Political Correctness in the classic series?

Are there any scenes or moments in the classic series that you'd term as being politically correct?

Battlefield has a fair amount of them. Usually digs at the Brigadier for assuming the new Brigadier Bambera is a man, and not respecting the independence of Ace or Lavelle.

That's probably the most militant classic who example.

That's a rather harsh way of looking at it. They seemed more to be an affectionate acknowledgement of his old-fashioned nature rather than being mean about it.

The 'mean' part of it to me is that Lavelle probably wouldn't have died if the Brigadier had insisted on doing the chivalrous thing and sticking around as her bodyguard. But the story won't let him do that. The new modern era, modern rules approach, seems to firmly reject and disdain that kind of chivalry, no matter what.

Lavelle deserved to die, all this "everyone lives" tepid rubbish is exactly the kind of bullshit which neutered & destroyed Doctor Who.

In fact, JNT bottling it and not snuffing the Brigadier was "political correctness", the same with Peri.

It's also called lacking a fucking backbone.

I'd say as early on as "An Unearthly Child" when the Doctor says "Close the doors please Susan" is probably the first example of "political correctness" within the series.

What Hartnell should've said instead is "Eat it, bitch" and ruthlessly slapped Susan to the floor whilst Chesterton sexually assaulted Barbara over the console.

After they'd both abused the women they could've then all collectively blacked-up whilst singing "Mammy" before the end credits.

All these whining lily-livered Liberals spoil all the fucking fun. 

It's PC gone mad.

"Doctor Who is about people dying, lots of them!"
- Rob Filth


This quote has always stuck with me from the old Hive. I don't believe it myself, but I do see the importance of people dying in a story. NuWho is quite often tension free because you just know someone is going to wave a magic wand to bring everyone back again. I liked him, but how I can I ever fear for someone like Rory when they make a joke out of how many times he dies?

Pepsi Maxil wrote:This quote has always stuck with me from the old Hive. I don't believe it myself, but I do see the importance of people dying in a story. NuWho is quite often tension free because you just know someone is going to wave a magic wand to bring everyone back again. I liked him, but how I can I ever fear for someone like Rory when they make a joke out of how many times he dies?

Actually for the first few seasons I thought New Who's approach did have a tension to it. It did feel like TV returning to an old fashioned, more reactionary genre in which death abounded a lot as a matter of storytelling tropes.... and there was a sense of the modern Doctor being a lot more passionate about fighting against such tropes to want to preserve life and prevent the dreaded inevitable.

And I'd say that was a core part of the excitement running through the new show (and occasionally it was even sometimes still there in Series 11, such as Woman Who Fell To Earth and Resolution).

RTD often succumbed to the temptation to cheat it with a miracle happy ending, which might not been a problem if he'd only done it once or twice, but of course he didn't. And then Moffat doubled down on that "everybody lives" approach completely. When RTD broke the rules, it still felt like this was meant to be a freak anomaly in an otherwise cruel universe. With Moffat it just felt like that universe was all his and he could just decide nothing bad ever happened in it.

I think if you overdo death however, as the show frequently did in the Pertwee and Davison era, it can have a desensitizing effect of losing its dramatic impact. Or it can plain just leave you not enjoying the show anymore, not seeing the point in it, and not wanting to continue investing in it (*especially* if you give up trusting that the makers even remotely know what they're doing anymore with this mindless body-count approach). Which was pretty much my reaction to Resurrection of the Daleks at age 15, and I wouldn't be surprised if much of the audience of the time began to feel the same way about the show, hence the ratings troubles.

It's not helped when sometimes the character reactions to death just weren't believable, such as how quickly Adric is forgotten minutes into Time-Flight, or how nothing the Doctor does in Warriors of the Deep suggests he's even aware a massacre's going on at all. Death, when it happens, should be a motivating factor (or learning curve experience) to the protagonists, and when it isn't, then I think something's clearly not working.

I'm not sure what Chibnall's approach is meant to be yet. Back in Torchwood he was just the shock and gore maestro who was just giving us Saward without the charm. With Jodie's era he's had to put on more of an awkward child-friendly facade, and sometimes it's clear his heart isn't really in it. Sometimes, as I said, his era is an attempt to homage that early Tennant period with a humanist Doctor raging against the show's tropes. But in the end I was left not caring.

Pepsi Maxil wrote:"Doctor Who is about people dying, lots of them!"
- Rob Filth

I can't remember actually saying that, but I'd like to elaborate further.

Doctor Who should be about:

Episode 1; Introducing as many fucking stupid cunt characters as possible ending on a monster/s reveal at the end

Episode 2: Stupid fucking characters realise they are under threat from monster reveal from end of previous episode and try and barricade themselves from said threat after maybe a few deaths to heighten the threat.
Monster/s breaks through protective barricade at end of episode.

Episode 3: Monster/s kills fucking loads of stupid fucking characters one by one until just a handful of them left with Doctor & co who have been locked up several times in the previous 2 episodes by stupid fucking characters under suspicion of being a threat. Doctor convinces them he can save them and rigs up a safety net barrier/foil to delay threat but Monster/s breakthrough this at the end of the episode.

Episode 4: Monster/s kill the rest of the fucking stupid cast apart from the Doctor who stumbles across a eureka moment in discovering monsters weakness & eliminates it shortly after the last fucking stupid cast twat is killed horribly. Doctor frets and reflects, "Humans, so weak and fragile in their mortality, I must try harder next time" before departing in TARDIS.   

Rinse and repeat for an entire season.

Rob Filth wrote:

Pepsi Maxil wrote:"Doctor Who is about people dying, lots of them!"
- Rob Filth

I can't remember actually saying that

I remember you saying it in a post about Resurrection of the Daleks. You mentioned Styles and Mercer and the fact that they were prepared to kill themselves in order to defeat Davros. I can't remember much else from the post and unfortunately that version of the Hive is missing.

IT IS NOT MISSING, IT IS DESTROYED. THE END.

iank wrote:IT IS NOT MISSING, IT IS DESTROYED. THE END.

In other news, Ian Levine has hacked IanK's account! The dastardly phucker!

That would be Phil Morris, actually.

PRAISE ME!