Friday's Newsnight Review

Following Thursday's (17 Mar) edition of The Culture Show on BBC2, the same channel gave even more intellectual credence to Doctor Who when Friday's (18 Mar) Newsnight Review (11pm GMT) devoted eight minutes to a discussion about the return of the programme. Host Mark Lawson was joined by best-selling novelist Ian Rankin, critic and writer Bonnie Greer plus Professor John Carey, the chief book reviewer for The Sunday Times, for a lively - and at times heated - analysis of the show. All three men were obviously fond of Doctor Who, whereas Greer, admitting she had "no idea what this is all about", came across as quite hostile towards it. It could even be argued that she was unwilling to suspend her disbelief and use her imagination. A lengthy clip from (I guess) Rose was shown, in which Billie Piper's character asks the Doctor "Who are you?" and he gives an evasive, yet spine-tinglingly revealing response. The reviewers, perhaps forgetting most of us haven't seen the show yet, gave spoilers galore, none of which shall be repeated here, but Rankin was very enthusiastic about the new-look show, saying: "It's got something for everyone. They've updated it very well." Greer, however, wailed: "The thing looks really cheap . . . The stories are all over the place. Who is this for? Is it for my generation? Is it for fortysomethings? Is it for babies? . . . They haven't made up their mind who they're talking to. That's the big problem for me." She added: "The acting is wonderful, the writing is wonderful, but it looks thin, it just looks cheap." Carey leapt to the show's defence, saying: "The cheapness is part of the point. It's very British. The fact that it's done on a shoestring is very important. It's self-mocking. It's not to be taken too seriously. In my opinion, the cheap things were the best things." Rankin was quick to point out, however, that "compared to the early Doctor Whos the effects are not cheap in this. It's a series that's been waiting for digital, the age, to come along. It's been waiting for CGT so they can actually do some of the effects that would have been impossible." He added that the teaser they had been shown for the second episode "looks absolutely fantastic - it looks like Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Very camp. Full of fantastic aliens. I think it will be a big hit." Greer, however, said it resembled a movie storyboard, and said there was nobody in it, nobody on the street. But Carey countered this by saying that the show failed when it went the other way - "The further they get away from trying to explain where all the mystery is, the better it is. The empty streets and the cheapness don't matter," he said. Lawson revealed that the show was a hit when put to a "sofa test" of children, saying that they reacted exactly as they were supposed to, were fascinated by who Doctor Who was, and wanted to see the rest of the episodes. One thing that Greer, Lawson and Rankin were in agreement on was that Eccleston was an excellent choice to play the Doctor, with Lawson saying that he had "a sense of danger", Greer commenting on his "incredible face" and Rankin saying that Eccleston was the best Doctor since Patrick Troughton, whom he referred to as the last "really good edge-of-craziness Doctor". Carey, however, said that he found Eccleston "too ordinary". A transcript of the Newsnight Review panel's opinions of new Who will be available here, although probably not for about a week. (Thanks to John Bowman)