We’ve a special guest on this week’s Doctor Who podKast in the shape of Gareth Kavanagh, who joins us for a full hour (and the rest) of news discussion and Doctor Who fanzine sparring.
As well as covering Steven Moffat’s recent comments at the Hay Festival, Christian Cawley, James McLean and Brian Terranova also quiz Gareth on this thoughts about the possibility of Doctor Who ending back in 2008, the recent attempt to shift a 16mm film of The Wheel in Space part 3 on eBay and there’s even time to have a chat about the amazing Doctor Who/Rocky Horror Show mashup by The Hillywood Show, which if you haven’t seen yet should be clicked immediately in the shownotes below.
After that, we still managed to squeeze in a little preview about issue 3 of Doctor Who fanzine Vworp Vworp! (which features an interview with renowned comic book author Alan Moore), which is still in production, and Gareth had some interesting questions for Christian and James about Kasterborous Magazine 2, our video game themed Doctor Who Fanzine, which is out now.
Time to hit play!
Shownotes
- Vworp Vworp! Doctor Who Fanzine home page
- Alan Moore’s Doctor Who connection
- Recommendations:
The Kasterborous PodKast theme tune is arranged by Russell Hugo. We’ve got it on MP3!
Remember, if you enjoy the show, find us on Apple Podcasts, where your reviews will help the show considerably.
Much as I enjoy James and Brian on the podcast (with a C, please), for once the pair of them deserve to be slapped down.
They came across this week as the exact opposite of the Omnirumour extremists. With the latter, we get two long lost stories back in full and within a few weeks they’re already bored of them and demanding more. With James and Brian, we get Doctor Who back for a few years and they’re already jaded and calling for a “break”.
Anyone suggesting that a break from the show is the solution to its problems only shows that they haven’t thought those problems through. DW is unique in having an inbuilt solution to the problems of becoming tired or the audience losing interest. Regeneration. A natural restart every few years to bring new energy to the show.
Giving Doctor Who yet another season each year needs to become an automatic reflex for the BBC. We can’t afford to let them to stop and think that it could benefit from a few years off our screens because we can’t trust them to bring it back again once all the structure of producing the show on a regular basis has been dismantled. The very fact that the dicks running the BBC seriously considered ending it as soon as 2008 shows that we can’t take our eyes off the buggers for a second.
The cherry on the turdcake was Brian saying that we could always get through a break by watching old stories. He might as well have worn a T-shirt saying “fast approaching middle age”. Yes, the sort of jaded, been there seen that, fan could watch an old DVD instead but what about the kids? The innocent period of our lives when we are susceptible to the full, unalloyed joy, wonder and terror of watching DW is relatively short before we grow into teens too obsessed with masturbation or too cool to fully revel in the show. And beyond that is adulthood when we start watching DW knowingly and critically. That window of innocent joy and fear might only be 5 or 6 years long. Pity the poor little kid who loses 2-3 years of that because people like James and Brian have read in a film studies textbook somewhere that breaks are the solution to TV’s problems.
Think of all those poor kids whose window of innocence occurred between 1990 and 2004. A whole generation denied their own Doctor while Peter Davison talks out of his arse about the show having a “natural cycle”.
Shame on the pair of you. Brian should be banned from wearing skinny suits for a year as a punishment. And James should have to lay out his own clothes in the morning and read unironed newspapers. Drastic penalties, you might think. But this kind of blasé approach to the survival of DW needs to be nipped in the bud and then have sevens shades of whatever kicked out of it. So ner.
In my defense, as far as I recall, and I could be wrong, given I spoke on the spur and am desperately trying to avoid re-listening to my own voice, I didn’t actually say the show needed a break, I believe I said it needed some drastic change.
For me I don’t believe a change in age and style of Doctor-actor is enough. Eccleston and Tennant were far removed, not so much in age, but in style, but the show felt the same. After all these years, the show needs to find fresh approaches to retain its vigor, especially against the fickle fingers of the parent company who is always ready to make change perhaps before the audience feels it is due. I just don’t want a change in the show to feel just like it rests on Capaldi. We were told Series 7b and Day of the Doctor and Time of the Doctor would bring great changes (actually Series 6 suggested this too at the end), and I don’t feel the show has really deviated from a very set pattern of story-telling.
