doctor is that she always has to justify what shes doing by saying “well if the others can do it, why cant I?” It completely undermines her significance and strength as a character.
Series 7 Clara is a weird one. Is it that she's a super important character and a mystery, or is it that she is dead ordinary and the Doctor only *thinks* she is special because that's the series expectation now?
Have cake, will eat it.
It is both and neither
@@Joe_Brennan_ Schrödinger's companion?
yeah it's the fact that she is just an ordinary person and the doctor became weirdly obsessive over her identity. that was the point. back when bells of st john was first aired, the reason i liked clara was for who she was, her personality, and without meaning to or even realising it, i somehow looked past the whole impossible girl thing and knew that wasn't all clara is.
the reason why she became the "impossible girl" is because of who she was anyway; a selfless person who will do whatever she can to help save someone, especially a friend. in this case, her best friend, the doctor.
and i'm 21 now, so i was only 12-13 when s7 came out. bells of st john was the first episode i saw with clara, as i had accidentally missed the first 2 that jenna appeared in.
You put into words exactly what I was feeling about the Timeless child reveal. THANK YOU ! For the rest of the video, I agree 100% with everything you said soooo..... my comment has no purpose except telling you I had a great time watching !
Being nice is a good enough purpose for a comment, I really appreciate it!
This is such an amazing underrated video! It's insightful, intelligent, witty, well edited, and well spoken.
Thank you!
So many people in fandoms don't seem to have any understanding of the storytelling process. Their "opinions" on characters aren't critiques of the writing, but actual assessments of the fictional people. I see this a lot with Avatar: The Legend of Korra and the Star Wars sequels. Fans display a very odd sort of acceptance where they absorb the story like divine revelation and refuse to look at it from a meta perspective. Writing-oriented people like myself often get labeled as toxic in these circles for talking about continuity, structure or the real-world corporate forces that mold art. I suppose it "kills the magic" for some, but to me it elevates the good stories and gives me a deeper respect for their creators. Your commentary here manages to make a point I've been trying to formulate for a long time.
This makes a great deal of sense. One reason I liked Dr Who in the 70s was that my world was full of 'important' people and the show cut them down to size. People that think a character's worth is measured by their importance should be running churches (possibly in the finance office) not telling stories.
There's this one interpretation of series 7b that really makes me able to appreciate that part of the Moffatt Era: the puzzlebox interpretation. The Doctor sees Clara as a puzzlebox to be solved rather than a companion so that is how she is written-- we are seeing Clara through the Doctor's eyes, in a sense. It lends to the moral ambiguity of the Doctor and sets up series 8's arc where the Doctor is trying to find out whether he is "good".
yes!!
[Still early in the video]
I think the CPR point is defensible. Her medical training made her useful and helpful, unlike some NuWho companions who manage to trip and fall into danger, and only to “save the day” with a well worded pep talk that inspires the Doctor to do something. Also, the 2 months in 1916 (whilst being a woman of colour) speak to strength of will and tenacity. That kind of patience and resilience is definitely interesting.
Edit: So, like, I agree that the actions aren’t THE reason a character should matter, but usually the actions are being used as a shorthand to show off the characteristics that make a character well liked. At least the Martha stuff is not a force possessing and/or altering her, as happened with Rose, Donna and Clara.
Oh I think Martha was done perfectly, I'm not complaining that she did those great things. I just find it a really bizarre way of talking about those things.
@@Joe_Brennan_ Oh, completely agree. The logic is backwards. Martha isn’t a great companion because she did all that stuff, she did all that stuff because she was a great companion.
Still, she felt like a weird example compared to the other companions, because she’s probably one of the NuWho companions with the smallest overall destined universal importance (along with Bill). She did stop the master, but she was still only just a normal medical student with no magical Phoenix force destiny powers, unlike Rose’s Bad Wolf and Donna’s Meta-Crisis timeline convergence stuff.
I think this is your strongest video so far; it's nice to see video essays tackle a topic head on instead of recapping an episode in a meandering and maddening way.
Hello Joe, it really is me
Thank you, Ben!
I'm so tired of these titles.
The Impossible Girl, The Timeless Child, The Last Centurion, The Bald Bloke Who Lived - just _stop!_
At least The Girl Who Waited is somewhat poetic, the rest are just vague, enigmatic, egomanical names.
My favourite is when fans try and make posts that have all the companions with their nicknames but people like Bill don't have them. So it's just like "the girl who waited, the impossible girl, the doctor's lesbian pal"
@@Joe_Brennan_ and thats why series 10 was awesome, in my opinion. We need more seasons like series 10.
