Dr Who and The Daleks

Dr Who and The Daleks is the film version of The Daleks made by Amicus films. It was released in 1965. In colour. On the big screen. Woo-hoo.

It's a different world to the television series. There's no real mystery to The Doctor here. Peter Cushing plays Dr Who who is a human being who simply invented the TARDIS and set it up in his back garden. It is still bigger on the inside but sadly looks far drabber and less interesting than the television version.

I think a lot about how much you like the films is based on how much you like Peter Cushing's portrayal of Dr Who. He plays him far more sympathetically than Hartnell. He's much more the doddery grandfather. He's gentle. There's a distinct lack of curmudgeon. I find it fine for this film. It's tonally correct. You couldn't have put the Hartnell Doctor into this version of Doctor Who. It wouldn't fit. There's very little 'edge' to Dr Who and The Daleks.

Even the Daleks seem less sinister here in their multi-coloured glory than they are in The Daleks itself. The film versions are bigger, chunkier and more colorful.

The rest of the main cast are also different. Barbara is now one of Dr Who's grandchildren and played by Jennie Linden. Barbara probably gets the least to do of any character in the film, which makes her sadly forgettable. Susan is still the Doctor's grandchild but is actually a child, played by Roberta Tovey. Susan is rather a precocious young thing but Tovey's performance is pretty darn good. I have a low tolerance for child actors but Tovey is possibly the best thing in it and - whisper it - does Susan's lone journey from City to TARDIS better than Carole Ann Ford. Ian is Barbara's boyfriend. He's played by Roy Castle.

I should say here that I like Roy Castle. When I used to do a paper round in Gerrards Cross, back in the mists of the 1980s, Roy Castle would occasionally pass me whilst he was jogging. He never failed to say hello as he passed, which was always rather nice. Alas, Ian is the comic relief in Dr Who and The Daleks, which means Castle doesn't get a chance to be subtle. It's broad slap-stick stuff. I don't think many people would have done it better than Roy Castle did it but it just seems a bit out of place.

The Thals are a beautiful bunch with their lovely golden hair. Led by Alydon (Barrie Ingham) they're the same pacifist farmers as in The Daleks except they're convinced to throw over their pacifism far more quickly in the film than in the television series.

Let me leap untidily to another point: the design. They've obviously gone for a similar look to the original television story but on a far grander scale. In fact, the Dalek city looks great but feels less discombobulating than the television version. Gordon Flemyng's direction certainly lacks the panache of Christopher Barry's. For example in The Daleks the first time we see a Dalek is in a rather well-directed shot when they're seen in pull back as the Doctor, Ian and Susan step out of the laboratory. Flemyng makes an almost identical attempt in the film and it just seems much flatter. Even allowing for the huge scale.

Now it might seem, from all of the above, that I don't like Dr Who and The Daleks much but that's not quite true. It's entertaining enough, it's fun to see the Daleks in bright colours and with their fire extinguisher guns.

The film takes the main plot of The Daleks and removes all the nuance and edge (and there is some in The Daleks), which means it flies along. It's not terrible. It's just not as good as the television story. Perhaps because it doesn't have any of the edges of the original television series. The classic example of that being the difference in the fate of Ganatus in Dr Who and The Daleks and The Daleks. It's one of the more annoying moments of the film.*

It passes the important test: it's fun. So if you get a chance to watch it you should. You could certainly watch this if you knew nothing about Doctor Who at all. Ideally at the cinema - where they do crop up on occasion.



*I think watching this so soon after the television version made me much more aware of the flaws than I might have been.

The Daleks

The Daleks is, as I'm sure you all know, the story that introduces us to The Doctor's most persistent and dangerous enemy. Although no one was to know that at the time. It's pretty clear that at the end of this story the Daleks are finished. 

These are a very different bunch to what is to come. Trapped inside a single city on Skaro because they can only move via static electricity on their metal floors these are not the galactic conquerors that they will become later. 

