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Post by Deleted on Apr 21, 2017 0:12:48 GMT
Well, while we agree on the problematic parts unequivocally, you've really got to look at family shows that were much bigger than Who like the aforementioned Black And White Minstrel show or It Ain't Half Hot Mum that were doing far, far worse than Talons well after 1977. If you're thinking Talons is one step away from the KKK, I can only imagine you've not seen them as they show a lot more racial insensitivity every 5 minutes than Talons does in 2 and a half hours. Shows like them, and many, many others would show that Who was doing nothing any old TV show from the BBC of that era wouldn't. The UK's favourite ever sitcom, Only Fools And Horses had much more overt racial slurs in the 80s. I can't hold Doctor Who up to different standards when that's just how telly was in this country at the time. We can, of course, now see it easily but we do so through the prism of 40 years and a lot of progress and from rather different societies. Even the rather puritanical BBFC, the film censors, of the 1980s only rated Talons a PG - suitable for all but the very young. When submitted for DVD in the 21st century? Still a PG. That's fair. I think a majority of the problems with it are reflections of the problems in larger society when it was made. I'd actually make the argument that Four to Doomsday is a great deal more racist than Talons is. "Bowl a very good Chinaman," was changed for the novelisation, the idea that Aboriginal Australians have a single dialect (and that Tegan would be able to speak it) is awkward at best and you can't help but side with Lin Futu when the Doctor quips "You look in the very best of health," when he introduces himself. There are a lot of really awkward and rather uncharacteristically bigoted things in that story. Edit: I only watched Talons as an adult but it rubbed me the wrong way right away. It reminded me of something I'd see from Hollywood in the 1930's-50's.. the exotic "oriental". In the late 60's and 70's you would have your "token race roles" but you wouldn't see something so inadvertently racist in my opinion. I mean look at someone like Sulu in Star Trek. Also in the 70's you had TV like "All in the Family" where bigotry was explored head on. I will also point out that the original Star Trek's depiction of race was laudable, but their depiction of women was often really awful. I'm not talking about Kirk's seductions either, they're often swayed by powerful, abusive men (Mitchell, Khan, even Kirk himself at one point), petulant (Elaan of Troyus), considered frailer (Spock's "Women are weaker and more easily intimidated"), manipulative (Nona), stupid ("Brain is brain! What is brain?"), straightforwardly mad (Lester and her "It's better to be dead than alone in the body of a woman.") along with a variety of other issues that keep cropping up. It wouldn't point it out except that... it happens a lot. And I mean a lot. Often enough that it becomes really hard to ignore. With the benefit of hindsight, the fan series Star Trek Continues had a whole episode devoted to addressing it. Every show is a victim of its own time in one way or another.
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Post by kimalysong on Apr 21, 2017 0:34:55 GMT
@wolfie53 I don't disagree with you. I do think even with the stereotype of "screaming female companions", Doctor Who in the 60's had much stronger roles for women than Star Trek TOS. As commendable as roles like Sulu and Uhura were they were still very much side characters on the TV series and didn't get the same development as Kirk, Spock, and McCoy.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 21, 2017 0:46:35 GMT
@wolfie53 I don't disagree with you. I do think even with the stereotype of "screaming female companions", Doctor Who in the 60's had much stronger roles for women than Star Trek TOS. As commendable as roles like Sulu and Uhura were they were still very much side characters on the TV series and didn't get the same development as Kirk, Spock, and McCoy. More's the pity really. Even Bones was a bit underdeveloped really, he often played the role of observer. I'm glad that later media decided to pick up on that and give them more fleshed out characters and backgrounds. Uhura's skills as a linguist came to the fore more often than not, McCoy got a daughter and even a few stories to himself like The Romulan Way, and Sulu, well, Sulu got his own ship.
