The Time Lord Was Fine, but Creation?

A friend of mine sent me a link to a news release from Big Finish Productions, producers of Doctor Who audio plays. They’re celebrating their 15th anniversary with some reminiscences, and this one made him think of me.

“One other thing sticks very closely in my mind from running Big Finish in 2001 – death-threats. The aforementioned Bloodtide was a brilliant script by Jonny Morris, his first for us. I asked him for a Silurian story, he opted to put the Sixth Doctor and Evelyn on the Galapogas Islands with Charles Darwin and thus emerged an amazing story about evolution of the species from both a human and Silurian perceptive, with the villain of the piece taking responsibility for genetically engineering mankind in the first place. And cue the complaints, every single one from certain areas of America known as the Bible Belt. And within these outraged letters came three death threats. I had apparently challenged these peoples’ belief in God, and they were going to make me pay.

“Having offended possibly the same group earlier in the year by not spotting that Clay Hickman had inverted a pentagram on the cover of Minuet in Hell (which we changed for later repressings and the music collection), I really had run out of patience so rather than cowering from their self-righteous wrath, I pinned the letters up in the Big Finish office and delighted in the fact that a play I had produced and directed (not written, mind) had caused such a bizarre amount of vitriol from people whose grasp on the fundamental concepts of fiction was shaky at best.

“Yes, what a fun year 2001 was :-)”

A time-traveling alien with two hearts is fine. A race of lizard people who have lived alongside humanity unseen is just dandy. But don’t you dare let your fictional creatures say anything about Creation or we’ll threaten to kill you.

{advertisement}
The Time Lord Was Fine, but Creation?
{advertisement}

5 thoughts on “The Time Lord Was Fine, but Creation?

  1. 3

    I wonder what those people had to say about the First Doctor saying in one of the missing adventure novels that* after all he’s seen, he’s definitely an agnostic, and by the time he journeys some more, he’ll almost definitely be an atheist.

    *not a direct quote, but it was very much like this

  2. 4

    I thought Time Lords were meant to pretty much be gods, albeit not the disembodied monotheistic sort currently in fashion, something more like the Aesir or Olympians but definitely with powers beyond those of humans and able to be called on for help.

    Thor vs The Doctor, now there’s a crossover.

Comments are closed.