The impression you get is this is the fag end of the Daleks as a species but they do have that determination to survive, regardless of other people's intentions. They're not quite as extermination obsessed at the beginning of the story as they become later but that's partly because they're trying to get information from and convince The Doctor and his companions to help them. Once they don't need that help (and once the Doctor & co prove to be more of a pain in the arse than expected) then the 'real' Daleks reveal themselves.

The story itself is surprisingly good over the course of the seven episodes. There are, naturally, moments of tedium but mostly it manages to keep the levels of tension up throughout. The first episode in particular is as good as the first episode of An Unearthly Child. The way Christopher Barry uses camera angles to emphasize the alien nature of the city feels like something out of German expressionist cinema. It helps you feel some of the discombobulation that Barbara feels as she's dragged further and further into the maze of the city. It all builds up to THAT cliffhanger at the end of Part One. Jacqueline Hill's reaction sells it. Something horrible is coming. And you really want to know what it is. No wonder people tuned in for the next episode. 

I should pause here to praise Raymond Cusick whose design helps make this story so memorable. The Dalek city is fabulous. And, of course, the Daleks themselves are one of the great pieces of design. Even now with their tweaks they look fantastic. Even with the egg whisk and sink plunger jokes there is something sinister about a Dalek. Perhaps it is that - in the earlier stories - they are a little shorter than average height so you find yourself wondering how they got someone inside. Then there's the realization that there is an occupant.  Cusick's contribution is one of the key reasons this story works as well as it does. 

The other is Nation's script itself. Whilst the dialogue rarely sets the world on fire the plot itself has the right level of drive. It feels like a high quality episode of one of those Saturday morning kids adventure serials like Flash Gordon or Buck Rogers. It's not spectacularly original but it does a job. The Daleks are - as we all know now - clearly drawing on Nazis. Indeed if you made the Daleks actual Nazis, made the Thals some non-first world humans and took the Doctor and friends out of it I reckon you could slot Indiana Jones into this. All it needs is the right McGuffin for everyone to be chasing. 

The Thals themselves are the contrast to the Daleks. Handsome, blonde and pacifist as a result of their history. They become the Doctor's allies after Ian convinces them to abandoned their pacifist ways. Indeed one of the most interesting scenes here is the conversations between the Doctor, Ian and Barbara about convincing the Thals to take up arms to help them recover their fluid link. And then Ian's attempt to draw violence out of Alydon (John Lee). It's all pretty obvious in some respects but is played with such sincerity as to feel 'deeper' than it is. 

The First Doctor's deviousness and childishness is to the fore here. He wants to explore the mysterious city. The rest of the crew won't let him. He sulks and then fakes a reason to do so. By pretending he needs to go down to the city to repair the fluid link. In the end, as a result of a lack of proper health and safety, this almost gets everyone killed by radiation poisoning. But actually by the end there is a more avuncular Doctor again talking to Alydon about being a 'pioneer once among his own people.' Hartnell's performance is excellent. He gets a number of memorable scenes but when he looks into the camera and says, "This senseless, evil killing" there is a real power to it. The desperation and anger. It's a fine moment.

Jacqueline Hill (Barbara) and William Russell (Ian) are also strong. Russell gets lots to do. Lots. In some respects he's the lead character in this story, not The Doctor. Barbara even gets the first companion flirtation with Ganatus (Philip Bond), which in classic Doctor Who style is barely touched upon until the final moments of the final episode. 

Carole Ann Ford (Susan) has moments - especially in the first two parts - but you can already tell that she's a character with problems. She's not really allowed to do much apart from be scared and protect her grandfather. You can see why she would want to leave. 

The Thals - whose names tend to become merged together and drift off - are played with various degrees of excellence. Philip Bond is clipped and buttoned up as Ganatus. Ganatus also gets to beat the Fifth Doctor to 'There should have been another way.' (Well, almost.) John Lee is solid and stentorian as Alydon. Marcus Hammond gets to do scared as Antodus and gets one of the stories bleaker moments. Jonathan Crane as Kristas gets to be one of the only two people I can think of that get hit by a Dalek ray and survives. The other being Ian. And in Ian's case the Daleks deliberately stun him. The weakest performance is probably Virginia Weatherall as Dyoni (who is the only female character apart from the main cast to actually speak). It might not entirely be her fault. She doesn't get a great deal to do.

