BBC asks Was Doctor Who Rubbish In The Eighties

[Si Hunt]

BBC 50th Anniversary Celebrations finally click into gear:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-22628484

Was Doctor Who rubbish in the 1980s?

By Shaun Ley
Newsnight

Doctor Who is 50 this year and has plenty to celebrate. But just like chart-topping bands with albums they wish they had never released, the veteran sci-fi TV show has had its share of turkeys. Why is the 1980s the decade so many fans love to hate?

Watch Newsnight's Doctor Who film on Wednesday 29 May 2013 at 2230 on BBC Two, and then afterwards on the BBC iPlayer and Newsnight website.

[SiHart]

It's a very slow news day.

*sigh*

[Si Hunt]

It's a good job there arn't more weighty or important issues to make news programmes about.

Si.

[SiHart]

Certainly is! It's only 30 years too late to do anything about it.

[Antony Cox]

It's a very slow news day.

*sigh*

I think you've spelt your name wrong, there...

[Dirk Gently]

[Philipnet]

Is it a slow Forum day as well

[SiHart]

*Si*

[Perry Vale]

Good grief.

By Shaun Ley

Is someone sulking because they've been denied behind the scenes access for the anniversary special, or just because they got bullied at school?

It's rather pathetic, especially as so many of the current series writers draw so heavily from that period.

In other news not reported on the BBC this week, David Bowie made loads of crap albums, Jeff Lynne was washed up in 1986, and Roy Orbison made a dreadful "disco" album...

[SiHart]

Lets face it, the quality of 80s Doctor Who is as mixed as the quality of the 70s and the 60s and indeed the 00s and the 10s. Doctor Who has never been consistently brilliant.

[Lissa]

Has anyone actually read the article? It's pretty good and pretty balanced. The conclusion is -

The lesson of the 1980s, though, is not to take it for granted. A powerful producer can drive a programme forward, but in time can also become a barrier to change. Fans can buoy you up, but pleasing them can leave you deaf to the wider audience.

Which I think is a fair and valid summing up of JNT's decade.

[Si Hunt]

I didn't read it, I just reacted hysterically to the title.

Si.

[Antony Cox]

I didn't read it, I just reacted hysterically to the title.

Si.

Oh, you - you fan, you..!

[Jon Masters]

Thank goodness for that - at least someone was finally brave enough to ask the question.

After all, what did we get after such 60s and 70s classics as The Space Museum, Underworld, Monster of Peladon and Space Pirates ? A load of old w@n# like Logogpolis and Castrovalva, Earthshock and 5 Doctors, Revelation and Fenric.

We should all get a TV license rebate personally signed by Michael Grade.

[Perry Vale]

The 60s and 70s were so rubbish, the BBC wiped the tapes of most of them...

[Rob McCow]

I didn't read it, I just reacted hysterically to the title.

But then, surely most people will just read the title - in fact, they'll mis-read the title as 'Doctor Who was a load of ****ing Donkey **** from Jan 1st 1981 to Dec 31th 1989 inclusive and everything that fell between those two stools will make your bones rot for watching them.'

Tsk, people eh?

[Rob McCow]

Oh and the comments thread is superb!

I watched an episode last Saturday (had no choice, I was in a hotel room and that was the only channel I could get). Couldn't make head nor tail of it. And the background music was nauseating. Now I remember why I stopped watching it all those years back.It's about 47 years past it's sell by date .

Yeah, Troughton RUINED THE MAGIC OF DOCTOR WHO!

I have watched Dr Who right from the beginning with William Hartnell; the Daleks & Cybermen really scared me then. When the Daleks came back with the ability to travel up stairs it freaked me out!

Yup, that happened in the 80's, bizatch.

I've never actually watched it since the 80's, other than the odd glimpse. Dare I say it, it still looks a bit naff now, just a more expensive naff.

People and their opinions, eh?

Dr Who is and will always be rubbish,talk about flogging a dead horse.Why does the BBC continue with this pap?because they make millions flogging it around the world.I thought part of the BBC'S remit was to produce original programs ,which DR WHO most certainly isn't.

OK - so it makes millions worldwide but it's still crap. Someone must like it!

A coment of Face book is if it was not rubish then. It is now.

Rewriting history. Victorian Quaker business tried to look after there employees Bornvile and the towns built for workers were not a horror like carry on hornting.

I watched a bit at mums recently having got rid of my TV in 1988 then found an old dads army. Mum said it was not suitable for children agreed so much.

And I don't think there's anyone here who could disagree with that!

From a moral point of view Dr. Who and other tales which demonstrate the best aspects of Christian morality should be encouraged such as assisting those in need.

However all too often these fictitious creations become confused with fact, we should remember the words of the Bible:

Psalm 8:3
When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place,

Ah - Doctor Who is crap because it contradicts Psalm 8:3. This is a new argument and one that Andrew Cartmel has yet to be called onto Newsnight to refute.

