Articles From The Past - Part 1

Who Fears The Who
Is There A Doctor In The House ?

Who feared the who? Who hid behind the sofa on a Saturday night, peeking over a well placed cushion, trying to anticipate any horrific revelation made by the classic British institution known as Doctor Who. What was there to be afraid of, rubber monsters with flatulent speech patterns, or the perpetual screetching of a hysterical assistant. What made it so compelling, making sure week after week we adopted a cushion shield type seating position and where do we start.

In the beginning there was William Hartnell, the lovable eccentric grandfather, a straight laced Victorian gentleman. Here materialised the genesis of all that followed, establishing certain patterns and traits that would provide a template for all that would attempt to follow. Next was Patrick Troughton, something of a sixties hippie idealist, cross legged on the floor of the TARDIS, tootling tunes on a penny whistle. Moving slightly away from the victorian attire, almost Rupert Bear-esque, but with a hairstyle Dave Hill would have died for. 

Next was the golden age of all things Who. Dressed like a dandy, a fop, and a veritable poppinjay Mr Jon Pertwee became the third incarnation of The Doctor. For some of his tenure as the Doctor, he remained on Earth, but that allowed character relationships to develop with other recurring characters such as the Brigadier and his classic car Bessie. This static location also allowed or rather prevented some dodgy sets from being used to portray some far away planet, but encouraged the crap alien department to work overtime. For the second half of this golden age, was the ultimate in Doctoring and extreme behaviour. All packaged into a former Rasputin, and priestly curly topped chaos maker. His name, Tom Baker. Complete with a little bag of jelly babies and some attractive assistants, he provided probably some of the greatest moments in Who history. A tenure unbeaten to this day, the longest lasting of all Doctors, not to repeated for the foreseable future.

Now are the dark days for the Doctor, Peter Davidson and Colin Baker took up the mantle, ran with it and almost destroyed the franchise. That being said they only lasted a few years and it could be forgotten in an instant. What was the problem you may ask, quite simply they had run out of ideas, not sure where to go next, it was decided to continue to flog a dying horse and continue with yet another Doctor.

The names Mccoy, Sylvester Mccoy, one time presenter of Tizwas, and hammerer of nails into nasal cavities, his mission was to save all that was Who. Introducing a feisty assistant, Ace, more funding, and what did you get, a leaner fitter funnier Doctor, in some ways better but not all. Combining the best elements of previous Doctors and allowing Mccoy to add his own insanity allowed the franchise to prosper once more, but its days were numbered, and as they say when the fat lady sings, all good things must come to an end. The Americans are coming.

Dressing it up, throw loads of money at it, and employing an American brother of a well known female actor of some note, does not a great reworking make. Even getting him to play the new incarnation of The Doctors nemesis, The Master. Of course retaining the current televisual regeneration of the good Doctor enables the reworking link everything together. But what is the point of re-inventing the wheel, when the wheel we have is perfectly adequate for the job. Of course the Doctor has to be played by a Brit, that Brit being one of the many Macgahn brothers, Paul being the brother in question. Unfortunately like all of the movie versions, including both of the Peter Cushing outings, it fails to deliver. Elements are elusively missing, one of which being a decent plot, and secondly having too much emphasis on effects. Now the good Doctor is placed in mothballs, not to be aired for quite some time. 

What of the assistants, most of them had pretty much only one role, as Robin was for the Adam West Batman, comic relief and un-heroic peril. Dressing up as an air-hostess, a primitive cave woman, or just a simple grand daughter. Some had a certain quality that enabled them to stand out, and last longer than the average shelf life of a bottle of milks. Some managed this feat in many different ways. Ace had her get up and go, providing the Doctor with a counterpart not afraid to mix it up with the most villainous of villans. Sarah Jane Smith maintained her assistant status for longer than most, not quick with the fists, but having an intellect or outlook the Doctor appreciated on many occasions, plus being the assistant for two Doctors gave her a special quality others could not live up to. Bonnie Langford is the unmentionable one, squeaks and all, fortunately William did not make an appearance, so being sick was not on the cards. A major requisite for all assistants was the ability to get into the most ridiculous of scrapes at alarming regularity, ensuring week by week the good Doctor had enough cause to rescue said assistant and probably save the universe in the process. Only one assistant should never have been rescued, despite any repercussions, that metallic monstrosity should have had its swivelling ears rotated out of the TARDIS permanently. The menial service droid of nightmare came by the name of K9, annoying, kick-able but unfortunately unforgettable. The Yorkshire Terrier of yap yap yapping mechanics, should have had its WD40 spiked with saline, left to rust, forgotten forever.

If the assistants scared you to the back of the sofa, then the monsters should have you quaking yourself out of the room, a plastic not so fantastic with mis-shapen knobs on. Taking the contents of the average kitchen bin, sticky back plastic and a modicum of copydex to bind it all together, Blue Peter's model department had competition. How much more convincingly evil could you be, dressed in a spray painted boiler suit, threatening to take over the world of the week, armed with a bacofoil covered ray gun and chunks of LEGO stuck on your chest. You could get away with almost anything including an oversized pepperpot attacking with a sink plunger and egg whisk. Maggots, spiders, Zygons, Sea Devils and the large headed Sauron all came and went, but squeaking its way to out-alien the aliens was a large eyeball mounted on a green skirt, convincing, I think not. Moreover the true terror came from the intent, and the apparent indestructability of recurring enemies, to rise up season after season despite the fact they had been vanquished more times than the Doctor had regenerated. This gave them a more threatening presence than any amount of garish make up could accomplish. Daleks and Cybermen, every Doctor had to face them at some time, but even these most evil of evils had the proverbial Achillies heel, Cybermen had gold, and Daleks, well they lost out to jelly babies, magnets, foam, you name it, they were defeated by it. But still they manage to instil dread and fear in to all they encountered, that is until next time.

Technology has always played a vital part in all of the Doctors many lives, but the Doctor would be nothing without his ability to travel through the universe. Having a Police Box that can travel through time and space could be a licence to fix wrongs if only it worked properly. The TARDIS (time and relative dimensions in space) should be able to blend in to its surroundings but having a defective cloaking circuit means that it must remain a large blue Police Box, plus you should be able to steer such a device whatever the interface, but again the steering circuits are also defective, so every time the TARDIS is engaged you never know where you are going to end up. When rambling across a new world, locked doors could prevent access to places you always want to be. What you need is a Sonic Screwdriver, a multi-tool capable of more operations than your average Swiss army knife combined with a workbench and all the fuse wire in Wales. That's why the Doctor never leaves the TARDIS without it, as without it, he would be without his necessary get out of jail free card, without which he would not be able to get out of jail free. 

So where does this leave us, apart from biting our nails down to the nub, well, at the end of the article, apart from the fact that Doctor Who is back on our screens. Bigger better ballsier than ever before, a new Doctor for a new generation. Traditions are maintained so young and old alike can enjoy it. Christopher Eccleston managed to maintain a leather jacket for one season, stop Billie Piper from singing and reintroduce some of the quirky offbeat humour that had been lacking in some of the previous incarnations. This time re-inventing the wheel has been a success, its still circular, but exists in more dimensions than time and space usually allows on the BBC. Like upgrading your favourite armchair, its comfortable, familiar, but suprisingly new, and if you could scratch it, it would smell nice again. Long live the new Who, David Tennant used to be Casanova, a Death Eater and a possessive partner, but now time has lorded its way into the present, its still wrapped awaiting its release, time to move on..