Saturday night sees the return of Doctor Who to the screens of the BBC, with Matt Smith taking the role of the eponymous Doctor and Karen Gillan joining him as the brand new assistant.
The new series sees Matt as the 11th Doctor and the youngest actor to take the role of the time lord at the youthful age of only 27.
So we should be really excited about this new series right? I mean it’s the return of the doctor! He’s young! And he’s wearing a tweed jacket!
Yet I’m quite apprehensive about this new series. Why? Well, as much as I don’t trust the BBC at the moment (and I did mean to write don’t trust. Save 6 music) the BBC has always seemed to take great pride in its most successful and best loved programmes that said, the Beeb also has a great talent for praising the talent too much and not really walking the hard line.
In the case of Doctor Who, the BBC probably couldn’t publicly love Russell T. Davis more if they tried, and for good reason too, he has re-invigorated a once staple of the BBC and returned it to said staple.
But with great power comes great responsibility, (according to Spiderman at least) and I wasn’t alone in questioning the choice of Matt Smith as the Doctor, and I still haven’t been convinced after watching the trailer several times.
You see, I still have questions about his version of the Doctor and I don’t think they’ll go away, my first question is simple, what year of Doctor School is Matt’s Doctor in?
My other questions are equally as childish but my concerns are still valid, for the BBC last had a Doctor who in the eyes of many was a perfect incarnation.
David Tennant was simply brilliant as the Doctor with his gelled hair, trainers and suit combo and a characterization that made his Doctor charming and charismatic, yet detached from you and I because, of course, we aren’t time lords and can’t travel across the universe.
We’ve seen problems arise in TV before too, great shows that have simply had too much money and pressure pumped into them which have resulted in comparative rubbish being released.
Truly great BBC shows, Fawlty Towers, The Office, I’m Alan Partridge; and so on all stopped being produced at the height of their success.
Granted all of the shows I’ve listed are sitcoms, but they quit while they were ahead and didn’t continue producing episodes at a rate which saw old favourites such as Red Dwarf and My Family slowly slip into the category of ‘mediocre programme we can still make money out of’.
The commercial sector has shown this same issue, as last week we saw The Bill become cancelled after 27 years on ITV.
That said, I could be wrong in my fears, and the new series of Doctor Who will be a great success but as it stands, I shall be sat in front of my TV on Saturday night watching the new series, hoping that it lives up to my expectations, and doesn’t result in me screaming blue murder at the television as once again, the powers that be will have milked the cash cow dry.