@@Joe_Brennan_ - ahuh, Bill and Martha, best companions! Not because they're the most important women in the whole of creation. In fact...kinda the opposite?
You can have a great character whose important, but making a character important does not make them great.
@@orangut4ng - the best series? Yes, yes we do.
@@nightowl8477 looks like Moffat learnt his lesson on his final season. Not to say the others were bad
I'm really hoping that we'll discover the Timeless Child was a kind of villian, that even the Timelords had to intervene, while also making clear that the Doctor picking the name "Doctor" had nothing to do with who he was before that. Hopefully.
I like it when characters are important every now and then but I feel Doctor Who does it too frequently and doesn't know when to stop.
Donna was so close to perfect, something I really like about her is how the Doctor insists that she's special while she doesn't believe it yet by the end of her run she's able to prove that she was indeed something special. The issue with Donna though is that there's an element of prophecy to it, the Oods speak of it, Dalek Caan at least partially orchestrated it, and I feel that takes away from her. Donna would be a lot more appeal if she wasn't special due to pre-determined destiny, but if she was special because of her own actions.
I don't like Clara's involvement and it's a big part of what killed both series 7b and 9 for me, both of which I consider to be the show at some of its lowest points despite containing some gems. I don't think it's right to introduce a character and have them be such an integral part of the Doctor's life at all stages, a companion should be important and make a difference for the Doctor in their current incarnation, that works a lot better. Then they do the prophecy thing and give her a tardis and I really dislike that, I would've rather Hell Bent had been reconstructed to have Clara needing to return to regular human life, while the Doctor has to forget all about her as we see in the final episode.
I really don't like any attempts to make the Doctor special either, you really did put it perfectly in the video, a large part of the appeal is that the Doctor ran away for small reasons, and made a big difference through their small actions, I like Bill's exchange with the first Doctor in Twice Upon a Time because an origin I can completely buy for the Doctor leaving is that he was inspired to find out why goodness prevails in the universe only for it to be the Doctor's incarnations themselves, it risks feeling like a self fulfilled prophecy but I feel that Bill's line of "maybe it's just a bloke" brings it back down to earth.
The Timeless Children is my biggest nightmare, the last thing I ever wanted was for the Doctor to be the root of everything and be somewhat of a god, I possibly could've swallowed it had it been the Master, but the Doctor is another thing. But for some reason it didn't hit me too hard, now that it's happened I think it can work but it would need to be expanded on in a very, very careful manner. I think the important thing to do is create a distinction between the Timeless Child and the Doctor as we've known them. In the final episode before Chibnall's era we even had the idea put forward that someone is the sum of their memories, with the Doctor being unsure. This can be worked with here. The Doctor - from William Hartnell to Jodie Whitaker - grew up like any other timelord without any special or unique traits, they even needed to be granted a new regeneration cycle by the other time lords in Time of the Doctor, so we know that now any possible abilities or foreign DNA the Doctor had in them is more than likely now gone entirely. You could even have the next series hinge on the question of wether or not this defines where the Doctor begins, did "the Doctor" begin with the Hartnell regeneration, or did it begin with the child from another dimension? That's how I feel you make the Timeless Child work.
Okay, this is epic. I liked and subscribed. i love the fandom references you make in your videos, like showing song for ten when you were talking about waking up today. actual editing mastermind
Funny how I forgot all of these apparently extremely galactically important moments but remembered when I didn't like a character - the first episode with Clara as a dalek was interesting, then she got quickly much worse, then once she had a personality outside of "Moffat's very clever story" I still didn't like the dynamic but she was immediately worth getting invested in again.
Making the Doctor a godlike being just makes the universe feel very small and insignificant.
Doctor Who is best when its a traveller and companions travelling through time and space. And at various points, they have to help people, solve mysteries and fix things.
With the Doctor now so important, why are they travelling? Surely they just wait in one place, and everything will come to them.
In the next series the master will come back and be like ‘we were wrong you aren’t the timeless child, you’re literally god.’
Then Yaz skins herself and reveals she's actually Rose and The Doctor skins herself and reveals she's actually Ten?
