Why Matt Smith is the Best Doctor Who Ever.

Unless you’ve been living in the North Pole for the past few months, and let’s face it, in this unusually warm British summer it’s feasible you may have moved there to cool off, you can’t fail to have heard that Matt Smith is leaving his role as The Doctor in Doctor Who to be replaced by someone as yet unnamed.  Worry not though at 7.00pm on Sunday the BBC are hosting a live, yes that’s a live broadcast fronted by Zoe Ball, with actors who have been previous Doctors, Matt Smith and the Moff (that’s Steven Moffat, series Show-runner to the un-initiated) all in attendance. Although I am a huge fan of Doctor Who, and have been since Tom Baker and his unusually long scarf I find this a somewhat odd occurrence.  Yes, I am aware it’s the fiftieth anniversary, and that the changing of the Doctor is a huge event to both fans and press alike, I am just not sure it warrants a show all of its own.  As a fan, I’d much rather have half an hour of some Classic Who on my screen, or a nice little Documentary, or indeed anythingother than a programme about an announcement, as I do feel we have been somewhat short changed on this most auspicious of years.  However this won’t stop me being glued to my television at 7.00pm. Neither will it stop me gaffataping my kids mouths so they won’t talk over the main announcement of who is going to play the twelfth Doctor.

As I’ve already mentioned I’ve been a fan for quite a number of years, I can remember  Jon Pertwee but  Tom Baker is ‘my Doctor’ I watched religiously for years, ignoring wobbly sets, and bad make-up, right up until the eighties, when boys and  weekend jaunts to The Hacienda became somewhat more appealing.  I survived the wilderness years with no Doctor Who, mostly unscathed.   Then, much to my trepidation in 2005 Doctor Who returned to TV with an episode called Rose, and Christopher Eccleston as The Doctor.  I was nervous for this new Who, this was going to have to be something very special to win back the press and fans. Doctor Who had become something of a joke before it was cancelled. I wasn’t really convinced about this new Doctor Who when watching Rose, the Autons have never been my favourite monster; I did however love Eccleston as an actor.  I have always liked his earnest face and of course he’s Northern, always a bonus in my book, being Northern lass myself. The End of The World was better and then by the time Dalek aired, a brilliantly written and acted episode I was hooked again, merchandise began to creep back into my home, conventions were attended. Eccleston stayed for one series and then came Tennant.  I loved David Tennant’s Doctor, I loved everything about him and am not ashamed to say I fancied him a little....ok, I fancied him a lot. I was absolutely and completely devastated when it was announced Tenant was to leave, and when they declared Matt Smith as number eleven I knew for certain I wasn’t going to like him.  I discussed this at length to the amusement of family and friends.   He’s too weird, he’s too young, he is NOT the Doctor, who is he? And then came The Eleventh Hour, a wonderfully comedic and touching episode that introduced us to Matt Smith’s Doctor and instantly in his first few minutes on screen I knew he was The Doctor.  The writing is so perfect, so attuned to the nuances of the actor’s personality that within minutes I had quite forgotten the previous regeneration, so consumed was I by the story.  Within minutes I loved the new regeneration just as much if not more than the last.  

One of my main concerns about Matt Smith was his young age, the youngest actor ever to take on the role of The Doctor.  I wasn’t sure one so young could play the space and time travelled Doctor, this Time Lord who had seen and suffered so much, however, I really shouldn’t have worried about this.  You see although The Doctor is 900 years old, the age of his current face is inconsequential, as long as you believe in his experience and the story is good.  After all what is Doctor Who if not a good old fashioned Fairy Tale, and who is The Doctor if not a good old fashioned hero, a good witch, a knight in shining armour, come to slay the dragon, the Dalek or the Weeping Angel.  So if the age of the face is insignificant therefore is not the actual face insignificant, and do we really need a live show to herald the next actor to take on the role? Personally I don’t think so, but of course, I will be watching, will you?

