"What Makes You Think I Would Ever Give You Back?" - Revisited Review of "The Doctor's Wife"

Revisited Review of Doctor Who 6.04 - "The Doctor's Wife"

Written By: Neil Gaiman
Team TARDIS: Eleventh Doctor, Amy Pond, Rory Williams
Adversary: House, Patchwork People
Originally Aired: May 14, 2011
Number of Episodes: 1

See and mark well how my brain works. Because I have been bone-dead-tired for pretty much most of the day. Even caught a nap this afternoon, but I'm still ready to collapse into bed. But what happens at 10:30 at night when I should be cuddling up with my pillows and blankets? Brain says "Nope - you've gotta write about "The Doctor's Wife." And do it RIGHT NOW!" So - that's what I'm doing.



I'm not even stuck on the episode as a whole - though it certainly is one of the very best revived Doctor Who has to offer. I'm more interested in thinking out loud about the Doctor and Idris. Who is revealed to be (Four Year Old Spoilers Ahead!) possessed by the soul of the TARDIS. The conceit of this episode is clever in that you don't have to be steeped in Doctor Who history and lore to understand the story. All you need are the basics - the Doctor's TARDIS is the one constant in his life, it's been there since day one, he has a connection to his ship - which is much more that any typical spaceship (so sorry Enterprise and Millennium Falcon - you're both handy to have in a tight spot, but the TARDIS wins for... pretty much everything else). While the people who have been immersed in Doctor Who for a long time do get their own treats and Easter Eggs in this episode, an extensive knowledge of the show isn't necessary to enjoy and love the beauty of this story.

The Doctor's relationships with his companions come and go. He looks upon all his companions with fondness regardless of how they parted. But that they point - they left. Or he left them. Or they were forced to leave. The point is, they aren't there anymore. But the TARDIS is. That mad old box which is a cross between a DeLorean and the wardrobe to Narnia with its own version of a soul, always listening to the ramblings of a mad old man who is a cross between HG Wells and Father Christmas. Aren't they just a pair - rushing about in time and space with nothing in particular to do, and no where in particular to do except travel everywhere.



He rambles, she listens. He runs, she rackets about. They're always together - the Doctor and the TARDIS. And for once, she gets to respond to him and it is absolutely and precisely brilliant to listen to. The title of the episode may be "The Doctor's Wife" - and they certainly do bicker like an old married couple. But beyond the TARDIS airing her grievances about the "Pull to Open," (which - that point is debateable) and the Doctor bringing home strays and everything else she pokes at him about - she still

There is something simple in the beauty of this story. While the surrounding trappings of the disembodied House and the Patchwork People and even the trouble Amy and Rory get into serve to move the story forward and give the episode a reason to exist - those things are the "B Plot." They almost don't matter. The real story here is the Doctor FINALLY getting to speak to his One True Love face to face. And, in spite of Amy's "Did you wish really hard?" quip poking fun at the stereotypical male fantasy of his vehicle being made into the form of an attractive woman - there is so much more to this relationship than low-hanging jokes about the male psyche. Because the Doctor is no ordinary dude and the TARDIS is no ordinary ship. This is more than exploring the Doctor's backstory and giving him motivation and history and whatever - this is exploring a complicated core of the entire Doctor Who mythos without giving everything away. The mythos is explored, but the mystery and the wonder remain very much intact.



And that is why "Alive" is so very sad in the end. For while the TARDIS is always there and always will be, this time of speaking to the Doctor face-to-face has ended. She can no longer express her love and affection to the Doctor in so many words, which was such a challenge for her in the beginning of this adventure. And, while the Doctor does understand her feelings (and his own) - sometimes, it's just nice to hear those words from the person you care about. It's a story about life and death and love, but without life and death and love. Not in the way we usually express it, anyway. And that's probably what keeps rolling through my head over and over again about this story - the sadness of endings, the joy of newly discovered relationships, the realization of what you had all along (and what will always be with you, though in a different way than you first thought).

Just a mad man with a box? Sure, if you want to look at it that way. But this story makes the Doctor and the TARDIS so much more than that. Which is something I will always, always, always love about it.

*
Amy: Look at you pair. It's always you and her isn't it? Long after the rest of us have gone. A boy and his box off to see the universe.
The Doctor: Well you say that as if it's a bad thing. But honestly it's the best thing there is.

