In yet another of those strange BBC coincidences, Dr. Who’s latest foe, a greedy, grasping, people-absorbing monster, the Abzorbaloff, is… a Daily Telegraph reader! Strange how things always seem to happen that way at the BBC!
A Daily Telegraph reader is really… |
 a greedy, grasping monster… |
|
 that gobbles up its enemies and… |
 sticks up two fingers to the world! |
Hmmm. I wonder what was the inspiration for a large greedy, voracious monster that gobbles up its enemies as it expands in every direction…
To be fair to the large voracious monster (the BBC that is, not the Abzorbaloff), we should remember that the Daily Telegraph is the last of the broadsheets, now that The Times and The Independent are tabloids, sorry, comicpacts, and The Grauniad is a Beezer or Berliner format, or something like that.
Hat tip: commenter Rob.
Good grief. What’s gone wrong with biased BBC? One moment you get arsey about a kiddy sci-fi programme, next minute you’ll be revelling in a BBC journo being shot and paralysed.
Oh you did that.
If you kept up with stuff, you’d know what inspired the large greedy monster on Dr Who. It was the result of a competition on a CBBC programme.
Calm down Hector! Did you not read the ‘a light hearted Sunday post’ bit at the beginning?
Hector: next minute you’ll be revelling in a BBC journo being shot and paralysed. Oh you did that.
That’s a disgusting lie.
Hector: “If you kept up with stuff, you’d know what inspired the large greedy monster on Dr Who. It was the result of a competition on a CBBC programme.”
Yes Hector, I saw it on Blue Peter too. Continuing in my light-hearted Sunday vein (if not yours), what do you think might have inspired the competition winner?
Good grief, given your angry, self-righteous, lying indignation, one might think you work for the BBC!
P.S. I’ve never seen you contributing to Biased BBC’s comments before. If you think something’s gone wrong with Biased BBC then do feel free to send in your own contributions – anyone is welcome to do so. Look forward to hearing from you! Alternatively, take a full refund of your subscription and go and read something else instead 🙂
you’d know what inspired the large greedy monster on Dr Who. It was the result of a competition on a CBBC programme.
& the little kiddie who won the competition went so far as to specify the reading habits of his monster? Or did the BBC scriptwriter/producer add that little flourish?
I hate to say it but B-BBC has finally jumped the shark with this post.
Another moaning minnie, with a most curious choice of metaphor too. Wouldn’t happen to work in the TV industry would you?
That aside, it’s not an appropriate metaphor – unlike in a TV series, where there are only so many things the characters can do until they finally ‘jump the shark’, Biased BBC is a blog, a diary of commentary on a particular topic, in this case, the BBC and its leftward slant, where there’s always something new to comment on, sometimes lighthearted, sometimes deadly serious.
It seems awfully harsh for you to condemn Biased BBC on the basis of one post that you don’t happen to like, but, as I’ve said before, and will doubtless say again, if you can do better then please do contribute – we could use the help, and it would save me wasting my Sunday evening picking up on a commenter’s observation, grabbing some screenshots and writing what is, I hope to most reasonable people, a light-hearted post in the great tradition of Biased BBC posts about Dr. Who, as pioneered by Natalie etc.
If you’re still not happy, you too can have a full refund, and take your misery torn face somewhere else.
Those who think that Biased BBC have ‘jumped the shark with this post’: utter bullshit. People who comment thus are either, as they say, knaves or fools. Product placement is a subject for grown up discussion and many, many dollars. To object to a post like this shows only ignorance or… (as I mentioned)
First I’d ask: why the need for an actual real world newspaper at all when the character is clearly an alien?
The choice of the Telegraph therefore is gratuitous. I know that, as a kid, that was just the kind of blatant childish touch which alienated me from the BBC. True, then it would be more likely in Red Dwarf than in Doctor Who, but it was the same kind of thing.
Well done Andrew for posting about it.
Top post, Andrew.
