This has to stop....
There are people (..... not real people.... people in my head...) and they say to me: "Who cares, it's just a kids show... it's not for you..." But it isn't a kid's show - my kids have no idea what's going on with Doctor Who. Instead it's become a Baudrillardian spectacle... no content, no meaning, no sense.... just a lurch from one grand spectacle to the next. Love, loss, loneliness, death... all subsumed under a narrative drive towards individual fragmentary moments that are like y'know... really "cool"...
Let's take last night: "Let's Kill Hitler":
The Nazis are a staple in Doctor Who. The Daleks are allegorical Nazis...you don't need me to tell you this. So the good Doctor has metaphorically already taken on the Nazis - he's even already done that classic 'Would you kill Hitler if you had a time machine?' dilemma, way back in 1975's 'Genesis of The Daleks' (he bottled it). So there it is... it's been done... Davros... Hitler... done it.... So surely.... coming face to face with the real Hitler.... that's upping the stakes right... ? Bold stuff... "Doctor Who Meets Hitler!"....
But.... they.... put ... him .... in .... a..... cupboard.....
Can you imagine Hartnell or Baker or Ecclestone meeting Hitler eye to eye and having nothing to say? But the dynamics of the episode demanded that they had to get rid of him. He'd become an embarrassment. There was no reason for him to be in the episode. He'd served his purpose: A walk-on, a single gag. Someone else, someone who the episode really hinged upon, who was integral to the personal histories of every single major character, someone who actually WE HAD NEVER HEARD MENTIONED BEFORE, needed to crash a sportscar, wave a gun and say "Hey, Let's kill Hitler"..... just to show they're like really cool..... and that was it. That was why he was there.
(Oh, and Rory got to punch him.... Rory's agent has done better this series. He's stopped insisting upon a death scene every episode and now demands one 'really cool' moment instead.. And River Song got to do a bit of Nazi-chic... always sound ground in any context..)
So, whereas the Daleks allowed an allegorical exploration of Nazism, Hitler himself is used for a few gags and a bit of fisticuffs and instead we get something akin to a stage farce: characters slip in and out of the time stream, much as they would rush in and out of the conservatory doors, with mistaken identities and larks aplenty.
I've lost it... I don't care anymore... and y'know...I'm one of those people who will cling on whatever... if I don't care... well....
I went to a festival yesterday. The "Kidstival" bit was all Doctor Who themed. My kids went on a Doctor Who mystery trail. There were wonky Daleks and a bloke in a curly wig and a scarf... This is our culture... it matters...