Before I start I should point out that this is not written to be deliberately provocative. I don’t talk about the new series much as it tends to polarise opinion in a not-always-friendly way but this has been on my mind for a while…
I love Matt Smith as the Doctor. For the most part, I loved David Tennant as the Doctor and, to give him his due, I thought Eccleston had his moments in the role. The production is stylish and the programme is more popular than ever. So why does 21st century Doctor Who leave me in a state of massive indifference?
It would be very easy to follow the trend of slamming Russell T Davies or Steven Moffat for everything that I perceive is wrong with the series since it returned and it’s true that, as Executive Producers (or Show-runners if they insist), their position does point the finger somewhat squarely in their direction. However, for me, there’s something in the way the whole thing presents itself that turns me off that can’t be laid at the door of any one person.
I’ve never liked the 45 minute episode structure. I didn’t like it in the original series and I don’t like it now. Invariably we end up with good ideas let down by them having to be resolved hastily in the last five minutes. The loss of the serial nature of each story is something I miss. I enjoyed the way you came back for several weeks to find out what happened next and the trend over the last fifteen years for ‘arc’ story lines (not just in Doctor Who, but across practically all genre TV) just isn’t the same.
I listen regularly to the excellent Adventures In Time, Space and Music podcast and yesterday I heard the Matthew Sweet BBC Radio 4 documentary; Dance of the Daleks. What both of those show is how boringly predictable and mainstream the music for Doctor Who is now. That’s not to denigrate Murray Gold’s skill as a composer. He’s clearly very talented but when it started in 1963 Doctor Who broke the rules musically – it was like nothing else heard on TV. Now it sounds like everything heard on TV. It’s abundantly clear that the Radiophonic Workshop and all the people who worked there over the years had a dramatic input on the ‘feel’ of the programme and I really do miss that.
The companions of the 21st century feel less like normal people and more like wannabe-aspirational super-humans, taking every monster or alien in their stride, treating near-death experiences as though they mean nothing and showing little to no respect to the amazing, if flawed, man taking them around the universe. I won’t get into the whole debate about the added ‘emotional aspect’ to the show other than to say that some of the comments from the production office over the last seven years that have placed that development firmly at the doors of attracting female viewers display a level of cynicism and manipulation of which the Master would be proud, not to mention underestimating almost every female watching the show. (Having said that, I know several women who said they wouldn’t watch after David Tennant left because they didn’t fancy Matt Smith…)
Tom Spilsbury of DWM once wrote that he was fed up of hearing people define the two runs of the series as Classic or New – the 2005 series simply resumed the same programme it had always been. I see his point but there clearly is a striking difference between the original run and what we’ve seen since its return, even if it’s only on a production level. I’m not suggesting that the original run was perfect, on its shoestring budget with multi-camera shooting and often studio-bound restrictions – God knows that would be a hard one to argue – but, somewhat perversely, perhaps it’s the fact that Doctor Who looks so slick now and gets so much hype from the BBC and the people who work on it about how epic and wonderful each episode is, that I’m less able to forgive it’s faults.
I fully appreciate that times change and ways of producing television change – I’ve been watching Doctor Who for 35 years for goodness sake! I also realise that everything I’ve said can be taken by certain fans and used to hurl abuse at me for being a curmudgeonly old fart, or someone who doesn’t appreciate quality television etc etc. The truth is that I very much appreciate quality television and I haven’t quite turned 40 yet (still a few months to go), so I’m not old either. Interestingly, my ten year-old stepdaughter loves the show but when I ask if she wants to watch one, she invariably picks a story from the original run.
I continue to watch, safe in the knowledge that once in a while the series will play an absolute blinder. I’ve been a fan for over thirty years and, let’s be honest, am hardly likely to stop now – but it’s fair to say that the excitement that used to herald a new series passes me by these days. For a while I felt a bit guilty, almost traitorous that I wasn’t enjoying my favourite programme and became a victim of the fan forums if I dared voice an opinion that wasn’t overwhelmingly positive. Until I realised that this really isn’t the show I grew up with. I love the fact it’s popular with the mass-audience and is getting the recognition is deserves. There’s no doubting that it’s still one of the most imaginative programmes on modern television but, for better or worse, it’s regenerated and I prefer the old one. That doesn’t make me right or wrong, it’s just my opinion. Perhaps that opinion will change in time, I don’t know – but that’s the trouble with regeneration, you never quite know what you’re going to get.
Nicely said.
For what it’s worth, I’ve only been watching Doctor Who for four years, having started with Eccleston, and I agree with just about everything you’ve said here. For one thing, I think not having serial stories is a loss for the show (and said so in Confession #11).
But in general, having come to love the entire thing from its beginning, there’s a certain… character that seems absent since 2005. It’s not better, it’s not worse – it’s just distinctly different. And I, for one, can’t blame you for being out of sorts with this particular regeneration.
That’s spot on actually. Not better or worse, just different – and it’s not unreasonable for some people to not ‘get’ that difference. I could name you two high-profile people connected with DW who have told me that, for them, the only Doctor Who that interests them is the first six years. After that, they feel it lost it’s magic. They’d never admit it on a public forum though. They probably be concerned they’d be assassinated by the military wing of GallifreyBase!
Nice post. It’s great to hear fans voicing their complaints about the new series.
Hmm, it isnt really meant to be a list of complaints…
People close to me know I have struggled with the tone of 21st century Who for some time and I hope this post goes a little way to explaining my personal opinions. I have said before that the Producer of the show has every right to produce the show they want to and shouldn’t pander to fan opinion. I still maintain that position and am pleased RTD and Moffat are doing what they feel is right – as has EVERY producer since the show began. Unfortunately what they like and what I like appear to be very different. That doesn’t mean either of us is right or wrong just that, at the moment, I prefer the original run.