*
The Doctor: Are you there? Can you hear me? No. Obviously not. Okay. The Eye of Orion or wherever we need to go. {the lever moves on its own and the TARDIS takes off}.

***
(Originally Reviewed May 14, 2011)

And One Greeted Death Like a Old Friend

Below "The Tale of the Three Brothers," there are spoilers for "The Time of the Doctor" -



That was one hell of a regeneration!  But first - there was a story.

There are huge chunks of the Eleventh Doctor's tenure that we don't have accounted for, precisely.  Space between "The Wedding of River Song" and "Asylum of the Daleks" - plus all that time in Series 7 with the Doctor dropping off Amy and Rory and Clara and having adventures on his own.  I expect that Big Finish will have plenty of fun with those empty spaces when the time comes.  I only mention this because - it's almost fitting that we got something similar with "The Time of the Doctor."

I really loved this story.  We were introduced to the concept of Trenzalore back in "The Name of the Doctor," and it's right that Eleven gets to close that storyline out.  Give Twelve a fresh slate to work with and get down to business without having to clean up what was left behind.  But what I enjoyed the most about this is that it was treated like the Time War. Alluded to, mentioned, glimpsed at - but never shown explicitly. Ultimately, this story is about saying goodbye to the Eleventh Doctor - but not in an overpowering and intense way.  The flashbacks and small nods to the past are so perfectly placed within the story, just as fleeting reminders of what's come before.  As with the nods in this 50th Anniversary year, they are simply there to pay tribute and don't take over the actual story that's going on. Those little "kisses" (if you like) were just so perfect and wonderful.

We see the Doctor age and get old - spending centuries defending the town of Christmas. Probably the first time since his first incarnation that the Doctor actually got old and died. Clara pops back in and out (like the TARDIS has gotten used to this whole "Okay, Wednesday is Clara Day, so let's go get her!" Okay, maybe not really like that, but you get my drift).  The Doctor is ready to make his last stand and his last stand is supposed to be on Trenzalore.

But if we learned anything from "The Day of the Doctor" - indeed, if we learned anything from the Eleventh Doctor - it's that time can be rewritten and nothing is set in stone.  Not even the Doctor's gravesite.

This is Matt Smith's moment and all praise and gushing goes to him. So often, the Eleventh Doctor is described as an old man in a young man's body. Well, this time we saw the old man come out for a short time. Matt is going to go far in his acting career, absolutely zero doubt in anyone's mind (well, there better be zero doubt. If you have doubts, I'm coming after you with a stick!) No matter how he looked, he was still the Doctor (even with his head shaved - that was a clever little lampshade-hanging moment). Clara knew it and I knew it and everybody knew it.

And the regeneration - you know, I listened to today's Verity! Extra and something that got brought up was how much kids in particular have latched onto the Eleventh Doctor. When Ten regenerated, I was a sobbing mess - mostly because he was a sobbing mess (kind of).  But Eleven - Eleven was ready to go. And because he was ready to go, his fans (and I'm thinking of kids in particular) can be ready to let him go.  Yes, it's sad - yes, I shed a few tears (just like Clara did). But Eleven's time is up. He's lived a good long life (even if we'll have to wait to see... well, hear it) and he's happy.  His life wasn't a live-fast-die-young sort of thing that's happened so many times in the past. He had so many laughs and joys and heartbreaks and he's done. Even when he thinks he's used up all his regenerations... nope, Gallifrey peeks out through the cracks and says (in essence) - okay, here's some more golden-sparkly-stuff - go do your thing!

 But then - WHAM! And there's Twelve! No prolonged shower of gold sparks, no bonfire, no screaming - just... there he is prattling about the color of his kidneys and how do you fly this thing?

(And poor Clara is there thinking "Oh shit - now what?")

Other things -

- Wow. Gallifrey came back sooner than we expected!  Even before we knew it had come back.  That's what the cracks in Series 5 were about (wonder how much of this is Steven Moffat thinking it out in advance or if he just thinks of cool things at first and then figures out how to use it in later stories).

- On that note - all the explanations for all the strange things throughout Matt's era were there. Explained and gone and done with. And oddly - I'm okay with that.

- Clara Oswald is an English teacher at Coal Hill School. There is nothing I don't love about this.

- The Cyberman's head is named "Handles." And the thing kind of reminded me of K-9. Why does Eleven keep making friends with things he should be scared of? (Because he's the Doctor - that's why).