What would the Beeboids (who seem to have suddenly arrived en masse on your site!) have said if the monster was reading The Guardian?
As I mentioned in the thread above, there is good reason today for Beeboids to be Telegraphophobic:-
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2006/06/19/do1902.xml&sSheet=/opinion/2006/06/19/ixopinion.html
especially this bit
“If there is to be any sanity in this, we must believe the police and the security services are acting in good faith for the benefit of everyone. In recent days, it was impossible to listen to BBC news without hearing a procession of spokesmen for what was referred to as “the community” condemning the police action in east London, without any apparent attempt to place it in the context of the threat we face. What is this “community”?
Are we all members of it, or does it just exist for a particular group? And why, when about 200 people demonstrated in its name outside Scotland Yard, was this deemed headline news by the BBC? Can you imagine any other protest on such a small scale that would merit such coverage?”
Hector, time to go back and make tea for Miss Zaza and KiKi.
Hey, Ken Loach is on Start the Week. Glad to know the BBC is always willing to try something radically different.
I still want confirmation about the ending when it appear to imply the lad was in love with a paving stone which had a face which sat nicely on his lap…or am I reading too much into his smirk….? 😎
My jibe regarding Gardner was uncalled for – sorry.
No dave t – you weren’t reading too much into the smirk at the end.
Nice one, Andrew.
Of course, the “Torygraph” is a nasty right-wing paper that, quelle horreur! turns a nice profit and doesn’t apologise for it. Nasty horrid freemarket! We hates it, precious!
Andrew, as a Briton and a licence fee payer, I’ll have you know that I was shocked by this post.
Light hearted? Light hearted?! When it is Dr Who of which you speak? Sir, you make jest of sacred matters.
[Deleted]
Anonymous, I had to delete your comment. Let’s keep it a bit cleaner and less personal than that. – NS
Edited By Siteowner
As it happens, B-BBC’s Dr Who posts are fairly popular in the sense of being discussed in other blogs.
For instance this post by backword dave makes quite a good defence of the use of double entendres in Dr Who (which dates back to the days of John Pertwee, although they were more subtle then). He argues that they could be a device to keep the adults watching with the kids, thus diluting the fear children may feel.
Could be, but in the end I’m not convinced. Such a thought may have passed through the writers’ minds, but if so I bet it was mostly as a handy defence to use if Mary Whitehouse had a go at them.
The good and the bad things about Russell Davies’s Dr Who scripts arise from the same root: he thinks it’s Christmas and Dr Who is the toy he always dreamed of. The good effect is that his scripts fizzle with the fun he had writing them, have all the right Dr Who in-jokes and yet also show that he has taken the Dr Who universe seriously, thinking through the ramifications of what happens. The bad effect is that he can’t resist showing off his ownership of this wonderful new toy by putting in the dirty bits and the topical political references. Because he can.
Could it be that the Torygraph was the only newspaper big enough to hide Abzorbaloff’s large frame?
Peregrine: “Could it be that the Torygraph was the only newspaper big enough to hide Abzorbaloff’s large frame?”
I did hint as much, although I expect a Beezer sized Guardian would have done the job just as well.
As others have pointed out, there was no need to use a real newspaper at all – any suitable mock-up would have done. In fact, judging by the two legible headlines, it looks like this one’s a mock-up anyway – just one with Daily Telegraph on the top.
Oh, and Natalie, I don’t know what vile things anonymous wrote, but if he/she suggested that I look like the Abzorbaloff, that’s a monstrous slur. I keep my fingernails shorter than that 🙂
Hector, thank you for coming back and apologising – I expected you were a hit-and-run merchant – hence me blasting off both barrels at your departing posterior in response!
So, which is worse – a few double entendres or a companion in a tiny leather costume, (remember Leela?). 😉
Roxana, it would depend on whether it was a man or a woman in the leather costume. 😉
If Hector and “Q” can point out where the BBC has been biased against leftwingers, The Guardian, Palestinian causes, Castro, etc. etc. then let’s hear it.