Doctor Who - Parting Gifts

Well, Steven Moffat has hung up his timey-wimey detector and joined days long ago.

That's something that probably should have been said with the previous episode. Or the previous Christmas special plus one. Or the plus three. Because Moffat has been trying to get out of this show for half the time he's been in charge of it, and when you consider he considers the experience of dealing with fandom "rancid" it's not hard to see why it was so hard to find another replacement. I'm not saying "Ask what you can do for your showrunner" but why would anyone want to deal with all the shit internet trolls can carry out?

Ah, but Moffat had metaphorically shot himself in the foot a long, long time ago with a 1995 interview for the TSV fan club which is now notorious. No doubt you can google it yourself, but basically he spent the whole panel rubbishing Doctor Who as pitifully crap, unfit for broadcast and unworthy of note or obsession. It's not hard to feel a bit insulted at the spiteful abuse and many have quite understandably wanted Moffat to sod off if he thinks he's too good for the show. Hell, why did he ever want to run it if he hates it so much?

I, Claudius is brilliant. Doctor Who isn't.

When I look at Doctor Who I laugh at it. As a television professional, I think how did these guys get a paycheck every week? Dear god, it's bad! Nothing I've seen of the black and white stuff should have got out of the building. They should have been clubbing those guys to death! You've got an old guy in the lead who can't remember his lines; you've got Patrick Troughton and his companions - how did they get their Equity card? Explain that! They're unimaginably bad. If you look at other stuff from the Sixties they weren't crap - it was just Doctor Who. Once you get to the colour stuff some of it's watchable, but it's laughable especially when some drunk old lardie like Tom Baker is hogging the screen. Really hideous.

I wouldn't care to show it to my friends in television and say look, I think this is a great programme, because I think they might fling me out! It's shit!


Now, far be it from me to suggest it is possible to change your opinion over a fifteen year period, Moffat himself has distanced themselves from the comments. He insists he was jet-lagged, drunk and foolishly arrogant in his abilities - the fact his awesome career nose-dived directly after that New Zealand trip he declares cosmic justice for slagging off Robert Holmes as a hack. As for the rest, well, there's no denying that the rest of the panel weren't offended by Moffat's behavior, even when he was calling them all losers and insisting they should only print a New Adventure when he personally felt inclined to read one. His deliberate mockery and automatic contradiction of everything everyone else says certainly supports the idea he was "spicing things up" provocatively.

Yet it's strange it's much easier to find sincerity in hatred than love. If Moffat had, similarly pissed out of his mind and in a mood to start an argument, praised Doctor Who to high heavens would people instantly point to that as justification? Or would he be considered a toadying yes-man sucking up to the punters? Is honesty really being told what you don't want to hear? Certainly, fan expectations and for this episode in particular have been "it's more likely to be horrible crap than good." Every leaked detail has been damned as a poisonous insult, most particularly when Andy "I rewrote everything from episode one of Spearhead in Space onwards coz I hate Tom Baker" Frankham whined about Moffat messing with other people's intellectual property.

I mean... sheesh!

Anyway, there can be no doubt that Moffat is a fan. Because he and I were on the same opinion forums back in 2003 when it seemed the show was coming back with Richard E Grant as the Ninth Doctor. Oh, fandom wailed, what about Paul McGann? We wanted a regeneration scene! But the idea of bringing back an old Doctor for a story to kill him off was considered a bad move. And then, by osmosis, fans pieced together the perfect solution.

Wait for the Ninth Doctor's final story (surely after five years or so) and then bring back the Eighth Doctor! They'd meet each other, do the usual things, but be caught up in a deadly tale. The Eighth Doctor would be killed off and regenerate into the Ninth, and at the end of the story the Ninth would regenerate into the Tenth! Yes, we thought, that'll explain everything to the new audience, give PMG a decent finale and be a winner!

There's no way that Moffat would have missed that concept (which was heavily re-pitched in 2009, and indeed all the time until 2013). Note that we get the War Doctor perishing in such a manner in Day of the Doctor, before a more straightforward version in The Doctor Falls only with the Master and Missy. And now we have it done with the First Doctor, though the return to black and white stock footage does rather interrupt the narrative flow as we return to widescreen new material.

Of course this isn't the first attempt to mess about with the First Doctor's regeneration. Why? Because it was crap, that's why. Arguably The Tenth Planet would have been better without that last moment rewrite (which is why the central guest character Cutler is immediately forgotten about halfway through the fourth episode) but as Nigel Kneale has taught us, doing things first and doing things well is not the same thing. As an introduction to the Cybermen or a swansong to the Doctor, it sucks big time. Even the original version, where William Hartnell was playing the fourth incarnation of the Doctor, was a damp squib as he undergoes a painful biological cycle with as much dignity as irritable bowel syndrome. His exit was barely on screen, let alone heroic.

Big Finish tried to "epic" it up with lots of missing bits, from the Daleks in the Time War trying to stop the TARDIS reaching Snowcap to change the Doctor's life to the First Doctor's spirit being sucked out of his body to help an aged Steven fight the Vardans. But Moffat has instead focused on the First Doctor choosing to change rather than die. It's not important why he's regenerating, just whether he goes through it.

This in turn is the key to story where the sour-faced Scots bastard in charge of the show tries to cheer things up for the first time in four years. After driving every lead character to suicidal despair, robbing the dead of dignity and hope for the future even showing us the universe ending in pointless, meaningless entropy, Moffat has to convince the Doctor twice over that there is any point going on. Many will look to Capaldi's final scene for the double-entendres and script writer addressing the audience, but the First Doctor's musing that the universe is an utterly horrible place that logically has nothing of merit to offer is closer to the mark.

This I think would be the truest challenge to Moffat. His tales have always been trying to bear with tragedies - yes, everyone may live in The Doctor Dances but that's one night in one city of a World War. Are Nancy and Jamie really going to live happily ever after? Moffat himself admitted that, had outside forces not required it, Jack would have perished in that story. Reniette dies alone, forsaken and abandoned. Sally and Larry have to live in perpetual fear of Weeping Angel reprises. All the data ghosts are trapped in a computer, unable to leave it until they finally reach closure. River Song and the Ponds, Clara and Ashildr, the Osgoods, all have been defined as people who refuse to crumble under the shitstorm of cruel twists rained down on them yet all that stubbornness is shown to come to naught and they all end up dead sooner or later after much, MUCH suffering.

Asking Moffat to tell a story of life worth living is probably the most difficult task he's faced. It's much easier for him to horrify the First Doctor with tales of his future self's blood-soaked carnage, or have the Twelfth Doctor consider his life summed up by an empty battlefield with him the only survivor. The brilliant bit where the Doctor dubs a summary of his warlike life - "They cut out all the jokes!" - rings true. It's only the gags that distract us from the endless, agonizing horror of Moffat's universe. Is it any wonder that taking away the silly jokes made the Doctor hide in his pitch-dark TARDIS wondering what the hell is the point of it all?

So we get a story without an evil plan. The glass people are the antimatter opposite of Missy in the Nethersphere, ensuring whatever torments the entire human race suffered there are duplicates existing happily in the far future, with Clara and Nardole and Bill all existing on somewhere as good as alive. When a malfunctioning Auton can be properly called a resurrected Rory, there's really no line drawn. The Doctor might be the last one standing on a battlefield, but his army live on - every poor sod from Clive to Jackdaw who's carked it has not vanished into oblivion. They are gone but not forgotten and it's not the worst thing if the Doctor can't save people.

And the Doctor gets the closure of knowing Bill is off traversing the cosmos with her time-space common law wife, of having Clara returned to his memory (after two series explaining she was absolutely the worst thing to ever happen to him and render him a non-functional psychopath) without ill-effects. Their toxic and doomed friendships are hastily redefined as wonderful, bittersweet happy endings where they went their separate ways instead of utter soul-crushing disasters.