Bitey

In the episode 'Closing Time' the Doctor revists his friend Craig.  This is another episode with some great comic moments.  Craig is played by James Cordon. This episode's monsters are Cybermen and Bitey is the nickname that the Doctor gave to the Cybermat that he re-programmed to cripple the Cyberman.

Apples

 "Can I have an apple? All I can think about. Apples. I love apples. Maybe I'm having a craving. That's new. Never had cravings before"

One of our families most watched episode of Doctor Who is the 'The Eleventh Hour' this is the introductory episode for the Eleventh Doctor played by Matt Smith. The Doctor has just regenerated and finds himself very hungry with new taste buds.  The first person our newly regenerated Doctor meets is a seven year old Amelia Pond and for the first fifteen minutes of the episode they try to find something that the Doctor likes the taste of, much spitting and throwing of food ensues...much to the delight of my 9 year old son.  I have to be honest I was quite disappointed when this scene finished, it is so perfectly written with brilliant comedic moments and a perfect introduction to this new Doctor who appears to be all flailing arms and legs.  

With regards to the apple, he doesn't like it, Amelia tells him that she didn't like apples either until her mum put a smiley face on for her, she does this for the Doctor and he puts it in his pocket and promises to eat it later...

A to Z Blogging Challenge Reveal

It’s nearly that time again for the April A to Z blogging challenge.  For those who don’t know what this is let me explain.  Every year in April thousands of bloggers sign up to the challenge of producing a blog post every day in April, working through the alphabet starting obviously at A.  Bloggers can do this in many ways, some use photography, some poetry, some a single word. 

Last year was my first year at attempting this feat.  I set up a Doctor Who blog specifically for the purpose, intending to carry on with it after, see here  to find out why my blog petered out.  I had prepared only five articles in advance, this was a major downfall.  I really should have prepared more, I spent the entire month looking like a feral cat, trying to juggle work, renovating, my kids social lives, and writing.  Writing doesn’t come easily to me, I make many edits no matter how small my article, I spend hours with a thesaurus trying to find new appropriate words.  I told myself that I would be more prepared for this year.....I’m not.  I’m going to try not to be as hard on myself, maybe do shorter articles and use some photography (I’m doing a photography course it seems a shame not to combine the two)  My blog will still be Doctor Who themed because apart from my kids there is nothing I will enjoy writing about more....and I’m sure you don’t want to hear too much about my kids (be warned they will make an appearance) Also my hope and wish is that people stopping by from A to Z Challenge from all over the world who haven’t watched or even heard of Doctor Who may have their interest piqued enough looking at my blog that they will go away and watch an episode of my favourite show. 

With the challenge it is also customary to read at least five of the other blogs participating daily. I found many interesting blogs last year and it was great way to see and learn about things I had little knowledge of prior. This also eats time, but in a most enjoyable way. 

To any interested you can still sign up to the challenge here A to Z Challenge Sign Up List and you will also find the list of all the bloggers participating, there are many themes so even if you don’t fancy the challenge yourself you may find a blog that interests you, that you would like to follow. All the bloggers participating put lots of work in and would appreciate comments of support. It’s nice to know what your reader thinks. 

Right then bloggers, good luck and I will see you on the other side...slightly bedraggled but with a wonderful sense of achievement.

One flew over the cuckoo's nest...

So I haven’t blogged for almost a year...I was scared off  by a Rogue Cyberman. Sounds like a joke doesn’t it? I wish it was dear reader but alas no, this man, and I use the word man in the loosest sense of the word (a better analogy would be worm) has had me running scared for quite some time.  It’s not just me he has wounded, there are many of us who have experienced his insanity and this has been going on for a long, long time....shame it wasn’t in a galaxy far, far away.  Although to be honest he is so far removed from the real world I think he probably does live in that far away galaxy, if of course that galaxy is called Psychosis.

