AN OPEN LETTER TO MICHAEL GRADE

Dear Mister Grade,

During the current celebrations of “DOCTOR WHO” many people (including current show supremo Stephen Moffat) have taken you to task over your role in canceling the series that they loved.  They have identified you in many ways as enemy number one in its demise (along with producer John Nathan Turner) and you have come in for so much stick it would seem in poor taste for a lifelong “DOCTOR WHO” fan like myself to add to your woes by ripping the hell out of you in an open letter like this

...So I won’t.

In fact, actually I would like to thank you for cancelling “DOCTOR WHO” when you did.  You see with the Doctor riding the crest of a wave in terms of popularity at the minute it seems crazy to thank someone for getting rid of such a hit show, but this is because history tends to be written by the winners and as such is usually wrong.  Let’s cast our minds back to where it all began, where it started to go wrong and why your decision was ultimately the right one.

Back in the heady days of 1963 BBC head of drama, Sydney Newman had an idea, not for a kid’s show, but for a drama, a sci-fi drama about a time-traveller that the entire family could watch.  

Giving his idea to newly promoted producer Verity Lambert (no relation ...as far as I’m aware.  ???) they enlisted a great actor to play the role and from 1963 through to 1979 the show was a runaway smash.  It may have been scary at times, and blighted by special effects that were never really that special, but it was undeniably a success (if you don’t think of all the times that the Fourth version on the Doctor has appeared in “THE SIMPSONS”.)  But then came an after effect, a ripple through time, of something that was so gargantuan that even “DOCTOR WHO” could not help but be affected, it was an after-shock from “STAR WARS”.

In 1980 ITV showed a big-budget sci-fi show called “BUCK ROGERS IN THE 25TH CENTURY” which, before the big embarkation of the video age, caused a massive reduction in the Doctor’s viewing figures.  It had the big-effects of “STAR WARS” (well, cheap versions anyway) and so dragged some of the “STAR WARS” fans away (for only one season anyway as the second season of “BUCK ROGERS” was cack!) but this caused ripples at the BBC who replaced their tired old Doctor with a younger man (actually this was a good move as he was top!) and a new producer but apart from the new man at the helm this was the temporary end for the good Doctor as standards slid, the high-standards of writing slid and the show descended from Drama where it’s greatest moments always came from into the realm of being a mere kid’s show.

So history lesson over for those people who aren’t au fait with the show, this is why it left the screens, not because you were vindictive or had no vision to see what the show could be, it’s because it descended into farce.  The Irony is that over the other side of the pond around the time that our “DOCTOR WHO” was facing cancellation paramount television was  starting its own big budget sci-fi show “STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION” and learnt  something after the first two seasons, that the key to success is in the writing rather than the effects.  It was arguably this shift in quality in season 3 that not only kept “STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION” on our screens but also created 3 further “STAR TREK” spin-off series that lasted in total a staggering 24 seasons, including “NEXT GEN” itself (the image below is from what it is probably the highlight of all seven seasons of NEXT GEN, season five's THE INNER LIGHT.)  

If the show hadn’t died temporarily in 1989 it may not have been brought back when it was in 2005 with TV standards in this country reaching a point where both effects costs had reduced sufficiently but writing standards had increased sufficiently.  Now we have “DOCTOR WHO” back to where it should be, as a drama, occasionally comedic, but usually terrifying, and amazingly it’s all down to you, MIchael Grade, the man who saved “DOCTOR WHO” by killing it.

So unusual as it seems, from all the official Whovians out there, who love the show, and all the unofficial ones who do but don’t admit to it, I say, thank you.  Your contribution to the series has been noted, well, by one fan at least.

Mike Lambert (AKA Mr Chatable). 

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