We also get Mark Gatiss as Captain Archie Lethbridge-Stewart doing a damn fine evocation of the Brigadier and everything he stands for. Yeah, he might enjoy a sexist joke but he'll not hesitate to sacrifice himself for a coloured lesbian he's never met before. He takes no pleasure in violence or warfare, but there's no doubt he'd be damn good at it should push come to shove. I doubt anyone would have blamed him for scarpering back to his own trench, but instead puts all his faith in a vaguely-defined truce to get medical attention for his German counterpart.

Given this intense timey-wimey continuity-driven tale, he even keeps a good grasp on what's happening and proves he is not the pudding-brained retard the Doctor has repeatedly declared his entire species to be. He is worthy of saving, he deserves the second chance the Doctor gives him just as the Christmas truce is something Capaldi can't jeer about with a vaguely-affectionate "aww, you fucking morons!" It is a moment of peace and understanding that Moffat doesn't tie down as being some cosmic masterplan that renders it totally meaningless.

Although a reference to Villengard takes Moffat back to his first story (or second episode anyway), the real throwback is to Silence in the Library and River Song's future nostalgia. The future is not something to be feared but looked forward to. River's tales of Matt Smith are something to be happy about rather than dreaded with certainty (which clashes with the bit where River is horrified to meet Donna Noble). Here, the First Doctor discovers his uncouth, immature future incarnation is brave enough to alter the universe for the better, and the only downer about regeneration is that it'll be a while before he gets to be Capaldi. Whereupon he'll become a suicidal emo misery guts once again - but you can't have everything, can you?

So we are reminded that the universe can be a good place and life is worth living if you pull your bloody finger out and make it better. If the Doctor wants a reason to keep going, do it him frigging self. As we finally burn away the scary Scot to the yummy Yorkshire lass - and, between you and me, it would've been nice to see the whole change for once - it's treated not as a death scene but a birth scene. There's no weeping, no railing against the unfairness of it all, not even whining about the nature of self-consciousness.

In her first scene, Jodie's Doctor is grinning, happy, healthy and fun. She's not worried about her identity crisis or whether she's a distorted echo of William Hartnell or if she's not a good person or if her companion cannot comprehend what happened. She's not just glad to get through it in one piece, she's happy about the result and in her one line of dialogue feels more comfortable as a children's hero than her predecessor managed in four years.

But of course she's not the only new Doctor in the episode.

There's plenty of concern over the "sexism" of the First Doctor, but it really was a storm in a teacup. His references to a male nurse being odd are directed at a confused and frightened WW1 soldier. His glass woman joke is meant to be a joke. His threat of a smacked bottom to Bill after she's hurled abusive mockery at his future self is mild to what he would have done if Ian had done the same - "Write a farewell note to your testicles, Chesserman! It's on!". He's far less startled to learn Bill's gay than the Captain, and his shock is mild compared to how the Doctor and Romana got awkward around Merak when he said he was straight. The only real issue is him assuming female companions dust the TARDIS but, considering his baseline for 20th Century feminism is Barbara Wright and she kept insisting she "spring clean" the time ship, it's not exactly unreasonable.

Hell, the biggest anomaly is him referring to the TARDIS as "the Ship" when he stopped that the same time Verity Lambert left. And abandoning Ben and Polly in the Arctic night twenty years in their future might have merited some comments (indeed, we could have stood to see a little more of them all said).

Frankly, David Bradley does a fine job as the First Doctor rather than William Hartnell on set. His body language, switch between the stilted "remember the words, Bill, there's a bag of chips in it for you" to the more naturalistic "yeah this is it, more or less" feels like the Doctor constantly on guard for letting slip the wrong thing. Added to his new BF adventures, he has undoubtedly earned his DWM magazine title. His Doctor, cluelessness about his future self aside, is shown to be smart, compassionate, clever and friendly. Compare his treatment of Captain Archie to the way Capaldi dealt with Journey Blue, or even the Celts a few episodes ago. This is a man who can be nice, kind, and stand up for himself without being "a complete prick everyone hates" (copyright SFX).

Ultimately, it's only Capaldi's skill with the TARDIS and knowledge of Rusty that gives him any kind of an edge over the First Doctor who deduces all the same things with all the same ease. True, Capaldi is the one who saves Captain Archie but Bradley is the one that gives him peace as he goes to his death. In short, the First Doctor is capable of being the main character for the next series just as well as his feminine descendant.

So, bar a final complaint that Moffat reduced the Daleks from harbingers of total apocalypse to the Skaroine equivalent of Bernard Black with a telephone directory, there's little left to say. It's an epilogue to everything we've seen since Capaldi screamed about his kidneys, since Smith yelled about his legs, and further still to Hartnell wondering what two schoolteachers were doing in his junkyard. To misquote CS Lewis, the school year is over and the summer holidays have begun.

Of course, it's going to be fucking ages until we get the next episode but you know what?

It'll probably be worth the wait.

The Emperor's Xmas Rant

And now we cut to Mister Marcus Fishface Goucher the Third at Chief Mango Butilaze Cul-De-Sac for his yuletide review of the Doctor Who Christmas special.


Ok, the episode was not as comedic as I feared. It still had the silly comedy music score and some silly banter between the Doctors however Moffat was clearly trying to give it a serious undertone. It was however very poor in other ways. There was a serious sci fi idea on there somewhere regarding the creation of a database of the memories of the dead. However the stuff with the Dalek was self-indulgent and the plot was undeveloped. Where was the actual plot? Seriously that was a disjointed mess of half formed ideas. Boring and self-indulgent and a sad way to end the series as we know it.

Ben and Polly were hardly in it. Poor show. Everyone needs a sailor at Christmas.

Peter Capaldi is an excellent actor and was a good choice to play the Doctor. He just needed better stories and scripts, specifically written by me. As for Miss Wittacker (sic), it's too easy to tell however I was not impressed by what I saw. I suspect that she will both try to play it comedic and also be generically feisty. This will jar.

And her costume is absolutely terrible. Like they aren't taking it seriously.

And it certainly isn't at all sexist to hold the opinion that the Doctor is a male character and should be played by a male actor. That we are in a place where people questioning the wisdom of casting a woman on the role are described as sexist simply shows the immature level to which society is sinking, with opinions formed by internet memes and virtue signalling rather than rational thought.

The fact is a female Doctor is totally wrong, completely inappropriate and beginning of the the end of the show. A totally inappropriate choice. The Doctor has always been a male character and this will be a change too far for many viewers. Also Jodie Whittacker (sic) has worked with Chibnall before so one cannot escape the likelihood that she was cast as a familiar face whom he knows he can work with. This is just BBC PC casting coupled with desperation to generate media attention. Totally wrong, completely inappropriate and beginning of the end of the show.

I presume that they'll go for even more 'emotional' overload with the Doctor agonising over the morality of her actions etc. Not my kind of thing. I doubt she'll last more than two seasons. I predict that the ratings will initially shoot up for her first couple of episodes before declining rapidly. It is of course very bad for the character, which as always been male. I'm angry about this however the BBC won't care about fan reaction. They will however care when the casual viewers stop watching, which they will. But mark my words, the ratings will go down and there is even the danger of cancellation. Combining the appointment of Mr Chibnall, a mediocre writer whose back catalogue of scripts are worse than those of Moffat, with the casting of an inexperienced female actress in a traditionally male role (essentially a new character) and you are taking one hell of a risk. No, you have a recipe for failure!

The big question really is what the quality threshold of the general audience is like nowadays. If they'll watch any old tripe that is popular or in vogue then the casting of Miss Whittaker as a female Doctor could be a successful move as it has been a hugely effective publicity stunt. If not then it will all rest on the quality of Chibnall's scripts. Nuwho has been rather boring throughout the whole Moffat era and his Christmas specials were an absolute nadir. Combine a female Doctor and an even more boring writer and the ratings will fall further after an initial upsurge. However if Chibnall writes some cutting edge sci fi then he might pull it off, presuming Miss Whittaker is a tad more interesting in role than her interviews on youtube.