Donna is, without a moment's hesitation, my FAVORITE companion. It's totally fine if people don't like her for whatever reason, of course... but for me, she is definitely the best companion. You are totally right that it has nothing to do with her being "the most important woman in the universe" (in fact, I kind of forgot about that line until you just mentioned it). I love Donna because of who she is as a person. She's hilarious (sorrynotsorry, I DO like comic relief characters), she doesn't put up with bullshit, she's not all flowery speeches, she stands up to the Doctor when he needs standing up to, she's FLAWED and NORMAL. Despite her tough outer shell and lip, she is deeply compassionate and ethical. She grew up in a working-class family that struggled financially and struggled to find their place in the world, with an overbearing, judgmental mother who at every chance made Donna feel worthless, dumb, and like a mistake in the world... which Donna internalized. I had an abusive step-father that would tell me things like Donna's mother said to her. You learn to build this tough layer around yourself as a response to that trauma. Donna's character was comic relief, yes... but her character had REAL DEPTH that I deeply responded to. Not to mention the fact that her ending with the Doctor is one of the saddest (if not THE saddest) endings. Donna, who throughout her whole life, has felt belittled, stupid, inconsequential, etc... doesn't even get to remember all the great things she did with the Doctor. She doesn't get to remember her own potential. But yeah, being "the most important woman in the universe" isn't the reason I love Donna. In a lot of ways, what made Donna such a great companion is that she showed viewers who experienced her kind of trauma, the kind of trauma that makes a person feel like they aren't worth anything, that WE have her kind of potential-- not the magical part where she becomes the DoctorDonna, but the HUMAN greatness of her. Her kindness, compassion, and empathy that shines through her tough exterior, when it's needed most.
I feel like I got off-topic from the original point of this video... ah well. I guess I needed to let out the Donna-love lol...
Here before 3.50K subscribers! I just need that to be acknowledged. Lol. Video essay type channels with this quality tend to get picked up by the algorithm (which is how I got here). So keep it going! You're so right. I love the normal, relatable companions, and they don't have to up the stakes all the time. Just create fun adventures in different places and times of a mad man with a box and his normal, but great companions.
Quite possible the earliest I've ever been for any video ever.
Really well presented video essay! Some really good points :)
Great video Joe!! Can’t wait to watch it again! X
Great video Joe, I definitely agree. Often the great thing about characters is how down to Earth or relatable they are, and prophesying them diminishes that impact, and if everyone around The Doctor or The Doctor themselves are the most important beings in the universe, then it makes the universe very small. I see the over-importance of characters as more of a response to other popular media: back when Doctor Who started it was fine for him to be an old man with not much importance in the overarching plans of the universe, but given how many popular fiction have revolved around the 'chosen one' archetype have been released in the interim, the writers have probably came to the decision that its what The Doctor needs to compete with these other characters and to be interesting, when for most fans it's the opposite. Also, The First Doctor is very mysterious at the beginning of the show, but his importance is merely to the characters around him, rather than the whole Universe, which is the problem recent Doctor Who keeps on making.
In Clara's defence, it was more a case of a self-fulfilling prophecy; the Doctor sought her out because she kept appearing in her life, but she only got the chance to appear throughout his timeline _because_ he tried to solve the mystery. She couldn't have been on Trenzalore if the Doctor never met her, but he wouldn't have met her if she _didn't_ go there.
This is the same with Star Wars, 1:20 got me though.
So when will the timeless adult and the Scongo audiobooks get a crossover?
#TheEggCameFirst
Head to 13:15 and you'll see Scongo's crossover
Lol
People who say things like, "How can you not like her? She's the most important woman in the universe!" need to be reminded that there was a time when the most important person in the world was Caesar Nero... who was hardly going to win any prizes for likeability, what with the dipping people in tar and setting fire to them, or kicking his pregnant wife down the stairs, and everything.
I see you with your cheeky scongo Easter egg, they really should have had the best villain in the mind blast tho
He does tend to sneak his way into all of my videos... I'm sure the show will be next
I love Amy Pond. I really did not see it coming when River Song revealed to Amy and Rory that she's their daughter Melody.
I'm extremely fond of Martha Jones as well. You got to know her family a bit and see her interact with them. I unfortunately can readily identify with the unrequited love angle. And the fact that Freema Agyeman is so damn hot isn't doing anything to hurt the connection that I already have with the character.
I diagree only when it comes to the RTD era. I think it works then, because it shows that anyone with good intentions is worthy of travelling the universe with the doctor, and has the capacity to be special, even if they don't see themselves that way. It's a nice message, and I don't think it's purpose there was to try and trick you into thinking the characters are greater than they otherwise would be.
Also the Wilf stuff had to be explained, because no chance in all of time and space, the doctor just happened to keep bumping into Wilf without a reason.
