I think a lot of the Clara hate comes from these points:
- She's introduced as this amazing mystery
- She becomes the most important person ever in the Doctor's timeline
- She's just as, if sometimes not more so, competent than the Doctor
- She's twee as hell (and I hate the word "twee")
While you may not agree with all of the above, those who do tend to see Clara as a Super Mary Sue.
I'm on the fence myself. I think she started off far more irritating, and they actually toned her down a bit as time went on, but overall, I'm ready for someone new.
To add to the list:
- Was sad that Danny died because it was "too ordinary", and that she was "owed".
- Attempted to kidnap The Doctor to a volcano, held his TARDIS keys as ransom for Danny's life, and then threw them away.
- Kept acting like the smarter character, or The Doctor's 6th grade teacher (this goes hand-in-hand with the "more competent" quibble).
Some of it I understand, but I think most of it comes down to fanboys/fangirls who put themselves in The Companion's shoes, and think they would be The Perfect Companion. Someone who knows what The Doctor is thinking, knows what he's going to do next, and is just always in-step with him. So when a Companion goes off the rails, they don't like that at all, they don't understand the underlying motivation, and they feel like she's less than. The hilarious part is that otherwise, she is that Perfect Companion, and sometimes annoyingly so.
I think it's also because Season 7 was kinda bad for a lot of reasons. It was split in 2 with many months in-between the two halves of the season. It seemed to sprint toward Amy and Rory's ending, which wasn't very good, and just chock-full of episodes with poor payoffs and bad pacing. Lots of real-world time between that and the Christmas Special. Then a good Christmas Special, with a Clara that would have maybe been more fun as a Companion, maybe not, who knows? She dies. Then we get introduced to Clara Prime, who is now this season's mystery girl. So people are coming off of Amy and Rory's end, which they've been crying over for months. Then they go into a Christmas Special where Clara rejuvenates The Doctor, and then summarily dies (like, she dies right after he decides it's okay to let someone in again!), and then they're supposed to give a shit about Clara Prime, who they then wait several months more to see. The rest of the season is actually pretty good, though it still has some bad pacing in some episodes, the finale isn't horrible and is a great set-up for the 50th, etc. etc. But the end of the 7th also ended the Clara mystery, and for some it wasn't good, for some it was a nice homage to the original series, for some it was okay.
Personally, I really liked Victorian Clara, and I tried to get that to flip over to Clara Prime, and I could never really make the connection. And it wasn't ever supposed to work that way, either, I just couldn't help myself. Season 8 and 9 Clara I liked more, and I think that was mostly because I liked Capaldi and the way she worked with him. I think it will be hard to use a different companion with Capaldi, who really owns his stage, but they've proven me wrong plenty of times in the past.
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I am gonna miss Clara. Always the possibility of a one off return or something but I can't see her showing up for at least a couple of series if that does happen.
I have trouble seeing who I want for the next companion. I certainly don't want "Me" because while I loved the acting I hated the character.
It certainly needs to be someone capable of keeping up with Capaldi. Maybe someone not from the present day, I'd love like a swordfighting pirate lass or something. Switch things up from the present day.
Maybe turn the Doctor into Dresden and give him a Murphy by letting his next companion be like a cop or something and a whole mystery murder thing has them meet. I dunno.
Why would a race of time travelers need prophesies? Just get in a TARDIS and go see for yourself surely?
I think this is a case of timey-wimey. But timelines can be changed, so /shrug.
A race of time-travellers would be all over prophecies. You can always go and look, but you always know maybe it was a time-traveller. And space and time are both big.
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Zilla36021st Century. |She/Her|Trans* Woman In Aviators Firing A Bazooka. ⚛️Registered Userregular
If Maise and Jenna ever got their own spin-off show:
Why would a race of time travelers need prophesies? Just get in a TARDIS and go see for yourself surely?
I think this is a case of timey-wimey. But timelines can be changed, so /shrug.
A race of time-travellers would be all over prophecies. You can always go and look, but you always know maybe it was a time-traveller. And space and time are both big.
I think it has to do with the whole "fixed point in time" thing. When a time traveler knows that X happens, it cannot be avoided without risking Time itself.
When a time traveler believes that X may happen eventually, they have room to change things.
