A few peope have noticed, and mocked, the Daily Mail for their recent coverage of Doctor Who. It’s absolutely fascinating how far they’ll go to have a moan. It’s as if before this new era of Doctor Who, the world of television was one of purity and politeness, where no imagination was challenged.

The RTD era gained some attention, mainly for what the nutjob fans called his ‘gay agenda’. This was probably one of RTD’s best moments of writing. A lot of the time it was subtle, the odd reference to a same sex spouse or something. The best part of it was that it wasn’t treated as weird, or shocking, or bizarre or controversial. It felt like, for the first time, a character being gay wasn’t a defining part of him. In a soap, usually a character is gay and he needs no other hook. He’s the only gay in the villiage, and thats his entire character. Does Coronation Street’s Sean have any defining characteristic that isn’t an over the top squeal? No, not really.

Adding more personal drama wasn’t a bad move. Television had evolved and Doctor Who had to in order to survive. It wasn’t quite as black and white as before, not that the show ever was. Hell, in the beginning the Doctor is a maniac who kidnaps two humans, treats his granddaughter like an idiot and does a runner. But Davies had to add something and he did. Not everyone liked it, but it worked and some of the best moments related to his more emotional hook.

But thankfully the gay agenda lot seemed to shut up, even though Davies was labelled a hack. Everyone began praising Moffat as the best thing since sliced bread and as soon as the reigns were handed over, the praise and respect turned into another reason to moan. Not just for hthe nutjob fanbase, but it seems the Daily Fail has started their own bandwagon and I expect them to get sillier and more pointless as the series goes on.

With Moffat, in a few episodes he seems to have caused more of a fuss than Davies. Not because of bad writing. But because of Amy Pond, the weeping angels and looking at the bigger picture of the fanbase. His companion for the doctor was too sexy. She’s a kissogram with a nice pair of legs which caused the Daily Mail to decide that Who should go back to it’s roots of not being sexy. What? Did no one see Leela wearing next to nothing every week? Peri’s chebs giggling around her low cut spandex tops? Even further back we’d seen Zoe in sme rather spanktastic outfits.

Then there was the scene. Amy kisses the Doctor, this leads into the Doctor sorting it out in the next episode and oh noes! The Daily Mail strikes. Too adult, not suitable for children, someone think of the children! Looking back I can remember moments in family shows that has filthy moments in it, but I didn’t notice at the time. My dad would giggle, my mum would look embarrassed and I’d be confused. Whats new there?

They also dubbed the monsters too scary. For the Daily Mail, the solution was to praise the Davies era for replacing scare with drama, and bashing the Moffat era for digging out the old Doctor Who tricks.

I don’t get the complaint. Mainly as I watch Doctor Who every week with two kids aged four and seven, and neither of them feel the fear. Neither of them thought “Amy wants to pump the Doctor!” There was no stripping of their innocence or filth in their minds, they saw the simplest thing – so whats wrong with that?

Another thing to consider is the audience. The show was initially written for kids, but as the audience and fanbase grew, it became a more family orientated show with something for everyone. In it’s 2005 return it seemed ot have that same theme, but delved into more of a high octane adventure for kids with the cheery antics of Tennant’s incarnation of the Doctor. The problem is that even since its return, that audience has grown up five years and although it’s still marketed towards kids, Moffat is obviously being more aware that there are more than ten year olds in the audience.

So in short – The Daily Mail are still idiots. Anyone who pays money for the shambles of a newspaper deserve shooting.

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Tags: doctor who, fandom, geek, sci fi, telebox