As Doctor Who’s audience shrinks, the more unbearably self-important it becomes
Doctor Who fans have always preferred a plot to a political lecture
THE Tardis landed slap bang on top of a cliff, this week, where Ncuti Gatwa’s Doctor took one sniff of the air and said: “Wales.”
“How on Earth can you tell?” replied his dumbstruck assistant Ruby Sunday.
“That smell, that green, that coastline . . .”
That 20 miles per hour road sign and that sickly feeling in the pit of your stomach you’re about to get a political lecture that always comes with a Russell T Davies script.
And, lo, it came to pass on episode four of the latest Doctor Who, which now inhabits its own eerie back-to-front world.
The fewer people that watch the show, the more unbearably self-important and pleased with itself Doctor Who becomes.
This week’s episode, for instance, was so driven by its own vanity, it thought it didn’t need any opening credits or even a theme tune.
It just barged straight into our living rooms and expected us all to pay grovelling homage.
Moral showboating
Rather bizarrely, it did feature the real Amol Rajan playing a 62-year-old version of himself, in 2046, but we were also spared Gatwa’s OTT Doctor for the bulk of the drama.
He vanished in the opening clifftop scene and we were left alone with Ruby, who spent the next 50 minutes being stalked by a frantic and faceless old bat who kept a distance of 73 yards throughout.
But who was this haunting spectre, lurking outside every pub? An older version of herself? Judy Finnigan? Ruby’s agent? Or one of Giovanni Pernice’s old partners, begging actress Millie Gibson to stay away from the next series of Strictly?
I still wasn’t 100 per cent sure it was an old Ruby by the end.
Nor did any of us ever learn the nature of the terrifying message she kept whispering in Welsh bystanders’ ears.
Though, judging by the speed and smell of their exit, I wouldn’t mind betting it was: “England are 3/1 favourites for Euro 2024.”
It’s a void that exists because Doctor Who has recently decided the BBC’s own prejudices are far more important than mere details like the plot and a decent script, and they duly arrived roughly halfway through 73 Yards when we discovered a deranged, right-wing, populist politician, called Roger ap Gwilliam was going to take the world to the brink of nuclear annihilation.
An idea that has more than a whiff of familiarity about it, because Russell T Davies borrowed it from his own 2019 sci-fi drama, Years And Years, where another deranged, right-wing, populist politician took the world to the brink of nuclear annihilation, just as surely as he “borrowed” the 73 Yards pub scene from An American Werewolf In London and half a dozen other scenes from old Doctor Who episodes.
It followed a very familiar political pattern as well, obviously.
Episode one of the new series was a meandering, plotless whinge about Government cuts and the plight of refugees, involving an old advertising trick with talking babies.
During episode two we got the pronouns lecture.
And at the start of episode three, the Doctor stepped on a landmine (use your sonic bloody screwdriver, dumbo) and just stood there until someone asked him: “Why does it have flashing lights?”
At which point he barked back at them, “Capitalism,” like he was a first-year gender studies student rather than a Time Lord.
If this sort of moral showboating thrills everyone at the BBC, it has a far more spectacular effect on the viewers — half of whom have disappeared since Ncuti Gatwa took over in December, meaning they’re now down to just over two million from a comeback high of 13.3million at the height of David Tennant’s run, in 2007.
There’s no mystery to those figures. It’s just a simple fact that Doctor Who fans have always preferred a plot to a political lecture, but the only eerie and unsettling thing that’s going on with this latest run is that the Beeb is using a children’s show to spread propaganda and warp young minds.
The really terrifying thing is, though, whoever you vote for at the election, there is no government that’s going to have the balls to stop this indoctrination, so in all likelihood Amol Rajan really will be fronting BBC One’s election coverage in 2046.
And if that prospect doesn’t get you hiding behind the sofa, nothing will.
Unexpected morons in the bagging area
THE Finish Line, Roman Kemp: “The Marlene Dumas portrait ‘Naomi’ depicts which model?”
Bhagwan: “Kate Moss.”
Roman Kemp: “What aquatic creature refers to someone with a fake online persona?” Ann: “A duck.”
Roman Kemp: “What percentage of four is one?”
Ann: “Four.”
The Chase, Bradley Walsh: “On traffic lights, what colour appears immediately after a single amber light?”
