29th June 2013

Fandom

Doctor Who fans are of course, a bunch of moaning gits who are notoriously hard to please. Throughout the years, whether it’s 1965, 1975, 1985 or 2005 Doctor Who fans are always divided into two main camps. Some corners of fandom sing the praises of the latest ‘golden age’, and a very vocal minority will always moan that the programme just wasn’t what it used to be.

Which is fair enough, and perfectly normal - “opinions are like assholes, everybody’s got one,” as Harry Callahan once remarked.

Fans, and especially sci-fi fans, and even more especially Doctor Who fans are notoriously seen as ‘barkers’, ‘nutters’, ‘geeks’ and ‘obsessives’. There’s an element of truth to that but when we’re talking about something harmless, like fascination with an ongoing storyline of a fictional time-traveller and his exploits, I get annoyed that fandom is derided.

Apparently, if you’re a “casual viewer”, hey that’s alright, that’s cool. But woe betide you if you start tuning in to every single episode or, heavens forbid, buy a DVD or something! For as soon as you start becoming a fan, you cross the line. You get labelled as a sad figure of ridicule.

Worse, the makers of the actual series call you “barkers” or “ming-mongs”. You see, there’s this awful two-facedness where if you happen to be Steven Moffat, Mark Gatiss, David Tennant or Russell T Davies then you can bang on about how you grew up with Doctor Who and you still love Tomb of the Cybermen or The Ark in Space or whatever. But if you are an avid Fan (especially if you’re in your forties or above and really, should know better) who expresses an opinion then you’re a saddo.

Let’s get some things straight - a TV show won’t be able to stay the distance of five years let alone fifty unless it commands a loyal fan base. The whole point of promotions and advertising is to try and drum up the viewing audience. How you can get a large and growing audience composed entirely of casual, not-that-fussed-really viewers rather than an audience who comes back year upon year, who invests time and perhaps even their money in books and magazines is a total mystery.

Perhaps, just maybe, being a Doctor Who Fan should be seen as a positive thing and not a complete tool open to ridicule by the people who’s livelihoods rely on people becoming interested in stories and twists, continuity and characters...

In the 1980s, when John Nathan-Turner brought back old foes and enemies, he was described as “pandering to the Fans” and yet it seemed that the only people who derided his creative decisions were... the moaning Fans in the pages of DWB. Attack of the Cybermen was decreed as being a disaster in the eighties because of its reliance on previous Cyber continuity. I never could understand how a casual viewer, who didn’t get the references, would get confused but maybe that’s a blog for another time.

The most annoying thing about nuWho (aka the Reboot, the 21st century series and Doctor Who-lite) is also its greatest aspect - that it is a continuation of the original series (or, perhaps more accurately, follows on from the Paul McGann TV movie made almost 10 years before).

Of course it’s great that we were introduced to Christopher Eccleston’s 9th Doctor* in 2005 rather than a fudged issue of whether or not this was the same person with the previous eight incarnations. That means we can celebrate 50 years of Doctor Who in 2013 and link all the Doctors together in one grand mythos. But the Doctor Who of post-2005 is so far removed from the original series that at times, it seems almost a shame.

Doctor Who is now a ‘flagship programme’ in the BBCs schedules with consistently high ratings, immense popularity with kids and a budget that Graham Williams would never have been able to comprehend. And it’s been pointed out so many times that, you know, Doctor Who isn’t being made for old geeks like me (aka a Doctor Who fan) and it should never be.

I am what you may call, a new breed of Doctor Who fan - I am Schizo Fan (hear me roar). You see, I am as completely obsessed with Doctor Who as I ever was, my earliest memory was of Tom Baker facing off Field Marshal Styre in 1974 and I still tune in live to new episodes of the series week in, week out. I’m probably even more obsessive these days than when I was a teenager due to the mass merchandise available these days (I mean really, who on earth would imagine we would get action figures of Magnus Greel, Sutekh, Axons, Sil or Sharaz Jek?!) and instead of just taping the new season off the telly, I can store it on my TiVo box, rewatch it on iPlayer, download it and then buy it on DVD or in high def on Blu-ray...

