And A Gentle Manifesto To Boot

What's the point of this blog? Well, there isn't really one yet, seeing as no one knows about it, and I assume no one is reading it. Nonetheless:-

Like many other rational people, I subscribe to the view that Doctor Who is, hands down, the best TV show in the history of the universe. I've been a moderately obsessive fan since sometime in the mid-80s, and a quarter of a century on, the passion shows no sign of abating.

So far, so run of the mill. But here's where I think I differ from other fans. I really do love the whole show. There are plenty of "elder statesman" Whovians out there, making pronouncements on their podcasts, who seem to love bits of it. Some of them profess to love Old Who but are scathing about the snogging 'n' soap opera elements of the 2005 revamp. Even within the Old Who camp, you'll find plenty who don't have a single nice thing to say about the latter half of the 80s, who write off all the joy and innovation of the McCoy era with a sneery quip about Bertie Bassett. These people invariably love the "Hinchcliffe era", Seasons 12-14, and everything else falls short to a greater or lesser degree. Some of them, mentioning no Lawrence Mileses in particular, seem to watch the new show avidly for the sole, religious purpose of ripping each new episode to shreds for how far it misses the mark of "real" Who.

And recently I've started to see a backlash against the relentless negativity of these crusty old gits, an equal and opposite reaction from newer fans who are quite invested in the "true love" of Rose and the Doctor, and want to see them live happily ever after. I've heard it said that the fixation of the 70s with spaceships and aliens at the expense of human interest is a real snoozefest, that The Caves of Androzani is nothing more than a tedious, testosterone-drenched video nasty, that Robert Holmes (Old Who's most beloved scribe and script editor) couldn't write worth a damn.

And none of these points of view are in the right. My intention is not to be a hagiographer: obviously in a show with a 46-year history there will have been high and low points. But put your ear to the ground of "fandom" and most of what you'll hear is bitching. My Who is better than your Who. The latest Who is nowhere near the quality of what I arbitrarily designate as "real" Who.

All of this is of course ridiculous. Who is a program that has survived for half a century on the strength of being all sorts of different things, and something new for every successive generation. To claim that it was at its objective best during the few years when you happened to fall in love with it is missing the point: it's at its best when it doesn't rest on its laurels, doesn't stick to tried and tested formulas, keeps moving restlessly and experimentally forward. The Doctor doesn't regenerate just because the actor decides to leave. The show stays alive because the Doctor regenerates. It's never the same program for more than about 3 years in a row. It's not hard to reel off a list of TV shows that were great for about 3 seasons but whose returns kept on steadily diminishing until the point of cancellation. For Doctor Who, that's not often a problem, as 46 years, 31 seasons and 11 leading men have proved.

Who Positive is my little love letter to Doctor Who, all of Doctor Who. I love almost all of it and I can say with my hand on my heart that there isn't a moment of it that I hate. I'm going to try and write something in here every day, be it a review or a thought or a memory. And who knows, maybe someday other people will stumble across it, by the magic of the internet, and enjoy it too.