Dr. Who

Watched the new episode of Dr. Who on Tuesday and was mostly disappointed. The prime time program slot and the ads had suggested that the new Dr. Who would perhaps be geared to more adult audiences, tapping into the nostalgia market for those of us who grew up watching Dr. Who all those years ago. But although it had its moments, it neither captured the cheesy innocence of the original, nor achieved the standard for contemporary SF. My wife, out of respect for my nostalgic attachment to the series, restrained herself from sneering outright, but I could tell it was a strain. For myself, I had to wince when the telepathically controlled manikins began firing into the crowd – I was up for telepathically-controlled headless morphing plastic manikins as a plot element, but since when do store dumbies come with built-in firearms? You can only stretch credibility so far before one has to turn off the set.

My primary reaction, though, was sadness that they hadn't been able to get a decent writer for the first episode. All that money (well, for a Welsh production) and no budget for writers apparently, because it could easily have been a much better show. I kept imagining what a writer like Mathew Hughes (Gullible's Travels) could have done with it….