Mr Smith - We Need You!

When I was a lad, we had Doctor Who books - novelisations of the TV adventures, written for young teenagers. But there were also a few stories rewritten for a younger age group under the banner 'Junior Doctor Who'. That was how I first experienced the good Time Lord's battle against the Brain of Morbius and the Giant Robot.

And that was my first thought when I saw who's been cast as the replacement for David Tennant. At last - it's Junior Doctor Who!

Doctor Who fans have never allowed change to stop them from frothing at the mouth at the slightest new idea. So you can imagine what they've been like this weekend. The online forums have gone into meltdown, all because the new Doctor hasn't given them the opportunity to be swept along in a liberal haze by the casting of the first non-white Doctor. Instead, he's white, skinny and 26 years old.

"I WANTED PATERSON JOSPEH - THEY'VE MISSED A TRICK THERE!!!"

Some online fans love to act as if their thoughts are the only valid ones, and that anyone who doesn't agree with them has 'missed a trick'. They also love to pretend that every single surprising thing is 'obvious'. So the casting of a man nearly 12 years younger than his predecessor is seen as both 'obvious' (because it taps into that Emo trend that's running amok elsewhere) and yet also reckless (because it'll make the show 'too CBBC').

It's hardly an obvious choice though, is it? No-one - not one tabloid hack - suggested him as a possibility. At least, not until Lizo from Newsround slipped it into his report the morning of the announcement. And if The Sarah Jane Adventures are anything to go by, 'too CBBC' would be seen as a criticism by only the most closed-minded, soulless of people.

Okay, that's a cheap shot. But then so are so many of Lawrence's posts over there.

Then there are those who will say 'I've never heard of him' as if that counts for something. You only have to look at the top wishlists of many online fans to see that they tend to only know actors who've already been in other 'genre' programmes. Would anyone have been seriously touting Chiwitel Eijofor for the part if he hadn't been in Lost?

Okay, I admit it - I have no idea what he's been in. Never seen him in anything. I'm told he's good though.

Edit: Oh yeah, he was in Children of Men. Never mind...

Course, there'll also be some who 'always knew he'd be great' as they've 'been fans of his for years'. They could possibly get away with such instant fandom with Eccleston or Tennant, but it's a bit harder to convincingly pull off with someone who has less than ten screen roles to his credit.

And that's my favourite bit about this casting - Matt Smith is someone who carries no preconceptions. He can create his character from scratch and surprise us all.

David Tennant has wrong-footed so many old-school fans by becoming something no-one else thought was possible - he's bigger than Tom Baker. And how did they solve the problem of the lead actor being bigger than the show last time? They surprised everyone by casting the youngest ever actor to play the part.

By the time young Matt Smith steps onto the set, he'll be just two years younger than Peter Davison was when he took on the role. I have to wonder though if the fans would have been quite so vocal if the 26-year-old had been black, though. Could it be that in trying to show off how open-minded they were, some fans have betrayed just how tokenist and patronising they were willing to be? Are there really that many people who think Paterson Joseph is the best black actor of his generation? Whereas do enough of them have enough knowledge of his work to say for certain that Matt Smith isn't a good enough actor to make this work?

At least they'll be able to spell Matt's name. Not even Davison could bank on that.

Back in the Archives

I recently completed work on a couple of collections for the BBC Archive site, which led to a brief period of media whoredom for me and a meet-up with a long-time heroine of mine, the lovely Janice Long.

Here are the two collections, first of all:

- The Genesis of Doctor Who: documents and images from the archives telling the story of the Time Lord's origins.

- Music from the Mersey: TV and radio programmes from the archives looking at Liverpool's place in the musical history books.

The Doctor Who stuff got picked up by the BBC News Magazine, who did a feature on the documents that was quite well received, even if my explanation of the archetypes that run through the series got a teensy bit garbled.

As a consequence of the Mersey collection, Janice Long was approached to stage a kind of reunion on Radio Merseyside with local hero Billy Butler. They plugged the collection like mad, so I emailed Janice and Billy to thank them both, Janice got back in touch and suggested I pop into her show to chat about the archives - which I did. Janice was every bit as warm and friendly as I'd always hoped, and we had to stop ourselves from gabbing too much before the recording. A brilliant plug for the site, and we're hoping we might be able to come up with ideas for a future collaboration.