So, Time Lord Bob goes ahead in time finds out that a Hybrid is going to sit in the ruins of Galifrey and when that's going to happen, and that becomes a fixed point in time and now cannot be avoided or altered without tremendous risk.
However, having a ghost powered super computer predicting things that will happen eventually gives them some wiggle room to alter things.
Really, it just goes to show that you need to make your prophecy machine a little more detailed on it's prophecy.
I doubt the Time Lords would have given two shits about the prophecy if it had been "At the very end of time, when the universe is reaching heat death and Galifrey, like every other remaining planet, is all rubble and ruins, the immortal hybrid of two warrior species is going to find a comfy chair in those ruins and sit back to watch the last star burn out, so maybe leave a bottle of the good stuff around, huh?".
Instead they get "The Hybrid will sit in the rubble of Galifrey" while they're fighting in the middle of the Time War and collectively shit themselves about what the Hybrid is, where it's coming from and how they can use their wiggle room to prevent this from happening.
Can someone tell me why there's so much Clara hatred in some circles? I've only seen S8 with her and liked her a lot - more so than Rose, definitely - but on FB I've read a lot of comments by people who seem to hate her with a fierce, white-hot hatred. Was she badly handled earlier on, or did I somehow completely miss her bad side in the episodes I've seen? (Haven't watched S9 yet, but I'm okay with some mild spoilage.)
Because she thinks she's as clever as the Doctor, and sometimes the writers even let her be, which is ridiculous on its face.
Her death was so perfectly earned. It's annoying that they wrote around it, although I guess inevitable in a time-travel series.
Really, it's the same reason Rose is my least favorite right alongside her. The point of companions is the be normal and keep the Doctor grounded. When they start to get superpowers and/or act doctor-y, it's redundant. (Rory gets a pass because his superpower was just suffering through endless tedium)
I wanted to ask them if it was bigger on the inside
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Dark Raven XLaugh hard, run fast,be kindRegistered Userregular
A nice indicator of the problem with early Clara is that Neil Gaiman wrote Nightmare In Silver under the impression it would be Victorian governess Clara in that story. So that was a fairly late and fairly large change...
Initially it felt like the writers didn't have a good handle on her character, so she didn't come across very strongly, but with Capaldi that's changed, and she's grown into a sterling companion. I dunno why she draws more hatred than any other companion. Of whether she does at all, in fact. There are lines of people queueing up to hate Martha, Donna, Rose and a host of the old companions.
Is there a line to hate Rose? If not, I would like to start one.
Or at least how she is handled as a character. She's had omnipotence, a special human version of the doctor made just for her, been strongly implied to be the only one the doctor ever felt romantic feelings for, been an avatar for the an entire alternate dimension, and was the personification of the most powerful weapon ever devised. Juuuust a bit OP.
Initially it felt like the writers didn't have a good handle on her character, so she didn't come across very strongly, but with Capaldi that's changed, and she's grown into a sterling companion. I dunno why she draws more hatred than any other companion. Of whether she does at all, in fact. There are lines of people queueing up to hate Martha, Donna, Rose and a host of the old companions.
Is there a line to hate Rose? If not, I would like to start one.
Or at least how she is handled as a character. She's had omnipotence, a special human version of the doctor made just for her, been strongly implied to be the only one the doctor ever felt romantic feelings for, been an avatar for the an entire alternate dimension, and was the personification of the most powerful weapon ever devised. Juuuust a bit OP.
Man I disliked Rose, but I thought Billie Piper's turn as the personification of the Moment was well done.
TraceGNU Terry Pratchett; GNU Gus; GNU Carrie Fisher; GNU Adam WeRegistered Userregular
oh please.
Rose gets too much credit. She does however get to be such a major part because after the War Doctor regenerated Rose was the first human face he saw. Can't blame him for latching on like he did.
I've liked every new companion. Or at least hated none of them.
I can't think of any I've thought yeah they were great! They're mostly just sounding boards for the Doctor to be excellent at. The only one I've hated was Donna because, well, Kathren-Fucking-Tate...
Rose gets too much credit. She does however get to be such a major part because after the War Doctor regenerated Rose was the first human face he saw. Can't blame him for latching on like he did.