I'm sure I could say a lot more about this story but I've been waffling on for ages so I'll put you out of my misery. I like The Daleks. It's a good adventure story with real issues at the heart of it. It's pretty well-acted and directed. Could it be shorter? Probably. But sixties television is a very different beast to modern television. It's more theatrical (with exceptions) and slower. I'm not sure I'd recommend watching all seven episodes in one go. I spread them over three days. 

Still it is a fine story and probably the reasons Doctor Who is still with us. It was The Daleks that made a success out of Doctor Who. 

An Unearthly Child

The traditional thing when reviewing An Unearthly Child is to concentrate on the brilliance of the first episode and then point out how disappointing the three episodes that follow are. I don't intend to do that for two reasons: firstly there isn't really much I can say about the first episode that hasn't already been said better by other more brilliant people than I and secondly, because I'd like to talk about the three episodes in more detail.

Episode One must be one of the most analysed twenty-five minutes in television drama. Its creation has been discussed both in fact and fiction. There is even an hour and a half television film that revolves around the creation of Doctor Who. This first episode is more than just television now. It's a cultural icon. And it is brilliant. I must have watched it a dozen times and it never feels tired. It's possibly one of the finest first episodes of any television series ever made. Its title sequence and music are radical and wonderful. The Doctor is edgy and alien in a way we're not used to.

And that's all I'm going to say about it.

The following three episodes are far better than their reputation would lead you to think. The key is that everyone plays it absolutely straight.

It's a political thriller. The West Wing in skins - although I'm not going to pretend the dialogue is of equal standard. There's an element of Macbeth* about it too, as Hur (Aleathea Charlton) gives Za (Derek Newark) the oomph he needs to act. Za wasn't going to go into the darkness after the travellers, but Hur gave him the push to do so. Hur clearly doesn't want to be a partner to anyone but Za.

It's about power. The secret of making fire is what makes a man the leader of his tribe. Za's father used to have the secret but died without passing it on. Kal (Jeremy Young) is Za's rival. A wanderer from another tribe who wasn't killed but accepted. When Kal sees the Doctor light his pipe he thinks he's got one up on Za. This is Kal's chance to take the throne. He thinks he's got his own pet fire maker.

Alas, it doesn't turn out to be that simple. The Doctor's lack of matches means he can't make a fire there and then, which gives Za his chance to undermine Kal. Then there's the Old Mother (Eileen Way) who fears fire. Fears that the strangers will bring them fire and sets out to make things more complicated for everyone. Eileen Way is excellent. As are Aleathea Charlton,  Derek Newark, and Jeremy Young. Whatever they feel about throwing themselves about on flea-infested sand in furs they don't let it spoil their acting. All of them take it very seriously. All of them play it straight. None of them are over-the-top, which would have been the easiest thing to do in the circumstances. These three episodes work because everyone in the cast is doing their damnedest to put in good performances.

The Doctor (William Hartnell), Ian (William Russell), Barbara (Jacqueline Hill) and Susan (Carole Ann Ford) end up captured, tied up and dump in the Cave of Skulls.

I should stop here for a moment and make some comments about the cast. Firstly Hartnell's portrayal of the Doctor is very different from The Doctor that we have come to know and love. This is a colder and darker Doctor. He kidnaps Ian and Barbara to protect Susan. He sulks when Ian takes control of events. Notoriously he looks like he's about to pick up a rock and kill Za when the opportunity to escape is slipping from their grasp thanks to Barbara's decision to go help the wounded caveman. Ian stops him. The Doctor is shifty, angry and alien. More alien than The Doctor will ever be again really. I like Hartnell's performance but I can see why it is a bit of a culture shock to people coming to him from New Doctor Who. This isn't a cuddly avuncular Doctor. This is a strange time-traveller with his baffling machine that is bigger on the inside.

