The 13th Doctor - Are Daleks allergic to sperm?

Do you remember that amazing episode of Dr Who, where by he dressed up as a super macho version of Rambo, and single handedly wrestled an entire legion of Dalek's and Cybermen to their death, whilst at the same time ravishing a bevvy of scantily clad assistants? No? Well that isn't really surprising because it didn't happen. As a Superhero, Doctor Who is a pretty dull character. He has no superpowers, other than the fact he regenerates when he dies. He can't fly, he doesn't have X-Ray vision. There is no evidence that he's particularly strong. He has a long lifespan, but as an alien from an advanced race, I he's pretty run of the mill. He has two hearts. Oh and it turns out that he can transform into a She given enough go's at regeneration. My wife commented that after 12 goes, it was high time she got it right! So what is the Doctor's special power. Well the Doctor is much cleverer than everyone else. So when there is a fearsome enemy, the Doctor doesn't don the Rambo clobber and batter them to death, the Doctor uses logic, sense and reason to fashion a victory. The Doctor analysis their behaviour and then uses their own weaknesses to defeat them.

It has just been announced that the Doctors 13th persona is female. It seems that this is a big problem for a bunch of Doctor Who fanatics. Whilst they are happy to believe that the Doctor is over 800 years old, comes from another galaxy, lives in a Police Telephone box that can travel through space and time, can be exterminated on a regular basis, can single handedly defeat huge armies of psychotic aliens, without resorting to bigger, better weapons, they cannot accept that the Doctor could have a female persona. I thought that a pre-requisite for being a Doctor Who fan was to have an active imagination and a willingness to suspend belief. Some people have said that the BBC are brave finally making choosing a female actor to play the Doctor. To me it is a perfectly logical way to revive a franchise that has completely run out of ideas. I have always had a soft spot for Doctor Who, but funnily enough I am friends with them man who binned the series the first time. Peter Cregeen was head of light entertainment at the BBC at the time and he felt it had run out of ideas. Whilst some say that the successful return showed he was wrong, Peter felt that it allowed the franchise to reinvent itself.

The series has yet again reached a creative impass and this is an excellent opportunity, with a new creative director for the series. As the Doctor is an alien who has shown no interest in sex in over 50 years, a female incanation is no impediment to the role. Anyone who claims a woman actor isn't clever enough to be Doctor should google Hedy Lamarr, the actress and mathmetician who invented the technology we now use for mobile phones and allowed allied warplanes to have secure communications. Perhaps she should be given the title of honoury Doctor?

I don't recall Dr Who using his sperm (if an alien produces such a thing) to defeat Daleks and Cybermen, therefore there is no earthly reason why a Doctor cannot be a female. My Doctor is female and she does a fine job. She replaced Dr Carswell, a fine man who also did a good job. The  Doctor I had before Dr Carswell was not only female but Asian. She also did a fine job. All Doctors, whether in the NHS or in a Sci Fi series should be judged on results and how they do the job. The word prejudice comes from the tterm to prejudge. Which is exactly what the misogynists prejudging the new doctor are guilty of.

Dr Who Christmas Special - Time to sack Stephen Moffat?

Dr Who - The way we were

As Barnets leading entertainment and gossip blog, we like to catch the zietgeist of the times and discuss the really important questions which are troubling people performing their suburban Christmas dance routine. Yesterday at the Tichborne household, 20 of us assembled at 7:30pm to watch the Doctor Who Christmas special. This has become part of the Xmas routine.

When the Doctor first returned to our screens, my little boy was just out of nappies. When Christopher Ecclestone died and was regenerated, he burst into tears and demanded "the real doctor" be returned. He soon got used to David Tennant and forgave the writers, realising that regenerations are part of the Doctor story.

Now a thirteen year old, his love affair with the Doctor has somewhat waned. His view is that Stephen Moffat has made the show boring, the plot is too hard to follow, there is not enough action and it isn't scary. I've been watching Doctor Who since the early 1960's. I have vague recollections of the first Doctor, William Hartnell and even some of the early monsters such as the Chumblies and the Zarbi. I think this was because my elder Brothers always made sure I watched the show, in the certain knowledge it would scare the crap out of me and give me nightmares.

