Post by nucleusofswarm on May 26, 2021 12:23:11 GMT
So, Jay Excl put out a 5 hour video essay on the current era (youtu.be/o8_A7n83Rh0) that was critical but also wasn't a hive of conspiracies and nasty language. I do think some jumping the gun and lumping it in with the NMDs was unfair, and I get in this age of the internet, provocation is just a reality of internet survival.
The video's comments section, unfortunately, is another story and highlights a lot of problems with discourse around Chibnall's era, pro and anti - good points or observations that are immediately undercut by cheap attacks, othering and hyperbole that is more meant to insult someone who disagrees, rather than adding to the critique. To illustrate, here's one such comment which you can find there (f-bombs altered):
''There's another aspect to Rosa that makes the story utterly ridiculous that wasn't mentioned.
It's the fact that a I need to stop swearing white supremacist as we would understand it even exists that far in the future in the first place. Krasko stated he's from the 79th century, so around 7800 AD. Rosa Parks' bus protest took place in 1955, which, on a side note, was a planned deliberate protest and not a result of happenstance like the episode suggest, meaning even if Krasko stopped it, she would probably just get back on the bus a week later and try again.
This means Krasko was born approximately 5,845 years after the bus protest took place, and almost 6,000 years after Rosa Parks' death. Just to give an idea of how astronomically long a time that is, 5,845 years before 1955 is around 3,890 BC, 600 years before the beginning of recorded human history with the invention of writing in Ancient Mesopotamia.
The founding of the city of Rome in 753 BC is closer to Rosa Parks than Krasko is, and you expect me to believe anybody that far in the future, when the USA has probably long since ceased to exist, actually cares?
I'm not saying any and all forms of xenophobia would disappear by that point, what I am saying is that it would take on a form utterly alien to any contemporary form of thinking (sort of like how the Ancient Greeks thought themselves the best people in the world or something). Considering how prevalent humanity is in the Whoniverse Krasko has likely never even been to Earth and was probably born in a different Galaxy, he'd probably be more concerned with, idk, those darn no-good Jupiter Colonists or Glaborgians or whatever other crazy shit exists at that point. Or, you know, the genocidal space trash cans, emotionless cyborgs, killer statues and numerous other eldritch abominations that exist in the Whoniverse.
"Future space racist travels back in time to stop civil rights movement" is the kind of silly, over-the-top storyline I would come up with as a joke and the fact that it even got past the I need to stop swearing pitch meeting is kind of just a testament to how idiotic and tone-deaf these people are. Like this is it? This is our future? There's nothing else? Nothing better in store for our species? Nothing to strive for? We're going to be locked in this exact same bullshit setup for eternity?
Do you know what the point of Science Fiction is? It and fantasy are speculative fiction, SPECULATIVE. As in, they are genres that attempt to imagine worlds and histories and civilizations different and alien from our own. It's to imagine and to think about what could be, not haphazardly slap what does exist where it doesn't belong.
And that's kind of the problem I think with Chibnall Who, at the end of the day. Chibnall, and the rest of the hack writer team the bloated carcass that is the BBC has put together. They have no imagination, no creativity, no interest in imagining what society and civilization might look like in the future, what we might turn into. The best thing they can honestly come up with is to just copy/paste the present into the future. It's a perfect microcosm as to why Chibnall should never be allowed near any form of speculative fiction ever.
Remembrance of the Daleks did this shit better and that was a story about two armies of different coloured Daleks blowing each other up.
Abolish the TV license, I hope the British government guts the BBC like a pig. Just take Doctor Who out back and put it out of its misery so I can just kick back and watch my classic series DVDs in peace.
Also where the fiddlesticks was the Time Agency during this whole mess?''
The video's comments section, unfortunately, is another story and highlights a lot of problems with discourse around Chibnall's era, pro and anti - good points or observations that are immediately undercut by cheap attacks, othering and hyperbole that is more meant to insult someone who disagrees, rather than adding to the critique. To illustrate, here's one such comment which you can find there (f-bombs altered):
''There's another aspect to Rosa that makes the story utterly ridiculous that wasn't mentioned.
It's the fact that a I need to stop swearing white supremacist as we would understand it even exists that far in the future in the first place. Krasko stated he's from the 79th century, so around 7800 AD. Rosa Parks' bus protest took place in 1955, which, on a side note, was a planned deliberate protest and not a result of happenstance like the episode suggest, meaning even if Krasko stopped it, she would probably just get back on the bus a week later and try again.
This means Krasko was born approximately 5,845 years after the bus protest took place, and almost 6,000 years after Rosa Parks' death. Just to give an idea of how astronomically long a time that is, 5,845 years before 1955 is around 3,890 BC, 600 years before the beginning of recorded human history with the invention of writing in Ancient Mesopotamia.
The founding of the city of Rome in 753 BC is closer to Rosa Parks than Krasko is, and you expect me to believe anybody that far in the future, when the USA has probably long since ceased to exist, actually cares?
I'm not saying any and all forms of xenophobia would disappear by that point, what I am saying is that it would take on a form utterly alien to any contemporary form of thinking (sort of like how the Ancient Greeks thought themselves the best people in the world or something). Considering how prevalent humanity is in the Whoniverse Krasko has likely never even been to Earth and was probably born in a different Galaxy, he'd probably be more concerned with, idk, those darn no-good Jupiter Colonists or Glaborgians or whatever other crazy shit exists at that point. Or, you know, the genocidal space trash cans, emotionless cyborgs, killer statues and numerous other eldritch abominations that exist in the Whoniverse.
"Future space racist travels back in time to stop civil rights movement" is the kind of silly, over-the-top storyline I would come up with as a joke and the fact that it even got past the I need to stop swearing pitch meeting is kind of just a testament to how idiotic and tone-deaf these people are. Like this is it? This is our future? There's nothing else? Nothing better in store for our species? Nothing to strive for? We're going to be locked in this exact same bullshit setup for eternity?
Do you know what the point of Science Fiction is? It and fantasy are speculative fiction, SPECULATIVE. As in, they are genres that attempt to imagine worlds and histories and civilizations different and alien from our own. It's to imagine and to think about what could be, not haphazardly slap what does exist where it doesn't belong.
And that's kind of the problem I think with Chibnall Who, at the end of the day. Chibnall, and the rest of the hack writer team the bloated carcass that is the BBC has put together. They have no imagination, no creativity, no interest in imagining what society and civilization might look like in the future, what we might turn into. The best thing they can honestly come up with is to just copy/paste the present into the future. It's a perfect microcosm as to why Chibnall should never be allowed near any form of speculative fiction ever.
Remembrance of the Daleks did this shit better and that was a story about two armies of different coloured Daleks blowing each other up.
Abolish the TV license, I hope the British government guts the BBC like a pig. Just take Doctor Who out back and put it out of its misery so I can just kick back and watch my classic series DVDs in peace.
Also where the fiddlesticks was the Time Agency during this whole mess?''
This is a prime example of what has been going wrong across the board: the first few paragraphs are a well thought and interesting perspective (I can't say I agree wholly that science fiction is just speculative (it is very much also reflective)), but then the commenter screws it all up with an unnecessary and petty attack on the production team that doesn't enhance the prior criticism in anyway, and is too blunt and mean-spirited to be seen as funny, like Jay does in the video. He had a point worthy of discussion, but because of the internet being the internet, couldn't help himself and just had to be a d*ck to people he has never met and automatically assumes malice.
He was close to the finish line and tripped himself up for no logical or sensible reason, save for 'but that's what Cinemasins/Doug Walker/lots of review and commentary channels on YT spent over a decade teaching me was the proper way to talk about media'.