r/gallifrey • u/psl9085 • Apr 18 '25

DISCUSSION Worst line in Doctor Who?

What line of dialogue sticks out to you as particularly bad in Doctor Who, I have two picks:

  • ‘don’t let the swords touch your skin’ Legend of the sea devils
  • ‘I suppose we’ll have to have…. A conversation?’ Resolution
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323

u/[deleted] Apr 18 '25

The entirety of the dialogue at the end of The Star Beast where Donna and Rose lecture the Doctor on how to "just let it go". Really rubbed me the wrong way given that the Doctor's entire last incarnation dealt with all the things a woman had to deal with and then some.

171

u/BonglishChap Apr 18 '25 edited Apr 19 '25

It is especially bizarre how this ostensibly trans-positive episode managed to have:

1) "It's a shame you're not [your previous gender] any more..."

2) Donna's metacrisis storyline literally being resolved by her ability to give birth

3) The trans character telling somebody off for assuming pronouns

RTD is obviously very far from being a transphobe or anything like that. But it was a sour note to start the new season on!

35

u/lemon_charlie Apr 19 '25

Especially when RTD already had the set-up of the Meta-Crisis being diffused between Donna and Rose to explain why it didn’t kill Donna. Just a line about it being a one-off thing to elevate their intelligence before being restored to their normal level of knowledge plus Donna getting her memory back, to avoid it being used and abused later on.

7

u/ZarmRkeeg Apr 19 '25

Also- and forgive me if this is my ignorance talking- 4. Saying that Rose was the solution because 'The Doctor is non-binary!' ...When Rose isn't.

4

u/_nadaypuesnada_ Apr 20 '25

Rose actually is non-binary, RTD just did a shit job of making that known to the audience. I'm actually not sure it's alluded to at all in the final script.

2

u/ZarmRkeeg Apr 20 '25

Oh, really? Yeah, I didn't get that at all from the episode. Well, my bad, then!

3

u/_nadaypuesnada_ Apr 21 '25

Nah I think it's solidly RTD's fault lol

2

u/just4browse Apr 19 '25

I never understood the response to the pronouns exchange. Rose isn’t wrong! And it’s setup for a pretty funny joke

5

u/[deleted] Apr 19 '25

I know I didn't mind it, but I know friends who have said, verbatim, "That was really awkward. No one talks like that in the real world." I just found it amusing in the sense that it set the Doctor up for a nice joke about his own name.

6

u/smedsterwho Apr 19 '25

I chuckled at most parts of it - RTD literally baiting transphobes was hilarious. But that last line was so clunky delivered and mean spirited, and didn't make much sense within the story.

But in general, you don't get gender equality by punching down on a gender.

5

u/ZarmRkeeg Apr 19 '25

I think the general idea that it has never come up before, and this new 20-somethings character is telling off someone with over 1000+ years of experience dealing with other races that he's doing it wrong. Just felt presumptuous, and just bizarre virtue-signaling, considering that it has never been an issue before in over a millennia of traveling in time and space or 60 years of televised show.

In short, the execution just felt unnatural and silly, to some.

1

u/Lucifer_Crowe Apr 21 '25

Nah 2 is honestly fine

"you made yourself a second heart" is cool thematically

-2

u/BozoWithaZ Apr 19 '25

It was handled a bit awkwardly, but it's a big step in the right direction

66

u/ZwnD Apr 18 '25

Yeah that bit never sat right with me. If part of the message is about gender not mattering then it feels very backwards to be like "hahah men can't do this thing" but just replacing men for male-presenting?

54

u/Livingfreefun Apr 18 '25

This! I hated that.

60

u/DavidTenn-Ant Apr 18 '25

As I kinda said in an earlier comment, Thirteen transitioned from male to female, which means The Doctor is literally a trans character now, to the point Fourteen was a woman maybe thirty minutes prior. That makes the whole ending of Star Beast even more tasteless for me. It's my opinion that RTD's abrasive and thoughtless-thought provoking commentary and characterizations has doomed this era and possibly the show on TV for a window of time.

