The Truth About When Doctor Who finally d.i.e.s, the BBC will have b.l.o.o.d on its hands
Word reaches us from another part of the Universe (okay it is Wales), that speculation mounts that Doctor Who, which has seen its audience haemorrhage from eight million to two million, may be about to be pulled. Filming of the second series with Ncuti Gatwa is in the can, the actor is to make a film in the USA, Disney is expected to withdraw its £100 million contribution, and those working on it have been reassigned after Doctor Who filmed his regeneration. The BBC has said no final decision has been made.
It is not the Daleks, Cybermen or Weeping Angels which have put the good Doctor in mortal danger. It is the years of preachy storylines, virtue-signalling, tick-box companions, underwhelming opposition in the days of writer Chris Chibnall (for example Rosa Parks, the partition of India, a pregnant man giving birth). The decline began when Jodie Whittaker (an outstanding actress) became the Doctor. The BBC, pursuing its inclusivity agenda, with programmes riddled with subliminal messages, said the programme needed a strong woman, seemingly forgetting about Rose, Amy Pond, Clara Oswald and River Song.
Then came Russell T Davies and wokery. On his watch we had the planet Katarina 3, a vehicle for an hour of mocking Christianity. Against the backdrop of BLM news dominating the media, there was an episode on genetically-impure Daleks. In the episode The Star Beast an alien told the Doctor his preferred pronoun. An episode set in the Beatles era had an arch-villain who is a drag artist. Another storyline told us that planet Orphan 55 is actually the Earth in the future after an ecological disaster. By last August the Doctor was no longer female, he was gay too, as we had the gay kiss at 7.25pm long before the watershed, with parents contacting Ofcom, as the sexual innuendo was inappropriate for children.
The BBC threw everything at its global franchise including big-name guest stars, a big budget, superb production values, new lenses and CGI but the audience declined further. If you criticised Doctor Who you were told you were sexist, racist, homophobic or misogynistic in turn.
There was much talk of the BBC respecting the programme’s past but, in reality, it had a total disregard for the back story and was more than willing to jettison the loyal core audience.
The problem from the outset for the BBC has been that we Whovians, without regenerating, were around in 1963 and remember the Teachers who were concerned about Susan Foreman in An Unearthly Child, whose eccentric Granddad had an old police box in a junkyard. The sets were ropey and shaky with a small budget for monochrome TV. Good triumphed over evil, the programme was for children. When Whittaker took the role the BBC argued little girls up and down the land were punching the air in delight. Perhaps they weren’t allowed to stay up to influence those damning BAARB figures.
