Doctor who?
Let me start by saying that I’ve never been what you might call a ‘die hard’ fan of the Doctor and his time travelling frivolities so when the BBC announced they planned to re-release and re-vamp the long running series I all but flinched. However by the time it aired in the March of 2005 (after one of the largest and most hyped up advertising campaigns in the BBC’s history) I, along with most of the nation was chomping at the bit awaiting the arrival of everyone’s favourite Time Lord. Ever since, I’ve been hooked.
Growing up in the 1980s ‘my’ Doctor was Sylvester McCoy, (the actor who arguably killed off the programme’s twenty three year run) dressed in a straw hat, white jacket and multi-coloured knitted tank top he was my childhood image of what Doctor Who should look like. Ridiculous. Miss matched. Worryingly eccentric. But, above all, not that memorable. It seams to me that the forgettable nature of this incarnation was why the BBC shelved the series for the duration of the nineties (not counting the American backed made for TV movie staring Paul McGann in the titular role). Indeed, the only things I seem to remember about the show are: 1) The Doctor always carried an umbrella with a question mark for a handle. Never used it to my memory though, 2) He was accompanied by a punk rocker-come-new romantic for the latter part of the decade that fashion forgot, and 3) He and his Sid Vicious-a-gram sidekick were once attacked by cheetahs ridings horses in a child’s playground. The last one is probably the reason I had no love for the programme as this bizarre, synapse burning image is one which will stay with me to my grave. Not pleasant. But non the less, the question remains as to why, once again, young boys are chasing each other around playgrounds up and down the country holding plungers to their foreheads screaming “Exterminate!!!” at the top of their shrill voices. Why is the doctor cool once again? Is it simply the advances in special effects or something deeper, something more substantial?
Is there a Doctor in the house?
As I mentioned, I’m not a die hard fan and I don’t know a lot of integrated trivia about the show, but am just a regular TV viewer interested in finding out how The Doctor has found himself back in the prime time Saturday night slot on BBC One. It all started in early 2005 when audiences were treated to a sound in between programs on the BBC. Nothing more. Just a sound accompanied by the ever so tantalising words “It’s almost time…But not yet… ”. It was a puzzlement to the watching children who, just months later would be all too eager to emulate the characters they would grow to love, but to older viewers it was the all too familiar sound of Time And Relative Dimensions In Space (or the TARDIS for short), the Doctor’s time machine, witch thanks to its rather earthly appearance has become just as iconic as the haunting, wheezing sound it produces as it dematerializes. Weeks later we got our first look at the man who would be Who. The ninth incarnation of the Doctor stood in the alien setting of his TARDIS asked us if we wanted to go with him as he stood smiling cheekily in his leather jacket and t-shirt. The man in the leather jacket was Christopher Eccleston. The then forty one year old Lancashire born actor had made his acting debut in 1990’s Blood Rights, a three part drama about the drug trade. He had since become know to the public through both his work on television, featuring in –amongst other things- the popular series Cutting It and in the 2003 ITV drama miniseries Second Coming, and in films where he had played a supporting role in both the British made film 28 Days Later and alongside Nicholas Cage in Gone in 60 Seconds. The smiley northerner instantly gave the Doctor a new edge, a more laid back and accessible nature, and above all a very British temperament. At the end of the trailer Eccleston was pictured stood next to a young woman dressed in pink abort his space ship. Now, as all fans of the Doctor know, he never travels alone. He always has an assistant in his adventures, a ‘companion’ as they have become known and this was she. Rose Tyler, a nineteen year old London shop assistant who we would find out would literally bump into the Doctor during the first episode of the new series was played by then twenty one year old Billie Piper who had found fame as a teenage pop princess in the late nineties, but who had since faded into relative obscurity. Both actors would prove to be the perfect choices for the roles, but fist they had to do just that; prove it.
