THE entire population of London was about to be vaporized by some fang-faced space merkin called The Meep at the height of Saturday night’s Doctor Who frenzy.
A prospect that seemed to alarm the cast a lot more than the vast bulk of the viewers, who probably thought the surly, self-important, grid-locked nightmare of a place has had it coming since the last great fog of 1952.
Well, I certainly did anyway, and if you think I’m blurring the lines between fiction and reality rather stupidly there, you’re right.
But it was nothing compared with the liberties the BBC took with The Star Beast, which marked Russell T Davies’s return to the show-running position he last occupied in the noughties.
My naive assumption here was that he’d been brought back to save Doctor Who from the unbearably preachy reign of Chris Chibnall.
But no. As an upright Davros at Children In Need hinted and this first wretched episode confirmed, he’s actually here to make it even more insufferably woke.
READ MORE ON DOCTOR WHO
To try to ease the initial pain of this horrific procedure, I suspect, he’s also brought back the tenth Doctor, David Tennant, and his old assistant Donna Noble, played by Catherine Tate, who’s forgotten everything that happened in the last 15 years, including, presumably, Queen Of Oz, the lucky sod.
In the intervening years, however, Donna has acquired the only sort of family TV people really find acceptable these days (a mixed-race one) and a trans daughter Rose, whose unofficial position as Gallifrey’s Chief Pronouns Enforcer is undermined by just one teeny-tiny detail.
Yasmin Finney, who’s hopelessly miscast in the role, cannot act. Not even a little bit.
Not even as much, in fact, as the garden shed where the stuffed Daleks are kept, or the wooden Cyberman Matt Smith saw off in 2013.
Most read in News TV
Before I come back to that issue, however, I should mention there was a semblance of a plot on Saturday’s show involving some intergalactic beef between The Meep, who was voiced by the far more chilling Miriam Margolyes, and the Wrarth Warriors, all of which was resolved, inside an hour, with the usual flurry of button pressing and sci-fi balls.
“Tripledrive the particle Manifesto.” “Overstep the umbilical feed.” “Inculcate the plexitrons.” And do The Hucklebuck.
Despite all that nonsense, I can honestly say this was still the most unnerving episode of Doctor Who I’ve watched since I was about seven.
Why? Because following the opening scene, where a gigantic spaceship crashed into London, it wasn’t this incident Donna’s family discussed.
The burning issue was in fact whether it was sexist to describe Rose as “gorgeous” when they hadn’t during Rose’s years as Justin.
It’s an important topic, I guess, when the world is about to be fried.
As is, apparently, establishing that as well as wanting to destroy humanity, The Meep cannot be trusted one inch on account of being transphobic and must be vanquished with a chant of “binary, non-binary, binary”.
On what planet, you ask? Planet BBC, obviously, where, in the name of diversity, it’s cut and pasted the same rigid, uncompromising horse-s**t agenda across everything from dramas and the soaps to comedy shows, news and even what are supposed to be children’s shows like Doctor Who.
It’s a creative and ratings death for all these programmes, obviously, and though London may have been saved on Saturday, the BBC will eventually torch itself with the glow of self-satisfaction if it continues to poke licence-payers in the chest and tell them they’re sexist, racist, homophobic, transphobic monsters when they’re really just people who want to be entertained.
So thoroughly brainwashed is the Beeb by the woke cult, though, I see no grounds for optimism beyond one possibly barbed line Russell T Davies managed to slip into the script when Donna invited the Doctor to attend Rose’s school play: “Well, maybe not that. She can’t act, she’s terrible. I don’t know how to tell her.”
Don’t worry, Donna. Leave it with me.
Unexpected morons in the bagging area
CELEBRITY Mastermind, Clive Myrie: “Wilhelm is the German form of what English first name?”
Andy Goldstein: “Philip.”
Clive Myrie: “In the 1834 novel Rookwood, based on the legend of Dick Turpin, what animal is Black Bess?”
Gemma Bradley: “A bear.”
And The Chase: Celebrity Special, Bradley Walsh: “Pedestal, bladeless and ceiling are types of what electric cooling device?”
Laura Hamilton: “A fridge.”
