No, not THAT David Cameron, although he's almost as wet...

First page of "Doctor Who and the Crusaders", 1965.... on Twitpic

Lawrence Miles' Doctor Who Thing: Everyone's a Destroyer of Worlds These Days

Lawrence Miles' Doctor Who Thing: Everyone's a Destroyer of Worlds These Days

Really good article by Lawrence Miles, great to see him writing again, and I agree that he is still providing the ideas for current Who and Torchwood.

Lawrence Miles is a "divisive" figure, which based on my own personal experience means that a lot of lesser people would like very much to take his ideas without having to acknowledge either his brilliance or his authorship. Personally I loved some of his books but really didn't like "Interference" at all. If I still owned it I think I'd probably read it and enjoy it, but when it came out there was no new Doctor Who show, and many people, me included, were very protective of "our" show- our own prejudices in other words. Now, I can see just how ahead of his time Lawrence Miles really was, and how many royalties are owed to him by the BBC... Although they would crush him with a work for hire argument no doubt.

Why I really like Lawrence Miles' blog

Lawrence Miles' Doctor Who blog is the Ginsberg Howl of the Who fan collective. Raw, expletive in ideation if not dialogue (although that too), it is actually sometimes extremely prescient in its criticism, thoughtful in its analysis and chuckle-out-loud funny.

His critique of the Steven Moffat era, whilst based on things as varied as personal animus, jealousy and perceptive analysis, has at its core a real concern that as he puts it the fetishisation of the Doctor character has turned him from something distinctive, not particularly heroic, and British, into something empty, trite, superheroic and American. He is absolutely right on that score of course, and it's far from accidental since American fans mean obsessive compulsive spending that the BBC would love, even if it's never quite got over its snobbish disdain for Doctor Who itself.



I'll review his opus Interference at some point. It is everything I hate about Who fandom, fan writers, and current Who too. But I'm in a good if splenetic mood today (sort of like Captain Haddock with his monocle) so I'm leaving it there for now. The mood, not the monocle.