The main problem with too many of the Christmas specials over the years is their overly light, comical or fantasy nature. Serious sci fi elements are sacrificed in favour of supposedly 'family friendly' comedy, robot santas, snowmen, jokes and Harry Potter type nonsense. The most credible of the specials was probably 'The Christmas Invasion' but even that had Tennant being silly and jokes about satsumas. So hopefully this year they may get it right, given that the first Doctor is in it. The best ever Xmas special for me will always be 'K9 and Company: A Girl's Best Friend' from 1981. It was taken seriously with a dark witchcraft theme, serious acting and some genuinely scary moments.

I watched it again last night.

What a festive wee chappy he is.

On the Eve of Regeneration

As Christmas Day draws near and the end of the "twelfth" Doctor is upon us, I was moved by a BBC America youtube vid where fans around the world - including a surprisingly cherubic William Shatner - all congratulated Peter Capaldi for the last four years of his life and making Doctor Who awesome.

Moved because, to be blunt, I felt none of it.

Oh, Capaldi is a great actor who has worked hard and certainly deserves his career to continue on its impressive trajectory, but nope - you won't find me saying he was "my" Doctor, or that his take on Twelve inspired me, comforted me, challenged me or to be honest even kept me coming back for more. Had it not been for my parents' love for the show, I would have possibly given up on Doctor Who altogether. It wasn't that the show had become bad, but had deliberately shed itself of absolutely everything I liked about it and become a nihilistic slasher show with two dysfunctional self-destructive leads. The most sympathetic the Twelfth Doctor got was when he was shown as a guilt-ridden would-be child-murderer psychopath, because he at least started smiling and acting like he cared about people. The first year might have been fine television, but it was joyless and depressing and the only person likely to be more of a misery guts than the viewers were the central characters.

Doctor Who became a show about how everyone is a monster, how nothing means anything in the long run because you'll either die or become corrupt. Heaven doesn't exist and the only option is hell, your friends will stab you in the back, and if you want to help, you'll only make things worse. Capaldi's Doc made some pretty speeches as he mused on the inherent pointlessness of it all - care and you get hurt. And don't expect any fancy "it's worth the pain" rhetoric because the Christmas special begins with the Doctor is so sick of life he'd rather die horribly.

So, the news that Capaldi's leaving will get Doctor Who out of the self-harming emo phase it's been stuck in since 2014 then don't let the door hit him on his arse as he leaves.

Of course there have been some great episodes and some brilliant entertainment, but let's not miss the fact that the show started this year by ditching all its "gritty adult darkness" which had driven a lot of people away and left the "true fans" whining and sickened at the changes. And though I applaud the post-Nardole era, I found it impossible to love the Doctor as I have his predecessors. "Oh, that's nice of him," I might have thought, "He was being quite polite and friendly there," but that's it.

It's the deep irony that Peter Capaldi - a lifelong fanboy finally getting his dream job - played someone who hated being the Doctor. Having outlived his allotted span, in his first full episode the Doctor notes that there is nothing left of the original Doctor except some idealized fantasy he rarely is capable of living up to. Used to unquestioning obedience and trust facing black and white over-complicated battles with uncomplicated foes, he spends his first year unable to cope with a complex universe of moral grey. He refuses to get close to anyone, and treats his only remaining ally as shit until she walks out on him - followed by the revelation he's actually turned her into a bad person. His effort to become/stay a good man is a hollow promise that has undermined his ability to even save the universe; even when he gets some closure he hurls abuse at Clara for expecting to care about people if he doesn't have to. If he isn't defined by being good or bad, he's only got self-preservation and selfishness left.

And yes he starts smiling and laughing and joking rather than being viciously cruel to everyone he meets... after he's shown breaking any standards he had of deliberately leaving a child to die in a minefield. Gripped by suicidal shame and a rising death wish, he cannot live with himself and thus, in his words, retreats to the other hims who weren't such total screw-ups. Yeah, he saved Davros. But he was going to kill a defenseless little boy by inaction and that isn't ever going to change. And his relationship from Clara decays further - they're much happier together, but his refusal to make any other connections isolates him even further.

Oh, and then he's killed off and the adventures since have been focused on a mindwiped clone but no one talks about that for some reason.

The Doctor that Bill and Nardole is a kind if reckless teacher and protector, whose hearts are in the right place if his head isn't... but I couldn't quite bring myself to trust him. He seems far more sincere and honest sneering at contempt at humans and Clara, of letting an Arctic base crew die horribly because he can't be arsed to stop it, than going on about kindness and mercy. Marc Platt, I believe, noted when they were doing the Unbound series that the one possibility they would never explore was a Doctor who didn't care; take away that desire to take part in events and try and make them better and there's nothing left. Even the evil David Collings Doctor and the Valeyard had that aspect. They could not stand around doing nothing.

As Moffat was keen to stress, Capaldi's Doctor was not the "angry one" but "the one that doesn't care".

So in The Lie of the Land, I was more convinced the Doctor was himself when he turned his back on the human species than when he was fighting to liberate them. It felt more genuine that the Doctor considers a doomed spaceship and a terrified crew learning tools for Missy than when he was determined to do anything to save Hazran and her people. His poetic spiel to Jorge (you know, the one that convinced the blue man the best thing to do was shoot Bill dead) was very well acted but utterly hollow, a routine said out of habit. It rang as insincere and unconvincing as Deep Breath where he insisted he would protect the species he has repeatedly dubbed "pudding brains" - retarded and unworthy of his respect.

Thus when the Master and Missy doubted the Doctor would stand and die for a bunch of Amish losers, there was a point, too. Capaldi's Doctor is more believable as a horrible person as a hero. His vengeance against Gallifrey was believable because he wanted to hurt and humiliate people. His attempt to save the Romans and the Celt from the shadow beasts felt like he was looking for an excuse to end the episode. Even in The Pilot, the Doctor looks far more comfortable and credible about to mind-rape Bill than sitting with her on Christmas Day.

In short, this is a Doctor you can't trust when he says he wants to help. If he acts like he's your friend, he's lying. If he makes you cry and want to end it all, it's the only time he's being honest. People don't matter to him. Places don't matter to him. He doesn't want to be here or doing this.

And that's why he'll never be my favorite Doctor, never be in my top, or the one I want to see again.

Sorry, Pete. You were an awesome lead character - but as the Doctor? No.

Change can't come quick enough.

Doctor Who Titles in Latin!

Because I am SO drunk right now...

