Fifty Years Ago...

So, it's finally upon us.  No, not the fiftieth anniversary of Dr Who, but the fiftieth anniversary of JFK's assassination.  Could it really be coincidence that Dr Who debuted within twenty four hours of the President of the USA's death?  Probably, yes, it is.  Although I'm sure that there are conspiracy theorists out there who could find some sort of link between the two events.  Indeed, I'm sure that a close reading of the opening Who episode, 'An Unearthly Child', would reveal all sorts of parallels with the events in Texas.  What they do have in common is that they both generate a lot of chatter online, with self-appointed experts telling us what we should think about both of them, raking over detail endlessly in a quest for 'truth'.  Whilst I spend a lot of my time berating conspiracy theorists who see plots and mysteries everywhere and seek to explain every significant world event in terms of 'hidden truths' rather than known facts, I have to say that the Kennedy assassination is the only event where I suspect they might have a point.  Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying there was some huge conspiracy involving LBJ, the CIA, Fidel Castro and the mafia, but one detail continues to bother me: the fact that Lee Harvey Oswald was himself so conveniently killed only days later, before he could be tried.  Killed by a small-time hoodlum who, armed with a gun, was somehow allowed to get that close to Oswald in the basement of the Dallas police HQ.  Then again, maybe he just got lucky.

As for Dr Who, speaking as someone who remembers as far back as Patrick Troughton's Doctor, I really do find much of the so-called 'fan' activity online perplexing, to say the least.  I use the term 'fan' advisedly, as so many of them seem to spend their time griping about the current version of the programme.  I wouldn't mind, but most of them are far too young to have seen earlier incarnations of the show and often freely admit that their knowledge of previous series and Doctors is hazy.  I can assure them that the current iteration of Who is, as far as us 'old timers' are concerned, pretty much what we always wanted the programme to be - ie, with a budget which runs to half decent special effects, sets that don't wobble and a faster pace.  Not that it is beyond criticism: the plotting is sometimes deficient with far too many loose ends apparently forgotten about by the writers and left unresolved, for instance.  But, getting back to the point, of late I've found all these 'fans' bitching about the upcoming fiftieth anniversary episode, condemning before it has even aired because it only feature two of the most recent Doctors.  They just keep on and on about how it can't be a legitimate anniversary show if it doesn't have all of the Doctors in it.  Well, I've got news for you, so-called 'fans', the first three are unable to appear due to death, number nine doesn't want to and numbers four to seven are too old and/or fat.  None of them look remotely the way they did when they regenerated - which would pose a bit of a problem.  Oh, one last thing - if your only terms of reference in terms of 'classic' Who are the Sylvester McCoy years, then you really are in no position to critique the current version.  By trying to argue that current Who is inferior to probably the weakest era of the programmes history, characterised by poor scripts and B-list casts, you are just embarrassing yourselves.