The Unearthly Child episode of the William Hartnell era was supposed to be the very beginning of the series as it is the first ever episode of Doctor Who aired in November 1963. It even had the origins of the name of his time machine the TARDIS which was an acronym introduced by his granddaughter and why it was a police box because it didn’t change. The Timeless child has made the first ever episode feel like Star Wars: A New Hope when the Phantom Menace was released.
I would say it's worse than star wars, given that A New Hope was deemed episode 4 prior to the Phantom Menace's release. Whereas in doctor who that's not the case.
I can't entirely agree. We already knew the Doctor had a life before we saw him on television. Not only was he already over 400 years old but Susan referred more than once to adventures (or at least, places that had visited) before coming to Earth. While the Timeless Child storyline adds a further history before Hartnell's Doctor, it is one of which he was completely unaware. I'm not clear how this changes anything.
@@MrPaulMorris It undermines the "renegade class at the academy" that the Doctor was part of, along with the Rani, the Monk, the Master, Drax, and others.
How could the Master have grown up with, and gone to school with, someone who was already older than him by millennia?
It also calls in to question other lore from the Deadly Assassin and The Invasion of Time.
Also, the gender-flipping thing eradicates previous lore, that of Time Ladies having a unique power that Time Lords do not possess... the ability to choose, during a limited window, their new appearance during regeneration.
@@thelastmotel If the pre-Doctor regenerated as a child (as we saw repeatedly in the episode) then it would still be possible for him to have known the Master as a child.
For the rest of it, none is mentioned in televised stories, so far as I am aware, but rather appear in extended media whose canon status is less certain.
If Time Ladies having the ability to choose appearance is based on that dreadful comedy sketch Romana regeneration, then this is one piece of televised canon that I would happily lose but I don't see how it is affected anyway by this storyline.
Joe: RTD was at his best when showing the mundane human experience
Also Joe: Shows footage from Love and Monsters
What I'm hoping for is the Master to reveal that he was the timeless child. That the revelation hurt him so much it completely broke him again and, because he needs the Doctor as much as the Doctor needs him (despite his insistance to the contrary) so he told the Doctor it was her so that she'd break like he did. It's a copout but it's so much better than what we actually got and would fit the Master's character pretty well Imo.
The Master is absolutely smart enough to have come up with a device that would fool the sonic into thinking Ruth was the Doctor, it would explain why he kept coming back from deaths no normal time lord could survive, and he's almost certainly at least as psychic as the Doctor, if not more, so I wouldn't be surprised if he could put those visions of the little irish town into her head
Excellent and thought-provoking as ever. Having said that, although I think the Timeless Child twist was unnecessary, I don't see the TC as a Jesus figure or even the most important person in the Universe. She was the (passive) donor of genes which allowed the Shobogans to regenerate, and it was arguably Tecteun who was the more important figure in that equation, because it was her science, after all, that made it happen.
Even then, all Tecteun created were regenerating Shobogans, who couldn't be called Time Lords until Rassilon/Omega (surely the true God/Jesus figures in the Time Lord pantheon) perfected time travel and solar/dimensional engineering. It is these latter abilities that most define the Time Lords, not regeneration, because we know of at least two other species who can regenerate, i.e. the Kastrians and the Minyans... to say nothing of the Eternals etc, who are more powerful still.
So, whilst I don't exactly love the idea of the Doctor being the Timeless Child, I don't think it quite confers upon her the "godlike" or "chosen one" status that some - perhaps Chibnall included - thought it did.
What, wait ... Minions can regenerate?!
@@MigoLinden Minyans, from the planet Minyos (I think). They appear in the much-derided Tom Baker story "Underworld".
@@ftumschk OK I thought you mean the sibling species to the Pting.
i totally agree, the amount of overly important characters is so extremely tiring. I cant really fall in love with those characters anymore cuz its gotten so overused, with exception for nardole ofc! hes the most important which is also why you really should make that nardole video joe!
what the hell is a nardvar
@@Joe_Brennan_ you are the nardvar
That was a problem in the RTD era. Rose as the Bad Wolf, Doctor Donna, nobody listen the Tenth Doctor in Midnight, Torchwood.
