The BBC has binned its planned Doctor Who Christmas special and put the show ‘out to tender’. This is a face-saving TV industry term for saying you’ve kicked an ailing show into the longest of grass, but don’t want to enrage its most rabid fans. Good luck with that, chaps. Essentially it translates as ‘Somebody please, please take this nightmare off our hands’. It’s like one of those Facebook ads you see for a dog that needs rehousing because it barks all night, gnaws on toddlers, and has no control of its bowels, but is a total sweetie, honestly.

I’d put Doctor Who on ice for at least a decade

I’d put Doctor Who on ice for at least a decade

If by some bizarre quirk of circumstance I found myself the unwilling owner of the tender, I’d put Doctor Who on ice for at least a decade. Much has been written in the past few days about what happened to poor old Doctor Who, how the thing was revived in glory and then retoxified in shame. As a former writer on Doctor Who, I was actually in the room when some of the mistakes were made. I offer the following suggestions – in a reflective but constructive spirit – for anybody barmy enough to take the thing on. (And yes, I broke many of these ‘rules’ myself, but I know better now.)

1. The character is called Dr Who, but nobody in the fiction knows that, probably not even him, so within it he’s referred to as ‘the Doctor’. But his name is Dr Who. The public know this, and the public is always right. Correcting the public on this obvious point – and........

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