Was she? IIRC it's strongly implied he was bouncing around on his own for a while. They show a bunch of pics of him on his own in various time periods while Rose is still trying to figure out who he is. I mean yes timey wimey so they could have happened after he met rose but still.
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TraceGNU Terry Pratchett; GNU Gus; GNU Carrie Fisher; GNU Adam WeRegistered Userregular
Rose gets too much credit. She does however get to be such a major part because after the War Doctor regenerated Rose was the first human face he saw. Can't blame him for latching on like he did.
Was she? IIRC it's strongly implied he was bouncing around on his own for a while. They show a bunch of pics of him on his own in various time periods while Rose is still trying to figure out who he is. I mean yes timey wimey so they could have happened after he met rose but still.
Ehhhhh. Maybe, it's tough telling now because of how Eccleston's run ended.
I mean regardless I'd feel safe saying she was the first companion after the Time War and that still gives her a bit of weight in the canon compared to others.
Also Billie has seriously evolved as an actress. It's sort of a shame she couldn't possibly be a companion again because now she's got some acting chops on her and is one of the people I think could keep up with Peter.
Also
With the best will in the world, I don’t want a bloke, because I’m frightened that they’ll give him all the action and I’ll be standing around spouting scientific gobbledygook. ‘Oh, Peter’s not up to chasing those Zygons down the corridor, let the chap do it.’ And that would be awful. I want to chase the Zygons!
I love it. As far as reasons for wanting a lass instead of a bloke that's about as best you can get.
God yeah going back and watching Eccelstons series now is... painful.
Also I can't wait for tumblr to get a hold of that quote and scream misogyny.
Casual on
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TraceGNU Terry Pratchett; GNU Gus; GNU Carrie Fisher; GNU Adam WeRegistered Userregular
edited December 2015
So alot of the Rose hate is just Billie wasn't as experienced an actress as she was when she was The Moment, which was actually pretty brilliant acting as the embodiment of an inanimate object.
That said, I think Capaldi's Doctor needs a not present day person to really get the best out of him. Either from the future or the past.
I loved Rose. Scrappy, brave, ordinary and special at the same time. The ending on the beach was perfect, and the happy ending they ended up giving her later was rubbish, but her cameo as The Moment was great.
The writing for Martha seemed to dip in quality during the second half of her season, and if you loathed Catherine Tate before Who it wasn't going to change your mind, but honestly you kids don't know you're born. We had Bonnie Langford as a companion when I was young. A keep fit fanatic in the Tardis trying to get the Doctor in leg warmers. Or Adric, possibly the single worst actor in all of space and time. We also had Ace, whom I liked, but she is very much a middle-aged man's idea of a teenage SF rebel, right down to the horrifically naff futuristic slang.
When the new companion is announced as being Joey Essex or something, then you'll know what real pain is.
Rose gets too much credit. She does however get to be such a major part because after the War Doctor regenerated Rose was the first human face he saw. Can't blame him for latching on like he did.
Was she? IIRC it's strongly implied he was bouncing around on his own for a while. They show a bunch of pics of him on his own in various time periods while Rose is still trying to figure out who he is. I mean yes timey wimey so they could have happened after he met rose but still.
Ehhhhh. Maybe, it's tough telling now because of how Eccleston's run ended.
I mean regardless I'd feel safe saying she was the first companion after the Time War and that still gives her a bit of weight in the canon compared to others.
Also Billie has seriously evolved as an actress. It's sort of a shame she couldn't possibly be a companion again because now she's got some acting chops on her and is one of the people I think could keep up with Peter.
Also
With the best will in the world, I don’t want a bloke, because I’m frightened that they’ll give him all the action and I’ll be standing around spouting scientific gobbledygook. ‘Oh, Peter’s not up to chasing those Zygons down the corridor, let the chap do it.’ And that would be awful. I want to chase the Zygons!
I love it. As far as reasons for wanting a lass instead of a bloke that's about as best you can get.
What? No, that's a dumb reason and it feels like Capaldi saying that he doesn't think Moffatt could write a good male companion. I mean, I know Matt Smith is younger than Peter Capaldi, but 11 did plenty of alien-chasing when Rory was around.
