Doctor Who fans’ fury over age of mag’s reviewers

DOCTOR Who’s most loyal fans are going into meltdown (again).

And the reason for their anger? The Doctor Who Magazine has just assembled a team of young fan reviewers to look at past episodes... and the veteran viewers are raging because the oldest is just 26.

Many are talking about cancelling their subscriptions to the magazine, which is licensed by the BBC and published by Panini.

The controversy centres on the newly resurrected Time Team feature, in which a group of 12 devotees – now with an average age of just 22 – review classic episodes.

One disgruntled reader tweeted: “Looks like DWM have replaced the Time Team with the cast of Grange Hill. Not sure why but it makes me feel depressed. Diverse in everything but age.” Another agreed: “A little lacking in age though? Where is the mature contribution coming from? Now, to cancel my subscription. Their Youtube patter certainly won’t ‘go down’ with the over-50s like me.”

Fan David Steel said: “It’s patently clear to me that I’ll never read Time Team ever again. It’s become a party that I don’t feel invited to.” Other loyalists were angered that one member of the new team is Doctor Who digital marketing manager Christel Dee, 26, who works for BBC Studios. A reader blasted: “How on earth are you going to get a neutral, objective opinion on anything when you have a BBC member of staff on this panel? Doctor Who Magazine was always independent and now it is becoming a BBC mouthpiece. It’s a joke.”

However the magazine’s former editor Gary Russell defended the switch. “This new Time Team is the single best thing to have happened in DWM in donkey’s years. If it upsets a bunch of moronic ‘Doctor Who is only for those of us who’ve been there since the proper series’, even better.”

The panel’s Youtube patter certainly won’t ‘go down’ with the over-50s