The bright spot on my television dial right now is having new episodes of “Doctor Who” that I don’t have a long time-delay to watch.
I’ve been a “Doctor Who” fan for a number of years. It kind of started with catching the last few minutes of episodes on Iowa Public Television on Saturday evenings as they were getting ready to air either “Red Green” or “Red Dwarf.” Back then, it was mostly Tom Baker in his long scarf battling creatures that were dreamed up of whatever seemed to be lying around the backlot that day, but coming at it from the exterior, didn’t know a lot of the lore.
It wasn’t until roughly 2008/2009 when I was working alongside a co-worker at my former newspaper who shared a lot of the same fandoms I did that I really gave the new “Doctor Who” a try. After all, Kevin tried watching a few of my favorites so I had someone to talk to, why couldn’t I give new “Doctor Who” a try? For that reason, I always note my first official Doctor was Christopher Eccleston. My favorite had to be Peter Capaldi’s take on the character, but that was because he started taking the show more serious again after a few years of being too zany.
When Jodie Whitaker was announced as the Doctor, I was happy to see the show embracing that portion of alien shapeshifter with each regeneration and stories we can tell with this at its core. I always wished the scripts would given her more to do, but her Christmas specials were always stand out episodes.
And now, we have Ncuti Gatwa, the first Black Doctor Who. And his Christmas episode was already a delight and proper jumping on point for anyone who has not spun with the Doctor before. With the Disney + deal, there’s a lot cleaner visuals and special effects, sure, but it’s also at a time where I don’t have a two to three day delay for when Amazon Prime or the service I was purchasing from would finally post the episodes after they aired. Trying to avoid spoilers for three days after an episode airs is not fun.
Part of what works for me about the show is that the Doctor is routinely only equipped with a sonic screwdriver, a device meant to fix. When your protagonist starts out with a tool whose only purpose is getting you out of extremely tight situations, they have to rely on their other abilities.
It’s why the run of “The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl” by Ryan North was one of my favorites in comic books, too. Doreen Green is a character who canonically (okay, it’s a huge joke) has beat up every one in the Marvel Universe. But so much of the conflict resolution in Doctor Who and Squirrel Girl isn’t fights, it’s conversations to try and get your enemy to see things your way first. If all that fails, then we’ll deal with those consequences after.
This summer is looking like a solid year of science-fiction for me as well. I’m working my way slowly through “The Three Body Problems” series of books and there is a sequel/spin-off series to “Orphan Black” titled “Orphan Black Echoes” launching in a few more weeks.
Plus, the next installment in the Planet of the Apes franchise at the Bijou for the next week at least.