He has been suspended from twitter many times over, he has tried many lines to get the traffic to his little blog empire, for empire read tiny little bedroom in mummy’s house (by the way I am loving all these Star Wars references) he has many accounts, his newest being a lady, because you know there aren’t any female Doctor Who fans and of course the ones that do exist like to take their clothes off on their blogs...blogs by the way that are linked to their Doctor Who (a children’s show) Twitter accounts on which they have followed many under 18 Twitter users who are Doctor Who fans. That’s nice isn’t it?  Such an upstanding pillar of society, gosh mummy must be so proud.

Over recent weeks, many twitter users have opened their eyes to his ways, many adults abhorred by the use of a children's show to get traffic to his sites which hold pictures of half clothed women.  He will be loving the attention of course, I dread to think what he is sitting there doing when the users begin bating him (I do hope he has a lock on his bedroom door and plenty of tissues, the filthy little boy) He loves to threaten and use our real names on Twitter, that’s fine, none of us have anything to hide, we are all genuine Doctor Who fans, it get’s slightly threatening though when he posts google maps of peoples home address or states he has found your facebook page and you should be careful what you do with your family.  It is really easy to threaten and harass people from behind a keyboard, I’d like one minute with this little worm, I wouldn’t be awful, I never am, I would just like to sit with him for one minute with my kids in the room too, we wouldn’t say a word, I’d just like him to see my wonderful family and the people he has actually been making veiled threats about.  My nine year old son dressed as the Doctor and my 15 year old daughter hiding behind her hair. I’d just look into his eyes for that minute and maybe spit on him as we left. 

Anyway carry on Mr Rogue Cyberman you have to live with yourself in your little world, you have far more time than us it would seem, talking to yourself as you do with your many accounts.  We don’t really care what your name is, we simply care that you are sullying our favourite show with lets face it, some not very scintillating , old fashioned pictures of some not very attractive women.  If you want to see gorgeous female Doctor Who fans just go to any convention, we are there in droves dressed as a companion, the TARDIS or even the Doctor.

So there you have it, I am back in the world of the blog.  Preparing once more for the April A-Z Challenge.  Of course there hasn’t been much Doctor Who on TV over the past year for me to write about but I’m sure I will think of something. 

His name is - Rogue Cyberman

His name is - Time Girl Katie

His name is - Poppy Flintlock

Rescue me Chin Boy and show me the stars.

You may have noticed that Doctor Who returned to our screens a couple of weeks ago after almost a whole 12 months break, apart from the Christmas Special. When I was a young girl and Tom Baker was my Doctor and the series finished, usually with a cliff hanger it was torturous, the weeks and months of waiting for my favourite show to return to my screen were unbearable.  When I was a girl we didn’t have DVD players, we didn’t even have video players, we had no internet, no downloads, , nothing, nada, not a bloody thing but our trusty Doctor Who annuals to keep us going until the next series.  Therefore although in my very first sentence I stated we had waited almost a year for Doctor Who since The Wedding of River Song aired on our screens heralding the end of series 6 it’s not the same as when I was a girl when it really was a Doctor Who free zone for months, now we have repeats on various channels and of course our beloved collection of DVD’s to stop us going into Who cold turkey. Still the excitement was palpable during the summer months, we knew The Doctor was returning in the Autumn scheduling but the BBC kept us guessing about the date until only three weeks before airing.   BAD BBC.

In the break between series I attended the first ever Official BBC Doctor Who Convention, where we were lucky enough to be shown a small teaser trailer for the new series 7, we have had various announcements regarding the leaving of The Ponds (The Doctor’s current companions) and we were introduced to the actress who would be playing the new companion, information is always very sparse, and this is good, as it builds excitement and expectation and also makes for some very interesting Twitter conversations with people trying to second guess the writers.  I’ve mentioned in a previous post how Twitter opened my world to a plethora of folk who felt exactly the same about Doctor Who as I do, this was a marvel to me, having spent my entire life feeling shunned for my love of Sci-Fi here I was surrounded by like minded people who will talk about The Doctor with me until the Adipose come home.  However over my Twitter life I have come to the realisation that there are fans like me who love the show and then there are fans who LOVE the show to such a degree that they take it personally if they don’t like an episode.  I’m all for debate, in fact I like nothing better than trying to get my opinion across but I am aware that that is all it is, MY opinion. 