When satellite TV first arrived in our household, to coincide with the launch of the Premiership, UK gold started to repeat the Early Doctor Who series that the BBC hadn't erased. It was on at midnight and I found that the schedule was ideal, allowing me to get home from the pub just in time to get the next installment. I reacquainted myself with William Hartnell. I soon realised that despite the poor effects and production quality, it was actually quite scary. Without the luxury of CGI, the script writers had to rely on the plot to do the work. The early sets were claustrophobic and the action was intense. I soon realised that the secret to the early doctor's scaryness was the fact that the scriptwriters were completely ruthless. New assistants and companions would be brought in. You would get to know them and find them likeable and sympathetic characters. Then they would get exterminated, often unexpectedly. Even more scary was the fact that Hartnell never shed a tear. As to the Daleks, we got to know their personality. Terry Nation wrote them as the logical endpoint for the Nazi ideology. The ultimate "masterrace" transformed into killing machines, set on making the rest of the Universe subservient, exterminating "inferior" races. Daleks had no feelings, no morality beyond furthering the ambitions of the Daleks. They would lay planets to waste, enslave entire races. They were technological killing machines. Yet the Doctor always won. Why did he always win? Because he simply happened to be cleverer than the Daleks. Although it was sometimes ambiguous, he was the good guy. He was a Time Lord. He could be more powerful than anyone, but he simply chose to tour the Multiverse as an observer, stepping in when things got too out of hand. He didn't look for fights, but when there was one, he'd do just enough to ensure the right thing happened. He was however oddly devoid of feelings for his companions. He wasn't given to self doubt either. That was back in the 1960's.

When the Doctor first returned, Ecclestone and Tennant captured the best elements of Hartnell era, adding improved effects and more budget. The show was scary, with occasional lighter moments. Perhaps the scariest monster of the new generation was the "weeping angels". These exploited our own weakness, our need to blink, to destroy us. The creator of these was Stephen Moffat, so when Russell T Davies chose to stand down as chief writer, who else could possibly step up to the mark?

Well I am sorry to say the consensus in our house is that it is all starting to go wrong. For last nights screening we had nine teenagers in the room. These were the new Doctor Who generation and the consensus was that last nights show didn't cut the mustard. Comments such as there was "no action" and "no story" were the biggest beef. When The Doctor arrived on the snow covered planet and was attacked by weeping angels, it seemed it was going to be a belter. How would the Doctor get out of that scrape? He simply beamed up to the Tardis. When he found that Church of the Papal mainframe had been overtaken by Daleks and its leader "Dalekified", he simply persuaded her to suppress the Dalek in her and let him escape. When a huge Dalek battlefleet arrived to destroy the planet, his assistant simply asked the Timelords to help him out, giving him special powers that allowed him to Smite the Daleks off the face of the world he was on. Everyone lived happily ever after. The tension never built, the plot never developed. Moffat hasn't quite twigged that if one monster can sustain an episode and keep the tension going, having every monster the Doctor has ever faced in One episode simply dilutes any tension.

If the whole episode had have simply been the Doctor outwitting the Weeping Angels on the planet, whilst the rest of his enemies hang around, isolated from the planet, it could have been cracking. When the Church of the Papal mainframe sent him down to the Surface for one hour, I thought Moffat had pulled a masterstroke. In my favourite western of all time, High Noon, Gary Cooper has one hour to save the town from a bunch of baddies. The film is shot in real time and the tension builds towards High Noon. I thought Moffat was going to deploy the same trick. A realtime battle with the angels, culminating with his victory and then getting knifed by one of the people he'd saved would have been a better ending. He could have been carried to the Tower, where the crack in time appeared and as he died, the Timelords could have regenerated him. At that point, he could have been beamed back up to face the Daleks on the Papal Mainframe mothership, leaving a great plotline for the new series. As it is, we had the almost annual spectacle of the Doctor completely destroying the entire Dalek fleet. This is now more predictable than the annual Status Quo last ever reunion tour. Perhaps the most telling point in the whole show was the appearance of a wooden Cyberman, this was completely in keeping with a completely wooden plot.

