OPINION
The James Bond franchise has recently been handed over to Amazon (Image: Getty Images,)
And so farewell then, . And also . After 60years with the Broccoli family, 007 has passed into the hands of Amazon, while the Doctor seems to have landed his Tardis on Planet Indifference.
In some weird psychological melodrama that we will probably never understand, Russell T Davies quite brilliantly revived the show in 2005, but seems to have spent the last few years trying to destroy it.
Gay rights, trans issues, a female Doctor – guess what, folks? The viewers hated it and have been deserting it in droves.
Whoda-thunk it?
Although they are such different characters – a lothario assassin versus a humanity-loving space traveller – and the Doctor have always had a strange link in the public eye.
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When a new one was announced, it made headlines, apart, perhaps, from the Doctor’s most recent incarnation in
That is no reflection on him, merely the fact that by the time he wielded the sonic screwdriver, most people were so sick of the show’s recent preoccupations, that they just didn’t care any more.
Both were quintessentially British and both, even Bond, were entirely on the side of good. And both have been destroyed by exactly the same trend: identity politics.
made a very strong start with Casino Royale, but since then his version of the spy has been to play him as Hamlet. I won’t reveal too much about the last Bond film, other than to say it looked like a deliberate attempt to destroy the franchise, but suffice to say he is settled down with a child.
Sorry, but that is not Bond. It may be a spy for the 21st century, but Bond it ain’t.
Christopher Eccleston as the Ninth Doctor (Image: BBC)
Similarly, we do not want Doctor Who agonising about trans issues. We want him out there fighting the Daleks and Cyber-men.
And we don’t want a gay Doctor either. Many of my closest friends, etc, but that is just not who the Doctor is, any more than he is a woman. He isn’t. And you know what they say… “go woke, go broke”.
It’s ironic that these two characters have been felled just as the tide finally seems to be turning as we are all sick to death of these issues being forced down our throat.
Across the pond, almost single-handedly seems to be changing the dialogue: could he be the unlikely saviour of these two? He may come across more Bond villain than hero. But he may also put those two back where they belong. Watch this space.