Sunday, November 24, 2013

50 years of Dr. Who

The Dr. is back in a Special that out-blasts and out-guns StarWars, even the clone version. And, you could watch it in 3D.

While the rest of the world was envisioning sleek, modern, huge yet uninspired space ships, the British BBC took the blue police box and ran with it.

The Dr.'s blue police box has survived the iconic London red telephone boxes, of which only a handful are left for the tourists. An imaginery collision with a blue box inspired our Twitter account logo.

Of course, the Dr. has his share of princesses and storm trooper like characters but the Dr. is much more classy about them. The ladies at the Dr.'s side have been varied personalities in their own right, and there must be a number of masters theses out there describing the evolution of the female "sidekicks". Oh, River Song, Madame Vastra, Amy and all.

Where StarTreck eventually had to turn to the device known as HoloDeck to maintain at least some variety and spice, the Dr. merrily saunters from ancient Rome to the far future, grabs currrent fringe trends like steam punk and does Christmas Specials like nobody else.

Irreverent writing has survived in the Dr. Who series from the psychedelic times to the 50 year Special, and the audience has to be alert to catch one-liners like "imagine what the Americans would do with a device that can rewrite history".

Distractors might see the London tourism board behind episodes featuring The Shard or the National Gallery, but, guess what, German TV's crime series "Tatort" supposedly (we don't do German TV) does the same on a less glamorous level.

The Dr. has not failed us even at his most morose and sullen, often when he talks about his home planet of Gallifrey. After one or two bleak, even tear inducing episodes, you can be sure to get a sparkling fun episode for balance.

True to his character, the Dr. may very well outlive us all. If the BBC survives its regular series of scandals and political meddling.

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