Doctor Who

Last Saturday, a bunch of us went to Cardiff, Wales, in order to go to the Doctor Who Experience. I started watching Doctor Who during my freshman year at U of O. All of my friends watched it, so I thought I’d give this show a try. I have absolutely fallen in love with the show over the last few years. It is both dramatic and funny as well as scary and sentimental. It’s a family show, but its really enjoyed by people of all ages. Doctor Who is really a cult classic show, since it has been around for so long, its enjoyed by so many people, and there are so many inside jokes and strange vocabulary words that fans enjoy using and newcomers get easily confused. My friends all watched it when I was in high school, but I did not, so I always confused when they wondered who was going to be the 11^th Doctor. I kept thinking, “Are they all watching a medical show with more than 10 doctors? Is this about Grey’s Anatomy?” (I didn’t watch Grey’s Anatomy at the time either, so I just assumed that’s what they were talking about). So when I finally watched the show, I understood when they brought up the TARDIS, the sonic screwdriver, the Daleks, “Don’t Blink”, “It’s bigger on the inside”, or “wibbly wobbly timey-wimey stuff”.  I felt like I was in on the inside joke, and it was awesome. I started to tell everyone I knew about this awesome show, and some people were interested, but others, like my family, were not. But now that I’ve started watching it, I’ve started noticing references to the show in all sorts of places. Its another feeling of inclusiveness that I feel with the other Whovians (aka fans of Doctor Who). Its can feel like a very ideological way to look at things, with the whole “us vs. them” idea, but its true. Its hard to completely explain Doctor Who and all of its facets to someone who hasn’t seen the show, so all you can really do is recommend it and hope they join you in your love for the show.

            All in all, being able to go to the Doctor Who experience where we basically “experienced” Doctor Who by being set in an episode was pretty awesome. All of my fan dreams came true because we went in a replica TARDIS and we fought the Daleks. The coolest thing was that we saw a bunch of little kids—some as young as 5 or 6—who were huge Whovians and absolutely loved the “experience”. Even though the fandom can feel ideological, if children can gain enjoyment from this amazing show, then anyone can.