the unsentimental goodbye

I was never a Whovian, so none of this really matters to me, but it appears that the latest incarnation of Dr. Who as played by Rwandan-Scottish Ncuti Gatwa (ˈ(n)ʃuːti ˈɡætwɑː) may possibly be the last: the show "Dr. Who" has been suffering from poor ratings over the last several years as it's insisted upon woke characters and storylines, not to mention woke retconning of the Doctor's origins. Well, I'm all for the death of woke shows, but it's especially sad when a show that started off normal gets hijacked by the woke agenda and ground into an unrecognizable pulp. I feel sorry for folks like my buddy Mike, who's a longtime Whovian, because it's these people who suffer the most from the curdling of what used to be a good source of entertainment. If the show somehow continues, it won't be with Gatwa, who has apparently quit after two seasons.

I actually feel some vague sympathy for Gatwa and for his female predecessor played by Jodie Whittaker. Gatwa and Whittaker didn't create the woke stories currently dooming the show, but I imagine it's at least possible they've said some unwise things during press tours about The Message. It's also frustrating that lefties will see Gatwa's departure as yet another sign of racism when, in fact, racism and sexism are not at all the problem. The problem is putting agenda before story, as has been the case for other popular intellectual properties like Star Wars and "The Rings of Power" (impossibly renewed for a third season despite the avalanche of hate). Whenever sexism is brought up by the left, the reply is always that heroines like Ellen Ripley, Sarah Connor, etc. have long been popular with all moviegoers. As for racism: who didn't love Wesley Snipes's Blade in the Blade trilogy, or the capable but ill-fated Sergeant Apone in "Aliens," or any number of Samuel L. Jackson or Morgan Freeman characters? Even some versions of race- and sex-swapping make a certain amount of sense: e.g., in Denis Villeneuve's "Dune," Chani is portrayed by Zendaya; in the book, her father is Liet Kynes, so for the purposes of the movie, given Zendaya's ethnicity (Nigerian + German/Scottish), it makes sense to race-swap Kynes to be black—and why not make Kynes female as well (actress Sharon Duncan-Brewster, who did a fine job even if Kynes's death in the movie wasn't book-accurate)? I saw nothing wrong with the changes made to Dr. Kynes.

As long as changes make sense and don't disturb a well-known story, I generally have no problem with race- or sex-swapping. But when it's obvious the changes are being made specifically to fulfill a stupid political agenda, and when this agenda gets overweeningly preachy as seen in plot and dialogue (as when Jodi Whittaker's Dr. Who offers cringeworthy insights about feminine superiority), this negatively affects the story. For example: the whole Lord of the Rings saga is based on northern European myth and fantasy; why would black folks figure in it at all? Why insert them? For the sake of (as the Critical Drinker derisively calls them) modern audiences? This isn't the world Tolkien created. Contrast that with George RR Martin's fantasy world in A Song of Ice and Fire, where Martin has peopled his planet with folks of many ethnicities and worldviews. In Martin's world, Africanesque, Asian-style, and Middle Eastern-ish people make sense given the history Martin crafted for his universe. I have no problem at all with their presence and have found their interactions with other races and cultures to be both fascinating and integral to Martin's woefully incomplete story.

So let's be clear: if Ncuti Gatwa (who self-identifies as "queer") is leaving because he's misperceiving racism or homophobia (as seems to be the case), he needs to wake up and see what the real problem is. He may come to realize he's a pawn in a much larger game—one that involves unsavory agendas, agendas that want nothing to do with good stories.