Doctor Who Décor: Lovin’ Life With My Wall of Doctor Who Art

When it comes to decorating, I’m not one for empty spaces.  I tend to see a blank wall as a challenge or an invitation.  While I’ve traded thumb tacks and tape rolls for frames hung on nails, very little has changed about how I use the wall space in my house from when I was a kid whose bedroom walls held posters, drawings, and pictures torn from magazines of Sesame Street, He-Man, the Ghostbusters, Garfield, and (of course) Spider-Man.  Over the last few years the two always rotating movie posters which hung behind my couch have given way to a wall of Doctor Who art – almost exclusively quote prints featuring favorite lines from the show.  I’ve wanted to write about this for over a year, ever since I saw Mei-Mei’s post “Star Wars at home,” on her lovely site Jedi By Knight.  I’m finally writing it now as we’re in the waning days of May, which is Mental Health Awareness Month.  The theme Mental Health America chose for this year was “Look Around, Look Within” and the challenge was to consider how our environment – from our neighborhoods, homes, workplaces, and genetics – affect our mental health.  This felt like the perfect time to write about the Doctor!  

May the 4th Be With You! – Finding Hope and Fear on “The Ark in Space”

Happy May the 4^th everyone!  Today is the day we all celebrate the Fourth Doctor, Tom Baker himself – the man who has played the Doctor longer than anyone else.  Getting into the spirit of the day – celebrating what it means when the Doctor is with you – I’m looking at “The Ark in Space.”  After regenerating, the Fourth Doctor’s first outing with Sarah Jane Smith (Elizabeth Sladen) and Harry Sullivan (Ian Marter)  finds them exiting the TARDIS on Space Station Nerva in the year 16,087.  Nerva holds thousands of humans in cryogenic sleep alongside animal and botanical life and a vast store of “the entire body of human thought.”  However, the station also holds the Wirrn, a parasitic insectoid race bent on absorbing all human life.  Russell T Davies has said this was his favorite Classic Doctor Who story.[1] Steven Moffatt cited it as the best Fourth Doctor story.[2]  And (allegedly) it was Tom Baker’s favorite episode he ever filmed.[3]  I love it because space provides a unique setting for our stories, one as likely to inspire hope as soul-shaking horror.  Space holds endless possibilities and endless peril.  I chose “The Ark in Space” for this May the 4^th piece as it gives us both while beautifully showing what  happens when the Doctor is with you.

David Tennant is the Fourteenth Doctor: Thoughts and Theories Part 3

Oh yes!  This is it!  I figured it out!  I FIGURED OUT HOW DONNA CAN RETURN and GET HER MEMORIES BACK with DOCTOR WHO’s 60^th ANNIVERSARY!!!  Well, I say “figured it out” but it’s more like I figured out a way it could work.  But it does!  It works!  And to be honest, what I really (really) want out of Doctor Who’s trilogy of 60^th anniversary specials is for Donna to get her happily ever after.  I want Donna’s memories of her time with the Doctor restored!  And, you know, I’d like for her not to die as a result.  So how can this happen?  Well, Russell T Davies enthusiastically encouraged our theorizing when he said, “If you thought the appearance of David Tennant was a shock, we’ve got plenty more surprises on the way!  The path to Ncuti’s Fifteenth Doctor is laden with mystery, horror, robots, puppets, danger and fun!  And how is it connected to the return of the wonderful Donna Noble?  How, what, why?  We’re giving you a year to speculate, and then all hell lets loose!”[1]  Buckle up, dear reader, the stops on our speculation tour today include “Journey’s End” (S4E13), the 1996 Doctor Who TV movie, and the Timeless Child.  Allons-y!

How to Build a TARDIS: A DIY Project When Dad Does Everything

Let’s not bury the lead here.  Having my own TARDIS is fantastic!  Modelled on the TARDIS used by the Ninth and Tenth Doctor (as far as the size and TARDIS exterior goes), it stands 8’ tall (without the lamp, more on that below) and it’s 48 ¼” wide at the base.  I’d say having my own TARDIS is every bit as exciting as I thought it would be except I never could have imagined loving it this much.  I mean, I have a TARDIS.  I.  Have.  A.  TARDIS!  I have a TARDIS!  How could I ever prepare for this sort of excitement??  The TARIDS was completed on Christmas Day (poeticly perfect timing) and we moved it into my classroom over Christmas break.  However, I’ve waited until now to tell this story as this is my 500^th post on My Comic Relief which warranted a special piece.  And what could be more special than having a TARDIS?!!?

Nearly seven years, 500 posts, and 1,258,447 words have led to this – the story of my TARDIS.   

Doctor Who’s “The Face of Evil,” the Nature of God, and the Role of Religion

Doctor Who is, in many ways, an inherently religious show.  At least according to Tom Baker, the Fourth Doctor himself, who’s played the Doctor longer than anyone else to date (a grand total of 172 episodes across eight seasons).  I agree.  In fact, I’d argue one of the many, many reasons Doctor Who has been around for nearly sixty years is because it does what religions often do and we, by nature, are drawn to such stories.  By this I mean it addresses the fundamental questions of human existence and invites viewers to dialogue with these questions of meaning, purpose, morality, and the like.  It offers hope, even when such stories are out of vogue.  Most of all, its central catechesis is to be kind.  Religions, when they are operating at their best, call us to do the same as they seek to connect us to the Divine and to each other.  However, religion doesn’t always operate at its best and this can lead to confusing conflations of our ideas of “good,” “evil,” and “God.”  “The Face of Evil,” the fourth serial of Series Fourteen of Classic Doctor Who, brilliantly explores the dangers of conflating the role of religion with the will of God.

