Why you should be watching Doctor Who
After my entry on Castle yesterday, I realized that for all my ramblings about Doctor Who on this journal, I never actually made a post, with no spoilers, for the non-Whovians here (if there are any left!) on why I love it so much and why everyone should watch it.
Doctor Who is the longest-running science fiction TV series in history, airing initially from 1963 to 1989. The series told the story of the Doctor, a mysterious alien traveller, whose TARDIS can take him and his companions anywhere in time and space. It got renewed in 2005, and what we call "New Who" has become a sensation in the UK, probably the most famous and most loved British tv-show. Don't worry, you don't have to catch up on 26 series to understand it. You can just start from Series 1 of New Who aired in 2005. It's what I did, and what I'm going to be talking about here.
Reading the summary as simplified as it is, it certainly doesn't look inviting. Just another cheesy sci-fi show, right? Add to that that it's advertised as a Family Show (a polite way of saying "for kids") and I can understand why one would be tempted to steer clear. I know I had to be strong-armed into watching it by a friend whose opinion I value very much, or I would have never given it a try. But boy, am I glad I did!
Doctor Who is a quirky show with a quirky and mysterious lead character who just loves to travel and discover new worlds, new species and new times (and more often than not ends up saving said worlds, species and timelines), and picks up travel companions as he goes along to keep him company, to show the universe to.
New Who starts from the point of view of Rose Tyler, a young shop assistant in a London department store, who lives a humdrum and profoundly average life - until the night the shop dummies where she works wake up and try to kill her. Her life is saved by this strange man who only calls himself "The Doctor", and intrigued by him, she finds herself thrown headlong into a hectic battle to stop an alien presence from invading Earth and annihilating the human race. She comes to learn that her new friend is even stranger than she thought - he's an alien adventurer called a Time Lord, seemingly the last of his race, who travels through time and space in his TARDIS (a spaceship in the shape of an old 60s Police Box) battling evil where he finds it. When he offers her to travel with him, she jumps into the unknown. Only one thing is certain - it'll be the ride of a lifetime. She'll find herself witnessing the heat-death of the Earth five billion years in the future, meeting Charles Dickens in the past and encountering lifeforms and invaders and visiting strange planets... but most of all, the Doctor will teach her a better way of living her life, to take chances, go after what she wants, that courage isn't the absence of fear, but the mastering of it to do what's right by taking a stand when everyone else runs away.
I'm not going to tell you anymore than that, because you should really experience it as unspoiled as you can. If you give it a try, you might find yourself meeting Shakespeare and Agatha Christie, or walking around Pompeii the day before the eruption of Mount Vesuvius. You'll travel to strange places like an ice planet, the biggest library in the universe, or a space station on a small planet in orbit around a black hole. You'll see London in the 1950s, or the Blitz in WWII, prevent an alien invasion in the present day, meet humans from the 51st century and cat-nuns running a hospital, or fight men made of metal and others among the scariest aliens in the universe.
Know that it's about finding the positive in everything and everyone. It's about hope, about not giving in, about finding beauty in every little thing when the universe darkens around you. It's about a love for life and keeping on trying no matter how hard life is. About doing what is right and not what is easy, about finding family and home where you least expect it, family and home that have little to do with blood or species and everything with shared ideals and emotions and values. A show about friendship and companionship. Curiosity and discovery.
