Doctor Who, Season Nine

[Esquilax]

I agree completely. The Bechdel Test is absurd. It has no way of accounting for dialogue that doesn't pass, but doesn't for non-sexist reasons. Consider the movie Alien. Ripley is one of the strongest female characters in cinema history (personal opinion of course), but I can't think of any dialogue that would pass the Bechel Test. Patently ridiculous.

Better, as you mentioned, to have a dialogue regarding potentially sexist content.

It's interesting that you mention Alien, since the original comic that gave rise to the test- people forget this, but the whole thing really was just a "huh, it's interesting that that's a true observation," in a comic strip from the eighties- specifically marks Alien as the last movie made that actually passed the test. I guess there were two female characters in it, three if you count the xenomorph.