Doctor Who: not for children
- Publication: Radio Times
- Date: 1984-03-24
- Author:
- Page:
- Language: English
I am amazed by the fact that Ms L. Webster (LETTERS 3-9 March) referred to Doctor Who (BBC1) as a children's programme. The programme has never in its 20-year history been a children's programme; it is produced by the BBC's drama department. As for the complaint in the same issue about Resurrection of the Daleks (8-15 February). it was superb. Doctor Who is now reaching standards which have not been seen for ten years, and if that means that it has to sacrifice some three-year-old viewers in the process, then I'm sorry. The monsters terrified me until I was ten, and if they are doing that again now, then Doctoi Who is succeeding in being an exciting drama series once more.
David H. Brawn Wellingborough, Northamptonshire
Behind the sofa
On reading Mrs Nicholas's letter we were devastated at the thought of Doctor Who rendered tame and non-terrifying. Our 20 years of peering out from behind the sofa at a succession of evil but inevitably doomed monsters have left us (relatively) unscathed and convinced that this is the only way to watch it.
A. J. Radcliffe (aged 21) N. Carroll (aged 21) Cambridge
Carefully vetted
When will parents like Mrs Nicholas realise that Doctor Who is not a children's programme? Sixty per, cent of the viewers are adults between the ages of 16 and 65, and Mrs Nicholas is letting a three-year-old daughter watch the series when she shouldn't have got past Andy Pandy and Camberwick Green!
John Nathan-Turner is a very caring producer and vets the programme very closely. Any violence is treated in an adult way and not in the dangerous, gratuitous way it is portrayed in imported television cop shows, which parents seem to let children watch (and even emulate) with no complaint to the BBC at all. Has Mrs Nicholas ever seen the moral dilemma the Doctor goes through before he metes out justice to any of his most deserving foes? He certainly never enjoys it, not like The A Team (ITV) or any of the other 'heroes' that seem to be geared towards children's viewing.
John Schiltz Semer, Suffolk
The present series of Doctor Who ends this Thursday and Friday with the last two parts of The Twin Dilemma. -
Cartoon: It's all right Dad, you can look now - the Doctor's overcome his moral dilemma and zapped the monster
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- APA 6th ed.: (1984-03-24). Doctor Who: not for children. Radio Times .
- MLA 7th ed.: "Doctor Who: not for children." Radio Times [add city] 1984-03-24. Print.
- Chicago 15th ed.: "Doctor Who: not for children." Radio Times, edition, sec., 1984-03-24
- Turabian: "Doctor Who: not for children." Radio Times, 1984-03-24, section, edition.
- Wikipedia (this article): <ref>{{cite news| title=Doctor Who: not for children | url=http://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php/Doctor_Who:_not_for_children | work=Radio Times | pages= | date=1984-03-24 | via=Doctor Who Cuttings Archive | accessdate=21 April 2025 }}</ref>
- Wikipedia (this page): <ref>{{cite web | title=Doctor Who: not for children | url=http://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php/Doctor_Who:_not_for_children | work=Doctor Who Cuttings Archive | accessdate=21 April 2025}}</ref>
