Thank Davros that Russell T Davies is leaving Dr Who. He should be congratulated for reviving a national treasure, but when I see his name at the start of a programme as writer, I inwardly groan.
He inserts his politics into the show with all the subtlety of a one kilometer asteroid hitting a major city. Take this week’s episode. It’s called Turn Left. In it, a major character changes a decision to turn left in a car, and instead turns right. Get it? This leads to havoc as events that previously were prevented or mitigated actually happen. At one point the whole of South East England is wiped out, and irradiated.
Without the enlightened residents of London, Northern England becomes a veritable Hobbesian nightmare. Northerners, living in terraced houses in Leeds, are seen to treat cockney refugees with contempt. None of the Blitz spirit resides in the poor benighted residents of Leeds. After a while, the UK degenerates further, with Labour Camps established for “foreign types”. England for the English and all that. Bernard Cribbins gapes in horror, as the worse excesses of the third Reich revisit Yorkshire.
Yep, we are one disaster from turning into a group of goose-stepping genocidal racists, especially if Northern whippet-owning sterotypes are left to their own devices, without the controlling influence of those friendly cosmopolitan Southerners. Russell T Davies’ faith in humanity is low, far lower than the faith the good Doctor places in us.
Thankfully, Steven Moffat is to take over. Moffat is the author of some of the superior episodes of Dr Who, Blink (simultaneously the best piece of sci-fi AND horror the BBC has produced in a decade), The Empty Child and the recent Library episodes. A great programme for kids, may soon have less child-like politics.