[dalekkiller]

I watched the Newsnight film expecting the usual smug media bullshit but it was actually a good film which raised a number of important questions in that the way the show was shot and made hampered it. Mind you watching that clip of Micheal Grade tells me that Chris Morris was right about Micheal Grade

[Stuart Wallis]

Nowadays i tend to think back on 80s Who a bit more fondly than I did at the time. At worst, I'm still not overly fond of Survival for example, but at least i can see now what they were trying to pull off. At least the article makes the point that there were moments in one or two popular stories of earlier vintage that didn't work either, and it's for the same reason - the producers' pocket has never in a billion trillion years been bottomless. You might as well say Dad's Army was rubbish in the 60s because they didn't have colour, they'd not settled on the format or Pike's character til the third series etc.

Personal taste is the key; I'd rather watch 70s Who than 80s, but I'd much rather watch 80s Who than certain programmes being made today!

[Leah Betts]

Hinchcliffe is not f***ing God. How many people remember that he caused so much trouble that he was gone after only two and a half years?

[Andrew Curnow]

I thought the Newsnight film was OK... but I couldn't quite see the point. They seemed to focus on specific stories to tell the tale - but by focussing on a different few stories they could have told an entirely different tale couldn't they? And they ought to have given some context - I agree that in the 80s Doctor Who was the only non-soap drama being made in that same old way, but they should have shown us some other contemporary dramas to prove the point: Lovejoy, Rockliffe, etc, were all filmy shows with a large proportion (maybe even majority) shot on location. Hi-De-Hi was still being made in the same way as Who, so it was definitely an anomaly - but I don't think the film really made that point.

BTW, I'm not aware Hinchliffe was sacked, which seems to be the implication - other than Barry Letts & JN-T, couldn't you insert ANY producers name into a sentence that ends "gone after only two and a half years"?

[Logo Polish]

And they ought to have given some context - I agree that in the 80s Doctor Who was the only non-soap drama being made in that same old way, but they should have shown us some other contemporary dramas to prove the point: Lovejoy, Rockliffe, etc, were all filmy shows with a large proportion (maybe even majority) shot on location. Hi-De-Hi was still being made in the same way as Who, so it was definitely an anomaly - but I don't think the film really made that point.

Well, if we're including Hi-De-Hi, we could also include Only Fools And Horses, Blackadder, Yes Prime Minister, Red Dwarf, You Rang M'Lord, and just about any other sitcom of the era. Blott on the Landscape was video too, as were The Life and Loves of a She-Devil and Rumpole of the Bailey, and the early episodes of Wexford. They were still making classic serials on video up to at least 1987, such as David Copperfield and Vanity Fair, although there had been a filmed Bleak House in 1985. Casualty started in the late 80s and was video look, and then there was The Bill, and neither of those were soaps at this stage.

Filmed dramas were beginning to become more common at this time, and it was a period of transition to them becoming virtually universal, other than soaps, but it took quite a long time before it was completed. The last videotaped drama BBC series, other than EastEnders or Casualty, is thought to have been The House of Eliot, which ran from 1991 - 4. Doctor Who was suffering from the videotape factor partly by dint of being science fiction, which, it's probably fair to say, was increasingly felt to be needed to be more filmic by its very nature, and partly because that was the direction TV was going in anyway.

[Stuart Wallis]

BTW, I'm not aware Hinchliffe was sacked, which seems to be the implication - other than Barry Letts & JN-T, couldn't you insert ANY producers name into a sentence that ends "gone after only two and a half years"?

He not only appears to have been sacked, but his sacking appears to have been handled in the most bloody awful way - the way I've heard him tell it, he didn't know himself until Graham Williams knocked on tjhe office door one morning and introduced himself as the new producer of Doctor Who.

[Stuart Wallis]

Hinchcliffe is not f***ing God. How many people remember that he caused so much trouble that he was gone after only two and a half years?

To be fair, The Hand Of Fear and Planet Of Evil don't have great reputations, but overall the Hinchcliffe era does, since the rough stories are outnumbered in the general opinion of fandom by a lot of good stories - even if Letts and Dicks did appropriate a couple of them. And he arguably did walk into the sacking, but John Lennon and Pete Townsend are both still very popular; I think they're both overrated, and boy they've both made some classic blunders!

[Andrew Curnow]

Well, if we're including Hi-De-Hi, we could also include Only Fools And Horses, Blackadder, Yes Prime Minister, Red Dwarf, You Rang M'Lord, and just about any other sitcom of the era

Yes, I was only using Hi-De-Hi as one example, ie of a sitcom rather than a drama.

As for the rest, Logo, I stand corrected. I guess the memory cheats, as they say.

He not only appears to have been sacked

I stay stood corrected!

his sacking appears to have been handled in the most bloody awful way - the way I've heard him tell it, he didn't know himself until Graham Williams knocked on tjhe office door one morning and introduced himself as the new producer of Doctor Who

Hmm, that sounds to me a bit like not letting the facts get in the way of a good anecdote. But the point still stands I guess. Genuinely, though, I'd never heard anything to indicate Hinchliffe was 'forcibly removed' until today!