BBC slammed for doing nothing with Doctor for decades | MarkMeets | Celebrity News, Music, Movies, TV, London Film Premieres

Doctor Who boss Steven Moffat has criticised BBC bosses for axing the sci-fi show in the 1980s.

Michael Grade, then BBC1 controller, made the decision to “rest” the series. but the show is now celebrating its 50th birthday this Saturday with a celebratory episode, The Day Of The Doctor, featuring Matt Smith and former Doctor David Tennant.

Executive producer Steven told the Radio Times: “What can one say about 50 years of Doctor Who? Well, first of all, one can be pedantic.

“Doctor Who hasn’t been on for 50 years – owing to the outright stupidity and unforgivable blindness of the BBC (sorry guys, it needs to be said), t here was a 16-year gap.”

He added: “That gap is important though. It confers something very special on this most special of all shows, immortality. Doctor Who… is the show that comes back. Axe it at your peril. Someone like me is going to call you a fool.”

Lord Grade previously defended his decision to drop the show: “My argument with the producer was that the same audience watching Doctor Who was watching Star Wars and ET. The show was ghastly. It was pathetic. It just got more and more violent; they resorted to the most horrific hangings. It was just horrible to watch. It lost its way.”

He wrote in Steve Berry’s book Behind The Sofa: Celebrity Memories of Doctor Who: “Now the production values are high, the scripts are witty, it’s full of i nvention. And digital effects today enable you to do so much more. The only connection it has with its previous life is the title and the premise, but it’s light years ahead.”

BBC director-general Tony Hall told the magazine that “it was the BBC who reinvented” the show “with some of the best acting and writing on television anywhere in the world.”

Meanwhile, former Doctor Who David Tennant said that returning to the programme for the one-off appearance in The Day Of The Doctor felt like waking up out of a dream.

“The first day I arrived, the costume’s hanging there like it used to every day. It feels like ‘where have I been? Have I just woken out of a dream?”’, he said.

John Hurt, who has a starring role in the 50th anniversary episode, said that he was not a fan of the original series.

“I don’t think I saw the first episode and I think it escaped me for quite a long time. It was a kiddies’ programme, or it was assumed to be. It was known basically for the fact that all the scenery used to fall over,” he said.

He said recently “I love Doctor Who fans,” he says, “and I am a Doctor Who fan, but the show is not targeted at them. And to be fair most of them say: ‘For God’s sake don’t make it for us.’ They want it to be successful. They don’t want it to be a niche thing, because then it would die.”

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