The fact that Doctor Who is a worldwide success proves they’re doing something right. It will be interesting to see how we all view 21st century Who in twenty years time, when the dust has settled and we’ve had no new stories for a while…
I understand exactly what you mean. I started watching in 1972 when it reached the PBS stations in the states. It was usually shown one episode/night. And though not exactly like the original “weekly” style shown in Britain it was still made you have to return to the TV each night for the next episode. So most stories took about a week to get through.
Another thing the “classic” series had was due mostly to it’s lack of a budget. To make up for no money, and also the length of the story itself, they made up for it in the story telling.
The program could never broadcast stories in the style which we saw in the 1960s through the 1980s because the audience would never sit still long enough for things to develop. It’s an “Instant Gratification” society…
Different Times – Different Program.
More excellent points, Dave
Throughout most of my time as a fan the show wasn’t on the air and Joe Public didn’t want to know it. It was looked down on as a sad programme nobody wanted anymore.
I now find it hard to accept that I live in a coy try where everyone talks about it. I feel like something personal to me has slipped away and become everyone’s property. That’s a strange sensation.
With regards to the actual show itself I look at this a lot more pragmatically. In one of the Cadmium 2 episodes Paul talked about television becoming disposable due to. The huge amounts of it available. He mentioned Star Trek The Next Generation and his experience was like mine, watching poor episodes on BBC2 but sticking with it because you knew there would be an excellent episode soon. You wouldn’t do that now. Equally I thought my life would stop when Doctor Who was on, but it doesn’t, though I still give Who more direct attention than other shows.
Doctor Who of old would not survive today. It had to come back more action packed and faster paced. It had to come back at 45 minute, mostly standalone episodes. People today wouldn’t stick with a storyline for many weeks. That’s why Heroes failed in the end. Overall Arcs are great but not one storyline told over many weeks. People don’t have the patience when there’s so much else out there. That’s not sad in my opinion it’s just the reality of modern day life.
I love the fact that new Who is a continuation, and we can still have classic elements. Monsters, Sarah Jane and even Peter Davison. However, it’s rebranded itself to be palatable to today’s world, hence it’s success.
Compare this to Star Trek. You had TOS, then the expanded universe of TNG onwards. Now we have a total reboot. Trek as we remember is still here, but the actual show itself has moved on. It has to, no producer was going to take it on as it stood after Enterprise. That universe has gone and if you really can’t stand that I think Red Letter Media summed it up best:
http://redlettermedia.com/plinkett/star-trek/star-trek-09-short-film/
If you really want to hark back to the classic show you have Big Finish, but the show itself has repackaged itself in order to succeed. That is what RTD understood best.
I accept the situation and embrace it, and the original we all love is still there on DVD for us all to enjoy.
Hi Andrew, thanks for your reply. I see where you’re coming from but although you say you’re being pragmatic, the tone of what you’re saying comes across to me more as though you’re ‘making do’.
As it happens, I agree with both you and RTD about the need for the show to change radically in order to appeal to modern audiences but I disagree that it HAD to become action-packed and faster-paced. I do feel that what we’ve gained in production values we’ve lost in character development and subtlety. The reality of modern life meaning that people don’t have the patience anymore is most definitely a sad thing, in my opinion. Pandering to that lack of patience and have-it-now culture is just as tragic.
I don’t hate 21st Century Doctor Who, I’m just left utterly unmoved or motivated by it. It has a ‘sledgehammer to crack a nut’ mentality that just doesn’t appeal. Every now and then, it does something wonderful but just not often enough for me.
I don’t think you can really compare Heroes and Star Trek with DW, simply because they’re such different shows. Personally, I’m not a huge Trek fan and the reboot has done nothing for me. The current fad for rebooting things leaves me cold. It shows a pitiable lack of imagination and creativity.
I’m glad you, and the many millions who watch 21st Century Who, find plenty in there to enjoy and I certainly don’t begrudge you that. I’m just feeling happier now that I’ve admitted to myself that it doesn’t make me a bad fan just because I don’t!
I’m a paleowhovian at heart to, having started watching the show in 1977 on public television in the States. I think it’s normal to have that “getting-used-to-the newly-regenerated-Doctor” feeling whether it’s the first 7 doctors (Going from Doctors 4 and 3, and then to the first Doctor in black and white was an adjustment for me back in the 80s) or the most recent 3. Substance seems to have overtaken overtaken style, as you have said, certainly moreso than the style the show was trying to inject back in season 17 when John Nathan-Turner took over. I liked “The End of the World,” which I thought was the BBC’s way of proudly telling the world that the days of Doctor Who shoestring budgets are over.
My biggest criticism with the 21st century show is that up to this point the showrunners appear to be compelled to try to create a more mind-blowing end of the universe season finale than was had the series before. I initially liked the rather intense story arc nature if the recent series, but after a while, it made me long for the old doctor who, where there seemed to be less story arcs, or at least they mixed things up more. I love the key to time storyline, the Trial of the Timelord, the e-space trilogy and the black guardian trilogy, but if every seaon was like that, I probably would have felt differently about it. I will say that I have liked the slighitly more serious style the current series with Matt Smith moreso than his first 2 series. Killing Rory so many times in Matt’s first series, having Rory live for 2000 years as an auton, and having River Song played kind of tongue-in-cheek were a big turnoffs for me. I’m hopeful that I will continue to like this current season when the second half starts.