The embarrassing fall of Ian Levine and the rise of the new Doctor

It is both exciting and scary to be a Doctor Who fan right now. The fact I'm doing my second blog in the space of a week on the topic says as much. In case you have been hiding under a rock then let me break it to you gently-

THE NEXT DOCTOR IS GOING TO BE PLAYED BY AN AMAZING ACTOR!

oh- they also happen to be a woman.

Outgoing showrunner, Steven Moffat, and the BBC knew that not every fan would be on board with this decision and so they tried to break it to us gently over the season with a few subtle and not-so-subtle hints.

Unsurprisingly, some fans were less than enthusiastic and took to twitter to vent their outrage. Look, I could post copious screen shots but this one immediately struck me as pretty much summing up every backwards fan there is.

What got me the most was not the what but the who. Ian Levine. Unless you are a die-hard old school fan of the show you probably have never heard of him- all the better for you. Blogger Philip Sandifer has done a pretty extensive blog on Levine's issues but here is Levine in a nutshell:

1) He is a rich, white male from Britain
2) In the late 1970's he saved a number of important early episodes of Doctor Who from being junked and several more (the number varies depending on the source) were returned to the BBC by him.
3) By the early 80's he was a consultant on the show thanks to his friendship with the producer at the time, John Nathan-Turner and as such he developed the notion that he was the ultimate Who fan.
4) When the show went on "hiatus" he actually hired a professional songwriter to create a "We Are The World" type single to try and save the show. The song is absolute rubbish (click the video if you don't believe me....)

5) He championed the show during the time the original series was cancelled and when it came back.

6) At some point, when the new series was announced, he probably felt that his services were needed. When they weren't he started hating and disliking the show more and more.

7) He has an incredibly thin skin. He dishes out abuse like you see above but simply cannot handle anybody criticising him or his actions. For example- he has moaned about the quality of the animation on Doctor Who reconstructions and to demonstrate how much more awesome his were, he put a youtube clip of his own work. When criticism of it came he pulled it immediately and had a little cry of those meanies on youtube.

I guess I was expecting that Levine (who had been yelling for Steven Moffat to leave and for Capaldi to follow him) might have welcomed the new Doctor announcement with a little more enthusiasm. 

Sadly, I was wrong. I just could not get over the absolute venom but I shouldn't have been surprised.

I will bet that Levine will watch the show anyway but here is the challenge-

every woman (or man) that has fist-pumped the decision needs to glue their eyes to the screen and prove the naysayers wrong. Show your support bu giving the show ratings. Hopefully then people like Ian Levine can shuffle off back to their mansions and be quiet.