Unus Suo
Quo Saxa Puer/Centum Milia Antequam Christus/In Tribus Autem Gum
Et Daleks/Planeta Mortuis
Intra Spatium Navis
Marcus Polo
Marinus Collatis Clavibus
Aztecorum
Et Sensorem
Regni Perturbationem
Duo Suo
Planeta Terra Gigantum Reputata
Dalek Tumultus in Terra
Ad Liberandum
Romanorum
Textus Planetae
Devexa Montis
Museum Est Locus
Dum Sequuntur Contigerint
Tempus Alienorum Appetitor
Tres Suo

Galaxy Quattuor
Missio Ad Ignotum/Dalek Repulsi Sunt
Plastae Fabulas Autem Convertentur
Dalek Ad Magistrum Consilium
Ad Caedem
Arcam
Factorem Nugas Caelestis
Gun Ad Proeliandum
In Armorum Officinas
Bellum Machinis
Quattuor Temporum

Qui Ab Urbe
Decimi Orbis
Potestas Daleks
Descensoriorum Super Excelsis
Sub Aqua Denuntiatione
Cum Basi Supra Lunam
Macram Metus
Non Facies Eorum
Id Malum Consumat Reliquias Daleks
Quinque Suo

Sepulcrum Enim A Cybermen
Class Aptent Tulit Abominationes Impietatis
Et Bellatorem Glacies
Mundi Inimica
Tela Metus
Furor Alto
Quod Spatium In Rota
Sex Suo

Qui Dominetur
Mens Praedo
Ad Tumultus
Et Krotons
Seminibus, In Mortis
In Spatio Piratis
Bellum Ludos
Septum Suo

Ferrum Hastæ Trecentas Uncias Ex Tractus
Qui Medicus et Silurians
Legati... MORTIS!!!
De Inferno Liberabis
Octo Temporum

Terrorem Autons
Mens Mali
Ungues Axos
Coloniae Spatium
Daemones
Novem Suo

Die Daleks
De Maledicto Peladon
Mare Eiciens
Mutantur In Populo
Eo Tempore Prodigium
Decem Suo

Tres Medicus
Saturnalia Agunt Aliquando Monstrorum
Fines In Spatio
De Planeta Daleks
Viride Ad Mortem
Undecim Suo
Tempus Bellator
Tumultus (Et Tonitrua Spineta Lacertos)
Daleks Usque Ad Mortem
Uultus Aequoreae Monstrum Peladon
Planeta In Aranearum
Duodecim Suo

Servus
Sustentaret Arcam Spatium
Experimentum Autem Sontaran
Genesis de Daleks
Ultionem Cybermen
Tertia Decima Suo

Formido Et Zygons
Planeta Ex Malo
Mars Pyramidum
Tumultus Exemplarium
De Cerebri Morbius
Mala Semina
MT Suo

Mandragora De Choro Habitu
Ne Manu
Mortiferum Sicarius Est
Facie Mali
Mortem Servituti
Et Unguibus Galli Oculos Verberavit De Weng-Chiang
E Quibus Quindecim Suo

Dente Metus Petram
Inimicus Invisibilis
Mortis Imago Dei
Soli Artifices
Inferis
Et Tumultus Temporis
Sedecim Suo - Key Est Ad Tempus

i) Opera Omnia In Ribos
ii) Pirata Plagiarius
iii) Lapides Est Sanguis
iv) Tara Homines In Metallum
v) Valuerit Kroll
vi) Planta Est Hermagedon
Septemdecim Suo

Fatum Est Daleks
Urbem Mortis
Et Viventem In Pit
Somnum Exterreri Solebat Eden
Cornibus Nimon
Shada
Decem Et Octo Temporum

Otium Alveo
Cactus Est Homo
Circulus Plenus
Status Interitus
Bellatorem Porta
Nuntiavit Autem Custos Traken
Rerum Orbem Terrarum
XIX Suo

Civitas Somnia
Quartum Diem Iudicii
Pius Enim
Ceteri Visitari
Nigrum Orchidaceae
Concursu Mundi
Fugam Temporis
Viginti suo

Arcum Infinitum
In Choro Per Anguis
Nawdryn Immortuos
Terminus
Illustratio
Rex Est Daemoniorum
Doctorum Libri Quinque
Viginti Unus Suo
Militibus Abyssi
Excitatio
In Finibus Orbis
Resurrectione Daleks
Tellus Ignis
Voragines Androzani
Sunt Geminae Dilemma
Viginti Duo Suo

Impetum ex Cybermen
Et Vindictam Retribuet In Varos
Ad Marcam In Rani
Duo Medici
Lasonio Pulsatum Per Tempus
Daleks In Revelatione Iesu Christi

Viginti Tres Suo - Dominus Autem Tempus Iudicii

i) Arcanum Quod Planetae
ii) Excors Animis
iii) Terrorem Vervoids
iv) Ultimum Hostem

Et Viginti Quattuor Temporum

Et In Rani
Turris Paradisum
Delta Viri Ordinata
Ignis Draco

Viginti Quinque Suo

Daleks In Meam Commemorationem
Quod Beatitudo Disputatio
Argentum Invidia
Maximum Perficientur In Via Lactea
Sex Et Viginti Suo

Campo Proelii
Lux Exspiravit
Et Maledicite Fenric
Salvos

Film et TV MCMXCVI

Hostem


Doctor Nonam
Flos Pulcherrimus
Ad Extremum Terrae
Mortui Inquieti
Londinium Alienigenarum
Mundi Bellum Tres
Dalek
A Diu Ludum
Patris Tui Dies
Ad Inanis Puer
Doctor Enim Feres Saltat
Oppidum Inrupit
Lupus Malum
In Bivio In Via

X Coetus Doctor

Iterum Nata
Class Aptent Ad Tumultus
Nova Terra
Dente Crescit et Unguibus
Occurrens In Schola
Puellae In Foco
Ortus Est Cybermen
Aetatis Suae Ferro
Lumina Stultus Est Scriptor
Planeta Potest Non Esse
Pit Et Satanas
Onocentauris Caritate
Timent Sui
Manes Autem Exercitus
Super Viros Luda
Fugientibus Receptaculum Sponsa
Smith Jones Et
Shakespeare In Codice
Eget Cincinno
Daleks In Novum Eboracum
Evolutio Daleks
Et Lazarus Experimentum
XLII
Infinito Ambitu
Natura Humana
Familia Sanguinis
Palpabunt
Et Perfectus Est
Tympanorum Sonitu
Ultimum Temporis Domini Multi
Tunc Ruina
Catalogus Plantarum Quo Affliguntur Damnati
Participes Sceleris
Cum Ignes Pompeiano
Planeta Ex Bono Praestat
In Fugam Reperit Fallacia Sontaran
Venenum In Caelum
Filia Autem Doctor
Et Unicornis Et Vespa
Silentium Sunt In Bibliothecam
Silva Mortuorum
Nocte
Ad Sinistram
In Terra Furtivus
Finem Itineris
Altera doctor
Planeta Mortuorum
Terra Somnia
Martis Aquas
Ad Consummationem Saeculi Pars Una
Ad Consummationem Saeculi Pars Duorum

Articulus Undecimus Vndecimo Doctor

Sextam Et Nonam Horam
Infra Post Bestiam
Victoria de Daleks
Tempus Angeli
Caro Et Lapis
Lamia Venetiarum
Electio Amy Est Scriptor
Esurientem Terrae
Frigidus Sanguis
Vincent Et Doctor
De Habitatore
Et Non Aperuit Pandorica
Voce Magna
Class Aptent Taciti Sociosqu Ad
Vir Qui Non Potest Esse In Spatio
Dies Lunae
Spatium/Temporis
Maledicto Labes
Doctor Autem Uxor
Et Carnes Rebellatis
Et Qui Prope
Militat Bono
Venite Occidere Hitler
Nocte Terrores
Qui Nudus Puella
Et Universa Deum
Tempus Claudendi
Carmen Nuptiale Fluminis
Medicus Et Pupillo Et Viduae Non Vestium
Ad Asylum Daleks
Per Spatium Navis In Tonitruo Spineta Lacertos
Miserere Desertum Qui Est Bethsaida
Potestate Tribus
Ut Angeli Novum Eboracum
Militum Nivis
Quod Sanctus Loannes De Campanis
Et Stringatur Rationale Akhaten
Frigidam Bello
Abscondam
Usque Ad Mediam Iter Ad Tempus Machina
Aequora Purpuream Singultibus Turbarentur
Tantibus Argento
Nomine Medicus
Quod Medicus Per Noctem
In Die Autem Medicus
Quod Medicus ex Tempus

XII Coetus Doctor

Altum Spiritus
In Dalek
Serviunt Shyrewode
Audi
Tunc Rapinam
Pausatio Procuratoris
Luna Interficere
Mater In Orientali Express
Plana Lineam
Saltus Noctis
Tenebrosa Aqua
Mors Est In Caelis
Natalis Domini Ultimum
Magi In Coniugatori Addicti
In Pythonissam Nota Est Scriptor
Sub Mari
Quae Fuit Ante Diluvium
Puella Et Mortuus Est
Qui Habitabat Mulier
Et Tumultus Zygon
De Inversione Zygon
Somnum Ultra
Faciem Vulpes Corvum
Misit Caelum
Infernum Tetendit
Virorum Cantu Fluminis
Cum De Reditu Marcus Mysterio
Gubernatori
Risus
Spicæ Tenues Glacies
Pulso-Pulso
Oxygeni
Ends
Ct Pyramis Ad Finem Mundi
Qui Situm Regionum
Mars Est Imperatrix
Lumen Eorum Qui In
Orbis Terrarum Et Satis Temporis
Medicus Cadit
Bis In Tempore

A Fan's Bookshelf

With the knowledge that new series stories are finally being novelized, it's just a matter of time...

