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 ?.