November 27, 2023 - 7:00am
“My pronouns are the definite article, I am always the Meep,” proclaimed the suspiciously cute alien to a curious, yet compliant, David Tennant on Saturday’s Doctor Who special. It is a sign of the times that such a forgettable line, mouthed by a fluffy extraterrestrial on a children’s science fiction show, ratcheted the British culture wars up to 11. Judging by the reaction on social media, a cameo from Suella Braverman would’ve been received more charitably.
Earlier in the episode Meep, voiced by Miriam Margoles, is shown bonding with non-binary character Rose, played by young trans-identified actor Yasmin Finney. Finney discloses with all the gooey sentiment of Tiny Tim sucking a Werther’s Original that “sometimes I feel like I’m from a different planet”, then saves the world by way of “non-binary” energy.
Triggering what he sees as Middle England has arguably become something of a hobby for Doctor Who writer Russell T. Davies (he/him before you ask). And it’s fair to say he has form as an outspoken transgender rights activist, having previously lambasted those seeking to detach the LGB from the T. Indeed, before the 60th anniversary Doctor Who show aired he told a press event he knew there were some people “full of absolute hate and venom and destruction and violence, who would like to see that sort of thing wiped off the screen entirely”. He added: “Shame on you, and good luck to you in your lonely lives.”
It’s hard not to conclude, then, that Davies views the majority of licence fee payers — those who keep him wrapped in luxury beliefs — with contempt. While he might consider himself to be a superior being imparting a message of trans tolerance and pronoun peace to an imperfect universe, others outside the BBC bubble disagree.
No one wants to be one of those reactionary bores who huffs and puffs about a kids’ television show, but it seems fair to ask: what purpose does championing a niche ideology on Britain’s public broadcaster serve? And in whose interests is it?
To Davies and his supporters, the casting of Finney as Rose is a victory for trans representation. And to the kids watching, in particular those with autism, the idea that they can identify out of their loneliness, and out of their sex, will have all the appeal of a must-have Christmas toy. Yet it is a dangerous fantasy, one which too often leads youngsters to bind, medicate and even have surgery to reveal their “authentic selves”. Unlike the fantastical Doctor Who, their bodies will not regenerate.
In science fiction, one sometimes needs to take a quantum leap over black holes, to overlook the flaws in a creative paradigm. Logically Doctor Who doesn’t make a lot of sense, but it is as much of a British institution as the BBC itself and it just seems impolite to ask questions. But when Martians begin to moralise, when live political issues are levered in and viewers begin to feel hectored rather than entertained, any goodwill ebbs away.
The only anachronistic tells in Doctor Who are when it ventures into politics, from the Iraq War in 2005 to today’s bullying about trans ideology. It is tempting to wonder whether future audiences of cybermen and cyberwomen might be warned about the offensive and dangerous messages reflective of the time.
As Tom Baker, arguably the best Doctor Who, once said, “You know, the very powerful and the very stupid have one thing in common: they don’t alter their views to fit the facts; they alter the facts to fit their views.”
Looking at the hubris of those making decisions at the BBC , it’s tempting to suspect they are both stupid and powerful.
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SubscribeWe should count ourselves lucky the BBC didn’t put Stars of David on the baddy aliens. It’s only a matter of time.
I know Doctor Who isn’t realistic in a lot of ways, but the thing that really gets me is how characters in the midst of what are supposed to be incredibly dangerous, upsetting situations will suddenly break of to have heartfelt and/or trivial discussion, usually in the service of clumsy exposition or telegraphed character development.
So, besieged in their own house by gun-toting aliens and facing – as far as they know – imminent violent death, the trans character of course raises an objection about pronouns, leading to a conversation to ensure the furry alien is not mis-gendered (whereas said furry alien is apparently about to be kidnapped or executed). Whereas in real life, you or I (trans or not) would be shouting “f*** the pronouns, run!!”.
My gay teenage daughter and I were both slack-jawed in astonishment while we watched it on Saturday. The fact that her reaction to Pride is ‘It’s OK to be gay. Get over yourselves.’ suggests that I might have had some influence on her, but we remember when Doctor Who was entertaining and not just lots of shooting of ray guns and endless virtue signalling. Time to can it imo. God knows what the new series is going to be like.