Sydney Newman's Doctor Who 1987...

...would it have been complete crap?

Some background. In 1985, the BBC were stony-stinking-sodding-tinking broke. They had no money and were desperate in those greed-is-good times to get their cash back. They made Michael Grade their new Controller and gave him truly unprecedented powers, he could do anything he damn well wanted as long as he got them out of the red and into the black. Grade came up with the idea of simply cancelling every TV show that was costing more than it made the corporation or was just downright expensive full stop.

Unsurprisingly, Doctor Who was part of the list.

Now, it should probably be said that while Grade had no love of the program - in fact, it's quite clear he had a few issues with any TV show starring Colin Baker - it was pretty much "nothing personal" about the cancellation. The BBC couldn't afford to make the show, simple as. However, the BBC was now of the mind they had to be cheap, profitable and dynamic. Nothing cancelled would be uncancelled, even if everyone liked it. Tomorrow's World, Crackerjack, Doctor Who... they weren't going to come back.

But JNT and his web of spies discovered this and sprung their trap. Newspapers across the land were suddenly informed that the BBC - ostensibly a respected public broadcaster dedicated to quality rather than money-grubbing avarice - had axed a national institution in a distinctly usurian manner. Now, this was technically true but the BBC could not defend their position without admitted they were totally broke and throwing aside their principles for the great god Mammon. Ergo, they hastily uncancelled Doctor Who and then denied it had ever been cancelled.

But the problem remained - whatever the high-ups thought of the series, they were still broke. They could not afford to make it for a year and a half at the earliest. But instead of explaining this, they claimed they thought Doctor Who sucked and needed an 18 month rethink. Ironically, history seems to have agreed with them and all three showrunners of the new series agree that if any season merited such a reaction, it was Season 22. As Lawrence Miles put it, that season contains some truly great television, but absolutely appalling Doctor Who.

JNT, Eric Saward and the others were left rather bewildered at this. What had they done that was wrong? Hasty excuses of it being too violent and family-unfriendly were thrown around and while they were weren't wrong, they were hardly actual direction. Saward noted that this lack of direction created despair and apathy through the production office, and not just a loser like him. It ultimately ended with the tragedy of Robert Holmes' Robots of Ravalox getting absolutely roasted by the Director of the BBC - not only was that immensely humiliating, it was horrible because the script WAS as crap as it was accused. Holmes had deliberately dumbed down and LCD-ed it following the vague directives and it was thrown into his face with the haunting words "I expected better of you." Holmes, of course, tragically died before he could get over it.

Season 23 and Trial of a Time Lord came and went. It was far from a critical success, but it was nonetheless too good for the BBC to justify cancelling it. So, the high-ups made their first and perhaps only actual effort to improve the series and told Grade to fix it. Grade reacted by heading straight to Sydney Newman.

This seems incredibly stupid and counter-intuitive from today's perspective, seeking a brand new vision from a guy who hadn't been involved in the show since the mid-60s. Yet, Newman still had a huge reputation as a miracle worker, getting him for anything would have been impressive, and he was probably unique as the only producer who might want to take on a poisoned chalice of Doctor Who.

Grade and Newman spoke about restoring the show to its former glory. Newman had plenty of ideas Grade thought was worth pursuing when Newman dropped a bombshell - although he was being offered a thousand pounds just for spitballing ideas, he was happy to do it for free if they let him take over the show and rename it Sydney Newman's Doctor Who. (As is now known, Newman was hugely insecure and horrified when Terry Nation was mistakenly credited as the creator of the show, and constantly begged for this to change to be made official.)

Grade was willing, but didn't have the authority. He arranged a lunch between Newman and his boss for Newman to state his case but Jonathan Powell wasn't convinced. The BBC's attitude to Doctor Who had gone from vaguely-affectionate apathy to outright spite, and wanted wasting no more resources on the show. JNT was forced to stay as producer by the hatred of his superiors and the show struggled on for three more years before the idea of getting someone else to make it was raised and the BBC dropped the show like a leper's douchebag.

So what was Newman intending to do?

The only actual record we have for his plans was a typed up pitch document that was a rough guide to Newman's pitch (for example, Newman wanted to change the TARDIS from a police box into something else, but that isn't written down in the memo, so it remains a mystery.) Written with a swaggering, bullying arrogance the pitch understandably doesn't have Newman's charisma to sell the points and indeed its hectoring you-naturally-agree-with-me tone has made many a reader sneer with contempt. It's not hard to imagine a BBC worker reading, feeling mocked, insulted and patronized and turning it aside without a second thought.

Yet what cannot be denied is that the pitch is full of an energy and passion the genuine makers of Doctor Who admitted they had lost. There's no doubt or hesitation here, it's written by someone who knows with god-like righteousness they can make a brilliant show, fix any problems and laugh about it at the time. There's no doubts or compromise but a simple-minded certainty that Grade was unsurprisingly impressed by.

The document starts logically enough with Newman attempting to deduce what's actually gone wrong with the show in the first place (and doing more work on that score than anyone else it seems)...


(1) The out-in-space, other planet adventures are now somewhat old hat. Their simple good guy vs outer space monsters too rarely go beyond escapism. The best sci-fi always has a mythic, parable element that touches our own lives, and it is this that should make up the outer space stories in the future, which I would limit to 50% of the total.


Looking back at Doctor Who's recent output, it's easy to see what he means. There's no overarching moral over the Sixth Doctor's era, bar stories agreeing that meat is murder, slavery is wrong and tampering with god's domain is always evil. Vengeance on Varos might be a damning indictment of reality TV today, but at the time it was a skit show of video nasties. Is there anything occurring on Karfel, Nekros or Telos that have any relevance to people watching at home? The last season was set entirely on an alien space station two million years in the future arguing over whether moving planets about with a giant magnet was actually illegal.

Reducing the number of space-stories also has merit. The last story set entirely on Earth was Mark of the Rani, located in a 19th century mining town where four time travelers were busily trying to throw tree-making landmines and T-Rex embryos at each other. Timelash uses Earth for cutaway scenes that barely affect the plot, and though most of The Two Doctors is set in Seville it might as well be a planet in the Third Zone. From now on, the settings of stories would matter rather than be decided on how much research a writer was going to do. What if Nekros was actually Earth in the future, where all it was good for was graves? Or Varos, showing an Orwellian Sex Olympics future? Or on the contrary Killingsworth was another planet where the luddite riots really could change history? Earth or Elsewhere, it would now have to play a definite part of the plot and characterization - anything that could be told in 1980s England for example, should occur there rather than putting on some jumpsuits and shouting about interplanetary treaties.

The new series has followed this logic - from The End of the World to Oxygen, visiting far-future outer space type places have explored the morality of technological advance, the value of human life, and the impossibilities of a perfect future utopia. Had Knock Knock been made in Season 22/23 it would probably have been set in some asteroid hotel, and the landlord would probably have been lusting after Bill and wanting her to join him. The central theme of independence, letting go and accepting change would have probably been swapped for locking the Doctor in the cellar with Harry, who he'd continually insult.

