Television

The Rogue storyline proves that New Who has a writing problem that has nothing to do with being too woke, and, in fact, at least in parts more with being not woke enough. What reason could there be to hint at, introduce, develop, carry out, end, and bury a love interest all within one single episode, if not as concession for people against those story line to be able to avoid it altogether? Disney isn't actually progressive, they never were, and where corporate pride/POC representation is implemented it's because the cost calculation tells them it pays off, not because they actually represent any of those values.

The Doctor would never give up on anyone. Heck, in the next episode he cried more about some random guard post than the man who proposed to him. Until he at least attempts to get Rogue back I will have to assume the Doctor has either been replaced by some kind of doppelganger, or the writers at Disney lack the balls to actually portray a modern and gay Doctor after all.

I've always loved the themes doctor who tries to address in its episodes, but it's sad in the most recent seasons they seem to have lost any form of subtlety/intelligence...

It used to be episodes showing you a moral dilemma, raising the question and often making it clear there is no perfect solution. The characters would make choice, maybe not the ones you'd make, but from understandable motivations. Sometimes the bad guys would have understandable motivations, and you'd feel sorry for them.

Lately it has been so black & white. More like "see this guy, he represents trump, trump is bad, he is bad". No dilemmas, no raising questions, not letting you think for yourself or challenging your beliefs. More like "this is good, this is bad, don't think more about it please".

I also don't think doctor who has become more woke, but it has become so much less intelligent, no longer considering the viewer as a person capable of reaching their own conclusions. Everything has to be clear and black and white. And if you don't agree with the protagonists you're bad.

I feel that the whole "Woke/DEI" era will be remembered as a poorly timed inflection point. On one hand, you had the media conglomerates, who, instead of investing in original content decided to put stock in continuations of established franchises which often had poor writing and were poorly executed. These works also just happened to have a "diversity" angel to them. At the same time, we saw the increase in right wing voices online that started to infiltrate the fandoms of those already established franchises.

Social media algorithms also began to push this kind of content to a wider audience. How many times have you seen a random Youtube video with titles like " X is WOKE PROPAGANDA TRASH! Hollywoke is in DECLINE! " appear in your feed or homepage? If the work in question was a critical flop (i.e. terrible), it was not a flop because of creative deficiencies. No, it was a flop because it had a non-binary black character!

You never heard legitimate criticisms like "Hollywood is putting profits before good entertainment" or "[Show or movie] had poor writing, bad acting, terrible direction and didn't contribute anything to already established canon."

Take Deep Space 9 as an example. A great show with a very diverse cast but that diversity would be useless if the characters weren't as fleshed out as they were. Now imagine what the discourse around DS9 would look like if it were made today:

"A New BLACK Protagonist? Star Trek Has Gone WOKE!"

"Jadzia Dax and Odo: Trans Ideology PROPAGANDA?!"

When a new piece of media comes out and there is a massive stir attached to it, ask yourself this: is the criticism warranted or is it ideology driven?

I don’t see people defending the newer shows by saying the writing is great or the plot tight. I just see arguments about politics and social messages.

The people who cheer for the replacement of historically caucasian/male gender roles with minority actors/women, are the same people who protest the replacement of historically minority/women roles with caucasian/male actors. And they wonder why there's push back.

If they think Doctor Who has "gone" woke, they have not been watching.

I remember Captain Jack Harkness flirting with anything that moves, regardless of gender identity or species.

Nobody who enjoys Dr Who for what it is, a series of morality tales and social commentary, gives a shit about if the Dr Who is woke or if the lead is man, woman or something between, let alone their ethnicity (though for sake of continuity they better have a british accent of some descriptor.)

What long time Who fans don't like is poorly written and executed stories, for which there has been far too many of in recent years.

What do we call it when the show has politics you agree with but you still think its too heavy handed and the messaging constantly feels like you're being talked down to?

Sethu and Gatwa’s pairing means that two people of color will pilot the Tardis for the first time in Doctor Who’s history. “Ncuti was like, ‘Look at us. We get to be in the Tardis. We’re going to piss off so many people’,” she said.

I know he what he means, but to be pedantic, this is not the first time a person of colour person has been in the Tardis. There have been several black companions (Mickey, Martha, Bill Potts); there have even been two people of colour as companions at the same time (Ryan and Yaz). You could even say that Martha was the first black doctor to pilot the Tardis. :P

I'm happy to see a POC Doctor and companion though.

This reinforces my perspective that when people complain about "woke" media they are complaining about badly written media (which features minorities). The 2005 reboot of Doctor Who has always strongly featured minorities, but the quality has gradually declined season after season. Nobody complained about the bisexual Jack Harkness, who got his own spin-off. Different people gave up at different times -- IMO it was a dumpster fire by season 4 already, but others held on through the Matt Smith era or even the Capaldi era. (Not denying there were good episodes still now and then.) Series 11 was unwatchably bad -- but not because the Doctor was portrayed by a woman.

Similarly, Star Wars: Andor, has a lot of diversity in the cast! It's a great show, best Star Wars media since Episode V in my opinion. But it's Star Wars: The Adept people are calling woke, since it's trash.

Back in the Tom Baker era, they routinely talked of the Prime Minister as 'she.'

Those shows were made long before Thatcher came to power.

I have more criticism over Disney being involved in production than anything "woke".