Wednesday, February 5, 2020

What do they want, a jammy dodger?

Yes, I saw this, and I love that this is the
story this morning instead of his bullshit.
I'm just taking a little break from rage-blogging about the shitshow that is politics right now. It's not that I'm disengaged, it's just that I think dwelling on it constantly and working myself up into a-huh? Oh, I know you didn't ask, I'm just offering an unsolicited explanation for why I've been talking less about the election and the technical winner of the 2016 electoral college vote and more about nonsense like video games and sci-fi. Speaking of, did you see Doctor Who this week?

Incidentally, the episode had a terrifying
environmental message and we're all
all pretty screwed. So there's that...
If not, bail out now and go get caught up, because I'm going to talk about how the episode ended. Back? I mean I don't have all day...great. Did you think they were going to kill off the astronaut? And yes, I'll explain for those who didn't watch it and are just lying about it. Two of the guest characters in the episode were these these two men, an astronaut and a cop, who were married. The astronaut caught some alien plastic virus that first turns you into a crusty-gross nightmare and then causes you to explode.

Above: Season 12, episode 6's queer
couple seen here, surprisingly not dying.
The astronaut caught it and I was certain he was doomed. Right up until he wasn't. Then the Doctor cures him of exploding plastic-itus or whatever and that's super but then his husband the cop is put into a position wherein he must heroically sacrifice himself to save the Earth and he was definitely going to die. Until he's rescued at the last minute. On the one hand the episode created suspense in a way that the show doesn't often do.

But on the other hand, what do they want, a cookie? Or in the case of Doctor Who, a jammy dodger? What's that? Why it's the British term for those kind of bland crumbly cookies with jam inside. You usually see them out on the table as the last cookie because nobody wants them. Ever. Don't even try.
Above: Some Jammy Dodgers taking up space
that could-nay should be used for other, better cookies.
Holy shit writers of
the show, for real?
But back to Doctor Who's unfortunate love affair with gay-burying. For some background, recent seasons of Doctor Who have been pretty good with representation lately, casting regular and one-off characters of different races, ages and sexuality. They even gave the Twelfth Doctor a companion called Bill Potts. Who is gay! And then they gave her a love interest, whom they promptly killed off. And then later they killed off Bill. They actually turned her into a energy being or something, but same difference.

"To be clear we hate all humans
regardless of sex, race or orientation."
-Some Dalek
The eleventh season-you know, the one with Jodie Whitaker as the Thirteenth (and first female) Doctor, introduced a lesbian couple in episode 4 only to have them murdered by mutated giant spiders. And then in the New Years special, a gay security guard who appears onscreen, tells us about his boyfriend and then is killed by a Dalek. This pattern of-what? Don't look at me like that. I used the Doctor Who Wiki. I don't like, commit these things to memory. Anyway, why does this show hate queer people so much?

Well, I don't think they do. And as shitty as those examples seem, it is a surprisingly violent show to begin with. And there are other non-murdered queer characters throughout the series, so I think I have a bit of a recency bias here, but whatever. I don't think I was off base for assuming a certain bury-your-gays trend. Glad they didn't, and I hope this is the writers making up for it, but still, no jammy dodgers for them yet.
Or maybe yes they get Jammy Dodgers, but I mean, they are the worst cookies.

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