Mastermind Heat 3 Subjects

I don’t know that many previous generations before mine have had the problem of something that you say on television when you’re a callow teenager coming back to bite you on the behind many years later. For the record, I’m not referring to anything that involved me.

A quick glance at the BBC Mastermind website today informed me that tomorrow’s specialists are – Piero della Francesca – Jodie Whittaker’s tenure on Doctor Who – Edward III and the short stories of Roald Dahl.

Well, there’s only two of those that tickle my fancy. I know very little about Piero Della Francesco. I know that some of Roald Dahl’s short stories were used for the first season or two of Tales of the Unexpected so I might get one or two of those, despite never having read any of them. With Edward III, well, I’ll always give Kings and Queens a lash. However, if you know me at all you’ll know that Doctor Who will always trump pretty much any other subject for me.

Which is not to say that the period of the show in question was my favourite. Many years ago, there was a BBC programme titled Open Air, the purpose of which was to let invited viewers air their views about selected shows in the presence of people associated with the show. A few short years before the original series ended in 1989, the attention of one edition of Open Air came to Doctor Who. One of the invited viewers was a teenager called Chris Chibnall, who very eloquently analysed some of the problems with the show as it was – ridiculous, hackneyed plots, resurrection of old enemies/monsters for no good reason and so on.

This was the same Chris Chibnall who would go on to write the widely acclaimed Broadchurch.

When Peter Capaldi’s time as the Doctor came to an end the showrunner (in the old series we called this the script editor) Steven Moffat finished as well. The BBC offered the position to Chris Chibnall, who accepted. The showrunner alone does not make all of the critical decisions about the show, but it’s fair to say that they have the biggest say, and they carry more of the can for those decisions. I never had a problem with the decision to make the first female Doctor – especially when the role went to an actress I rated highly in Jodie Whittaker. But sadly, I never thought much of the vast majority of stories during her tenure, and however great an actor you are, it’s hard to shine when the writing ain’t great.

Which brings me back to my point about old TV coming back to bite you in the bottom. I was not the first to point to Chris Chibnall’s appearance on Open Air (widely available on Youtube) and to suggest that the same criticisms he made back then about the old series could apply just as much to the modern series during his tenure. But I certainly agreed with that point of view.

Well, in fairness, nobody likes to whinge quite as much as a Doctor Who fan.