Take the most recently aired episode for example, Dinosaurs on a Spaceship.  As usual both children were washed and in their pj’s with plenty time to spare, small child on my left, daughter on my right, me sitting in my big cardi in case the small child needed his hiding place.  Now I thoroughly enjoyed the episode, in my mind it was just a jolly good adventure jape, and my Small Child (a boy) well he thought it was the best thing he had ever seen, a perfect boys story, dinosaurs, an Egyptian Queen (who he had just learnt about in school) an adventurer, a daft dad with balls in his pocket and The Doctor acting more silly than ever.  Daughter though, at the end she just turned to me and said ‘well that was a bit rubbish.....still good, but rubbish’  That may sound a bit of a contradiction however I knew exactly what she meant, there are a few episodes that I never ever choose to watch on DVD and some I could act myself I have watched so many times.  However those episodes I choose not to watch, If I happen upon one of those being aired on TV whilst I’m channel hopping, this is where my channel hopping ends.  I know that even though I didn’t like the story very much it’s still Doctor Who and it’s still my favourite show and that there will be nothing on any other channel that I would rather watch.  This is why I found my Twitter experience on Saturday night after airing a little difficult, what I find quite galling and hard to take are people who claim to be fans of the show hurling abuse at writers/directors/producers and other fans.  

Yes, definitely, every single person on this planet has the right to stand up and say ‘I don’t like that’ but during my childhood I was taught manners, I was taught that you should never say anything to anyone that you would not like said to yourself.  There is nothing wrong in going on Twitter and discussing the points in the episode that you don’t like, that’s great, I love debate.   But to go on Twitter and do this and to copy in the writer/director/producer to your tweets, to tell the writer he is rubbish, to personally attack other fans for liking the episode, well put simply that is just rude.  I find that people like this just shout louder the more they are berated, they shout loud and long about their right to voice their opinion, they can not see that their right to voice their opinion does not also give them the right to be personally offensive to others or behave in a bullying manner.  I LOVE Doctor Who with a passion, I can talk about it all day, my house is a veritable delight of merchandise, I love discussing the nuances, the sometimes brilliant writing and the sometimes patchy writing but what I am very much aware of is, that even these patchy stories still totally piss on anything else on television and there is nothing I'd rather watch, and even these not so good stories are still my favourite show in THE world and the bottom line is I am a fan.  

Definition of fan

noun

• a person who has a strong interest in or admiration for a particular sport, art form, or famous person:

Origin:

late 19th century (originally US): abbreviation of fanatic

I probably shouldn't write this but I'm going to.

I thought I should post something today as a response to a bit of cyber bullying I have been at the brunt of.  However the more I thought about it, the less apt I was to do this, I certainly don't want to draw attention to this man or increase traffic to his site but I still want to at least mention it.

As anyone who reads my blog is aware I am a massive Doctor Who fan, in fact a fan of anything science fiction/fantasy, but my first love was and always will be The Doctor.  I've already blogged about twitter and how this medium introduced me to many other Whovians and has allowed me to discover brilliant blogs like Cultden and participate in live webshows like TalkingWho which all feed my love of the Doctor with facts and pictures and interesting articles.

I'm also a bit of a techie, although this label is dropping slightly as I haven't been in the business for about six years (this is a long time in the technology world)  I have given talks in schools and to my own children about the dangers of being online and the threats that are out there, I have told them the obligatory, never give your real name, address etc. On Twitter before I follow back a new follower to my account or indeed add an account I have discovered, I check out profiles and previous tweets, this is about as much as you can do on twitter to verify who someone is.  My 14 year old daughter loves twitter, it is her window into the world of Doctor Who and Sherlock and the music that she likes (the less mentioned of this music the better, we have differing tastes here)  She is a very sensible girl, not only top of her class but the highest ranking student in her entire school, beating students that are three years older than her in all exams.  She is a published writer and an accomplished musician.  I wouldn't normally divulge this sort of personal information about my kids to the Internet either here on my blog or on twitter as I feel it comes over as bragging and you don't need to know this, but I want to give you, my reader a little background, because lets face it you don't know me from Adam.  My daughter has a phone, an ipod, a laptop, I trust her enough to allow her to use twitter without supervision, from a very early age she has been tech savvy, even now she will come to me before using a new website that hasn't been recommended by myself or school, if she is unsure of anything or finds anything at all suspicious she asks first.  I mention her super brain so that you will see she's not some little girl with no common sense. She also is unaware that when I do her fortnightly 'housekeeping' on her laptop I check everything, she forgets her mum is a techie sometimes.  Therefore I know exactly what she is up to without having her feel untrusted or make her feel like a child when she is becoming a young adult.