And, hey, maybe that might have come up with an entertaining episode but its mindset is different. Saward would not be trying to win over new viewers or impress critics, but rather come up with his own Darwinist sci-fi anthology that happened to have two regular characters. Moffat's final year, and Newman's approach, would be to make TV that mattered to the audience watching.

(2) Our Earth, both present and past, is just as exciting as outer space when creatively explored.

This sort of approach just makes sense. If you want the BBC to do a good job, give them a historical drama. The Sixth Doctor's era had no interest in contemporary Earth - only the first half of the first episode of Attack of the Cybermen, set in ethnographic London, might relate to the world of the audience. Even then, it's hardly realistic as two thirds of the speaking cast are alien time travelers, it's set mainly in sewers and CID are represented with a criminally-stupid knife-wielding undercover op who provides bank robbers with plastic explosive because it would just be boring to do things by the book. A story about police corruption leading to bank robberies in the cynical 80s would be a story worth telling, especially as the criminals are shown to be the heroes with a refreshing lack of hypocrisy. What if the Doctor sided with Lytton on the ground a diamond raid would get the alien mercenary off Earth and thus, in the long run, be for the greater good?

But no. We instead cut to some robots wanting to steal time machines to blow up a completely different planet for a plot point no one understands and everyone we might sympathize with is killed off and never mentioned again.

Ironic for the man who did the first proper pseudo-historical The Visitation, Saward's reign has had no interest in exploring Earth's past. While other writers attempted, they were always drowned out - Time-Flight is set in the time of the dinosaurs, but you'd never know and the idea of it being some evil communist gulag in Siberia is more interesting. Enlightenment has Edwardian era sailing ships, but it's just aliens. The Awakening's twist is that it's not set during the English civil war. Black Orchid and The King's Demons are just padding to fiddle with the cast. HG Wells is only there for a final credit gag. Given Saward spent a good chunk of his life on an oil rig contemplating grim industrial future rather than present or past, is this surprising?

Present-day adventures are rare too and similarly often irrelevant. Time-Flight avoids the 1980s as much as it can, as does Arc of Infinity, Resurrection of the Daleks and Planet of Fire following it. It's no surprise to see that, of the planned Season 23 only one story was fully-set in contemporary England (notably at JNT's request), none were set in Earth's history and the rest set on alien planets.

Season 23's most egregious flaw is ditching Peri Brown (an increasingly-vaguely defined character) and replacing her with Mel, a woman with no past, no backstory, no last name who seemed to be Bonnie Langford playing herself - no wonder the public recoiled, they probably wondered if this was some live-action theatre sports. Even Holmes' plans for the aborted finale were a bunch of Jack the Ripper cliches that were obviously a dream. We had lost any connection with the "real world", in a story where 80% of a given episode was an unreliable testimony of something that had no relevance to anyone watching.

RTD and Moffat have shown humanity is inherently self-interested and your average audience wants to watch a humanity-oriented show. While perhaps they could be a tad braver, we've seen that treating an alien planet and its people as nothing special leads to The Doctor's Daughter while overloading the awe causes The Rings of Akhaten, two stories that have not stood up well to the test of time. Neither story has much to say beyond war is bad and sacrificing children is something to be frowned upon either. Yet the stories that followed both - The Unicorn and the Wasp and Cold War - were damning portrayals of the past's behavior and reflected human morality with that of the aliens who were portrayed as having families and caring for their children rather than outright monsters.

Again, not only was Doctor Who not exploring the past, it wasn't even trying to be creative.

The wonders of technology, science, medicine, the green Earth movement etc are hot subjects today.

Seasons 22 and 23 had paid lip service to this with some clunky moments - Peri whining about ecological damage and the Rani's disapproval of eating meat in Mark of the Rani, the Doctor bitching about alternative energy in Mindwarp, etc, but they're few and far between. Technology in this era is virtual magic, without the faintest Bidmead token of an explanation. Magic rays, hallucination machines, mind-swapping helmets... the most scientifically-accurate and interesting example would be Alexei Sayle's rock-and-roll gun, and that's a throwaway scene. With no stories on Earth's past or present, there's no discussion about the advances in computer tech or surveillance. The idea of a natural sleeping draught or replacing serotonin is dismissed with a remark and there's not a single character who actually wants to fix the environment when they can just get more slaves.

With Greenpeace, the Rainbow Warrior, not to mention the burgeoning awareness of AIDS and the like, it's not as if Doctor Who was short of things to deal with. Instead of evil scientists - Quillam, Dastari, Crozier, Lasky -being told off for daring to challenge nature before their monstrous creations kill them, we could actually have positive role models doing good works for a change and even affecting modern day society. They wouldn't even need to succeed, thus maintaining the status quo, as the Pertwee era was eager to show. Imagine eco-terrorists trying to destroy a country's oil supply to cripple Western civilization. Would that hold the attention more than a bunch of aliens who get buried or maybe frozen or maybe both on an ice planet, none of whom we ever meet or discuss?

Now we get some story ideas...

Doctor Who and his Earthlings should find themselves: inside a human body (child), involved in a war between her life and cancer cells (preferably a war between something medically less frightening, but that’s something left up to the research to come);

Yes, it's Fantastic Voyage - or to another extent The Invisible Enemy - but that didn't stop them using it again for Into the Dalek. Yet what a pitch! The TARDIS crew must save a little girl - or she dies! How simple and powerful a premise is that? When was the last time it had such a visceral gut-punch? Your daughter is sick, can Doctor Who save her? It's not the same as some aliens are going to get nuked by some other aliens because a monster is ugly and fancies Nicola Bryant, is it? Or some alien cannibals go to a Spanish town and eat a lot, ruining some different alien's plans to get a working time machine? Or a bunch of psycho plant people are about to fall into a black hole?

The most basic part of the premise - what would you do to save your child? - is used to award-winning affect in RTD's Children of Earth. This isn't the Doctor proving a point about Daleks or even an episode-long diversion about an alien virus conquering the solar system. This is a child's life and our heroes cannot be allowed to fail. The stakes are high, the focus is on the regulars, the whole point is compassion. This is as anti-Saward an approach to a story as it is possible to go and for all its hokey one-sentence-summary, it's no wonder Newman suggested it first.

inside a NASA shuttle, a polaris submarine etc, in which of course something dreadful happens;

True, this gives a vague evocation of the Pertwee era but there's nothing with that and certainly neither Ambassadors of Death nor The Sea Devils devoted a story to it. Given the Challenger disaster, a NASA drama would certainly have the ripped-from-the-headlines factor and also of course have the "first contact with aliens" B-plot. Trapped in a stricken vessel, possibly sabotaged, running out of air, not knowing who to trust... what more traditional Doctor Who plot could you come up with?

they return to Earth the size of ants while human ecologists are trying to shop farmers from using DDT;

And it's clear at this point Newman is now struggling. That's the plot of Planet of Giants but is it necessarily a bad thing? True, we've already had a story where they've been shrunk but so did Capaldi and Smith. It's clear Newman is thinking something a bit more like Honey I Shrunk The Kids in terms of our heroes being menaced by giant bugs, and certainly more of a thriller than some guys in a backyard hiding a body and being outwitted by a telephone operator and the local plod. If you wanted to redo a Doctor Who plot, there's few more wasted and forgettable than Forrester and Smithers in some bloke's country cottage - a storyline so poor the makers cut it in half.

they return to the past getting involved in a mutiny on one of Christopher Columbus’s ships, which sinks at the right time, allowing Colunbus to discover America; and so on.

