Television

Toronto Beckons

Once I got to Toronto I immediately got myself into radio drama, as this new world offered dozens of possibilities in those days. Everything the CBC sent to any competition invariably won and it was very difficult to get in as a young, relatively inexperienced actor.

Radio drama was also terrifying because it was broadcast live in those days—but at least we had our scripts in front of us. In rehearsal, directors would get you to do a scene over and over again. You would often do things you didn't know you could do. An actor named John Drainie gave me advice one day that I have never forgotten. We were rehearsing a fight scene and I knew I just wasn't getting it to sound right for radio. Drainie said, "Aust—you are not making any pictures. For every word that I speak on radio I make pictures in my mind. It's in colour, and that seems to get it off the page."

How I Started the Second World War

Shortly after I moved to Toronto to work for CBC Radio, I got blamed for starting the war. CBL was the "anchor" station for the network, because we broadcast news to the whole country. One day, I happened to be sitting in the CBL booth as we were playing "Smoke Gets in your Eyes." Someone came running in wild-eyed from the newsroom and handed me a piece of paper. I broke in and said, "Ladies and Gentlemen: I interrupt this program and bring you a special bulletin—Canada has declared war on Nazi Germany."

As required when announcing a bulletin of this importance, I read it a second time.

"Ladies and Gentlemen: I interrupt this program and bring you a special bulletin—Canada has declared war on Nazi Germany."

After making this grave declaration, I returned to regular programming. On this day, unfortunately, it meant listeners digesting the ominous news were served up an utterly ridiculous but popular novelty tune: "Inka Dinka Doo." (The Financial Post later reported that "incredible stupidity had been shown by Canada's state-owned broadcasting...with no sense of the sober gravity" that the announcement warranted.)

From that time on, I appeared in books as having started the war.

The miracle has happened again.

I’m often asked what I thought was the secret to Doctor Who’s longevity. My answer then is the same as my answer now: its ability to regenerate.

Not just the main character, although that’s useful too, of course. But in truth the best thing about Doctor Who is that it finds itself for a while, continues along in a house style . . . and then throws it all away, often while the going is still good. Of course, this can be traumatic to many fans, who often love the show because of what it is. But it’s also a very necessary part of Doctor Who’s long-term survival.

Here we see perhaps the second-biggest change in Doctor Who’s history, after its 2005 return. It’s not just a female Doctor, which is a relatively minor change by this point, having been trialled in various ways throughout the Capaldi era with a lot of groundwork preparing the way. No, it’s far more than that. This looks unlike any previous Doctor Who. There’s no opening credits, no continuity, the aspect ratio is different, the camera lenses are different, and the grim Sheffield setting is a far cry from the previous Earthbound settings. Even the Coming Soon trailer simply shows the guest stars for the season, with almost no giveaways. The Doctor is a member of a team, with a procedural approach to problem-solving and minimal outright heroics.

I confess that I don’t watch much other TV. I only care about Doctor Who. So maybe this looks just like every other show out there (I’ll never know), but Series Eleven looks nothing like what’s come before in Doctor Who, which I think is stupendous. The weakest aspect is the writing, as the plot is light and misses some obvious tricks but I was so swept away by the charm, the likeability and the visuals that it simply didn’t bother me.

The new team is resolutely ordinary. When confronted with the possibility of aliens, they consult bus drivers, nurses and social media. The person with the most standout success in life is a junior police officer on probation. And the Doctor is fairly ordinary as well. She’s bereft of all the accoutrements of her predecessors: no TARDIS, no sonic screwdriver; even her pockets are empty. And so she has to rebuild both her character and her accessories from scratch: she gets down and dirty in a workshop to make a new screwdriver, steadily grows to accept who she is and creates a portal to the next planet where her TARDIS supposedly is.

And yet, despite this ordinariness, Whittaker is utterly fantastic. The thirteenth Doctor is immediately likeable, bouncing into her friends’ lives and walking them through every situation. She’s not condescending, openly admits when she’s wrong and makes space for her friends. Oh, and the new outfit just adds to the charm: she’s a big kid. Just like all the other Doctors.

Doctor Who is dead. Long live Doctor Who.