But if they loved Dr Who that much they would have watched it irrespective of what it was up against.

I'd given up on it by then and it was nothing to do with Coronation Street.

I'm afraid you are mistaking your love of the show at the time as being universal, it patently wasn't.....

And neither was your disdain for it. If Who had been put in direct competition with Corrie in 2006, do you seriously think the viewing figures wouldn't have plummeted?

No I don't, and seeing as the beeb are planning on putting it up against the ratings juggernaut that is The X Factor next winter it seems they don't either....

It was originally up against Ant and Dec's Takeaway, I believe - which was a ratings juggernaut until Who came along!

Very good point....

It is extremely unlikely to go up against the X Factor. This has been discussed at length elsewhere. As for Coronation street, though I've never seen the appeal myself, I personally cannot see how putting the show that tends to be the third most watched in any given week up against the show that tends to be the second most watched could ever hope to do anything but kill it.

Whilst I've no doubt that the Corrie move did have some influence on ratings, I can't help feeling that it's used as an excuse for it's demise by one eyed fans who refuse to admit the show had become a shadow of it's former self by then....

But you see, that's because we don't think it had, so there's nothing to 'admit'. It's back to that old 'fact, not opinion/'no, opinion, not fact' thing again...

But all that you say is undoubtedly correct, you still miss the point that the latter days of classic Who was shite! If it was the basis of the revival, we certainly wouldn't be looking forward to what is now the Morecambe and Wise of Christmas Day let alone a new series next year.

I appreciate that you personally loved the classic series, that is fine. I loved the classic series too, but only from Baker to Baker. I genuinely was able to see the rather obvious decline in quality and it was this as well as the BBC having a desire to get rid of the show without it looking obvious that led to it being rested.

By the way, while there is maybe some truth in your plot theory, I had the same theory with Merlin.

Merlin apart from Doctor Who, is possibly the BBC's most expensive drama series. Next Autumn they need the slot for Doctor Who. So, this year in a clever, devious plot, they put Merlin (a show they can't currently afford) up against TV's biggest audience puller of the Autumn, the show loses viewers and ratings fall and hey presto! the series is cancelled.

Only trouble is, nearly 6 million watched Merlin! The plan failed!!!

Sorry, but where exactly has this notion of DW being scheduled against The X Factor in 2011 come from?

And why do some posters think that Merlin being scheduled against TXF spells its demise? It's been scheduled against TXF before and performed quite respectably - certainly better than Robin Hood did.

There is no way DW would play against TXF next autumn unless the BBC is on a suicide mission. It got so much stick last year for playing Strictly against TXF that playing the same trick would be beyond idiotic - especially when the BBC is under attack for behaving 'too commercially' by its critics (many of whom are now in the current government).

Let's get real, people!

I know I stopped watching in the Baker/McCoy years because of the time slot during the week as I worked shifts and was always missing episodes, I didn't have a VCR then so it made no sense to watch half, and there were other people who wanted to watch other things sometimes as well. As far as I'm concerned if it had stayed on Saturdays it would have made far more sense (and it would have been easier for me to watch it) but it was my own circumstances that finally finished it for me. Mind you I was in fandom at the time and heard from 'someone who knew someone who worked on the show' that they didn't like the time slot as it made it more difficult to keep viewers, and most of us in the group agreed.

Always had problems finding any love for the Pertwee era, but I would like to see some of the stories given the special edition treatment on DVD to see how they stand up.

The changes I'd like
* Edit the horribly padded stories back down to 4 episode length.
* Replace or reduce the crazy electronic background music.
* Improve some SFX and voice work. The Daleks voices were awful, and the Unit soldiers were often firing some very badly matched stock libraries.

Less concerned about the FX work, the visual are of their time and replacements look very out of place. Fine to just tidy up the CSO fuzziness and wobble.

Most important for me is to re-edit the stories, they were only ever made that length to stretch the budget.

Bless me father for I am about to sin.... Ting is spot on about the BBC's attitude to the programme being the reason why it was phased out....

Those of you who think it was poor production values that caused the end of the programme - has it ever occured to you that the reason why they went that way was because of the BBC's attitude.....

Season 24 was horrendous but there where certain things happening which meant it had next to no chance....