- The Doctor just happens to have the Seal of Rassilon from "The Five Doctors" in his pocket.  Because of course he does.

- I had a tough time settling on a title for this blog post. But I remembered the line from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows about greeting death like an old friend.  And just now, I was looking through my notes and I said something about the Sontarans having an invisibility cloak on their ship - so there's some serendipity for you.

- "Ten had vanity issues." You know, when I heard that Moffat was counting that as a regeneration, I wondered how he was going to explain that so it didn't sound half-assed. But that line made it all okay.

- The Oswald Family Christmas. Most. Awkward. Christmas. Ever. But I liked the poem in the cracker that Clara read to the Doctor later.

- The clock struck twelve when the Doctor's regeneration blasted all the Daleks. Yeah, yeah - someone's gonna bitch about the nuclear regeneration energy. But the way I look at it - the Time Lords sent it direct, they might have built in the explodey-ness of it all - I'm okay with it.

- He takes off the bow tie and drops it to the floor right before he regenerates. The Feels.

- Though I am glad that he got his young face back before he regenerated. I just wanted to see his face as I knew him best before he had to leave.

It still hasn't quite settled in that Matt's actually gone and Peter Capaldi is actually the Doctor now. I have about eight months to get my head wrapped around that fact. I might even rewatch "The Time of the Doctor" later and still not accept it. Then again, I might watch it later and burst into big, fat, messy tears. I never quite know. I did watch BBC America's "Farewell to Matt Smith" before "The Time of the Doctor" (it's really nice being home for Christmas with my parents' satellite TV) and I was getting all choked up during that. I've said it over and over again (especially on Tumblr) that I'm just not ready for Matt to leave. But I am grateful to him for his part in making Doctor Who a huge success. Not just a commercial success (though that is extremely important) - but a success with individual people. And when I say "individual people," I mean "me." Sure, I started with Eccleston and went onto Tennant and then to Matt Smith when I first started watching Doctor Who - mainlining and all that. I started watching around the time that Series 5 was finishing up it's premiere run. Eleven was still very new to everyone and I wasn't sure he'd unseat Tennant as my favorite (and then I latched onto Davison and we all know how that turned out). But I will say this - if Matt had not been as good and wonderful as he was, I don't know that I would have continued watching the show. Doctor Who would have been just another show that I once watched on DVD because I was bored, but I never followed in real time (I do that a lot).  But between the stories and the characters and Matt's performance as the Doctor, I kept coming back. And Matt kept impressing me and making me fall in love with his Doctor. The same Doctor who has kept me going through some very dark times, even since that initial impression. Words will never adequately express what this show means to me, and that is due in a very large part to how Matt played the role. I may never meet Matt in real life, but I would like to just tell him how thankful I am for what he's done and wish him nothing but the best in future.

Thank you, Raggedy Man. For landing in a little girl's backyard - for not standing back and watching her cry - for making her laugh - for being her friend - for taking her hand and yelling "Run!" - for taking her through all your incarnations and feeding her love of stories and adventure and fairy tales. Because of you, she's going to be just fine. Through all of time and space - things will be okay. And it's all down to you.

You just watch us run.

The Weather Outside is Frightful

Librarian in the TARDIS, Review 11.2

Title: The Silent Stars Go By
Author: Dan Abnett
Team TARDIS: Eleventh Doctor, Amy Pond, Rory Williams
Adversary: The Ice Warriors
Originally Released: September 2011
Range and Number: New Series Adventures

Synopsis (from TARDIS Wikia) -
The winter festival is approaching for the hardy colony of Morphans, but no one is in the mood to celebrate. They're trying to build a new life on a cold new world, but each year gets harder and harder. It's almost as if some dark force is working against them. Then three mysterious travellers arrive out of the midwinter night, one of them claiming to be a doctor. Are they bringing the gift of salvation or doom? And what else might be lurking out there, about to wake up?

My Review:
(Nothing like a cold and snowy Sunday to motivate me to finish a novel featuring a cold and snowy planet.)

Biggest Revelation Of This Book: “Cold War” was not the first time the Eleventh Doctor encountered the Ice Warriors.

(Kind of takes the reveal out of that episode, doesn’t it? Lucky that Clara was the companion in that story and not Amy and Rory, 'cause that would have caused ALL KINDS of continuity issues.  To which I reply - "Continuity issues? In Doctor Who? No!").

