This is about Dr Who. Be warned: spoilers coming up.
Reader Mark comments:
Surprised the biased BBC blog hasn`t made a post about the two part Doctor who programme, the second part of which was shown last night.
Basically the story turned out that a family of aliens (high up and powerful in government) wanted to start a war for profit despite not having a UN resolution, one of their motives was oil. There was a bogus threat of 45 seconds. Yet to whip the people up in a frenzy the alien family were behind the crashing of a spaceship into big ben in order to give them a reason to start a war.
Worked it out yet?
I`m against the iraq war but for the bbc to put out a programme which basically suggested that Bush (i`m not a fan)was behind 9/11 in order to start a war on iraq was grotesque. I expect to see that kind of extremism on anarchist/islamic and white supremacist websites, not on the BBC.
I phoned up and complained. Gave them an earful.
Mark
It’s all a bit of a shame. Last week we had me and a whole bunch of hardened BBC-bashers falling over themselves to praise Dr Who. There was a great deal to praise in the latest episode, yet I suspect that the part that will be remembered and discussed will be one speech delivered for, oh, 45 seconds or so. (Delivered very well, I must say. Good acting portraying good acting. You saw for a moment how this bumbling substitute could hack it as a politician.)
If I’m right about one thing then my take on this will less harsh than Mark’s. In that case I will say that the 45-seconds stuff was a weak and ill-judged joke that, for a few minutes, quite threw out my willing suspension of disbelief. I spent time thinking about Bush, Blair, the Hutton report etc. and as a result missed what the alien plot actually was. (Never did quite work it out. What was stopping the aliens from just slagging the earth? It seemed to rely on their being some aliens up there who weren’t in on the conspiracy but no one ever mentioned them. But as I said, I wasn’t paying attention.) Assuming I am right, I will say that artistically that is a horrible crime. “Let that be a warning to scriptwriters,” I will say, “not to let the temptation to make a passing political point mar otherwise fine pieces of work. Don’t sell your birthright for a mess of pottage.”
More in sorrow than in anger: that will describe my reaction if I am right on this one aspect. It is tacky to make partisan political points in what is ostensibly a children’s programme. It may even be against the rules to do so during an election campaign. It will date quickly. It is yet more evidence that the BBC is biased: you could live for nine hundred years before you saw a corresponding pro-Iraq-war pointette being slipped into a children’s drama.
OK, what is this one thing that I think should decide my, and by implication your, attitude towards all this? It is this. At the time it didn’t even occur to me that the spaceship hitting Big Ben was part of the political point the scriptwriter was trying to make. It did not occur to me that it was meant to be a parallel to the airliners hitting the twin towers of the WTC. I assumed, and still do incline to believe, that the only political jab was against Mr Blair and his “45 minutes.” Why do I think this? Because, in the story, no one was mentioned as being killed as the ship hit Big Ben, and the whole thing was meant to look like an accident anyway, whereas the important fact about the planes hitting the Twin Towers was that a great many people were murdered in a manner that flaunted its own deliberateness. True the Dr Who episode did depict a vessel crashing into a famous tall building, but if I did not spontaneously see a parallel despite having spent a great deal of the last three and a half years obsessing about the consequences of September 11 2001 then it seems reasonable to assume that the writer didn’t intend one.
If, however, there was an intentional suggestion that the airliners crashing into the Twin Towers were fake, then it would be different. One, it would be a pretty sick joke. Two, we’ve had enough of the BBC giving credence to conspiracy theories to an adult audience, let alone children.
But like I said, even on the more generous interpretation, it’s a shame. A serious drama should be like a swimmer diving into a pool and swimming to the other side in one smooth, perfect trajectory. When he finally emerges, gasping, he breathes the ordinary air with gratitude because he has lived, for a while, in another element. A light, self-referential drama such as Dr Who is like the same swimmer coming up for air several times during his crossing of the pool. Each time your head breaks the surface, each little joke, each little hommage to the programme’s past such as the corridor-chasing back and forth across various Downing Street conference rooms, does diminish your belief a little – but it also makes your passage a more relaxed and enjoyable experience. But hearing those words “45 seconds” was like being yanked out the water, left to hang around in the cold while you think, “what the hell was that about?”, and then feeling obliged to jump in again to the no-longer so inviting water.
[This post slightly edited for clarity on Monday evening.]
It was ‘the power of nightmares’ for kids.
Thank you thank you thank you.
I’m not a sci-fi fan in the slightest (a load of old rubbish trying to be deep usually – the orginal 3 Star Wars excepted, they were more like Westerns) but even I got drawn into and even rather enjoyed the first of this two part episode.
Like Natalie and the commenters the whole thing was ruined by the “45 second” business. It was so crushingly bludgeoned in, there was no subtlety about it at all. Had there been, those that “get it” could have been quietly smug and those who didn’t would have been none the wiser. As it turned out, a great story was ruined by a completey lame point, which like you say will be forgotten about in a few years.
Here’s an example of some brilliant satire that’s still funny today.
