I'll be honest: I'm a late-comer to the Doctor Who universe. I heard of it for the first time last fall when a friend of mine repeatedly tweeted about how hot some guy named Matt Smith was and I had absolutely no idea who she was talking about. I'm far from up-to-date on pop culture, so this wasn't at all surprising. She informed me that Smith was a British actor from a tv show I'd also never heard of, and I left it at that.
However, I kept seeing references to this show online and I finally decided that if I was going to be a fully literate nerd, I would have to watch at least a few episodes so I could understand what people were talking about. I didn't expect to like it (a show about an alien who time travels inside of a phone box?) since outside of my Star Wars obsession, I'd never really been much of a sci-fi fan. I watched the first episode of the new series this January and plowed through all six series in about six weeks, despite making a major move in the meantime. I was officially hooked. I made myself a Who quotes screensaver. I picked up a brown pin-striped blazer at a thrift store (Tennant is "my Doctor"). I set my text alert to the TARDIS engine noise.
I tried to talk to other people about it, but once I started explaining what it was about, their eyes kind of glazed over and they looked at me like I was crazy. I have a tendency to inspire that reaction in people anyway, but I suspect that the subject matter played a role too. Nobody really got it. And since nobody understood the show, nobody understood the agonizing wait for the new series to premiere. There's nothing quite like watching a show from start to finish in a matter of weeks and then facing the reality that there is no more to watch. You've seen everything there is to see. It's especially bad when that tv show has become an instant obsession.
To say that I was eagerly anticipating the premiere of series seven would be an understatement. This was my first chance to experience the show in "real time," to wait week by week for a new installment. In honor of the new episode yesterday, I started reading Doctor Who: Shada by Gareth Roberts and finally got around to Scotch Garding my new white Converse sneakers so that I could wear them in public. Moffat and crew more than delivered. The episode was fantastic from start to finish. I'd even go so far as to say that it was my favorite Matt Smith one. I'm beyond excited for next week's dinosaurs episode. I can't wait to see what happens when the Ponds leave. I finally feel what it's like to be at the mercy of Steven Moffat. It's great. And agonizing. And I just want next Saturday to be here already.
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