Fear Her

So another Saturday night and another sub-standard filler episode of Doctor Who. Fear her? Not really. Fear RTD? Definitely! You know, a lot has been said about this TV series over the decades with its men in rubber suits, silly stories and supposed 'wobbly sets', but one thing it would be difficult to accuse this show of is a lack of respect for its audience ... until now. It's alarming to see how - from the 'Christmas Invasion' through to 'Fear her' last Saturday - Doctor Who has become horribly formulaic, dull, smug and silly. Indeed, we may look back at this entire current series in the not-too-distant future and view it as nothing more than a warm-up act for Torchwood. The stories have been high on originality, but low on substance with an increasingly hackneyed and embarrassing 'monster of the week' structure to each episode. It doesn't seem to matter who or what the monster is, why it exists, where it comes from, or what motivates it (i.e. the 'pilot fish' of the Christmas Invasion, the cat nuns, the monks and werewolf in Tooth and Claw, 'The Wire', the demon/devil in the Satan's pit, the Absorbalov and so forth. All that matters is that it's a monster and it needs to be stopped. Oops, sorry, first it needs to threaten Rose so that the Doctor can get angry and righteous and then stop it (usually with a combination of sonic screwdriver and psychic paper). Then we can end the show with some long monologues explaining what just happened and the moral lesson learned. Of course, leaving some monsters mysterious is great (as with 'The Satan Pit), but there has been a long tradition in Doctor Who of starting with a 'monster', but by the end of the story we (i.e. the audience, the Doctor and his companions) come to understand this monster as something more complex - and often something much more challenging and/or terrifying. More than this, efforts have always been made to explain, or at least make some kind of sense of monsters and events within the narrative of the story told. Indeed, it's the Doctor's ability to reason through a mystery that has been the attraction of the series for young and old since the show first began.

What seems to have happened this series is a move from having an essential 'realism' to the Who universe, to an attitude that treats the whole world in which the story is set as an ironic in-joke that RTD can share with his audience. Even the Doctor and Rose seem to exit the TARDIS each week with a smug self-knowing grin waiting for the next 'monster' (nudge-nudge-wink-wink) to appear. This kind of irony can be used to great effect, and has been used on successful shows like Buffy, The X-Files, the various Star Treks, Lost, etc. But it only works as the exception to an established and respected rule. For RTD, his ironic take on Doctor Who IS the rule and as such it makes for stories which appear silly and childish to newcomers and embarrassing and alienating to existing fans. Worse still this ironic bit of fun then jars terribly with the sudden gear shift that inevitably happens midway through each episode when the monster becomes an actual (albeit short-lived) threat - again, usually to Rose - leaving the audience to reconcile these strained and conflicting elements in a very limited and often rushed time frame. The trouble is that there isn't an adequate pay-off for audiences wanting to go through this and as a result we have seen a steady drop in audience figures and general lack of interest in the show from the media. As it did in the late eighties, the show is fast becoming thought of as 'a bit of nonsense', or a kid's show. This is made all the worse by RTD admitting as much each time he is interviewed on Doctor Who Confidential and through his scripts which create and then hinge on his worrying mix of ironic childish silliness and adult innuendo. Of course what the makers of this series are forgetting is that great children's books, films, television, you name it, weren't 'good' because they were written for children. They were just good. Also they were not as a rule ironic, simply good stories that took themselves just seriously enough for the reader/audience to do the same. Arguing that we shouldn't take some of these stories too seriously because they were written for a young audience is a tired old excuse for rubbish and badly made TV. I don't know about you lot, but this excuse as used by both the programme makers and fans alike is something the children on my planet would find insulting ... now where did I last hear that?

Last Saturday's episode 'Fear her', like 'Love and Monsters' and the 'Idiots Lantern' before it, is an all too familiar form of this 'ironic' and ultimately corrosive attitude to good science fiction and fantasy storytelling. What is far worse in this episode, however, is that for a second week fans are short-changed in another blatant attempt to save money by having a 'monster in suburbia' story in which the Doctor and Rose become hermetically sealed in a tiny and dull earthbound world in which people merrily trust them enough to tell them everything they need to know and let them roam around their houses and streets as children vanish. A world were suitably ethnically diverse homeowners wander around their dead end street like characters in a computer game, and were 'cockerney' council workers not only take great pride in tarmacing a small section of road, but are also a great means of moving the story along with their senseless exposition. This kind of sterile fantasy of Britain is fine on other BBC shows like Eastenders, Holby City, Doctors (pardon the pun) etc., but its insulting and just plain weird on a show like Doctor Who. Add to this the (god it hurts just to think of it again) torch of love crap with the Doctor running up to light the Olympic flame!

Come on people! Please God, look at what I've just written - the Doctor carried the Olympic torch to the sound of a faux BBC commentary talking about love and unity!! As fans we've got to stop being apologists for RTD and start opening our eyes to what is going on. Our favourite TV show is being hijacked by a glossy, morally hygienic, and ultimately hollow British Broadcasting Corporation vision of England and Doctor Who. It's an insidious form of propaganda and we're the ones cheering it along for fear that if we don't then our favourite show will get cancelled! Yet with every uncritical and apologetic review we as fans are giving RTD and co. an even more powerful warrant to make this kind of nonsense and then to abandon the show (and its spin offs) when the BBC and all concerned have made enough money. If we are happy to sit and accept this kind of ironic simplistic rubbish as a good example of British television (let alone science fiction) then we deserve the show to be cancelled after Series 3 - which is undoubtedly what the BBC will do if viewing figures continue to drop (World Cup or no World Cup). One final thought, this series (like the previous one) is obsessed with 'those that get left behind'. Is it just me, or have we spent so much time in the company of these people that it is now us, the Doctor and Rose that are getting left behind? Left behind whilst the rest of the potential Who universe of time and space is left unexplored, as well as increasingly left behind more exciting and challenging imported TV shows.