A couple of weeks later, my flatmate and I were both asked to do some talking heads stuff for a documentary about 'The Perfect British TV Detective', which is on BBC 2 between Christmas and New Year. Radio Times says 29 December, so it must be then.

Dad's Army and Me

I've been working on a little collection of archive treats to mark the 40th anniversary of Dad's Army, and it seems to have been leapt upon by the press.

The Telegraph did a nice piece about the background to the series last week, and I was interviewed on BBC Radio Kent and BBC Southern Counties on Wednesday. The Today programme did a two-minute piece too, and there was a news item on BBC News online too. All in all, the press rather eclipsed the main events on BBC1 and BBC2 this weekend, unfortunately. But I'm just glad to see the show being championed once a again.

Bad and Wrong

Saw this picture of Leona Lewis this morning on the BBC homepage, and immediately my brain rearranged the image in my mind so it looked like the one below it.

Misreading the News

This is a bit rubbish, considering how poor my blogging has been so far this year, but...

This headline on BBC News.

Am I the only one humming this tune now?

Da dah da, dadada da da

After nearly two months, nothing comes to mind here. Actually - not true! Except I'm about to start blogging as part of my job, so a lot of my thoughts are focused on that there weekly panic instead of an occasional free-form Jazz brain-dump on here.

This week, I accompanied a work colleague to visit a lady who once worked at the BBC and had accumulated an attic full of old scripts and paperwork, which we offered to take off her hands. Some of it's quite dry and of very limited interest to be honest, but the scripts of Z Cars episodes now lost from the archives are a real treat. Best thing she gave us though was a prop walkie talkie - complete with pop-up aerial - that had once served the good men of Newtown prison about 30 years ago. Either that, or the tomahawk that had somehow featured in an adaptation of Dumas' The Man in the Iron Mask. We might take that along to meetings from now on, as a means of persuasion...

One other fun thing about this woman's collection is, she seems to have been an unstoppable hoarder, so she's kept some amazing scraps of paper. One Z Cars folder contained little notes about various crimes - a theft from a scrapyard, a house burglary resulting in the loss of £3000-worth of silver - which I couldn't at first work out. Then I had the idea of reading the script and there they were: these little slips of paper were prop telexes that the police officer would have read from to brief his superior officer about recent cases that have been opened, along with the character's scripted asides, like 'I bet he did it himself for the insurance'. So if you've ever wondered if there's actually anything written on those pieces of paper actors shuffle in drama, well, there is. Their script, usually.

Rats Join Sinking Ship

Bloody hell, Doctor Who was good last night. It had the titanic, Kylie, Bernard Cribbins and the funniest Queen-related scene ever. In the words of my favourite film reviewer ever*, 'it made me laugh and it made me cry'.

The Titanic might have been a difficult sell to an audience sandwiched, as this episode was, between two grimfestive episodes of EastEnders, but trust Russell T Davies to find a way to make it tense and exciting without it feeling bleak. Sure, it wasn't the actual Titanic, but a space ship of the same name and design, but the first shots of the ship cruising above the planet Earth have to be the single best special effects ever made for British TV.

I got a bit teary-eyed at a few points - the frustration and shock of the young midshipman, shot by his loony captain and unable to do his duty while the captain lives, was heartbreaking, as were the deaths of the fat couple who wrong-footed me by being instantly likeable (Debbie Chazen is best-known for her co-starring role in the dismal sketch show Tittybangbang so I wasn't prepared for how good she actually turned out to be). But the biggest shock came with Kylie Minogue's character Astrid taking a decidedly active and terminal role in the conclusion to the adventure. I'd heard rumours that her character would turn out to be something a bit magical (based on her first name being an anagram of 'Tardis') but when that turned out to be wrong it was even more upsetting.

Then the final credit: 'Dedicated to Verity Lambert OBE'. I knew it was coming, but it still got me choked.

... and I wasn't pissed either.

