I first heard of Doctor Who in school. This was back in the 80s, when I had the reputation of being a 'great reader of books'. It was Woody who asked me if I'd read any Doctor Who.
I understood it was science fiction.
When I was in school I was 'literary'. Which meant I sucked at science. I envied the guys who found physics easy. And I always had a sneaking feeling that I wouldn't understand science fiction. When Star Trek came on Doordarshan, I avoided it, until Narendran told me it was great fun.
Narendran was one of the smartest guys in school - and this was the first time he'd made a recommendation that was outside, well, lessons.
I watched Star Trek. I liked it. I remember Amok Time - where Spock goes nutso, not just because of its Vulcan mating season, but because Kirk is alive. But still, I never went crazy. Never watched the show obsessively.
Any way, it was Sci-Fi. The Sci was a put off.
It took a long while to get over the block. It was Star Wars that helped me through. The effects. The Star Destroyer. "You can't win, Darth" (that scene cracks me up now, after all the mythmaking about a Darth being the embodiment of Sith power. So essentially, Obi Wan says, "You can't win, evil overlord!". Of course, you could go for the Rakata origins - but I don't think Palpatine would suffer another emperor when he was around.)
In the meantime, India has lost, badly, to Australia.
It was in 2006 when I really turned on to Who. I'd been travelling to England quite a bit and I'd caught The Girl in the Fireplace while on one of my trips. I knew David Tennant from the Goblet of Fire movie, and one of my co-workers said that I should check out the series - and that Christopher Eccleston was the better doctor.
This was early on in Tennant's tenure. It was the fourth episode in series 2 - and his fifth full episode if you take the Christmas episode. People were still pining for Eccleston, and the 10-Rose shippers were still few. (Oh God, how I hate the shippers). This was before Turn Left and The Waters of Mars and Blink, before Tennant was the gold standard in Doctors (who the fuck are Tom Baker or Jon Pertwee, anyway).
I think I torrented Rose.
It was - unexpected.
The impression I had of the doctor from The Girl in the Fireplace was a jumble. The scene shifted from the court of Louis XV in 18th century France to a spaceship in the far future. Rose and Mickey were mostly bystanders and seemed to be comic relief. There were definite moments of tension, of course. The clockwork robots taking over the court. The wait for the doctor. The badass moment where the mirror shatters and the doctors rides into court. But still, without context, it was confusing.
The thing about Doctor Who was, at some level, was the weight of mythology behind it. Every comic writer worth his salt - Grant Morrison! Dave Gibbons! Alan Moore!!! - had written for Doctor Who magazine. The fandom was legion. The royal family. Stephen Hawking and Richard Dawkins. Patrick Stewart and Stephen Fry. Peter Jackson. Matt Groening. Douglas Adams had actually written for it - and Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency was a recycled Doctor Who script. What else could Reg be but
a Time Lord, and what else could his his study be but a TARDIS?
You know that there are things you "like" before really experiencing them? You like them just based on peripherals, by things associated with them. If your favourite author becomes a gushing fanboy when talking about someone else, you want to check that person's stuff. If several people you like - across a variety of media - keep talking about the same writer or show or movie, the effect gets amplified.
But even so, seeking the book or show out takes a little push. It can be as simple as picking a book up in a library or store and flipping through the first few pages - and finding yourself thirty pages deep, reading. Or it can be sitting on a bed and flipping channels, jet lagged and tired, and watching something you've heard so much about come up on the screen.
Watching the first few minutes of Rose was comforting. Time and place, obviously London, the present day. Person - a shopgirl who gets up at 7:30 am, takes a bus to work, spends her lunch with her boyfriend, goes back afterwards, and goes through some kind of security check as she leaves.
And then the fun begins.
There's the basement, with ranks of half clothed mannequins standing silently around. There's Rose searching for Wilson (C.E.O, and it took me a while to figure out that it stood for Chief Electrical Officer) and then the door slams locked behind her - and the mannequins start moving.
Looking back, on rewatches, it isn't particularly scary, but when seeing it for the first time, it was creepy. The tension builds up, especially as the first auton starts moving slowly, jerkily and inexorably towards Rose.
