Make It a Doctor Who Christmas!

By Teresa Jusino

Doctor Who and Christmas go together like marmite and cheese.  Or marmite and jam.  Or whatever the hell English people eat marmite with.  The point is, they go together well.  Since new Doctor Who started in 2005, there’s been a Christmas special following each season, a standalone adventure with the Doctor that usually finds some alien or other invading Earth on Christmas with the Doctor there to save the day.  Usually, US fans of the show have to wait months after these specials have already aired in the UK (or hours until they can sneakily download the episodes from teh intarwebz).

Not this Christmas!

The End of Time is the final story with the Tenth Doctor, played by the brilliant David Tennant, before he regenerates into a kid with an emo haircut.  It is a two-part episode, Part One of which is airing in the UK on Christmas, and here in the States on BBC America….DECEMBER 26TH!  Looks like the BBC has finally realized that Doctor Who fans are just as fervent on this side of The Pond, and if they want us to watch their network at all, they’d better get us our sci-fi television tout de suite!

Wait, what? You don’t have any idea what I’m talking about?!  Are you kidding me?  Doctor Who is one of the best sci-fi television series in history, and is an older franchise than Star Trek!  You don’t watch British genre stuff unless it has Edgar Wright or Simon Pegg’s name on it? * sigh *  You American philistine.

OK, I’ll admit it. I didn’t get on the Doctor Who bandwagon until last year, when I finally picked up the DVD set of Series One of the New Who that a friend lent me and that I had sitting around my apartment for months.  From the first episode I was addicted (both to the show, and to the sight of Christopher Eccleston in all black and wearing a leather jacket! * pant *), and once I made my housemates addicts, too, we Netflixed the subsequent series (that’s Brit for “seasons”, y’all), getting caught up and ridiculously invested in David Tennant’s Tenth Doctor (wait, someone can wear a brown pinstripe suit and red Converse sneakers and still manage to look sexy?!) as we watched all his episodes in one fell swoop, only to realize that he’s now leaving the show.  Tennant’s last series really isn’t a series at all.  It’s four 2-hour specials, two of which (The Planet of the Dead and The Waters of Mars) have already aired.

As we’ve been waiting not-so-patiently for The End of Time, we’ve been doing our history homework, watching what is now known as “Classic” Doctor Who and starting with the very First Doctor, played by William Hartnell.  Granted, the production values of 1960s sci-fi television are kind of laughable by today’s standards, especially 1960s television in England, where everything seemed to be shot on a soundstage as big as my living room.  But just as the stories and personalities of characters like James T. Kirk, Spock, and Doctor McCoy rise above the absurdity of Styrofoam aliens and “automatic doors” that are clearly being opened by Teamsters, the cheesy production values of Classic Who can’t detract from some of the most brilliant sci-fi writing ever.  Not all of it is great, mind you.  The story arc called The Web Planet is so laughably horrible I couldn’t even get through all the episodes.  There’s also the fact that Hartnell’s Doctor is more of a douchebag than I’m used to.  Seriously, he kidnapped his first companions!  He’ll put people in danger, lecture them about doing exactly what he just did, and then even as he continuously causes people to be captured or hurt or lost he refuses to listen to anyone else’s suggestions…  Yet, when Doctor Who is at the top of its game, it’s GREAT.

If you’re already a fan of Doctor Who, you’ll already be watching Part One of The End of Time on the 26th.  However, if you’re not, why don’t you spend your holiday vacation getting to know one of the most amazing shows in sci-fi history?  Here’s what I’d recommend:

1. Watch the 2005 Doctor Who series first.  Series 1 stars Christopher Eccleston (Heroes, G.I. Joe) as the Ninth Doctor, and Billie Piper (yeah, she also sang this song and plays a Call Girl on TV) as his companion, Rose. Eccleston only plays The Doctor for one series, before Tennant takes over with a Christmas special called The Christmas Invasion that happens just before the second series.  Series 1-4 are available on Netflix, or you can take the plunge and buy them all…but they will cost you a pretty penny being imports and all.  After you finish the Fourth Series, you can watch the specials The Next Doctor and Planet of the Dead on DVD.  The Waters of Mars is not yet available, and I would never tell you to do something so shady as to go to NinjaVideo.net to find it.
2. Then, once you’re all caught up, go back to the beginning!  There’s plenty of Classic Who available on DVD.  However, be warned.  Not all of it is.  Some episodes haven’t been released on DVD, others were completely destroyed, as there were a lot of Doctor Who masters back in the day that got erased! But a great place to find hard-to-find Classic Who episodes is DailyMotion.com.  One user, Tardismedia, has uploaded every single Doctor Who episode available that has any footage or audio at all.  Many episodes are audio-only, so you get to listen to them like old-school radio plays! Anything that’s available for watching/listening to can be found there!

Don’t worry, Doctor Who fans that already know all this!  I’ve got some holiday treats for you too:

1. If you haven’t yet heard of them, I am head over heels in LOVE with a Trock band in England called Chameleon Circuit!  I first heard of them when I came across this video one of the band members, named Charlie, made of a song he wrote called Blink, based on the Series Three Doctor Who episode of the same name.  I have since downloaded their self-titled album on iTunes. Best songs: Blink, An Awful Lot of Running, Exterminate, Regenerate, and Type 40.  Here’s the adorable video…I love this kid!
2. Paul Cornell, writer of the Doctor Who episodes Human Nature and The Family of Blood, as well as several Doctor Who novels and creator of the Who character, Bernice Summerfield, has recently written a Doctor Who Christmas story for his blog that blew me away and made me cry.  It’s purely fan fiction and has nothing to do with the actual show…but it’s fan fiction from a Doctor Who writer!  Definitely worth a read!  Check out The Last Doctor.

Part One of The End of Time airs on BBC America on December 26th at 9PM ET.

Part Two of The End of Time airs on BBC America on January 2nd at 8:30PM ET.

TERESA JUSINO was born on the same day that Skylab fell. Coincidence? She doesn’t think so. She is a founding member and editor of The Revolving Door Commune Blog, she is the NY Geek Culture Examiner at Examiner.com, and she’s recently been asked to write for the sci-fi/fantasy site, Tor.com.  She is currently writing a web series for Pareidolia Films called The Pack, which is set to debut Summer 2010! As a geek, Teresa loves all Star Trek, Lost, Fringe, Doctor Who, comics, and anything Joss Whedon, Brian K. Vaughan, and Neil Gaiman ever touched.  David Tennant will always be her Doctor. Get Twitterpated with Teresa, Follow The Pack or visit her in The Red Room.

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