A number of Doctor Who viewers have insisted they’ll be boycotting the show following a number of “woke” and “cringe” scenes from Saturday night’s episode.
To mark the show’s 60th anniversary, fan-favourite Doctor David Tennant was back fronting the show alongside his trusty sidekick Donna, played by Catherine Tate.
While the duo’s return was lauded by a number of Doctor Who fans who widely recognise Tennant as one of the best to step into the TARDIS, a number of plot lines in showrunner Russell T Davies’s The Star Beast have come under fire.
One scene in particular that has gone viral on social media is when Tennant’s Doctor was collared by trans character Rose, portrayed by Heartstopper’s Yasmin Finney, for “assuming” a furry fictional alien known as a Meep was a male.
Upon meeting the alien, the Doctor insists he can “help get him home” thanks to his universe-bending talents.
His presumption of the Meep’s gender prompts and irked Rose to interject and tell the Doctor: “You’re assuming ‘he’ as a pronoun?”
David Tennant’s Doctor asked the Meep what its pronouns were
BBC
After being called out by Rose, the Doctor takes a moment to mull it over: “True. Yes. Sorry, good point.”
He then turns to the fictional alien character and asks: “Are you he or she or they?”
“My chosen pronoun is the definite article. I am always The Meep,” the Meep replies, which results in Tennant’s Doctor replying: “Oh. I do that.”
While the pronoun conversation with an alien drew criticism, there were also some who slammed the show due to Tennant’s bashing of the male incarnation of the Doctor while seeming to praise the previous female incarnation – brought to life by Jodie Whittaker last year.
The uproar sparked by the scenes even led to the hashtag #RIPDoctorWho gaining traction on Saturday evening across X, formerly Twitter.
One person who slammed the new episode was GB News’s Darren Grimes who took to the social media platform to fume: “The BBC are laughing at those who are forced to hand over the telly tax so they can destroy childhood classics with whackery and wokery.”
Elsewhere, a second viewer hit out: “#RIPDoctorWho, there’s no coming back. The franchise is dead. This is enough cringe to kill a pack of elephants.”
While a third vowed to boycott the show: “#RIPDoctorWho never watching again. Not even reruns. I hope your show falls flat on it’s face.”
A fourth weighed in: “Lmfao this is current day, Doctor Who. Cause aliens give a f**k about pronouns, right? This is on brand for Russell T Davies at this point. #RIPDoctorWho.”
David Tennant and Yasmin Finney appeared together in Saturday’s Doctor Who premiere
BBC
Meanwhile, a fifth irked viewer put: “Wow did they force so much social politics into Doctor Who. What a shame. ‘Woke’ elements are ok but my goodness was so much of this was ‘cringe’ as the young kids say… #RIPDoctorWho.”
However, there was still some BBC viewers who appeared to applaud Davies’s Doctor Who episode, with one X user arguing: “No, sweetie. #DoctorWho’s been woke since the 60s, you are just arriving here. We have always been here.”
And a second hit out at the hashtag: “The ones tweeting out ‘#RIPDoctorWho’ are people who have never actually interacted with the series much in the past and are just verified accounts making “rent is due” type posts.”
The episode also sparked a debate among the GB News panel on Sunday morning when Dawn Neesom brought up the scenes with her guests.
