Doctor Who

For the love of humanity, could someone please shoot Russell T. Davies?

He and his crew have taken what used to be a one-of-a-kind romp through science fiction, politics, social commentary, and droll humor and turned it into -- a TV show.

How can you even approach the plot complexities of the original Doctor Who when your standard episode lasts 45 minutes (half what the standard-length episode used to be)? And the one "two-parter" (i.e. 90 minutes -- the old standard) I have seen made lousy use of the extra time exploring the interpersonal relationships of the Doctor's companion and how they're affected by gallivanting away through space and time.

You know what interpersonal relationships were like in the original series? They were all with people who were also in the damn TARDIS. That's what going off on a frigging voyage of discovery is all about: you're cutting the ties with the mundane and heading out to see something new, something different, not the same ugly-ass council flats ("public housing" or "projects" for those of us in the U.S.) you grew up in and (if you have any sense at all) despise.

Do we get little vignettes about Robinson Crusoe's wife and how she's coping with his absence sprinkled through the novel of the same name? Does Captain Nemo duck back up through twenty thousand leagues of sea every damn chapter to check on his home life? No, because Daniel Defoe and Jules Verne knew what's actually important to a frigging story.

Given what BBC Wales has done to a cherished childhood memory, I'm glad Edward Longshanks (the bad guy in Braveheart, remember?) invaded Wales, burned all their towns, killed all their leaders, and ran off with all their vowels.

I only wish he'd run across Russel T. Davies's great-whatever-grandfather, and then run him through.

I guess I'll have to wait until I can hop aboard some sort of time-(etc.)machine, and do it myself.