Geek Syndicate Issue 7 | Página 42

Geek Syndicate
deaths, and was starting to feel a long way from its more optimistic roots. Surely people like Dark and Gritty? To a point, yes. But Doctor Who is at heart a family show, aimed at a wide demographic. It was a show starting to look tired and in need of a refresh, and sinking into these sorts of stories, with unlikeable heroes and compromised endings took the show further from it’s mass market appeal. Ratings started to fall, and with them budgets, production time and overall quality. It’s ironic that Davison’ final story, Caves of Androzani, is all of those things, yet often cited as one of the greatest stories of Classic Doctor Who. And when was that? 1984. Davison’s fifth Doctor sacrificed himself for a young woman he hardly knows, because he was that kind of fellow, and was replaced by Colin Baker (no relation) whose sixth Doctor was brash, arrogant, condescending and basically a big jerk. His two seasons were a disaster for Doctor Who, seeing it shunted around the schedules and ultimately cancelled, before being brought back without him. Wow. He was really that bad? General consensus is that Baker himself: not so much. The scripts and character he had to work with? Yes, that bad. Of course, the “plan” of the production team was to mellow the character out over the years that Baker would play the role – but they never got the chance. The finale of the sixth Doctor’s time in the TARDIS was the series long “Trial of a Time Lord”, a series of linked stories that while not without ambition, is terribly executed. So out went Baker, and in came Sylvester McCoy for the Classic series last hurrah. They pulled it back then? Sort of, although not enough to ultimately save the series from cancellation. McCoy saw a bunch of new talent come in on the writing side, and whilst budget cuts continued and the BBC management made it a point of policy to try and shut the show down (Director-General Michael Gann. It was, frankly, a bit of a confused mess, unsure of its tone or intended direction and wasn’t well received on the whole. In the meantime, the Doctor Who fanbase was sated with new novels and later with audio series starring the original casts (including McGann) whose writers included not only those who’d worked on the show but several who would write for the re-launch. And then, in 2005, the show itself regenerated.

Christopher Eccleston - A new Doctor for a new age. Doctor Who is back ... and it’s about time

Grade was quite open about hating Doctor Who) it gradually started to get back on its feet. Some of the changes were pretty important too - the relationship between the Doctor and his companion Ace was put at the heart of the show, and there was a whiff of contemporary themes rustling through the shows subtext. It felt like a crude prototype of the re-launched show, still fifteen years away. Fifteen years is a long time for a show to go on hiatus. I’m surprised it came back at all. There was an abortive attempt to re-launch the show in 1996 starting an eighth Doctor, Paul Mc-

Ooh, that sounds dramatic. It sort of is. Show runner Russell T Davies brought back Doctor Who wearing a markedly different skin. Most episodes were stand-alone stories, with series long “teased” arcs for big finales, as is the fashion in US telly. The show became brighter, flashier, funnier and sexier. Things exploded. The Daleks came back, to chase a new generation of kids behind the sofa. Doctor Who was (whisper it) suddenly cool. Nah. Yes! That first season caused all sorts of ripples, not least with a fandom that was prone to schism

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Image © BBC, 2005