DR WHO AT 50 ,THE  MONSTERS AND THE CRITICS

Peter  Davison  was followed by the other two members of the 80s B team Colin Baker and Sylvester McCoy. In my opinion Davison was the worst of the bunch with his insipid school masterish doctor.Of course the script writers were still capable of providing him with the occasional interesting story such as Castrovalva based on the cult artist and student poster favorite  M C Escher.There was also the Cyberman adventure Earthshock and of course Kinda based  like James Cameron's Avatar on the the novel The Word  For World is Forest by Ursula LeGuin Basically though it was all a great step down from the glory days of Tom Baker's doctor.It was in these years that the mass audience began to peel away leaving behind a program that appealed to the fans.The next doctor Colin Baker with his clownish costume and thuggish manner continued the process.The program also took a decidedly kinky turn with the scantily clad Peri  the most sexualised young woman to ever star in the role of doctor's companion  In one story she was on the verge of being eaten by a humanoid alien cannibal chef and in another turned into a feathered bird creature a la Histoire D'O.,Probably the most original story of the Baker years was The Revelation Of The Daleks inspired by Evelyn Waugh's satire on the American funeral industry The Loved One.Lastly came Sylvester McCoy who strangely managed an almost last minute rescue of the program which unfortunately did not pay off at the time.Last but not least was the role that  narcissistic producer Jonathan Nathan Turner with his abusive attitude to fans played in the death of 80s Who.

Dr Who At 50 The Monsters And The Critics

In 1982 when Peter Davison took over from Tom Baker in the role of Dr Who the program  was still a land mark of the BBC schedules.Peter Davison was the youngest actor to play the part and seemed to many to lack the necessary gravitas to pull it off.He was however nationally known in Britain for his role as a young vet in the hit series All Creatures Great And Small.One immediate break with the past was the moving of the program from a Saturday to a weekday.The Guardian even remarked on this in a leader which was titled Tardis lands on the wrong day.This switch was probably the first step on the downward progression towards cancellation.For eighteen years during its various seasons Dr Who had always been part of everyone in Britain's Saturday night.Whether you were a child watching it with your family or a teenager watching it before you went out for Saturday night fun with you friends it was part of the ritual of life.There is a method to slowly destroying something whereby you start to make small unwelcome changes to see what reaction you get.After all life is about change and surely we have to embrace them?.For example " I seem to have broken your leg ,that will certainly change your life .You will have to adapt to the change".

Dr Who At 50 The Monsters And The Critics

The Dr Who A Team consisted of William Hartnell, Patrick Troughton ,Jon Pertwee and Tom Baker.They carried the series all the way from its start in 1963 up to 1981,eighteen years in all.They were all excellent character actors who had screen as well as TV experience before they took on the role of the Doctor.Each was very different from the other and provided a unique take on the role of Doctor.William Hartnell was a veteran screen actor who had starred in gangster films such as Brighton Rock and Odd Man Out and in war films such as The Way Ahead where we played a tough Sergeant licking a new platoon into shape.He was later to reprise this role in comedies such as Privates Progress and the first Carry On film Carry On Sergeant.He later became almost stereotyped in the role as Sergeant Bullymore in the TV series The Army Game Britain's comedy answer to Sergeant Bilko. Patrick Troughton had acted in Olivier's Shakespeare films and also in Ray Harryhausen's Jason And The Argonauts.Jon Pertwee was a veteran comedy actor who had acted in British comedy films and in BBC Radio comedy.Both Troughton and Pertwee were Royal Navy veterans who had seen action in the Second World War.Pertwee had been trained in unarmed combat hence his action role in his version of the Doctor.Tom Baker the longest running Doctor in the A Team who in the end had come to set a bench mark for the role was also an excellent character actor who had movie experience appearing in one of Ray Harryhausen's Sinbad films.These four Doctors saw the programme become a national treasure in Britain during the 60s and 70s a seemingly permanent part of the cultural landscape. When Tom Baker stepped down from the role in 1981 it seemed the series would be good for another eighteen years. yet eight years later it was gone seemingly for good.

