Guardian review of last night’s Doctor Who: rather ignorant, mildly annoying

The Guardian today brings us a poorly-informed review of the last-ever David Tennant Doctor Who story, in which we are told that all nine previous incumbents in the role played it either for camp or comedy and that Tennant almost single-handedly turned the series into a multi-million pound merchandising opportunity. What rubbish. This is supremely ignorant. Doctor Who has made more money for the BBC than any other show for a number of decades, even when it was off-air throughout the 90s. We’ve long had everything from Dalek money boxes to magazines to toys. They didn’t suddenly materialise in 2005.

The writer, Mark Lawson, also informs the reader with the confidence of a fool that the mysterious White Time Lady was the Doctor’s mother. She may or may not have been, and fans are speculating that she was but they are also wondering if she was Romana, the Doctor’s former travelling companion who was of the same race. The show’s audience was not told. She remains a mystery.

Long gone are the times when journalists as part of their trade had to ensure they got their facts right before publication, we all know this because some stories are completely made up by the tabloids. But when it comes to a show like Doctor Who, it really shouldn’t be that hard for a newspaper to find someone to write a review who actually knows a few somethings and can produce work that doesn’t suggest theory as fact and doesn’t rubbish everything that went before—without which, the show today would not exist at all.

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