My family was really into Doctor Who in 2014...maybe in 2015 as well?
I'm not very good at sustained fandom. I love something whole-heartedly. Then I move onto the next thing and lose the love for the old thing.
I really took the 11th Doctor's speech to heart when he said, We are all different people all through our lives and that's okay, that's good you've got to keep moving so long as you remember all the people that you used to be.
But I adjusted it in my head to say something like, You've got to keep moving to new fandoms as long as you sometimes remember the old fandoms.
Anyway. So...Yeah. I lost the Doctor Who love.
A few months ago, Tim saw it was on the HBOMAX app, and we started talking about watching it. We were both interested in watching the first female doctor, but I couldn't decide if it was okay to start back into it with her episodes or whether we needed to watch the 12th Doctor episodes we had missed. (I had seen one season but Tim had missed all of them).
I guess the dilemma was just too strong, and since I wasn't feeling the Doctor Who love anymore, we kept choosing other shows instead.
Then one day we were going to start watching the Mandalorian, but suddenly I wanted to watch Doctor Who and suggested that.
I was just thinking it was a random, mysterious desire. BUT no. I think I know what it was. We had finished watching The Flight Attendant with Michelle Gomez. I really liked her in that, and I think I had hoped she would still be playing Missy on Doctor Who. We were also planning to soon watch her in The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina. See? I really wasn't ready to let her go.
It turns out there was no more Gomez in Doctor Who. The Master regenerated into Sacha Dhawan. But that's cool. I liked him.
BUT....not as much as I liked the 13th Doctor.
Jodi Whittaker has now replaced all my Michelle Gomez love...and all the old faded, lingering love I had for David Tennant and Matt Smith.
Although it took me awhile to get there.
Well, actually it was just two episodes.
We watched the Christmas episode first; the one with Peter Capaldi. I felt like my past 2014 self was a stranger. I couldn't understand how that me liked a show like this.
I had the same dislike/disinterest when we watched the first 13th Doctor episode.
With "The Ghost Monument", I was still feeling kind of blah about the whole thing...but I guess I was warming up a little.
Then by the end of "Rosa", I was back in love....and even more so with the spider episode.
Well, no...I don't mean I had more love for the spider episode than the Rosa Parks episode. That would be a bit messed up.
I just mean the more and more I watched, the more the old fandom love grew.
I ended up sad a couple of weeks later when we had only one episode left.
And when we sat down to watch it, we realized we didn't even have that episode. The last episode hasn't been added to HBOMAX yet. So I feel like I didn't even have a chance to say good-bye.
What's horrible is I mourned Doctor Who through the third season of Cobra Kai! I've been eagerly waiting for Cobra Kai, and it ended up being a rebound show. That kind of sucked.
The way I am...you'd think by the time we got to the end of Coba Kai, I'd be like Doctor Who...Who? And I'd instead be all into William Zabka...or something like that.
I did like the third season of Coba Kai...a lot. But my heart was still with Doctor Who.
So much so....that I suggested to Tim that we next watch Broadchurch.
Broadchurch is like a really depressing spin-off of Doctor Who.
The child of the 13th Doctor is murdered and the 10th Doctor plus the second regeneration of the Queen of England are trying to solve the crime. And Rory is a minister in the town!
It's a good show, but I'm not sure it was the best thing to fill the Doctor Who hole in my heart. It's kind of horrible seeing the 13th Doctor going through the worst thing any human can go through.
Eventually, there will be more episodes of Doctor Who, and we can watch that.
But by that time, I probably won't care enough to want to. I'll probably keep choosing to watch other things instead. Then when we finally do watch it, I'll probably wonder why I had ever liked it. And then I'll like it again. And then I'll love it again.
After all that, I'll next have to go through the stages of I don't want a new Doctor. I'm not going to like this Doctor. Okay. I kind of like this Doctor. I love this Doctor.....
And so on and so forth.
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It must be "return to Who" season. I got a bunch of classic seasons for Christmas and we've been working on them. My daughter has gained a great appreciation of the Third Doctor as he is a (her words) "Sass Master." Plus it's been interesting to compare the original Master, who is almost a total opposite (he's very refined and controlled) of the NuWho Masters. Glad you're enjoying, more to come this year I beleive.
ReplyDeleteHow many old Masters were there? That's a rhetorical question, because I'm going to go look it up. Do you prefer the refined ones or the crazed? I remember liking the John Simm one a lot.
DeleteIt's very cool that you're watching the old ones together!!
Thanx, I think she needed to be a little older to have the patience to handle the pace of the classic series. It's that difference in pace thatmakes the Masters work best in their own eras. Simm was a great foil for Tennant. I don't really have a "My Doctor" I came in about when the 5 Doctors aired so I see them all as the same person, but Anthony Ainley (fought 4th-7th Docs) will always be "My" Master. The original (Roger Delgado) is incredibly classy too. The best description of him and the 3rd Doctor I read was its like they battle and try to kill each other all day, and then spend nights laughing about it over a drink at their gentlemen's club. Sorry, Its hard not to babble on when I get going about Doctor Who. It so varied so there's something for everyone but there are threads that make it always the same character and the same show.
