The Doctor Who Became The Patient

When, twenty five years ago, Kate Mulgrew was cast as captain Kathryn Janeway, the lead role in Star Trek Voyager, I was indifferent to the facts of her immutable characteristics with regards to this decision. The show was mostly well scripted and an entertaining fantasy science fiction show that respected and understood that which gave the intellectual property value. It simply did not occur to me, or my fellow 'Trekkie' friends at the time, to make criticisms of her casting based on the actor/character's sex (or indeed any other of her unchangeable facets). Likewise with the other characters cast; they were well written, the show was largely character driven and they drove stories that explored ideas that were fun to ponder upon and be entertained by. Their immutable characteristics just were not relevant to anything there.

Similarly, I'd be pretty much indifferent towards this decision of casting Jo Martin as Doctor Who (src: is.gd/F5s7Wg), as I was with the previous casting of Jodie Whittiker in the lead role, if not for something undeniable yet rendered unmentionable: The  pandering to a few quenchless intersectionalist ('woke') idealogs at the evident expense (eg is.gd/q7LqxS) of genuine creativity, entertainment and that which merits the intellectual property itself. This is now so obvious to anyone who has been following the show that to claim it is indistinct would be deluded. I know I am far from alone in this view, although it may not be as widely expressed as it is popularly held. That is because there is risk of a cost levied by the 'wokerati' on making such views public: to be labelled and libelled unjustifiably as a sexist/racist and have your livelihood put at risk. Many an employer would think twice about hiring or maintaining the employment of individuals that have somehow had such accusations made at them. So what clearer demonstration could there be than this sad state of affairs that, as the renegade comedian George Carlin said, "Political correctness is fascism pretending to be manners"...?

The criticism widely held is that much of the script and casting decisions are patently made not to explore ideas, but as a vehicle to present a world-view to the audience that it must accept under pain of civil ostracization. A word-view where the Doctor, having previously been the opposite sex, remarks "I've had an upgrade", as one example from a recent episode presents. Now lets just imagine that Wonder Woman became 'Wonder Man' whilst flaunting this transformation as an 'upgrade', and then consider in what world this would at all be acceptable? More sexism is equality now, is it? This is progress? I see. It is as though the bullies that once mocked Doctor Who fans as geeks and nerds in the days of 'my' Doctor (Tom Baker) are now both the show's makers and its ideological enforcement wing.

This 'adventure' highlights a malady throughout the BBC. In the 1980s, the show fell from favour as a cheaply made but nevertheless popular early Saturday evening show, only for a recognition of its merits to propel it, in its revival in 2005, to the corporation's flagship family drama, as well as to become a perennial feature of the Christmas day schedule. The observation that this ever so British treasure has been captured and corrupted by ideology and is seemingly beyond self correction could just as easily be a description of the entire institution from which it was birthed.

So what remedy for this ailment? A return to an environment where criticism can be made without repeated defamatory ad hominems would help. Back in 2005, when I was, for a period, intrigued by the show's reboot, I discovered that an environment such as this made forums of the show's fandom an enjoyable little hobby for many. The 'lore' furthered speculations, comparisons, preferences and arguments which were quite necessarily endless and good humoured if somewhat pointless. Ideological propagandizing has now sucked the joy out of what is meant to be a harmless and entertaining distraction for all the family. Were it possible to have a reasonable conversation in such a fandom forum today, one suggestion could be to consider, as the idiom roughly goes, why the worst patients are themselves doctors.

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PostScript (16 02 20):

In the 3 weeks since writing this, credited writer Joe Hill (IMDB, son of author Steven King) told how he had his script submission to Doctor Who rejected based on the fact that he was American.

"...the email I got back said 'we have never let an American write Doctor Who and if we were going to, we wouldn't start with you'!"
Joe Hill - source:

This was a blatantly hostile pre-judgment of the work's merits based the author's nationality. This is xenophobic, plainly wrong and may even be illegal. It seems, however, Hill is happy to laugh it off, given he has a platform to somewhat expose the ridiculousness of the rejection. At the very least it demonstrates that the outcome of the ideology is what psychologists know as projection; the professed virtue of the lecturing ideologue rests on their world-view that everyone doesn't know that they are prejudiced and needs to be 'educated', this being the externalization (the projection) of the ideologue's own prejudice (xenophobia in this case). It just seems to me another wasted opportunity for a failing intellectual property. But this is how the ideology is self defeating, with its own self assuredness that it knows best and the best thing to do is to repeatedly shoot itself in the foot.

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PostPostScript (20 02 20):

In my blog I asked,
"What clearer demonstration could there be than this sad state of affairs that, as the renegade comedian George Carlin said, "Political correctness is fascism pretending to be manners"?
When reviewing my text I considered that, although this is a clear demonstration of cultural authoritarianism, the possibility of a clearer demonstration could not be ruled out. I therefore think it worth adding that a more literal (and thus clearer) demonstration of Carlin's maxim has since been made: A High Court Judge drew an equivalence between the Humberside police's actions to those of the Nazi's Gestapo when the former visited and cautioned a man about his politically 'incorrect' opinions (source: Miller V College of Police judgement #259).