Regeneration: Doctor Who

http://cuttingsarchive.org/images/a/a2/2005-24_Metro.jpg

Publication: Metro (Australia)
Date: winter 2005
Author: Dave Hoskin
Page: 159
Language: English

It's hard for me to be objective about the return of Doctor Who. When the BBC announced they were bringing it back, and that the man behind the revival was Russell T. Davies, I felt a rush of elation. Doctor Who in 2005 couldn't be the same program that I'd loved when I was a kid, but maybe that meant it could be better. Like all fans I had cringed at the old series' production values, and while I'd been able to suspend my disbelief, I couldn't help wishing that a little more care had been taken. However, with the man responsible for the sublime Queer as Folk overseeing the writing, and with a budget to match its prodigious imagination, Doctor Who might just be as good as it had always sounded on paper.

All this meant that the first episode of the new series was always going to be burdened with a crippling weight of expectations; not only because of the tradition it followed, but because it sounded so promising. The producers are obviously aware of the impact those expectations will have on people's reactions to the new show. Since it first left the airwaves in 1989, Doctor Who has moved from being a cult to an adjective. Everyone has definite ideas of the sort of show it was, and updating that mythic ideal to the standard of twenty-first century television is a daunting task.

The consequence of this is that there is a lot to admire in the new Doctor Who, and a lot that feels weighed down by preconceived notions of what it's supposed to be like. Tom Baker was not the only actor to play the part, but sometimes it feels like he was, and he casts a long shadow over how people think an actor should handle the role. Thus Christopher Eccleston's performance occasionally feels eccentric out of obligation rather than necessity, and the coding of the Doctor as an urban myth in the first episode edges into portentousness. Likewise, the idea of Doctor Who being a bit daft seems to have carried over more than it should, the result being a faintly farcical tone undercutting many of the good things the new series has to offer.

The real Achilles heel of the new Doctor Who is its struggle to define its tone. When it works (as in the interplay between Rose and the Doctor, or in its rewriting of how the audience views Daleks) it manages to harness the mythic power of what we think Doctor Who should be, and surprises us by sending it in new directions. When it doesn't, it can crash off the rails quite alarmingly, and all the things that used to be excused by a low budget seem infinitely more annoying. However, the good thing about this inconsistency is that it means that new Doctor Who is not simply a slavish photocopy of its cheap and cheerful forebear. If it is to succeed, it has to create its own voice and tell us outlandish stories that belong in the here and now rather than in our childhood memories. So far it seems committed to doing that, and with any luck Davies and his compatriots will create something just as durable: a new myth for a new century.

Regeneration: Doctor Who

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