this post was submitted on 03 Mar 2025
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Propaganda for what?
Bludgeoning social matters into everyone's heads using garbage storylines. Like Time Traveling Space-Nazis trying to sit in Rosa Parks seat...
The constant references to racism, equality, blah blah blah blah...
Doctor Who has always had these things as a subtext to their episodes but that's what they were...SUBTEXT. They weren't front-and-center bludgeon you over the head with ongoing social issues shit.
That's why everyone stopped watching and why their viewership is in the trash.
I think what you're trying to say is that the social commentary has lost a lot of nuance, as well as the general quality of the writing going down, in which case I agree. Kinda toeing the line of the 'everything is woke now' crowd though, to which I would say you haven't seen/understood much Doctor Who if you think social issues are only recently a part of the stories.
For the record the Rosa Parks ep was one of my favourites for Jodie, but it's a low bar.
I mean I'm definitely on the left-progressive end of the spectrum but even I thought the writing got too "woke", or rather too on the nose.
The worst one imo was the giant spider in the hotel owned by a Trumpian figure. "Trump" wanted to shoot it, but the Doctor wouldn't let him because that would be wrong. Instead, she let it "humanely" suffocate itself to death, locking all of its offspring in a room to cannibalize themselves and die.
I never thought I'd find myself more sympathetic towards the Trumplike figure rather than the Doctor.
I covered that already with
Everyone knows that Doctor Who has always had this kind of social subtext; but it was more moral dilemmas on a broad scale, rather than specific ongoing social issues in the real world.
Like the way they did the Ood. It was a soft introduction, up until the point where we find out why they are like that and then The Doctor works on fixing it.
That's great -- sometimes parallels to our own social issues can make for a great story; so long as the story is focused on first and foremost and the approach isn't solely on trying to push that particular social viewpoint.
As it is now, I wouldn't be surprised if they made a big orange president try to give up his nation to the daleks as an episode...