The Doctor Grows Up With Me

I think it’s time to take a slight sideways interlude (into a parallel universe if you like) and bring the other aspect of the umbrella title of these posts into the equation. Whilst I admit that I’ve been jumping backwards and forwards a bit with my posts so far, I have tried to follow a rough sort of chronologic order overall, and I’ll endeavour to continue in that vein here.

As time went on and I saw more and more stories for the first time, I began to see the series in a different light to when I was a child. Watching the series as a kid was pure escapism for me, and the concept of travelling through time and space was one of uneasy comprehension on my part. As I progressed into my adult years, the initial element of escapism was still there but it represented something slightly different, as I was now starting to appreciate aspects of the series which I’d never have noticed all those years ago. As we all know, in its early days Doctor Who tried its best to educate its audience through both scientific and historical story lines, though I was far too old and already well-educated enough (I hope) to benefit from this when I eventually watched them.

What I found far more intriguing was the later attempts by Barry Letts and Terrance Dicks to feature multi-level stories in the series which dealt with ‘topical’ issues of the time as well as being great Doctor Who stories in themselves which kids would enjoy on face value. Various issues were covered, such as anti-war messages in Silurians, The Sea Devils and Frontier In Space, imperialism in The Mutants, pollution in both The Green Death and Invasion of The Dinosaurs, and parallels of the EC situation and miners strikes in Curse of Peladon and Monster of Peladon. Later on Robert Holmes would do something similar with The Sunmakers, although this was a blatant send-up of the Inland Revenue rather than being educational. However, the principle was the same; the production team were being as creative and as clever as possible in order to entertain on different levels to the different age-groups in the audience.

This is one of the main reasons why Doctor Who such a well remembered series, both by its child viewers on first transmission and by those who only came to it years later as adults. And it still works to this day; even now if someone were to pick up a copy of The Sunmakers having never watched it before, they’ll still be thoroughly entertained whether they be 10 years old or 40 years old. It’s this inherent strength of the series which led me to start writing the

book which has produced these daily posts – how Doctor Who can grow up with its viewers.

Anyway, enough of this high-brow discussion – tomorrow we’ll return to the fun!

Next Episode: The Edge of My Seat