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. 

Rose Tyler and the Doctor: Bonding at the End of the World

One of the things I love contemplating about Doctor Who is each companion’s first trip in the TARDIS.  Not their first meeting with the Doctor, when they get caught up in the wake of adventure, danger, and world-saving.  But the first willing trip they take after the Doctor invites them to travel along with them for a while.  While it’s not my favorite “first trip” episode, “The End of the World” (S1,E2) is the most fascinating to me.  Just having helped the Doctor (Christopher Eccleston) save London from the Nestene Consciousness, a sort of living plastic that was controlling store mannequins, Rose Tyler (Billie Piper) bounds into the TARDIS in search of adventure.  Where the Doctor decides to take her says so much about where he’s at on his own emotional journey.  How she responds to this says so much about who she is and why the Doctor needs her.

The Doctor and the Devil

One of my favorite Doctor Who tropes is the use of alien creatures to explain legends and myths (as well as integrate these creatures – in a very Doctor Who-esque way – into the show).  We’ve seen a Haemovariform crash-land on Earth and be mistaken for a werewolf in Scotland in 1879 (S2,E2).  There was a band of Saturnyns creating vampire-like “brides” for their remaining male population in 1580 Venice (S5,E6).  The reason beings on most planets are instinctively afraid of the dark is explained with the presence of the flesh-eating Vashta Nerada, who we see as the dust in sunbeams (S4,E8).  The occasional movement we see flicker, out of the corner of our eye, when we look in mirrors is the “daughter” of “the Family of Blood,” forever trapped in all mirrors by the Doctor (S3,E9).  The list goes on.  But the one most fascinating to me is when the Doctor and Rose encounter “the Beast.”

Celebrating a Hero Like The Doctor – A Birthday Reflection

I wasn’t planning on writing today.  It’s my birthday after all!  Why go out of my way to make work for myself on my birthday?  But then an idea for a post struck and, when a new idea is unfolding, writing isn’t work.  It’s fun!  So with that in mind, you know I love Doctor Who.  And I thought, what with it being my birthday and all, it might be kind of fun to reflect a little on what leads me to love certain characters or fictional worlds.  Out of all the stories – novels, comics, movies, or TV shows – I’ve consumed in my life, what makes one stay with me?  What makes me want to return to that world and visit those characters again and again and again?  What captures my heart and mind?

Fiction’s Fearless Females – Amy Pond

There was an idea.  Jeff knows this.  The idea was to bring together a group of remarkable bloggers to see if they could become something more.  To see if they could work together when we needed them to, to celebrate a collection of incredible female characters we never could on our own.  This week it’s my turn and I’m shining my spotlight on the incomparable Amy Pond, my all-time favorite companion to ever set foot inside the TARDIS in the world of Doctor Who.

Doctor Who – Getting to Know the Thirteenth Doctor Once a Week

Jodie Whittaker’s debut as the Doctor was special for me.  I’ve only recently come into the world of Doctor Who, watching all ten (modern) seasons of the show last year.  I began in the fall of 2017 with Christopher Eccleston’s Ninth Doctor (well, technically I started with David Tennant but my friend Theresa kept making sad sighs when she heard I didn’t start at the beginning so I went back and did) and finished Peter Capaldi’s run in the spring of 2018.  So Jodie Whittaker became the first Doctor I got to watch as the season aired.  It was so exciting!  As this eleventh season (or series if I’m being English about it) of Doctor Who unfolded, I kept thinking of a post I wrote awhile back about being exhausted by binging and streaming TV shows.  Jodie Whittaker and company have consistently delivered everything I’ve come to love about a Doctor Who episode!  But I think part of the magic of this season came from watching it on a weekly basis.