JNT had expected to leave (he had wanted to leave for years - nothing wrong with that every producer has his time), and didn't at that point expect to be returning to the programme. At very short notice he found he was staying. There was no Script Editor, No Scripts!, No Doctor - At that point he was only staying with the programme because he felt they would cancel it if he left. As much as his heart was in the right place after 8 years in the job (and through little fault of his own) I'd expect him to be a spent force at that point

Andrew Cartmell - yes very inexperienced, but I'm pretty sure there was a lack of interest from more experienced script editors. I'm also pretty sure he didn't come on board until half way through Paradise Towers at the earliest (I'm certain JNT had to script edit TatR himself)

SM - the quote further back in the thread about "not being told how to play the Doctor" (can't remember the exact quote. It certainly applied to Time and the Rani, and I'm sure enough it happened for the rest of season 24, but they did get a bigger grip on this for seasons 25 & 26. McCoy was as good as anyone (bar someone exceptional) in the role. Anyone who couldn't understand what he was saying - get your ears tested!

JNT did an interview with DWM a few years back, and the interview was full of stories about "not having enough time", "money not going up, but with inflation going down in real terms", other BBC departments not taking the programme seriously (The make up department for Delta and the Bannermen being the one that sticks in my mind), the farcical tone of the season was directed from higher above. Also there was apparently next to no publicity for the programme at that time. The slot against Corrie was also designed to kill the programme. (4.5 - 5 million viewers at that time against that sort of competition was outstanding)


Season 25 was a step in the right direction. Pre Nu Who Remembrance was in every top 10 story poll I saw (sometimes top 5). Greatest wasn't a disaster, Nemesis terrible, Happiness splits people down the middle (both groups are right). A long way from being perfect, but a small step in the right direction

Season 26 and it's back on track (Fenric like Remembrance was in top 10 and 5 listings pre Nu Who), I personally believe if seasons 24 & 25 had been of the same quality then fans would have had less problems with the McCoy era...

Then the cancellation came...... too little too late, for reason X not many people cared.....

In 1985 during the hiatus the BBC wanted Doctor Who had gone....only a massive campaign got it back.... how do you stop that? By undermining the programme completely.... Some blokes who are too scared to dump their girlfriends just turn around and act like an a-hole so that they dump them.....

Just as in 1985 there was nothing wrong with the programme that a new producer and script editor couldn't have solved (maybe with a bit of extra cash) there was nothing that couldn't have been solved with the last 3 years of the programme with the BBC taking the programme seriously... giving it the time, production team and that little bit more cash it needed.

It aint that easy to pea into the wind.... but the McCoy era team did the best of what very little they got.


And McCoy.... least talented actor to play the Doctor....... having seen all of the actors who played the Doctor in numerous roles......... nah not by a long long way.....

Anyone who saw him in the RSC production of 'King Lear' opposite Ian McKellen and the touring production of 'Little Shop of Horrors' will know how great an actor McCoy can be...

I saw him in Arsenic and Old Lace a few years back as Dr Einstein - cracking performance

Forgive me for editing your post - much of which I disagree with! - but I'm sure I've read that Andrew Cartmel was recruited through Bonnie Langford's agent. Finding a script editor in-house would have been easy (I know - I've worked at the BBC) - so why choose this bizarre route to find someone who had no qualifications?

My post doesn't actually imply that DW will be put against TXF next year. It is suggesting that the BBC may need an excuse to axe Merlin as they need Merlin's slot for DW next year. I am not suggesting Merlin will definetely be axed but it seems that the BBC are more favourable towards DW than Merlin so if something had to give...................

Why would the BBC need to axe Merlin to make way for Doctor Who? Doctor Who is run for 6 episodes (7 maybe but more likely 6) in the Autumn which added to Merlin's 13...but if they split both, 7 eps of Merlin and 6 eps of Who and then run the other 6 episodes of Merlin with 2012's Who series, all will be well

Or, as has just been mentioned by HWMBO, the ultimate combo (and surely designed to upset DW fans) have DW at 18:30 and Merlin at 19:15

*Gallifrey Base explodes*

Sorry, I don't get why that would be a problem

I feel that could work. If I remember rightly, they put one Doctor Who on back to back after either Merlin or Robin Hood once, I rather enjoyed watching them back to back.

Have they? It might have been Robin Hood after the Easter 2009 Special? If so, yeah, would've been good telly!

Originally, Dr Who was "educational" (Reithian Values), and was always made as serious drama, using experienced actors. Early scripts were science based, with Kit Pedlar etc .........

It was Tom Baker who started "hamming it up", with self-referential in-jokes, y'all can blame HIM ..............

Here's somebody who likes the Third Doctor.

That's so nice of you to put your own blog up.

I really liked the third doctor, but I like all of them, so I'm not very representative.