It's Not What The Doctor Ordered

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• Publication: Daily Record
• Date: 2010-01-07
• Author: Paul English
• Page: 32
• Language: English

I'D been looking forward to this for weeks. Catherine Tate was back. Bernard Cribbins was back. John Simm was back.

David Tennant, arguably the most popular Doctor Who, was all set for his big finale.

But, like so many festive dinners over Christmas and New Year, they went and over-cooked it.

The two-parter was over-written, over-complicated and over the heads of most of the kids who watched it.

And let's remember, because someone at the BBC seems to have forgotten, Doctor Who is a kids' show. John Simm's performance as The Master was good, whatever the hell it was all supposed to be about.

There were even nice emotional touches, neatly-worked references to Tennant's tenure in the Tardis, which saw cameos for former assistants Billie Piper and Freema Agyeman, with John Barrowman making his obligatory appearance.

After all, it's been at least 20 minutes since he was last on the telly.

But where was the fun? Where was that cheeky cheapness? When Christopher Eccleston returned in the first episode of "new" Who, people were eaten by wheelie-bins and set upon by shop mannequins.

In five years, that sense of knockabout fun has been knocked out by a computer-generated flashiness and aspirations to be something much bigger.

Superman Returns was on an hour before Who's finale. That's the place for giant budgets and global CGI stunts. Doctor Who was dodging firebolts from the hands of The Master, with Simm doing his best "blockbuster baddie" turn. His headaches and weird X-ray flash-outs all hinted at mental illness, the domain of the super-villain.

Come on, this is Doctor Who.It's meant to be daft and entertaining, not a po-faced superhero movie.

And while we're talking Hollywood, what about those Time Lord costumes worn by Timothy Dalton and his sidekicks? Has someone taken an intergalactic detour through Princess Amidala's wardrobe in Star Wars? After a million false endings, Tennant made way for new Who Matt Smith, uttering "I don't want to go."

But if this is the way Doctor Who's headed, I'm not sure he'll regret it.

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• APA 6th ed.: English, Paul (2010-01-07). It's Not What The Doctor Ordered. Daily Record p. 32.
• MLA 7th ed.: English, Paul. "It's Not What The Doctor Ordered." Daily Record [add city] 2010-01-07, 32. Print.
• Chicago 15th ed.: English, Paul. "It's Not What The Doctor Ordered." Daily Record, edition, sec., 2010-01-07
• Turabian: English, Paul. "It's Not What The Doctor Ordered." Daily Record, 2010-01-07, section, 32 edition.
• Wikipedia (this article): <ref>{{cite news| title=It's Not What The Doctor Ordered | url=http://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php/It%27s_Not_What_The_Doctor_Ordered | work=Daily Record | pages=32 | date=2010-01-07 | via=Doctor Who Cuttings Archive | accessdate=23 May 2025 }}</ref>
• Wikipedia (this page): <ref>{{cite web | title=It's Not What The Doctor Ordered | url=http://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php/It%27s_Not_What_The_Doctor_Ordered | work=Doctor Who Cuttings Archive | accessdate=23 May 2025}}</ref>