Not as bad as everyone is making out...
Fan culture is a tiresome affair sometimes. I mean that genuinely. Reading the latest batch of rumours to come through the Doctor Who filter, the same thing comes up time and time again. Someone declares their misguided idea as fact and decries Russell T Davies et al for being nothing more than idiots for not following suit. More commonly, a writer will try something new and the same ‘fan’ will try to claim that they could have handled it better then anyone at the BBC ever could.
Whilst a well meaning maniac is part and parcel of the whole sordid sci-fi affair, its grating to read these ‘fans’ claim to know more about the show than the actual creators. As if somehow sitting in your bedroom watching endless box sets and eating turkey twizzlers gives you a green card to being a show runner.
Look at Matt Smith. The forgotten Beatle has yet to have an episode air and some members of the Doctor Who community are crying for him to lynched from his spot and replaced with someone ‘old and dark’.
The reason why I bring this bile up is that I’ve just recently finished ‘And Another Thing…’ by Eoin Colfer, the sixth part of the Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. A lot of fans have been very upset about the idea of someone other than Douglas Adams writing about the adventures of Arthur Dent. This, to me, seems a bit unfair to Eoin and a bit generous to Douglas. Let’s be honest, So Long and Thanks for All the Fish was awful and Mostly Harmless wasn’t far off from being next to suicidal. Even Douglas Adams admitted that he could have written them better. When talking about the ending of Mostly Harmless, he’s quoted as saying:
People have said, quite rightly, that Mostly Harmless is a very bleak book. And it was a bleak book. I would love to finish Hitchhiker on a slightly more upbeat note.
But, no, there are those supposed fans who feel the need to talk for all of us. They hated the book and, in the case of one particular blogger, started a hate campaign before they had even read it.
For me, whilst some of the language was a tad cruder than expected, it was enlightening to see that Zaphod Beeblbrox had one head. This was something that happened in the movie too. Sam Rockwell played the Big Zee as mono-cranium. Oh, how the fans cried out! What was happening here! Why would someone do this! Where was this one you called God now!
The movie makers tried their best to deflect the blows and point out that most the script was taken from ideas by the big DA himself. And yet the ‘fans’ cried foul and took their ball home refusing to play.
Now, here, in this new book, Zaphod has one head and, once again, the ‘fans’ are upset and the publishers etc are telling them that the ideas are form Douglas’s notes.
To be honest, I like my Zaphod to have two heads but when two different types of media crop up both claiming to be based on the scribblings of the original author, I’m happy to put my hand up and say ‘fair enough’ and ‘why not?’. Is it that difficult for some ‘fans’ to think that the original creator of the show might have a better idea of what direction he wants his creations to go in than, say, the spotty goit forever furrowing his brow and banging his fists against a keyboard in sheer blind anger because the Doctor isn’t dark enough.
No doubt when David Tennant hangs up his converse at the beginning of next year, there will be a division of opinion and, in some cases, even a sigh of relief. However, amongst the chatter of like minded fans, there will be that lone beacon of pouting, sulking and megalomania and when that voice rises, we must be to do the only grown up and sensible thing we can do. We must stick our fingers in our ears and go la la la. And if that’s not grown up, we could teach them how to put their anger to better use.