I’ve got my clipboard on my lap in preparation for the new series, ready to play PC, tick box bingo. Fun for every gender, everywhere!
When did ‘the’ stop being an article, and start being a pronoun?
Good grammar is bigotry.
Correct answers are racist.
This kind of trannie/queer propaganda is destroying young people. It is the normalization of perversion and mental illness and psychotic delusion.
And the US government have paid billions into the promotion of this stuff. Why?
A sick population is easier to manipulate and make money from.
Check out the11thhourblog.com for the money trail
Yes. Watched it for a little feel good nostalgia and it just made me feel sick.
Grow up, the BBC
I’ve never watched the re-booted Doctor Who, so I haven’t seen this, but it strikes me that they may have inadvertently stumbled on a useful thought experiment.
The Meep (by the way, is there just one Meep or is this Meep part of a collective, like The Borg in Star Trek?) is an alien so – unless they explain this in the show, which I doubt – we can’t assume anything about its species biology.
It could be that The Meep’s species does not experience sexual dimorphism as humans do. After all there are species even here on Earth, like the Clownfish, which can change between male and female phenotypes in response to environmental conditions. So The Meep’s home planet conditions could have given rise to a type of reproductive biology which is so unlike humans that our categorisation of male and female according to small/large gamete dimorphism doesn’t apply and the terms “him” and “her” genuinely have no meaning.
On the other hand, it could be that The Meep’s species has essentially the same sexual dimorphism and male/female categories as humans and The Meep self-identifies as neither. In which case, by insisting on being referred to by the definite article, is The Meep compelling all the other Meeps to go along with magical thinking about its gender identity? If so has anyone asked the rest of the Meeps how they feel about this? Maybe The Meep is using its self-ID’d gender identity to insist on being allowed into the female category at the Meep Olympics and taking medals intended for female Meeps.
Anyone who thought Russell T Davies was the king under the mountain for saving this trashfire franchise from its own mental writing staff got a rude awakening. It turns out he is as much of a loon as all of the others. The difference between 2005 RTD and 2023 RTD is staggering.
A little success – or a lot – can go to your head quite easily.
I remember when using pronouns was considered rude and ill mannered “who is she? The cats mum!”. now it’s considered rude not to and my tempted response is even ruder as I want to reply with my pronouns are “grow the f*** up!”
anyone else spot the spelling mistake? “Championing a niche ideology” two of the middle letters are completely wrong and the c is in the wrong place. Am I surprised that the beeb is championing this ideology, no! Not at all, they championed Jimmy Saville too!
Some new pronouns for the BBC “out of/business”
If it had been ironic, it might just have worked. The astonishing truth though I fear is that there wasn’t a hint of irony in it at all. The idea of taking themselves less seriously is literally unthinkable
The Daleks having that ‘proddy’ thing at the front is both sexist and transphobic. But there are, at least, some darker Daleks so we’re safe there.
Finney is a trans identifying male actor. As for pronouns, Davies’ agitprop appears to be forwarding the deconstruction of grammar by having pronoun usage as a means of repositioning into another sex class – taking the sex component of a 3rd person pronoun and using it to reclassify into another sex class. That usage has the pronoun acting as a common noun.
IMO, the BBC are engaging in the promulgation of a gnostic metaphysics.
In the lunchtime soap opera Doctors last week, the BBC apparently lectured us about the ‘furry community’ and how we ought to be more accepting of them and their ‘fursonas’. In a show aimed mainly at pensioners. Niche ideologies is right!
We should congratulate Davies and the BBC for getting this right: the idea that you can blow up the binary and change sex is pure science fiction!
The Doctor’s pronouns are who/whom.
the Gallifreyan language does interesting things with tenses, apparently.
Brilliant!
If any of the stories in the original series of Dr Who were didactic, it was in a way that didn’t insult the intelligence of the viewers. And in a way that it was possible to disagree with.
In the four-part story, Four to Doomsday, the delusional dictator Monarch, played by the late Stratford Johns, observes of the apparently compliant Doctor, ‘Conformity! The only true freedom!’ Tom Baker’s Doctor agonises over the moral dilemma of destroying the entire Dalek species forever. Even if evil can be eliminated forever, is it right to commit genocide?
