As Christmas draws near and 2018 draws to a close, news has reached us that Doctor Who will effectively be off-air for the next year. Now, this isn't quite as catastrophic as it sounds. At its simplest, the BBC waited far too long to give the go-ahead to Jodie's second year which is, even as we speak, in production. The trouble is that is it will be three months behind schedule so instead of being ready for viewing in October 2019, it will complete by January 2020 (whereupon it will most likely held back for a few months before it reaches the moment of maximum advantage and can be shown on British television).
Despite this all being nothing more than admin cock-up, it's still a spectacularly bad outcome with Jodie's Doctor having to take a year off after her introduction. And unlike prior "gap years" there are no specials or spin-offs to fill the 365+ days before Season 12 launches. Can Doctor Who survive this completely-unplanned-for hiatus? Will the audience lose interest in this era of instant gratification? Yeah, other times might have worked but they would either a) resume established Doctor's tenures or b) start brand new ones. Certainly it's fair to say Chibbers' new surplus of viewers will bleed out to a worrying degree and he'll need to win over a completely different audience TWO FUCKING YEARS FROM NOW.
(deep calming breath)
Of course this isn't the worst of all possible outcomes, with BBC inefficiency being preferable to outright hatred. But it's still hard on us poor innocent bystanders like myself who was wracked with melancholic pathos it would take six weeks before the ABC showed Eccleston's first year. It's not so much the waiting that bugs me, just the implicit guarantee that I and my loved ones must be alive for the deadline. Sheesh. And while anyone who knows my blog history will rightly say "Hah, and you were bitching about 2009 when you had five movie specials, an animated episode and two whole spin-offs!" can be chastened by the knowledge that I too can't believe how damn well off I was before. Indeed, this is worse than 2016 as I'm actually enjoying Doctor Who this time.
The worst prospect of the "gap year" is, of course, fandom.
Now, Doctor Who fandom is like every other fandom in that they can collectively be embarrassing and miss the point. As Gareth Roberts so wisely noted the easiest way to tell a Who fan from a "normal" person is to show them The Androids of Tara - the normal person will be entertained by Tom Baker swashbuckling robots for four episodes, while a fan will be horribly embarrassed by the lack of gritty realism, gravitas and wish we were watching some blokes with beards talking about source manipulators in The Keeper of Traken. Plus to that is the cyclic nature of Who fandom to worship and then despise the same thing - Genesis of the Daleks and The Deadly Assassin were hated when they came out, and Season 22 worshiped. Try selling those opinions nowadays and see how much furniture you end up wearing around your neck. Similarly, in 1995 Craig Hinton gave the worst possible score to The Androids of Tara, praised The Ghosts of N-Space and thought Black Orchid was better than Destiny of the Daleks (so Peter Davison at least would be willing to take him outside over that if nothing else.)
But hey, these things go in patterns and cycles especially as people get to judge things for themselves. Try finding a review of Tomb of the Cybermen nowadays that doesn't at least reference it failing to live up to its reputation. Back in 1992, everyone swore it was as good as they remembered it (even as they were proved they remembered it completely wrong, as Justin Richards proved). Before that, it was unimpeachable. DWM trashed the video release of City of Death because Gary Russell thinks it silly - a viewpoint so utterly incomprehensible it gets quoted as much as that bloke who thought The Deadly Assassin killed Doctor Who.
This brings me to the fact that a consensus has emerged with online fandom that Jodie's first year sucked. Yeah, the public loved it, but those empty-headed plebs aren't worth listening to, are they? Folks still want the ratings-killing audience-alienating Who of 2014. Yeah, that was awesome! Oh the vicarious thrill of being able to say "the only reason you don't like it is you don't understand it" and get high off your own smug self-satisfaction of being contrary to the rest of the bovine heard!
Now, don't get me wrong. I hated DW in that year, but I fully concede if not understand that it was hardcore porn for the vocal majority of fandom that would rather watch Children of Earth than The Claws of Axos any day. And while I and the general audiences looked at Capaldi's first year and went "fuck this", it certainly wasn't because the show was any kind of failure. It was exactly what it wanted to be and met its own high standards. But this anti-Jodie wave is far from that straightforward.
A lot of people didn't like Chibbers before he started and were utterly against the concept of a female Doctor (ranging from rapid misogyny to Peter Davison's reasoned regret at losing a male hero figure for children). Now the forums are all full of the oh-so-hilarious mandatory gag that the only way to improve the next series is to get rid of the main writer and the star. The most tolerant voices are the ones wanting to write off the Thirteenth Doctor as "a bold experiment" with the backhanded spite made worthy by Sir Humphrey "a courageous decision, minister" Appleby. But now a blanket complaint of "it's so bland and dull" has formed, even though a glance at the other threads show that while haters were gonna hate, it wasn't going to be because it was tedious.
Last week they foamed at the mouth about a universe being represented by a rubber frog. Before that people were self-immolating at the pro-feminist agenda, or the PC-brigade. The same folk fuming at the anti-capitalism subtext of Not Trump were gobsmacked at the "pro-Amazon" of Kerblam!. Reviewers spitting blood in fury at the heavy-handedness of Rosa and Demons of the Punjab and sneering at the comedy alien Pting.
And now they - in particular that bastion of white male genocide El Sandifer who's ranted how the Chibnall era was a betrayal of Doctor Who's anarchist principles - is bemoaning that the show is now thematically empty and just an exercise in filling up timeslots on the BBC. No, no, you morons, it doesn't work like that. You can't dismiss ten episodes as visual wallpaper after screaming blue murder over aforementioned wallpaper. You can't declare Chibnall a message-free time waster after being outraged at all the messages you'd read into his work. If you're offended that JodieDoc isn't the blood-soaked killer of yesteryear, then you can't at the same time grumble that nothing's being done with the character.
In short, if you go from "I hate what this show is doing" to "oh, if only the show was doing anything" then you're talking complete and utter bollocks. The blunt fact is that en masse fandom has picked up a completely false and hollow excuse to hate the show rather than be honest. They've gone from being opposed to the writing to dismissing it as beneath their notice, while at the same time being furious at the 2019 gap year. I'm sorry, but I thought you retards hated the show for being uninteresting and worthless dross? Now you're complaining there's not more?
"Waiter, there's broken glass in my soup."
"Oh, monsieur, how can I apologize?"
"You can't! I demand more broken glass!"
It's sad that Emperor Sparacus is now one of the most balanced and sophisticated reviewers of the new show. Yeah, he might hate it but at least he's not hastily revising his opinions to be cool. Nor is he hurling abuse at Chibnall for being both a crap writer but not a busy enough writer, or demanding a set quota of a TV show he hates. People want a new showrunner? Well, I have to wonder WHO THE FLYING FUCK WOULD WANT THE JOB KNOWING THEY'D HAVE A BUNCH OF GRASS-MUNCHING RETARDS AS YOU ON THEIR BACK?!
Look to the mote in thine own eye, fandom.
Just when did your praise become so valuable it was worth your hatred the other 99% of the time.
Frankly, my mood that Doctor Who should've ended in 2013 has not shifted. True I once thought it better to end on a high than become the cynical death-fetish under Capaldi, but frankly Jodie and her pals are too good for you scum. After five and a half decades, the show deserves better than you.
And so, frankly, do the rest of us.
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