"Female directors have defied the odds"

[Cherry Pepsi Maxil]

Found this obnoxious article from Radio Times written by the overrated Rachel Talalay. Doctor Who has had some terrific female directors such as Sarah Hellings, Fiona Cumming and Blink's Hettie Macdonald. I've never liked Talalay though, probably because she's one of those directors that thinks she's the absolute shit despite directing one of the worst movies of the 1990s in Tank Girl.  Here's the article:

www.radiotimes.com/tv/sci-fi/doctor-who-female-directors-rachel-talalay-comment/


"24 per cent of the highest-rated modern Doctor Who episodes were directed by women.



As a filmmaker, a director of eight Doctor Who episodes and a research geek, I calculated that figure using IMDB’s 1-10 rating system. 21 episodes of Modern Doctor Who are rated 9.0 or higher — and five of those (24 per cent) are directed by women.



Given that only 15 per cent of all Modern Who episodes are helmed by women, that’s punching above its weight, or more technically, highly statistically significant.


This leads the maths geek in me to proclaim sensationally: "Proof! Women directors make better Doctor Who episodes than men!" Or, perhaps: "Women are better directors!" Or even: "Women are better than men – full stop."



Wow, that was fun; that was cathartic, just writing those words. But the empiricist Talalay knows that things are more complicated."

She also had this to say about Tank Girl:

"I am Tank Girl. In 1995 I directed a wacky, riot-grrrl-power comic book movie of this iconic character. It called out the patriarchy. Its b-storyline mirrors all the #MeToo harassment and bullying that was going on around us back then (and sadly continues). It did not break the glass ceiling for female action leads. It put me in movie jail. But it has found a wonderful cult following now. It has its acolytes. And, as happens with Doctor Who, fans tell me how much it means to them, how it empowered and energised and even saved them."


I hate to bring it up, but five of the ten episodes in IMDB's bottom ten list for NuWho are directed by women, but there's a narrative to uphold here.

Apart from Heaven Sent, I find a lot of her work bang average. Hettie Macdonald's work on Blink is superior to anything she's ever done.

[burrunjor]

Can't stand the woman personally. 

She has directed some of the absolute worst moments of trash in DW's history. Missy and the Doctor kissing, Osgood's death, Cyber Brig, Hartnell's Doctor being a sexist, homophobic, sexual braggard, the General's regenderation, the Toymakers dancing around like a c*nt, and the line "do you come in a range of colours?" 

To be fair a lot of these were down to the script being dogshit, HOWEVER, Talalay certainly didn't get the best out of them. She could have told Michelle Gomez to tone it down, be more Delgado, less Cathy from Two Doors Down, but she actively encouraged her to be as ridiculous as possible, turning Missy into a panto dame in terms of her personality. Similarly Osgood's death she could have maybe suggested to Moffat that they not make it so cartoonish, having Missy show to the two guards she has escaped by putting her lipstick on whilst they are standing right beside her (and has just openly threatened to kill someone) and they do NOTHING in response. FFS the guards don't even react when one of them is shot, which to be honest is down to her direction as much as the turgid script. 

She also should, if she's such a DW fan like she claims, who has studied the original series, have seriously objected to how Hartnell's Doctor was treated, but no saw nothing wrong in absolutely trashing the man who made it all possible.

On top of that outside of the series she also was responsible for bringing in a lot of the toxic identity politics to the shows fandom. She promoted Whovian Feminism for instance, a woman who sneered at the critics of a female Doctor as stupid men with not enough disposable income anyway. 

She can piss off as far as I'm concerned, and her still trying to push this identity politics drivel at this stage is embarrassing. 

Women are better than men – full stop. Wow, that was fun; that was cathartic, just writing those words."

What age is she? I mean seriously? That's the type of thing I thought people grew out of when they were 10! I love the way though she thinks that I'm probably threatened as a man by her saying that. All I think is "war of the sexes stuff? Yeah that's cute when you're like 6. Not 46."