So, I had high expectations for the ratings, which I didn't think would be available until tomorrow. The overnights (as reported by BBC News) are suggesting 13.8 million, with a peak just under 15 million at one point. Blimey - this is the show they couldn't get people to make, never mind watch, in 1989.

There are only a very few stories of the original run of episode of this series that managed to get ratings that high. Three stories in 1965 ('The Rescue', 'The Romans' and 'The Web Planet'). 'The Ark in Space' in 1974 and 'The Power of Kroll' each had individual episodes that peaked at around the 13 million mark, and only 'Destiny of the Daleks' and 'City of Death' went above 14 million (the latter reaching 16 million, thanks in no small part to a lengthy strike taking ITV off air).

The TV landscape has changed a lot over the years; the days when EastEnders can pull in over 20 million have long gone. Home computers, videogames consoles, multi-channel TV and home video / DVD have all combined to ensure TV is no longer a medium that can unite a nation. But Doctor Who last night was seen by about a quarter of the population of the UK, about 50% of the viewing public. The equivalent would be something like 25 million viewers in 1979.

It really puts the embarrassment of being a fan for the last 20 years into perspective. A show that was once so niche that even the regular viewers didn't like it now has an audience who might not call themselves fans but still love it to bits. With TV in the state that it is, that's no bad thing. Just ask ITV, whose highest-rated programme peaked at 8.9 million (a 35.4% share of the viewers). Sad though I am about this, Coronation Street can't claim to be the nation's favourite any more. 'Eighth-most-popular' is about as close as they get.

In 1988, when Doctor Who was watched by about 4 million people out of habit, it was scheduled up against Corrie. Some might say revenge is a dish best served cold, and on Christmas Day...

_________________________________________

* Some woman I once worked with, whose only criteria for a 'good film' seemed to be a binary opposition of emotions.

Viruses? Got it Taped!

There's an interesting article on BBC News about the first Mac-targetting Trojan viruses.

What's funny about it is the image they've chosen to illustrate 'pornographic video' with. It's been nearly a decade since VHS tapes began to be obsolete, yet BBC News appears to be telling me that the naughty trojan creators are using VHS tapes to break into my Mac.

Argh!!!

Repeats (that's, Repeats!)

According the the Guardian, Lib Dem culture spokesman Don Foster has criticised broadcasters for scheduling repeats over Christmas.

Which is hilarious as Don Foster made the exact same claim last year, citing the exact same percentages. Looks like TV is doing better than Mr Foster's 100% repeat rate this year...

Ban the TV Licence ... but then what?

We live is a mutually-supportive society. You don't just pay for the bits you want; you pay what you can afford so that we all have a good standard of living. It's how you were born, it's how you'll be looked after when you get old, it's how we avoid a situation where a nurse has to rifle through your wallet before they operate on you. Yet some people take real issue against the TV licence and think their lives would be immeasurably better if they just paid for the stuff they want.

The first thing to remember though is what the TV licence money is spent on. It doesn't just pay for two terrestrial channels, five digital channels, four national radio stations, a stack of local and digital radio stations and bbc.co.uk. It also pays for the infrastructure that allows you to watch other channels. For instance, it funds the facilities Channel Four use to broadcast through. It pays for the rental of studio facilities that other companies like ITV use part-time that, without that financial input from the BBC, wouldn't be able to be sustained. The licence fee is something that is finely balanced and its removal would undermine British broadcasting, which is why anyone who argues for the abolition of the licence fee hasn't done their homework - or has an ulterior motive (at a guess, profit at the expense of what you want). Murdoch might think he could do without a BBC monopoly, but he couldn't provide the services needed in the UK, and he has no interest in doing so either. Just look at the amount of homegrown quality drama on his channels.

Okay, have you finished doing that? Good.