Dr Who At 50 The Monsters And The Critics

The BBC in its 50th anniversary celebrations seems to have largely glossed over the problems the show had in the past and the weaknesses that brought it low.Dr Who has now been played by eleven actors and promotional material often seems to treat them all equally. However when we look more closely at the pattern of doctors we see four doctors from 1963 to 1981 then from 1982 to 1989 in only seven years we go though three doctors with an 18 month gap in 1985 to 86. accelerating into oblivion.The next time a doctor appears it is for a TV movie in 1996.This his only appearance is sufficient however to admit him into the pantheon. I will call the first four doctors of the 1960s and 70s the A team and the 1980s doctors the B team.The A team and their producers and writers turned Dr Who into a hero while the B team and those behind it saw him become a zero with cancellation the end of the process.In the next post I will examine the nature of the A team.

Dr Who at 50 The Monsters and the Critics

The current celebration of the 50th anniversary of  of the first broadcast of Dr Who in November 1963 is undoubtedly a milestone in popular culture.Unlike many other popular culture icons such as Sherlock Holmes or James Bond the good doctor is not the creation of an author but that of a media corporation the BBC at one of its most creative periods.The title of this piece referring to the monsters and the critics is taken from a short book by JRR Tolkien Beowulf  The Monsters And The Critics which I have playfully appropriated to my own use.I will come to the many monsters and what they have in common and what makes them monstrous later on.The critics have been far more deadly enemies to Dr Who than the Daleks his chief monster adversary and when they combined criticism and power in the BBC management they in fact succeeded in killing the program for 16 years.There was also a hiatus of about 18 months in the mid 1980s  so for nearly 18 out of the 50 years there was a no Dr Who.Dr Who seemed at one time dead and buried and the corporation that created him was happy with this state of affairs and contained some active enemies of the doctor keen to keep him off the air.Yet at one time in the 1960s and 1970s the doctor seemed one with the Zeitgeist as much part of the popular culture as The Beatles or The Rolling Stones. So how did the death of Dr Who come about ?.

Dennis Wheatley ,Edgar Rice Burroughs And Rider Haggard Conclusion.

Edgar Rice Burroughs had never been to Africa when he started writing his Tarzan tales.His main influence was however an old Africa hand Rider Haggard the author of King Solomon's Mines and She both of which have been filmed several times.Rider Haggard was as prolific a writer as Edgar Rice Burroughs and he even created a hero adventurer the white hunter Alan Quatermain an obvious ancestor of Indiana Jones.The stories blend the African settings that Haggard was familiar with and lost world themes built on the legacy of the Ancient World.All seem to be available free online for anyone who wishes to read them. Rider Haggard's
Alan Quatermain has recently been revived by Alan Moore in his League of Extraordinary Gentlemen graphic novel series.The pulp fiction of the 20th century now largely exists on line or in ancient  paperback collections filling the book shelves of the over fifties.They are a rich treasure but one which may be lost to younger generations.Hopefully the steam punk genre may come to the rescue as it is easy to go from Wells and Verne to Burroughs and Haggard. An Update in November 2013. Dennis Wheatley's back catalogue is now becoming available on Kindle with most of the black magic stories now available at reasonable eBook prices.

Dennis Wheatley, Edgar Rice Burroughs,Rider Haggard and The pulp Masters.

Most of Edgar Rice Burroughs work is available in eBook form much of it free.Earlier this year Disney tried to revive the fortunes of Burroughs Martian tales with a block buster version of A Princess of Mars retitled John Carter.As a Burroughs fan I thought it did justice to the book although it did not catch on with the general public.I suppose Burroughs science fiction would appeal to the retro sci-fi enthusiasts of steam punk so like the sci-fi of Wells,Verne and Conan Doyle it will hopefully survive in a niche market.The audience of teenage boys who once lapped up such fictions I presume now do little reading instead playing fantasy and science fiction video games and watching DVDs on such themes.Since the Disney animation of the 1990s Hollywood seems to have finally lost interest in Tarzan.Probably the whole Tarzan theme is now too un- PC for them to touch anymore.A shame really as like Dracula and Sherlock Homes he was once a character familiar to everyone.