I have mentioned before that I am a fan of the original Doctor Who series, and, while I watch the new series, I am not a fan. It is enjoyable, but it doesn't have the same excitement for me the original episodes had. There are a  number for reasons for this, but one stands out more than the rest.

First, the new series is just far too melodramatic. The original had drama aplenty, bu even in the most overly sappy Peter Davison episode, there was nothing as maudlin as the final conflict between the Doctor and the Master in season three, or the nonsense in the recent Waters of Mars episode. I know this is going to upset some people, but if I didn't already know Russel Davies was gay, the recent episodes would have convinced me. There is something about the over-the-top, absurd, yet strangely humorless tone that reminds me of the worst of contemporary "gay fiction". Something about the campiness combined with an excessively serious tone, all wrapped up in maudlin melodrama which just screams gay writer¹.

Second, the new series fell into the "chosen one" nonsense which makes a mess of modern fantasy. In the past, individuals chose to be heroes, and so were accorded worth for making that choice. Unfortunately, at some point it became obligatory for every hero to be a "chosen one" predicted by prophecy²³, which means they get no moral worth for being a hero, as they had no choice. I suppose it was a good move for the anti-hero writers, as it helped explain why so many worthless scoundrels would choose to sacrifice themselves against hopeless odds rather than running and hiding, but it also made stories both predictable and dull.

Third, related to the "chosen one" nonsense, the Doctor also became a Jesus surrogate, as I mentioned in "Musings About A Television Series", but since I covered that, I won't go into again.

But I think far and away the worst problem is one of scope. The old Doctor Who always had a small, intimate scope. In fact, many plots involved not the fate of nations, or planets, certainly not the universe, but only the fate of a handful of individuals. Even when the plot did grow to involve nations, planets, or the universe itself, it was still told on a close, intimate scale, where the problems of a few individuals were paramount and the larger issue only present in the background. It kept the stories grounded and made the Doctor seem more approachable and human. Not a hero saving the universe, but a nice guy helping out some people.

Yes, it was largely a budgetary consideration, I am sure. Without CGI to do cheap spectacle, Doctor Who had to rely on small rooms and casts of dozens at most, and so the show had to concentrate on small chambers, tight casts and intimate stories, but, budgetary or not, it worked. For instance, when the Fendahl is about to consume the Earth, it is much more intriguing to have it confronted by a handful of ill-prepared locals than the corps of UNIT troopers the modern show would deploy⁴.

On the other hand, the modern Doctor Who is all about spectacle and size and scope. The Doctor cannot be moving about solving small mysteries, he must either be saving the universe or dealing with some major celebrity of the past or future. Without fame, celebrity or spectacle, we simply would not be interested, right?

And in a nutshell that is my complaint, that the modern Doctor Who is the Paris Hilton of sci fi, a story that thinks unless it is big and loud and flashy, we won't care. The Doctor has to be THE last, has to be "The Chosen One" and has to regularly save the universe or else meet every celebrity you can imagine. It is everything that is loud and garish and noisy and distasteful about pop culture. Oddly enough, it is also everything the British claim to detest about American cutlure, yet they are the ones creating it.

Imagine that.

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1. Not that all gay writers are in this camp. I am thinking specifically of those writers who self-identify as writing "gay fiction". Many of my favorite writers are or were gay, yet did not adopt the horrible practices of modern "gay fiction". Similarly my best friend in college (and the first person to ever read all my fiction) was a gay fiction writer, but not a "gay fiction" writer. Anyone who has read "gay fiction" can probably get what I mean here.

2. Unfortunately, the blame for this phenomenon can be placed on two of my favorite fantasy writers, Tolkien and Moorcock, though both of them used the theme quite differently than modern imitators do. Tolkien to illustrate how all of history is part of the song that forms the universe, and Moorcock to illustrate the many faces of his "multiverse". But they are largely to blame nonetheless.

3. To be fair, Davies did not introduce this nonsense. It was hinted at during some of McCoy's final episode, explicitly used in the tie in novel Lungbarrow, and revived in the Paul McGann US movie. But Davies is to blame for making such heavy use of it.

4. The few times in the old series that they tried to use large casts it worked mainly because it was such a departure from the norm. When UNIT troops were called out during the run of Pertwee or McCoy it had impact because they weren't called out every time a cyberman burped.

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POSTSCRIPT

As I have written on similar off-topic topics before, I thought I should direct those interested to my earlier writing on sci fi, specifically "Musings About A Television Series","Graphic Novels, Comic Books and Cultural Barometers" , "Tired and Annoying Theme" and "Off Topic Comment on Science Fiction". And, most recently "The Dishonesty of Avatar".

POSTSCRIPT II

I can't believe I forgot to mention it, but the preachiness of the current Doctor Who also makes it a bit tiresome. Then again, Peter Davison was guilty of the same, and Sylvester McCoy as well from time to time. Only Pertwee and sometimes Tom Baker truly managed to capture the bemused "otherness" I would expect of a long-lived alien without a vested interest in humans. Though, to be fair, the much maligned Colin Baker also managed to appear alien, though he often forgot and drifted between alien oddity and Davison-like pontificating, so maybe the criticism of his version is not so unfair.