The Backstory
There's no denying that Doctor Who is a phenomenon. I will admit right now that even though I've only seen one episode of it, the fact that people have their moments of "(X) is a Time Lord and (Y) is his/her TARDIS" amuses me greatly. (Though why a female Time Lord is never called a "Time Lady" is beyond me. Probably because it didn't have the same ring to it?)
That being said, however, while I have heard of the show, I, unfortunately, know very little about it. Despite it...there exists a very strange way of trying to save the show. Yes, even before the Jericho's "sending peanuts to save the show" debacle.
In 1985, Doctor Who was suspended and looked like it was about to face cancellation. It was said that it was done because many fans wrote about how much the show changed from they were kids. They were trying to be helpful, but Michael Grade, the controller at the time (and keep in mind that he hated Doctor Who), took it as complaints. Or so the legend went.
To counteract this, not only did more fans write letters demanding for the show to return, it gained a charity single, and proceeds from it would go to Cancer Research. Obviously...well, if me stating in the prologue that this was one of the horrible songs was of any indication, it did not work as planned.
And keep in mind that previously, the Village People, Elton John, and Holly Johnson were once attached for a similar charity single that never materialized.
So in order to save the show, this song was created, performed by the supergroup Who Cares?, which included four cast members from the series at the time: Colin Baker, Nicola Bryant, and the late, great Anthony Ainley and Nicholas Courtney. And it's composed by none other than Hans Zimmer (seriously).
I bet you're wondering, "okay, even though it's a charity single, and that's been parodied...it's still Doctor Who, and they got the guy who'd later make some kickass music for movies. What can possibly go wrong?"
The Review
We start off with a picture of the Sixth Doctor, and then, the screen flashes to Earth and a shining light. As the musical notes are shown (no, seriously), we get a rather catchy melody.
And this is where we get our shouting lyrics.
- "18 months is too long to waitBring back the Doctor, don't hesitate!"
...is it me, or does it seem like they skipped "don't"? Regardless, it's a nice message, but as we'll see here...things just skip past "protest" and head straight to "stuff even The Star Wars Holiday Special wouldn't dare touch".
The lyrics continue on with the show's history. I will admit, the lyrics overall aren't awful, but there are certainly a few stinkers in there. We'll get to that in a little bit.
And the choices for most of the singers...they're really decent, but then again, once again, we get some stinkers. Like the singer for this lyric: "It started off a legend that no other could replace". I have no idea if she wants to vocalize in order to fit the lyrics, but...yeah.
Then after the little history lesson, we get the chorus.
- "Doctor In Distress - let's all answer his SOSDoctor In Distress - bring him back now we won't take less"
After that, we get a very screechy "Where's the Doctor? Over there!" Gah. And after that, we get descriptions of the bad guys the Doctor and his various companions fight against. Unfortunately, this is where the good peters off, because the singers get progressively worse. Colin Baker, though, does a pretty decent job, but...yeesh. After him comes a singer with a wavering voice, another one with a Dull Surprise voice, and a female singer who's trying to emulate a typical '80s female singer, like Pat Benatar.
Then when we get to the second rendition of the chorus, we get this.
- "Bring him back now, we won't take lessIf we stop his travels, he'll be in a messThe galaxy will fall to evil once moreWith nightmarish monsters fighting a war"
...okay. They...do know that fanfiction exists during that time, right? (Yes, some were written before the advent of the Internet.) Why not create the "travels"? And "the galaxy will fall to evil once more/With nightmarish monsters fighting a war"? I may not watch enough Doctor Who, but I do know one thing: if nightmarish monsters do fight in a war against one another, then it would all be for the better, because both sides can be offed that way!
Then another rendition of the chorus, along with a horrible, horrible "No no no no no-o-o-o-o!". Good God. With those, you can practically feel the dignity of everyone involved just slipping away. And after that, we get the final part with even worse singers.
- "We learnt to accept six Doctors with companions at their sideWhen they were faced with danger they didn't run they didn't hideThere was the Brigadier and the Master and a canine computerEach screaming girl just hoped that a Yeti wouldn't shoot her"
And then we finally get the chorus, and that's repeated. We get to see the entire band. Really, Who Cares? does live up to the name. Because never in my entire life have I've ever listened to a worse charity single, to the point where people didn't give a damn.
Okay, possibly except the 25th anniversary edition of "We Are the World", made for the Haiti disaster. Now that was a huge nightmare of a song, but that's for another day.
Final Thoughts of the Song
I'm not going to lie. The lyrics are pretty damn decent. The music is catchy (thanks, Hans!). But the feeling of it being reminded of other charity singles that did a hell of a lot better, coupled with some of the lousiest singers and some head-scratching lyrics, have done a bit more harm than good for this song. Overall, it's one song that should have went a hell of a lot better.
But was it really that bad? Well...I've heard worse songs, but this is one of the worst charity singles ever, bar none. I will recognize that at the very least, they stuck to their message and not wandered off into irrelevant shit like bragging about themselves and how much money they made (I'm looking at you, "Back in Time").
Sadly, all that happened was that the song was universally panned by critics and fans, and even the BBC refused to play the song due to its bad quality. Colin Baker and later Ian Levine, the latter of whom helped to pen the lyrics to this thing, regretted ever making the song. In fact, here's what Levine had to say.
- "It was an absolute balls-up fiasco. It was pathetic and bad and stupid. It tried to tell the Doctor Who history in an awful high-energy song. It almost ruined me."
Ultimately, in the end, the series returned in 1986, and even that did not end the extreme Executive Meddling of the original Doctor Who series. But hey, at least it can take pride of knowing that it didn't end up like the original Battlestar Galactica and make a damn show for kids (Galactica 1980) that would fuck up the integrity of the series itself.
Next, we'll face Heidi Montag's "Higher". Will it be worse than "Doctor in Distress"?
Find out next time on the next livelistening of Rika Liveblogs!