Again, there's some flawed logic in this. A pure historical had not been attempted since 1967, and multiple production teams had passed on that option. The idea of an educational story without monsters and the excitement of not knowing how things turn out has been very hard to sell, with even Big Finish's Erimem run of pure historicals focused on the possibility of the companion leaving or deliberately changing things. (Indeed, the idea of such a plot without some rogue Time Lord/alien trying to alter events seems nigh ridiculous.)

Secondly... Columbus? We have to assume that Newman was trying to pick a historical figure the show hadn't done because Columbus is a rubbish idea. The discovery of America wasn't going to win over the cynical British public who were sick of yanks anyway; it was unlikely the story would be a more brutal assessment of old Chris like the Ninja Turtles did, and worst of all was that the idea of a Columbus story would be best served in 1992 - the fifth-hundred anniversary of the event, hence why the attempt to revive Carry On films was Carry On Columbus and even that was considered to take a nosedive the moment the plot actually reached America.

(It's also worth noting that even with pure historicals, BF tends to sticks only to British history - Sir Francis Drake, Elizabethan England, World War 2, the Great Exhibition... Doctor Who is quite parochial, Pompeii aside.)

In the above, containing the standard, do-or-die, life-in-peril approach, at least our central characters sill be experiencing adventures which, despite their peripheral educational values, engage the concerns, fears and curiosity of today’s audiences of all ages. Don’t you agree that this is considerably more worthy of the BBC than Doctor Who’s presently largely socially valueless escapist schlock!

Well, yes, but you can see why phrasing like that would piss off readers.

Yet this is precisely what RTD aimed for (and more often than not succeeded at). Andrew Cartmel had a similar to-do list and it's not hard to see the application. Paradise Towers and The Happiness Patrol have more to say about contemporary Britain than anything post-Pertwee, cushioned in the outer-space frippery. By Season 26, Ghost Light had the historical angle and Survival showed contemporary commentary in a contemporary setting. In short, there's no denying Newman was on the right track on restoring Doctor Who to its original glory.

But it's also clear Newman had no interest in continuing the adventures of the Sixth Doctor and Mel...

Doctor Who himself should see the return of Patrick Troughton – still the not-quite-there tramp from outer-space. 

Now here it gets difficult. Is Newman speaking literally or figuratively? Is he referring to a Second-Doctor-archetype like McCoy or Smith? Is he actually suggesting Troughton resume the role? The latter would never happen, obviously, but Troughton was alive and acting at the time of Newman's suggestion which in turn leads to the question - what?!! Would the new series debut with the Seventh Doctor played by Troughton, perhaps the Time Lords restoring the regeneration they took? Would it be a full reboot with a new, alternate Doctor played by Troughton? Or was there going to be some reveal that the Second Doctor never changed and this was all a dream in the Land of Fiction or somesuch?

It’s important that he be innocent, almost child-like, to enable us to see him figure things out in his flashes of incredible intelligence. The important thing is that the audience should see the traps he and the Earthlings will fall into, but then Doctor Who, and/or the Earthlings with him, will find a way to avoid the pitfalls the audience cannot foresee.

This is clearly a reaction to the unpopular Sixth Doctor who blindly wandered into traps, often spending the whole story locked in a cell, was rude, bullying, unpleasant and violent. Even in Trial of a Time Lord, the Doctor doesn't actually prove his intelligence - the Master and Glitz have to tell him everything, and even his discovery of the Valeyard's booby-trap required a nudge-wink-pun from the villain himself.

Rather than an insufferable genius convinced he's better than anyone else, Newman re-positions the Doctor as a kind of idiot savant much more humble than Colin Baker's version and capable of amazing deductions (compare to Sixie's godlike realization that Quillam wears a mask because he isn't pretty - take the night off, Sherlock!) though as we'll see Newman wasn't merely going to bring back the Second Doctor's character, bringing up an irritable old man aspect with incomprehensible vocabulary. (Google "addlepating" and you get taken to this pitch, for example, as no one else has ever apparently used such a word.)

The important fact is that Doctor Who does not know how to control his time-space machine!

Now this is something that's been abandoned by virtually everyone. Mark Gatiss aside, the only time the TARDIS makes a random landing is when the Doctor deliberately hits random. Whether or not this is a flaw, in the context of 1980s Who, taking away a steerable TARDIS would have altered the series at its core and also ramped up the drama no end. Imagine Season 22 like that - Attack would not be able to pad out the plot with TARDIS hops, and the attempts to track down Lytton would occur on foot, thus being more dangerous. Fighting through Cyber Control to rescue him would be much more dramatic than simply using the TARDIS and likewise the convenient escape would not work. The yoyoing between locals in Timelash and The Two Doctors would similarly no longer be feasible, forcing the narrative to stay in one place and time. The risk of the TARDIS leaving without someone would once again be a death-sentence to the regulars, and also mean the Doctor could no longer act as a know-it-all tour guide for their destination restoring the exploration/education of the earlier eras.

Of course, whatever plans were made for Colin Baker's successor, he wasn't going to be around for long.

At a later stage, Doctor Who should be metamorphosed into a woman. This requires some considerable thought – mainly because I want to avoid a flashy, Hollywood ‘Wonder Woman’ because this kind of hero(ine) with no flaws is a bore. Given more time than I have now, I can create such a character.

The fact that the man with the right to claim creator of Doctor Who thinks this is a good idea thirty years before Jodie Whittaker should not be forgotten. Despite the "metamorphosed" suggesting this isn't a straightforward regeneration, it's clear Newman wanted the lead character to be female for more than a random bodyswap episode though logically just writing for the Doctor per se should have been enough. It again shows that Newman wasn't going for sensationalism and intended to get the show back on its feet before another radical change.

Just as Doctor Who doesn’t want to go wandering through space and time and just wants to go home, the same must apply to the Earthlings with him.

This is the first real clue Newman might not be clued up about the current show (rather than merely simplifying things for the document). The Doctor's wanderlust has been core to the show since its second season, but who's to say that this isn't to change. Notably, he wants to go "home" rather than Gallifrey and given the Sixth Doctor's occasional rants suggesting he's sick of having to save the universe, the idea that this new version doesn't want to travel gives him a straightforward if cliched motivation. It's an inversion of the exile scenario, where the Doctor is trapped in a situation he was often in voluntary. It's all right wandering the universe by choice, but when you're forced against your will? His desire to return home could be to get the TARDIS fixed, after all.

I suggest they be: A homesick girl of 12 wearing John Lennon-type Dickensian spectacles (she’s stylish). On Earth she played a trumpet in the school orchestra. Sometimes, when nervous, she plays it badly, and at other times gives a virtuoso performance. It’s the one possession she values most; sometimes it gets her into trouble when it is taken from her. Her high notes can smash glass, and sometimes it signals the advance to battle or retreat from danger. Sometimes it irritates Doctor Who when he’s trying to think. ‘Hush, child, you’re addlepating me!’

Basically a first-year high school student who uncannily resembles Lisa Simpson as much as her elder brother is Bart. There's something very CS Lewis about this Lucy/Susan character, and she's shown to be insecure and isolated with presumably her character arc being her growing confidence. Her main skills are plot relevant, and it's easy to imagine her trumpet-playing in episodes rather than say Peri's botany prowess or Mel's gymnastics or computer skills. She's also clearly meant to draw in younger viewers rather than Peri whose only attributes were those past puberty, certainly with few on either side of the screen being interested in her intellect and personality. The girl also gives us the "that could me" angle that Rose had in spades, while the idea of a younger girl companion works fine with Amelia Pond or Lucy in The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe.

It also irritates her yobbo, over self-confident brother of 18, who with his aerosol can graffiti the heavens. He’s headstrong, often thinks his little sister a pest, but is also protective of her, knowing that if any harm befalls her, his parent (unseen) would ‘kill him’ when, oh yes when, they were to get back to Earth. Clearly he thinks Doctor Who is ‘way past it’!