So basically, "I'm worried that if they have a younger man, he'll get to do all the fun action sequences instead of me. That's why they should hire another woman, because women can't be action stars."
I don't really like engaging the feminism button on the internet, but that one is a little too obvious, Capaldi.
If anything, it's more a historic observation (which makes sense given Capaldi's affinity for the show's history). The earliest companions specifically included a male "action hero" type so that the Doctor didn't have to fill that role. The Doctor didn't really do action until Pertwee came along, which coincided exactly with the first time he didn't have a male companion. Adric and Turlough were written as kids, not heroes. So that just leaves Harry, really, as a counterexample to the trend.
I think the show could definitely handle this dynamic without keeping the Doctor out of the action, but I get Capaldi's fear (though I presume the quote is a bit overblown compared to his actual feelings on the matter).
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SnicketysnickThe Greatest Hype Man inWesterosRegistered Userregular
A more charitable interpretation is that he's afraid that writers wouldn't know what to do with a male companion other than action stuff because most writers think feelings are for girls. I mean its a bad problem whatever way you slice it, but I don't think he's too far wrong in pointing out the shortcomings there.
(Note that I agree that its a bad thing and I'm not saying women can't do action)
So basically, "I'm worried that if they have a younger man, he'll get to do all the fun action sequences instead of me. That's why they should hire another woman, because women can't be action stars."
I don't really like engaging the feminism button on the internet, but that one is a little too obvious, Capaldi.
So basically, "I'm worried that if they have a younger man, he'll get to do all the fun action sequences instead of me. That's why they should hire another woman, because women can't be action stars."
I dunno if 'basically' means you get to add a bunch of stuff he didn't say to the end of the sentence.
You could easily read his answer as being a comment on a middle aged man feeling replaced by a younger model. Or you could read it as a jokey, self-deprecating answer with no sexist undertones unless you really, really want there to be.
So basically, "I'm worried that if they have a younger man, he'll get to do all the fun action sequences instead of me. That's why they should hire another woman, because women can't be action stars."
I don't really like engaging the feminism button on the internet, but that one is a little too obvious, Capaldi.
CALLED IT.
Are you calling me a Tumblr?
Pistols at dawn.
I'm not calling Capaldi a misogynist. That thing he said certainly comes from a place of unequal expectations based on gender, whether those expectations are his own, or just his fear about the writing staff, is uncertain, but unimportant. There's plenty of historical precedent to back his statement, sure, but c'mon.
Houn is not inventing the undertone there. Capaldi wants a lady companion so he can continue to be action guy. Whether that is his view or his realization of how each gender is written I can't say, but it's disappointing to read nonetheless. There could be 2 action guys! Or 2 guys who take turns being the action guy! Or the guy could not be an action guy - we're not all soldiers and superheroes, and guys can be confused about aliens and time travel just like ladies can.
Hell, at one point there was a robot dog companion. A human man shouldn't be out of the question.
I would like to see an alien companion for at least a season. Decent head prosthetic that allows for some facial expressions, coupled with a tech-savy dialogue, could really play off of Capaldi.
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TraceGNU Terry Pratchett; GNU Gus; GNU Carrie Fisher; GNU Adam WeRegistered Userregular
considering Clara and Amy had plenty of action scenes I doubt that's what he's saying at all. I know I don't want "action dude" or "action girl" as a companion if that's all they're going to do for the series
So basically, "I'm worried that if they have a younger man, he'll get to do all the fun action sequences instead of me. That's why they should hire another woman, because women can't be action stars."
I don't really like engaging the feminism button on the internet, but that one is a little too obvious, Capaldi.
CALLED IT.
Are you calling me a Tumblr?
Pistols at dawn.
I'm not calling Capaldi a misogynist. That thing he said certainly comes from a place of unequal expectations based on gender, whether those expectations are his own, or just his fear about the writing staff, is uncertain, but unimportant. There's plenty of historical precedent to back his statement, sure, but c'mon.
Yes but I still can't dredge up outrage over it. With so many more egregious examples going about I can look past an older man making an off the cuff jokey comment that unfortunately makes light of an ongoing social issue in the tamest possible way.
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To add to the list:
- Was sad that Danny died because it was "too ordinary", and that she was "owed".
