Dr Who in trouble again

A couple of weeks ago I posted about the heat Dr Who was drawing from right-wingers angered by the anti-war theme of its Christmas special. Since then the good Doctor has come under fire from another angle - British censors have discovered that the 'Doctor Who - the Beginning' DVD Box Set contains obscenities, and made its sale to kids under 12 illegal. Steve Roberts, producer of the DVD, explains:

Basically, it was a mistake by the BBFC. We had bleeped the word "bastard" in one of the comedy sketches [that featured as extras on the DVDs] and they believed that what they could hear was an inadequately bleeped "fucker". They cant reverse decisions, even if the error is theirs, and so the only option would be to resubmit for re-classification - and that re-submission would need to be a different version.

Meanwhile, a couple of readers of this blog (yes, they exist!) have reports on the Christmas special:

"Saw Dr Who - crap. Pretty much just like the last Doctor, new actor seemed fine but was unconscious most of the episode. From what I've heard it was a success here and people really like it. Not much like the old Dr Who though - sword duels and zapping robots with his sonic screwdriver instead of coming up with some more pacific plan.

It did have one good bit, right near the end when the Earth uses its Project torchlight - won't tell you in case you see it, but gave a nice moral dimension.

The anti-war thing was offhand and topical but not a strong statement by any means."

"I shan't spoil the Xmas Doctor Who special for you, but it was anti-war and anti-Blair in particular in a very direct and viceral fashion - which was nice. I think it is part of a longer running battle between the BBC and the Blair regime which had gagged it somewhat in the aftermath of the Iraq war (sacking Greg Dyke etc)..."