Doctor Who Series 12B: The Timeless Chibnall (Xmas special & pre-Series 13 chat)

[Midas]

The way I interpret Eccleston's discomfort working on the programme has been somewhat recontextualised:

I didn't enjoy the environment and the culture that we, the cast and crew, had to work in. I thought if I stay in this job, I'm going to have to blind myself to certain things that I thought were wrong.

I particularly find the tee-heeing about Barrowman's alleged antics utterly baffling. Why were they not considered a sackable offense?

[Jack Shaftoe]

It's bewildering. I'd heard rumours about it for years, but to find out it's been mentioned on videos, in interviews, in bloody songs? Genuinely shocked by the (lack of) reaction to it all. Until today, obviously.

[Pauline Walnuts]

Turning away from John Barrowman for a moment, let's get some legendary Noel Bantz

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oofel1E_1B8

[The Roofdog]

Now that's a real hiding Behind A Sofa Moment




There's no way they'll go ahead with the new series with John Barrowman in it, will they?

Wait, what? Is Barrowman in the next series as well? (did he get in the TARDIS at the end of the last episode I can't remember because who fucking can). Just blows my mind that Chibnall thought it was a good idea to get that prick back, on any level. Inept.

[Blofelds Cat]

If Barrowman gets cancelled...BBC may pull the show...8 hrs of TV unable to be fully broadcast...that would not only spell the end of Chinballs Who career but possibly his career in TV who has employed an individual in the full knowledge of their past behaviour....

so you know...silver linings and all that...

[Poison To The Mind]

I don't really understand it if I'm honest. The Simpsons would apparently make less money if it wasn't airing new episodes despite the fact that it costs so much to make and they already have hundreds of episodes to repeat ad infinitum.

I guess they make new dolls with all the new characters that Chibnall churns out. But at the same time the Classic Who Blu-ray releases and stuff like Time Lord Victorious show you can easily cash in on the older series without any new episodes to fuel it. I guess the thinking is that the money from the new series stuff and the money from the old series stuff are kind of independent of each other and one wouldn't go up or down without the other.

The classic eps / blu-rays sell out limited runs and are on a super-niche subscription service; the new series eps / discs sell tens of thousands more, in more venues, and get competed for amongst the larger streaming services. Has Time Lord Victorious made a profit at all?

If Who or the Simpsons stopped making expensive new episodes, then foreign sales would immediately vanish, instead of bringing in millions of dollars in profit. Homer's brain: Millions of dollars in profit can be used to pay for more productions, and executive bonuses!

(Chibnall's episodes are still very successful in terms of charting viewership, it's just that they come in at (eg) #12 for the week instead of #4. TV commissioners don't cancel everything that scores below the news and Coronation Street in the expectation that 100 new shows started from scratch would all rank in the top ten.)

[Poison To The Mind]

If Barrowman gets cancelled...BBC may pull the show...8 hrs of TV unable to be fully broadcast...that would not only spell the end of Chinballs Who career

Whole episodes edited into incomprehensibility to work around the major guest actor? Chibnall's been here before.

[Small Man Big Horse]

If Barrowman gets cancelled...BBC may pull the show...8 hrs of TV unable to be fully broadcast...that would not only spell the end of Chinballs Who career but possibly his career in TV who has employed an individual in the full knowledge of their past behaviour....

so you know...silver linings and all that...

From what I gather Barrowman's supposed to only be in the second episode, as there was to be a spin-off comic based on it, but it's not something that's been confirmed by the BBC yet.

[Alberon]

Is Barrowman escaping this? His exposing himself on set has been know about for years, and he did publicly apologise after a similar incident on Radio 1 back in 2008.

So unless there's more to it I think he can weather this, as long as he keeps his head down (both of them).

Whether he should avoid cancellation is another question altogether, though.

[Pauline Walnuts]

There's also the touching women's breasts, and him continuing even when they tell him to stop,

Darned if I can find that link now, oh well.

Casting couch abuse caught on film, and a laugher track

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gd_egSxkxbk&t=205s


Barrowman on the set of Torchwood, and Chibbers still re-hired him.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ugcHyk4VyEI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bozneL2dUqo

More like Touchwood, AMIRITE?


I can't see him surviving this. Although I should declare a bias in that I really can't stand the creep and I'm taking far, far too much pleasure in seeing him fall.

Noël Clarke, less so.