- Attempted to kidnap The Doctor to a volcano, held his TARDIS keys as ransom for Danny's life, and then threw them away.
- Kept acting like the smarter character, or The Doctor's 6th grade teacher (this goes hand-in-hand with the "more competent" quibble).
Some of it I understand, but I think most of it comes down to fanboys/fangirls who put themselves in The Companion's shoes, and think they would be The Perfect Companion. Someone who knows what The Doctor is thinking, knows what he's going to do next, and is just always in-step with him. So when a Companion goes off the rails, they don't like that at all, they don't understand the underlying motivation, and they feel like she's less than. The hilarious part is that otherwise, she is that Perfect Companion, and sometimes annoyingly so.
I think it's also because Season 7 was kinda bad for a lot of reasons. It was split in 2 with many months in-between the two halves of the season. It seemed to sprint toward Amy and Rory's ending, which wasn't very good, and just chock-full of episodes with poor payoffs and bad pacing. Lots of real-world time between that and the Christmas Special. Then a good Christmas Special, with a Clara that would have maybe been more fun as a Companion, maybe not, who knows? She dies. Then we get introduced to Clara Prime, who is now this season's mystery girl. So people are coming off of Amy and Rory's end, which they've been crying over for months. Then they go into a Christmas Special where Clara rejuvenates The Doctor, and then summarily dies (like, she dies right after he decides it's okay to let someone in again!), and then they're supposed to give a shit about Clara Prime, who they then wait several months more to see. The rest of the season is actually pretty good, though it still has some bad pacing in some episodes, the finale isn't horrible and is a great set-up for the 50th, etc. etc. But the end of the 7th also ended the Clara mystery, and for some it wasn't good, for some it was a nice homage to the original series, for some it was okay.
Personally, I really liked Victorian Clara, and I tried to get that to flip over to Clara Prime, and I could never really make the connection. And it wasn't ever supposed to work that way, either, I just couldn't help myself. Season 8 and 9 Clara I liked more, and I think that was mostly because I liked Capaldi and the way she worked with him. I think it will be hard to use a different companion with Capaldi, who really owns his stage, but they've proven me wrong plenty of times in the past.
I have trouble seeing who I want for the next companion. I certainly don't want "Me" because while I loved the acting I hated the character.
It certainly needs to be someone capable of keeping up with Capaldi. Maybe someone not from the present day, I'd love like a swordfighting pirate lass or something. Switch things up from the present day.
Maybe turn the Doctor into Dresden and give him a Murphy by letting his next companion be like a cop or something and a whole mystery murder thing has them meet. I dunno.
I think this is a case of timey-wimey. But timelines can be changed, so /shrug.
A race of time-travellers would be all over prophecies. You can always go and look, but you always know maybe it was a time-traveller. And space and time are both big.
I think it has to do with the whole "fixed point in time" thing. When a time traveler knows that X happens, it cannot be avoided without risking Time itself.
When a time traveler believes that X may happen eventually, they have room to change things.
So, Time Lord Bob goes ahead in time finds out that a Hybrid is going to sit in the ruins of Galifrey and when that's going to happen, and that becomes a fixed point in time and now cannot be avoided or altered without tremendous risk.
However, having a ghost powered super computer predicting things that will happen eventually gives them some wiggle room to alter things.
I doubt the Time Lords would have given two shits about the prophecy if it had been "At the very end of time, when the universe is reaching heat death and Galifrey, like every other remaining planet, is all rubble and ruins, the immortal hybrid of two warrior species is going to find a comfy chair in those ruins and sit back to watch the last star burn out, so maybe leave a bottle of the good stuff around, huh?".
Instead they get "The Hybrid will sit in the rubble of Galifrey" while they're fighting in the middle of the Time War and collectively shit themselves about what the Hybrid is, where it's coming from and how they can use their wiggle room to prevent this from happening.
Because she thinks she's as clever as the Doctor, and sometimes the writers even let her be, which is ridiculous on its face.
Her death was so perfectly earned. It's annoying that they wrote around it, although I guess inevitable in a time-travel series.
