Me as Two at my very first con. |
I suspect it was either four or five. But maybe it was six?
When I was little my parents used to watch Doctor Who on PBS. I neither understood nor liked it. People were just running around being chased by very scary things and they kept dying. What was so wonderful about that?
Due to may parents viewing I had a vague understanding of things like Daleks and Time Lords and would laugh at the occasional Doctor Who joke whenever it popped up, but the show wasn't important to me. I certainly have no recollection of watching the TV movie - though it is possible I did.
Since I didn't particularly like the show I wasn't interested when the reboot started airing. My father, who doesn't watch much of any TV, did watch it. So I'd some times pass by - standing behind the living room sofa, of all things, and catch a bit here and there. Amused, but not fully engaged. Then I caught most of The Empty Child. This was interesting - the London Blitz, a handsome American in a uniform, and mad silliness. I stayed and watched the rest. Of course it was a cliffhanger. I made a point of catching the conclusion : The Doctor Dances. There's that moment at the end - the moment where the Doctor is ecstatic and yelling "Nobody dies!" and that was the moment. The moment I was lost to the show for all time. Because knowing he didn't like it, knowing that he didn't want to always be surrounded by death and nastiness - well maybe that was all I needed to forgive my traumatic childhood memories.
Of course, then they changed the Doctor on me! But then he was my Doctor too! And I loved him. And then, well it all continues from there, doesn't it? You decide to check out the old series. Maybe you host a few Who themed parties. You put together a second doctor cosplay because he's possibly even more your doctor than Ten(also lots of people dress as Ten but hardly any as Two -which is so wrong!) You go to conventions in your costume and get excited because they know you are Two! And suddenly it's a piece of who you are. You are a Whovian. You can name all the actors who played the Doctor in order. You know what UNIT used to stand for and what it stands for now. You always keep an ear out for the sound of the the TARDIS, because, just in case. And you love the Doctor because he's amazing and flawed and brilliant and funny. Really really funny. And then there's the show that elates and disappoints and makes you cry and angry and laugh and it's not perfect. But it's yours. It belongs to you as well as everyone else who has watched it in the 50+ years of its history.
And that's the journey. That's how I ended up here. That's how I became a Whovian.
Any fellow Whovians have a story to share?