Harry: “Green.”
Random TV irritations
BRITAIN’S Got Talent ruining the entire point of a talent show by allowing boyband Blitzers to mime at their semi-final.
The Responder self-destructing in just five miserable second series episodes.
GMB’s illiterate caption writers imagining there’s a Polar region called the “Artic”.
And Rasa, the human air- conditioning unit from Netflix’s Buying London atrocity – one of the very few women on planet Earth who could step into episode two’s cryotherapy chamber and discover it’s set to her own body temperature, -140°C.
I’M NOT SOLD ON OLI & CO
SOME television irritants take years to grind you down while others just pop straight up and say: “There’s no i in team but there is one in super prime, and that’s me.”
A characteristically bold claim from Daniel Daggers, the David Brent-like figurehead on Britain’s answer to Selling Sunset, Buying London, a Netflix series which serves to remind everyone north of Toddington Services that the Great Fire of 1666 was no accident.
It was a visionary arsonist trying to save us from a millennium of foghorning egomaniacs like Daniel and his team of estate agents, Laura, Rasa, Rosi, Reme, Juliana and Oli, who’s bought heavily into the idea he’s “handsome”.
A touching position to hold when he actually looks like an IVF experiment involving Jeff Goldblum and Parker from Thunderbirds.
All of them, naturally, come with the two standard-issue London settings: Weapons grade sycophancy and tenth dan passive aggression, leading to no end of back-stabbing and office feuds.
Once or twice an episode, though, they have to “wow” their way round an impressively tacky property before drawing exactly the same conclusion about all of them, including the Weybridge mansion where John Lennon wrote a lot of The Beatles’ hits.
“It sells itself, really.”
In which case, someone please remind me, why the hell do we need these name-dropping, butt-kissing, mid-Atlantic creeps?
SPRINGWATCH, live from the production gallery, Chris Packham: “Joe, what have we got going on at the moment that’s worth taking a look at?”
Joe: “We’ve got a lot of things sitting still.”
Hold on to your hats for more breathless wildlife updates soon.
Lookalike of the week
THIS week’s winner is Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Sanjay from the Disney film Sanjay’s Super Team.
Emailed in by Daveyboy.
Great sporting insights
DON GOODMAN: “He saw a window of opportunity but the door slammed in his face.”
Wayne Rooney: “I don’t see a leader in that United side. Bruno Fernandes is a leader.”
And Paul Cooke: “Fortunately, that bit of luck that unfortunately you need, we didn’t get.”
(Compiled by Graham Wray)
TV GOLD
OWEN and Alfie hurtling to victory, along a Lombok beach, in the thrilling Race Across The World finale (BBC1).
The Malone family’s priceless Gogglebox recreation of that magical Messoudi Brothers juggling routine at the BGT heats.
Rewind TV (Channel 190 on your Sky Planner) showing old episodes of Shine On Harvey Moon, Space 1999 and Whicker’s World.
And the veterans on BBC Two’s D-Day 80: We Were There, who more than deserve our eternal gratitude and an hour of your time, if you haven’t already watched this show.
But I’d call an ambulance if it hasn’t reduced you to a pile of rubble by the time the final credits kick in, as there’s almost certainly no hope for you.
GREAT TV lies and delusions of the week.
Springwatch, Chris Packham: “Over there we have our canteen. Lots of good vegan food every day.” (Unlikely)
Britain’s Got Talent, Dec: “The talent so far has been incredible.”
And Buying London, Daniel Daggers: “Tall, dark, handsome? Did someone call?”
Only the voices in your head, Daniel. Ignore them.
THIS week’s David Attenborough award for excellence in natural history broadcasting goes to Channel 5’s Sue Perkins for asking a horrified nature reserve director called Tom Taylor, in Thailand’s remote Phetchaburi province: “In terms of vegetables, what do tigers eat?”
“Vegetables?”
They don’t, Sue. They prefer TV presenters.
Thick ones, preferably.
QUIZ show clarification: Re: The Finish Line. Turns out “Exeter Dick” is a type of pudding and not, as I may have suggested, Chris Martin from Coldplay’s nickname.
MEANWHILE, at the World Cup rowing, BBC Two’s very fine commentator Katie Smith tells us: “Great Britain have got their bow balls in front. Rebecca Shorten’s stroking.”