Z is

Daughter and I on THE actual TARDIS

...the last letter of the alphabet and therefore the last post in my April A to Z blogging challenge. I decided on blogging about Doctor Who because I love watching it, I enjoy talking about it and I wanted hopefully, to maybe introduce or encourage at least one person who hadn’t seen Doctor Who before, to watch an episode.  If I am to believe some of the comments people have left both here and on the links I have posted to my facebook page I think I have achieved that. 

It wasn’t as easy as I had first anticipated.  I prepared the first week’s posts in advance and the second week I managed to get into a bit of routine with my writing.  It all went horribly wrong though in week three when life started getting in the way.  I missed out S totally (I will do this post soon) This last week has been by far the worst, I feel I cheated on more than a few posts.  I haven’t had the time or indeed the brain capacity to write much more than a few lines, if indeed anything at all.  It’s a good job therefore that Doctor Who not only is one of my favourite things to talk about it’s also one of my favourite things to look at, it was very easy for me to find pictures that I loved and post them.  This dear reader is my way of cheating and I apologise, but without having done this I never would have completed my A to Z Challenge.

I’m not going to stop writing about Who, no, no, no.  I am going to take a little time off though, I shall get this life thing sorted once more and then I most certainly will be back.  I have enjoyed writing about Doctor Who and there is so much more to tell you about.  Thank you to everyone who has read my posts this month and to A to Z Challenge for giving me the focus to actually sit down and write. I have thoroughly enjoyed it. 

Whovians unite.

Yana, Professor

Photo courtesy of BBC

Professor Yana was a genius who when we meet him is an old man working with his friend Chantho as a scientist on the planet Malcassairo. They had been working on the Utopia project for seventeen years on his Footprint Impeller to ensure the survival of the Human race.  Professor Yana had been found as a child on the coast of the Silver Devastation after a severe storm, he was naked apart from carrying a broken fob watch.  He had mysteriously suffered from headaches and hearing the sound of drums for his entire life. 

Doctor Who, Martha and Captain Jack come to Malcassairo and Martha spots the Professor’s fob watch and recognises that it is identical to the one The Doctor owns.  Martha knows that the fob watch is actually a Time Lord instrument used as a receptacle to store the very being of a Time Lord when he uses the Chameleon Arch. When the Time Lord does this he becomes human and has no recollection of ever being anything other.  When Professor Yana talks to The Doctor and they talk about the time vortex, this begins to waken memories in Yana’s head and after Martha brings the fob watch to the attention of Professor Yana he feels compelled to open it. 

I remember watching this episode when it aired and the way that Daughter, Small Child and I looked at each other with eyes and mouths wide when we first caught a glimpse of that fob watch. We were aware of exactly what that watch was used for, having seen Tennant's Doctor use it in a previous episode.  We were also remembering the wonderful Face of Boe’s words “You are not alone” this meant that Professor Yana was a Time Lord.

After he opens the watch Professor Yana realises instantly who he is, he is a Time Lord.  However he is also The Doctor’s nemesis and his name is no longer Professor Yana. His name is, The Master.

X is for kissing.

Now considering The Doctor has never had a proper romance in any of his eleven reincarnations he certainly manages to kiss a lot of people.  I have to be honest the past two weeks of blog writing have been a struggle for me, not because I couldn’t think of anything to write but because of things going on in my life that have impeded into what little spare time I have.  Therefore I find myself on the last day of  April and the A to Z blogging challenge with three posts left to complete and very little time to complete them.  Hence my W post was a bit of a cop out with a lot of pictures I fear the last three letters will be in the same vein.  

Back to the kissing...yes, our Doctor certainly likes to throw the lips on people and people tend to surprise him with the odd kiss too.  I figured what better way to show this than well, to simply show it in pictures. 

Photos courtesy of BBC

 X certainly does mark the spot apparently.  

Who is your Doctor?

Photos courtesy of BBC

Vashta Nerada

Photo courtesy of BBC

I simply couldn’t do a Doctor Who blog without dedicating a post to this monster.  The Vashta Nerada appeared in a two part story starring the tenth Doctor, David Tennant and it was also the first ever episode in which my favourite lady River Song appeared, and died. Hence why I have an extra level of hatred for this monster.

The Vashta Nerada are a microscopic creature that live in swarms, in shadows.  They are carnivorous and their name actually means ‘the shadows that melt the flesh’ they normally live in forests but when Felman Lux created a Library the size of a planet in the 50^th century he felled the trees that they lived in and therefore these microscopic creatures found themselves in books, in the biggest library in the universe with thousands of people to feed on. 

I love the idea of this monster, who isn’t a little afraid in the dark?  The Doctor says in this episode that it is these creatures that have instilled the fear of the dark into every species, that they are on every planet.  On Earth they are the dust motes you see in the air, but because they are few they are not a threat.  I definitely think that it is the monsters that you can relate to the most that are the most terrifying, and shadows and darkness instil fear in most of us at some stage.  In this story to find out if the shadow in front of him is simply a shadow or a swarm of Vashta Nerada, The Doctor would throw a chicken leg into the shadow, if it was down to the bone in a second flat you can be pretty sure that the Vashta Nerada are hiding. It did creep me out a bit for a while and not much really does that, but I found myself leaving the light on at the bottom of the stairs and on the landing, I came close to carrying chicken legs in my pocket. Of course put the Vashta Nerada together with The Silence, the monster you forget as soon as you stop looking at it and you would no doubt never move from the spot you were sitting in ever again. 

Unbalanced

 

Photo courtesy of BBC

To me the character of Doctor Who always comes across as a somewhat unbalanced, and rightly so given his history.  Unbalanced is good, it adds edge and depth to a character. If you look back over history all of our most endeared and well remembered characters, real or fictional have that eccentricity bordering on madness.  

I think science fiction in general attracts those eccentrics amongst us.  I mean let’s be honest you have to have a brain wired in a certain way to accept without question time travel, monsters that are shaped like pepper pots, creatures made from human fat, a blue box that is bigger on the inside, a sonic screwdriver, regeneration,  living plastic, talking nurse cats, a giant head in a jar..this list is endless but we fans of science fiction never ever think ‘ohhhhh come on, that’s ridiculous’ we simply are drawn into that world without question and let the story telling wash over us like a mothers embrace. 

I for one am grateful that The Doctor is on the edge, it’s a place a lot of us walk daily, most of my friends are unbalanced in varying degrees and I wouldn’t have them any other way.