Cliff Notes – Doctor Who hit with bizarre trigger warnings for discriminatory aliens
- The animated adaptation of the 1966 Doctor Who story, The Savages, includes specific trigger warnings regarding themes of discrimination and exploitation by technologically advanced civilisations.
- The British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) has issued detailed alerts for episodes, highlighting references to fantasy violence and discriminatory social structures within the fictional narrative.
Doctor Who hit with bizarre trigger warnings for ‘discriminatory aliens’
Doctor Who has been given very specific trigger warnings for the animated version of William Hartnell’s classic 1966 adventure, The Savages.
The four-part story follows the First Doctor and his companions Dodo (Jackie Lane) and Steven (Peter Purves) as they land on a mysterious planet that has a two distinct civilisations – the Elders and the Savages.
The synopsis explains: ‘The Tardis arrives on a world [where] a seemingly utopian society enjoy fulfilling, happy lives but it’s discovered they hunt ‘savages’ outside their city to extract their life force.’ Soon enough the Doctor intervenes.
The set of episodes – reanimated by BBC studios using the original audio after the master recordings were wiped – is available on Blu-ray, DVD and Prime Video and warns that the episode ‘reflects the broadcast standards, language and attitudes of its time.’
The British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) has added more detailed trigger warnings alerting viewers of ‘fantasy violence’.
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The PG alert for episode two adds: ‘References are made to discrimination and to the exploitation of people by more technologically advanced civilisations.’
And for episode four, it reads: ‘There are verbal references to discrimination and to the discriminatory social structure of an alien society but these are brief, undetailed, and framed within the fictional world of the story.’
This is far from the first time the BBFC has shared trigger warnings in the same vein for the sci-fi show.
In its warning for the season 11 episode, Rosa, which explores the civil rights pioneer Rosa Parks, the board warns of ‘racist themes’.
And even in the first episode of Ncuti Gatwa’s season, Space Babies, it describes ‘references made to a genocide killing off the inhabitants of a planet.’
Episodes like Dot and Bubble come with trigger warnings in a similar vein (Picture: BBC)
In episode five, Dot and Bubble, where the Doctor encounters a racist species, it says that ‘a group of white characters refuse The Doctor’s help for reasons that are implicitly to do with his race.’
And adds that the ‘racism is clearly condemned by the main characters’.
Although this latest trigger warning seems to be the most specific, and fictionally-based, yet.
The discussion around trigger warnings has been contentious in recent years with actors such as Matt Smith and Harry Potter’s Ralph Fiennes coming out against them.
Trigger warnings are not about saving people from being offended: they’re about giving people an opt out before its too late. They’re a perfectly straight forward, useful tool, to me.
Just like age warnings tell parents to avoid letting their children watch a film because of potentially harmful content, contrary to Smith’s view, trigger warnings have the power to allow art to flourish without fear of offence.
…The dismissal of trigger warnings has been taken out of context, and used as a political football by the likes of Piers Morgan, without any thought as to why we use them in the first place.
Easily dismissing audiences as ‘too soft’ – or in Morgan’s words, ‘pathetic’ – for wanting to be warned before they have to watch their trauma play out on stage reduces real mental health struggles to nothing more than fanciful temper tantrums.
The Doctor Who star said he wasn’t sure if he was ‘on board with trigger warnings’ in an interview with Sunday Times.
He added: ‘It’s OK to feel uncomfortable or provoked while looking at a painting or watching a play, but I worry everything’s being dialled and dumbed down. We’re telling audiences they’re going to be scared before they’ve watched something.
‘Isn’t being shocked, surprised, stirred the point?’
In recent years certain viewers have slammed the show for ‘going woke’ with its inclusive storylines.
Doctor Who star Varada Sethu has pushed back again ‘Doctor Woke’ accusations (Picture: BBC Studios/Bad Wolf)
Elsewhere, new companion Varada Sethu (who plays Belinda Chandra in the upcoming season) has pushed back against the ‘woke’ narrative in a recent interview with Radio Times.
‘There’s been a couple of Doctor Woke [references] or whatever. But I just think we’re doing the right thing if we’re getting comments like that,’ she said.
The Andor star added: ‘Woke just means inclusive, progressive, and that you care about people. And, as far as I know, the core of Doctor Who is kindness, love and doing the right thing.’
If you purchase The Savages animation you will also have access to a 100 minute documentary on the making of the original production and a 90-minute documentary on the life of Doctor Who producer, Innes Lloyd.