It was decided long ago that the BBC gets all the licence fee and the commercial sector gets all the advertising. This is why you don't get commercial advertising on licence-fee-funded BBC services (you think you do? Look again - you don't. BBC Worldwide and UK TV are not licence-fee-funded). By ensuring that the BBC doesn't take revenue from advertisers during its broadcasts, this allows ITV, Sky and other commercial networks to survive. This is also why the BBC's audience share is more important than ratings - if the BBC gets a 50% share - wow, great. If it gets a 60% share - bad news. This would damage the other channels. Which is why the BBC has to provide both populist entertainment AND niche special interest programmes. If it only did big commercial programmes, it would damage British TV irreperably - not least because it would cease to serve the whole nation by trying to ensure there's at least something on that will interest you enough times of the year.

Your TV licence also pays for services that you might not use yourself, but would be grossly unfair to leave to subscription. Why should only deaf people pay for the technology for subtitling, when hearing people don't need it yet but might in the future? What about children's TV? They can't pay for that, so who does? We do, to ensure that the benefits we enjoyed while growing up are there for the next generation, for past generations no longer in the workplace and people who through no fault of their own are unable to work, such as the disabled.

Part of the licence fee is also invested in the future - there's an entire division called 'future media & technology' which develops things like the iPlayer (which, as I mentioned before, you don't actually need a TV licence for, if you don't actually watch live streamed content on it, even though your TV licence paid for it - neat, eh?). Your TV licence pays for BBC archives to be able to store these programmes for future use, although it *doesn't* wholly pay for restoration - that's partly funded by BBC Worldwide and other commercial BBC services to ensure they can continue to export programmes and make them commercially available. It also *doesn't* pay for you to see the programmes again and again for free; outside of a window of about 18 months, you need to pay for the rights to rebroadcast a programme again, which is why we get endless repeats of 'Two Pints of Lager' (covered by a current rights agreement to broadcast within a specific period of time) but don't get many terrestrial repeats of old dramas from the 1970s, because the cost of paying the writers and actors is just too high to do that very often.

On a sidenote there, it's funny how much importance is being placed on the BBC using repeats to cover the shortfall of the licence fee settlement. People want to see classic comedies and dramas... but apparently don't want repeats. Apparently, a repeat is another chance to see something you didn't want to see in the first place, while classic TV is, er, 'Only Fools and Horses' and 'Doctor Who', which remain the most-requested programme for repeats, despite being commercially available and despite them never getting particularly huge ratings when they are repeated. Like so much of television, even repeats are a special interest.

Just a final bit of maths here. If you only watch 'Doctor Who' and 'Doctor Who Confidential' and nothing else on any other channel, then if we apply the iTunes business model, you've watched the equivalent of £49.14 of content for just 13 weeks of TV. If you were to only watch the equivalent amount of TV hours (just 90 minutes) every week throughout the year, your iTunes bill would come to £196.56.

If your kids watch 'Totally Doctor Who' too, that goes up to £71.82 for the duration of its run, that goes up to £294.84 (iTunes charges the same for a 30-minute TV show as it does for a 50-minute one). Now, factor in all the other shows you might want to watch that have an interview with John Barrowman, or David Tennant, or "Children in Need' specials and that comes to...

Oh, wait, iTunes doesn't have any British shows. Anyone got any other ideas for how we can pay for this stuff?

Jim Does Comic Rellef Does Fame Academy

I love TV, unashamedly, and I'm fascinated by the illusions it creates. For instance, the huge, glitzy stages and uber-confident stars.



Last night, I went with a friend to see the recording of Comic Relief Does Fame Academy. We'd tried to get in on Saturday night - when Girls Aloud and Sugababes were performing live - but, understandably, it was oversubscribed, so we got priority tickets for another night. Our favourite, Mel Giedroyc, had been voted out on Sunday (travesty!), so we'd decided to throw our support behind Tara Palmer-Tomkinson, whose fragile, delicate performance has won over so many people. She's a bit sharp and tuneless at times, but we love seeing someone cry on National TV.

Tara sang Keane's 'Somewhere Only We Know', playing the piano too. She got thrown by the poor playback in the studio and wavered a little, but when she finished, we started chanting her name. Then the judges began to quickly decimate her confidence and we started chanting in support - which overwhelmed her and she began to cry.

Yes, we made an It-girl cry. How low did we feel? Er... not much really, because we're British and we're a fickle audience.

Sports commentator Ray Stubbs gave up on singing and talked his way through 'Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick', an act so brazen we of course loved it.