So to the reason for this post, a few days ago as is compulsory in our house after work and school we all take half an hour of personal space, to chill out from our days, for my small child this involves Phineas and Ferb, a glass of milk and a few chocolate biscuits, for my daughter and I it's checking our twitter/emails with a cup of tea.  We all sit together in our family room, daughter and I showing each other interesting posts or pictures on The Doctor that the various people we follow have posted throughout the day.  My daughter was a little unsure of a link and asked if I followed the person concerned (we have many of the same people on our feeds as we share the same interests) I did follow this person I remembered adding them many months ago because of the name, I thought it was a good name, I knew that I would have checked out profiles and tweets I said go for it.  This is when I felt stupid.  She was horrified by being directed to a site not of pictures of other Who fangirls like she is but of pornographic pictures.  At this point I re checked the profile of the person concerned and yes, this person appeared from his profile to be a legitimate Doctor Who fan site, this is where I got somewhat angry.  I have nothing against porn, I have nothing against people linking to porn from Twitter what I take massive objection to is a Twitter account that is quite clearly aimed at getting Doctor Who fans to follow it, linked to websites with pornographic pictures of girls. I tweeted to this man to simply ask him to reword his Twitter profile so that young Whovians who came across his account would not automatically add him thinking he was a Whovian, this conversation became increasingly nasty and personal to me so I left the conversation.  I could feel myself getting upset and angry and frustrated by my 140 character limit.  This was not a conversation I was going to win.

Tweeting that I was crying and upset was only going to add fuel to his fire and make me appear irrational, this also isn't the way I am as a rule and don't like the thought of people thinking I'm some emotional woman.  I stayed off Twitter for a day as I knew that I wouldn't respond in a rational way.  I came back onto Twitter to find this man had researched me and other users that had become involved in the conversation and had written a blog about me taking tweets out of context and using other blogs that I follow as weapons.  This initially upset me very much, but mainly because of the emotional state I was in due to a test I had endured that day and nothing to do with this man.  He has copied and pasted a paragraph from a blog I follow (a blog that is Over 18 verified) and used this to say what a harridan I am.  I would like to know how I am responsible for what others write on their blog. He has since written another blog in response to some comments that were left for him.  Not by me, not by anyone I know, saying he will take the blog post down if I apologise to him on Twitter.  I have nothing to apologise for and I've got to be honest since he wrote that blog about me the traffic to my blogs has increased massively. I don't know who reads his blog or mine for that matter.  What I do know is that the people who actually know me personally are the only ones that really matter and anyone who believes anything online, my blogs included is taking a bit of risk with their trust. I do not have to justify myself to anyone, neither do I have to prove or disprove anything this silly man has said.  I did nothing more than ask him to reword his Twitter profile to make the thousands of under 18 Whovians aware of the things he would be posting.  He has turned it into a personal attack of me and my parenting skills and also chastised me because of a single paragraph on one of the blogs I follow.  So dear reader take heed one day someone may hold you responsible for what I have written here.

So readers after deciding not to write anything I appear to have written a very long winded post about nothing much at all.  I mainly wanted to apologise to anyone who follows me on Twitter for my emotional outbursts the other day. 

P.S I had it brought to my attention that the wonderful SFX Magazine had written an article on this man and his dubious behaviour back in March, you may want to check it out.