To be honest all she's done with her contributions is show that sadly very few men and women know how to make proper DW these days, given a man wrote the turgid scripts she directed, but she did nothing to salvage them and in some cases managed to make them even worse! Both sexes suck at doing DW if they have 0 respect for the shows past, as seen with her and Moff's desecration of Hartnell and the Master, and if they are focusing on stupid identity politics rather than story, and if they don't take it seriously as seen with Missy, a panto villain in every sense of the word. 

[ClockworkOcean]

Apart from Heaven Sent and the Series 10 finale, all of the episodes she's been involved in are among the very worst in Doctor Who's history. Her tenure on the show coincided with its transformation from a mainstream ratings juggernaut into a widely despised toxic brand. Every feature film she's ever directed has been a critical and commercial flop. What the hell does she have to be so smug about?

[burrunjor]

Mar 10, 2024 16:30:24 GMT ClockworkOcean said:

Apart from Heaven Sent and the Series 10 finale, all of the episodes she's been involved in are among the very worst in Doctor Who's history. Her tenure on the show coincided with its transformation from a mainstream ratings juggernaut into a widely despised toxic brand. Every feature film she's ever directed has been a critical and commercial flop. What the hell does she have to be so smug about?

Even then Heaven Sent and the series 10 finale are not the masterpieces people claim they are. 

The former is followed up with one of the worst episodes in the shows history, and both also feature a retcon that at the time was almost as bad as the Timeless Children, the Hybrid prophecy (and it was Heaven Sent that introduced it.) Also the Doctors motive that drives Heaven Sent being to endure 4 and a half billion years worth of torture to change time itself and risk destroying the entire universe is literally the complete opposite of what every Doctor would have done, even in New Who!  The S10 finale has Missy, which I'm sorry it cannot be a classic if she's in it. She is a literal parody of the Master. It would be like trying to take The Dark Knight seriously with the Romero Joker. On top of that she is at her most Cathy in this episode. She is literally just the annoying, I'm so kooky, eccentric and crazy neighbour in this episode. Oh I might add the S10 finale as I've posted before also makes the Doctor morally no better than the Daleks, the terleptiles, Sutekh etc as like all of them he argues that it's okay for more advanced species to kill supposed lesser races. 

DOCTOR: She got us home from Mars.

BILL: She's a murderer.

DOCTOR: Enjoying your bacon sandwich?

BILL: Why?

DOCTOR: Because it had a mummy and a daddy. Go tell a pig about your moral high ground.

Meanwhile it also has a cop out, ridiculous, Disney, happy clappy ending that undermines the Cybermen (again), smutty 90s, blokish sitcom jokes made about the Master getting a stiffy at his future self, mixed in with self loathing anti male crap like the infamous "is the future going to be all girl." "We can only hope." To be honest you can judge Capaldi as an actor saying those lines. I mean ffs, he has to have SOME pride in himself surely? Jon Pertwee refused to do comedy routines after Spearhead (for the most part) Lisa Edelstein left House when she felt they had made her and House's relationship too toxic and undermined her character, a previously strong woman, yet Capaldi willingly debases himself as a man? 



LOL an oldie but a goodie. Haven't watched this vid since probably 2017, but hey we are talking about who from that time so it makes sense.  

It works because of the Cybermen bits, and John Simm's Master in the first half where he gives his best performance. (Sigh, just think if there had been no pissy missy and that was his first appearance in 7 years, unannounced. Would have rivalled Earthshock.) 

As it is though it can only be considered a flawed at best classic.  

[iank]

Yawn. More self-congratulatory narcissism.

[rushy]

I think Talalay does fine directing Doctor Who (any issues with those stories are much more likely to be Moffat's fault). However, I can never let go of the fact that she did Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare.

[The Yak Emperor]

Boring digital cinematography - all of them

The Doctor Falls looked hideous