Who?

I have decided that people currently fall into one of two categories: people who are obsessed with Doctor Who and people who have no idea what Doctor Who is.  Okay maybe there are some gray areas between those two categories but lately it seems like everyone I’ve talked to lately falls into one of these categories.

I have a few Doctor Who related t-shirts (okay, more than a few – I guess it depends on how you define “few”). Anyway, lately I’ve noticed one of two very different reactions to my DW shirts.

1. Umm, excuse me. But what is that on your shirt? When I reply “It’s the TARDIS/It’s from Doctor Who” or some such response, I am met with a somewhat confused look. “It’s a show……on the BBC…..been around for 50 years?” Nope. Still get the blank looks……OR….
2. “OhMyGod! I LOVE YOUR SHIRT!” and then he/she proceeds to show me his/her Doctor Who shirt/keychain/purse/tattoo.  Seriously it’s one of the other – no middle ground.

If you fall into category #2, to you I say, “Hello fellow crazy person. Have you checked out BlueBoxTees? You totally should”. If you fall into category #1, I say, “Seriously? You’ve never heard of Doctor Who? Please read the rest of this blog post and then we’ll talk.”

So Doctor Who.  Doc…tor…Who.  How to describe Doctor Who?

Well let’s start somewhere near the beginning. No not 1953 – the beginning for me. Jeez, how old do you think I am?  So…….In the winter of 2013, I fell down some bleachers, sprained my left ankle and sustained a spiral fracture of my right leg. I had to have surgery to repair the right leg; the doctor placed a titanium rod down through my tibia and attached it with screws to both my knee and my ankle. It was sooo much fun! Anyway, because I also had a severely sprained left ankle, I was in a wheelchair for far too long. Now you may be surprised to learn this but I do not live in a mansion (I know, right?). In fact our house is quite tiny. So my choices in our tiny house were fairly limited. I could hop around (yes, hop) with the aid of an “old person” walker and hope I didn’t fall. Or I could wheel myself around in my lovely wheelchair. One fairly substantial problem was that the wheelchair wouldn’t fit through our doorways…..like any of our doorways. So I was able to wheel myself around the living room and into the hallway. Then if I had to enter a room (you know like the bathroom, the bedroom, or the kitchen) I had to do my lovely “hopping” thing with my walker and hope I didn’t crash land. So I spent a lot of time in the living room. Seriously. A. LOT. OF. TIME.

One day whilst flipping through the channels, I came upon “Doctor Who” on BBC America. I remembered that DW was written/produced/something by the same guys who made “Sherlock” (which I LOVE). So I figured I’d give it a shot. And the rest, as they say, is history. I slowly but surely recruited my entire family and now we are all fairly obsessed (notice me, laughing at the use of the word “fairly”).

David Tennant as the Tenth Doctor

My first episode was “The Shakespeare Code” with Tenth Doctor David Tennant. Since I am somewhat of a history and English nerd, this was a great episode for me to start with. To this day, I still love a good historical episode of Doctor Who. I continued watching DW through the tenure of the Tenth Doctor  and into Matt Smith’s Eleventh Doctor. Then I got the Ninth Doctor’s season (Christopher Eccleston) and all of David Tennant’s prior to Martha Jones from Netflix.

Matt Smith as the Eleventh Doctor

Having started with the modern episodes (i.e., “New Who”), I have a problem going back and watching the older episodes (i.e., “Classic Who”). It’s not that I don’t enjoy the stories or the actors. I just have a hard time with the  special effects from the 1950s and 1960s. But I try. I really do. Lately, because Sarah Jane Smith is a favorite, I’ve been watching the Fourth Doctor episodes. As long as I remember that the episodes are older than me (usually), I can make myself ignore the special effects issues.

Elisabeth Sladen as Sarah Jane Smith

Tom Baker as the Fourth Doctor

So Doctor Who.  I still haven’t explained Doctor Who yet, have I? Or why you should watch it. Hmmmm. Well the Doctor is an alien from Gallifrey. He is a Time Lord and travels throughout time and space in a blue police box time machine. The TARDIS is its name but it isn’t actually a blue police box. It just looks like a blue police box. Got it? Anyway, because he can go literally anywhere in time and space, he spends a lot of time in England. (Old joke). The Doctor seems to have a special fondness for English citizens and usually has one (or two) traveling along with him. These lucky, lucky ducks are known as “The Doctor’s Companions“.

Sometimes the Doctor and Companions travel to other planets. Sometimes they travel into the past. Sometimes they travel into the future. Regardless of where (or when) they are going, hijinks ensue:) You will laugh. You will cry (seriously, I double dog dare you to watch the endings of “Vincent and the Doctor” or “The Angels Take Manhattan” and NOT cry). You will be thoroughly entertained. And you just might become a Whovian.

So that’s a fairly short summary of Doctor Who. I seriously recommend watching the damn thing and then you’ll understand the attraction. If you have any questions or want to know where to start, let me know and I’ll try to guide you. Thanks and Allons-y!