Just what the Doctor ordered - brilliant article

You can read it in its entirety here; it's by Matthew Sweet, who's obviously "one of us" as he's also written scripts for Big Finish. Some of the highlights:

Quote :

... the small band of die-hards who watched Sylvester
McCoy stroll off into the sunset with a swing of his question-mark umbrella
are still pinching ourselves. Two decades ago, the BBC regarded Doctor Who
as an embarrassment ... Now the
Corporation uses the programme to justify its existence to the public and
the Government. How did this happen, exactly?

Quote :

Those elements of the revived series
that seemed most fresh in 2005 – a working-class companion with a well-
developed family background, a council-estate setting, the sense that the
Doctor's personality contained a thick streak of darkness – are all to be
found in Sylvester McCoy's last season of Doctor Who. McCoy's final story ... wouldn't require much revision to serve
as a script for Tennant.

Quote :

Davies
made explicit an idea that has haunted Doctor Who since William Hartnell
stepped out of a London fog 46 years ago – that without the influence of his
companions, the Doctor is not a nice person to be around; that he needs a
human sidekick to curb his excesses.

Quote :

I have a prediction: [the first Moffat/Smith season] will be the best season of Doctor Who ever broadcast.
But even if the public don't agree; even if the new production team discover
that when your predecessors achieve audiences of 12 million the only place
to go is down, they will not destroy Doctor Who. That's the nature of the
achievement wrought by Davies and Tennant.

It's a very well-thought-out article that really homes in on many of the things I love about the show and its mythology - and the writer seems to hold the view that I have, that there's never been a "change of command" in Doctor Who, on screen or off, that wasn't something to look forward to, just to see where the new producer/actor would take it.

Great article! I always allow myself a smug grin of vindicated satisfaction whenever someone else (especially someone "in-the-know") acknowledges how the McCoy era was, in many ways, the prototype for the modern series.

Thanks for posting that, very good article. Like the little tidbits of what's to come in '10.

I still have faith that Moffat knew what he was doing when he cast Matt Smith and as much as I loved Tennant, I'm excited to see where we go from here.

I've never looked at a change of Doctor or a change of producer as the end of the show. After hearing Moffat speak at great length on DW Confidential about how Smith completely wiped out his notion that the Doctor had to be 40ish, I'm intrigued to say the least - I want to see what Moffat saw in Smith. Someone who waited his whole life to be in charge of this show was completely wowed, I really want to be too.

Great article.