With an inevitable underlining sadness, because the Doctor is immortal, but everyone else he travels with is not. That's the catch. The Doctor doesn't age and, when he's mortally wounded, he "regenerates", a way of cheating death that involves changing every single cell in his body. What comes out of the process is a completely different person in appearence and character - different actor, different moods and mannerisms - who retains the most vital characteristics that still make him the Doctor - his moral code, his unquenchable love for life and traveling and adventures, his fondness for human beings and the Earth. He's 900 years old already at the beginning of S1... a human lifespan to him feels like a heartbeat. Because of this he finds it all the more painful to get attached to anyone, for he knows that sooner or later he will lose them. So he lives in the moment, from one adventure to another, putting on a brave façade of a somewhat bonkers funny guy that from time to time splinters to reveal the sad and lonely person underneath. His whole race gone in the misterious Time War, hinted at but never actually spoken about, he remains the only guardian and safe-keeper of the universe, a weight he's almost destroyed by. He keeps looking for people to travel with, no matter how much it hurts when they leave, because sometimes, as the most powerful being in the universe, he needs someone to stop him, keep him grounded, connected to life. By showing his companions the universe he sees it anew everytime, watching it through their eyes, and that gives him a reason to go on. In exchange, he offers them the chance of a lifetime to live a dream, and helps them find and realise their potential.
This show isn't "for kids". It's PG rated, for certain, but I see it more like an adult show that kids can enjoy too. It's witty and ironic and full of humour, but at the same time it doesn't shy away from dealing with dark themes like loss, character death, betrayal, difficult choices and philosophical questions like how much can you change of a timeline, when to intervene and when do you have to powerlessly stand by and watch a tragedy unfold. It teaches values that I thought dead and deals with issues that we generally avoid and that are certainly very difficult to find in modern day television.
Watch this show because it will make you laugh, and it will make you cry. Because it will take you on an emotional journey with characters that are real, and flawed, and extraordinary in their own special way. Like the Doctor says, "There's no such thing as an ordinary human". And this is no ordinary show.
ETA: Editing to add a quote from papilio_luna's comment. She's right, it's not a show for kids, but it's not for adults, either.
It's for everyone. Young, old, men, women, rich, poor... the new series is quite specifically made to have an incredibly broad appeal. And I think it does that by being one of the most blatantly humanist shows on TV. It's not about how great it is to be a boy or a girl or young or old or alien or human--it's about how great it is to be alive, to love, to have friends, to find meaning in even small things. And everyone can relate to that.
Word.
ETA 2: Editing again because I just found out that the boxsets for S1, S2 and S4 are rated PG-12!! Wow! How's that for a "kid's show"?
Doctor Who is the longest-running science fiction TV series in history, airing initially from 1963 to 1989. The series told the story of the Doctor, a mysterious alien traveller, whose TARDIS can take him and his companions anywhere in time and space. It got renewed in 2005, and what we call "New Who" has become a sensation in the UK, probably the most famous and most loved British tv-show. Don't worry, you don't have to catch up on 26 series to understand it. You can just start from Series 1 of New Who aired in 2005. It's what I did, and what I'm going to be talking about here.
Reading the summary as simplified as it is, it certainly doesn't look inviting. Just another cheesy sci-fi show, right? Add to that that it's advertised as a Family Show (a polite way of saying "for kids") and I can understand why one would be tempted to steer clear. I know I had to be strong-armed into watching it by a friend whose opinion I value very much, or I would have never given it a try. But boy, am I glad I did!
Doctor Who is a quirky show with a quirky and mysterious lead character who just loves to travel and discover new worlds, new species and new times (and more often than not ends up saving said worlds, species and timelines), and picks up travel companions as he goes along to keep him company, to show the universe to.
New Who starts from the point of view of Rose Tyler, a young shop assistant in a London department store, who lives a humdrum and profoundly average life - until the night the shop dummies where she works wake up and try to kill her. Her life is saved by this strange man who only calls himself "The Doctor", and intrigued by him, she finds herself thrown headlong into a hectic battle to stop an alien presence from invading Earth and annihilating the human race. She comes to learn that her new friend is even stranger than she thought - he's an alien adventurer called a Time Lord, seemingly the last of his race, who travels through time and space in his TARDIS (a spaceship in the shape of an old 60s Police Box) battling evil where he finds it. When he offers her to travel with him, she jumps into the unknown. Only one thing is certain - it'll be the ride of a lifetime. She'll find herself witnessing the heat-death of the Earth five billion years in the future, meeting Charles Dickens in the past and encountering lifeforms and invaders and visiting strange planets... but most of all, the Doctor will teach her a better way of living her life, to take chances, go after what she wants, that courage isn't the absence of fear, but the mastering of it to do what's right by taking a stand when everyone else runs away.