[Replies From View]

Casting couch abuse caught on film, and a laugher track

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gd_egSxkxbk&t=205s

Bloody hell.  Trying to grasp this:  might these people think it's more acceptable behaviour because he isn't a straight man lunging at women?

[olliebean]

Bloody hell.  Trying to grasp this:  might these people think it's more acceptable behaviour because he isn't a straight man lunging at women?

I think it's possibly not perceived as sexual if it's a gay man doing it to women, but I wouldn't consider it acceptable behaviour either way, just as I (a man) wouldn't be any more accepting of Chris Evans or Keith Allen whacking me around the head with their dicks than I would of Barrowman doing it. I don't see why anyone, male or female, gay or straight, would want to be whacked around the head non-consensually with anyone's dick, no matter the sexuality of the whacker.

[pigamus]

I remember Trinny Goodall openly fondling Sophie Raworth's tits, they didn't see anything wrong with putting that out

[lipsink]

Barrowman also did a run of Panto a few years ago in Glasgow. I'd imagine there's some stories there too.

It was with the Krankies who you always hear rumours about them shagging about. Not exactly professional in a work environment but if it's all consensual and no ones getting harmed, fair enough I suppose.

[Pauline Walnuts]

Go on, get a good mental image.

[lipsink]

According to the Mirror:

"One woman called it smutty" Janette says. "We did a scene in bed with John. Wee Jimmy said 'I can feel your Tinkie Winkie' and pulled out a Teletubby. Then John said 'No – this is MY Tinkie-Winkie' and pulled out a big one."

Barrowman is really committed to this 'Willies are funny' premise, isn't he? It's like it's his life's work.

[Pauline Walnuts]

You know when that Yew Tree thing was all the rage, I was going, please not Tom, please not Tom...

I didn't think it would end up being a nü series 'star'.

2005, different times, eh?

[Replies From View]

I think it's possibly not perceived as sexual if it's a gay man doing it to women, but I wouldn't consider it acceptable behaviour either way, just as I (a man) wouldn't be any more accepting of Chris Evans or Keith Allen whacking me around the head with their dicks than I would of Barrowman doing it. I don't see why anyone, male or female, gay or straight, would want to be whacked around the head non-consensually with anyone's dick, no matter the sexuality of the whacker.

Certainly with dicks out I think it's less ambiguous.  But in terms of perceived acceptability, or people generally letting someone get away with it more, I was talking about the video of him lunging at young women with his mouth, and in particular a woman trying to forcibly resist him, and his greater strength allowing him to make their mouths touch.

I just wonder whether greater leeway might be given in this instance because he isn't straight, whereas if this had been David Tennant (for example) the 'cancel' button might have been pressed more quickly.

[Replies From View]

According to the Mirror:

"One woman called it smutty" Janette says. "We did a scene in bed with John. Wee Jimmy said 'I can feel your Tinkie Winkie' and pulled out a Teletubby. Then John said 'No – this is MY Tinkie-Winkie' and pulled out a big one."

Barrowman is really committed to this 'Willies are funny' premise, isn't he? It's like it's his life's work.

I think what's especially annoying about that is him just reiterating her joke.  She was alluding to genitals, and then she subverted expectations by pulling out a tellytubby.  He "noticed" that Tinkie-Winkie could also mean cock.  What a lightning-fast comedy mind.

I can also bet - because we have all been here - that Barrowman got a bigger laugh than Janette when the above experience took place.  It's some kind of cunty rule that whoever reiterates a joke must always get a bigger laugh than the person who puts the effort in.

[lipsink]

When I first read it I thought it meant he actually got his knob out. But he wouldn't have done that in a live Panto with families present, would he?

Presumably he just pulled out a bigger Tellytubbie?

[Replies From View]

Oh I assumed it was during rehearsals.  So much of what we've been talking about is behind-the-scenes that I got the wrong end of the stick with that.


I thought he was responding to a behind-the-scenes joke Janelle had devised with his own witty invention - the immediate presentation of his own actual cock.  To the reaction of 'much mirth' from the director and the other actors.



If it was written into the actual panto with a larger Tellytubby toy then did he even come up with it?  When it's just scripted innuendo that's standard panto humour, and not really what we were talking about.  I think that's another reason I assumed it must have been his real cock we were talking about.

[mjwilson]

Yeah I think they're just talking about a scripted scene where he has a big Tellytubby.

[Replies From View]

So he allegedly gropes and snogs people without their consent, routinely does a Keith Allen with his knob, and also he once held aloft a large soft toy tellytubby in a scripted pantomime.

