The Loved/Hated One

Doctor Who, Britain and America in the ‘80s

1985

‘Morning in America’, and bedtime for Britain. The ‘80s felt like a time of increasing American dominance in the UK. What had once been exotic wonders glimpsed in the backgrounds of Hollywood movies were becoming commonplace. There were mall-like shopping centres, people wore running shoes for doing things other than exercise, pizza was a thing you could buy. In 1985, the British arm of McDonalds finally posted a profit.

The ‘60s icons that had so defined Britain’s last moment of cultural relevance were starting to look a little shopworn. Bond was still out there, in the increasingly leathery form of Roger Moore, and in 1985’s A View to a Kill he was joined by Patrick Macnee. The Avengers, Macnee’s big break, started in 1961; the following year, Moore broke through as Simon Templar in The Saint and the Bond series began. Moore and Macnee were both around 60 years old in 1985, creeping gingerly around the fancy Bond sets in baggy leather blousons like they were looking for the gents at an unfamiliar golf club.

Doctor Who started the year after Bond, in 1963, but he’s still here too. In 1985’s The Revelation of the Daleks, Colin Baker’s Doctor Who arrives on the planet Necros with his companion Peri. Approaching the funeral home and suspended animation storage facility Tranquil Repose, the two of them wander through a memorial garden and stumble on a funerary monument of the Doctor’s face (and being Colin Baker’s face, it’s a big monument). The Doctor stops, aghast at the edifice. He is even more aghast when the monument falls on top of him, crushing him with his own legacy.

It’s an appropriately morbid tone. They’re all starting to feel useless, Bond and Who and Steed, in this post-Star Wars age, after George Lucas showed us that with enough money and technology you don’t need new ideas or good writing. A View to a Kill has Bond riding to the rescue of Silicon Valley, saving the technology that will doom him and his old-fashioned movies, trying to prove that Britain is still a vital partner in the ‘special relationship’. But who are we kidding? They have the Space Shuttle and we have the ZX Spectrum. They have The Death Star and we have the TARDIS.