Doctor Who: The show that time forgot

 “There’s this blue box. It’s bigger on the inside. It goes anywhere, sometimes even where it’s supposed to. There’s this bloke in it called the Doctor. Stuff will go wrong, and he has to try and sort out, he usually succeeds because he is Awesome. Now sit down, shut up and watch ‘Blink.’”- Neil Gaiman.

When I was a little boy, up until the age of six, we only had one TV station. Hard to imagine in this day and age of internet, 3G mobile phones, pay TV and whatever way they beam content into your lounge room, I know. But back then we had none of that. We had the ABC or we went outside and made things up. (Unfortunately too many things are already 'made up' and prepackaged for children that they don't need to use imagination any more, but that's another post!) But on TV in those days there was a  show that I used to watch every day. I remember it scared me so much that sometimes I had to cover my eyes or leave the room, but I always came back in the end. It was a show that delighted me, it fuelled my imagination and took me to all different places in time and space. It was about a man and his blue magic box. Doctor Who.

I watched this wonderful show religiously right up until the age of about 11. It was at this time Doctor Who, after many incarnations, wasn't very good any more. I was growing up into a teenager and well, we tend to jettison those things that we held so dearly as children. I said good bye to the Doctor and forgot about him. I went to high school and he kept having adventures until the show was cancelled in 1989. The Doctor was a man out of time in a bad costume and dodgy, wobbly sets, with bad SFX. So long Doctor.

It wasn't until Doctor Who was brought back to TV in spectacular fashion in 2005, that I remembered what an impact this show had on me. It impacted on what books I read, what stories I was attracted to and shaped the possibilities of the kind of mythologies I wanted to tell. That little blue box and the groan of the TARDIS engine had been dormant in my mind for nearly 20 years without me realising it, waiting to be unleashed again.

Current Doctor Matt Smith and companions.

Now we have this wonderful show to love all over again. The imagination is still there, the Doctor is still flinging himself through time and space in his magic box (I never saw this show as sci-fi, but fantasy) and I'm loving every second of it. Gone are the dodgy sets and SFX. What we have in it's place is a smart, beautiful, well written and acted TV show that is being loved by children all over again. Imaginations are fired and kids are running behind the couch again, scared out of their wits. And that's a good thing, if you ask me. 

Watch Doctor Who this Saturday on ABC1 at 7:30pm. The episode is called 'THE DOCTOR'S WIFE' and it's written by award winning fantasy author Neil Gaiman. It's a love letter to the show and encapsulates everything that is grand about a man and his blue box. (Have a box of tissues close by...it's apparently very sad at the end!)