Ian clashes most with the Doctor. He's most in denial initial when they stumble into the TARDIS, perhaps because it basically takes his science teaching and laughs in his face. If the TARDIS is real then Ian's whole world view is about to take a big kicking. He's still in denial until they step outside onto an alien world.** It is Ian that makes fire. It is Ian that tells Za that 'the whole tribe is stronger than Kal.' and perhaps introduces an element of communism into the previously individualistic caveman world. Indeed this whole story is a left-wing parable about sharing power, after all in Ian's tribe the fire maker is the least important member of the tribe because 'everyone knows how to make fire.'

Barbara seems to take things in her stride initially but is gradually pushed over the edge by events and then comes out of  the other side but even allowing for her propensity to falling over in this story - she does it twice*** - there's a moral strength to Barbara that in this story particularly makes her the conscience of the TARDIS team. It is Barbara that decides to ruin their escape plan and help the injured Za.

Both William Russell and Jacqueline Hill put in fine performances and I'm always disappointed that Barbara and Ian don't feature higher up on lists of favourite companions. They're a great team.

Carole Ann Ford's Susan is the character that gets the weirdest jump between the first episode and the following three. She's strange, quiet and still in the first episode and then turns into a flapping child when the Doctor disappears at the beginning of the second episode. But it is Susan who comes up with the idea of the flaming skulls. Everyone in the team gets to contribute.

So these first four episodes are one fantastic piece of television followed by three pretty good ones. It's a fine story this - even if it is an artificial divide as the end of the fourth episode leads us straight into the Daleks without a break.

It's well-directed by Waris Hussein. It's surprisingly violent, including a long fight sequence that ends rather horribly even if we don't get to hear or see the final killing blow.

The other thing to note is there is real suspense here. No one knows - at this point - whether everyone will survive. There's a real sense of fear. And everyone ends up dirty and sweaty. It feels surprisingly real. Yes, running around pre-historic forests is a dirty old business. It's not always going to seem like that in the future of the programme. For now though his is real, dirty and dark.

Thoroughly recommended. All four episodes.


*Yes, I know. But if I can't make pretentious comparisons in my own blog where can I.

**Generally this is assumed to be pre-historic Earth but there's no official confirmation that it is at any point. This could be pre-history on any planet with a single sun. Maybe it is Mondas.

***Interesting to note that her second fall - whilst there fleeing the cavemen - the Doctor runs right past her. It's Ian that picks her up. More evidence of the Doctor's less than Doctor-ish nature here.

Canon: What Canon?

Time Lord of Gallifrey. Not in 1966 he wasn't.

Apparently, Doctor Who has 50+ years of canon and beware fiddling with the canon. Canon is a word we've borrowed from religion to describe - effectively - the facts that are apparently non-negotiable in the world of Doctor Who.

Of which I'd argue there are precisely...none.

Now the pure 'canon' is, of course, only what we've seen on television. So that would exclude Virgin New Adventures, Big Finish, The DWM Comic Strip, and assorted Doctor Who Apocrypha. Now, I like to think it is all canon. Even when it makes no sense or utterly disagrees with something we've seen elsewhere.

Why?

Because Doctor Who is a time travel series that accepts the existence of multiple universes and alternative timelines. Generally, of course, like in all these things, there is a hierarchy of what might be acceptable and what isn't. To me - pretending to be a neutral observer - this hierarchy is based on the degree of seriousness involved in the material plus the format it is presented in. So Big Finish and Virgin New Adventures, BBC Eighth Doctor Books, Missing Adventures, et al are easier to swallow as part of a canon that the First Doctor's adventures with John and Gillian in the TV Comic Comic strips.

But mainly what is canon is what we as individuals get hung upon.

So when it was first said that Time Lords could only regenerate 12 times, back in the mists of the 1970s, fans were annoyed. This wasn't something that had ever been established. Or said. You can argue that the 'regeneration' from First to the Second Doctor wasn't even an actual 'regeneration' as it is understood now. We've retrospectively decided that the First Doctor was a Time Lord from Gallifrey with two hearts. Even though none of those things would be 'canon' if you only watched the First Doctor's era.