We all know what happens next. Rose is backed up against the wall and someone grabs her hand and says "Run!"
And then there's the flight through the elevator and the exposition - the mannequins are made of living plastic, and they are controlled by a relay on the roof. And the Doctor - it is he, of course - has a bomb. He tells Rose to go back to her life of "beans on toast" and heads back into the shop ("Henriks" as per the signs, "Henricks" as per news reports) - then popping out for a minute for the introduction.
"I'm the doctor, by the way, What's your name?"
"Rose"
"Nice to meet you, Rose. Run for your life"
Eccleston was a surprise. No costume as such - just a functional leather jacket and a jersey. No ruffled shirt or scarlet lined cape - no crazy hat and ten-mile long scarf. Hair cut short, almost military. And the features. A big forehead. Big ears. A huge wedge of a nose. And that grin. That crazy-madman-having-the-time-of-his-life grin.
Series One was lovely. The Long Game isn't very good, Simon Pegg notwithstanding. The Dickens story was nice. There were the Slitheen in a particularly noisome two-parter. But that was all right - because immediately after that came one of the best fucking Doctor Who stories ever.
Dalek
Im not going to go into the sheer brilliance that the episode was. Suffice to say that now you understood how exactly those metal bins could be terrifying - and everyone involved - Rob Shearman, Joe Aherne and most of all Eccleston himself - really got to show you what exactly a Dalek could be.
The episode also introduced the Time War - and why the Doctor was the last of the Time Lords (YANA notwithstanding)
The relationship between the Doctor and Rose was well done too - initially, its clear that she thinks that she is a child - obviously, given their ages. A smart child, but a child. He's like the adult having fun, showing off to the kids. But they both mature, and by the time the Bad Wolf/Parting of the Ways rolls around, the relationship has become sweeter - and more balanced.
From series one, the adventure continues, past Christmases and regenerations, past silent libraries and weeping angels and Martian waters, of 11th hour rescues and doctors' wives and cybermen and zygons and Masters.
In the end, Doctor Who is hardly science fiction.
Its just great fun.
And now, my re-watch begins.
I understood it was science fiction.
When I was in school I was 'literary'. Which meant I sucked at science. I envied the guys who found physics easy. And I always had a sneaking feeling that I wouldn't understand science fiction. When Star Trek came on Doordarshan, I avoided it, until Narendran told me it was great fun.
Narendran was one of the smartest guys in school - and this was the first time he'd made a recommendation that was outside, well, lessons.
I watched Star Trek. I liked it. I remember Amok Time - where Spock goes nutso, not just because of its Vulcan mating season, but because Kirk is alive. But still, I never went crazy. Never watched the show obsessively.
Any way, it was Sci-Fi. The Sci was a put off.
It took a long while to get over the block. It was Star Wars that helped me through. The effects. The Star Destroyer. "You can't win, Darth" (that scene cracks me up now, after all the mythmaking about a Darth being the embodiment of Sith power. So essentially, Obi Wan says, "You can't win, evil overlord!". Of course, you could go for the Rakata origins - but I don't think Palpatine would suffer another emperor when he was around.)
In the meantime, India has lost, badly, to Australia.
It was in 2006 when I really turned on to Who. I'd been travelling to England quite a bit and I'd caught The Girl in the Fireplace while on one of my trips. I knew David Tennant from the Goblet of Fire movie, and one of my co-workers said that I should check out the series - and that Christopher Eccleston was the better doctor.
This was early on in Tennant's tenure. It was the fourth episode in series 2 - and his fifth full episode if you take the Christmas episode. People were still pining for Eccleston, and the 10-Rose shippers were still few. (Oh God, how I hate the shippers). This was before Turn Left and The Waters of Mars and Blink, before Tennant was the gold standard in Doctors (who the fuck are Tom Baker or Jon Pertwee, anyway).
I think I torrented Rose.
It was - unexpected.
