A Journey Through Time and Space (Part II)

Personal Memoir

My son dressed as Matt Smith’s Doctor (Photo credit: Deborah Sweeney © 2016)

Part I can be found here

In many ways, Doctor Who became a litmus test that determined many of my friendships over the years. People who like the show are my kindred spirits. We share a certain level of geekiness and can spout show trivia like sporting stats. A year after Doctor Who premiered in the United States, I started seventh grade and met Gayle, one of my oldest friends. We shared a love of books and all things science fiction, including a little known quirky British show that featured an alien from the planet Gallifrey. Suzanne joined my Doctor Who fan club when I moved onto high school. We watched the show, read and collected the novelizations, analyzed the plots and the actors performances, memorized trivia, attended conventions, and fell in love with anything British. At one point, we even held our forks “Continental” style, in our left hands. I plastered the walls of my bedroom with Doctor Who posters instead of pop music stars. We cried when the Doctor’s companion Adric died in “Earthshock,” and drooled over the preppy schoolboy looks of bad boy Turlough with his piercing blue eyes, freckles, and red hair. We rushed to see both actors when they came to Boston on a convention tour. In high school, the popular kids ignored us, but we survived.

The litmus test held true even as I moved into adulthood. I met fellow Whovians in college and grad school. Those of us from the first generation of American Whovians continued to reminisce about the show as we haunted video stores for tapes of old episodes, or found Doctor Who marathons on the Sci-Fi channel or PBS.

The BBC stopped production of the original series in 1989, near the end of my college days when my access to television was already limited. I missed most of Colin Baker’s and Sylvester McCoy’s seasons. Five years later, the BBC announced a partnership with Universal Studios. A television movie starring Paul McGann would soon grace the airwaves. It was the first major attempt to reboot the series. I watched the movie with bated breath, perched on the futon in our small apartment with my fingers crossed, hoping that a new series would return. The movie proved unappealing to American audiences, and the planned series was scrapped.

Another long decade passed without the Doctor, but the BBC executives never gave up. A sleek new series, with modern special effects, premiered in 2005, starring Christopher Eccleston. It took a few months for the show to come to the United States, landing on the Sci-Fi channel. The clunky pre-CGI special effects were gone as well as the outdated serial format. The rebooted show introduced the Doctor to a new generation of viewers and became a cult-classic. I devoured the first season. Eccleston played the role with confidence while his new companion Rose, played by pop singer Billie Piper, was down-to-earth and independent. In my zeal for the new show, I made the mistake of introducing the new series to my five year old daughter, Cathleen. In Britain, the show is considered family-friendly. The show shies away from gore and violence, contains mild language, and has no sex or nudity. However, many episodes contain frightening aliens and monsters with intense dramatic moments. In Eccleston’s first story “Rose,” new audiences were introduced to the Doctor and Rose while they protected London from the Nestene, an alien consciousness who replaces people with plastic duplicates called Autons. Mannequins in shop windows came to life and attacked humans throughout the episode. Cathleen developed a fear of mannequins, and for a while, she boycotted the show.

The Doctor regenerated several times as Cathleen grew older. Eccleston left the show after one season; David Tennant replaced him. Tennant played the role for four years before Matt Smith took over. Time Lords are like cats, possessing multiple lives—in this case, twelve instead of nine. When the actor playing the Doctor grows weary of the role, the character regenerates. The Doctor “dies,” thereby taking on a new persona, a dramatic move that has contributed to the show’s longevity. Smith began his reign when Cathleen was nine. One alien race, the Weeping Angels, premiered in “Blink,” an episode from the Tennant era. The Weeping Angels rose to prominence during the Smith years. These particular aliens disguised themselves as stone statues, similar to funereal angels found in cemeteries. They moved only when no one was looking, which made them so very frightening. Considered to be one of the scariest monsters in the modern series, it came as no surprise that Cathleen was terrified of them.

The Saturnyn, introduced during Smith’s first season, became another terror. These aliens lived near the waters of 16^th century Venice—part human, fish, and crustacean. They sucked blood from human victims and turned them into more Saturnyn, an intriguing take on vampire mythology. In an effort to eliminate her fear of vampires, I forced Cathleen to watch Twilight. I made a Doctor Who fan of her in the end, despite all the scary monsters and a life-time of emotional scarring. As a teenager, Cathleen embraced the show, dressing up as Amy Pond, Smith’s feisty, red-headed companion for Halloween. In “The Day of the Moon,” Amy covered herself with black tally marks that indicated how many times she had seen the Silence—an ominous race that could only be perceived when looked at, but were forgotten the moment a viewer looked away. Cathleen covered herself with tally marks as part of her costume.

As my son grew older, he too, joined the fan club. Seamus watched all the episodes of the eleventh and twelfth Doctors—Matt Smith and Peter Capaldi—with us. The monsters failed to frighten him to the same degree as his sister, or at least, he hid his fear well. He dressed up as Smith’s Doctor for Halloween when he was eight, wearing a red fez, jacket, suspenders and bowtie with my sonic screwdriver to complete the look. The next summer he donned the costume again for the local Comic Con.

For most of my life, the doctor was played by a Caucasian male. Many people thought it was time for a woman to helm the TARDIS for the 21^st century. After all, Time Lords could regenerate as either sex. One of the show’s long time villains, another Time Lord called the Master, came back as a woman during Capaldi’s era. Jodi Whitaker became the first woman to pilot the TARDIS, taking over the role in the 2017 Christmas special. Her first full series broadcast in early 2020 as the COVID pandemic swept across the world. When I returned to work part time in the fall of 2021, I met Cassie, a new teacher who joined the fourth grade teaching team.

“You stole my job,” I said, grinning at her, “I applied for that position.”

“Oh, no!”

“It’s okay, really.”

Between my cancer recovery and the pandemic, I could not have returned to work full-time. We would never have met, had I gotten the job. Older married people do not often make new friends, as work and family monopolize our time. Cassie belongs to a younger generation, exposed to the new series of Doctor Who when they were teenagers. She loves to cosplay and makes her own costumes from Disney princesses to Star Wars characters. In her classroom, she dresses up as Whitaker’s Doctor from time to time to engage her students in learning. Of course we became friends, bonding over many things, including Doctor Who. One day, during a clothing spirit week at school, we wore our matching Tom Baker scarves on the “wear a colorful scarf” theme day. The litmus test holds true—Doctor Who helped me find another kindred soul.

For the show’s sixtieth anniversary, the Doctor regenerated again. This time Ncuti Gatwa captured the role, being the first person of color to lead the TARDIS crew. He brought a new energy to the beloved part, breathing joy and exuberance into the character. Gatwa’s first full season featured some old monsters and villains, but omitted the traditional adventurous battles against Daleks and Cybermen. The annual Christmas special premieres in less than two weeks, and features Nicola Coughlan, an Irish actor who gained fame over the last few years for her work on Bridgerton and Derry Girls. Some people watch football on Christmas day, after the presents are unwrapped and dinner has been eaten. Not me! I will be wrapped in my cozy TARDIS blanket in front of my television, waiting for the Doctor to materialize.