The Daleks, created as they were for a one-off story, were trapped in their city. Unable to move outside, operating on static electricity. They weren't the intergalactic threat they became. They weren't Kaled mutants. They were Dals. There was no Davros. All these things came later and retrospectively we - as fans - have tried to pull all the threads together.

So what am I saying here? Well, there is a canon. But it isn't set in stone. Doctor Who's canon is what the last story tells us it was. So 'New' Doctor Who stripped all the baggage away from The Cybermen and popped in on an alt-Universe version with a whole new creation myth.

Could The Moff have ignored the 12 regenerations rule? Yes, he could have done. He could have come up with any number of explanations but he wanted to make a big deal out of it because he wanted to set up that big end of an era feeling, even though he's tied some poor future Doctor Who producer/showrunner to having to go through the whole thing again in 11 regeneration time. By which point, of course, accepted Doctor Who canon could be completely and utterly different.

As Doctor Who fans - as opposed to the general viewer - we choose what is canon based on personal preference. Me, I think all of it counts. Except for the bits that I don't. So important was canon once upon a time that the JNT used Ian Levine as an advisor on Doctor Who's past. So successful was that exercise that we got Silurians with third eyes that - for reasons that passeth all understanding - operate to let us know which of them is talking as opposed to being the focus for mental weaponry it was in The Silurians. So that went well.

Terrance Dicks, and I paraphrase here drastically, said that there was no Doctor Who 'bible' just what he could remember of his predecessor's work. And what those that followed remembered of his. Others have pointed out that this stuff shouldn't get in the way of a good story. I'm inclined to agree.

So to cut this short enough for me to get back to my proper job I'd say this. Canon is what I care about. Canon is what I - or you - choose to accept. And we can all go down the pub together and discuss how we can explain the triple destruction of Atlantis or why all those monsters that were busy helping humanity to develop in order to improve their plans weren't tripping over each other (and forgetting about it in the case of the Silence) or how the Skarasen and the Borad manage to co-habit in Loch Ness.* It's more fun that way.

For me, it's one of the reasons I love Doctor Who. It doesn't have a set in stone, nothing can ever change approach. Sometimes a writer changes something I liked and makes it something I don't - yes, Mr. Moffat I'm looking at you - but that's my issue to deal with.

Doctor Who never stays the same. That's one of its glories.



*They didn't. I suspect the Skarasen had the Borad for breakfast on about the third day. That's my theory and I'm sticking to it.

PS I almost wanted to call this Canon and Balls but thought better of it.

A Purely Personal Top Ten Doctor Who Stories (Classic)

I thought that the time had come for a Patient Centurion Top Ten Doctor Who stories. This is, of course, a temporary Top Ten. Ask me again in a month and it will probably change but nevertheless here goes...

Oh, and they are in no particular order of Top Ten-ness. I've chosen them on the basis of...well...I'll explain...

The Web Planet: I know. I can hear all your whinging now. It's so slow. Its direction is so slipshod. But you know I don't bloody care. I love it's vaulting ambition. It's an attempt to show an utterly alien world on a budget that can barely cover the cost of a single moth costume. I love this period in the Hartnell era when the Doctor Who production team kept trying everything. Some things work. Some things don't. And I still maintain that there's a couple of moments in it that are among the most horrible and heart-breaking in the series history. Honestly, it's a magnificent effort. It doesn't all work but I love it anyway.

The Gunfighters: Once the head of the cavalcade of the unloved in Doctor Who terms this is actually rather wonderful. William Hartnell is great in it. There are some comedy accents. Its tone shifts rather dramatically when Johnny Ringo arrives. It is historically inaccurate and it has a song. A chorus rising above the action. That I suspect is because the writer had recently seen 'The Gunfight at the O.K. Corral'. It is a fine parody of television and film Westerns. But really it is worth watching for as a demonstration of William Hartnell's brilliant comic timing. Dodo also gets something to do, which is nice.