This is sort of in the vein of “Sting of the Zygons,” which is a Tenth Doctor novel in which David Tennant gets his childhood wish of meeting Zygons as the Doctor... but in prose form and it's not really David Tennant at all, but his Doctor (side note: “Sting of the Zygons” is pretty good and definitely worth a look). If you’re writing Doctor Who novels and you can bring in a Classic Who monster - what’s stopping you?

Beyond the Ice Warriors - which I still haven’t quite figured out the whole nostalgia factor involved in that particular monster. I mean, it’s not like it’s the Voord or Zarbi or Quarks (now I’m just pushing fanboy buttons - it’s a lot more fun that you’d think) - this story is immensely fun. It starts out innocently enough - land on an alien planet, weird crap’s going on, go investigate (and get separated in the process).

But then you have all the word plays and fun with language. And, for me, that’s like scratching a cat behind the ears and finding the sweet spot.

Turns out, this colony is populated by people descended from Earth humans - in fact, it was supposed to be this huge scientific expedition to terraform the planet. But things got lost in translation, records weren't kept, things got jumbled up and we get things like worshiping Guide, the various Plantnations called Aside, Beside, and Seaside (in other words: A Side, B Side, C Side), following the world of the Holy Emanual (the digital operators manual for the terraforming machines), and various other little gems that you should discover for yourself.

Mostly, this book is full of great little character moments for Team TARDIS. Like when Rory gets to be a leader of the colony because he’s a nurse and Nurse Elect is one of their honored offices. Or when Amy keeps calling the Ice Warriors "Ice Men" for... reasons. And the Doctor laments that it's not like it's a difficult name to remember like "Jagrafess" or "Castrovalva". Having these scenes in the novels makes the story more real - like it could be a TV story just in prose form. Makes me want to seek out the audiobook version of this.

Another really great moment in this book is when the Doctor is standing up to the Ice Lord (the Head Boss Chief in Charge of the Ice Warrior - which also means he's the only Ice Warrior that doesn't have issues pronouncing the "S" sound) and he's enumerating all his past encounters with the proud and honorable Ice Warrior race and all the famous leaders he's met and the Ice Warriors have even given the Doctor a title so future generations may know of his friendship with their kind - only to find out that this time period is clear far back in Ice Warrior history and, through the wonders of time-travel, the Ice Warriors haven't really met the Doctor yet.

I haven't read many Eleventh Doctor novels, but I did enjoy this one.  I can see why it was chosen for this 50th Anniversary reprint range.  It's fitting that it's the last one in the set and it has a Christmas theme to it (the chapter titles all come from Christmas carols) and Christmas is when Matt Smith is going to regenerate into Peter Capaldi (let's hear it for serendipity!)  It was just a fun, low-key read to close out this blogging project with, even if I don't have a whole lot to say about the story itself.  I may re-read it at some point and pick out a few more plot-related elements when I'm not rushing myself to finish it.  But it's certainly worth your time and attention, especially if you are a huge fan of the Eleventh Doctor.

***
This marks the end of the Librarian in the TARDIS reviews. HOWEVER - I still have plenty of off-beat stuff to bring you, my faithful and dear readers, before November 23. And I do want to do a proper recap/epilogue for this blogging project. So, watch this space for future fun and shenanigans.

***
Next Time, on Librarian in the TARDIS - 
Epilogue - Bringing It All Home

Previously -
Bonus Review #3 - Big Finish's Mighty Mouse Moment

While Greater Love Lies Further Deep

 

Librarian in the TARDIS, Review 11.1

Title: The Beast Below
Written by: Steven Moffat
Team TARDIS: Eleventh Doctor, Amy Pond
Adversary: Hawthorne, The Smilers (is there really an adversary for this one? It’s sort of ambiguous)
Originally Aired: April 10, 2010
Number of Episodes: 1

Synopsis (from TARDIS Wikia) -
For Amy Pond's first trip in the TARDIS, the Eleventh Doctor brings his new companion to the 33rd century, where all of Britain's citizens live onboard Starship UK, searching for a new home amongst the stars as the Earth is being roasted by solar flares. However, the Doctor soon finds something amiss onboard the vessel. The citizens appear to fear "the smiling fellows in the booths" and ignore crying children. What is going on? What secrets does Starship UK hold at its depths, and who is hiding them? Soon, the Doctor is forced to make an impossible choice. No matter what he chooses, death is the only outcome.