From Hancock’s Half Hour radio broadcast on the 9-12-56, Series 4, episode entitled “THE STOLEN PETROL”
Sid throws a party to celebrate the return of petrol rationing (because of Suez)- and sets Hancock up as a garage proprietor selling siphoned petrol.
Sid’s mob are doing such a grand job of siphoning the petrol of all the cars in London they’re starting to run out. Sid’s associate (voiced by Kenneth Williams) suggests, “what about trying outside of the Houses of Parliament, after all, they don’t go short”. I’ve got all the Radio Hancock’s available and no other line in any other episode gets a bigger audience cheer. It’s still good today.
“It is yet more evidence that the BBC is biased: you could live for nine hundred years before you saw a corresponding pro-Iraq-war pointette being slipped into a children’s drama.”
So one of the few people who might get to see right wing bias on the Beeb is Dr Who himself ?
Hm – could be talking about the Kennedy’s and their culture wars….
Natalie. You go girl. Any tenuous excuse for a frenzied Who geekathon. Anyway, hope you are on the job about BBC 3 and it’s decision to broadcast their heckling show, brazenly ignoring Conservative Party protests PLUS, more importantly, furious bloogers at Biased.
BTW, heckling show’s being broadcast TONIGHT apparently.
‘brazenly ignoring Conservative Party protests PLUS, more importantly, furious bloogers at Biased.’
You’re so right. The protests of this forum are far more important than the protests of the offical opposition party.
why on earth aren’t the BBC listening?
Sorry, too poor for BBC3. Going to read old Dr Who books instead.
Next week the low-on-fuel Daleks are going to force the Govt to bomb a poor defenceless country for their oil!
What sometimes annoys me about some Dr Who episodes — and last week’s was no exception — is the occasional agitating against profit-making. The aliens last week were out — shock horror — to make a profit.
The general suggestion in these sorts of episodes is that pursuit of profit is the sort of thing that leads to you doing all sorts of awful things like blowing up planets for the sake of some money. Just the way the Doctor sometimes says “And it was all for profit” with his lips curled is enough to tell you where the scriptwriters are coming from.
(Having said that, these elements are only ever very occasional, and very minor, not really worth get worked up over in general, but worth a passing comment).
Scott,
Everyone knows the only moral way to get money is to threaten to kidnap people if they don’t hand over cash.
It’s the unique way the BBC is funded
What was that business about having to ask the UN for the keys to the British nuclear deterrant? Wishful thinking? Or something aimed at deceiving gullible children in the hope of influencing their perception of political reality? Truly scandalous, but refreshingly honest of the BBC to publish their agenda in this way.
The puke making thing was not just the UN having the keys. It was Penelope Wilton’s statement that with “our” track record – ie Britain’s warmongering? genocide? illegal war? I dunno but I know what the tone of it was – only the saintly UN could be trusted with such decisions.
Someone earlier mentioned U.N.I.T. from the Jon Pertwee era. As I said before they were British in all but name, its like they were a contribution to the UN, we were still in charge. This time the authority is vested in the UN.
The permission codes thing was a “McGuffin” (Hitchcock’s term for plot device), albeit a slightly dodgy one.
But it’s worth noting that the keys arrangement did not prevent disaster.
Remember that these are early episodes, and that in future series there will be lesss inclination for the writers to make crude references.
As far as the political leanings of sci-fi goes, it’s worth noting that even though Babylon 5 creator J. Michael Strazynzki is a “liberal”, his storylines criticised the Right and the Left (eg: Shadows and Vorlons), and acknowledged complexity.
Did anyone else notice that the background music in this series of Dr Who was mixed way too loud, often obscuring the dialogue?
Scott,
If you think the current incidental music is bad you should check out “Spearhead from Space” or “Sea Devils”.
“I assumed, and still do incline to believe, that the only political jab was against Mr Blair and his “45 minutes.””
You’re missing the most obvious one of all. The fact that the aliens wanted to devestate the earth in order to use the waste product to fuel their spaceships or whatever. No war for oil, anyone?
The episode was spoiled by the crude anti-iraq war ‘satire’ – as it was by the simplicity of the plot (the doctor gets someone else to blow up the aliens by pressing a computer button, brilliant eh?) and the toe curling sentimentality of the wasted ten minutes at the end. We don’t care about Rose’s relationship with her mother, we want good aliens and lots of action from the doctor not all this Brookside rubbish.
In the often excellent ‘Robot’ – Tom Baker’s first story, all the nuclear launch codes from every nation have been entrusted to the British for sake keeping because, as the Doctor observes tongue only half in cheek – the rest were all foriegners.
There’s much to like about the new doctor who – the fact that it exists for one – but the rushed stories, sentimental longuers and ill developed aliens make me think that if I wasn’t a life long fan then I wouldn’t be watching.
Nick Mallory,
I liked the ten minutes at the end. True it teetered on the edge of being overdone, but I felt it gave depth, and in the case of Rose and her mother, built up a store of plot-capital for later use.
I had not known that most entertaining detail from “Robot.” I was a kid when it was first shown so it’s possible I simply accepted it as a sensible idea…
Quite right too, dash it all. Solve most of the world’s bally old problems pronto.