An article at the Spectator (which is partly behind a paywall) opens this way:
Twenty years on from its spectacular revival it looks like Doctor Who might not be returning to our screens again in the immediate future. I haven’t actually watched Doctor Who for a long time, but because I wrote an awful lot of it for years – on TV, but also books, comics, radio plays, yogurt pot labels, you name it – people always ask me what I think should become of it. My answer? I’d cancel it and flee for the hills.
Twenty years is an incredible run, almost equalling its original marathon from 1963 to 1989. In TV parlance, it needs to be ‘rested’.
Stepping back from a thing enables you to see it from the outside, which has been quite a jolt. I’ve seen Doctor Who whizzing by from the corner of my eye for years now, the way others see it. From that buzzards-eye view it seems like absolute screaming madness.
When any long-running endeavour hits trouble, you have an opportunity to really peer at its fundamentals. What is it for? Who is it for? Is it worth all our bother? Like the Conservative party, Doctor Who is a lingering institution fashioned in, and for, a lost age. Perhaps we need a Badenoch-style analysis of what went wrong?
I knew I had said myself that it needed "resting", but didn't realise until I searched the blog that I first suggested it in 2011!
(And like the author of the Spectator article, I haven't watched it for many years, too. I really don't see how any adult can call themselves a fan of the show anymore without other adults in the room having a cringe reaction.)
No comments:
Post a Comment