It’s Not Who, It’s You.

We’re just over halfway through Peter Capaldi’s first series as the incumbent Doctor, and the online community has, as always, shared a wide range of opinions on the episodes presented so far. Doctor Who wouldn’t be Doctor Who if it didn’t split opinion, and attract a wide range of praise and criticism . I have agreed with some, and disagreed with others. I would happily exclaim my delight at an episode I loved, and would be equally vociferous about an episode I didn’t. I have however found myself of late stepping back into the shadows (to paraphrase the Eleventh Doctor), not because I became too big or noisy, but because I found I had been spending more time finding things to criticise than I did actually just sitting down with a drink watching the bloody thing. I’m not a critic. There are plenty of other people paid to do that. I’m a fan.

Some criticisms I’m seeing this time round though have started to infuriate me. I have no problem whatsoever if you don’t like the storylines. I have no problem if the Twelfth Doctor isn’t for you. I don’t even have a problem if you’re not happy with the writing or the acting. These are always going to be debated, and everyone’s opinion is always valid. What I would suggest is that if you don’t like ANY of the storylines, the Doctor, the writing, acting or directing (and some commenters are even criticising the theme tune and the opening credits), then perhaps this show isn’t for you.

I was 14 years old when I first heard Radiohead’s music. It was March 1995 – their second album ‘The Bends’ had just been released, and I was at a friend’s house listening to it in silent rapture after he’d bought it from the local Our Price. I remember being taken aback by it; I had been brought up on Roxette, Phil Collins and Simply Red at home, and even when I discovered music of my own it tended to be relatively easy listening, melodic pop gubbins. My CD collection was full of Oasis, Blur, Pulp, the usual Britpop stuff. That was my ‘jam’. So to hear an album like The Bends, with Thom Yorke’s astonishing falsetto over Jonny Greenwood’s furious lead guitar, chord changes that utterly take you by surprise and a rhythm section so tight you’d swear the players were mentally connected, was more than just a breath of fresh air. It changed entirely the way I heard music.

After a few weeks of barely doing anything else but listening to The Bends, I sought out Radiohead’s earlier album, ‘Pablo Honey’. I recall being surprised at the feel of the songs immediately. They were much lighter in tone, more predictable perhaps, certainly more accessible than The Bends. It wasn’t one of the best albums I ever heard, nor did I dislike it (some of the tracks on there are among my favourite Radiohead songs), but it was instantly clear how the band had changed the direction of their music for the second album.

Two years later I, like a great many of my peers, rushed out and bought OK Computer on the day of release. I remember at the time there was much talk of people hoping for The Bends 2, as was I if I’m honest. I rushed home clutching a copy of the CD, locked myself in my room and stuck it on. It was…different. On first listen, I thoroughly enjoyed parts of it. Other parts just sounded cold, and sparse. It sounded nothing like The Bends, and I was ultimately a little disappointed. I listened again. And again. The more I listened, the more I enjoyed, with the result that to this day, OK Computer remains my all-time favourite album. I found it difficult even to write this paragraph, simply because I can’t believe there was ever a time I wasn’t utterly in love with that record.

Radiohead’s music changed again with the release of Kid A. I bought it on the same day I was going to see them play live in Warrington (in a big top, no less). I listened for the first time at the same friend’s house where I’d heard The Bends that first time. I hated it. I wasn’t just disappointed by it on first listen. I just couldn’t stand it, from the first track to the last. It had nothing of the Radiohead I’d grown to love, and if I’d thought OK Computer had been sparse in places, this just seemed to be an electronic mess. Programmed drum beats, very little in the way of thrashing, gnarled guitars, and I was searching in vain for a melody. That’s it, I thought. Radiohead’s sound had changed so much that I no longer liked them. I was gutted. I went to the gig that night thoroughly despondent, expecting to be holding my hands over my ears most of the time. It turned out to be one of the most fantastic concerts I have ever been lucky enough to attend. I don’t remember a whole lot of it, but I recall having a dance and a sing-along, moshing one minute and wiping a tear from my eye the next. These were the same songs I’d been listening to with such despair earlier that same day.

