IT WAS with considerable ennui that I found that there is a new series of 'Dr Who' and that the ABC is showing it. (Weekdays, 6.30pm).
The great shame about 'Dr Who' is that its inventors hit upon the bright idea of somehow enabling the doctor to change his appearance so that, alas, the series did not end with the death or the defection of the actor who played him. There will be series of 'Dr Who' for as long as there are actors and for as long as there are dwarfs so eager for employment of any kind that they are prepared to climb into Dalek costumes.
A further suggestion of the show's tiredness lies in the fact that in this new series the new doctor, one Colin Baker, faces a very old foe in the Cybermen. Not even their name is changed although by now it must surely be right to call them cyberpersons. The galaxy is a big place and it stretches credibility to imagine that the Doctor would keep bumping into the same old fiends.
The only hope for this series, which is as sickeningly violent as ever and utterly unsuitable for the children who it is aimed at, is that the foil- wrapped Cyberpersons will actually win this time, killing the doctor and perhaps even ravishing his inevitable female assistant. The Cyberpersons are so rough that the occasional rape would be entirely consistent with their characters and would balance the excessive violence of the series with a little sex.
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