Doctor fanbase welcomes new generation

Who would have thought New Zealand had a National Doctor Who Club with 200 members?

The club has been running for 22 years says its president, Paul Scoones of Auckland's North Shore. It started in the 1980s when Sylvester McCoy was the Doctor - these days it is mostly made up of middle-aged men.

Scoones hopes to see the demographic of Doctor Who fans change with the arrival of the Eleventh Doctor this week.

"Doctor Who has traditionally been very much a male fandom. I would say for every 10 fans, nine would be male, but what I'm seeing with the new generation of fans - in particular because of characters like Billie Piper and girls who have very strong roles - it's attracting a much stronger female audience, and it's almost a 50/50 split with the fans now, which is quite remarkable," he says.

He says it's also been great to see the show attract a younger audience since it was reinstated with a new Doctor five years ago after a 15-year hiatus.

"I think it is definitely bringing in a younger audience. My nephews, for example, they are about 10, 12-years-old, and before the show came back they would come around to visit us and see the Daleks on the shelf and had no idea what they were. Now they are completely into the show, so I can see through them how the young kids have really embraced it as a really cool thing, whereas before they had no idea what it was."

A sexier version of the show, starring Matt Smith and Karen Gillan and using a whole host of computer graphics should further attract young people, but Scoones says the die-hard fans are also excited about its arrival.

"It's generally regarded as a reinvention of the series and at the same time a continuation of the series dating back to the 1960s," he says.

The first episode Scoones watched as a 6-year-old in 1975. It was a Jon Pertwee story, called Spearhead from Space.

* doctorwho.org.nz