I shouldn't have gone out. I'd been feeling ill all day and today I'm down with a (hopefuly only 24-hour) bug. But really, it was a lot of fun and my mate kept me laughing all night. You can hear him shouting all the way through the edition... yes, my flatmate recorded it.

Oh no... not again...

So, my new job involves working with archive material. I started on 2 January and I'm with a very lovely team of people who all want to work hard and do their best. It's amazing how being placed on a project with funding, purpose, future direction and a lot of love can do wonders for the sense of self-worth. I still get very down about the usual relationship issues but generally my work-mood has been up-up-UP!

Except...

We've discovered something that's a teensy bit upsetting about the past. See, people were racist - openly so - none of your coded could-be-just-institutional-racism that we saw in recent weeks with Big Brother. No, this is open sneering from a travelogue reporter about the locals. It's marginalised stereotyping. It's..

BLACKING UP!

I'm old enough to remember The Black & White Minstrel Show from the 1970s, just before Bill Cotton took it off, and to be honest, I was more concerned by how boring it was, and I still am. Still, it's history and as Spike Lee's film Bamboozled shows, there's still a lot of talent involved in those minstrel shows, even if the stereotypes we saw weren't hardworking 'Negro' entertainers but fat Welshmen with sponge wigs and cole-face makeup.

But some of my colleagues do get very worried by the fact that archive TV can be seen as 'A History of People Blacking Up', and it's easy to see why. It's partly guilt that our forefathers let this kind of thing happen for so long, it's partly because anything naughty can trigger inappropriate giggles in ourslves and it's partly because the Great British Public likes nothing better than a good moan at our expense. Moan because we show this kind of stuff. Moan because we don't show it at all any more. Moan because there are too many repeats. Moan because the TV's not as good as it used to be.

We're taking the approach that this is how TV was and that such material will receive suitable warnings before it's made available to the public, but we're still on edge.

And then yesterday, I watched a programme starring a much-loved fox-shaped puppet. First gag - 'What has 22 yellow legs and four wings? - A Chinese football team.

Oh, Basil - how could you?!

Ch-ch-changes. Ish

So, from January I have a new job. Farewell to online communities and hello TV and Radio archives. Okay, I'm a freak who gets excited about writing up metadata for archive streams of 1950s news reels about The Colonies. In February, I'll have been with this employer for five years on the one project, and while it's something I still very much love, I just don't have the energy to keep battling for resources that never come. Those problems still exist on the new job, but at least it's someone else's fight now.

But...

because of a lack of desk space with the new team, my new desk is going to be... my old one. I'll still be sitting with my old team at the same desk, but doing different work. I think I would have liked a complete fresh start, but it's a decent compromise, and hopefully by April they'll have moved into a bigger space and be able to welcome me with open arms. or at least a cuppa.

News, not quite as it happens

Next to my desk at work is a small TV monitor so we can watch News 24 in case of major news stories. But because we work in an open-plan office, we have to keep the sound down. It means that sometimes we get the headlines from one story, with pictures from another, or sometimes the odd headline that just cracks us up.

A few weeks ago, David Cameron tried to maul Tony Blair with a few terrier nips, some of his focus-grouped soundbites designed to hide the real policies of the Tories and give away the fact that they agree with labour most of the time. As BBC News 24 showed us the footage, the rolling headlines gave us this little gem:



Of course, in the interests of balance, the headline was still there for the reverse shot of Blair:



As debates go, it was a bit of a train crash for both sides. I'd imagine. I couldn't hear it.

Sometimes, News TV offers up an unexpected treat, such as this expert on Climate Change (what we used to call 'the ozone's being fucked by big factories but my aerosol is getting the blame' in the old days). Fans of the TV sitcom Friends might remember one of Phoebe Buffay's old pseudonyms and get why I think this is so funny.



This reminds me of one of a sketch from The Day Today in which Gerry Adams (played by Steve Coogan) was undermined by having to breathe in helium before delivering his speech. How clever to get a man called 'Felangi' to be a TV pundit on global warming. Makes us feel like it's not even happening, doesn't it?