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Post by kimalysong on Apr 21, 2017 1:06:42 GMT
@wolfie53 I don't disagree with you. I do think even with the stereotype of "screaming female companions", Doctor Who in the 60's had much stronger roles for women than Star Trek TOS. As commendable as roles like Sulu and Uhura were they were still very much side characters on the TV series and didn't get the same development as Kirk, Spock, and McCoy. More's the pity really. Even Bones was a bit underdeveloped really, he often played the role of observer. I'm glad that later media decided to pick up on that and give them more fleshed out characters and backgrounds. Uhura's skills as a linguist came to the fore more often than not, McCoy got a daughter and even a few stories to himself like The Romulan Way, and Sulu, well, Sulu got his own ship. We are going to get off topic but as McCoy is my real love of Star Trek I thought he was pretty developed as the emotional counterpoint to Spock's logic.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 21, 2017 1:27:27 GMT
More's the pity really. Even Bones was a bit underdeveloped really, he often played the role of observer. I'm glad that later media decided to pick up on that and give them more fleshed out characters and backgrounds. Uhura's skills as a linguist came to the fore more often than not, McCoy got a daughter and even a few stories to himself like The Romulan Way, and Sulu, well, Sulu got his own ship. We are going to get off topic but as McCoy is my real love of Star Trek I thought he was pretty developed as the emotional counterpoint to Spock's logic. Hey, me too. Doctor's Orders has got to be one of my favourite books because it's all about McCoy. DeForest Kelley did an amazing job keeping that balance of lovable and irascible and I think Karl Urban's almost peerless in replicating the character for the reboot.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 21, 2017 1:39:11 GMT
More's the pity really. Even Bones was a bit underdeveloped really, he often played the role of observer. I'm glad that later media decided to pick up on that and give them more fleshed out characters and backgrounds. Uhura's skills as a linguist came to the fore more often than not, McCoy got a daughter and even a few stories to himself like The Romulan Way, and Sulu, well, Sulu got his own ship. We are going to get off topic but as McCoy is my real love of Star Trek I thought he was pretty developed as the emotional counterpoint to Spock's logic. Yeah, that's the great thing about TOS. For all the talk about the three of the main characters, it's really the two of them representing the two sides of Kirk's nature battling each other. It's a lovely structure. Mind you, old Leonard could be quite racist towards Spock on occasion.
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Post by kimalysong on Apr 21, 2017 13:35:00 GMT
We are going to get off topic but as McCoy is my real love of Star Trek I thought he was pretty developed as the emotional counterpoint to Spock's logic. Hey, me too. Doctor's Orders has got to be one of my favourite books because it's all about McCoy. DeForest Kelley did an amazing job keeping that balance of lovable and irascible and I think Karl Urban's almost peerless in replicating the character for the reboot. Diane Duane is one of my favorite Star Trek authors We are going to get off topic but as McCoy is my real love of Star Trek I thought he was pretty developed as the emotional counterpoint to Spock's logic. Yeah, that's the great thing about TOS. For all the talk about the three of the main characters, it's really the two of them representing the two sides of Kirk's nature battling each other. It's a lovely structure. Mind you, old Leonard could be quite racist towards Spock on occasion. I always say the most interesting relationship was between Spock/McCoy not Spock/Kirk. At least the 3rd of the recent films finally got that.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 21, 2017 13:37:48 GMT
We are going to get off topic but as McCoy is my real love of Star Trek I thought he was pretty developed as the emotional counterpoint to Spock's logic. Yeah, that's the great thing about TOS. For all the talk about the three of the main characters, it's really the two of them representing the two sides of Kirk's nature battling each other. It's a lovely structure. Mind you, old Leonard could be quite racist towards Spock on occasion. Oh, yes, but -- and this is what I found most endearing -- beneath all the bickering, there was a genuine, mutual respect between the two of them. Arguably not as deep as Kirk and Spock's, but nevertheless a very keenly felt friendship. He even defended him from Kirk when it looked as though he'd gone rogue and was abusing his position aboard the Enterprise for his own personal gain. Hey, me too. Doctor's Orders has got to be one of my favourite books because it's all about McCoy. DeForest Kelley did an amazing job keeping that balance of lovable and irascible and I think Karl Urban's almost peerless in replicating the character for the reboot. Diane Duane is one of my favorite Star Trek authors I'm still trying to track down all her books, I've enjoyed all of them so far. She's got this wonderous, starry-eyed approach that works really well for Trek. That and having Sulu do a Crazy Ivan in warp with the Enterprise is so insane a manoeuvre it won me over instantly.
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aztec
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Post by aztec on Apr 21, 2017 16:09:06 GMT
I'm not actually sure if it was critically acclaimed, or merely seems to be popular with many fans, but I remembering both intensely disliking and being rather bored by The End Of Time longwinded overblown and self indulgent it showcased RTD's excesses at his worst i.m.o, the 10th Doctor had really begun to get on my nerves a bit by that point and I haven't yet found the motivation to re-watch it...
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Post by charlesuirdhein on Apr 21, 2017 16:46:09 GMT
I'm not actually sure if it was critically acclaimed, or merely seems to be popular with many fans, but I remembering both intensely disliking and being rather bored by The End Of Time longwinded overblown and self indulgent it showcased RTD's excesses at his worst i.m.o, the 10th Doctor had really begun to get on my nerves a bit by that point and I haven't yet found the motivation to re-watch it... I've rewatched it because I was doing a rewatch of all the post 2005 series, but it's definitely one I don't choose to watch independently. There were things RTD got so right, this wasn't one of them. And for those that complain that Moffatt "ruined" the Time War with DOTD, oh dear heaven, imagine the cr*p that an RTD version of that episode would have been like?