The impression I had of the doctor from The Girl in the Fireplace was a jumble. The scene shifted from the court of Louis XV in 18th century France to a spaceship in the far future. Rose and Mickey were mostly bystanders and seemed to be comic relief. There were definite moments of tension, of course. The clockwork robots taking over the court. The wait for the doctor. The badass moment where the mirror shatters and the doctors rides into court. But still, without context, it was confusing.
The thing about Doctor Who was, at some level, was the weight of mythology behind it. Every comic writer worth his salt - Grant Morrison! Dave Gibbons! Alan Moore!!! - had written for Doctor Who magazine. The fandom was legion. The royal family. Stephen Hawking and Richard Dawkins. Patrick Stewart and Stephen Fry. Peter Jackson. Matt Groening. Douglas Adams had actually written for it - and Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency was a recycled Doctor Who script. What else could Reg be but
a Time Lord, and what else could his his study be but a TARDIS?
You know that there are things you "like" before really experiencing them? You like them just based on peripherals, by things associated with them. If your favourite author becomes a gushing fanboy when talking about someone else, you want to check that person's stuff. If several people you like - across a variety of media - keep talking about the same writer or show or movie, the effect gets amplified.
But even so, seeking the book or show out takes a little push. It can be as simple as picking a book up in a library or store and flipping through the first few pages - and finding yourself thirty pages deep, reading. Or it can be sitting on a bed and flipping channels, jet lagged and tired, and watching something you've heard so much about come up on the screen.
Watching the first few minutes of Rose was comforting. Time and place, obviously London, the present day. Person - a shopgirl who gets up at 7:30 am, takes a bus to work, spends her lunch with her boyfriend, goes back afterwards, and goes through some kind of security check as she leaves.
And then the fun begins.
There's the basement, with ranks of half clothed mannequins standing silently around. There's Rose searching for Wilson (C.E.O, and it took me a while to figure out that it stood for Chief Electrical Officer) and then the door slams locked behind her - and the mannequins start moving.
Looking back, on rewatches, it isn't particularly scary, but when seeing it for the first time, it was creepy. The tension builds up, especially as the first auton starts moving slowly, jerkily and inexorably towards Rose.
We all know what happens next. Rose is backed up against the wall and someone grabs her hand and says "Run!"
And then there's the flight through the elevator and the exposition - the mannequins are made of living plastic, and they are controlled by a relay on the roof. And the Doctor - it is he, of course - has a bomb. He tells Rose to go back to her life of "beans on toast" and heads back into the shop ("Henriks" as per the signs, "Henricks" as per news reports) - then popping out for a minute for the introduction.
"I'm the doctor, by the way, What's your name?"
"Rose"
"Nice to meet you, Rose. Run for your life"
Eccleston was a surprise. No costume as such - just a functional leather jacket and a jersey. No ruffled shirt or scarlet lined cape - no crazy hat and ten-mile long scarf. Hair cut short, almost military. And the features. A big forehead. Big ears. A huge wedge of a nose. And that grin. That crazy-madman-having-the-time-of-his-life grin.
Series One was lovely. The Long Game isn't very good, Simon Pegg notwithstanding. The Dickens story was nice. There were the Slitheen in a particularly noisome two-parter. But that was all right - because immediately after that came one of the best fucking Doctor Who stories ever.
Dalek
Im not going to go into the sheer brilliance that the episode was. Suffice to say that now you understood how exactly those metal bins could be terrifying - and everyone involved - Rob Shearman, Joe Aherne and most of all Eccleston himself - really got to show you what exactly a Dalek could be.
The episode also introduced the Time War - and why the Doctor was the last of the Time Lords (YANA notwithstanding)
The relationship between the Doctor and Rose was well done too - initially, its clear that she thinks that she is a child - obviously, given their ages. A smart child, but a child. He's like the adult having fun, showing off to the kids. But they both mature, and by the time the Bad Wolf/Parting of the Ways rolls around, the relationship has become sweeter - and more balanced.
From series one, the adventure continues, past Christmases and regenerations, past silent libraries and weeping angels and Martian waters, of 11th hour rescues and doctors' wives and cybermen and zygons and Masters.
In the end, Doctor Who is hardly science fiction.
Its just great fun.
And now, my re-watch begins.