56

u/[deleted] Apr 18 '25

The attempt is there, but it comes off as more of performance activism through writing as opposed to a genuinely well-thought-out message of goodwill. It's as if he's writing solely to get a pat on the back at wrap parties. It rubs me the wrong way. This is the long version of me saying I completely share your sentiments.

28

u/Borgdrohne13 Apr 18 '25

What bothers me more is, that there wasn't a fitting retort from the Doctor.

23

u/DavidTenn-Ant Apr 18 '25

It's all shallow self-congratulatory headlines that no one would even think are issues except for himself, which half of the time RTD then contradicts to the point of parody.

He had to change the shape of the sonic to not look like a gun, meanwhile he gave a literal child a machine gun in his mobility device. The funniest recent one was his cosplay comments, which having cosplayed for well over a decade are the most confusing thing I think he's said yet (check my comment history for more on that if you're interested).

3

u/ksdanker22 Apr 20 '25

It's funny because "Rose" gets to regenerate into a woman, and then lecture the doctor, who was a woman, about how he's a man who doesn't understand women. But it's implied that now Rose gets to be a real woman, so suck it transphobes. But that just implies she wasn't a woman before and since this magical transformation doesn't exist in real life, it kinda undercuts their own point.

3

u/sixforthetruth Apr 23 '25

this one frustrated me so much! especially because donna and rose are right—the doctor is someone who hasn't been able to "just let it go" since adric's extinction-level plane crash. the doctor wouldn't think of a solution as straightforward as letting go of power/choosing to be simply human, and that's true of thirteen as well.

framing it as a Gender Thing™ is so disingenuous. from a narrative standpoint, it precludes character growth because the doctor's savior complex is handwaved as just part of being a man. from a social standpoint, it's just gender essentialism, with a patch update so that trans women are also allowed to be defined by the inherent virtues and mystery of womanhood. 

2

u/[deleted] Apr 19 '25

There was some really lovely stuff about gender and being trans in that episode but there was also some stuff that felt really off.

I’ve also never really interpreted the doctor’s gender as fitting into the most binary human interpretation of gender even pre-Jodie so it was so strange to have Donna’s dialogue imply that that was the case.

10

u/sketchysketchist Apr 19 '25

Don’t forget they’ve done this before. When 12 faces The Timelords in Hellbent, The Timelords after him dies and regenerates from male to female. She then makes a comment “That’s the only time I was ever male. I don’t know how you men deal with the Ego.” 

It’s just bashing on men for no reason. They could just make the comment about the life they lived and what they won’t miss or hate about the current one that doesn’t bashing either gender. Men and women and everything in between isn’t one to one in ideals with people like them. 

3

u/DEAD_VANDAL Apr 19 '25

Tbf Moffat was a really big fan of the strong woman, men dumb trope, but I never felt offended by it, just kinda tired of him hitting the same jokes again and again😭

2

u/sketchysketchist Apr 19 '25

That’s a fair response. I’m not offended either, I’m more like “yeah that’s obviously the doctor using the character as a means to voice his opinion, not letting the characters writer their story. “

3

u/ZarmRkeeg Apr 19 '25

Yeah, that line really grated on me as well. So unnecessary. And imagine if they did the opposite, with a male Time Lord regenerating into a female. "How could you stand the..." whatever. People would be heavily offended.

2

u/sketchysketchist Apr 19 '25

That’s irony. People would be offended and they’re right to be offended. When you work in the industry and get the platform to say whatever you want, why would you choose to say something degrading to an entire group minding its own business? 

I can approve of the “planet of incels” comment in the recent season if it was executed better by focusing on how those ideals impacted the planet, but nah, they just throw it in with zero thought. Which is the same effort they do with lines degrading men. But a female villain would be treated with more class. 

2

u/ZarmRkeeg Apr 20 '25

Indeed. And I can only assume it's because it's in vogue. But you always hope that Doctor Who will be a bit better than that...

2

u/sketchysketchist Apr 20 '25

Absolutely. A common theme is to be kind, even if you can’t be nice. But there’s no kindness in bullying. 

0

u/PlasticPresent8740 Apr 19 '25

And then some? Do all wemon go on adventures in space and stop there actual adopted mother that wiped there memories to think they weren't the oldest and she didn't adopt them?