I have an article in the latest edition of Doctor Who Magazine. It’s the one with Matt Smith on the front in a posture I can only describe as a ‘quizzical squat’.
I’m very happy with how it turned out. Gorgeous artwork from Adrian Salmon. Lots of lovely photos to illustrate the points what I make.
The article itself seems to have gone down well. My last couple of big articles in DWM weren’t hugely popular – indeed, my first, about how Doctor Who was essentially a game show, was calamitous – but this seems to have hit a... thing. The article’s about the problem in the series of having big, blatant alien invasions happen which then get conveniently forgotten. It was pitched and mostly written last year, before The Next Doctor, and then hurriedly re-written because The Next Doctor had done precisely one of the things I’d said would never happen in Doctor Who – a big, blatant alien invasion set in the past.
It was a tricky article to write. Finding a way of clearly identifying the ‘problem’ took a lot of pondering, as did working through the logic of the whys and wherefores. I’m still not sure I entirely gree with some of the conclusions I draw.
My one worry with the article was that it is mildly critical about some aspects of the current series. Not that I’m worried it would prejudice me from future employment – I don’t think it’ll make the slightest difference – but because I’m massively positive about the show and didn’t want to misrepresent myself.
But I think, following Gary Gillatt’s lead in pointing out that perhaps Planet of the Ood wasn’t the most gripping adventure ever, it’s the first article to (gently and affectionately) take the piss out of the end of Fear Her.