I'm not going to tell you anymore than that, because you should really experience it as unspoiled as you can. If you give it a try, you might find yourself meeting Shakespeare and Agatha Christie, or walking around Pompeii the day before the eruption of Mount Vesuvius. You'll travel to strange places like an ice planet, the biggest library in the universe, or a space station on a small planet in orbit around a black hole. You'll see London in the 1950s, or the Blitz in WWII, prevent an alien invasion in the present day, meet humans from the 51st century and cat-nuns running a hospital, or fight men made of metal and others among the scariest aliens in the universe.
Know that it's about finding the positive in everything and everyone. It's about hope, about not giving in, about finding beauty in every little thing when the universe darkens around you. It's about a love for life and keeping on trying no matter how hard life is. About doing what is right and not what is easy, about finding family and home where you least expect it, family and home that have little to do with blood or species and everything with shared ideals and emotions and values. A show about friendship and companionship. Curiosity and discovery.
With an inevitable underlining sadness, because the Doctor is immortal, but everyone else he travels with is not. That's the catch. The Doctor doesn't age and, when he's mortally wounded, he "regenerates", a way of cheating death that involves changing every single cell in his body. What comes out of the process is a completely different person in appearence and character - different actor, different moods and mannerisms - who retains the most vital characteristics that still make him the Doctor - his moral code, his unquenchable love for life and traveling and adventures, his fondness for human beings and the Earth. He's 900 years old already at the beginning of S1... a human lifespan to him feels like a heartbeat. Because of this he finds it all the more painful to get attached to anyone, for he knows that sooner or later he will lose them. So he lives in the moment, from one adventure to another, putting on a brave façade of a somewhat bonkers funny guy that from time to time splinters to reveal the sad and lonely person underneath. His whole race gone in the misterious Time War, hinted at but never actually spoken about, he remains the only guardian and safe-keeper of the universe, a weight he's almost destroyed by. He keeps looking for people to travel with, no matter how much it hurts when they leave, because sometimes, as the most powerful being in the universe, he needs someone to stop him, keep him grounded, connected to life. By showing his companions the universe he sees it anew everytime, watching it through their eyes, and that gives him a reason to go on. In exchange, he offers them the chance of a lifetime to live a dream, and helps them find and realise their potential.
This show isn't "for kids". It's PG rated, for certain, but I see it more like an adult show that kids can enjoy too. It's witty and ironic and full of humour, but at the same time it doesn't shy away from dealing with dark themes like loss, character death, betrayal, difficult choices and philosophical questions like how much can you change of a timeline, when to intervene and when do you have to powerlessly stand by and watch a tragedy unfold. It teaches values that I thought dead and deals with issues that we generally avoid and that are certainly very difficult to find in modern day television.
Watch this show because it will make you laugh, and it will make you cry. Because it will take you on an emotional journey with characters that are real, and flawed, and extraordinary in their own special way. Like the Doctor says, "There's no such thing as an ordinary human". And this is no ordinary show.
ETA: Editing to add a quote from papilio_luna's comment. She's right, it's not a show for kids, but it's not for adults, either.
It's for everyone. Young, old, men, women, rich, poor... the new series is quite specifically made to have an incredibly broad appeal. And I think it does that by being one of the most blatantly humanist shows on TV. It's not about how great it is to be a boy or a girl or young or old or alien or human--it's about how great it is to be alive, to love, to have friends, to find meaning in even small things. And everyone can relate to that.
Word.
ETA 2: Editing again because I just found out that the boxsets for S1, S2 and S4 are rated PG-12!! Wow! How's that for a "kid's show"?