At the end of the show I was left with the feeling that it wasn't the Doctor Who needed to be regenerated, but the whole team of writers, who seem hell bent on making the show completely bland, boring and sterile.

I've no idea if Stephen Moffat lives in Barnet or reads this blog, but if he does, I suggest he watches a few of the early Hartnell episodes and reminds himself of the core features of the show, which have made it the longest surviving Sci Fi show. Don't get me wrong, I love the show and I want it to succeed. It's just that in its present form it is bloated and dull. I wonder if we'll see Sherlock Holmes granted magic powers to beat his enemies for the New Years Special. The point with the Doctor is he's never needed "powers". He uses his brain, which makes him far more powerful.

Dr Who is alive and well and living in Hendon and enjoying the Thameslink service

No those of you who know me quite well will know I'm a Sci Fi buff. As such it gives me great pleasure to announce that I've uncovered an amazing fact. The most famous Timelord on the planet is alive and well and representing the people of Hendon in Parliament.

Yesterday I was in Marks and Spencers and a person who I've talked to over the years a few times whilst out campaigning on various local issues collared me. The gentlemen in question is a pugnatious character who has a low opinion of everyone involved in Politics and is more than happy to explain why at great length. He also has strong views on all manner of local issues. Like many people in Mill Hill he has become extremely disillusioned with the awful train service in Mill Hill, provided by First Capital Connect. Yesterday he was at his wits end about it and knowing I have taken an interest, he collard me. The conversation went as follows. Let's call him Adam (I've skipped the pleasantaries at the start).

Adam: "I am bloody well sick of this train service, First are an absolute joke. I thought the previous mob were bad, but this lot take the biscuit. Did you see that they've been voted the worst train company in the country".

Me: "Yes"

Adam: "What is that lazy git of an MP, Andrew Dismore doing about it? You never hear from him apart from when he wants your vote at the election, then you can't get away from him"

Me: "Erm, Andrew Dismore isn't the MP for Hendon. He lost in 2010"

Adam: "I thought he won the election last year?"

Me: "No, that was for the GLA, they don't run the trains, they just keep an eye on Boris"

Adam: "Oh, so who is our local MP then?"

Me: "It's Dr Matthew Offord"

Adam: "Doctor Who?"

At this I sniggered. I think the title quite suits Matthew. Given his activities to rescue the bumble bees of Barnet http://www.matthewofford.co.uk/news/matthew-creates-buzz-about-bee-decline and his action man training with the Royal Marines http://www.matthewofford.co.uk/news/matthew-graduates-armed-forces he clearly sees himself as bit of a Time Lord on the sly.

As with all good Time Lords, he has a trusted companion in the shape of Max the Jack Russell. He is fearless when faced with challenges such as diving on old wrecks http://www.matthewofford.co.uk/news/matthew-dives-inspect-wwii-wreck and it must be said that not a single Dalek has been spotted in Mill Hill since Dr Who took over from Andrew Dismore.

Just like the TV Timelord, Matthew has that special telepathic power which means you forget all about him after you've met him. Like the TV timelord he also has special telepathic paper for his campaign leaflets, so you see just what you want to see. A great example of this was his campaign leaflet which said he was going to stop Kentish Town Football club building a pavillion for 50 people at Copthall Stadium. Locals thought this would spare them from traffic Chaos. What he concealed was the plans for a 15,000 seat Rugby stadium on the site. Of course locals realise that 15,000 Rugby fans will cause far less disturbance to Mill Hill than the 50 people turning up to see Non League Kentish Town play. The matchday CPZ has seen to that.

So having had his true identity rumbled. My conversation with Adam continued.

Me: Doctor Matthew Offord

Adam: Are you sure it's not Andrew Dismore? Is Offord Labour? They are a bunch of lazy sods.

Me: Yes, absolutely. And no he's a Tory.

Adam: Do you know what he's doing about this bloody rail service?

Me: Well he says on his website that he's pleased that the Improvements are on track (http://www.matthewofford.co.uk/news/investment-thameslink-line-continue)

Adam: What, is he an idiot? Does he actually use the service? Who is he again?

