Merry Christmas, everybody. Hope you're all enjoying the festive season. I certainly have been, although my enjoyment was mildly crimped by the steaming pile of half-digested llama guts that was Dr Who- Voyage of The Damnned.



I've enjoyed most of the new version of Dr Who- I always knew it wouldn't be quite the same as the original, and there'd have to be changes- despite such abortions as the Peter Kay episode (dire beyond words). Voyage Of The Damned, on the other hand, is plain godawful.



I am not the kind of person who commonly writes letters to the papers, or anyone else. It takes a lot to get me comenting on a TV programme. However, my face, to use a phrase of Harlan Ellison's, was the colour of a Brian De Palma film by the time I'd finished enduring this abomination. So I fired one off via the BBC website. I certainly felt a lot better when I'd finished. So if anyone fancies a laugh, I reproduce it below. Be warned, it does contain spoilers. I mention this in case you want to see it and haven't yet. Apparently some people have watched VOTD and enjoyed it. Perhaps I would've too if I'd drunk more mulled wine. Or smoked crack.



"Dear BBC,



Why exactly was my licence fee wasted on this abomination? Dr Who is- or at least was- a good series, but this was an absolute waste of time. The mawkish sentimentality, the overblown amateur dramatics, OTT symbolism (the Dr holding his arms out Christ-style, to be levitated up and away by the Host? Pardon my French here, but- FFS!!), the sacrifice of characterisation and a good story in favour of a special effects bonanza. This was not the the Dr Who- in either its original or current incarnations- I knew and loved. This was Hollywood style shmaltz of the worst kind. Right down to turning Astrid into 'stardust' and the 'shooting star' image at the end. Makes Dickens' Tiny Tim look like hard-nosed fly-on-the-wall realism. I didn't know whether to be sick or call my GP to make sure I hadn't got diabetes from this overdose of treacle. Why not just have a Celine Dion theme song at the end and have done with it?!



I could have written a better script than this (and I will if you ask nicely- go on, gizza job. It's a serious offer, I've had scriptwriting experience for local radio and I could transfer it into TV work) I don't know where Russell Davies, who used to be a damned good writer, had his head when he churned out this cobblers, but wherever it is, he needs to get his bonce out of there.



Maybe it'd be an idea to slash Who's budgets. For all the wobbly sets and low-budget special effects, the best of the old Who adventures- Genesis of the Daleks, to give just one example- still hold up today. Why? Because they had pace, suspense, drama. Not to mention a hard-edged, gritty feel. Maybe if Mr Davies can't throw oodles of CGI at a weak, superficial, half-baked story, he'll have to work on THE SCRIPT and come up with something of real quality. So give him a late Xmas present of some of the old classic DVDs, and maybe some of the decent episodes he wrote, eg Parting Of The Ways, Army of Ghosts and Doomsday. Lock him up with them for a weekend, then make him watch the abortion that is Voyage of the Damned. When he stops crying, tell him to do it again and do it properly. Or commission me to do the next Xmas Special. Assuming there is one, as I strongly doubt I'm the only person furious at how a) their licence fee has been, not to put too fine a point on it, pissed up the wall, and b) a great TV series has been outright ruddy desecrated.



On the plus side, just to show I can give a balanced view, the sequence with HRH being rushed out of Buck House in her dressing gown and curlers was funny, and the only saving grace in the episode.



I'm serious re the scriptwriting!



Yours sincerely,



Simon Bestwick.



PS Any chance of a refund of whatever proportion of my licence fee was wasted on this? Every little helps at this time of year, and hey, if you don't ask, you don't get. Merry Christmas. And yes, I do feel better for that."