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Post by relativetime on Apr 21, 2017 17:54:28 GMT
I'm not actually sure if it was critically acclaimed, or merely seems to be popular with many fans, but I remembering both intensely disliking and being rather bored by The End Of Time longwinded overblown and self indulgent it showcased RTD's excesses at his worst i.m.o, the 10th Doctor had really begun to get on my nerves a bit by that point and I haven't yet found the motivation to re-watch it... The regeneration is what bothered me most of all. Not necessarily the "I don't want to go" line but just before he takes Wilf's place - his whole rant about he could have been so much more. If it'd just been taken out of the script entirely, it would have really been a powerful moment when he said "it would be my honor." Instead, the script takes the power away from that line, at least for me - I can't help but think, "no, it really isn't an honor, the Tenth Doctor's just doing this out of obligation." And the whole farewell tour really should have just been shortened down to the last scene - his goodbye to Rose. We'd already seen most of these characters just a year ago at the time, so there was absolutely no need whatsoever besides self-indulgence to revisit them again. Again, it goes on for so long it lessens the impact of the moment. Of course, there's also the whole rest of the episode, which is as you described it - longwinded and very overblown.
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melkur
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Post by melkur on Apr 21, 2017 20:09:20 GMT
I'm not actually sure if it was critically acclaimed, or merely seems to be popular with many fans, but I remembering both intensely disliking and being rather bored by The End Of Time longwinded overblown and self indulgent it showcased RTD's excesses at his worst i.m.o, the 10th Doctor had really begun to get on my nerves a bit by that point and I haven't yet found the motivation to re-watch it... Same here. Whilst I like it enough, I think I might have enjoyed it more if (say) it had been a feature length episode (say an hour-and-a-half odd) rather than a two-part Christmas special totalling about two-and-a-quater hours
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melkur
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Post by melkur on Apr 21, 2017 20:10:43 GMT
I wouldn't say that I'm 'not so keen' on "Genesis Of The Daleks" (it's a decent story), but as much as I like it, for me at least, it's not really "the best story ever!" worthy...
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Post by mark687 on Apr 21, 2017 20:19:12 GMT
I wouldn't say that I'm 'not so keen' on "Genesis Of The Daleks" (it's a decent story), but as much as I like it, for me at least, it's not really "the best story ever!" worthy... One moment I'll just get Nyder and a Mark 3 Travel Machine
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mark687
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melkur
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Post by melkur on Apr 21, 2017 21:06:18 GMT
I wouldn't say that I'm 'not so keen' on "Genesis Of The Daleks" (it's a decent story), but as much as I like it, for me at least, it's not really "the best story ever!" worthy... One moment I'll just get Nyder and a Mark 3 Travel Machine
Regards
mark687
Don't get me wrong, I like it, it's a decent enough story, buuuuuut I don't know... (weak double-shoulder shrug)
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Post by Ela on Apr 25, 2017 19:43:59 GMT
Talons of Weng Chiang for me..yes it gave us Jago and Litefoot it's wonderfully directed. These are all positives. But sorry its racist, even for the 1970's. Word. I can't get past the Asian stereotyping enough to truly enjoy this one.
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Post by Ela on Apr 25, 2017 20:01:35 GMT
It's kinda interesting that both you and Kim are North Americans and find it so overtly racist by even 70s standards - wheras it's never lost it's classic status with UK fans at all, or fandom in general given the polls, even though many now will cite it as their reason for a dislike of the story. I can't find any contemporary complaints - the reviews I've read from nearer the time from the Times even in cultural history books like Dominic Sandbrook's work concentrate criticism on the giant rat more than anything to do with the racial slurs and depictions. Even years after Talons, in the UK, we had Ali Bongo - a faux-Asian magician dressed much like John Bennett was in Talons - still as a fixture of light entertainment TV. I'm not at all suggesting it's acceptable by our standards but perhaps that in 1977 in a different country, one where The Black And White Minstrel Show was still a big hit on TV (featuring blackface Jolson style acts by the barrel load)....it wasn't quite as obviously unacceptable. I was just a kid when I saw it for the first time, and I grew up in a very white community, so I don't think just how racist it was the first time I saw it. I think the turning point for me was Alyssa Franke's essay at Whovian Feminism, where she breaks down why the episode is so problematic. I've watched it since then and I have to agree with a lot of her conclusions. It's a great story, certainly, but it's about as racist as you can get without actually climbing out of the television and burning a cross on my lawn. That's a really good article. I followed her link to the synopsis of Kate Orman's review of Talons of Weng Chiang, “'One of us is yellow': Doctor Fu Manchu and The Talons of Weng-Chiang" from the Book Doctor Who and Race: Sounds like Doctor Who and Race might be an interesting book.
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