Symbolic Forest

We turned to each other and said: “it was never this silly in the Old Days,” was it? And I don’t think it was.

In Doctor Who of Olden Times, you might well have got little creatures made from body fat. The difference, though, is that they wouldn’t have been so damn cute. They wouldn’t have had happy smiling faces and stubby hands to wave with. It’s always been a children’s show, but the old series was never so consciously one.

There are hints of something darker, I’ll admit. A minor character dying purely because of the doctor’s assistant fiddling with something she doesn’t understand, for example. Not fiddling with it because she wants to know what it does, but fidgeting and giving her hands something to do, and killing someone directly because of it. Maybe that will come back up later in the series. There are rumours, after all, that things are going to get much darker later on; but I’ll have to see it to believe it.

Keyword noise: BBC, Catherine Tate, David Tennant, Doctor Who, Russell T Davies, television, The Doctor.

As for Doctor Who: as you’ve probably heard, catchphrase-based comedian Catherine Tate is going to be back in the show for a whole series. It’s been in all the papers, after all, and lots and lots of people, who shudder in terror at the mere mention of the name Bonnie Langford, think it will all go horribly wrong. It might be interesting to see if Tate can act, rather than just mug through with a comic voice and lots of makeup until she gets to the catchphrase.

Russell T Davies has been widely quoted, in connection with this story, as saying:

We are delighted that one of Britain’s greatest talents has agreed to join us.

Strangely, though, his thoughts on Catherine Tate herself have not been mentioned.

Keyword noise: BBC, Bonnie Langford, Catherine Tate, Doctor Who, Russell T Davies, science fiction, television.