Quo Tardis?
- Publication: The Observer
- Date: 2005-03-27
- Author: Kathryn Flett
- Page: 20
- Language: English
The much-trumpeted new Doctor Who is a welcome improvement on the wobbly old one, but David Jason's prison caper makes you wonder where Ronnie Barker is when you need him sister before Ovaltine and lights out.
CHRISTOPHER ECCLESTON IS AN INTENSE DOCTOR WHILE BILLIE PIPER IS SWEET AND FEISTY
HOW REFRESHING that the new Doctor Who has been brought to us with absolutely no hype, sneaking quietly under the radar and into the schedules at 7pm on a Saturday night so that it might become a slow-burning 'have you seen...?' cultish treat, like, say, the first few episodes of The Office.
But even without the gatefold scratch-and-sniff DVD publicity taster Franklin Mint Heritage Dalek Thimble Collection, and the usual breathless broadsheet countdowns, was this show ever seriously in danger of failing to attract an audience?
No, if only because nostalgic parents d'un certain age will have prised their reluctant children away from 'Grand Theft Auto: Shoot That Hooker!' in order to view a lovingly crafted tribute to a simpler bygone age when people made teatime appointments en famille to watch the creaky old Who, before settling down to fill in application forms for Ask the Blue Peter Appeals and Family, knit egg cosies for Blue Peter Appeals and enjoy a swift round of pin the tail on the back of your sister before Ovaltine and lights out.
Somewhere in my own family archive there exists a photograph of a toddler-sized me clutching a toddler-sized Dalek toy. Cute, but it's not as if I'd gone out and bought it myself. Doctor Who launched the year before I was born but I can't imagine I was either interested in it or, indeed, even allowed to watch it in 1966, at the age of two. Did we even have a telly? Did Radio Rentals exist yet?
I don't recall William Hartnell's Doctor or Patrick Troughton's ('mine' was Jon Pertwee) who reigned throughout the Sixties, and even though I was, inevitably, as aware of Doctor Who as I was of The Who (we were quite a rock'n'roll household) it existed for me on the same plane as kite-flying, navy blue T-bar sandals and Janet and John - ie, an inevitable yet dull and faintly patronising un-rock-'n'roll childhood rite of passage prescribed by a boss-class cabal of adults.
Therefore, although I did quite like that whooof-whooooof Tardis noise couldn't really have given a stuff about Who because my earliest television obsession was Star Trek and I have remained a fan of US production values, if not US productions, ever since. (Kirk was my true 'First Love', even if he had to battle it out on the sofa with The Virginian).
Face it, whether it was those crazy acid-tripping Tribbles or that groovy inter-racial snogging, Star Trek was glamorous and aspirational, right up there
with a trip to the West End to see Fantasia, and, unlike Who, it was one of the things that made childhood worth the endless boredom and loneliness.
But maybe that was just me? Anyway it matters not a bit whether the old Who was, as I contend, a pile of awesomely pointless piffle or a piece of important landmark telly, resistance to the all-new glitzy, pacy, glamorous, witty, edgy, non-wobbly-walled Doctor Who is, due to a BBC-bludgeoning, entirely futile.
So here we go then: it's got CGI and proper dialogue from Russell T Davies (the BBC are soon to declare every third week of March 'Russell T Davies Week') which moves beyond the realms of 'Quick! You in the chamois-leather miniskirt! Stop standing around in a useless pre-feminist sort of way and start shooting that Flobbalobablobamonster!'
And it has jokes, and (blimey) a sexy Doctor, and a sidekick who doesn't look as if she was plucked randomly from a teacher-training course in Surrey, and so, basically, the new Doctor Who is completely great and I enjoyed it enormously. I know that doesn't really pass for pithy or insightful criticism but how clever do we really need to get about a programme starring trigger-happy showroom dummies doing the traditional lumbering-monster-walk that, equally traditionally, ensures they'll never catch anybody?
Oh all right, Christopher Eccleston brings new depth and intensity to the Time Lord, Billie Piper's Rose is sweet, feisty and likeable, the SFX don't look remotely like a primary school project, Mark Benton's in it, and (in-between last Sunday's episode of Casanova and tonight's) Russell T Davies hasn't suddenly become a bad writer. Fae line: Rose: 'If you're an alien how come you sound like you're from the North?' Doctor: 'Lots of planets have a North.'
So Doctor Who is what it is and you may as well just sit back and enjoy. Not that I'll watch it again out of choice, mind. Why would I? I'm a 40-year-old woman and therefore I have Desperate Housewives and the Franklin Mint Heritage Thimble Channel (don't I? Why not?). Meanwhile my son is two-and-eight-months and therefore has all the time in the world before thoughts of Billie Piper will start keeping him awake at night.
Caption: Left: Christopher Eccleston as Dr Who, fighting with an Auton; above Daniel Craig in Archangel; below: David Jason in Diamond Geezer.
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- APA 6th ed.: Flett, Kathryn (2005-03-27). Quo Tardis?. The Observer p. 20.
- MLA 7th ed.: Flett, Kathryn. "Quo Tardis?." The Observer [add city] 2005-03-27, 20. Print.
- Chicago 15th ed.: Flett, Kathryn. "Quo Tardis?." The Observer, edition, sec., 2005-03-27
- Turabian: Flett, Kathryn. "Quo Tardis?." The Observer, 2005-03-27, section, 20 edition.
- Wikipedia (this article): <ref>{{cite news| title=Quo Tardis? | url=http://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php/Quo_Tardis%3F | work=The Observer | pages=20 | date=2005-03-27 | via=Doctor Who Cuttings Archive | accessdate=11 January 2025 }}</ref>
- Wikipedia (this page): <ref>{{cite web | title=Quo Tardis? | url=http://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php/Quo_Tardis%3F | work=Doctor Who Cuttings Archive | accessdate=11 January 2025}}</ref>