The whole point of the impossible girl arc was the Doctor realizing that she was just a normal girl in the end that made a grand gesture in order to save him, but still very ordinary, that's the whole deal, the message was that we could all be Clara if we chose to.
exactlyy
I like characters having interesting backstories sometimes, but when they overdo it with every. single. character. they completely miss the mark.. 😬
although I do agree with many points and I could in no way call any of what you said objectively wrong, for the reasons I like doctor who, I honestly love how ordinary humans could perhaps be important. I love having a character start off as important as any other human (and I do appreciate that the show doesn't make ordinary humans seem insignificant), and end up discovering more and doing more and eventually showing the massive potential and significance they have
i mainly just feel this way because the show's never felt too serious to me, at its best it's just serious enough to be realistic, maybe show off the intense emotions of people involved to attach me, but I like it being slightly silly to the point I can really escape into it
Made way more sense to me for The Doctor to be the one who experimented *on* the Timeless Child. A truth he/she locked away out of shame. The reason he/she swore ‘never cruel or cowardly’ after he was already known as The Doctor.
While my main gripe with the Timeless Child is undoubtedly the effect it has on the Doctor’s character, I can’t help but sympathize with the people who are concerned with its effect on canon. The retcon has such a damaging effect on some prior storylines that a lot of people (myself included) can’t help but feel at least a little frustrated and confused.
I’m not asking for perfect continuity, no one is, but I see no point in actively making it worse. A minor retcon here or there can be glossed over by most with the timey-wimey lens.
The Timeless Child sucker punches the canon in the gut and calls everything from the Valeyard to River Song into question. Again, my main problem is with what it does to the Doctor’s character and I think most would agree with that, it’s just that the plot holes give some objective ammunition to fire on the retcon with.
i think the timeless child will be explained with "the master straight up lied and hoodwinked the doctor massively"
I doubt even Chibnall knows how he'll deal with it going forward
"I've never met anyone who wasn't important." ~ The Doctor
I think this "every character is special" thing started in the first episode of New Who with the doctor beeing the only surviving Time Lord. Some of those "special" character arcs work like the one of Jack Harkness, but they definitly overdid it. I feel like the one thing season 11 and 12 got right where the more grounded companions and the relationship between Ryan and Graham.
I do appreciate the attempt to return to a more normal and grounded style of character, but I don't think the actual result worked, for reasons I'm actually currently making a video about
I wish they had an episode after hellbent where the doctor went to ancient galifray and basically bumbled his way into creating the idea for the hybrid prophecy through saving an ancient group of galifrayan scholers (set in the time before galifrayans invention of T.A.R.D.I.S.es)
I honestly think the addition of Ashildr was one of the worst decisions for a story line, I didn’t even think she suited the role either, honestly apart from new doctor who she was the worst character to exist on the universe
1:17 ...I’m just going to ignore that you grouped The Brigadier with The Abzorbaloff & Tasha Lem...
I literally forgot who Tasha Lem was.
Tasha Lem was very interesting but her character was wasted in Time of the Doctor.
I do agree with the broader point you're making, I think the conclusion you come to makes sense, but I also don't know that the Tumblr post is necessarily the best fodder to make that point, the post seems to be arguing that Martha's an interesting character on the basis of agency. She acts within the story, isn't just some passive set dressing which absolutely is important, if everything was the same but she couldn't exercise any agency in the story she would have been a much less compelling character, but the fact that her actions matter are part of what makes her interesting. That said the general point made here is correct and all this grand theatricality about how the doctor or any given character is the most important creature in the universe is dull and makes the character so much less interesting
Great video with some really good points made.
Personally I would make Jo Martin's Unknown Doctor turn out the be The Valeyard. That way she would still technically be The Doctor because the Valeyard spawned from the darker parts of the Doctor. Which in my opinion would be more interesting to reintroduce and explore this concept from the past and have her trying to mess with The Doctor's reprutation. Rrather than the show just be like "oh look a mystery past version of The Doctor you didn't know about, isn't that strange/mysterious and not a writer trying hard to leave a mark on the series?".
Seeing a scene from the Buffy musical episode (The song "Where Do We Go From Here?") and a clip from the Catherine Tate Show episode with David Tennant had me fangirling. And your reason for not liking the timeless child resonated with me. I hated that they made The Doctor some ultra-important Jesus-figure, when her actions and growth are what made her so important in the first place. The Doctor has become important to the universe because of their kindness and will to help out wherever they go, not because they're some mega-powerful immortal. Honestly, i could have gone without the whole Timeless Child arc, but even if they were set on it, it should have at least been the Master in stead. It would have way more sense and it's what I was expecting the first time I watched it.