Random irritations
I’M A Celeb devising challenges their £1.5million signing Nigel Farage isn’t allowed to perform “on medical grounds”.
Professional victim Nella Rose denouncing cultural appropriation while sitting next to her Australian bushman’s hat.
ITV failing to edit out that foghorning nuisance Sam Thompson.
Alex Scott saying “texes” instead of texts.
And ITV’s cheap and cheerless Cary Grant biopic, Archie, crashing and burning because the incidental characters could not have looked less like Grace Kelly and Mae West if they were played by Lorraine Kelly and Rose West.
GRACE DOES AN ALBERT
FOLLOWING nine gruelling days without a Michelin-starred dinner, Grace Dent quit I’m A Celebrity . . . Get Me Out Of Here! having told viewers: “I’m just keeping a face on for everybody.”
Whose face was it, though?
Readers’ suggestions varied wildly and unflatteringly, but you all agreed it was “Albert Steptoe” by the time Grace quit.
Two days later, Jamie Lynn Spears also walked, which confirmed my belief this year’s female contestants are a peculiarly feeble bunch, crying, huffing, sucking their thumbs, ducking challenges and generally giving the impression they’ve considered nothing beyond the appearance fee and resulting publicity.
Grace, of course, earns her living writing restaurant reviews for The Guardian, the anti-Semite’s paper of choice.
By signing up for I’m A Celeb though, she gave the game away and let it be known it wasn’t really the job that switched her on, it was the desperate pursuit of C-list fame.
Whether her jungle stint has given her pause for thought isn’t clear, but her farewell message to campmates either ended with a very egotistical flourish or a painful question: “I love you all. Miss Grace Dent.”
I don’t. Not even for one second.
INCIDENTALLY, if you’ve felt the nagging absence of something in your television life since August, it’ll be filled by TalkSPORT, Monday, 6am, with the broadcasting return of the one and only Jeff Stelling.
TV name of the week was the accounting assistant on Sky Documentaries’ brilliant football film Stasi FC, Edina Korner.
Lookalike of the week
SAY what you like about him, the success of far-right candidate Geert Wilders does at least mean we all know what Deal Or No Deal host Stephen Mulhern will look like aged 60.
Sent in by C Sinclair, Mid Wales.
Great sporting insights
GARY NEVILLE: “Trent’s first touch was perfect, his second even better.”
Caroline Barker: “Let’s talk about the game that’s probably still going on, the Brighton result.”
And Peter Drury: “We have to remember, Premier League players are essentially human beings.”
(Compiled by Graham Wray)
TV GOLD
ALEX NORTON’S brilliantly understated performance in BBC1’s Two Doors Down.
Ronnie O’Sullivan: The Edge Of Everything on Amazon Prime.
The priceless look on Stephen Mangan and Cathy Newman’s smug faces when Ed Byrne beat them on The Weakest Link.
And Sky Documentaries’ superb one-off Stasi FC, which details the rise of Dynamo Berlin and the fall of the Berlin Wall, which should be watched by every fan who mistakenly believes their club has been the victim of a conspiracy.
(Except fans of Aberdeen, who really have been cheated out of almost everything since 1986. Obviously.)
GREAT TV lies and delusions of the month.
I’m A Celeb, Britney’s sister: “My name is Jamie Lynn Spears, I’m best known for being an actress and a singer.”
Celebrity Mastermind: “Rosie Jones, comedian and national treasure.”
And I’m A Celeb, Nella Rose: “I’ve never started something in my life and finished it.”
A McHappy Meal says she’s lying.
CHARLOTTE In Sunderland, Charlotte’s boyfriend Jake Ankers: “If someone had said to me at 16, this is where you’ll be at, buying expensive vehicles, opening a restaurant, having a beautiful daughter and a beautiful partner . . . ”
They’d have been lying about the last bit.
Read More on The Sun
FOR all those wondering about the stage name of the unfortunate Wu-Tang Clan associate featured in BBC Three’s horrific documentary The Rapper Who Chopped His Penis Off, it was “Christ Bearer”.
But it’s now Kanye Wazz.
https://www.thesun.co.uk/feed/
Michael Shersby
