First, a bit of personal history. I grew up watching Doctor Who. KUED 7 used to air it late on Saturday nights. I remember sneaking out of bed, peeking around the hallway corner to watch it when my parents thought I was asleep. Later, they let my brothers and me stay up to watch it with them, as long as we took our baths in time. Peter Davison was my first Doctor. When my dad got a computer with a 14.4k modem in the early 90's, I joined rec.arts.drwho on Usenet, and #drwho on IRC. I still remember how to draw a Tardis using only ASCII characters:
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I chatted with Doctor Who fans around the world--there was nobody else I knew outside my family who even knew what Doctor Who was. This was during the dry years after 1989, when there was no new Doctor Who on television, and probably never would be. I witnessed (and sometimes joined) several canon wars, the endless debates between "frocks" and "guns" over which serials were the best, and whether the fact that the show was canceled before the Cartmel Masterplan could be realized was a blessing or a curse (a blessing, by the way--unequivocally). Jon Blum and Paul Cornell once complimented me on a bit of fanfic I wrote as a teenager, which sadly I have since lost. I got trolled by the infamous David Yadallee. I collected many of the Virgin New Adventures during the long years, and somewhere along the way, I also acquired the 25th Anniversary commemorative coffee table book (which I pored over endlessly), a Dalek T-shirt, a Cyberman and a K-9 poster, a Dapol Dalek, and a ceramic police box coin bank that my mom found at a thrift store.
I was over the moon when the first news of the Fox/BBC 1996 TV Movie broke, angsted with my fellow fans online over every dreadful production rumor (and they were truly, truly dreadful--complain all you want about how awful the TVM was; be grateful. It could have been so, so much worse), cheered when I watched it, bought a t-shirt with McGann's face superimposed over the Seal of Rassilon, and debated endlessly about just how terrible the movie was, and why--except for Paul McGann of course, and the new orchestral arrangement of the theme song. They were perfect. I was a founding member of the Paul McGann Estrogen Brigade. And I was, to tell the truth, a little sad, but mostly relieved when Fox didn't pick up the option for a series based on the movie, even though it certainly meant that Doctor Who was gone for good.
Nearly a decade crawled past, the internet evolved, Usenet became a quiet backwater and IRC just kind of faded away--or anyway I faded from them. I grew tired of retreading endless fan debates, I drifted away from the online fan community, but I still watched and re-watched my collection of VHS tapes, and re-read my books, and made up fanfic in my head. And then in 2005, a miracle happened. The BBC brought Doctor Who back. Months before it got picked up by the Sci-Fi channel, a friend from the UK sent my family a copy of "Rose" recorded off his telly. Those of us still living at home at the time huddled around my brother's little 17" CRT monitor to witness the rebirth. The moment the familiar theme began, I remember jumping out of my chair (I knocked my knee against the desk in my excitement), cheering and dancing gleefully with my mom. We all felt it: Doctor Who was back to stay, as it was meant to be--almost as if it had never been gone at all. I still get a thrill every time the opening credits roll. I just can't believe how lucky I am to really be seeing new episodes of Doctor Who.
It's surreal to walk into a Barnes & Noble and see Doctor Who merchandise on the shelves. If I mention Doctor Who in company these days, I'm as likely to be met with broad smiles of fellow feeling as I am with blank stares or sneers. Yesterday, I passed a student on campus wearing a 10th Doctor coat. I heard there was a Dalek on campus during Homecoming this year. I know some people dislike all the new series' popularity and kitschy merchandise. There's some nostalgia for the old days when only the True Fans were in on the secret. I'm not one of those people. Don't get me wrong, I'd much rather that Doctor Who be good than popular. But as long as it's still good (and it is so very, very good!), popularity can only be a bonus. And even though a lot of the merchandise is frankly rubbish--look, when I was a kid, my brothers and I used a broken tire pressure gauge for a sonic screwdriver. Now I've got two proper toy Sonics--TWO! And the 11-year-old me could not be more thrilled.
But the fact that Doctor Who was such a massive part of my childhood and adolescence doesn't explain why it's so popular all over the world now. It doesn't explain what's so great about the show itself. Well, I can't speak for anyone else, but for me, it's about the Doctor. It's about the kind of being he is, the kind of life he exemplifies. And it's about exuberant, unabashed joy.
Let me explain. In case you didn't know, the Doctor is an 1100-ish year-old Time Lord from the planet Gallifrey. He has two hearts, and when his body gets worn out by illness or injury, he doesn't die; he regenerates. He's been travelling through time and space in a stolen ship (called the Tardis) for about 900 years, and in that time he's seen a lot, lost a lot, and saved the universe a lot. Yet despite all he's seen, and all the pain he's experienced, his default reaction to every new encounter is openness, curiosity, and wide-eyed wonder. He's incredibly clever, and always eager to learn something new. He's incredibly powerful, but also deeply fallible, and despite the darkness lurking inside him, he chooses to be a good man. That's why he calls himself the Doctor--a name that means healer, and wise man. That name he chose, he told Clara, was a promise he made to himself. It's an ethos the show itself embraces. As Craig Ferguson put it, "It's all about the triumph of intellect and romance over brute force and cynicism."
Doctor Who, the show, has not always been great. At times it's been very, very bad. But at its best, there's simply nothing better. It's a show that can go anywhere, do nearly anything (and nearly has). It's got all my favorite things--cleverness and silliness, historical drama and space adventure, robots and monsters, heroism and friendship. And that beautiful blue box that's bigger on the inside. How could I not love it? Doctor Who is hugely ambitious but not at all pretentious. Even the embarrassing episodes always make me smile. Doctor Who reminds me that although the universe might sometimes be a terrifying place, it's also beautiful and wonderful and full of goodness, and that the wonder is worth the monsters.
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