POST DW 151018

So much better...!

Okay, so, on Sunday the 14th of October 2018, at 6:55pm (more or less) the BBC transmitted the second of their latest series of "DOCTOR WHO", in an episode entitled "The Ghost Monument".

It was never likely that I wouldn't be back, even though the return took a little persuading to involve the whole household, but we did and I, at least, as an old-school DW viewer from before the dark ages, am rather pleased that I persisted.

This week felt so much better, and anything resembling that unfortunate blip in the cruelty column (that so upset me in Episode One) failed to materialise this week. It wasn't perfect, of course (but then, what television episode ever is?) but a jolly - if slightly slow in the middle I thought - fifty minutes unfolded happily enough, and I am, at least, starting to get used to that biggest change of all.

I'm still not the biggest fan of Mr Chibnaff's idea of story-telling, but there's no point in harping on about it. After all, it does appear as if he's there to stay, and, quite frankly, when the cinematography looks as gorgeous as it currently is, then someone on the production team is obviously doing something right. That, and the fact that the show does seem to be engaging with a generation lost by - possibly - the shabby scheduling of the last few seasons, does also prove that something else is working better too, even if it simply turns out that Sunday evening is a far better time for television family dramas than the brash war zone of early Saturday evening "entertainment" has become.

I do have to say that it's taking me longer than most to get used to the "Jodie Factor", but that's more my problem than anyone else's. the words are right, and the delivery is spot on, so it's really nothing more than it's me having to take a a shift to not think that this is some other show than the one I was so very used to. I keep trying to spot the deeply buried Patrick Troughton version somewhere inside that new persona, and, whilst I'm reaching out, I'm not quite there yet.

I have to keep telling myself off, and asking myself whether those same words spoken by a Jon Pertwee, or a Sylvester McCoy, would bother me less, and I find that they wouldn't really. It's just that I have to keep making that mental leap, although the chasm I thought might be there has proved to be nonexistent, occasionally I find that I do have to cross a tiny babbling brook to remind myself that they're all still in there, somewhere.

What's more of a struggle is coming to terms with the realisation that old folks like myself do start to become concrete thinkers without even realising it. And whilst I still like to think I'm an open-minded and inclusive thinker, sometimes that lump of concrete that was once so soft and pliable in my mind, is occasionally showing signs of hardening.

And that's a bit of a shame, but it's my problem, not the programme's.

I just worry sometimes that the older generation are getting tarred with the "You're all the same" brush that younger fresher minds wouldn't apply to any other group that they're willing to embrace, and there I go underscoring the problem. Sixty percent of us might be numpties in lots of ways, but that still leaves forty percent of us willing to gamble that an all-embracing, inclusive, and open-minded future is the best way for everyone, and it's worthwhile not forgetting that.

It's time for everyone in that age group to "Be More Graham" and, when considering those of us reaching a certain age, give us the benefit of thinking that we are capable of being so.

Happily, at the end of this week's episode, at least (and despite all of the rumours), the TARDIS was back, itself having had a regeneration which will, as ever, divide opinion and take some getting used to, but it did at least feel as if the programme had finally (Finally? It's only been two weeks!) come home, with the Old Girl meeting the New Girl and letting her in. 

And, as the saying goes, perhaps it was about time.

Martin A W Holmes, 151018