In this latest special episode of Dr Who there was what one must charitably describe as a tribute to ET. The evil fluffy white cat from outer space (a Bond villain pet with delusions of grandeur?) hides among other soft toys in the trans person’s bedroom. Only this time it’s sussed out by the Mom.
What makes the didactic approach so noticeably cack-handed in this latest episode is the structural problem of the one story per episode. As the Doctor was always a detective, not a social engineer, the story needs to run over a number of episodes to turn the screw of suspense and unravel the mystery in a satisfying way.
If the audiences of today have the attention span approaching that of illiterate peoples, the multi-part structure of the original series would be unwatchable. Instead, there is substituted noise, shouting, running around, and enough gods from machines to make a whole divine pantheon of cyber supreme beings. And if the historical settings of some of the originals were revisited, such as the English Civil War, Marco Polo’s journeys, or onboard the Mary Celeste, these would have to be ‘decolonised’.
The decision the BBC made to ‘retire’ or ‘rest’ the original series was apparently made on the grounds that this programme that exhibited a strange and inexplicable British eccentricity was silly compared with Star Trek (a vehicle for promoting various progressive issues, such as same-sex relationships) or Star Wars (as if the Muppet Show transferred to space wasn’t silly).
Charles Stross already did the ‘villain with a white cat, only the cat’s the villain.’
“the Doctor was always a detective, not a social engineer” – There is nothing wrong with retraining later in life (lives?).
Good point made here about the danger that left-liberals pose to the most vulnerable, isolated and fragile in our societies which are proving too open at the moment under the yolk of a particular ideological hegemony.
Defund the BBC tax.
I’m not sure why you bring the BBC into this. This kind of virtue signalling is prevalent everywhere, regardless of the channel or production company. Also, Doctor Who is not produced by the BBC, but by Russell T. Davies’ own company.
I’m not sure I care as much as some, but I felt the dialogue around all of this felt extremely clumsy and intrudes into what was otherwise enjoyable.
The Doctor could be a genuine starting point for our perception of male and female – having appeared as both. But the writers would rather pander to the pronoun set. It’s been better handled by Terry Pratchett – whose Discworld dwarfs, male and female, all have beards – and earlier on by Theodore Sturgeon: “The World Well Lost” postulates an alien race (the Dirbanu) whose males are humanoid, while the females look very different. Result, culture shock on both sides.
‘Trojan horse’ program. Propaganda masquerading as entertainment. Seen before in the likes of China whom BBC tries to emulate.
I think the Doctor is dealing with an alien being. I doubt any of us know what pronouns are appropriate in that circumstance.
I watched the DR Who episode and just sat there slowly losing the will to live as predictable wokey points were made with thud blundering predictability. I stopped watching it early in the last season but one, and will now have to stop watching it again.
Bridgeton, that got praised like crazy, was unwatchable pap.
But I liked Vigil, and that had the requisite modern colour palette, but with believable and rounded characters, and played with gender fluidity (and also tap danced lightly around the idea of well intentioned people causing harm thinking good intentions absolved them, the Scottish Nats obsession with MI5, and the idea that just because Russia isn’t run by the Tory Party it’s a cuddly alternative to nasty America).
Whoever wrote that is miles ahead of Russell Davies (Oooops I just de-initialised him) at writing.
“(he/him before you ask)”
I’m still chuckling at that line. Well done!
The key exchanges in the dialog of this episode (the “is it sexist” comment) sailed right over my head and I took the pronoun exchange to be poking fun at using pronouns. IOW I thought Rose was just being bullied for more mundane reasons and only discovered otherwise by reading the review in The Telegraph of all places. Wish I hadn’t now read the review now, because I enjoyed the episode and saw it as a return to the traditional style of fun unpreachy episodes.
It very much wasn’t poking fun at ‘pronouns’. It was the most pro-faced, humourless, smug & self-righteous poke at anyone who isn’t completely captured by this supposedly hard-done -by ‘minority group’, which uses shouting, vicious language and actual incitement to violence in their desperate bid for affirmation of their private fetishes.
#BeKind. Right. Just not to women or anyone with a passing acquaintance with reality…
I too took it as Russell T Davies taking the micheal out of the writing of his successors. The Daily Telegraph review failed to change my mind on that.