ReplyDeleteFirst things first. You never need to apologize about Doctor Who babbling.
DeleteI'm confused by the coming in at five doctors. Do you mean you came in at the 5th Doctor? But then soon watched them all?
I don't really have a Doctor either, because I just keep getting attached to the newest one...except for 12. I feel bad about that. Maybe I need to watch the episodes I missed of his.
The Master and the Doctor trying to kill each other and then having a drink kind of reminds me of how I hear politics used to be. Politicians from the different parties would fight about politics; but then be friends. I think it still happens these days but less so.
I like the connecting threads. Sometimes I wish there were more but then I think it can make it harder to move on. I mean maybe then it makes me long too much for the past. For example, I was wondering about River Song. Wouldn't it be nice if she showed up? Though I can't remember if she's still alive, dead, lost in a time warp somewhere, etc. But if River Song did show up, then I might start missing a past Doctor. I might get bogged down by nostalgia.
It's funny watching Broadchurch, because there's some interesting interactions. In the episode we saw last night, the 10th Doctor and Rory were having a very heated argument.
My wife watched and enjoyed Broadchurch. (We usually watch stuff together but there are times, like when exercising, we watch stuff alone) She had the same views on the odd Doctor Who cast interactions as you did. Watching Tennant in "Cassanova" was odd because its VERY close to the Doctor (written by Russel T Davies), but with some very un-Doctory desires.
DeleteThat's the joy of Doctor Who, you can have all these wild new adventures and nostalgia mixed together in a timey wimey pile.
I think Judge Ginsberg and Scalia were a perfect example of that political sentiment. Shame we can't have more of that.
12 Reminded me of the classic Doctors a lot, and he really grew on my daughter, even though 11 was "her" Doctor (that is the gateway into the show.) 12 has her favorite episodes.
I get happy when anyone comes back. Loved the return of Sarah Jane. Still hoping for Susan. AS for "coming in at the Five Doctors" here's the shortish version:
I watched the Fourth Doctor here and there as a kid but it was hard to find for a while, and never stayed on a channel long. Then around the early 80's New Jersey Network became the premier place in the US for Doctor Who, during their tenure they showed all the classic Doctors on Saturday nights. It started around the 20th anniversary in 1983 (I was 13) The 20th anniversary special was called "The Five Doctors" (like the 10th was "The Three Doctors" and the 50th was Day of the Doctor with 10, 11 and "war") and featured a time bending story where all the Doctors up to that point (Sorta, 1 was a new actor and 4 was stock footage) met up on Gallifrey.
Since you said you don't mind Doctor Who babbling, I'll throw in some shameless self promotion and the longer version of my introduction to Doctor Who with more details on the show history if you're interested. It goes up to 11, because I wrote it shortly before the 50th.
http://dogfoodforchairs.blogspot.com/2011/11/doctor-is-in.html
So I'm guessing they showed the doctors in sequence; then repeated.... I remember explaining to Jack about how, in the olden days, you didn't usually watch TV shows from the beginning. You'd catch a show after hearing how good it
Deletewas...or you'd watch reruns and just start at whatever was being broadcast.
And then there was the phenomena where you'd watch a show every so often, and you'd end up seeing the same episode so many times. I had that with the Grandma Dynamite episode of The Flintstones.
I'm curious how you felt about the new Doctor Who when it was first announced. I'm guessing excited. But any apprehension? And how did you feel when you first began watching?
I was just thinking if I ever end up deciding to watch the old ones, maybe I'll do the old fashioned way. (sort of). Instead of starting at the beginning, maybe I'll pick a random season and random episode and start there.
My parents said the same thing about Ginsburg and Scalia. I wasn't really aware of all that. I wasn't paying attention. I don't think I knew that Scalia had died until Ginsberg died, and I got some of the backstory.
Thank you for the link!!!
It was very mixed. When I watched it They were showing 4, but showed the Five Doctors "real time" with England. Then went back and transitioned to the 5th. But then it was weird based on availability. I think they went back to the 3rd and possibly repeated 4 and 5. I know when we eventually got the 6th they would mix them with the few available 1sts and 2nds they had. We got the 7th just about when England did, and then the show ended there. They reran 4 and 5 the most, then 3 and then the others. I explained how different it was without on demand and even video tapes to my daughter as well. I'd say don't start at the very beginning. They're classics, but the show evolved to what made it so good over time. Test a couple different Doctors, find ones you like and watch their seasons.
ReplyDeleteAgain, short version. The new series was much faster paced than the old and I could tell it wasn't targeted at me and the old fans, but to bring in new viewers, which it did well. I liked it, I think my wife (new to the show) liked it more, and they way it worked let her build up to the craziness of later seasons, (and the old show) I did a set of very sporadic "New Who Views" looking at the differences. This is the first one
http://dogfoodforchairs.blogspot.com/2012/09/new-who-views-return.html
thanx again for reading.
Here's hoping some day we get back to the days when politicians have the same general positive goals for the country but different ways of getting there, instead of the mess we have now.