The War Games: Ten episodes long. Ten. It shouldn't keep us glued to our seats but it does. Yes, it features lots of escaping, getting captured and escaping again but it is done with such panache. How can you not love it? Really. It is majestic. Patrick Troughton ends his time as The Doctor on the highest of high notes. Jamie and Zoe get possibly the saddest departure of any companions ever. We finally meet the Time Lords. And the scene where the Doctor and The War Chief set eyes on each other for the first time - and immediately recognize each other - is rather brilliant. The Patrick Troughton era suffers from a lot of missing stories, which is a shame for a lot of reasons but mostly because it deprives us of Patrick Troughton himself.

Invasion of the Dinosaurs: If you can ignore the rather dodgy T-Rex - which is the worst of the dinosaurs by miles - this is all rather brilliant, even if the whole thing seems to be a massive grandfather paradox waiting to happen. It has a deserted London, it has got U.N.I.T, it's got Sarah Jane, it has Pertwee at his most majestic and it's got Captain Yates, whose story is perhaps the most complicated of any 'companion' in the series history. It is a story arc before Doctor Who was supposed to do story arcs. It manages to feel epic despite the short-comings of both budget and effects.

Horror of Fang Rock: I could pick lots of Tom Baker but this is the first one I remember with absolute clarity as a child. It is the first one that I can remember being genuinely frightened of and it is still rather wonderful now. It is claustrophobic, relentless and dark. Everyone - almost - dies. It has Louise Jameson as Leela looking rather fetching in a wooly jumper*. Tom is brilliant. It has some fine lines in it and it is still rather creepy. Age has not withered it. Definitely a story for cold winter's evenings.

The Horns of Nimon: This is where I will lose a lot of people that might still be with me after The Web Planet. I can hear the tutting from here. But I don't care a jot. This is my comfort Doctor Who story. The story I reach for to cheer me up on those horrible days when nothing seems to go right. I'll admit now that I have a soft spot for all of Season Seventeen. That might be nostalgia but I love the Fourth Doctor and Romana combination, even if they are dangerously close to being too smart-arsey for their own good. I like K9. I like Graham Crowden's mad, mad Soldeed. I find it utterly joyful to watch from the first 'weakling scum' to the very end. How any Nimon have you seen today?

Kinda: Utterly unlike most other Doctor Who stories, this is all a little weird. Too weird for some people but I love it. I love the fact that it has layers. I like the fact that Janet Fielding gets to be more than just a walking Aussie whinge. I like Simon Rouse's performance. I love Nerys Hughes understated Todd. I love Richard Todd's appearance as a sort of representative of an England lost in the mist and is the perfect casting for the bumbling colonial chap**. It's a story you can watch over and over again. A story to get lost inside. Just be careful you don't find the Mara inside there with you.

Vengeance on Varos: The Colin Baker era gets a constant kicking. It's usually the butt of jokes. And yes, it has its problems. The Sixth Doctor's costume is ridiculous, he stays dark and unsympathetic for too long and there's just not enough joy to out-weigh the death and bleakness in some of the stories. This story has moments where the Doctor isn't behaving as the Doctor should - or the version of the Doctor in our heads - but it is still rather well-written and directed. Writer Philip Martin wrote the marvelous Gangsters, which I also recommend to your perusal - and plays with the fourth wall here a little too. Add Nabil Shaban's memorable Sil and you've got a winner.

Remembrance of the Daleks: Anyone who thinks Sylvester McCoy isn't a good Doctor should be strapped to a seat and made to watch this. Over and over again. This is a real tour-de-force and I remember this as the story that restored my shaken faith in Doctor Who after Season Twenty-Four (which in retrospect has more positive moments than I felt it did at the time.) It is well-acted, well-directed and well-written. This is the moment Ace and the Seventh Doctor establish themselves up there with Leela and the Fourth Doctor and Romana II and the Fourth Doctor as my favorite Doctor/Companion pairings*** It really is better than it probably had any right to be at this point. If you've not seen it you really should stop reading this immediately and go and watch it. Go on.