Really, it's the same reason Rose is my least favorite right alongside her. The point of companions is the be normal and keep the Doctor grounded. When they start to get superpowers and/or act doctor-y, it's redundant. (Rory gets a pass because his superpower was just suffering through endless tedium)
(one of these:)
with the license plate "TARDISxb"
I wanted to ask them if it was bigger on the inside
Is there a line to hate Rose? If not, I would like to start one.
Or at least how she is handled as a character. She's had omnipotence, a special human version of the doctor made just for her, been strongly implied to be the only one the doctor ever felt romantic feelings for, been an avatar for the an entire alternate dimension, and was the personification of the most powerful weapon ever devised. Juuuust a bit OP.
XBL:Phenyhelm - 3DS:Phenyhelm
caught this in my lovely corner of Ohio a few months ago.
License plate reads "It's bigger on the inside"
Man I disliked Rose, but I thought Billie Piper's turn as the personification of the Moment was well done.
Plus it should have been Eccleston with her.
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Rose gets too much credit. She does however get to be such a major part because after the War Doctor regenerated Rose was the first human face he saw. Can't blame him for latching on like he did.
I can't think of any I've thought yeah they were great! They're mostly just sounding boards for the Doctor to be excellent at. The only one I've hated was Donna because, well, Kathren-Fucking-Tate...
Was she? IIRC it's strongly implied he was bouncing around on his own for a while. They show a bunch of pics of him on his own in various time periods while Rose is still trying to figure out who he is. I mean yes timey wimey so they could have happened after he met rose but still.
Ehhhhh. Maybe, it's tough telling now because of how Eccleston's run ended.
I mean regardless I'd feel safe saying she was the first companion after the Time War and that still gives her a bit of weight in the canon compared to others.
Also Billie has seriously evolved as an actress. It's sort of a shame she couldn't possibly be a companion again because now she's got some acting chops on her and is one of the people I think could keep up with Peter.
Also
I love it. As far as reasons for wanting a lass instead of a bloke that's about as best you can get.
Also I can't wait for tumblr to get a hold of that quote and scream misogyny.
That said, I think Capaldi's Doctor needs a not present day person to really get the best out of him. Either from the future or the past.
The writing for Martha seemed to dip in quality during the second half of her season, and if you loathed Catherine Tate before Who it wasn't going to change your mind, but honestly you kids don't know you're born. We had Bonnie Langford as a companion when I was young. A keep fit fanatic in the Tardis trying to get the Doctor in leg warmers. Or Adric, possibly the single worst actor in all of space and time. We also had Ace, whom I liked, but she is very much a middle-aged man's idea of a teenage SF rebel, right down to the horrifically naff futuristic slang.
When the new companion is announced as being Joey Essex or something, then you'll know what real pain is.
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What? No, that's a dumb reason and it feels like Capaldi saying that he doesn't think Moffatt could write a good male companion. I mean, I know Matt Smith is younger than Peter Capaldi, but 11 did plenty of alien-chasing when Rory was around.
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I don't really like engaging the feminism button on the internet, but that one is a little too obvious, Capaldi.
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I think the show could definitely handle this dynamic without keeping the Doctor out of the action, but I get Capaldi's fear (though I presume the quote is a bit overblown compared to his actual feelings on the matter).
(Note that I agree that its a bad thing and I'm not saying women can't do action)
D3 Steam #TeamTangent STO
CALLED IT.
I dunno if 'basically' means you get to add a bunch of stuff he didn't say to the end of the sentence.
You could easily read his answer as being a comment on a middle aged man feeling replaced by a younger model. Or you could read it as a jokey, self-deprecating answer with no sexist undertones unless you really, really want there to be.
Choose Your Own Chat 1 Choose Your Own Chat 2 Choose Your Own Chat 3
Are you calling me a Tumblr?
Pistols at dawn.
I'm not calling Capaldi a misogynist. That thing he said certainly comes from a place of unequal expectations based on gender, whether those expectations are his own, or just his fear about the writing staff, is uncertain, but unimportant. There's plenty of historical precedent to back his statement, sure, but c'mon.
Hell, at one point there was a robot dog companion. A human man shouldn't be out of the question.
Yes but I still can't dredge up outrage over it. With so many more egregious examples going about I can look past an older man making an off the cuff jokey comment that unfortunately makes light of an ongoing social issue in the tamest possible way.