I grew up a nerd and
am still a nerd.
(I’m not going to
use the G-word because these days it carries with it too many
positive connotations. Man, really didn’t see that coming.)
The proof is pretty
extensive if you look at my high school resume:
Eyeglasses. Bad at
sports. Bad skin. Bad hair. Bad clothes. Socially awkward, especially
around girls. A victim of bullying. Gifted program. Big reader
(mostly of fantasy and science-fiction). Comic books. Dungeons &
Dragons. Star Wars. Star Trek. Magic: The Gathering.
Chess. PC games. Axis & Allies. Monty Python. MST3K. Bowling.
Heavy metal. Weird Al. A group of similarly-nerdy friends.
The only
counterpoints to my nerd-cred are that I didn’t get good grades and
that I was terrible at science and math.
So, yeah, besides
those things, nerd.
As I got older, my
skin cleared up, I got contacts, varied my taste in music, lost my
virginity, stopped playing RPGs, drifted away from comic books. In
college I made the transition from a nerd to a film ‘g-word’ or,
to be a dick about it, a cinephile. At least, that’s how I
thought of myself. I’m sure others still thought I was a nerd.
Which is okay. I was.
Every nerd has their
nerd-drug of choice, and mine was and is Star Wars. For some
it’s Trek or Legos or wrestling or high fantasy fiction or
Harry Potter or whatever else people get obsessed about. I
like all of those things (except for wrestling, sorry Mr.
Troublemaker), but Lucas’s galaxy far, far away is my number one. I
think every nerd has a number one.
But as I got older
and discovered new nerdy things to like (history, science (but still
no math), ‘Buffy’ & ‘Firefly’, Gentle Giant statues, BSG,
Elder Scrolls games (loves loves loves me some Skyrim), The
Song of Ice and Fire), there was one corner of nerd-dom that I
consciously avoided at all costs:
I had
never seen ‘Doctor Who’, but I had met a few guys who loved
it. And they were the obese and unhappy men who sold me my comics and
campaign sourcebooks, men who would, deeply entrenched in some sort
of Time Lord related dispute, ignore me as I bought the latest issue
of New Warriors or asked to get into the dice case to look for
a new twenty-sided.
Perhaps
if I had stumbled upon an old Tom Baker rerun on PBS as a child one
night, I would be writing a very different piece here. Maybe I’d be
ranting on and on about my long term relationship with the Doctor and
his companions and pulling out deep cuts of trivia like I can with
Star Wars or ‘Buffy’. But I didn’t. So my only exposure
to ‘Doctor Who’, because my friends weren’t into it either, was
through these guys and it just looked…
…too
damned nerdy.
They
were always talking about trading VHS tapes, hunting down this
episode or that, collecting toys that looked like studded astromech
droids, arguing over continuity and “which number” they
preferred. When I looked at the covers of the videos all I saw were
pictures of old men who could not have possibly looked more British,
fighting creatures that looked like something Joel would have built
on the Satellite of Love.
It
just seemed like such a deep dark rabbit hole to spelunk. I knew that
if I got into it I would be consumed by it and, damn it, I was trying
to get laid. (As if my knowledge of Exar Kun, Ulic Quel-Droma, and
the Sith War was going to help me with that, but whatever). I didn’t
have time for a new nerd-drug, especially one required you to put a
lot of work in.
I
didn’t think of it as good or bad, just…
…too
damned nerdy.
And my
life was already…
…too
damned nerdy.
During
the course of my life (well, mostly at comic stores and cons), I
picked up a few things. I learned that the stupid blue box is called
a “Tardis”. That the guy’s only weapon is a freakin’
screwdriver. And that, apparently, the show had something to do with
time travel.
But
that’s honestly all I knew. I remained willfully ignorant.
Until
Eccleston.
I
don’t know what made me watch the first episode of the “new”
‘Doctor Who’. It may have been the recommendation of Chris
Hardwick on his podcast. It may have been some of the internet buzz
going around. But most likely, it was the image of Christopher
Eccleston, an actor I’d been a fan of since Shallow Grave,
wearing a black trench coat and looking nothing like those old
guys on those VHS covers.
Whatever
it was, the first several series were on Netflix, so I started
watching. And, five minutes in, the first thought I had was: “Yeah.
This looks British.”
I’m sure to
someone who grew up on the originals, the “first” season must
have been a visual revelation, but to me, it had the same look as any
BBC show, a cheapness born of the conversion from PAL to NTSC and,
well, actual cheapness. But as a ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’ fan,
I know better than to judge a show by the production value of its
pilot. So I continued to watch. I met Rose Tyler. I met Mickey.
And I met the
Doctor.
And boy was he an
angry and sad son of a bitch.
I loved him.
As the first series
progressed, I became more able to look past the production failings
(which I think is a required skill of any old school Whovian as well)
and get wrapped up in the story. And, much to my pleasant surprise,
Russell T. Davies and his writers made the show stand completely on
its own. Even though I was aware that there was a huge story and
canon standing behind the show, my ignorance of it didn’t get in
the way at all. Turns out, you didn’t have to like ‘Doctor Who’
to like ‘Doctor Who’.
I never hid behind
the couch as a child to shield myself from the Daleks, but I found
them joyously disturbing all the same. I didn’t know I was to fear
the Cybermen, but when they came, I did. I’m sure there were a
thousand other references and callbacks to the classic days, but I
never caught them, and never felt like I needed to.
I was just enjoying
a fun sci-fi television show.
Then, Eccleston
died.
