From: ira2p@faraday.clas.Virginia.EDU (Iain Robert Asplin)
Subject: Death-throes?  NOT.  I DENY IT.  Was Re: The last years...
Organization: University of Virginia
Date: Tue, 13 Oct 1992 04:28:59 GMT

In article <81571@ut-emx.uucp> aodn307@bongo.cc.utexas.edu (Joshua Henry Geurink) writes:
>
>	Understand that I'm the biggest fan of Doctor Who that I know...
>that's why I must write about the death-throes of the show.  I HATE to 
>admit it, but the series had to die.  Look back at the classics--the episodes
>that defined the show, and what it's all about.  Most of the Tom Baker
>era demonstrates the mood I'm trying to achieve here.  Everything was new,
>challenging, and even fun.  The universe held a multitude of beings and races,
>both good, evil, or simply incredibly selfish.  Plots from the past were
>followed up on on and the extremely minor characters grew personalities the 
>audience grew to appreciate.
>	The Colin Baker era, on the other hand, just proved miserable.  Poor
>writing, poor acting (I LIKE Colin's Doctor, but no one could be expected to
>seriously act with those scripts.), poor evertything.   Trial of a Timelord
>didn't even make sense -- Mel became a companion by being a companion?!?
>The writers should have known better than to thorw paradoxial bull hockey
>like that at an audience expecting more.  
>	I also like Sylvester McCoy, but the same problems crop up during
>HIS short stay.  Only worse.  The seventh Doctor's supporting actors seemed
>tired, unemotional, uninspired.  The actors went through the motions but little
>else.  Thank God Ace developed -- in a universe where nothing was new anymore -
>not to the Doctor, not to the viewers, she slowly became the one shining point
>of light where a sun once shown brightly.
>	The new books aren't so bad, except it seems that everything either
>has something personal against the Doctor or can find some way to explot his
>innermost weaknesses.  Nightshade, however, was wonderful.  After that
>plot reminiscent of a powerful third Doctor episode, I was honestly afraid
>that the author (forgive me!) was going to write out Ace in the same, dippy
>old style.  The exact same way they wrote out Susan.  The way the situation 
>gets handled, however, is really quite surprising.  If the shows, should any
>new ones EVER be made, can capture what the author did in Nightshade, use that
>element of surprise, and develop the characters, both major and minor, then
>and ONLY then do I say "bravo!"  Without it, the show's just squirming
>in its coffin.
>
>			Josh Geurink

Well, first of all, thank you ever so much for those Nightshade spoilers
without any spoiler protection whatsoever.  

Onto more pressing matters, death-throes indeed?
The show isn't dead yet, merely in suspension pending the resignation
of one Jonathan Powell, idiot in chief of the BBC these last few years.
Until his departure becomes official and a new chief is installed in
his place and announces his or her intentions for the series Doctor
Who, I will not accept that the series is dead once and for all.
That would be like passing a bill through the US Congress that we know
will be vetoed by Bush and then declaring it to be dead forever, forgetting
the fact that Bill Clinton will most likely be President come January.

I must disagree with you on virtually every point about the Colin Baker
and Sylvester McCoy eras.  I will say this again, the only problems
that were abnormal to the series in those eras were the ratings and
that was more a function of the series' timeslot rather than the scripts.
People keep saying "Oh, those Colin Baker scripts were terrible," and
whilst I can agree with that in perhaps three cases, in the other eight
I cannot.  Which seems about average to me for any Doctor.  
When I first saw those shows (Season 22), I loved them all except for
"Timelash."  LOVED.  I thought Colin Baker was playing the Doctor
exactly right and we really had some twisting adventure plots.
Also, I feel it appropriate to point out here that I watched the series
then in a very much isolated environment, i.e. isolated from the rest
of fandom, since I live(d) far away from other fans.   Thus my initial
opinions were not influenced by other fans opinions.
From my "outsider"'s perspective, I see what has happened here: a solid
opening season for Colin Baker's Doctor was overshadowed in the fan's
minds by two things that said to them "those shows weren't good",
and those two things are actually quite independent of the quality of
the show.  Those things being the season's viewing figures, and more
importantly, Michael Grade's 18-month hiatus.  
I can tell this is the case because after discussing these shows with
fans quite some time afterwards, I caught myself doing it.  Shows that
I had been thinking of as "great" I was now thinking of "that was
terrible," and as I thought about it, the only reason I was slagging
those shows was because others had.  The faults they had enumerated
I had noticed when I first saw them, but like any Doctor Who story,
I was usually able to ignore them.  Why was I suddenly slamming the
show for them now?  
Simple reason:  peer pressure.
Peer pressure is one of the most terrible forces in human societies,
IMHO, and I refuse to give in to it.  

And I can see it happening a second time.  Just after Season 26's
transmission, people thought so highly of Sylvester's Doctor and the
season in general that the readers of DWM, for the first time ever,
voted in first place a Doctor other than the fourth, namely the
seventh, and they received surprising amounts of mail in their annual
season poll.
And now look, we're all self-doubting the series again, or rather people
like the above poster are.  The flaws present in the Seventh Doctor's
stories were no different than those of the previous Doctors, and in
my opinion, the strenghts were perhaps slightly better than the
previous Doctors.  

We are being told by the blind force of am artistically blind man in
a position of bureaucratic authority at the British Broadcasting
Corporation that our favorite television series has become something
not worth making again.  

I will not fall into the same trap twice.  I deny this reality.

The question now falls to you, the readers of this computation matrix.

Do you deny it?  


Steve Manfred

Newsgroups: rec.arts.drwho