Just Chill, Mr Gill!

As a Whovian, an article in this week's Sunday Times was of great interest to me. Controversial television critic A A Gill bemoans the lack of good British TV writers in Why our TV is in my sights. He claims that homegrown drama (particularly the BBC's) has regressed, is cliche-ridden, and "is stuck in the 1970's". One favoured target is Doctor Who, which he decscribes as "a pensionable children's programme that has sucked up a huge budget to make gratifying teenage excitement out of empty, silly Edwardian stories. It's production team have been used to outsource both Sherlock [Holmes] and Torchwood. Doctor Who and Austen/Dickens together account for the greatest slice of the BBC's drama budget".

Doctor Who in fact earns millions of pounds for the Corporation in overseas sales alone, and is currently one of the largest TV franchise in the world, so chill Gill!

Doctor Who-Ever?

It was during The Deadly Assassin (1976) that we learnt TimeLords are able to 'regenerate' only twelve times before they die. Fandom and viewers alike have therefore always assumed that the Doctor's 13th body would be his last, but a passing comment in The Sarah Jane Adventures later this month will redefine TV history by now making the Doctor immortal!

In the 2-part CBBC spin-off story, The Death of the Doctor, Clyde (one of ex-companion Sarah Jane Smith's proteges) asks the current Doctor how many times he can regenerate. The Doctor casually indicates that there is in fact no limit.

Way back in Tom Baker's tenure, Doctor No. 13 would have seemed light years away, but with the 11th Doctor now here, moving the goal-posts was inevitable.

Only recently, JK Rowling admitted that once a hero has conquered the world, he [Harry Potter] never truly goes away. Even Conan Doyle was forced to resurrect Sherlock Holmes from the dead.

Does the last of the TimeLords now share the same ability to live forever, as Captain Jack Harkness? I suspect that Torchwood creator Russell T Davies has wanted to address this issue since Doctor Who returned in 2005.

Unlike the late 1980's, the present BBC execs are thankfully reluctant to end their ever expanding flagship drama programme.