The BBC is reporting that long time Doctor Who producer John Nathan-Turner has died after a brief (and undisclosed) illness. Nathan-Turner joined the Doctor Who staff during the second Doctor's regeneration and was responsible for injecting the anti-fanboy element known as "humor" into the show. Doctor Who was one of the first TV shows I consistently watched. 30 minutes of paper mache fun (see this week's Onion).
He was the only person be be responsible for casting three doctors (Peter Davison, Colin Baker and Sylvestor McCoy) and also presided over the death of the show. This made him pretty unpopular with some fans. I once saw him (sorry, I mean a friend of mine one saw him) at a Dr Who convention and it was obvious that he was almost universally disliked by the audience.
Re:JNT
koschei on 2002-05-03T15:13:35
Scapegoat.
No matter what one does, someone dislikes it. In cult TV shows it's usually quite bad, particularly for shows running as long as DW did. The current team is never as good as the old team in the eyes of the 'fans'. And JNT was the head for quite a bit.
It'd be nice to see what people could do with the show these days (in televisual terms, rather than the ongoing book and audio series), but no matter what someone did it would heavily criticised.
My only complaint with JNT is to do with his hawaiian shirts.
Re:JNT
Odud on 2002-05-03T19:55:35
You failed to mention what this friend of yours was dressed as...
