21. This looks good. Can’t have that

Remembrance of the Daleks looks great. The soundtrack (although one of Keff McCulloch’s better ones) dates it, but largely it’s a solid production. It did, however, go over budget. The BBC’s response to this, rather than note how well-received the show was and how much more impressive it looked, said that director Andrew Morgan was never to work on the show again.

Cat. Mouse. Torture.

20. Let’s just not tell anyone it’s cancelled

After the furore that erupted in 1986, the BBC’s strategy for cancelling the show in 1989 was slightly more underhand: don’t say anything unless asked, then say it wasn’t technically cancelled, it just wasn’t on at the moment. Normal service would be resumed as soon as the BBC worked out what to do with it. Amazingly, sixteen years later, it turned out the answer was ‘Give it some welly, some love and a bigger budget’.

Gosh, who’d have thought?

19. The new Doctor…

In the interim, Doctor Who Magazine pounced on any related news at all, like a hungry, hungry hippo with low self-esteem. This is perhaps how the strange activities of Mr David Burton were deemed worthy of print. Two unseen pilots had apparently been made that featured Burton as the Eighth Doctor, who later confirmed to the magazine that he had filmed a pilot called Doctor Who and the Monters of Ness, with Seventies Who director Paul Bernard.

None of these things are verifiable, and are most likely nonsense, even if Burton did have a car with ‘The New Dr. Who’ written on the side.

18. The Dark Dimension

Some Cyberman concept-art and a plot synopsis were all we ever got of The Dark Dimension. Focussing on the Fourth Doctor – to the annoyance of the others – in an alternative timeline, with new takes on old monsters (including a Wolverine-influenced take on the Cybermen).

BBC Enterprises were making a straight-to-video special that snowballed into a big enough project for other departments to notice. The death knell came when Philip Segal arranged a deal to make new Doctor Who episodes, and the conflict of interest killed the project.

17. The New Adventures

In hindsight, Torchwood shouldn’t have been such a surprise. The previous time that Doctor Who had tried to go all dark and sexy and edgy (Why do people say ‘edgy’ anyway? Everything has an edge, or else it’d be infinite) was with the New Adventures book range. While there are some brilliant stories in there, it was felt that there was a ticklist writers had to complete: needless violence, the Doctor being incredibly manipulative, Ace having sex and some jarring swear words. It was a bit of a shock to the system compared with someone saying ‘toss’ in Survival.

16. The TVM

Where do we start? First we thought there were going to be Spider Daleks. There aren’t Spider Daleks. That would be nonsensical. Spader Daleks, sure, but not Spider Daleks. Then we discovered that the Doctor was going to kiss a lady. Worse, he was going to be half-human. Both of those things were terrible, but really we were lucky. Anyone who has read a synopsis of the ‘Leeky Bible’ knows that a full series would have been a full on reboot with an origin story to make the writers of The Next Generation go ‘What, really?’. In hindsight, we got off lightly.

15. BBC takes over the book range from Virgin

The BBC, disinterested as it was in the show in 1990, suddenly noticed that the Virgin Books had a decent market for tie-in fiction, and were doing really rather well. So, with a large group of writers, audience and continuity already established, the BBC took back the book range from Virgin and did it themselves without having to do any of the legwork. This was further exacerbated by a new range that – while largely having better covers – didn’t really know what it was trying to do for a while. Fortunately, one of the latter Virgin authors had a few ideas that would shake things up a tad.

14. Lawrence Miles happens

Read Alien Bodies. Do it now. I will wait.

Good wasn’t it? You might also have noticed that quite a lot of the ideas in it have cropped up in some form in televised Doctor Who post-2005. So many, in fact, that I don’t have space to list them here. It not only hugely informed the TV series, but it was so staggeringly confident compared with much of the book range, that it informed much of that too. However, not everyone was on the same page, and authors started taking things in different directions, until eventually all bridges involved were burned, spat on, burned again, and then finally scatologically desecrated in a vitriolic interview that proved once and for all that, while Miles is undoubtedly brilliant with language, he is perhaps not the best at networking.

That’s before we get onto his blog about the new series.

13. The Shalka Doctor

A new Doctor! A new era for the show! A new- oh, never mind, it’s been cancelled.

The internet-based adventures of Richard E. Grant’s numberless Doctor have been consigned to the realms of the non-canonical (‘Let me out!’ cries Anachrophobia, ‘I might only be an Eighth Doctor Adventure but I’m vastly more entertaining than Meglos‘.), announced shortly before the TV show’s comeback. At the time, the idea of the Master being an android, and Richard E. Grant’s performance as the cold, vampiric Doctor were not ideas that fandom welcomed. The recent DVD release has at least given people a new perspective on the story, possibly helped by the fact that it doesn’t stop to buffer every thirty seconds.

12. Strangled at rebirth

The BBC has given us many great things, but like Doctor Who, it is not a coherent entity in terms of vision or personnel. It is also so large and flailing that it resembles nothing less than Cthulhu failing to unhook one of the other elder god’s bras while both of them are suffering from tapeworms. Perhaps then it is not a surprise that the show’s relaunch in 2005 took the perseverance and enthusiasm of a select few to convince a wary organisation that it was in any way a good idea, and that it occasionally took a selective approach to the truth to keep the show alive. For more details, see Doctor Who Magazine #463.