I will say though, that Sacha Dhawan really SHONE as the Master. I had goosebumps with how well he portrayed the Master's anger and insanity. However, not even his acting could save the writing of Timeless Child.
Anyway, you have earned my subscription, sir.
I want to know why Martha jones never got a funko pop
I haven't even gotten to the end of 11's era but I have no doubts that this stuff with the Doctor and companions being The Most Important People in the Universe will continue being incredibly annoying to me. I am very much a Classic Who fan, and even when the Doctor becomes president of Gallifrey, I think is a bit much in trying to prove how very Important and Special he is. I just feel like Moffat intrinsically misunderstands the companions. Because the companions are Important. But not because they have some grand role in the universe or some kind of destiny to fulfill, but rather because they're just... Themselves. They're alive. And their lives, every single one of them, has meaning. To the people around them. To the Doctor. To the people they meet and help. Their lives are Important because every single person has the capability to be great, to do wonderful, good things and to help the whole world. They just need to be given the chance to. And that's really a wonderful message, I think.
Personally my favorite era of Doctor Who is the Third Doctor era with UNIT. I just really like the homey feeling of the show during that time. But just... One of the great contradictions that I love about that era specifically is in how by the very nature of who they are and what their jobs are, The Brigadier, Yates, and Benton are all disposable. And yet. They are still Important people who end up changing the world and doing great things. They're soldiers. Cannon fodder. Just bodies to die on the front lines as the really Important people behind the scenes like the Doctor do the real Important things. They are just rank and file that can be replaced at any moment, and they would (and have on a few occasions) admit that themselves. And yet, even though he knows this, the Doctor would gladly die in any of their place. Because they are Important. To him. To the world. To the whole universe. They are Special because they're the Doctor's friends and they're doing what no one else can because they are themselves. They're special because they're completely ordinary people with completely ordinary connections to the Doctor, thrown into extraordinary circumstances. And yet they survive and thrive and do good for the world and still manage to laugh and love and be human. And it's not destiny that lets them be and do these things. For any of them to have some great destiny to be or do otherwise would kinda entirely miss the point.
Sometimes I feel like a lot of people think that to heighten the stakes of a story and to make people care, that you need to make characters more Important and to expand the implications and scale of these stories as much as you possibly can! When really the only thing that matters is people. Get people invested in the characters, and that's all that matters. Very little can be happening in the grand scale of things, but so long as these people you care about are in danger, you'll stay engaged. I mean, that's largely why the Wargames remains to be my favorite story in all of Doctor Who. Because to watch these characters you've grown to love slowly but surely being forced apart is tragic enough. But to know that they will never remember what great and wonderful things they did, or the friends they made is absolutely heartbreaking! AND IT'S SO GOOD! In the grand scale of things, there isn't much at stake in the Wargames. Alls that's really at stake is the lives of a handful of soldiers from several wars in Earth's history. The universe wouldn't bat an eye at a few dozen soldiers vanishing in combat. That happens literally all the time. But because the friendship between the Doctor, Jamie, and Zoe is at stake and knowing that this is the end of it... THAT'S what keeps you invested and engaged. THAT'S what matters. And that's simply how you get people to care. Not because these people are Important, but rather that these people are important to the Doctor. And hopefully their friendship and happiness is important to you too. And I feel like Moffat somehow managed to lose that somewhere.
I do hope that this comment is somewhere near coherent. I am very tired right now and am probably writing in circles.
I just wish people would wait until the Timeless Child story is finished before they declare how wrong it was. Clearly, the Master is up to something. We should wait to see what it is.
bless you brennan
I didn't remember ashilda/me existing at all. I think my mind just blank her out.
this most important person in the universe thing is most certainly a modern era thing, but if you think about it, the doctors greatest human friend is actually the brig, he and his actor has been there through 5 decades of adventures, there is not a single character, played by the same actor, that comes close. Dont believe me, well consider this. We first met the brig in 1968, with the second doctor, they had a few adventures together, then the doctor regenerated and got exiled to Earth, at this point BRIGADEIR Lethbridge -Stewart, head of unit offered the doctor the job of scientific advisor to unit, giving him a home and purpose while stuck and was involved in NINETEEN of the 24 stories of thirds era. 4th had a few adventures with him (ending the 70's) 5th had 2 6th had one 7th had one (ending the 80's and classic era) In the dark times that were the 90's he was involved in 4 bbc specials, downtime, with Sarah Jane, where we meet Kate for the first time, 2 audio books with Lis and John Pertwee, and a documentary on the 3rd doctor with Jon and Liz Shaw. And in 2000 joined big finish and had adventures with 6th and 8th, then on SJA.One character all five decades up to his death, what have these children in modern day done that compares, they can do flashy world ending or important things, but whats wrong with quiet strength at your back?
