I well remember in 1963 watching on a black and white TV some weird lighting effects and equally weird music followed by a mesmerising image of a blue Police Box. This was in the UK and I was 7 years old.
I also well remember my excitement in 2005 watching Rose as Dr Who was rebooted. Prior to this, the ABC here in Australia played every available episode back-to-back from day one and I still have the recorded DVDs I made of them, as well as all the various box sets.
I have managed to mostly evade the merchandising – albeit splashing out on a TARDIS money box, a 30cm Dalek and a few sonic screwdrivers. Oh and the Electronics Guide to the TARDIS compendium.
As a self-confessed fan then, my thoughts on the latest series, with the ubiquitous Chrissy special not that far away.
The thing with Dr Who is that no matter what you say, you are bound to inflame someone. So in short, I enjoyed some of it and was not so enamoured to the rest.
I was never really happy with Chris Chibnall plots – with exception – as I felt they had lost the “spirit” of Dr Who, pandering way too much to the Jody Whittaker pantheon and re-living the glory of the Broadchurch past.
Dr Who is supposed to be all about fantasy and adventure and monsters and saving Earth – again – with nothing more than brains and a bit of good old-fashioned derring-do. If some pathos can be thrown in, all well and good. Vincent, and The Girl in the Fireplace spring to mind here.
Playing with history as was done in the early years of the Chibnall era was also welcome (Rosa and Demons of the Punjab) and it was very rare to see a dud from Stephen Moffat – in fact I cannot think of one.
When Russell T Davies brought back Dr Who in 2005, after a brief period of anticipatory worry, I think we all breathed a sigh of relief as it appeared he had successfully managed to encapsulate the original magic.
So why oh why has he thrown away a winning formula?
Space Babies was downright silly, the Devil’s Chord had promise but horrible execution as did Rogue (did they really need the Rue Paul-esque campiness? John Barrowman did it so much better and more subtly) and Dot and Bubble was equal parts interesting and equal parts awful monster CGI.
That leaves Boom which of course was a Moffat write, and the others were genuine Dr Who series arc stories.
Reading a lot of the fan groups it seems I am not alone in my thinking. What are your thoughts, if any? Please leave them in the Comments below! And Be Nice 😊