My Review:
Everyone praises “The Eleventh Hour” as a fantastic piece of television. As well they should. Matt Smith’s first full episode as the Doctor is a roller coaster ride of timey-wimey adventure and mystery and quirkiness meant to show the audience that David Tennant and Russell T Davies may have moved on, but Doctor Who is still in excellent hands. Things may be different, but this amazing show that you fell in love with a month ago is still that same show and it’s going to take care of you through the good times and bad.

(Well, for me it was a month).

Series 5 was so very different in tone and pacing from what I’d come to expect from Doctor Who. But for this initial season under the guiding hand of Steven Moffat, a few bits of the formula carried over. The first episode was to introduce the new companion (and Doctor, in this case). The next two were a story set in the future and a story set in the past. Then a two-parter, then a couple of rompy one-offs, another two-parter, two more one-offs to ramp up to the two-part finale. That’s the big picture we’re dealing with here. Keeping that formula for Matt Smith’s first season was a great way to keep the fans comfortable while everything else around the show changed. And, to be honest, some of us newbies needed that time to process everything that had happened and get used to how Doctor Who handles change.

Going into Doctor Who, I knew that change was a huge part of the show and I accepted that - even celebrated it. Well, I knew it in theory, at least. But until I’d experienced it for myself, it was all nebulous and abstract. I didn't really get it. One of the very first things that I found very jarring, was the tone of the stories (considering how much I go on about story and plot, this should surprise precisely no one). Series 5 has often been called the “fairy-tale season.” The stories in this season certainly do have an ethereal quality to them in the settings and the music and the characters. “The Beast Below” is a wonderful example of how things had changed. Even the clues to the mysteries that set the story in motion - the water glasses, Liz X’s mask, learning the truth of Starship UK and then forgetting - these make for a tone that is so very different than anything RTD ever did, but that we got hints of in Moffat’s writing before he became showrunner. Now, I love love LOVE fairy-tales, but it wasn't something I’d encountered in Doctor Who to that point and to suddenly hit that tonal-shift nearly put me off the show entirely. And it took me a while to be okay with Matt as the Doctor.

But I will tell you precisely when I was totally on board with the Eleventh Doctor. And it wasn't in “The Eleventh Hour," like it was for a lot of other people. It was in “The Beast Below.”

It’s really down to Amy Pond. Isn't that what the companion does - helps the audience cope with change? And now that I think of it, the whole “getting us through regeneration” phase was turned around in this case. The Doctor met Amelia Pond as a seven-year-old girl, but then she changed (well, he was late) and he had to come to terms with the fact that the girl he was knew was different. In many ways, “The Eleventh Hour” is the Doctor meeting young Amelia Pond and coping with the fact that she becomes adult Amy Pond the same way the audience was coping with the fact that Matt Smith isn't David Tennant (and some of us got through it better than others).

The moment Matt Smith became the Doctor - for me - is at the end of this story. And it’s not so much what the Doctor does, because the Doctor’s mad as hell about the whole situation - that part actually kind of scared me. But then Amy turns it all around and shows that the Doctor isn't really this angry, ragey character. All because she manages to put two and two together and figure out what’s really going on with the star whale and the children. She gets Liz X to “abdicate,” thus freeing the star whale and dooming everybody onboard.

Except... nothing happens. Other than a few tremors that uncouple the main structure from the star whale, Starship UK flies on as it always has. Because, as Amy says (emphasis added) -

“The Star Whale didn't come like a miracle all those years ago. It volunteered. You didn't have to trap it or torture it. That was all just you. It came because it couldn't stand to watch your children cry. What if you were really old and really kind and alone—your whole race dead, no future. What could you do then? If you were that old and that kind, and the very last of your kind, you couldn't just stand there and watch children cry.”

It is worth noting that, to this point (more or less), the Doctor’s been traveling by himself. This is the first story in a couple of years that wasn't introducing a new companion. This is the first story since 2008 that we've had a steady Team TARDIS. The Doctor’s been hopping around willy-nilly and - he’s probably forgotten how to be the Doctor. We’re often reminded (whether in so many words or just by his actions) that the Doctor needs somebody. And Amy Pond - without even meaning to - demonstrates this so beautifully, simply by acting on the things that she’s observed and putting it all together in a way only she can. She’s been building up all these hopes over the years about her “Raggedy Doctor” and she (thinks she) knows what he’d really be like. To her everlasting credit, when the Doctor demonstrates one moment of anger and weakness, Amy stands up and basically says “This is not you - this in not how you’re supposed to be” and she reminds him of who he really is.