At that we parted company. It seems that Dr Who really has learned to swim like a fish in the sea of people without troubling them with recognition. It is telling that nearly three years after the election, Andrew Dismore still has far higher local recognition that Dr Who.

On the good Doctors site, there is a section called local issues

http://www.matthewofford.co.uk/local-issues-one-barnet

Interestingly, this has only one topic. The One Barnet project which the good Doctor has no power over as it is a local council issue and out of his jurisdiction. There is nothing about the following issues, which he could have a big say in

The NHS and local health provision
Transport issues, roads, Underground and Rail (such as Thameslink)
Overdevelopment and Green Belt policy
Education, Acadamies and Free Schools

Do any of these matter to you? Well they certainly don't seem to matter to Dr Who? do they. One other interesting fact. Adam voted for Dr Who last time. He said he wanted to see the back of Gordon Brown. I asked if he would vote for him again? His verdict? "If I bother to vote, yes I'll vote Conservative as I always do, but if what your saying is true about his attitude to Thameslink, I don't think I'll bother"

Matthew Offord has a wafer thin majority of 105 and the Tories do not have Gordon Brown to act as a Millstone around the Labour vote. If Dr Who is to survive, I suspect he needs to build up a strong personal vote. He has made a big pitch for the anti gay marriage vote in Hendon, but apart from that, it is hard to see where this support can be rustled up from.

Congratulations to David Yates

I was delighted to see that filmmaker David Yates is trending on Twitter. I met David in 1997 on the set of the film The Tichborne Claimant,  in which I had a small part as an extra, standing next to Anita Dobson in a court scene. David is a lovely bloke and has deserved his success. I think he'll do a fantastic job as the director of the new Doctor Who film, as he did in the Harry Potter films (Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix , Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, , Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1 , Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2

It's Dr Who vs Albert Steptoe !

My brother has informed me that someone told him that I have about as much grip on reality as Dr Who and that I need to get myself a Tardis designer should I ever wish to see any of my dreams come to fruition !

It got me thinking about TV series and the characters in them. There is one person who I can see has taken a lead from a massive 1960's TV Icon. The more I thought about it, the more obvious it is. None other than that inspiration to a whole generation of us raised in the 1960's - Albert Steptoe from Steptoe and Sons. Wikipedia sums up the storylines of Steptoe and son as follows :-

Despite his lack of effort Albert routinely and easily proves himself superior to his son whenever they come into competition, such as in their frequent game-playing, e.g., the Scrabble and badminton games from the 1972 series. Harold takes them desperately seriously and sees them as symbols of his desire to improve himself, but they come to nothing every time. His father's success is partly down to superior talent but aided by cynical gamesmanship and undermining of his son's confidence. In addition, Albert habitually has better judgement than his son, who blunders into all sorts of con-tricks and blind alleys as a result of his unrealistic, straw-clutching ideas. Occasionally the tables are turned, but overall the old man is the winner, albeit in a graceless fashion.

Much as it would be nice to imagine that those we oppose are stupid, it is quite clear to me that they usually are not, they just have a very different way of looking at the world and a very different idea of what is at the centre of it. When this is combined with cynicism and a manipulative nature it can prove a toxic mix. Sadly whilst Steptoe the older succeeds in his narrow agenda, the net result is that neither him nor his son ever move on or develop. Both are doomed to remain stuck in an existence that suits neither, both ultimately controlled by their fear of change. Sadly I'm of the opinion that such an influence is being cast in a direction we can all recognise.

I suppose that my riposte to all of those Steptoes out their, criticising all of us Doctor Who types is to remind them that while Steptoe and son tragically disappeared in the 1970's, Dr Who is still going strong, regenerating and reinventing himself for the new decade and the new century. Whilst both Steptoe and Dr Who are characters dreamed up in the imagination of talented writers, in some ways they both reflect different personality types. I guess that given the choice I'd rather be hurtling around the universe in a Tardis anyday than stuck in a rag and bone yard, trying to figure out how knobble the dreams and aspirations of those who I should be inspiring.