Wickham's musings from Chalke

 
I've watched the new episodes so far and even after the first programme I thought that it was far too scary for young children. Dr Who is screened at 7 pm on Saturday when many kids will be watching. Years ago Dr Who had children hiding behind sofas but these episodes are worse. The second episode was about ghosts in Victorian England in damp, dark cellars. Mothers were phoning the BBC afterwards complaining that it was too frightening.

I like way-out sci-fi programmes. I was a Red Dwarf fan which was just stupidly funny and not a bit frightening. Dr Who is more emotional as there's obviously a kind of love between Dr Who and Rose but it isn't sexual. She has entrusted herself to him and he feels he needs her as a travelling companion and wants to look after her.

Last Saturday's programme was about Rose's wish to see how her father died, which had happened when she was just a baby. She found herself watching a car crash but was frozen to the spot and couldn't manage to go to his aid. She asked Dr Who to take her back a second time and this time she rushed forward to push him out of the way of the car. Since she had interfered with the process of time this unleashed strange large bats which were killing everyone to repair the damage to the time line.

They were holed up in a church with the bats swooping around outside and Rose's father kept looking out of the window and seeing a car come round the corner and the driver put his arm up to shield his face, whereupon the car disappeared. He realised that he was supposed to be in front of the car and ran out in front of it next time it reappeared to fulfill his destiny. Rose rushed out to comfort him as he died and the bats disappeared.

It was powerful stuff with Rose in tears at several points in the programme. Too much for young children I should think, especially any who happened to have lost a father in an accident.