I actually like Donna and Martha, Donna had none of the romance crap, they were just freinds knocking around, for one shining moment she was given a boost and was able to save the day, but unlike Miss oh so special bad wolf, human mind cant hold a time lord one so she lost her special to live, just an ordinary person, right place right time. Martha was a doctor her intelligence was a plus her pining for the doctor was rather pathetic, and the only thing that annoyed me about her. The less said about IT the better (CO I will not name it)
Top quality content mate!!
Thank you!
To be fair to the original comment, it wasn’t him saying you can’t criticise her , only that you can’t call her useless or unneeded.
It's just chasing the dragon's tail. Once you get a hit of big-mad-important plot stuff, you have to keep increasing the stakes because going back to the same old same old doesn't feel meaningful enough anymore. It generally works for movies, where you rarely have more than three plots to contend with. But with television, it just keeps going and going...
The Companion = The primary companion acts as an audience surrogate. They provide through the lens through which viewers is introduced to the series. The companion character often furthers the story by asking questions (often to help the audience understand too) and getting into trouble, or by helping, rescuing, or challenging The Doctor.
I love Classic Who, and RTD Who was fine, but when the threat was always on a global scale and everyone knew it, it was diminishing and ultimately boring. And when Moffat introduced these "important" characters, I slowly tuned out of NuWho. The Timeless Child was the last straw.
I think the Harry Potter comparison is a bit off. The entire point of Half Blood Prince is that Harry was not chosen by the universe to kill Voldemort. He was chosen by Voldemort to be the person that Voldemort was obsessed with killing, and the prophecy is "the person Voldemort is obsessed with killing who belongs to a family that opposes him will either be killed by Voldemort or kill Voldemort", which isn't that impressive a prophecy.
13:52 Scongo best villain
this is why i like bill so much! she was just a normal person, learning from the doctor. a big breath of fresh air after the ultra-important clara lol
Indeed.!.!.! You make a LOT of very good points.... Gratz! =)
River was blah, almost couldn't stand her. LOVED Clara. BEST companion, after Amy.
Couldn't stand River either. Liked Mels, though 😉
My main gripe with this video is that it was inspired by a post defending Martha for supposedly being a 'useless unneeded character.' The post doesn't claim that she's well written, nor that she is a better character because of the important things she did, only that she did them so therefore she isn't useless. This bugged me because the things she did didn't make her important, they made her useful. Traveling with the Doctor is what makes people important because it puts them in situations no one else has a chance to be in.
Another thing that bothered me was tying becoming important because a character happened to start traveling with the Doctor to being predestined to travel with the Doctor because they were already important. Sure, because of Time Travel River and subsequently the Ponds were predestined to be important in the writing, but the only reason River exists in the lore is because Amy decides to travel with the Doctor in the first place. Definitely a hail mary on Moffats part. And, big thing, River is only made more important by the villains who attach an importance to her not because she already was important. You bring up the fairy tale like making of the characters, but most of them don't start with those titles. Amy only waited because the Doctor landed in her yard. Rory only became the last centurion at the end of that season after wibbly wobbly timey wimey stuff happened. My point is that these characters weren't destined for these names, but because they interacted with the Doctor... shit happened.
I don't know if I made much sense in the second paragraph. Like, I'm not the biggest fan of the Moffat seasons and I agree with you that he tended to apply importance to characters before writing them as opposed to how Davies characters' usefulness and subsequent importance developed naturally over the course of their arc (Sans Wilfred-- and Donna technically).
Now, if you're still reading after all that unsolicited criticism, you kinda asked how people felt about Clara. I think her first arc would have worked better if she died and played a different version of her in each episode. Or at least three first half of episodes. The fact that it only happened a couple times and then we got one version of her for the rest really undermined her being so connected to his timeline. Especially since she didn't exist in the canon before her introduction. Of course this idea would mean leaving even less time to develop Clara and the Doctor's bond to justify her sacrifice than they already had, but I don't think they used that time wisely cause I didn't much care for her character before or after they resolved her mystery. Shame too because Jenna Coleman was great.
How much do you wanna bet that there will eventually be an episode, probably a series finale, where the Doctor goes back in time to before the beginning of the universe and while there ends up doing something that results in the Big Bang happening thus establishing the Doctor as the literal creator of the universe and therefore basically God?