David Tennant is the Fourteenth Doctor: Thoughts and Theories Part 2

‘Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.  The stockings were hung by the chimney with care, in hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there.  The children were nestled all snug in their beds, while visions of TARDISes and Toymakers danced in their heads.  And Mummy in her ‘kerchief, and I in my cap, had just settled our brains for a long winter’s nap.  When out on Twitter there arose such a clatter as the BBC teased a new trailer for the Doctor Who 60^th Anniversary special dropping tomorrow!!!  Naturally, that “long winter’s nap” could wait.  Russell T Davies enthusiastically encouraged our theorizing when he said, “If you thought the appearance of David Tennant was a shock, we’ve got plenty more surprises on the way!  The path to Ncuti’s Fifteenth Doctor is laden with mystery, horror, robots, puppets, danger and fun!  And how is it connected to the return of the wonderful Donna Noble?  How, what, why?  We’re giving you a year to speculate, and then all hell lets loose!”^[1]  So, with a trailer (or something??) coming tomorrow, tonight felt the perfect time to think and theorize (at least a li’l bit) about what may lay ahead for the Doctor and Donna next year.

Doctor Who Edition: The Great Fandom Swap!

with Nancy of Graphic Novelty²

Michael from My Comic Relief and I have been good friends for years now, as we both started blogging within a few months of each other and discovered each other’s blogs early on. I even had the pleasure of meeting him during a family vacation, as my family and I arranged to meet up for lunch with him and Kalie, who writes Just Dread-Full. For awhile we have good-naturedly pushed the other to start watching our favorite fandoms – which for Michael is Doctor Who and for me Star Trek, specifically The Next Generation. What is amazing about both our series is that they both began in the 1960s, had a few speedbumps to overcome, but then were re-tooled for the better in recent years. So we both choose eight episodes to best represent our favorite fandom and had the other watch them, after giving each other some introductory comments.

The Doctor, the Master, and the Boundaries of Friendship

“Time Lords are friends with each other, dear.  Everything else is cradle-snatching.” – Missy to the Doctor

The Doctor is a Time Lord from the planet Gallifrey, in the constellation of Kasterborous.  All Time Lords possess the ability to regenerate, meaning when they are near death they are born again in a new body with a new personality while retaining their memories.  Barring accidents or being killed again during regeneration, a Time Lord is essentially immortal.  No matter how much I watch Doctor Who, I can’t fully comprehend that sort of life.  I am a finite being so I can’t fathom traversing all of time and space for millennia.  I love thinking about it!  I love speculating about it!  But I’ll never – no matter how long I ponder – fully understand what such a life would be like.  As a result, I can never fully understand the Doctor’s relationship with the Master.  The Master is another Time Lord, the Doctor’s childhood best friend who grew up to become one of their greatest enemies. 

David Tennant is the Fourteenth Doctor: Thoughts and Theories Part 1

When Jodie Whittaker’s Thirteenth Doctor regenerated I had no idea what would happen next.  I knew Ncuti Gatwa was cast as the next Doctor.  But I also knew David Tennant and Catherine Tate were returning for a trilogy of specials for Doctor Who’s 60^th Anniversary next November.  Whose face would I see when the regeneration energy faded??  In all my time watching Doctor Who, there’s never been a regeneration mystery like this!  Jodie Whittaker smiled into the rising sun, arms wide…and then there was David Tennant!  The announcement posted on the BBC’s Doctor Who site immediately after the episode aired made if official-official, “As Jodie Whittaker’s Thirteenth Doctor regenerated on Sunday 23rd October, it was none other than David Tennant who appeared as the Fourteenth Doctor.”  They included a statement from Russell T Davies as well, “If you thought the appearance of David Tennant was a shock, we’ve got plenty more surprises on the way!  The path to Ncuti’s Fifteenth Doctor is laden with mystery, horror, robots, puppets, danger and fun!  And how is it connected to the return of the wonderful Donna Noble?  How, what, why?  We’re giving you a year to speculate, and then all hell lets loose!”[1]

So, David Tennant is the Fourteenth Doctor.  Ncuti Gatwa is the Fifteenth Doctor.  And Russell T Davies has invited us to a year of speculation (hence my “Part 1”).  How fun :D.  Let’s get started!

Saying Goodbye to the Thirteenth Doctor: A Doctor Who Regeneration Reflection

“I wish…I wish this could last forever.”  Those were the Doctor’s final words, spoken as she skipped stones on the beach with Yaz in “Legend of the Sea Devils,” her last adventure before her regeneration in “The Power of the Doctor.”  The first time I watched the special I found the line poignant.  The closer I got to “The Power of the Doctor,” the more I echoed her sentiment.  I wasn’t ready to say goodbye!  I couldn’t lose the Thirteenth Doctor!  I couldn’t lose Yaz!  Not yet!  However, as the personification of Time itself ominously told the Doctor at the Temple of Atropos, “You can leave here, but you won’t outrun me.  Your time is heading to its end.”  Defiant and with more than a little fear the Doctor said, “No…it’s not.  You’re wrong.”  But Time solemnly replied, “Nothing is forever.  No regeneration.  No life.”  I wish Time was wrong!  But alas, the Doctor regenerated, whether I was ready for her to or not.  This piece is me processing; it’s a reflection on the Thirteenth Doctor’s regeneration and her era of Doctor Who.