On waking the next day I listened to Kid A again. I won’t say I had instantly warmed to it, but my god did I get it. Over the next few weeks I found more and more to enjoy in the album, and similar to my experience with OK Computer, it’s now one of my favourite albums. It’s actually an astonishing record, one I would recommend to anyone who hasn’t heard it.

I should start heading to some semblance of a point.

Following Kid A, Radiohead released Amnesiac the following year, then Hail to the Thief and In Rainbows. With each release came with a new style, a new direction; they were experimental, trying to push the accepted norms when it came to rock music. Each album resulted in them gaining fans and losing fans, as the rock guitars and heavy choruses gave way to dense, trippy electronica. Although from past experiences I knew that every new album would be a challenge, I found myself after a while feeling less connected to the band and their music, and despite occasional returns to the style I had grown to love, they inevitably headed in a direction I no longer found entertaining. This came to a head with King of Limbs, an album I have tried to enjoy so many times, but to no avail. It’s very much Radiohead, it got favourable reviews, it’s a popular album with many of my fellow Radiohead fans, but it’s simply not for me. It’s not a bad album. The band haven’t lost their ability – it simply caters for an audience other than my own. This is no issue to Radiohead. They will make many, many more fans from King of Limbs than they will lose. I certainly won’t be calling for Thom Yorke’s head.

Which brings me to Doctor Who. Since the show’s first regeneration from William Hartnell into Patrick Troughton, each Doctor’s era has ushered in a new style, a new feel. There’s the young, friendly one; the old, grumpy one; the action one; the egomaniacal one, and so on. There’s the Pertwee era with a huge proportion of it based entirely on Earth. There’s the whole Colin Baker series based around the ‘Trial’. There are certain mainstays, such as the TARDIS, the companion and the Daleks et al which makes this programme what it is, but we have a different kind of Doctor and a different kind of show every time, possibly never more so than with series eight.

At the time of writing the BBC have transmitted 7 episodes of series eight. That’s 6 different writers, with their stories directed by 3 different directors. We’ve had settings in space, Victorian London, a present day school, 15th/16t Century Sherwood Forest, and inside a Dalek. We’ve seen Gallifrey (or have we?) and we’ve had pre-existing and brand new enemies for the Doctor to face. The writers have even addressed the issue I had with the last series, and they’ve made Clara a much more layered personality. If you can’t find anything you like in any of that, then there’s only a certain amount of times you can blame Steven Moffat. I’m afraid you have to consider the possibility that the common denominator here is you. Perhaps you just don’t like Doctor Who anymore. You used to, of course you did. But it changes, it evolves. It’ll change again when Capaldi eventually regenerates, or the production team is replaced. I don’t get that benefit with Radiohead. The band are the band, they’re not going to change.

I’ve recently learned a phrase which accurately describes the nature of the Twitter commenters I’ve referred to in this post. It’s known as ‘confirmation bias’. I think it’s very well summarised by this cartoon:

I would also throw in those folk who scour Twitter for posts they think matches their own in order to retweet them, and in doing so, try to prove a point. Confirmation bias is the act of ignoring anything which contradicts their own first impressions. It seems to me that there are some who have not enjoyed Doctor Who since Matt Smith left, or since David Tennant left (or, in one case I heard about, since Patrick Troughton left…) or indeed since Steven Moffat succeeded Russell T Davies as showrunner.

I’m not going to say that series eight has been perfect. Of course it hasn’t. One particular episode (Robot of Sherwood) irritated me no end. But then again I don’t recall the last series of Doctor Who that didn’t have one or two duff episodes as part of the run, and yes, I’m including series five in that. The problem is that some people are heading into the show already knowing that they want to hate it. Not everyone, obviously, but some. In doing that they’ll be looking out for anything negative, any line that doesn’t quite make sense, any plot hole which to anyone else would be barely recognisable. I saw one commenter this morning complaining that Kill The Moon didn’t accurately follow science, and therefore the episode lost credibility. This is a time-travel show, about an alien in a Police Box which is bigger on the inside who travels through time and space. There’s not a lot that follows actual science here. We can allow them a bit of creative licence.

I hate to say it, folks, but with this nihilistic outlook (regardless of who the showrunner is), you’ll never enjoy another episode again. But then, to quote that band I really used to like, ‘you do it to yourself, you do…and that’s what really hurts’.

Latersville.