Twenty years on from its spectacular revival it looks like Doctor Who might not be returning to our screens again in the immediate future. I haven’t actually watched Doctor Who for a long time, but because I wrote an awful lot of it for years – on TV, but also books, comics, radio plays, yogurt pot labels, you name it – people always ask me what I think should become of it. My answer? I’d cancel it and flee for the hills.
Doctor Who was born in an age when we didn’t need to rabbit on about our ‘values’
Twenty years is an incredible run, almost equalling its original marathon from 1963 to 1989. In TV parlance, it needs to be ‘rested’.
Stepping back from a thing enables you to see it from the outside, which has been quite a jolt. I’ve seen Doctor Who whizzing by from the corner of my eye for years now, the way others see it.

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