Fangirl’s Guide to Doctor Who

When I wrote about Harry Potter and Chris Evans, I knew a little something about them… Doctor Who? “Who” is right. The most I know about Who is what Community pokes fun at. So to me Doctor Who is an over the top sci-fi show about traveling through space. Apparently (of course huge fans already know) it started in the 1960s, then took a break in 1989, and was revived in 2005 with Christopher Eccleston as The (Ninth) Doctor. I never even heard of this show until a couple years ago. Around that same time, Tenth Doctor David Tennant was moving on to do B-rated movies. Then along came this Matt Smith fellow to take over the reins.

So Who fans have been around twice as long as I’ve been alive, but to me this fandom took a turn with the help of the Internet (like almost every fandom today). One can join online forums, buy a TARDIS dress on Etsy and even look up dates for the Who convention. The fans are insanely obsessed, but from what I’ve read around the Fandomania-sphere is that not too many people were happy with the last season, but when you love something, you stick with it through the rough patches, TV included. So let’s explore why this show has been a pop culture staple for half a century and even though it might get hard to watch for the diehards at times, they continue to tune in to BBC for it. BBC… Who knows where that channel even is?

Name: Doctor Who
Birthday: November 23, 1963
Place of Birth: England
Twitter: @bbcdoctorwho

Best Known For

In America the longest running shows are soap operas. In the UK it’s shows like Doctor Who. Who knew a show about a human looking alien who traveled through time in a police box would still be relevant and have as much attention to it 50 years later? Probably no one but, alas, it doesn’t seem like Doctor Who is going anywhere soon. It’s the longest running sci-fi show ever and the most successful based on ratings. Of course Doctor Who is widely popular and loved in the sci-fi, Comic-Con, geek world. It’s got aliens, space and nerdy words like “Daleks”… What more could a fangirl ask for? Oh yes, The Doctors themselves. It doesn’t hurt that people who tune in get the chance to fall for each Doctor that comes through that police box door.

5 Quick Doctor Who Facts

1. Think you were cool for finding Doctor Who before the rest of the world in 2005? Think again, New Zealand was the first country outside the UK to air it in 1964.
2. If you learn anything from Who, then it’s a success because it was originally supposed to be an educational program for kids.
3. November 1963… Historical buffs know the 22^nd was when JFK was assassinated, so the first episode of Who was kind of disregarded by that, but was replayed before the second episode the following week.
4. The current Doctor, Matt Smith, is the youngest man to ever have the role.
5. If you were a Time Lord and headed to Latin America in the 1960s, they would call you “Doctor Misterio.”

Reasons You Love Doctor Who

Let me try and get into the mind of a Doctor Who fangirl. They’re usually smart, obsessive and probably don’t have much of a social life since they choose to stay in on Saturdays to watch Who. But why do you love this show that can be a little farfetched at times? The same reason people love something as grand as Star Wars or as simple minded as reality TV. It’s about the fantasy. Oh yeah, and The Doctor you wish you were the companion to.  You not only crave adventure, but the knowledge that comes with it. To travel with The Doctor and see whatever time period you head to in your TARDIS is a dream on your bucket list you’d do anything to cross off. When you’re not plotting how to make your own time travel contraption (ending with a refrigerator box painted blue), you’re exploring other ways to express your fandom, be it wearing the TARDIS (gals and guys get uber creative with this) or looking like stone to be a Weeping Angel. No matter how you showcase your Who love, you do it because you of course love the show and the fantasy it creates. It has space like Star Trek, it has relationships like The Hunger Games, and it has weird jargon like Harry Potter, but to you it’s all that and more wrapped in a British police box with a cute Doctor waiting inside.

Reasons I Love Doctor Who

I don’t. I can’t even say I respect it in the same way I respect Harry Potter because I don’t know much about it and to me it’s this show on a channel it’d take me ten minutes to find. Much love to the fans who have dedicated either 50 years or the past seven to it though. You are the reason it continues to be a mainstay on my Tumblr dashboard, a “what’s hot” in upcoming TV Guide specials, and a convention staple. But if I had to sit down and wrack my brain for the one thing I love about this show, it’s not the fans, but their creativity when it comes to Who. To see someone look like a full blown statue in person is astonishing and a little frightening, but in the end really badass. I will probably never love Doctor Who, but I will forever love the imagination of its fans.