Grrr. Argh.

You know, I'd forgotten how annoyed (fellow) geeks could make me.

So, this new-found enthusiasm for Doctor Who? It's great - more power to the BBC for actually making kids look at a blue police box and calling it a TARDIS. I just wish some of the...more mature fans would stop being so prim and proper about the whole thing.

Don't get me wrong, some of the things that have been done in the past were pretty awful - Paul McGann was really dealt the shitty end of the stick with the US-friendly TV film - half-human my arse. But.

Doctor Who is the longest running sci-fi show on television anywhere and why? Because things change. It'd have never lasted that long if it hadn't. They have to bloody well change. So, he gets the odd snog now and again? Big deal - there are people out there arguing about his sexuality; his ability to fall in love; how he could just abandon Rose like that. Children, children, children - it's a kid's show. Yes, RTD and the like put in knowing little gags and a frisson of sexual tension but, at it's most basic level, it's a fucking kid's show.

Look, it's changed, because it had to, not because they wanted to screw up what made people like it in the first place, but because we are no longer satisfied with zero characterisation; bad acting in a rubber suit and the deeply otherworldly setting of a quarry.

Sci-fi, as I've said in the past (and will surely say again ad infinitum) is a way to reflect society, but at a remove that people find easier to handle, easier to accept. Star Trek was the first US show to feature an inter-racial kiss, you know? Sci-fi says things or brings attention to things that don't get said elsewhere and, so long as society moves forwards (or back), science fiction will do the same. Otherwise it's a profoundly boring experience. If Doctor Who is going to reflect society, then it stands to reason that, every so often, someone'll gets lucky.

If you don't like it, then watch your DVDs and videos of the golden age where a man in bubble wrap could still scare the crap out of the five year old you.

Ahem. Gosh, for a kid's show, I get rather worked-up, don't I?

Dave xx