10 THINGS I HATE ABOUT NEW WHO 9) DOCTOR WHO MEETS TRASHY POP CULTURE For a programme about time travel I have always felt Doctor Who has had a certain timelessness, a majority of the episodes from the classic show can be seen out of context from when they were originally made and yet still be perfectly relevant and understandable today. Yes the series production values easily date the show to a particular period, but when viewing many of the episodes the odd dodgy haircut or fashion aside they dont feel too tied to a particular time. Sixties Doctor Who doesnt seem mired in psychedelia, while 70s Who doesnt feel permeated by glam rock. This is because the pop culture of the time wasnt allowed to needlessly intrude on the story. The classic series pandered to popular culture on a handful of occasions, probably the most blatant of which was jumping on the Beatles bandwagon in The Chase, the Beatles were mentioned again in The Three Doctors, got played on a jukebox in Evil of the Daleks and Elton John got a rather unflattering reference in Planet of Fire, there may have been others but generally speaking they were few and far between. Imagine though how it could have been, Susan being a Cliff Richard fan and the drama of stories like the Daleks being undercut by references to Cliffs then recent Summer Holiday film, Twiggy getting a cameo as herself in The War Machines, Troughtons Doctor turning up on a sci fi version of juke box jury where the rest of the panel are robotic versions of various celebrities, The Osmonds putting in an appearance during the Pertwee era. I would argue if any of this sort of thing had happened it would have made the old show much less than it was. Classic Who remains so watchable and accessible now because it largely kept away from the pop culture that surrounded it, like those other sci fi greats Star Trek & Star Wars, it existed in its own bubble universe. I would argue that much new Doctor Who is so entrenched in modern disposable pop culture that it feels cheapened and dated by such inclusions. What relevance today do X factor winner Shane Ward or many of the futuristic game shows featured in the Bad Wolf episode have? Putting pop culture references into Who is a tricky business, okay it makes the show modern and cool, used in moderation and depending on what is being referenced and who is doing the referencing it is generally okay, but as with many aspects of the new series it has been overdone to the point where it has become intrusive. The Tennant era was probably when it was at its height and was made worse by the fact that the Doctor was often the one referencing 21st century pop culture, Kylie in the Idiots Lantern (a bit incongruous considering she later turned up in the series), Eastenders in The Impossible Planet, Skeletor in the Dreamland cartoon to name just a few off the top of my head. Okay realistically speaking the Doctor has visited all parts of human history and absorbed the culture of the time. He knows of Dickens, Shakespeare and the greats, maybe in the future Eastenders is high art, it is feasible todays disposable culture could well be that, but the truth is it feels odd and incongruous in Doctor Who that the Doctor would know of such things, it just doesnt work dramatically. My own opinion on the matter is that a 20-30 year rule works well on what pop culture can be assimilated into Doctor Who. When the 7th Doctor refers to Elvis in Time and the Rani, he is enmeshed in history as such an iconic figure that we can believe that the Doctor would talk of him as a great of human history. Had Hartnell or Troughton talked of Elvis it would have seemed a gratuitious pop culture reference. Ian Durys music played in the Tardis in Tooth and Claw again works to a degree because it is old enough to believe that the 10th Doctor could be a fan of the punk era, used during the Baker era it would have been disastrous. Similarly the playing of Soft Cells Tainted Love in The End of the World is another touch, again old enough to just about be viable as a piece of music that has survived into the far future, the subsequent inclusion of a contemporary Britney Spears track in the same story then ruins the effect. This is my personal opinion but that 25-30 year lag on what elements of pop culture the Doctor can talk about works in my mind, that said even older pop culture references can jar and seem incongrous, David Warner listening to Vienna by Midge Ure in the Cold War episode is one that springs to mind, the other is the use of The Lion Sleeps Tonight in Rise of the Cybermen, the use of these songs in the context just comes across as tacky and seems more about the writers personal music taste than how it aids the story. The Russell T Davies era also brought us the yearly celebrity cameos, a feature thankfully Moffat seems to have dropped. Tricia, Mcfly, Sharon Osborne amongst others all popped up, all this just tied Doctor Who into a low brow pop culture, it was one step away from the Doctor taking up reading the Sun or News of the World. I am not saying the show should have no references to modern culture but it should be sparing and nowhere near as gratuitious as it has been over the years. All these references have nothing to do with telling the story but are more to do with the insecurity of not letting the show stand on its own merits, and feeling the need to seed it with references and cameos from all the other shows and culture its audience is familiar with, so Doctor Who seems part of the hip crowd of programmes, and not some maverick sci fi show for nerds. I must admit I cant recall too much in the latest series so to give Steven Moffat his credit I think he has vastly toned it down, but much of the RTD era is blighted by this stuff which to me makes Doctor Who less of a sci fi classic and more of a tacky piece of pop culture. I think Doctor Who works better without all this stuff, indeed when it was used in the classic series it often wasnt very successful either, the Doctors reference to Batman in Inferno for instance is the low point in an otherwise near flawless story. Yes we know Polly and Ben came from swinging London, Jo Grant had a thing for 70s fashions and Ace liked her big tape decks, but that was all we needed to know, enough to make a connection with the contemporary world without being beaten over the head by it. I think the worse reference ever was not actually in the series but in one of the early 9th Doctor books where the Doctor seemed to have an innate knowledge of a plot going on in a then current episode of Eastenders. Dont get me wrong I like Eastenders, but it and Doctor Who dont mix and Dimensions in Time is testament to this. Like that scene in the Paul McGann tv movie I can buy the Doctor sitting back to read the greats in his spare time, what I cant visualise is him sitting down to a soap marathon of Eastenders, Hollyoaks or Emmerdale with a bit Jeremy Kyle thrown in for good measure but I believe by his intrusive use of all this pop culture that is probably what the Doctor has been getting upto in his last few incarnations. NEXT TIME: 10) VULGARITY & SILLINESS
Posted on: Fri, 26 Dec 2014 14:01:02 +0000
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