If some fans are to be believed, the people that run Doctor Who are governed by hidden agendas, scheming with secret political, religious or moralistic aims to manipulate the viewer into their way of thinking. In reality, though the only agenda, other than the desire to produce a quality show that entertains and remains high in the ratings, is one that everybody has to live by. The need to earn a living. The word is clearly overused in fandom when you consider the wider general audience. The lesbian, interspecies kiss in Deep Breath appalled some sections of fandom with the angry cry of a gay agenda or of bringing sex into Doctor Who, as if not only the Doctor but everyone in the series should be asexual. But how many complaints did the BBC receive? A grand total of six. Even this small protest was taken seriously by the BBC who had also received a handful of unwarranted complaints about promoting an overall gay bias. Just as with criticisms that the Beeb displays left wing tendencies, it is of course always those who disagree with a certain position who complain about its overexposure. What is really meant is that they would rather not see their own opinions challenged. In the world of Doctor Who, other agendas have been detected. These include a pro-life stance (Kill The Moon), putting children into Doctor Who (Steven Moffats era as a whole), making the Doctor a Christ-like figure (Last of the Time Lords) and even putting certain ethnic groups into the show. In every instance, the agenda is not that of the showrunner or his team, but that of the complainant. It is not a new phenomenon. Back in the 70s, Mary Whitehouse campaigned vociferously against what she argued was an agenda of violence in Doctor Who. But, like the members of Christian Voice who protested when David Tennants Tenth Doctor rose from the dead like a Messiah in the Series 3 finale, the entrenched positions and desire to control actually come from those that are making the complaints. There is no other way of explaining why the same episodes can come under fire from opposite ends of a spectrum. Series 8 has been criticised by some as being anti-military and by others as being pro-military.
Paul Driscoll is a freelance writer and author across a range of subjects from Cult TV to religion and social policy. He is a passionate Doctor Who fan and January 2017 will see the publication of his first extended study of the series (based on Toby Whithouse's series six episode, The God Complex) in the critically acclaimed Black Archive range by Obverse Books. He is a regular writer for the fan site Doctor Who Worldwide and has contributed several essays to Watching Books' You and Who range. Recently he has branched out into fiction writing, with two short stories in the charity Doctor Who anthology Seasons of War (Chinbeard Books). Paul's work will also feature in the forthcoming Iris Wildthyme collection (A Clockwork Iris, Obverse Books) and Chinbeard Books' collection of drabbles, A Time Lord for Change.
