It’s funny how in the last two seasons of Doctor Who, the overtly political episodes we’ve had have been this:
- Islamophobia is correct (the Zygon episodes were said by Moffat to be parallels to Islamophobia, and then in the episodes themselves, they portrayed as all Zygons as evil terrorists, even the ones that say they’re trustworthy)
- GMOs are evil and will end all life on Earth (that’s very explicit, you’d have to have not watched Pyramid at the End of the World to miss that message)
- Fake news is a big problem (I don’t know if this really counts as overtly political in the episodes though because there is no mention of it at all? But apparently Whithouse says that’s what the Monk trio is about? Maybe it’s tackled in the next episode, since we haven’t gotten there yet)
Also, Harness and Moffat are the two that are responsible for most of these episodes.
Boy do I love it when my shows turn into Republican propaganda.
I miss when Doctor Who was more left-wing than right-wing.
“
GMOs are evil and will end all life on Earth
“ is not an actual message of the actual programme. Source: I
have watched Pyramid at the End of the World.
Fake news is from the right. It started being the description for all those “Clinton is deathly ill! And secretly a demon!!” things being pumped out on crap sites. The episode uses fake history on the scale of, like, “white people made all civilisation ever”—it ain’t right wing. It’s a sucky episode but it also names fascism as a thing that needs fighting. eg the one right there.
By the way, the stretch to call Pyramid more overtly political than Thin Ice or Oxygen??? LOL.
3 weeks ago Doctor Who overthrew capitalism, buddy. It’s more left-wing.
It’s a real reach to see Pyramid as being anti-GMO. The science lab was getting along just fine until that one hungover guy came in and messed everything up, so really I think the takeaway from that episode was more “if you’re a scientist doing important work, please do not drink to excess and come to work reeling from the aftereffects, you will fuck things up*” which seems a pretty fair message really.
As for the Zygon episodes, god they’re bad in many ways, but they do end in a firm anti-war message and end with the lead perpetrator/”terrorist” forgiven and living peacefully side-by-side with humans (plus we see a few Zygons who just want to lead ordinary lives, and are told that the vast majority of them want to do that) so I will concede at least that despite the sheer ineptness of those episodes, there’s….that, regardless of whatever Steven Moffat says the episode was or wasn’t about.**
And look – Doctor Who is not “Republican propaganda”. Currently, it’s built up a black, working-class lesbian woman as not just a capable companion, but pretty much the representation of all that’s good on Earth. It showed an episode which presented punching a racist as the correct thing to do (making real racists angry as fuck, incidentally). It condemned capitalism, condemned the concept of fake news, made fun of Donald Trump, pointed out that history is usually whitewashed, cast a large number of actors of color, finally cast disabled actors in both disabled and neutral roles, and shown Bill as being completely confident and happy with her sexuality. The show is often written very clumsily indeed (having an almost entirely white male writing team, no matter how apparently politically liberal, DOES NOT help with that) and I think we should criticise them every time they mess up, but Republican propaganda? Jeez!
*Or, you know, at least you should pull a sickie….
** I’ve googled “the zygon invasion islamophobia steven moffat” and variations thereof and I can’t find anything where he says the episode is about Islam/Islamophobia. Was it in DWM? Can you tell me where it was?