The Happiness Patrol: I love this story. For similar reasons to why I love The Web Planet. Only Doctor Who could - or would - do this kind of thing. Only Doctor Who would make such a wonderful parable on the wonders of melancholy and what it means to be a minority in a tiny studio with pink wigs and a villain that looks not unlike a certain Bertie Bassett. People get rather sniffy about this story. It's too obviously sets. Of course, it is. Terra Alpha is a Potemkin Village writ large. It looks artificial because it is artificial. Terra Alpha is an illusion. It's the creation of a woman who tried to do the right thing but couldn't understand why her people weren't happy with this right thing. It's pink and fluffy and all rather lovely.

There you go. That's my ten.

I'm sure you'll viciously disagree with some - or all - of my choices. You'd be wrong of course. My life in Doctor Who fandom has taught me that however bad a story is seen to be by fan consensus it is always someone's favorite. And however brilliant a story is there's always someone out there that hates it. Sometimes to a baffling degree of rage.

That's another of the fun bits of being a Doctor Who fan.

Be seeing you.


*I may have become obsessed with Louise Jameson in knitwear since watching The Omega Factor
**Richard Todd is also the focus of one of my favorite acting stories. During World War Two Captain Richard Todd was part of the second wave of British troops at Pegasus Bridge. When the film 'The Longest Day' was made Todd was cast as Major John Howard, who led the attack on Pegasus Bridge. Another actor played Captain Richard Todd. 
**Companion-Doctor favorites is a blog for another day.

The Fun Stuff

Picture From Dorkly's 12 Types of Doctor Who Fan

I've been a Doctor Who fan for a long time and there has never been a better time to be a Doctor Who fan. The show is popular, possibly more popular than it has ever been, and it has a genuinely global reach. There's enough merchandise out there to sink a battleship. You can watch it any time you like in a myriad of formats. There are websites and podcasts. You can interact with fellow fans on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and even in the real world. Being a Doctor Who fan is acceptable. We're fans of one of the most popular shows on British television. The Doctor is one of the few genuinely mythological characters created by television whose existence passes beyond just television.

It's great.

And I have to remind myself of this periodically because I remember being a Doctor Who fan in the dark days. When watching Doctor Who was like raging against the dying of the light. When 'it's not as good as it used to be' was regularly repeated like a mantra by Doctor Who fans and non-Doctor Who fans alike. When being a Doctor Who fan made you an acceptable target not just for ridicule but actual bullying at school. [As an example of how this worked watch the conversation between Paul Cornell and Dr. Matthew Sweet in the latter's excellent Culture Show Doctor Who Special. If you can find it. That, my friends, is what it could be like at its worst]. 

Mostly, of course, it was mockery or bafflement that you were on the receiving end of, which are still quite common even today. If I had a pound for every time someone said "Yeah, but it's a kids show", I'd have £3,966. 

I was lucky. I never cared about how people felt about my Doctor Who obsessions to the point of being belligerently upfront about it. But I can understand why some Classic Doctor Who fans can come across as overly defensive and angry at new fans. The atmosphere in the tale end of Classic Doctor Who within fandom could be poisonousness. We learned our debating styles when things were ugly (and very, very male). That doesn't excuse shitty behavior but it does explain it a little.

Me, I always hung on to the joy that Doctor Who bought (and brings) me. It is still one of the few things that can make me deliriously and childishly happy. I watch every episode as two versions of me. The one is the now me. The bitter, cynical 43-year-old git who is archly critical and capable of spotting a continuity error at a thousand yards. The other is the 11-year-old me. Fresh-faced, excited and just in it for the FUN. He's the one that doesn't care about dodgy special effects, gaping plot holes, UNIT dating controversies or any of that kind of stuff. He just wants to escape. Sometimes the 43-year-old me wins but mostly the 11-year-old me does. 

And I try to hang on to that feeling because it is easily lost in all the criticism and cynicism and sheer bloody smart-arsery of the modern 24/7 online culture.  We sometimes forget amongst all the words and noise to just have fun.