"That is correct your honour"

[M-CORP]

New article from the Guardian that goes some way to answering the questions I personally had re John Barrowman's behaviour and whether those at the top knew about him and Clarke. Apparently RTD and Julie Gardner told Barrowman off but were unaware of Clarke's misbehaviour - though unfortunately it seems he was just as bad on the set of Doctor Who.

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2021/may/07/noel-clarke-accused-of-sexual-harassment-on-doctor-who-set?CMP=twt_gu&utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium#Echobox=1620378295

A Doctor Who actor, who asked to remain anonymous, has told the Guardian she was also sexually harassed by Clarke in the early seasons of the show. "He made advances on me," she said, "regularly asking me if I wanted a 'piece of his dark chocolate'." When she rejected his advances, the actor said, Clarke badmouthed her to people in the industry.

Gardner confirmed that she received a complaint around 2008 about Barrowman's conduct on the set of Torchwood. "I met with John and reprimanded him," Gardner said, adding that she also spoke to other executive producers, Barrowman's agent, and the head of BBC drama commissioning, to "make it clear to both John and his agent that behaviour of this kind would not be tolerated ... To my knowledge, John's inappropriate behaviour stopped thereafter," she added.

She told the Guardian that she was not aware of any inappropriate behaviour by Clarke. "I am saddened and shocked by the accusations raised. If I had known of them there would have been prompt action taken," she said. "I am grateful that people are coming forward to speak up and support them wholeheartedly."

Russell T Davies also he never saw Barrowman expose himself, and was unaware of any complaints about Clarke's behaviour towards female coworkers on set and never heard of or witnessed inappropriate behaviour by the actor. Had he received a complaint, Davies said he would have acted immediately.

"I apologise wholeheartedly to any cast or crew who went through this," Davies said, adding: "all power to those coming forward now – we will listen to them, and learn".

[Ambient Sheep]

Mostly being discussed over in General Bullshit, here:

Clicky/tappy

:-)

[canted_angle_again]

A nice short and very correct review of season 11/12.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8_A7n83Rh0&t=15799s

[Mister Six]

EDIT: Bollocks, all of this has been said above. Feel free to skip past.

It's bewildering. I'd heard rumours about it for years, but to find out it's been mentioned on videos, in interviews, in bloody songs? Genuinely shocked by the (lack of) reaction to it all. Until today, obviously.

I hate to say it, but Clarke might have had a point - the reaction to this kind of thing from an absurdly handsome, charismatic gay man in the mid-00s was going to be more favourable than if it were pretty much anyone else doing it at that time. Barrowman's gay, so there's no sexual component to him harassing women, and handsome, so it has the air of a naughty Chippendale gig or something.

Obviously it's fucked up and there's a massive power dynamic mismatch between overnight sensation (and later series lead) Barrowman and pretty much everyone on the show except Eccleston, Piper and RTD, and presumably making people uncomfortable/uneasy gave him a kick so there's a malevolent air to the antics, as with any form of bullying dressed up as "pranks" and "banter", but those ideas just weren't embraced in the mainstream.

And ten years earlier this were so fucked you had average/odd-looking straight men getting away with it (UK Chris Evans, Keith Allen). Just one of the many ways society has improved markedly in just the last couple of decades with regard to consent and appropriate behavior.

[Mister Six]

A nice short and very correct review of season 11/12.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8_A7n83Rh0&t=15799s

Did you mean to skip to that section (ie. can we just watch the last bit to get the gist) or would you recommend watching the whole thing?

[Endicott]

I watched bits of that last night, as someone else linked to it in another thread. I think it's quite well argued and sources its clips well, but at 5 hours I'm not going to watch it all, especially as I've only watched 3 episodes of Chibnal's Who.

This section for example https://youtu.be/o8_A7n83Rh0?t=11164 titled 'The Doctor is Always Right' makes the point that Chib's Doc makes lots of horrible moral choices and is never questioned about this in the show, either by the companions or by outcomes, and never learns any lessons. It contrasts this with, say, Rose telling the Doc he can't kill the dalek in 'Dalek', and some other examples.

[canted_angle_again]

Did you mean to skip to that section (ie. can we just watch the last bit to get the gist) or would you recommend watching the whole thing?

The whole thing is worth it (aside from the creators shit jeans). It's kinda HBomerguy but not as good. He really structures his argument well though. I watched it over a few days.