He’s Not The Messiah, He’s A Very Naughty Boy

With apologies for a very obvious title, I think it’s close to the way a lot of us are feeling at the moment. I’m prepared to be proved wrong, but I think Thursday was the first time in twenty years that Doctor Who made the front page of the Sun. I do believe the entire range of human emotions has been run through in the space of about 48 hours- perhaps unsurprising when you consider that it’s been 21 years since a Doctor left the role of his own volition. It’s a strange coincidence that I should have had an email from the West Yorkshire Playhouse today- after all, at roughly the same time that ‘The End of the World’ goes out on Saturday, it’ll be a year to the hour (roughly) since I saw "our new Doctor" there in a play written by new series composer Murray Gold- the review is still here somewhere if you want to scroll back a bit.

In coming to terms with it all, it’s probably worth casting an eye back at the reasons why the previous Doctors left the role- William Hartnell for health reasons; Patrick Troughton and Peter Davison felt that three years was enough; Jon Pertwee reached the stage where the stable production team of his best years was coming apart at the seams and only a substantial pay rise could make it worth his while to stay. Tom Baker felt his originality finally failing him and seven years of constant filming and publicity catching up, while Colin Baker was made the scapegoat for the failings of an underfunded production team out of step with its day, and both Sylvester McCoy and Paul McGann simply never had their options taken up- in fact, it’s arguable whether McGann ever "left" at all. I don’t think it’s a concidence that the two longest-serving Doctors are those with the most vocal following- as far as I can tell, most people’s earliest memories of television tend to be of what was on at around age 4-5, and for somebody of that age in 1975, Tom Baker’s Doctor would have been a constant presence up to the threshold of teenage years. I have a suspicion that this is where the fans who have a history with the series and those who came to it after 1989 will part company to an extent- those of us who go back to the show’s first run will have gone through this whole process before, and the shadow it tends to cast over the last few stories of a Doctor’s run- thinking particularly of the way the second half of Season 22 was darkened by the machinations behind the scenes, and knowing that the series itself was in peril.

I’ve reached the conclusion that what’s happened is a little like a one-night stand (as I understand them, you realise)- one in which the guy thinks the girl understands that it’s just sex and he’ll be gone in the morning, and the girl thinks that the guy really likes her and they’re going to have a relationship. And then the guy disappears into the morning mist and catches the first bus out of her life, and she realises how little she mattered to him. Because the essence of being a fan of anything, whether it’s Doctor Who, Half Man Half Biscuit or Kidderminster Harriers, is that you care about something too much, and so when the object of your interest turns out, like the vast majority of human beings, to be primarily concerned with their own welfare and happiness, rather than some vague and nameless person they barely know exists, disappointment becomes personal- it becomes disillusionment and, if we’re not careful to be rational, we allow it to feel like a personal slight. It’s going to be difficult on an emotional level to watch the next twelve episodes and risk starting to like or care about the Ninth Doctor, but we have to show faith of some kind and put our feelings behind us or the Tenth may not have much of a future either.