Old Become New Again

When I was growing up, we didn't have cable TV. For one thing, it was the logistics of having a cable strung out to the middle of nowhere that I called home at the time. For another, it was the fact that my family, being small-time farmers, preferred not to have the extra expense of a monthly bill just so that we could watch even more television. I was one of those kids that would struggle to get out of bed every day for school. I'd barely get ready in time to catch the bus. However, my internal clock was so well-tuned that it would wake me before the crack of dawn on Saturday mornings to watch cartoons. I'm sure that I'll write more about that at another time. I was just wanting to make the point that we watched a lot of television. My dad especially watched a lot of TV, especially science fiction. If it was somehow related to the sci-fi genre, my dad was watching it. Star Trek, Babylon 5, Tripods, The Flash, Time Trax, Quantum Leap. He recorded as much as he could, and it wasn't much since we had limited channels. Dad also had horrible sleep apnea and would be up at very odd hours of the night. Occasionally, when I would have trouble sleeping, I'd head to the living room and find him watching some form of TV. Sometimes it was a movie. Sometimes it was a World War II documentary. Many times, though, it was science fiction. I would remember coming into the living room to the sounds of Kirk saying, "Space...the final frontier." At times, it would be at the end of one where all I'd catch is the "Oh, boy" before Sam leaped to someone else's rescue. I also remember a few times walking in to this very, very odd and haunting theme song. It was electronica music that had a very simple melody that would get stuck in my head. I would try to watch the show with Dad, but the special effects were horrendous, the scenery was obviously cardboard and all of the people spoke with really funny accents that made it hard for my poor American ears to understand and comprehend. I'd much rather watch Star Trek; big ships, phasers set to stun, and good, solid accents that were easy to understand. Except for Pavel. Never quite understood what he was trying to convey. I mean, all this other show had for a ship that I ever saw was a stupid telephone booth that said "Police" on it and had no windows. It just didn't make sense. Dad seemed to enjoy it for some reason, though.

And then, I grew up.

I came to learn that the show Dad was watching was Dr. Who. I also learned that it was the longest-running science fiction series in history. It started in the '60's and produced episodes on-and-off for decades. There would be times that I would be up late at night and an episode would be on. Every so often, I would try to watch one of these episodes, but it always felt like I was trying to catch up on who knows how many episodes. There were characters I didn't recognize and didn't understand why this one or that one would be evil but this other guy was good. I also never understood how you could have a series where the main character kept changing. Oh, it was always someone called "The Doctor," but his face was (from my perspective) constantly changing.

And then, I entered real life.

A friend of mine at work is a huge sci-fi fan. We talked a bit about Dr. Who and he let me in on the secret: The Doctor is an alien from an immortal race of time-travelers that have the ability to re-generate themselves if they receive some form of mortal harm. The regeneration process, however, changes them. It changes not only their faces, but their voices, mannerisms and even personality. And that was the genius of the creators of the show (or whoever thought of the concept). This is what allowed the show to go on for so long. If an actor got tired of playing the role, let him die in one episode, only to be regenerated in the next with a completely new actor playing the Doctor. Brilliant. My friend also told me that the BBC had started creating new episodes of the show that would be broadcast on the Sci-Fi Network, and, if I wanted him to, he would record the shows and burn disks for me to watch. I decided to give it a shot since this would be a new series, and I would have a very simple jumping-on point.

And now, I'm a fan.

We're into the second season (and second new Doctor) of Dr. Who now, and I've been loving it. The special effects are still nothing to brag about, and they still talk with the accents, but I can handle that, I think. The writing is fantastic. The acting is, for the most part, quite good. The stories have a way of making the aliens and the time travel and the robots touch your emotions in some way. There's the WWII bomb victim that's been resurrected by alien nano-machines and is walking around with a gas mask on asking in a haunting voice for "mummy." Chilling. There are the futuristic clock-work robots that dress as 18th century French courtesans with frozen porcelain doll faces. Creepy. The "last living human" that's been reduced to a brain in a jar and a face stretched within a frame and demanding to be "moisturized" all the time. Disgusting.

I get it now, Dad. Thanks.