I’m a republican at heart, but some things just shouldn’t be tampered with. This morning when thinking about the issue of whether Australia should be looking to rule itself, and cut ties with the British monarchy, only one thing played on my mind as a possibly unintentional consequence of such a move.

photo credit: Edgley Cesar

This issue should not be taken lightly. Whilst it is a slim possibility, even a remote chance should be enough to halt all talks of such a change until this issue can be sorted out.

Would the Brits still send us new episodes of Dr. Who?

Now, don’t scoff. This is serious. Our link to their scheduling is already tenuous. We get their special one-off Christmas episode usually scheduled at the start of our season - which in itself comes months after theirs has aired. We are supposed to be one of the Commonwealth Sovereign States - we share a monarch and a Secretary General - yet we do not share a common Dr. Who schedule. I’m not sure I’m willing to risk what little right we have to future episodes over the trivial issue of our Head of State.

Picture a future without Dr. Who… Australia might be forced to create our own version of the show. What an abomination that would be! Whilst we have some fine actors and producers in this country, between them we haven’t had a decent local show in years. Let alone one with Daleks and Cybermen.

Although, that being said, I’d like to see an episode using some of our own cast. Ernie Dingo would be fantastic in the roll of the Doctor. It’d certainly break the Doctor out of that upper-middle class white guy thing he has going. Throw in Noni Hazlehurst as a companion (or Lisa McCune perhaps). John Howard as the bad guy for a season arc. It could actually be quite good. In a Comic Relief sort of way.

Even if we had to re-dub the characters with Aussie accents, it just wouldn’t be the same without the old British Dr. Who. So just think on that before you start pushing Mr. Rudd for a Republic - I couldn’t live without it.