You are hereby warned - if the moans of a middle-aged Whovian about Doctor Who are not what you're into, then turn back now!
You're still here? Well alright then, let's get into this.
My personal Who fandom has changed radically in recent years; or rather, I have only recently realised and acknowledged my true preferences and opinions, likes and dislikes.
For the longest time, for instance, I was prepared to hang in there with the new version of Doctor Who that began in 2005 (I say "new", but it's 18 years old this year); but despite my initial enjoyment of the revived series in 2005, I’ve come to realise that everything that comes after season 26 is essentially nothing but fan fiction (and in the case of the Virgin New Adventures, literally fan fiction). When fans started running the show, it was no longer about professional television makers purely doing the best job possible; it became about endless navel-gazing, retconning, and completely flipping the original format into what it was never supposed to become.
But as I say - despite all the ups and downs, as with periods of the original show, I was prepared to keep going, to take the hits and brickbats and keep giving it a chance. I put up with it after Eccleston left and the quality noticeably declined; I endured through seasons 2 to 4, then my hope was renewed with Matt Smith and just as quickly dashed again.
At the end of Capaldi’s last regular series, however, I finally realised it was time to let go. At last the penny dropped for me: I’d finally had enough, and I found the conviction to just stop watching. Just STOP. It’s proven an incredible relief from the constant angst and disappointment, and I’ve never looked back since.
Now having spent more time in reflection, my views have only solidified, with additional realisations: in other words, despite it having taken a long, long time. Coming out of years of denial, I finally realised where my personal Doctor Who fandom truly lies and I have gradually firmed up my opinions on the show.
I’ve come to realise that to me, true Doctor Who is comprised of two things:
One, the program that ran from November 1963 through to the last half of 1977; and
Two, the original run of Target novelisations (including the two Virgin books, The Power of the Daleks and The Evil of the Daleks).
Everything outside of this is, for me, only conditionally Doctor Who at best, and a cheap knock-off masquerading as Doctor Who at worst.
As for the question of canon - for me, it's only the 26 seasons from 1963 to 1989. I no longer accept The TV Movie (The Doctor half human? I don't think so) and the revived series as canon. (And I couldn't be arsed about the audios.)
A quick precis of where my fandom began: I probably first became aware of Doctor Who on television, as the 1970s were turning into the 1980s – so probably either 1979 or 1980. However, in Australia, we weren’t necessarily getting the stories concurrently with their UK first run; we may have been about a year behind (I can't currently verify this - the Australian section of the Broadwcast website is under reconstruction).
The earliest season I can remember seeing on first run is season 18 (which I loved), and I may well have caught some of season 17 as well. I remember The Leisure Hive very clearly, and I have vague impressions of Creature from the Pit. But the ABC ran (almost) year-round, saturation repeats of the whole Tom Baker era, so one of my earliest and clearest memories is of being absolutely petrified of the Daleks as they trundled toward me in what would definitely have been a moment from Genesis of the Daleks.
I remember being very puzzled when I started receiving my first few Target novelisations: only knowing Tom Baker from the show, I kept trying to reconcile who these two very different faces on the covers of both The Daleks and Day of the Daleks were!
But all that said, true Doctor Who on television for me finished with the stories first shown in the UK in 1977. I’ve realised that the principal reason for this is that the arse noticeably falls out of Doctor Who at a very specific point: this being precisely midway through season 15, starting namely with The Sunmakers. This is the point where the Graham Williams era truly begins, and I want to go on record as saying that I believe he is the worst producer Doctor Who ever had. I know there are fans who absolutely swear by his era and love it passionately, but I want to present my evidence and perspective as to why I believe his era (seasons 15 to 17) essentially sounded the death knell of the show in terms of its public acceptance and credibility.
Up until Image of the Fendahl, Doctor Who had always managed to (just about) get away with its meagre budget, turning the simplest elements into mostly believable sets and costumes. And as a general rule, the stories and acting were mostly strong, too, incredibly impactful and memorable.
However, once we hit the back half of season 15, in late 1977 and early 1978, things really hit the skids. This is where Doctor Who - particularly here in Oz, at least in the popular consciousness - becomes an embarrassment and a joke.
I present five exhibits from season 15 to illustrate just how dire the situation was becoming at this time – and which I would argue had never quite happened to this extent in Doctor Who before and started to hammer the nails into show’s coffin:
In The Sunmakers, Mandrel’s under-city hideout is represented almost entirely of nothing but black drapes
In the same story, Pluto supposedly has six suns, but when the Doctor goes on the roof of the building all we see is a foggy London sky!
The much-derided CSO-created sets of Underworld
In The Invasion of Time, the clearly outdoor locations and the brick wall buildings, supposedly representing the TARDS interior
And in the same story, the literal tin-foil Vardans (not to mention the distracting home county-accents).
Now of course there had been failures in Doctor Who’s production values before: the model dinosaurs from Invasion of the Dinosaurs and the hand-puppet Skarasen from Terror of the Zygons, to name just two. But I would argue that these were much stronger stories, better executed overall and held in good esteem by general fandom. Sadly, the last three stories of season 15 are not.
I don’t know what the reason is, but it seems that for some reason Williams was not able to deliver Doctor Who at least semi-convincingly within the budget in the same way as say Barry Letts or Phillip Hinchcliffe would have. With the Williams era we hit the era of cheapness and risibility; the season closers which should be the triumphant end of six months of Who, are limp, completely studio-bound affairs – an unforgiveable way in which to present what once was a flagship BBC production. Shada was meant to be the exception to the studio-bound season closer, but Williams was unable to finalise production of the story and the whole thing was just abandoned.