(And I’m gonna get a little schmaltzy here for a minute, and I know that fanboys don't like to get schmaltz in their Doctor Who, but it's worth it to me and I'm going to write about it).

I've talked about how when I started watching Doctor Who, I was in a rather desperate place in my life. I didn't have anything to look forward to. No goals, nothing that was very important to me. I was just going through the motions and I didn't feel like I had anywhere to turn to. And then I discovered this nutty little British TV show with its wonderful time- traveling alien and his companions and the fantastic adventures and stories and it just set my imagination ablaze. Even now, when I get lost in those dark corners of my mind, I watch an episode or listen to a Big Finish audio or read a novel or scroll around Tumblr. And there are other shows I watch that help through the tough times, but Doctor Who was the first show that made me realize that this was something good in my life. That looking at these stories and characters and analyzing them was something my mind loved. Something that would pull me out of the bleakness and sadness I’d been pushed into - and that it wasn't something to be ashamed of or hide from the the people in my life who love and care for me but Just Don’t Get It. My stresses and heartaches would still be there when I came back out, sure, but when I had the stories to turn back to, I felt like I could deal with them better (and there really is nothing like the sheer silliness of “Doctor Who and the Pirates” when you don’t feel like there’s anything in your life to laugh about).

At this point in my Who experience, Amy’s words resonated with me. Compared to the Doctor, the oldest human would be considered a child. And, considering how high-and-mighty the ancient race of Time Lords is/was, the Doctor probably shouldn't take on human companions. He ought to be above associating with such lowly creatures. But he does. Why? To show off? Partially. To have a friend? That too. But who does he choose usually? There are so many different companions from so many different backgrounds and their reasons vary widely. And this may be a stretch in many cases - but somewhere along the line, most companions express a wish for something new and exciting. They were bored with normal life. So, they ran off with a strange alien to travel through time and space and have grand adventures. Even when the adventures over, their lives will never be the same. And honestly - neither will mine.

So, there you go. One little line at the end of, “The Beast Below” helped me realize the good things in my life. That, coupled with the “Pile of Good and Bad Things” scene from “Vincent and the Doctor” encapsulates Doctor Who for me. Why it’s so important to me and why I love it so very much. In reality, it has very little to do with science-fiction and alien planets and time-travel, even though I enjoy those things. To me, it’s about loving something simple and brilliant and finding the good in it, even amidst the bad that everyone else keeps pulling out of it to fling in your lap. And honestly, I get tired of picking out bad things and fighting over it. Sometimes, I just want things to work out perfectly and be good all the way around. And the Doctor - with consistent reminders from his companions* - does that quite well.  Which makes him (and his companions) the kind of characters I want to keep me company.

To end this review, here’s a video I made a while ago when I had video-making software that actually worked (don’t know what happened). It probably says much better in 3-and-a-half minutes what I've been trying to ramble on for five paragraphs about.


Doctor Who - My Pile of Good Things from Wildcat Media on Vimeo.

***
*Hold onto that “consistent reminders from his companions” thought for a future review - I’m going to come back to that).

***
PS - Liz X is an amazing character. Before I really got on board with the River Song storyline, Liz X was the one I wished could come back more often. I still harbor a long-shot hope that she’ll turn up for another cameo one day.

***
Next Time, on Librarian in the TARDIS -
Bonus Review #3 - “What’s so special about the 23rd of November 1963?” “As far as I know... nothing!”

Previously -
Review 10.3 - Family. It’s About Time.

The Clock is Striking Twelve...

Before I turn in for the night, I just wanted to get my thoughts down on the announcement that Peter Capaldi has been cast as the Twelfth Doctor.  I've been posting, reblogging, tweeting and retweeting my thoughts everywhere today, but I need them somewhere I can be put-together and coherent (somewhat).  First, here's the initial announcement and interview -



You know when you first meet someone and you instantly know you're going to be friends? Or (this I only know from other people telling me about it) how some couples talk about the first time they met and they knew that they'd found The One? Well, that's how I felt about Peter Capaldi. Right when they said his name and he walked out on the stage, I just kept thinking "That's the Doctor." (I didn't even notice his little Hartnell-esque lapel-clutch until later, but that was magic).

