Doctor Who and the Blunted Sharpness of Media Criticism

I still read every issue of Doctor Who Magazine as it comes out, and have been doing so regularly since the nineties. I think it's a remarkable publication - more than 600 issues and decades of reviews, analysis, interviews and comics - and it's as strong as it ever was.

Having read it for so long, I do see how it has changed over the years. And there is still a lot to admire - the design team have been consistently strong, and some of the most recent covers are as striking as ever, getting a lot out of the limited number of photos of William Hartnell they might have. But the general tone of the magazine has also evolved, sometimes in strange and unexpected ways.

I'm generally on board with all the changes, the entire concept of Dr Who is built around the idea of regeneration and moving with the times. But I do wish it was a little bit meaner, like it used to be.

I do genuinely believe the publication was at its best in the wilderness years - with no TV show to preview and pore over, the magazine turned more introspective, and was filled with essays and articles about what it all meant. But it was also a time when they didn't have to play nicely with the BBC to ensure they kept up their extraordinary access to the production of the show, and could more easily acknowledge the faults of the thing they loved.

They could get particularly scathing about Dr Who's old producers, especially when they were picking away at sacred cows, and the reviews of the New Adventures books got downright nasty at times.

But then the show came back in 2005, and there was definitely more of a celebratory tone which has grown and almost calcified. And 21 years later, there is no room for rampant miserabilism any more.  They'll find something nice to say about even the worst Big Finish audio - and some of them are objectively awful - and the latest season of the TV show is always the greatest ever.  

It's not just in the rarified airs of Doctor Who fandom - all the music magazines I respect rarely give five stars to new music, but they don't get one either, it's almost all in the usual 3 or 4 stars range. And I miss the regular meanness of the Comics Journal, arguing about things that feel like dust in the wind now, but were so important at that time. While I do occasionally see sparks of the old viciousness, I still feel remorse for the fact we never got a full on scathing obituary of Stan Lee from Gary Groth. 

People are, obviously, as mean as ever, and you can see that online every day. But the more mainstream things get, the more those sharp edges are filed off, even though it's often the sharpness that make you feel something in the first place.