As I think I’ve said before, while commissioning sits with BBC Worldwide as I believe it does at the moment, I don’t think the show is in any danger whatsoever, I do feel as a viewer, the show could do more to try and find fresh approaches to format.
That defensiveness all being said, I thoroughly enjoyed your post and was almost close to laughing – but I don’t do that, I leave that to the Butler. Far beneath a gentleman of my station.
I whole heartedly agree. Us older fans take too much for granted, because we have seen it, done it and got the t-shirt. Watched, listened and read everything Doctor Who related, and even if we haven’t got no new Who means we can finally catch up. What both James and Brian are forgetting is that for the impressionable and innocent kids growing up now under the age of 8, is that Smith and now Capaldi will be their transitional test as to wether they can stick with a show which is in the midst of a new chapter in a 50 and counting year old history. For those about to hit their teens when they are more aware of the wider world around them, and at the beginning of developing their interests into further education, they need something to keep them inspired. Who has had mini hiatuses over the last 9 years, with only 4 episodes in 2009, the lean 2012 (in which we lost a whole series), and last year despite begin the 50th we only got 8 new episodes. If anything has been detrimental to the shows popularity in recent years hasn’t been quality it’s been the lack of episodes in the last 2-3 years.
The wave of euphoria over the 50th last year was such a palpal success, I don’t think here has been a better time to be a Doctor Who fan. That two weeks running up to the 23rd November was such a beautiful thing for an old Whovian like me, the kind I could never had dreamed of back in 1993.
Both James and Brian need to go watch the documentary Matthew Sweet did last year, and realise that it’s the kids growing up now that need Doctor Who more than anyone. Whilst I don’t agree with certain aspects of Steven Moffat’s running of the show, I completely understand why he has focused much more on kids over the last 5 years. Whilst I think opportunities have been missed and it’s been underwhelming, I believe should it become darker under Capaldi and less romance, we could get something really special.
Docwhom is quite right the BBC cannot be trusted with anything. The fact that they even considered cancelling it back in 2008 just shows what they are really like. I cannot imagine anyone with any real sense could have let them think this was a good idea for more than a few weeks. When you consider the mania for the show back then, and knowing how big the 50th was going to be makes me think the BBC doesn’t deserve Doctor Who, and doesn’t appreciate just how lucky they are to have not only a phenomenal money making machine, but a vital part of our culture.
Personally I predict the BBC are going to be crushed in the next couple of years, with the Tories planning on scrapping the licence fee completely. I just hope that some production company like HBO will be there to catch Doctor Who.
My only comment is, again, I didn’t say – that I recall – any of the points you label I did 🙂
In fact, my point was the kids SHOULD be considered, hence such comments as removing the sonic screwdriver as a priority to improve the show is unfair as losing the sonic as a kid in Visitation was an utter disappointment for me.
My point was, and is, that a show that goes on for a certain period of time, needs change. By our nature, familiarity breeds detachment (it’s how surgeons can perform on patients without puking – we grow harder to what we see a lot and the sparkle diminishes). Now to some degree Doctor Who has that built into the format, but only to a certain degree, and it’s this issue which Moffat was acknowledging at Hay; it’s not simply about changing an actor, eventually the show needs to try different things so it doesn’t become predictable. What we were discussing, or I was anyhow, was what sort of change is required to freshen the show up, as I do think it needs more than a lead change – where I feel the show stales a little isn’t in the Doctor, but some of the structural issues that haven’t changed since 2005 – we still have ridiculously overblown finales that have to trump the last, companion is always a backpacker and contemporary, the show cannot avoid sidestepping monster-of-the-week territory. Just three factors I think need to be looked at to ensure the show doesn’t become predictable.
Just one final point, that while like Harry Potter, Doctor Who has the interesting factor of being a growing experience – those who watched it in 2005 will now be teens, Doctor Who will always have a new induction of young fans. It’s like school – the older ones leave, perhaps become teachers at the school, but there’s always a new induction.
In terms of maturity, I don’t think Doctor Who has an issue. It still caters for young, teen and old. For every inane romp like Dinosaurs on a Spaceship that kids will love, there’s a Girl Who Waited or God Complex, for the older sensitivity. I don’t think the mix of output is a problem, I do think some of the series overall structural elements could do with some changes.