A few years ago, I queued up this TV show on Netflix. I’d started hearing about it here and there, and figured I’d give it a look-see, check out what the buzz was about. Couldn’t hurt.
The show was Doctor Who, and the hours I’ve lost to it – no, not lost. More like gladly given over to it – have been some of the most enjoyable I’ve spent with the small screen. The fact that the rest of the world is just recently catching on to what the BBC has gifted us in this character and series is welcome validation.
Relatively speaking, I’m no fanatic. Do a quick Tumblr search for Doctor Who and your computer might just breakdown, all the results it spits back at you. I haven’t even seen any of the classic episodes from before the 2005 reboot. However. Do I drink my morning coffee out of a mug with a TARDIS on it (a TARDIS that transports to the opposite side of the mug when a hot liquid is introduced)? Yes, I do. If I were ever going to attend a ComicCon, would I don a blonde wig and blue leather jacket ala Rose Tyler? Yes, yes I would.
But that’s the extent of it, I promise.
I’ll let you find the Doctor Who basics elsewhere on the interwebs (not hard to find). If you’ve not seen it, I don’t know what you’re waiting for. Six seasons are streaming on Netflix, and if you keep an eye out, I’m sure BBC America will do a marathon of the seventh sometime soon. It’s there for the taking. My 12 year old brother is hooked now, and I’m working on getting my big brother and his wife into it. I know fifteen-year-olds and fifty-year-olds who are equally Whovian.
The appeal of the show is so multifaceted, I’m not sure I can do it justice. It’s funny. It’s romantic. It’s brave and noble. It’s thrilling and sometimes spooky. It’s smarter than me (see any clip involving the logistics of time travel). The stakes are high (saving the ones you love, saving humanity, saving the universe), and the mysteries are multi-layered. It’s a serial in the best sense, with themes and characters and storylines that stretch across episodes and seasons and sometimes spill over into spin-offs (see: Torchwood).
It was announced the other day that Matt Smith will be leaving the series at the end of the year. Disappointing, as we’ve all become very attached to this latest iteration of the Doctor. But the truth is, we connect with more than just the actor filling the role – we loved David Tennant, and (most of us) loved Christopher Eccelston. And we’ll love whomever the Doctor morphs into next (I’m pulling for a woman in the role!), whomever he/she travels with and encounters along the way.
Because if the storytellers keep doing their job as well as they have been, I’ll be forking over ever more hours of my life to the Doctor. Gladly.
(Some spoilers in some of those links up there, if you haven’t seen the series. You’ve been warned.)
