‘There are more things in Heaven and Earth than are dreamed of in your philosophy’
So sayeth Hamlet, and so quoth Simon Callow, as Chuck D (aka Charles Dickens), in Mark Gatiss’ Dr Who episode, The Unquiet Dead.
I have to say that I really don’t like contemporary Dr Who. It grates mightily. It’s such a mish-mash. Overloaded with ideas that are supposed to be clever.
And unlike Baker-era Who, which uses sci-fi/fantasy much more simply, as a vehicle for fun storytelling, and tends to have an underlying appeal – despite its total kookiness – to the rational mind, CGI-era Who is overloaded with appeals to angels, the mystical, ghosts, sceances, etc.
Where ‘70s Who harnessed imagination to progressive rational ideals, current Who is regressive, appealing to ‘comforting’ myths, ironically enabled by cutting-edge tech. Ironically the older Who, more dependent on viewer imagination, and simpler old-school props, is more visionary.
I don’t know when the trend for manic Drs set in. But I hate it. Christopher Ecclestone partakes of this annoying lineage. And Billie Piper as his sidekick sums up the shallow vanity of our times. Pretty, but vacant.