I DO however, disagree about the "Prophecy" thingy.... Just because someone may know the "Prophecy", they may not know all of it... or how it comes about.... or any number of nuances that can effect it, or when it ACTUALLY may happen.... It can even "short circuit" the Prophecy if someone finds out about it...
Every single word you said. Just, THANK YOU
Absolutely nailed this one. For some reason, was never fussed about Amy, but was still a huge fan of the show. Then I felt the show spiralled into this obsession with her, so deeply, I lost interest in the show. Thought i'd come back to the show after missing a couple of years of Doctor Who and saw they'd just repeated something similar with Clara. I always thought I was just stuck in the past about DW, but you've nailed my reasoning for falling out of love with the show. The budget seemed to explode, and rather than little adventures here and there with characters you could relate to, the whole show centred around destiny and chosen ones.
The doctor was always someone under the radar and lurking in the shadows. They had a mysterious past that we sometimes saw glimpses into but nothing existential. They traveled around the universe helping people and although a few people noticed they never became a god or above the universe. They always seemed fascinated by the wonders of it all.
Or you could make them Jesus and comletly scrap the whole premise. Whatever floats your boat
You've summed up exactly what my problem is with modern Who, and in large part, why I stopped watching it
The RTD era kind of started the “companions are special” thing, and same for the Doctor themselves, but it wasn’t as bad as when Moffat or Chibnall built on it; granted, I think Moffat was more up his arse about it, although Chibnall screwed up mostly by trying to implement Classic Who material that... wasn’t the best stuff ever. Trying to explain the faces in “The Brain of Morbius”, a one-off element that got retconned out until Chris brought it back, makes one wonder what ELSE that didn’t matter before does own... I mean, Davros was a literal head in a jar by “Remembrance of the Daleks”, then Davies brought back his biological body sans a cybernetic arm.
But of course, the Doctor is most interesting when you do NOT try to focus on their backstory too much, and when you try to MAKE them special it’s all the more egregious. The Timeless Child is a neat idea EXCEPT that it’s the Doctor; everything else about that idea is great, but why could they not be a unique character? Unlike some I do NOT think the Master should have been TTC.
Some of the faces in Brain of Morbius were Morbius' old selves...
This is an excellent video, but I think 2 things are missing:
1) the Tumblr post you spent the beginning of the video tearing into was specifically about the accusations that Martha is "useless" and "unneeded", and it was saying that Martha DID do stuff, and the accuser(s) are the ones who are truly "useless". So your analogy to the brigadier should've been "you can't criticize the brigadier if you committed worse war crimes than he did", which is a pretty fair point IMO.
2) this isn't a professional opinion or analysis, just my own thoughts, but I think that there's a reason why the timeless child caused an even bigger outrage than all the other "wow u so important" reveals of the previous series.
You see, the companion has almost always been a stand-in for the audience - being human, making mistakes, asking questions, the whole shebang. You are supposed to identify with them, and many fans entertain the fantasy of running into the Doctor by accident and being whisked away with him to adventure across time and space. After all, what could possibly be better than that?
Answer: running into the Doctor by accident, being whisked away with him to adventure across time and space, AND being told that you are literally the most important being in the universe. Nobody wants to be a Martha, doing all the gruntwork while the Doctor is playing with the big boy toys. Being a Clara, who shares witty banter with him and also shaped his entire life across a thousand years? I'll take seven, please!
But the Doctor was always alien to the audience, both literally and figuratively. You can always become a companion, but you only get one chance to have been retroactively born as space Jesus (probably).
I saw scongo behind Hartnell. Very sneaky lord Brennan
13:52 for even less noticeable scongo
@@Joe_Brennan_ that's the one I saw 🤩
ah well there's another somewhere
Happy to keep seeing mr tardisposting in my recommended! Keep it up dude!
Thank you! Sorry I'm late to this comment
I really like this video and agree with a lot of the points here. But (I can't believe I'm saying this) I think maybe the point of the original tumblr post (or at least what I took from it) was that Martha had a lot of agency and made a lot of choices which affected the show in big ways which is a good departure from the stereotype of "the good looking woman who looks surprised when the doctor talks".
Maybe just my opinion
Honestly, I agree. I’ve had a few comments letting me know that a lot of people at the time were calling her “useless” and it was a specific way to disagree with that. I was kind of misinterpreting the intention. Luckily it wasn’t the whole basis of the video, just an introduction