An Appreciation Of JNT

The Sunday afternoon Classic Doctor Who marathon with the kids has now reached the 1980s. In fact we have missed a few odd stories: Lovefilm haven’t managed to come up with the 1st Doctor’s Rescue and Romans stories and inexplicably missed the 3rd Doctor’s Mind Of Evil. There are also the Patrick Troughton stories that emerged at the end of last year but other than that we are now up to Peter Davison’s 1st series in 1982. It is also well into the tenure of John Nathan-Turner as series producer and I am beginning to appreciate this long-time producer in a new light.

If I had to pick a favourite period for the Classic Doctor Who series it would be the early to late 70s period of Barry Letts and Philip Hinchcliffe. They were succeeded by Graham Williams and, whilst he continued to produce some decent series, I felt that the show was becoming rather tired and was relying too heavily on comic touches from script editor Douglas Adams to cover up weak stories and creaky sets. John Nathan-Turner (known to fandom simply as JNT) made many changes to the show when he took over during Tom Baker’s final year in the blue box. At the time I wasn’t that fussed on the more superficial changes such as the new title sequence and synthesised theme tune but having watched the episodes again I can appreciate the fresh look he brought to the show.

1980s Doctor Who now looks rather dated but at least it looks to be dated from the 1980s and not from a period that its meagre budget would have justified. Sometimes the special effects do let it down but this is more a case of trying to push the technology too far rather than a slap-dash “it’ll do, it’s only tea-time telly” approach. Of course, on occasion the prop-failures are laughable but it is forgivable as long as the scripts are acceptable and for a period in the mid-1980s they often weren’t. I’d argue that the worst were when Colin Baker took over the role and his first story, The Twin Dilemma, set a poor tone by making Baker’s Doctor both unlikeable (strangling his assistant at one point) without the resolution of a decent story. It’s a pity as Colin Baker is a good actor with great ideas for the role – it’s just a pity that the scripts let him down and maybe it was not such a good idea to introduce him like this at the end of the series when most people knew Baker for playing complete bastards (Paul Merroney in The Brothers was his best known role up to that point).

In fact it’s interesting to see how the new Doctor, Peter Capaldi, is introduced. Amongst my Whovian friends there seems to be a great split between those who are really looking forward to see him (of which I am one) and those who aren’t particularly looking forward to him at all. The latter group seem to be grouped between those who wanted to see another series with Matt Smith (who I do sympathise with) and those who don’t particularly like the actor – possibly because he is best known as the aggressive yet creative profanasaurus that was Malcolm Tucker. The first film I remember him from was Local Hero and I can recall many parts that he has popped up in so I maybe have a different perspective. He is a versatile actor but many will only really know him from The Thick Of It where he was, it must be said, a complete bastard. I’m interested to see how he will be introduced as The Doctor in Deep Breath in a fortnight’s time – hopefully the doubters will be won over.

As for our Sunday classic series DVDs we are up to Kinda (great story, rubbery snake) and the kids seem to be enjoying it although Raymond is fed up with Tegan’s complaining (isn’t that the point of her?) and the others quite like Adric (they are in for a shock in a few weeks). I’m also quite happy to see these episodes again – most for the first time in some 30 years. I wonder if we will be revisiting Deep Breath in another 30 years time?