Doctor Who to be Deleted after Series 4?? It's a Dalek Rumour!

OK, now I am not one for reacting wildly to newspaper stories which are, most likely, gossip, tittle-tattle, most-likely unfounded, bordering-on ridiculous and plain scandalous at best. But I feel that I have to write a piece about what English tabloid newspaper 'The Sun' has been saying about Doctor Who, about Freema Agyeman (Martha), about Russell T. Davies and about the whole institute of Dr Who as we know it today.

There was a story published in The Sun yesterday, 31st May. The title of this was, "Doctor Who to get axe in 2008" and the gist of this so-called 'story' is that Russell T. and the guys have had enough of their 16-hour Dr Who days and are all going to quit together in summer 2008. You can also see a forum thread here also on this topic

My first reaction, as was many of yours too, was absolute shock and UTTER HORROR that the BBC could consider doing such a thing.

But that's the way 'The Sun' newspaper works, you see. What they have gone on for this report, it seems, is one of those Anonymous Sources. And whizz-bang - you have a news story!

BUT it's also a news story that I can't ignore and can't totally dismiss. I don't mean the content of the story itself and what The Sun Says - NO! What I mean is that way back at the start of this blog's creation I actually speculated about this myself in Blog Entry Number One. If you don't recall that far back, I basically said that I was wondering how they would carry on past the middle of Series 4 next year. One Time Lord generation gone, one companion gone (Rose), cybermen seemingly all gone, Daleks reduced to just one again, the great Face Of Boe dead and soon to be revived Master making a comeback. Options for good storylines definitely ARE being dried up.

Of course, the thing about sci-fi is that The Universe Is A Big Place And All Things Can Happen. And Doctor Who is very much proof of THAT little number!

The question is this: with many good and strong storylines and baddies used up, where is the strength coming from for future series (beyond Series 4 anyway)? It's a GOOD question, isn't it? But why, you say, should we answer it since if we WERE able to answer it then it would make it all far too predictable and therefore not watchable and it might once again descend into the Pit Of Bad Writing. And no-ones wants THAT ugly monster to rear IT'S hideous head, do they?

As i said at the start, this blog entry was inspired by more than one of The Sun's little articles lately. The second nasty little rumour they're putting about is that Freema Agyeman is to be sacked from the show. BUT they don't give any idea as to WHEN this is supposed to happen. Yup, it's another of these Anonymous Sources spreading it about a bit, causing trouble, making chaos.

Well, Dr Who is to be congratulated if The Sun is taking so much interest in it. I mean, there are so many things, so many shows on TV and so many showbiz stars they could choose to attack and undermine. So it is definitely a great complement to all that Russell T. Davies and the crew have achieved in their brilliant revival of The World's Greatest Time Traveller that so much is being said - albeit from not the most reliable journalistic source on the planet!

News stories like these just make me angry that there are people calling themselves journalists who just try to create the news by extrapolating the "truth" from Anonymous Sources who might have 1001 reasons why they would want to damage the people or insitutions they give their little leaks on. This is what we get from a free press of course, but that is not any topic of THIS blog.

I was thinking and wondering about this all last evening after reading about it. Today I read this news story from ITV News which did put me at my ease a bit mainly because of the speed of the reaction from the BBC to The Sun's story. In it, a BBC spokesman has described the story as "idle speculation". Good! Err .... but hold on a moment. Do I believe an Anonymous Source or an Anonymous Spokesman? Hmmm .... well, I prefer the spokesman's view myself. I guess it shows that maybe we believe what we want to believe! Well, let's say that I believe what the BBC says over and above what The Sun newspaper says! NO CONTEST!! The spokesman also said that "the BBC has a long-term commitment to Doctor Who". Nuff said! Case closed (almost!).

Last of all, I want to comment on this report from Sky News that Russell T. Davies wants to have more time to concentrate on other projects. He might well, yes, and after all Doctor Who is not the only thing he has done as we well know. Certainly he has a lot of good shows on TV now and from the near-past. But the nature of writing for TV and for a programme like Doctor Who is, unfortunately, that you DO have to give it a lot of your time. But I see that even now RTD is delegating more of the writing to others - look at Helen Raynor's credit in the Daleks In Manhattan story when in actual fact it was Russell's ideas that were given her to put together (and I see now she doesn't do Script Editing any more!). In addition, as much as I am enjoying this two-parter Human Nature / Family Of Blood, we all know full well that the idea is from a book. I wonder how many other Dr Who stories started off life as books - not many I'll bet! So that is possible another indication that RTD is trying to make time for himself and his other work. I also read here in this news story from 23rd March this year on some kind of speculation from the Series 3 Launch Party about a possible "spin off" movie. Now that IS INTERESTING!!

So, in summary, any thought of killing off Doctor Who after Series 4 or at any time before that is completely out of the question and the BBC would be stark-staring bonkers to quit on such a bankable number as The Doc! ZAP!!!!!! CASE CLOSED (in a Judoon kind of way)!!!