Doctor Who Reading Challenge
So, earlier, when introducing this three month themed extravaganza I mentioned "The Doctor Who Reading Challenge," and then told you you'd have to wait for an explanation. Well now is the time for said explanation. For us bibliophiles, what better way is there to celebrate Doctor Who then to read lots and lots of Doctor Who books? In fact, the written and audio books should be lauded as what kept the show alive during the years it was dark. We got new stories from new authors, some of which went on to then write on the show! Mark Gatiss anyone? So yeah books and yeah Doctor Who!
The idea behind this book challenge is that there are 11 Doctors so far (remember we're not quite 100% sure what they're doing with John Hurt and the 12th doesn't come round supposedly till Christmas, I'm guessing it will be at the 50th though). The 50th anniversary is in the 11th month of the year. So the idea is to each month count down till the 50th by reading a book staring that months Doctor. So January would be the 1st Doctor all the way till November would be the 11th Doctor, you get the idea. I'm more condensing this into an epic read crammed into three months, and this is for a multitude of reasons, my other themed months being one of them. But my main reason was I was figuratively paralyzed... what books to read? I mean, I have a lot of 9th and 10th Doctor books lying about, and a few 11th. Then there's a few old 4th Doctor paperbacks I have somewhere... but which ones to read? Then I started to make a list based on authors I love who wrote Doctor Who books, you know, Mark Gatiss, Paul Magrs, George Mann, those ones... but so many of them are out of print. Grrr I say.
So the BBC came to my rescue. I don't know if they had planned this all along for the 50th, or, if hearing about this book challenge, went "Aha! A marketing idea we can exploit!" So what they did was re-release eleven books, one for each Doctor, in nifty new and special 50th Anniversary editions (seen above on my Doctor Who shelf, and yes, I have a Doctor Who shelf, no judging). So viola! My reading list was made. Of course the books didn't come out till April, so there's four months wasted right there, so time to cram some reading in now! Therefore, over the next few weeks, one of the features of my 50th Anniversary Special is the review of said books... here's hoping these live up to the name of The Doctor (whatever that name might be)!
I seriously don't know why or how I knew Doctor Who was returning. At this time I didn't really use the internet for much, other then to do homework (see, I can't escape school now that it's sucked me back in, and in fact this fall is the first time since 2006 I haven't had classes) and to play online games with my friends. But there, in the back of my mind, I knew that there was a new series and that, well, obviously, I had to see it. The one thing I did know, from my various British addictions, was you could be sure, whenever the show showed up in the US, it would be a long time since it had aired in England. In fact it was almost a full year from the airing of "Rose" on the BBC till it aired on Sci-Fi (or Syfy as it now ludicrously is). As it turns out, I didn't have to wait that long...
In the spring of 2005 I was done with college (round one) and at a bit of a loose end, thinking maybe grad school, maybe not. My friend Sara had gone to graduate school in Halifax, Nova Scotia at NSCAD. She was graduating that spring and having a big gallery show/thesis/dissertation combo event with mashed potatoes on the side (seriously, there were mashed potatoes at the opening). Her whole family and a few of her close friends, me included, decided to descend on Halifax. Cold and wet and bleak and full of children wielding led pipes... the drug capital of Canada... needless to say, I didn't go out much. After most everyone else had returned to their respective homes, I stayed in Canada for another two weeks or so. I spent most of my time in Sara's little cramped apartment. She had one roommate, Kenny, and no spare space. The kitchen was minuscule, the bedrooms were tiny, the bathroom was somewhat large, but the hallway was non-existent as it kind of merged with the stairwell and the ceiling in this stairwell was mildly psychedelic, as the landlord had plastered the ceiling with these swoopy wave patterns. It was white, but there was like glitter mixed in. This ceiling fascinated me, because all I could think of was who would spend that much time on a ceiling? It would have actually fit in quite well with a few of the TARDIS interiors over the years.
Here I was, far from home and my cat, in another country, but I was going to watch Doctor Who! Not just any Doctor Who, the newly rebooted series! I remember the Sunday night before there was a horrid cold front that moved in. Sara and I were driving back from PEI and it was so windy the car was struggling the whole way back to Halifax. And then the wind that night. It howled and howled. I started putting on more and more clothes in an attempt to keep warm. The next day the whole apartment was frigid, because of the fact the landlord turned down the heat during the day. The cold continued into Tuesday, but I didn't care, I had a fire in me to keep me warm, I had The Doctor. I remember it was still a little light outside the window as I sat down on the edge of the orange plaid blanket that covered Kenny's bed. I was instantly hooked as soon as Christopher Eccleston said "Run!" I mean, the first episode sure had it's flaws, but, well, that was to be expected. Mickey was the main flaw, but then, well, Rose left him in the dust didn't she? When the episode ended and I realized that come the next Tuesday I would be in New York again and not able to watch "The End of the World" I was beyond depressed. When Christopher Eccleston's face lit up in that wide smile surrounded by the London Eye, well, I knew I couldn't wait till this show came stateside.
I still think how naive I was to the ways of the internet. I didn't know about downloads or torrenting. I knew about Amazon UK, and so, I pre-ordered the DVDs, which came out in batches of three episodes every so often and then took about a month to get to me. So over the course of 2005 I slowly watched all the series. Each episode making me more and more a Whovian. In fact, that Christmas when they aired David Tennant's first episode simultaneously in Canada and England, I told Sara all I wanted for Christmas was for her to tape that episode, she did and I was ever so grateful, it was like being back in Canada again!
