To say I love Doctor Who would be an understatement. I remember it being a constant feature in my house as a child, those constant U.K Gold reruns, but that’s not when I got into it. I started watching it when, as is the case for many sci-fi fans, the revived series saw Christopher Eccleston playing the Doctor, and Billie Piper playing the companion Rose Tyler. What a team! Eccleston brought so much to the role as the shell shocked veteran of the Time War, (a ridiculously big war that makes The Battle of Wolf 359 look like a walk in the park, I’m also a Star Trek fan!), while Piper played the only person on Earth who could restore the Doctor’s hope for the universe after the horrors that he had seen. I loved Eccelston as the Doctor, and was sad to see him go, but I was delighted with David Tennant’s performance, he played a very happy go lucky, joyous version of the Doctor, until you got on his bad side, and those who did, regretted it. I loved his subtly chilling take on the character.
That’s when I decided to revisit those old episodes of Doctor Who that I didn’t “get” as a child, and soon I was hooked on those too. The intellectual but very comedic version played by Tom Baker, the “James Bond but with a time machine” performance of John Pertwee, or the eccentric but coldly calculating role played by Sylvester McCoy just to name a few.
I got increasingly more hooked, until, I decided to watch, EVERY episode. And this isn’t as easy as it sounds. The BBC, not realizing that Doctor Who would become extremely popular around the world, and also not realizing that selling episodes of Doctor Who on tape would be a profitable enterprise, deleted many of the old episodes of Doctor Who. So, in order to watch a lot of the older ones, you are basically watching the remains of all that could be rescued, this consists of the audio of the original episode (mercifully the audio of every episode was saved), and a series of stills from the episode.
Weirdly enough, I decided to abandon my quest to watch every episode when I had only 14 episodes left. This was mainly because I decided to save the worst til last, and how would it profit me to watch 14 episodes of Doctor Who that I wouldn’t enjoy? Doctor Who at its best, is some of the most original and thought provoking sci-fi I’ve ever seen, but at its worst, it’s just, that, eh, alien guy, wants to, em, eh, has, some sort of motivation I guess, sorry it’s too boring I fell asleep!
I have watched 875 episodes of Doctor Who out of 889 episodes total. I’ve read some of the novels, and I’ve listened to a ton of the Doctor Who audio dramas. And I watch EVERY new episode. I’m not as fanatical as I was, instead of watching them as soon as they’re broadcast, now I watch the new ones over the next few days, but I always watch them.
But the next episode will be different. I have watched almost every episode of Who, and always watch every new episode that is broadcast, but now, for the first time, I won’t be watching a new episode. Not putting off watching it until I’ve time, but not watching it at all. So why is that?
Well, the truth of the matter is, there’s a great enemy in the universe. This enemy makes the Daleks look weak and pitiful by comparison. This enemy makes the Sontarans look like a fairly pathetic opponent. This enemy makes the Cyberman look like fluffy little kittens by comparison. The enemy I’m talking about, of course, is the Eurovision.
That’s right, Doctor Who is doing a crossover episode with the Eurovision. And I’m not watching that!
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/crldj0x9x9eo
I’ve wrote about my, quarrels, to put it mildly, with the Eurovision, before.
Put simply, The European Broadcasting Union, EBU, which owns and operates the Eurovision, quite rightly kicked Russia out of the Eurovision on account of their horrific and morally reprehensible invasion of Ukraine, going so far as to say including Russia would “bring the competition into disrepute”.
https://eurovision.tv/mediacentre/release/ebu-statement-russia-2022
So far, no complaints from me. Russia should be treated as a pariah for its continuing aggression against Ukraine.
So, doesn’t it follow from that, that Israel deserves to be kicked out of the Eurovision for its horrific treatment of the Palestinian people? Apartheid against Palestine since 1948, and since 2023, full on genocide. Doesn’t it follow that Israel deserves to be kicked out?
Of course not! When it’s Israel committing a mass slaughter that will be remembered as one of the darkest events of the 21st century, it’s the same old phrase, that phrase I sometimes think I will have a nervous breakdown if I hear just one more time, that phrase that is almost physically painful for me to hear at this point.
“We can’t be getting involved in politics.”
https://eurovision.tv/mediacentre/frequently-asked-questions-israel-24
In this FAQ, there are also blatant lies about why Russia was suspended. It doesn’t mention Ukraine, but claims Russia was suspended “due to consistent breaches of membership obligations and the violation of public service media values.” But in the earlier statement I linked, it is clearly stated that it’s related to the invasion of Ukraine.
So there you have it, I won’t have anything to do with the Eurovision because it takes the completely indefensible stance that Russia deserves to face sanctions for what it is doing to Ukraine, but Israel doesn’t deserve so much as a slap on the wrist for the horrific murder of Hind Rajab, the slaughter of Asser and Ayssel, two twins boys who were just FOUR days old, and REPEATED attacks on a hospital, killing those receiving treatment, medical workers, and those who hoped against hope that a hospital would provide shelter from the mass slaughter.
https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israel-bombs-gazas-nasser-hospital-again-killing-patients
https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israel-bombs-gazas-nasser-hospital-again-killing-patients
And, the next episode of Doctor Who, has been tainted by the hypocritical, morally bankrupt institution that is the Eurovision, so I won’t be watching it.