In this anniversary year, however, I can’t help feel that nuWho isn’t as good as it could be.

At this point, it is important to stress that I still love Doctor Who and rate Matt Smith as highly as Tom and Pat, Eccleston as good as Pertwee and Stephen Moffat (at his best) as highly as Hinchcliffe. There will always be fantastic episodes and stories, there will always be misfires and less-worthy adventures and there will be lead actors playing the Doctor that will appeal to me less than others. The great thing about our series is that producers, directors, writers, actresses and actors come and go - even David Tennant realised that no one actor is greater than the entire show.

Which is fine - who can forget the uproar of the dwindling loyal few when season 23 was screened, followed by the off-the-wall season 24? The programme was always evolving, changing, regenerating and reinventing itself.

Sometimes the 21st century version of Doctor Who can rank as high up on my list of all-time classic stories but my main gripe with it is it can seem a little bit rigid in it’s format - for the first time in 8 years, we have been served up two (half) series devoid of two-parters and focusing instead on single episodes. It’s understandable - a series of five episodes with a couple of two-parters will give the viewers only three stories, and even a series of eight episodes with a couple of two-parters would whittle the stories down to five stories. The thinking behind the 2012/13 series was to present as many ‘first nights’ with movie style posters used for promoting them.

But when I was a lad, Doctor Who was either a four episode journey of 100 minutes or a shorter adventure over two episodes, running at around 50 minutes.

But the more theatrical, slower-paced story telling of yesteryear is dated, so we are told. 

That is, unless you were one of the enthralled millions watching Broadchurch on ITV earlier this year - how brilliant is a series full of mystery and suspicion unfolding over several weeks, keeping its viewers holding on and holding on until the final revelations. Broadchurch, starring some worthy acting talent but not one that must have had a fortune spent on its special effects, explosions or CGI...

I really wish the BBC would be more experimental in their approach to Doctor Who, as it used to be. Shaking up the format of the show every other year (admittedly, Steven Moffat went the opposite direction of the season long story arc of River Song in 2011 with the stand-alones of 2012/13) would be a good step - do we have to have 45 minute episodes all the time, crammed so full of dialogue and action that the story suffers and becomes so willow slight?

Let’s take an example - Cold War. On paper, Mark Gatiis promised a brilliant story featuring the return of the Ice Warriors aboard a Russian nuclear submarine set in the cold war of the 1980s. How could it not be an epic?

Only we got 45 minutes of the whole spectacle and awe of the fact that an Ice Warrior had been found and decided to humiliate the human scum by defeating them mostly by prancing around in the nuddy... Wrapping it up in frantic pacing and you have a rather unimpressive flimsy story.

The series has certainly hit skiddier skids than how it stands just now but, especially in light of the 50th anniversary year celebrations and fond love expressed for the entire series, 2013 just seems like such a disappointment.

There have been rumours of back-room shenanigans (which may have been a factor in Caro Skinner’s prompt leaving) and befuddlement after Moffat’s previous announcement of “more Doctor Who in production than at any previous time in the show’s history” which resulted in two years of half series, a multi-Doctor anniversary special featuring the current Doctor and David Tennant (as well as John Hurt!*) and broadcast in 3D!!!!

I’m not going to lay it into Moffat as I’m sure the guy is under immense pressure. Let’s not forget that he’s also co-showrunner of Sherlock - and he has been responsible for some of the best episodes of Doctor Who this side of the millennium. But either the BBC are becoming complacent with their ‘flagship’ programme or some terrible disasters are happening behind the scenes that fandom are not privy to.

DWM had a little box-out last month which rather charmingly expressed an opinion that we need more stories. I completely agree and would also like to see some more flexibility and experimentalism in this series, regarding format and genre - we need more time and space!

And before the twelfth Doctor is cast, please don’t cast anyone younger than 30 and please don’t cast on the basis on chiselled, matinee looks to appeal to the fawning swooners.

Doctor Who fandom - “A Carnival of Moaners”, indeed!☨ 

*Let’s wait and see how valid the John Hurt incarnation is and if and where where he slots into the Doctor’s time line. Is he canon??!!?!

☨(c) Roobarb’s Forum