Okay, I admit it: I'm a geek.
Literally a card carrying geek.
And my poison of choice is Doctor Who.
But why Who rather then Star Trek or Star Wars or Stargate?
Because there's a wonderfully eccentric something about Who.
Something impossible.
Something marvellous.
Something well and truly barmy.
Maybe it's the juxtaposition of the mundane and the extraordinary.
Maybe it's the morality of the hero, who, as the elder statesman of Who, the writer Terrance Dicks (fondly nicknamed "Uncle Terrance" by the fans, many of whom like me learnt to read on stories (not just Who) written by him) put it is "never cowardly, never cruel. A peaceful man in a violent universe".
Maybe it's the fact that it makes you think, even when it's just running up and down corridors.
Maybe it's because the ideas were always bigger then the wooden sets and (slightly less, or slightly more, depending on your point of view) wooden acting.
It is, as I said, in the writing where the series sparkles (or fizzles).
That's where my favourite scenes occur, where the writing gives you a shiver down the spine, where they take your breathe away.
Such as this, from the story that effectively came at the end of the BBC Books series, the Gallifrey Chronicles:
"The Doctor was the finest dream of hundreds of human beings, refined as they tapped away at their typewriters. For generations, they'd made him a hero to countless millions in over a hundred countries. Then, just once, he hadn't come back. His enemies had kept him away. But despite their best efforts he hadn't been forgotten. There were those who remembered him when they walked past a dummy in a shop window or sat on a beach looking out to sea, and every time they ground pepper. Some of those who remembered him had typewriters of their own. And, after far too long, a new generation of children were about to hear that music for the first time, and they would learn their sofa wasn't just for sitting on."
This IMO sums up the magic of Doctor Who.
More reflections, and the odd review, will come later.
Literally a card carrying geek.
And my poison of choice is Doctor Who.
But why Who rather then Star Trek or Star Wars or Stargate?
Because there's a wonderfully eccentric something about Who.
Something impossible.
Something marvellous.
Something well and truly barmy.
Maybe it's the juxtaposition of the mundane and the extraordinary.
Maybe it's the morality of the hero, who, as the elder statesman of Who, the writer Terrance Dicks (fondly nicknamed "Uncle Terrance" by the fans, many of whom like me learnt to read on stories (not just Who) written by him) put it is "never cowardly, never cruel. A peaceful man in a violent universe".
Maybe it's the fact that it makes you think, even when it's just running up and down corridors.
Maybe it's because the ideas were always bigger then the wooden sets and (slightly less, or slightly more, depending on your point of view) wooden acting.
It is, as I said, in the writing where the series sparkles (or fizzles).
That's where my favourite scenes occur, where the writing gives you a shiver down the spine, where they take your breathe away.
Such as this, from the story that effectively came at the end of the BBC Books series, the Gallifrey Chronicles:
"The Doctor was the finest dream of hundreds of human beings, refined as they tapped away at their typewriters. For generations, they'd made him a hero to countless millions in over a hundred countries. Then, just once, he hadn't come back. His enemies had kept him away. But despite their best efforts he hadn't been forgotten. There were those who remembered him when they walked past a dummy in a shop window or sat on a beach looking out to sea, and every time they ground pepper. Some of those who remembered him had typewriters of their own. And, after far too long, a new generation of children were about to hear that music for the first time, and they would learn their sofa wasn't just for sitting on."
This IMO sums up the magic of Doctor Who.
More reflections, and the odd review, will come later.
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