by Fr. Chris
The Doctor: A Brief Intro
4:24 pm in Doctor Who, TV by Fr. Chris
Man, do I love Doctor Who. Just ask anyone, and they’ll tell you, “Man, does Chris go on about Doctor Who.”
It’s true. There are few subjects that I go on about more often or more interminably than the eponymous Doctor and his mad, glorious, often terrifying and sometimes absurd adventures.
This has been going on since long before the return of the show to television in 2005. The Doctor and his many companions have been a regular fixture of my life in one form or another since I was about 5 years old (that’s 26 years ago). It therefore seems meet and right for me to address this most geeky of subjects in my first substantive essay here on Orthogeeks, since it is a cornerstone of my life as a geek, and has to a large extent informed my tastes in the sci-fi genre.
I will begin with a quick description of the show and its main character to provide context. If you’re in need of a more in-depth description, you should head over to my friend Alan Kistler’s website, where he has written a series of excellent essays on the show.
First, a point of order. When one is discussing the show, the Doctor is referred to as “the Doctor,” and never as “Doctor Who.” Moving on.
The Doctor is a time-traveling alien from a society known as the Time Lords. At press time he is 907 Earth years old. He is a renegade/exile from his people, for reasons that are never explicitly stated. It is implied that he disapproves of the stagnation and non-interventionist ways of the Time Lords. At some point shortly before the beginning of the series, he stole a TARDIS (Time And Relative Dimension In Space) and ran, with his granddaughter in tow. The TARDIS is his time machine, and on the outside it looks like an old police box, akin to a telephone booth; an outdated piece of pop iconography. With this device he travels to points across all of time and space, battling evil geniuses and malevolent aliens, usually with a young human companion, through whose eyes the viewer is introduced to the show and its concepts.
Coming soon: An Introduction to Terror
After reading his intro and discussing it awhile, Dr. Who seems to be an unusual combination of weirdness, wholesomeness and whimsy… Some things prove too ‘wholesome’ for me and not quirky enough (they seem like they are cookie-cutter ‘family values’ stuff) while some stuff is quirky all the way to perversity. I suppose the reason for the flexibility with the story is to guard this combination. If you plan out the plot, you lose the whimsicality of it, or you spend years planning it only to have the show cancelled…
Anyway, I think D likes it too.
By the way, I love my brother, but he is extremely argumentative and opinionated. I’m always thankful when I’m not arguing with him about something that he is an expert on… Like you, he is not unwilling to argue something that he doesn’t exactly have all the facts for. Remember, ‘It’s a small town.. of about 200,000 people…’? What a gas.
It’s always fun to get into it.
I remember that small town thing…I don’t remember which town I decreed to be small, though.
I loved the originals, and I am loving the new series. I thought David Tennant a great Doctor and was sad to see him go; but Matt Smith is a great Doctor, who seems to have quiet a dark secret.
Look forward to hearing more; and glad to hear from another orthogeek.