It’s probably fair to say that if there’s one thing Doctor Who didn’t need right now, it’s another headline about ‘PC storylines’. Series 11 is all done and dusted, after all. Is there anything to gain from raking over that patch of old ground? Time to move on, you may have thought.

But no. Those long months before the next series won’t fill themselves, y’know. So here’s that great bastion of the British newspaper industry The Sun, doing its best to prolong things by reporting on a quick chat with Frazer Hines, who reportedly ‘slams the show’s bosses’ (bosses are always being slammed in newspaper headlines, have you noticed?) for, yes, ‘PC storylines’.

You won’t be surprised to learn that the headline doesn’t exactly reflect what Frazer actually said. It seems that our beloved Jamie was reflecting on his preferred type of Doctor Who story:

“I’m old fashioned, I don’t want to know about Rosa Parks, I don’t want to know about whether we’d done this we could have changed history and Kennedy might not have been shot. I like bug-eyed monsters. Monster of the week, I want.”

Coming from someone who appeared in the Patrick Troughton era, graced as it was by several wonderful monster-heavy stories, Frazer’s views are understandable. And he’s careful to acknowledge that it’s very much his opinion he’s voicing, going on to say:

“I loved it when it was episodic. Now it’s all in one, beginning, middle and an end. I liked it when it ended on a Saturday night and then Sunday in the park or on Monday in the school playground you’d be like, ‘What is going to happen? Doctor Who was caught there. Is the monster going to get him?’ Now it’s all wrapped up too quick. Just call me old- fashioned.”

So it seems Frazer didn’t say the dreaded phrase ‘PC storylines’ at all. But why should that get in the way of a good headline, eh?