Author Brian J Robb believes that the original run of Doctor
Who declined in the 1980s
because the programme makers
failed to engage with the (ever
dwindling) viewership, and fan's producer John Nathan Turner
in particular pandered to (an
ever influential) fandom.
The introduction of Robb's
Timeless Adventures: How
Doctor Who Conquered TV
(published by Kamara in 2009) established the whole crux of
the book, that the unique series
"earned its place in the affections of the British TV audiences because underneath its fantastical adventures with a critique of contemporary
social, political and cultural issues".
Indeed, the the success of today's revived incarnation of the show
owes much to a thorough engagement with modern culture, initiated
by its first (and returning) showrunner, Russell T Davies.
Each successive production team positively engaged with those ideas
and events happening around them, until the reign of Graham
Williams when the show began it's retreat from any popular
engagement. Instead, JNT continued to "exploit the growing cultural
and interllectual phenomenon of postmodernism" by attracting
audiences with nostalgia, but became bogged-down with continuity.
I wholly concur with Robb that despite the seismic political and
social upheaval of the 1980s, it seems astounding that Doctor
Who - previously such a politically aware series - should abdicate
virtually all knowledge of Thatcher's Britain (even by 1988 the
implicit imagery of The Happiness Patrol appears past it's sell-by
date).
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