Or Bart Simpson, to put it another way. The brother character seems incredibly unsympathetic but is presumably meant to be the disenfranchized youth of Thatcher's Britain, an angry young man with no future or employment, neglected by his parents and forced to look after a little girl rather than live his own life. He's frustrated and resentful, and presumably TARDIS travel would make him a better person. His dismissive attitude of the central character recalls Tegan, while the rest of his behavior recalls Ace (who would pause in attacking the Daleks to graffiti their shuttles, for example). One can also imagine him acting as the muscle to the frail/female Doctor and having his mind expanded by their adventures - in short, he's the 1980s version of Jamie.

Very, very briefly, there’s my ‘way forward’ for the Doctor Who series, which I think is what you want.

In conclusion, the pitch is awful and more likely to put people off than have them keep reading. Whatever Newman's gut instincts could tap into the zeitgeist, he was ridiculed by his peers for not accepting that television and audiences had changed in the last twenty years. The fact he was so contemptuous and dismissive of post-Lambert series gives the not-inaccurate impression Newman was desperate to get back in the industry's goodbooks to the point he was willing to save a series he apparently despised. Certainly, without the expansion and extrapolation I've done, it's hard to imagine the series working at all.

Jonathan Powell presumably was not willing to look between the lines - or expect Newman to work outside them - and considered it a waste of time, effort and money revamping the show they were only keeping alive for PR reasons. But what if he'd said yes? What sort of Doctor Who would we get?

Well, certainly we wouldn't have got any more of it - Newman's first season would still be fourteen 25-minute episodes with the same budget and resources as before. In order to get the maximum amount of "first nights", would he have done multi-part stories or perhaps one-off episodes? We can assume that Colin Baker wouldn't have been asked back for a full series and thus would not have returned merely to be killed off. Bart and Lisa would no doubt have been introduced at the very start along with the new Doctor, the unsteerable TARDIS and a contemporary setting - a secondary school? - with an attention-grabbing cameo by Daleks whose success Newman was notoriously grudging in his acceptance. So we can easily imagine...

1) School of the Daleks Pt. 1
The school concert is interrupted when a police box falls out of the sky, containing a madman claiming his face is changed. In the days that follow, people start to disappear from history until the world is empty bar the madman and the pair of siblings who spent any time with him...

2) School of the Daleks Pt. 2
The Daleks swarm through the school, eager to rewrite history to their own ends. The Doctor and his reluctant allies must work together not only to survive but ensure the universe remains intact... more or less...

3) Frontier Medicine
Arriving at a futuristic hospital at the end of the 21st Century, the TARDIS crew are mistaken for operatives of new micro-technology - piloting biological robots through the compromised immune systems of a young girl. But when the process fails to work, the Doctor suspects her problems might be more emotional than physical...

4) Night on the Hill
Arriving in England in ancient times before the Roman invasion, the Doctor is intrigued to find a village built at the foot of a deserted hill perfect for farming or development but used for neither. It is said that no one who goes up the hill is ever seen again, and the villagers use it as a method of execution. The Doctor's curiosity gets the better of him and his companions must either accept his disappearance or head up the hill themselves.

5) Decaying Orbit
A NASA shuttle to an international space station has only a small safety margin and a materializing police box is well outside those margins. Cold equations mean even leaving right away is not enough to save the astronauts from their doom, so the TARDIS crew must try and find a way to achieve orbit - or perish in the attempt.

6) Green Unpleasant Land
It seems the TARDIS has finally brought its travellers home - or near enough. But the boggy middle-of-nowhere patch is not deserted. This is to be the site of a nuclear power plant but those concerned for Mother Earth are giving the planet a chance to defend itself - and nature's revenge will consume all in its path...

7) The Samurai's Tale
In feudal Japan, the Doctor must seek out the aide of a wandering mercenary to raid a warlord's castle and free his companions. He abhors bloodshed and lacks any decent saki, so can he persuade anyone to rally to his cause to face a palace guarded by deadly komodo dragons and an army of ninjas?

8) Land of the Blind
The TARDIS arrives in an East European town that has been caught at the fringe of a nuclear explosion, turning most of the population blind. As the radiation levels rise towards lethal levels, the time travelers shelter with a group of upper-crust socialites who still have their sight. But the blinded townsfolk aren't going to be bossed around by those whose eyes work...

9) Blockbuster
A brand new method of entertainment is being pioneered - "feelies". An artificial reality built out of emotional and mental experiences of people watching a normal film. But what if one of those people was insane? What will happen now that the film is its independent reality? And when that film is about a vampire? The lines between reality and fiction are blurred and Count Orlock is out for blood...

10) Sub Division
A stricken WW2 German submarine is dangerous enough at the best of times, but when dead sailors seem to swim away and uncharted subterranean currents draw the U-Boat off course. When the TARDIS crew arrive, the Captain is on the verge of paranoid insanity and willing to execute his crew to maintain discipline. Dare they take their chances on the mysterious island thrown up by volcanic activity and whatever inhuman creatures inhabit it? Or remain underwater being drawn down to... what?

11) Technofear
In the not-too-distant future, a fully-automated high rise apartment block keeps the pollution and gang violence away but freedom as well. The TARDIS crew are an unauthorized presence and must fight for their lives along with one of the residents who has snuck out to have an affair with a neighbor. It quickly becomes clear that their deadly predicament is a smokescreen for a far darker secret.

12) A Scale of Disaster
 Eco-protesters are trying to stop the testing of a new pesticide called DDT on crops. It's part of history, but when the time travelers take their leave, the TARDIS reduces them to the size of ants and able to see the ecological destruction up close. Can they return to their own size in time? Or will they have to rely on a protest history declares is doomed to fail to save their lives?

13) Contagion
Arriving on a deserted highway road the authorities and locals avoid, the TARDIS crew find an injured and ill man with no identity. Taking him to the nearest service station gets them a hostile reception, especially when the man becomes violent and starts attacking people and spreading his sickness. Soon, the time travellers are outnumbered by the infected, who are now beginning to transform as the virus turns them into... Cybermen.

14) A New World
Our heroes arrive on the shores of America just as the Santa Maria brings Christopher Columbus to what he thinks is India. Should they help Columbus destroy the Native Americas with new diseases and slavery? What sort of historical anomalies will the TARDIS crew cause at this nexus point? Can this prove the way for the companions to return home five hundred years into the future? The climax sees a tidal wave engulf the Santa Maria, washing the TARDIS crew overboard and as a result the Doctor regenerate into a woman.

Well, that's just an extrapolation based on Newman's ideas being mixed with the contemporary vision of Doctor Who with monsters, comedy and adventure that he had either missed or utterly ignored. But would Newman allow other people to make their mark, as Verity Lambert had stood up to him all those years ago? If he kept only to the guidelines, would his "tone deaf" way forward have even got Doctor Who to the end of the decade?

The consensus is that based solely the pitch, it wouldn't have worked and the BBC were wise to turn it down.

As a wise man once said of the matter, "It always amuses me to think that Grade went to Newman for ideas. Like, sure, the best way to ensure a series gets fresh blood and new ideas is to go back to the man who created it in the first place. It's like when the Daleks dug up Davros. And Davros suggested they needed a kid with a trumpet to defeat the Movellans."

The Doctor's New Clothes

Art by Lucy Crewe, ZestyDoesThings, Violet, Stephen Byrne, Miguel Delicado and Mogamoka2 @twitter.

“I think it’s an excellent idea. I think it’s great that the girls are having a go this time. Some people were outraged, but some people like being outraged, don’t they? If there’s any change they don’t approve of, they get outraged. I must say, I think it’s absurd – she appears to be female the same as I appear to be male, you know. Within the formula of Doctor Who, that could be a misapprehension. Nothing is quite the way it looks. I wish her the greatest of luck.” -- Tom “the Doctor” Baker