We've Been Expecting You
- Publication: Radio Times
- Date: 2025-04-12
- Author: Robin Parker
- Page: 130
- Language: English
Would Doctor Who have been the same without the Beatles and James Bond? John Higgs revisits the birth of the Whoniverse
IT WAS ONLY ever a matter of time before John Higgs (below) turned his attention to Doctor Who. Over more than two decades, the Time Lord has made unlikely cameos in the cultural historian's wildly discursive dissections of esoteric subjects, from William Blake and LSD guru Timothy Leary to situationist pranksters the KLF. In fact the Doctor was a whisker away from becoming the third tier in Higgs's last book, 2022's Love and Let Die, which traced the frequently overlapping paths of James Bond and the Beatles since their simultaneous birth in 1962.
Who debuted just one year later, and traces of that Beatles/Bond axis linger in Higgs's latest volume, Exterminate/ Regenerate - from Patrick Troughton observing that his mop-top made him look like Ringo Starr to Bond's influence on Jon Pertwee's action-packed Earth-based stories.
As a lifelong fan, Higgs says that for years he was determined "not to move Doctor Who to the 'work' side of my mind". But, as the Daleks unerringly remind their nemesis, "resistance is futile". So was it hard to park his fandom at the door? "I have a mother's love for Doctor Who: I love it when it's bad and when it's good," he says. "But it's odd to write about because it's infinite beyond the TV, there's the world of audio plays, comics, books and more. You're trying to work out what not to include. But I won't lie - it was an absolute joy to tell my wife, 'I'm spending the afternoon watching The Ambassadors of Death for work."
In Exterminate/Regenerate Higgs wanted to take a step back and explore the "singular growing, evolving entity" of the "strange, bewitching and ridiculous" show and its makers, viewers and devoted fans. He makes a convincing case that the outsiders who drove its creation - producer Verity Lambert (female), drama boss Sydney Newman (Canadian) and director Waris Hussein (gay and Indian) - accidentally stumbled upon "perhaps the most perfectly evolved story-creating entity that there has ever been" with "no idealised perfect state".
HIGGS SAYS THE show is easy to take for granted. "You can forget just how strange it is, how implausible and unlikely. Most popular fictional characters have a creator: JK Rowling, Ian Fleming, Arthur Conan Doyle. Doctor Who doesn't; it emerged out of a bunch of memos at the BBC about bridging the gap between Grandstand and primetime. Because no one ever really defined what it was, they didn't define what it wasn't."
Though chronological, the book takes a suitably "timey-wimey" approach, with frequent diversions into the lives of its stars, writers and producers, its narrative parallels with English and Norse folklore, Dickens, Tolkien and Buddhism, and the political and cultural forces that have guided its evolution.
There's also a string of illuminating what-ifs, an ill-advised abandoned "sex comedy" story in the late 1960s, alternative casting, and the 1996 movie, which dared to streamline the Doctor's mess of contradictions into something "safe, sane and logical".
Born in 1971, Higgs grew up with Tom Baker's Doctor, one of three "imperial phases" he identifies alongside mid-60s Dalekmania and the David Tennant era. He later directed Baker on Channel 5's children's animation The Beeps, and describes watching a pubgoer rendered "awestruck" by Higgs's drinking companion.
"I always say you should never meet your heroes, unless it's Tom Baker," Higgs says. "He's a very charismatic man, if a strange individual." And what of the the contemporary era? Has Russell T Davies gone too far in making the show's progressive, radical subtext overt? "It certainly does rub some viewers up the wrong way," Higgs concedes. "But in the 'frump era, it feels a relief that someone is doing this."
THE BOOK REMINDS US that rumours of the show's demise are nothing new. Yet it has an in-built capacity to pull off miraculous escapes. "There are choppy waters to navigate, but I suspect it will navigate them a lot better than other shows. In the 80s, the BBC seemed to hate it," Higgs reflects. "Michael Grade would go on discussion programmes insulting his own programme. I can't imagine anything like that happening now. It's become one of the key arguments for the survival of the BBC, held up as a crown jewel alongside Strictly."
Davies has said it might even outlast the BBC. "I wouldn't be surprised. Fans always expect the worst, but the wait for a Disney+ renewal is normal. It is how these things go."
He is encouraged by the show's new writers. "My generation are falling away and that's as it should be: a new bunch of people who see it in a way that makes sense to them will take over. It's what makes it a bit mythical: this stranger from the stars, who came down to save us, whose story is told down the generations."
Change, then, and not a moment too soon. Though, like its subject, Higgs concedes this book will never quite be finished. "When the paperback comes out next year, I've got no idea what the story will be..." To order Exterminate/ Regenerate: the Story of Doctor Who by John Higgs (W&N, £25) for £22.50 Intl p&p, please call 03302 232 639' or visit radiotimes.com/shop16
Caption: TOP DOC? Higgs reckons Tom Baker's tenure was a highlight of Doctor Who's history
Caption: ACTION PACKED The Doctor's exploits mimicked those of Sean Connery's Bond
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- APA 6th ed.: Parker, Robin (2025-04-12). We've Been Expecting You. Radio Times p. 130.
- MLA 7th ed.: Parker, Robin. "We've Been Expecting You." Radio Times [add city] 2025-04-12, 130. Print.
- Chicago 15th ed.: Parker, Robin. "We've Been Expecting You." Radio Times, edition, sec., 2025-04-12
- Turabian: Parker, Robin. "We've Been Expecting You." Radio Times, 2025-04-12, section, 130 edition.
- Wikipedia (this article): <ref>{{cite news| title=We've Been Expecting You | url=http://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php/We%27ve_Been_Expecting_You | work=Radio Times | pages=130 | date=2025-04-12 | via=Doctor Who Cuttings Archive | accessdate=25 May 2026 }}</ref>
- Wikipedia (this page): <ref>{{cite web | title=We've Been Expecting You | url=http://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php/We%27ve_Been_Expecting_You | work=Doctor Who Cuttings Archive | accessdate=25 May 2026}}</ref>