11. BILLIE PIPER?

Billie Piper? BILLIE PIPER? Billie Piper? As companion? NOT ON MY WATCH. The only Billy-Piper I’ll accept in Doctor Who is the First Doctor’s smoking equipment of choice AND NO OTHER. A pop-star in a serious acting role made famous by such characters as Dodo and Melanie Bush? Nonsense. And she’s beautiful but she will never love me. This is awful. What does ‘Honey to the Bee’ EVEN MEAN?

10. Gay Agenda

Gays? GAYS? Gays? In Doctor Who? NOT ON MY WATCH. The only gayness I’ll accept in Doctor Who is the frivolity of a well-timed Dudley Simpson leitmotif AND NO OTHER.

The supposed ‘Gay Agenda’ – ie. Hey, gay people exist, let’s mention that – is a superb example of blustering melodrama masquerading as moral depravity. How dare Doctor Who be a platform for any sort of equality?

9. Smug

The 2006 series of Doctor Who saw Rose and the Doctor grow even closer after his regeneration, only to be heartbreakingly parted forever (ahem) at the series’ end. However, prior to this their behaviour had rubbed some viewers up the wrong way, until the word ‘smug’ became a byword for their relationship. While perhaps it went a bit far at times (listen to Queen Victoria, you two, she has a point) it was also something that was clearly setting them up for a fall. And lo, it happened. If you go into the Tenth Doctor era thinking he’s supposed to be hugely flawed, it really makes it much more satisfying.

8. Deus Ex Machina

What is a Deus Ex Machina? Roughly speaking, it’s when an unprecedented ability or event is used as a resolution. Russell T. Davies is so often accused of using these that, on forums, every mention of the phrase means the impending arrival of someone pointing out that he doesn’t actually use them in any of his series finales. They are all hinted at, suggested and implied beforehand in at least some small way.

That’s not to say they’re above criticism, just that you might want to get your facts right before doing so.

7. The Doctor’s reward

Now, I love the Ninth Doctor’s regeneration. It’s wonderful that the incarnation who spent so much of his time masking his emotions gets one, final burst of joy before he goes. Inversely, the cocksure and charismatic Tenth Doctor gets to glare meaningfully at his old friends from a distance before regenerating in tears by himself. Reactions ranged from the extremely tearful to the extremely enraged, to my girlfriend’s Dad saying ‘Oh god, there’s still fifteen minutes to go.’

6. The new paradigm

Tellytubby Daleks. Skittle Daleks. I-Daleks. The United Daleks of Benetton. The list of derogatory names for the new design went on long into the night. In hindsight, they’re alright when they’re filmed from the front, it’s just their weird Igor-hump/Smart car boot that looks wrong on them, and when they’ve been used since they’re largely filmed to hide this. Perhaps coupled with the anti-climactic Victory of the Daleks and the internet’s role in allowing gut reactions unbidden into its pages, the fuss got a little bit out of hand.

5. It’s sexy

Doctor Who got into trouble with the Daily Mail when the paper decided it’d be good to pretend to be upset over how sexy Amy Pond was, and how damaging this was for children. The problem seemed to be that occasionally she wore sexy shirt skirts or sexy shorts (NB. There is no such thing), and it was bad for children to see her sexy legs. What if they went out and, in a delirious mindset brought about by premature exposure to sexy legs, did all the crime? Because of sexy legs?

The Daily Mail has obviously not looked outside recently. Or, indeed, since the 1960s.

4. It’s sexist

This accusation could be made at almost any time in the show’s history, but the female characters in the Moffat era have come under close scrutiny. His ability to write characters might not be at the level of Russell T. Davies (it’s like criticising a mountain for not being as tall as Mount Everest), but besides characterisation (he’s accused of writing unrealistic, borderline sitcom characters defined by their gender’s reproductive capabilities) there have also been complaints about the lack of female writers on the show, and that it increasingly resembles a ‘Boys-Own adventure’ (even if this is infinitely preferably to a Boyzone adventure).

3. It’s so complex

Steven Moffat, having made a name for himself with episodes featuring multiple time-zones as a major plot point, became show runner, and had a go at doing something with the established format of the show since it returned in 2005. Then, for his second series, he tried something different, something more involved, that altered the format of the series and required more concentration than usual. It got a mainly positive response, but there were those who complained that it had grown too complex to follow. As a result, the next series switched to more standalone episodes.

2. Clara Who

Bearing in mind some of the criticisms above, the decision to make new companion Clara a plot-device based over several time-zones, a sexually confident (and, in one jaw-droppingly awful moment, sexually objectified) young lady, whose backstory remained a mystery…well, it was an interesting decision, put it that way. As part of the hyper-real fantasy world Moffat’s Who is based in, characters aren’t grounded in the same realism as before. With Clara, though, there was not a lot else to her other than said mystery, a character who never seemed quite real in her responses and questions, almost like she’s been designed as the ideal companion. Perhaps she has. If only Lawrence Miles hadn’t written that idea already.

1. I Hurt myself today

There are eleven Doctors, officially. The Shalka Doctor, the Metacrisis Doctor, the incarnation David Banks played in The Ultimate Adventures when Jon Pertwee was ill… none of these count, officially. Possibly because there was a section of the internet that hadn’t been annoyed with him, Steven Moffat decided to throw a spanner in the works (The Restoration Team will be replacing this spanner at a later date) by revealing another Doctor in the shape of John Hurt.

Some people genuinely tweeted that they would never watch Doctor Who again. It’s a hell of a place to stop at.