Now of course this raises the question – was Williams incompetent, or just unlucky? Did his era coincide with the worst excesses and impacts of Thatcherism and the resultant inflation? Well here’s the important point – I don’t give a brass razoo about the background reasons, and it ultimately doesn’t matter. It’s not my job as a punter to read all the production notes, study the history of UK society at the time and come up with all sorts of reasons and justifications. I’ll leave all that to Richard Bignell. All that ultimately matters – especially in the public eye – is what we see transmitted onscreen, and season 15 takes a major and noticeable dive in terms of the program’s ongoing quality and credibility.
Season 16 thankfully redresses the balance somewhat – the stories at least have the benefit of returning to a respectable level of production value. But I am no especial fan of season 16, and the increased production value only partially compensates for what on the whole is a rather bland set of stories. The overall story arc doesn't really hold the interest over six months of episodes. Story-wise I would only make an exception for The Stones of Blood, which at least harkens back beautifully to the Gothic horror of the past for the first half of the story, only to revert to the stupidity of the Williams/Adams era by having Baker act opposite two flashing lights with camp speech inflections in the second.
Under Williams, Doctor Who becomes nasty and cheap, which is potentially forgivable dependent on the kinds of stories being offered up. Under Douglas Adams, however, the show (not to mention the leading man) becomes stupid, which is NOT forgivable under any circumstances.
And you guessed it, dear patient reader: just as I am not a fan of Williams, I am also a harsh critic of Douglas Adams’ contribution to Doctor Who. His style of humour, which works so wonderfully in his own independent productions, fails catastrophically in Who. It’s just not appropriate to the tone and the subject matter; it's jarring and completely undercuts any tension, seriousness, credibility or believability. And in an era where the show is already sagging under the weight of decreasing budgets and cheap-looking stories, this additional strike against the program just isn’t on, and only serves to subject the show to ever-greater ridicule.
It’s under Adams that we get the fourth Doctor – to a whole generation of children, once so iconic, imperious, terrifying and indomitable – giving a literal blow-job a giant green tentacle attached to a massive ball sack. We get Romana casually regenerating into half a dozen or so different potential incarnations– in effect window-shopping regenerations. And we get the Doctor taunting the Daleks - so terrifying in their previous appearance - for not being able to chase him up a ventilation shaft. And there are many more instances of this I could mention.
Not only that, but whose brilliant idea was it to allow Tom Baker to act on screen with that disgusting herpes sore, no doubt contracted from indiscriminate shagging during the off-season? The poor excuse of “dog bite” has never washed with me: I think we’re all adult enough now to admit what in all probability it really was. I feel nauseous just looking at him in Ribos and Pirate, where the sore is in its fullest, most visible and disgusting glory. How can anyone take this show seriously when the makeup department couldn’t even be arsed to apply a bit of foundation to cover up such a hideous disfigurement on the lead actor’s face?? It's a completely baffling lapse of judgement on the part of all concerned, and I’m genuinely shocked this isn’t discussed more among fandom.
Moving on to season 17, it has its ardent fans, but needless to say I am not one of them. A combination of production failures, laughable acting performances and behind the scenes infighting sinks this season into the pits of crap.
Despite having Daleks, the return of Davros and cool-looking and memorable new robot villains (the Movellans), I still have not watched Destiny of the Daleks all the way through. I just find it so deathly boring and impossible to endure. I’ll admit City of Death is the high point of the season, but this isn’t saying a lot. It still has too much stupidity for my liking but in the context of the story it just about works. Baker is still to silly for my liking; at least Julian Glover carries the proceedings with dignity.
The Creature from the Pit is a write-off for the aforementioned blow-job scene alone, and is just a dull overall story. Nightmare of Eden is just that, and The Horns of Nimon – which on paper is a cracking premise – fails dismally in the execution and performances.
Moving into 1980 and mercifully Williams has moved on, and we enter the era of John Nathan-Turner. Seasons 18 and 19 are for me, the only real returns to form the series has post season 15. I swear by both seasons (even though I still wouldn't consider them "true" Who), which for me prove that John Nathan-Turner was a far, far better producer than the hapless Williams ever was.
With seasons 18 and 19, Doctor Who returns to good production values, good story ideas, and excellent execution. The comedy is tightly reined in, and rightly so. The dramatic stakes feel legitimate once more, and the stories seem like they are being taken seriously by those both behind and in front of the camera.
It's become fashionable - and all too easy - to trash JNT and his era for admitted excesses. But in my view, JNT is overdue a major reappraisal (at least in part). I want to point out that JNT delivered NINE seasons of Doctor Who - and it's my opinion that at least four of these were absolute crackers (18, 19, 25 and 26) with plenty more good quality stories sprinkled across the other seasons (Caves, Dragonfire, etc.). Yes - his penchant for "stunt casting" and the general garishness of the mid-80s hurt the program. But if one breaks down his contribution to the program, his strike rate comes out looking very good indeed.
The main caveat I would add to that, though, is by the very end of the show in 1989, it was gradually becoming all about the companion. No less than three out of the four shows of that last season all focused around Ace - and this flipping of focus that I referred to earlier, has been raised to ridiculous proportions in the revived series. Rose becomes some kind of demi-goddess; Martha becomes a worldwide solider, Donna becomes some kind of hybrid Time Lord/human; Clara gets injected into the Doctor's entire timestream and becomes the raison d'etre for his whole series of adventures, etc etc.
And that's without even mentioning River Song.
The show is called DOCTOR WHO for God's sake - not Doctor Who and all his fecking companions. Twenty-first century Who is a bloody soap opera, and it's not what Doctor Who is to me.
To me, true Who will always be best remembered as that creepy, scary but also fascinating and edifying program (and series of novelisations) that peaked in 1976/77, and lit up my childhood and early adulthood throughout the 80s.
