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.   

Clara Oswald and the Doctor: The Song of Our Souls

Here’s the next installment in my li’l series exploring every companion’s first trip with the Doctor!  The idea of the first trip on Doctor Who fascinates me.  Not the first time a companion meets the Doctor, when they get caught up in the wake of adventure, danger, and world-saving.  But rather the first trip they willingly take in the TARDIS after the Doctor invites them to travel with them through all of time and space.  What type of person says “yes”?  Where do they go?  What does the journey reveal and how does it affect them?  After helping the Doctor (Matt Smith) stop the Great Intelligence from harvesting human consciousnesses, Clara Oswald (Jenna Coleman) responds to his invitation by saying, “Come back tomorrow.  Ask me again.”   When the Doctor asks why, she says, “Because tomorrow I might say yes.  Sometime after 7:00 ok for you?”  In “The Rings of Akhaten” (S7E7) the Doctor returns and they journey to the inhabited rings of the planet Akhaten in the distant future to wander their lively bazaar and attend an ancient religious festival.    

Three’s Company: Why the Thirteenth Doctor, Yaz, and Zoe Heriot are a Dream TARDIS Team

The finale of Doctor Who: Flux aired Sunday night.  I’ve lots of thoughts and lots of feelings.  But they’re still percolating so, instead of writing about Doctor Who: Flux, I want to write about the Doctor (Jodie Whittaker), Yasmin Khan (Mandip Gill) and the dream TARDIS team I’ve had bouncing around in my mind since I finished watching the Second Doctor’s era of Classic Doctor Who last summer.  While I struggled at first to connect to the Second Doctor (Patrick Troughton), the wonder of his era came alive for me when he and his longtime companion Jamie McCrimmon (Frazier Hines) began travelling with Zoe Heriot (Wendy Padbury).  As soon as I met Zoe the seeds for this piece were sown.  I want – nay, I need – some sort of story (be it novel, audio drama, comic, or all of the above) where she reunites with the Doctor to travel with her and Yaz.  It would be perfect!  I think it’s a story that needs telling, too…and here’s why.

“Fancy a Trip in the Box?” – Considering the TARDIS and Each Companion’s First Trip

One of my favorite things about Doctor Who is the first trip the Doctor makes with any new companion.  Now I’m not talking about their first adventure, where they meet the Doctor and get pulled into a much larger world than they knew existed the day before.  No, I’m talking about their first trip, the moment they decide they want to travel through time and space with the Doctor inside that little blue box.  I love it, in part, because these episodes always make me think how would you even begin to choose?!!?  If you had allllllllllll of time and space laid out before you, where would you even want to go first?  How could you pick?!?  Or, if you were in the Doctor’s place, how do you decide what first to show your new companion?  

The BIG Question: Which Vehicle/Ship Would You Choose?

Once before, I rolled up my sleeves and tackled one of humanity’s oldest and most enduring questions – which superpowers would you choose, if you could have any?  But that’s far from the only query to vex the human imagination.  As long as we’ve been imagining mystical, powerful, larger-than-life beings in incredible, captivating, exciting stories, we’ve been imagining different ways for them to move around.  Naturally, the next best thing to imagining fictional characters travelling in these incredible vessels is thinking about having a real one for ourselves.  And this brings us to the question at the center of today’s post – if you could choose, which ship or vehicle or transport would you pick to have for your very own?  

Doctor Who: Becoming a Fan Without the Fandom

I watch Doctor Who now.  If I’m being honest, I watch Doctor Who a lot.  If I’m being really honest, I am absolutely in love with this show (and I may have developed a bit of a binge-watching problem).  I began watching it at the start of the school year and fell in love immediately.  Soon words like “TARDIS,” “Time Lord,” “sonic screwdriver,” “psychic paper,” “Daleks,” and “Cybermen” had become a regular part of my vocabulary.  However, this isn’t a piece about Doctor Who so much as it’s a reflection on falling in love with a show in isolation, completely removed from whatever fandom exists for the brilliant, beautiful world of the Doctor.