Whenever it was that his name first came out (in a loooooong list of potential Twelfth Doctors) - last week or something - I actually had a little nudge in the back of my mind think "He'd be a good Doctor."  Now, I've kept out of the crazed frenzy to fantasy cast the Doctor because (A) I don't know enough about most British actors and actresses (outside of Doctor Who or Harry Potter) and (B) I just don't feel comfortable speculating about this stuff.  I know lots of people had their wishlists - a woman, a person of color, a redhead, a purple wallaby - but I just don't get into wishlists.  I trust Steven Moffat and the top BBC brass to make the right decision and I decided early-on to welcome the new person with open arms because I knew there would be a ton of other people slinging crap about it, no matter who they cast, and I didn't want to contribute to that mess.  But last week, Peter Capaldi's name surfaced out of nowhere and I just couldn't get the idea out of my head.  And the more I thought about it, the more I liked it and the more I got my heart set on him (and this morning, I even thought - "I might be a little upset if it's not him."  Hypocrisy, thy name is me).

Well, I guess The Greater Cosmos was preparing me for change because I couldn't stop shouting my surprise - not that it was Peter Capaldi, but that I was actually right.  And while I was so happy and so excited, the instant that sold me on this man being the Doctor was the part where he talked about how it's the fans that have made Doctor Who what it is and that the show belongs to us all (and he even included himself in that statement - since he's been a fan since age 9) and I remember thinking "This show could not be in better hands."

I said this to some extent over on Tumblr, but I'm going to repeat it here - I love Matt Smith.  I love what he's done with the role and what he's given to this show that I've grown to love so very much.  I'm going to miss him - but I'm already in love with Peter Capaldi's Twelfth Doctor (and we haven't even properly seen him yet!)  It's like at the end of "The End of Time" - the Tenth Doctor has said his goodbyes and I was a sobbing mess and I didn't want him to leave.  And then he regenerates and I have no idea how the universe is going to continue without him.  But then there's Eleven - and he's babbling on about arms, hands, legs, "I'm a girl!" and "still not ginger!" - and I am suddenly laughing through my tears.  So many people say that "The Eleventh Hour" is what cemented Matt Smith for them - but for me, it was those final minutes of "The End of Time" (also, I was mainlining the show and had "The Eleventh Hour" ready to go immediately after the regeneration scene).  And I have no doubt that's how this is going to go down at Christmas - Eleven will be turning into that yellow-regeneration-sparkly-energy stuff, I'll be bawling, Clara will possibly be bawling (though she's probably the most prepared out of any companion to witness a regeneration) and - BOOM - there's Twelve, looking around like he's just gotten up from a bad fall, but ready to go sprinting off into the cosmos and I'm right there with him.

I sometimes don't understand why this show means so much to me - that it's so important that these things succeed and go right.  I try to explain it to other people (and myself) and I'm realizing that it's not meant to be explained.  It's something that I understand, but nobody else has to, so I can't really ever put into words what days like this truly, truly mean.  Watching the announcement, tweeting along, the subsequent response from fans - it was a remarkable moment.  Even more remarkable was that my Twitter feed was full of people saying how happy they were with the decision and how much they were looking forward to seeing the Twelfth Doctor and praise and admiration for Peter Capaldi's work - not one cross word or complaint in those first few hours.  Oh, the malcontents surfaced eventually (they always do), but they had been soundly drowned out by the many many fans who were as excited as I am about it.  Some of us even organized an impromptu Tweet-Along rewatch of "The Fires of Pompeii" - the episode back in Series 4 that Peter Capaldi was in (he was also in "Torchwood: Children of Earth," which is a very well-crafted piece of television, but something I just can't bring myself to rewatch because it disturbed me so much when I saw it).  Definitely adding today to the pile of good things (which is good because so many of my memories of past Augusts have been total trainwrecks - I need something to balance out the crap I've dealt with in the past).

I guess this means we can get Craig Ferguson on Doctor Who as a one-off character.  I didn't know this before today, but he and Peter are good friends and how great would it be to have them on an episode together?  It's been one of my dearest hopes that Craig could be on Doctor Who, but the chances of it are slim-to-none.  Now... well, the chances are still slim-to-none, but it's even more fun to think about (but probably without the acid - this is still a family show, after all).

What else is there left to say?  Only this -



Yes, you are. You are the Doctor. Welcome to the family.