Doctor Who has never been more popular. It's never been more accessible in either Classic or New Who form (and I'm not going to rant on here about how much I hate the artificial separation of Classic and New Who, even though I've fallen into the trap of using them myself all the bloody time).

It's fun being a Doctor Who fan now more than ever. Let's not lose that.

  

Telling Different Stories

So, I've been thinking about the 'Great White Saviour' that is the Doctor, although I usually don't think of him quite like that. There's a couple of reasons for that. Firstly Doctor Who is just a television programme so why would I think that deeply about the central character. [Yes, I know but imagine I am writing this as someone else who doesn't actually do that kind of thing.] Secondly it is embarrassing to admit that as a white, middle-class, straight man of a certain age I try to avoid thinking about the more 'old-school' aspects of the Doctor. Thirdly - and I apologize for coming over all Monty Python's Spanish Inquisition here - the Doctor's alienness seems to provide an excuse for excluding him from tedious Earth-bound questions about gender and race. He's from Gallifrey after all.

I blame the Verity Podcast for getting me thinking about this again. Having a voice outside my own head with experiences unlike my own and therefore perceptions of a different kind make you think. And I hate questioning my own ways of privileges. 

Anyway...let's put a line of thought together. Let's assume Gallifreyans have a flexible approach to skin colour and sex. Let's assume that a Time Lord can be male in one incarnation and female in the next. Let's not get too hung up for the moment on how that affects sexual relationships.* And let us assume that your first incarnation is pretty much a lottery, although with a tendency towards the Caucasian - if stories set on Gallifrey are anything to go by.**

Tilda Swinton - Perfect for The Doctor?

So The Doctor's first incarnation is - by fluke - a white male. He ends up spending a lot of time on Earth. He likes it and it so happens that being a white man seems to be a pretty safe thing to be in most periods of Earth's history. So when he regenerates he sticks with the white male outfit. After all, being white and male avoids a lot of tricky questions most of the time. (Lewis CK, the American comedian has an amusing routine along a similar line). Therefore the Doctor is a white male most of the time out of convenience.

There. I have provided a semi-logical reason for the Doctor's perpetual white maleness.

Now, let's step back into the real world - or what passes for the real world. What if we were to cast a black actor as the Doctor or a woman? I have no strong opinions on this anymore. I did once. I think I might have got over it. But let's assume they do. 

We immediately have a potentially very different television series. Not just because we've got a different Doctor but because we now have a political issue to deal with. Does the production team ignore the change - except to make one or two jokes about it - or do we confront a genuine issue: power and who has it. In any Earth-based story set in either the present or past does the production team behave as people are colour or gender blind to the Doctor's appearance (as they kind of did with Martha in the Shakespeare Code) or do we confront this head-on?

What if a Black Doctor found himself in the US during the Civil War? How would the powerful of - most - eras of Earth history react to female Doctor? Would the silencing of the non-white and the non-male be reflected in the stories? The Doctor's opinions dismissed because of his colour or her sex? Does every story require the new Doctor to do something impressive to emphasize his or her credentials in order to get over this problem or does it become a running issue? Does Doctor Who confront these things or gloss over them?

It's a big question. 

The 13th Doctor?

Personally, I'd love Doctor Who to get its teeth into these issues if we still have time for tea-time adventure. These issues can be tackled without being tediously politically correct or dull. The key is always the power of the story. And I'd prefer that to ignoring it altogether.

I don't know whether these things will ever happen. It does seem more likely we'll get a black or asian Doctor before we get a female Doctor. But even that step - as I hope I've outlined - brings with it political decisions. It's wouldn't - couldn't? - be business as usual. The world doesn't give an equal hearing to people of colour or women (without a fight) and to pretend otherwise might be a grievous fault.  

It would though be an interesting choice. And a chance perhaps to tell some different stories. 

*For theories on the sex lives of Gallifreyans I think another blog would be required. Well, not required as such. 

**Although perhaps this all white male thing is a phase Gallifreyans are going through at the time, like a fashion. Even it does appear to have lasted a bloody long time.