Binge Watching The Doctor

On New Year's Eve this past December the kids and I figured we'd see what this Doctor Who fella was all about.  My son's friends in middle school had been discussing it and he felt out of the loop.  We'd just subscribed to Amazon Prime and I had looked it up so....

Three o'clock in the morning and four episodes later we finally went to sleep.  By the time the kids went back to school we'd watched the entire first year of the revised Doctor Who.  Never having seen a Doctor Who before (although having been a drama geek in school I don't know how on earth I dodged that bullet) we had no idea about regeneration, or how sad we would be to see Christopher Eccelston go... we spent at least a week researching why he'd left the show after only one season in vain hopes that somehow he might be back.  Both thrilled and dismayed we welcomed David Tennant into our household by the second week of January.  Then by February we were saying goodbye to our (OK, my) favorite Doctor and welcoming Matt Smith. 

Then we were done with him.  Just like that.  Thanks BBC for making short seasons.  This is just one of those times I wish for the interminable American style 22 episode season!  Luckily, my son kept making mention of "the snowman" until I said him "Who is this snowman you speak of, I don't remember it."  What!  We missed a Christmas special!  We still have one to watch!  I almost didn't want to watch it right away.  Like saving the last candy till tomorrow because you have no idea when you'll next get another.

We have begun to dip back into the past into Classic Doctor Who - although not all episodes are available we are making do.  Having a theatre and film background I try to explain to the kids about acting styles changing and production values improving since the series began, but we all do other things while we watch.  I sometimes wish I'd started watching in high school so that I could better appreciate those earlier Doctors without the absence of greenscreen and CGI weighing down on my suspension of disbelief.  But then, I think, I skipped the double edged sword of depression and thrill that would have been had when they stopped production in 1996 and then started up again in 2005.  We are now half way through what is available.  Don't get me wrong, we WILL watch every Doctor Who that becomes available to our little greedy minds.  As drugs go contemplating time, humanity, history, science, space, and aliens is not so bad.  So even if we get some bad shit from the first iteration of the Doctor, say, where you can practically see the string holding up the set and the spray painted bubble wrap costumes, we'll watch.  Oh yeah, we'll watch.  We want it just that bad.

Now we eagerly and somewhat trepidatiously anticipate August when a new Doctor will step out of the Tardis.  My daughter said to me from the backseat on the way to school one morning recently, "Mama, I feel empty inside."  I'm thinking, oh shit I forgot to feed her breakfast! "Why, sweet?" I say. "Because there are no more Doctor Who episodes to watch."  Leave it to the nine year old to say what we had all been thinking.  So do I, baby gal, so do I.

Peter Capaldi, no pressure man, but this one is all on you.