It hurts that one of my favourite tv shows of all time is now enmeshed in a massive system of pro-Israel propaganda. I’m not going to pretend that that’s not a first world problem. I’m not going to pretend that that’s not something that only people in the most privileged parts of the world have to worry about. But I think it’s something that’s worth talking about, because I think part of how Israel has become so effective at being the country that many in the West dare not criticize, as opposed to the pariah it should be, is that it’s become involved in so many things that many people love, that I think many people can barely visualize how they would even go about boycotting Israel, it seems to be involved in, well, everything.
Take a look at the boycott list:
https://boycott-israel.org/boycott.html
And I’ll be honest, I haven’t successfully boycotted everything here, because there’s just, so many. Going to see the latest Marvel film in the cinema was a big part of my life, though I stopped that due to Disney’s complicity in Israel’s crimes. I stopped going to Starbucks, which was hard to first (more due to inertia and habit, I soon realized it was quite easy.) due to their complicity. But there’s some stuff, and I just don’t know how to get them out of my life. I’m caught for medication, so I still buy that from an Israeli company. And it’s literally hurting my head to think about how to go through the process of writing these blogposts condemning Israel without using the resources of some company that is Israeli or in league with Israel. I get a lot of information for these blogposts from You Tube (owned by Google), and what about the laptop?, how complicit are companies I use every day without evening thinking about? When I bought a guitar recently, did I deliberately not do any research on whether that company that built it was on the boycott list, because I just, didn’t want to think about it?
But here’s a weird reason why the Doctor Who thing really hurts. This Doctor Who speech has become a mantra of mine:
This speech has helped me go to the protest marches for Palestine, even when my anxiety is acting up and it’s really difficult. This speech motivates me to learn more about the horrific genocide, even though it makes me feel such pain, such anguish, and such despair. This speech has helped motivate me to keep talking to people about the genocide, even though I know, KNOW, after I’ve finished talking, I’ll get some combination of the usual nonsense of “no politics, what about Irish problems, what about the other injustices.” I wish someone would change the words around to make it interesting. “no injustices, what about Irish politics, what about the other problems.”
“It’s not because it’s fun, it’s not because it’s easy, it’s not even because it works because it hardly ever does. I do what I do because it’s right, because it’s decent, and above all because it’s kind.”
This speech has kept me motivated, to keep talking to people who will usually just fall back into their usual set of excuses, to keep going to marches while the onslaught on Gaza continues, and to keep writing about the horrific destruction of Palestine. This speech came from a t.v show, that is now a part of pro-Israeli propaganda, by doing a crossover with the Eurovision.
You might be thinking, what was I expecting? It’s not like Doctor Who is made by the Revolutionary Alliance For The Liberation Of Oppressed Peoples Worldwide, it’s made by the British Broadcasting Corporation for crying out loud! And the B.B.C’s record on covering the genocide in Palestine has been, well, shite.
The BBC gave us Doctor Who, those wonderful David Attenborough documentaries, Red Dwarf, another sci-fi classic, and for decades it brought us all these wonderful things with no ads! But like most, if not all large institutions, it’s corrupt, amoral, and faces very little in the way of accountability, so of course all this was going to bleed into tv shows by the BBC that I loved sooner or later.
It’s been hard over the last year. I have had to make the decision to abandon products I like, to never again buy music from bands I love, and to learn that things that really made my life more beautiful have been poisoned by association with one of the most horrific crimes of the 21st century. Indeed, I sometimes wonder about the timing of when I developed my obsession with wildlife, how much has it got to do with the fact that animals, while they do engage in cruel behaviour, are not capable of the absolute horrors we have witnessed over the last eighteen months.
But, it’s important to have some perspective. It’s hard, but it’s not THAT hard. Having to come to terms with an episode of Doctor Who that is effectively pro-Israel propaganda, is not as hard as being a reporter in Gaza, terribly afraid of being murdered as you try desperately to tell the truth to the world. Learning that half the bands I love quite happily play in Israel, is not as hard as being a doctor in Gaza, knowing that every day could be your last, and STILL having the courage to go in and do your job. The stress of having to navigate which products that I like are okay to buy, and the sadness involved in having to give some of them up, is ABSOLUTELY NOTHING in comparison to the suffering of the people of Gaza, who after being put through absolute hell, still will not leave their homes, because they know what Israel is doing is wrong, and nothing Israel can do to them will ever cause them to back down!
So, learning about the Doctor Who Eurovision episode was tough, but as I said, perspective! Everything I have done to oppose this genocide, doesn’t put me in any physical danger, from that position, doing nothing is inexcusable. So, did I have something left to say, let me think, just let me check my notes, okay, I remember now.
BOYCOTT THE FUCKING EUROVISION!!!!
Ponderings Of An Autist 