Doctor Who

It's sad that the intelligent, capable companion Zoe is mostly remembered by fanboys for that scene in "The Mind Robber" where she's lying on the console sticking her large butt in the air.

the sexist and objectifying nature of lingering the camera on Wendy Padbury's prominent bottom.

I hate the reference in "Red Dwarf" to Felicity Kendall's butt for the same reason - it's dehumanising, sexist crap.
 
Hermit of Archenland said:
I'm sure some will respond that girls are inundated with examples in popular culture of women who are weak and passive and they need to see examples of women who defy this stereotype. I would reply that boys are equally exposed to examples of men who are aggressive and violent and who are disrespectful and exploitative towards women and that it's even more important (for the sake of girls as well as boys) that they should have male role models who do not conform to this stereotype.
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Unfortunately, it seems like a lot of writers and directors respond to the problem of passive female characters by creating overly aggressive ones, as well. I hope the new Doctor isn't that way, but it's much too common in a lot of books and movies. And it's no more authentic to real women's personalities and concerns than the stereotypically passive woman.

Of course, I'm sure it's much easier to swing to one extreme or the other than to actually bother with the nuances that make a well-written character. The same goes for men--if we don't need overly aggressive men, we also don't need passive ones who are treated as jokes. Some mature, or maturing, characters would be a positive change, but sadly I think they're harder to write.
 
Princess Frances said:
It's sad that the intelligent, capable companion Zoe is mostly remembered by fanboys for that scene in "The Mind Robber" where she's lying on the console sticking her large butt in the air.
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I'm afraid I never really noticed Zoe's posterior. There were some other bits of her I remember with fondness though!

And before you get upset at that, what I mostly remember Zoe for was giving the Doctor a run for his intellectual money in The Krotons, knocking the stuffing out of the Karkus in The Mind Robber and wiping out the Cyber fleet in The Invasion

Zoe was a pretty girl but I would not have found her nearly so attractive had I not already admired her for her intelligence and courage. I suspect the same is true for many of the 'fanboys' you complain about.

Like it or not human beings are sexual creatures. Whenever you have an heroic figure admired by someone of the opposite sex, physical attraction will usually play some part in that, although it will seldom be the primary reason for adulation. There's nothing in the least sexist about that; it's just human nature. There was after all no shortage of female fans obsessing over David Tennant's looks.
 
If you are of Chinese background or know someone of Chinese extraction, avoid The Talons of Weng Chiang (Fourth Doctor). A lot of Chinese-American and Chinese-Canadian groups got it banned from many stations in North America back in the seventies and I doubt that it would be repeated on a mainstream BBC channel today without protest from Chinese community groups.
 
A short deleted scene from back in Series 8 has surfaced. The Doctor reveals a little secret about what he saw in the Untempered Schism... and some of his speculation on whether Gallifrey might be gone or not. Clara listens attentively on what he has to say, but dissuades him in the end, reminding him that Gallifrey might be gone forever.

This was originally supposed to be in In the Forest of the Night, but they cut it. I'm torn on whether it was a good decision or not. I think its presence in the episode would have made me rate the whole thing a bit higher. As a rare bit of foreshadowing for Gallifrey in Series 8, it wouldn't have been bad either, especially in light of that series' finale, and what came the next year. Above all, I love hearing what the Doctor supposedly saw during his initiation ritual. A forest is not something you'd expect him to see. In my book, it might speak to the kinder side of his complicated personality. Maybe it's not accepted as canon due to the deleted scene, but to me, this is now the officialest of official headcanons for me. On the other hand, maybe the scene would be superfluous to the rest of the episode. (But it wasn't that brilliant an ep, so... Maybe they should have kept it.)
 
Especially after K9 joined the cast, it did occasionally feel that, between K9 blasting everything that moved and Leela sticking a knife in the rest, the Doctor’s main role was to protect the aliens and let some of them escape alive.
 
Princess Frances said:
Especially after K9 joined the cast, it did occasionally feel that, between K9 blasting everything that moved and Leela sticking a knife in the rest, the Doctor’s main role was to protect the aliens and let some of them escape alive.
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We never had K9 up against the Daleks though. Probably just as well as either K9 would have been demolished or the Daleks discredited by losing to a robot dog!
 
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