Complaint against the 2005 series of Dr Who

Introduction

I am one of those viewers who was severely disappointed by the relaunch of Dr Who in 2005. The series seemed to be a gleeful distortion of the original series. I felt a complaint to the BBC was justified.

The BBC only permits complaints on matters such as offence and political bias, so a complaint that the series had been remodeled on Eastenders would not be possible. The complaint recorded on this website is therefore written within the limits of the BBC's process.

The complaint was first submitted to the BBC's Information Unit on 1 June 2005, and then to the Editorial Complaints Unit on 18 October 2005. As the complaint progressed, there seemed to be a distinct partiality by the BBC complaints team towards the Dr Who Production Office. This website is therefore as much a study of how the BBC responds to complaints, as it is a complaint against the 2005 series of Dr Who.

The correspondence was long and detailed, so it is broken it down into three subject headings (Complaints 1, 2 and 3), followed by various correspondence and the final Appeal to the Board of Governors on 18 May 2006.

Appeal to Board of Governors - 18th May 2006
Results of Appeal - 19 June 2006 (updated 3 November 2006)
Complaint 1; Michael Jackson joke Complaint 2; politicisation of Dr Who Complaint 3; bad/sexual language, toliet humour, etc
Letter to ECU suggesting avoidance of complaint, dated 28 December 2005 Request to GPCC for extension of Appeal deadline, dated 10 January 2006 Requests for information, dated 27 January 2006 (page updated 19 Aug 2006)

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