In the back of my
mind I think I knew that he had only done one series, but he was The
Doctor. I mean, I had just gotten into this damn thing and already my
hero was dead. It actually took me a week before I could bring myself
to watch Series Two.
But I’m glad I
did.
Because Tennant.
I won’t go on and
on about David Tennant because if you’re reading this, you know.
Besides being, well, Tennant, he also didn’t erase the memories I
had of Eccleston’s cold and hard Doctor, just helped me appreciate
one of the truly unique things about ‘Doctor Who’ in general: the
regenerations. On The Nerdist, Matt Mira and Chris Hardwick often
joke that they think James Bond is a Time Lord. I don’t think it’s
the world’s worst theory, but unlike the Bond films, which just
ignore the whole age/time period/timeline/new guy questions, ‘Doctor
Who’ found a way to make them part of the story, and it’s
brilliant.
(Even though the
order is reversed, I feel like Tennant is Connery and Eccleston is
Lazenby. Tennant is the guy I think of when I think of the Doctor;
Eccleston is a guy who did it once, brought a new take to it, in a
very good story, then took off. I’m not sure if that makes Matt
Smith Rodger Moore or Pierce Brosnan, but I sure hope Peter Capaldi
is more Craig than Dalton.)
So I became hooked.
I met Captain Jack, said good-bye to Rose Tyler, got a crush on
Martha Jones, witnessed the brilliant terror that was ‘Blink’,
hated and then grew to love Donna, watched Tennant die, met Matt
Smith and the stunning Karen Gillan aka Amelia Pond aka Amy Pond aka
The Girl Who Waited, pondered the mysteries of River Song and that
weird ass astronaut, saw dinosaurs on a spaceship, and cried as the
Ponds disappeared into the past forever.
After all of that I
can say, honestly, that I love ‘Doctor Who’.
(Although that last
batch of Clara episodes was the pits. While I understand why Smith is
leaving, I don’t think he’s the problem. I think it’s the
brilliant Moffat: he’s out of steam. ‘Sherlock’ is great. So
was ‘Coupling’, in my opinion. But I think someone new needs to
take over behind the camera as well as in front of it.)
But I know that’s
not enough for some. I know it wouldn’t be for me, if I had been a
long-time and long-suffering fan of The Doctor and his companions.
For those folks (and you may be one of them), ‘Doctor Who’ is
more than a good science-fiction show. It is a character and a
universe that has entertained you for decades. It is special to you.
It has much more meaning to you than it does to a Time
Lord-come-lately like me. I understand that. I respect that.
I even tried to
embrace that, but I couldn’t. I’ve seen a handful of Tom Baker
episodes and a few old specials, but none of them made me want to
watch more. I’m sure lots of it is top-notch stuff, but that train
has left the station for me, I think.
So, yes. When it
comes to Doctor Who, I’m the kid who didn’t start listening to
Metallica until the Black Album, the girl in Atlanta who didn’t buy
a Braves cap until 1991, the jerk who only knows a female Starbuck
(actually that is me, too). I’m a WINO, I guess. A fan of ‘Doctor
Who’, but only “new” ‘Who’. I only care about Eccleston,
Tennant, Smith, and, hopefully, Capaldi. I am through-and-through a
fan of the current show, but really don’t give a damn about what
came before.
Are you a Star
Wars fan if you’ve only seen the movies? Are you a Trekker if
haven’t seen every episode of ‘Deep Space 9’? Are you a fan of
George R.R. Martin if you watch ‘Game of Thrones’ but haven’t
read it? Are you really a Brony if you—Never mind. I don’t want
to know anything about Bronies. Maybe that’s my new Doctor Who.
And there are a
bunch of people out there just like me. Who only know the new show
and don’t have any knowledge of what has come before. Do hard-core
fans hate us? Do they hate that their beloved icon has become more
popular than ever, especially here in the States? Or are they just
glad that more people are seeing the light.
Is the Whovian camp
bigger on the inside?
Fandom is a funny
thing. Am I a Whovian? I don’t know. To an outsider, someone who
thinks like I used to, who would never watch anything called ‘Doctor
Who’ (because it looks, say it with me, too damned nerdy), I am
one, for sure. But, to a long-time fan of one of television’s most
enduring icons, I’m probably just a WINO.
I’m okay with
that. As Johnny Depp once said:
WINO
FOREVER
-Chad
The
next two weeks here on Needless Things will be dedicated to Doctor
Who. I have Guest Posts, Toy Reviews, and more on the way. The site
will be jam-packed – relatively – with content. Please share
these links wherever you can and spread the word. And if you’re so
inclined, throw a few dollars at the Needless Things family. I have
to send you to the podcast homepage because Blogger doesn't want this
sort of thing. Just check out the widget on the bottom right
here.This
is all out of pocket for me, so anything I receive during this time
will got to site costs, hosting, and possibly new merchandise if I
get really ambitious.
Also,
you can buy the Limited Edition NeedlessThingsSite.com Luchador vs.
Owlbear t-shirts here.
I can’t say they’re selling fast, but once this style is gone,
they’re gone forever.
And I do intend on being famous one day, so wouldn’t it be cool to
have the first shirt I ever designed?
Remember
to check in every weekday between now and the 23rd for
new, original content.
Finally,
be sure and come out to the HUGE 50th Anniversary Party
that TimeGate, Earth Station Who, the folks behind The Forgotten
Doctor, and (others) are throwing at the Holiday Inn Select; the
same location where TimeGate is held each and every year. There will
be panels, games, Whovian carousing, and a LIVE recording of Earth
Station Who immediately after “The Day of the Doctor” airs. You
will literally never have another opportunity to attend a party like
this!
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