The Orthographic Orator: Doctor Who for Virgins

Originally published Mistfall issue 16, July 1995

by Anthony B. Martin

'Which Doctor Who serial would I show a newbie? And why?'

Newbie n'' Word borrowed from the world of cyberpunk and Internet. It means someone who is not familiar with the world of cyberpunk and/or Internet. In this article the word is used to mean someone who doesn't know things like what the word TARDIS stands for, or that the Doctor is a Time Lord and regenerates every so often, etc., etc.''

As fans we enjoy great pleasure out of watching episodes of this 31-year-old TV series. What about the unconverted? Data Extract, the Doctor Who Fan Club of Australia newsletter posed the above question in their 1994 Survey. When I set about answering it I found myself asking a lot of questions to which the answers are perhaps worth sharing with you.

Many fans behave a little religiously in their devotion to the show. We spend vast sums of money, hours of our spare time (and sometimes the boss' too) reading novels and magazines, watching videos, and in this case, writing articles for Mistfall. Occasionally fans will meet a person at school or work who for whatever reason has never taken much interest in Doctor Who and never seen an episode. What is quite interesting is that the fan's reaction is usually quite zealous.

There's two elements in that reaction: Curiously these two elements would not be uncommon behaviour for fundamentalists, revivalists and churchgoers of the (usually) most despised persuasion. Do fans want to share Doctor Who (their religion) with the newbie (the heathen) for reasons that the zealot (fan) thinks are philanthropic but the newbie may think are just plain weird? This is an uncomfortable thought.
 * 1) The fear of the newby's rejection/ridicule/disparagement. It feels uncomfortable and annoying to have someone laugh at your favourite TV show. The fear is that they are laughing at you too. The feeling can be avoided quite easily though -- it's important to remember that there's usually no reason to suppose this reaction indicates anything more than they don't like the show. There should be no need to take it personally.
 * 2) The zeal with which you want to share the joy/fascination/excitement of Doctor Who has always been such a special feeling for you. The thing that drives you on is a faith-driven motivation that you can offer the newbie this chance to share...  It might seem a bit daft to admit it but watching a really good new episode of Doctor Who is the second best thing in the World for me.

Sometimes the newbie reaction is negative (not unsurprisingly) and, to the fan, can seem hard to understand. If this is at all typical, even endemic, I think it might help to explain why many Doctor Who fans are introverted people.

I shouldn't advise on this problem... but being cool about the situation is probably a good start.

So where do you start? Let's assume that you've got past all the difficult and embarrassing stuff. The newbie has said "sock it to me, give me a try at the Doctor Who experience". What do you do first?

The easiest option is to put the newbie in front of the telly and fire up the VCR.

It's not the only option. You could try lending them a book or give them some posters or fanzines. For young children, toys or picture books might be the best since they may not have the attention span necessary to watch a four-parter. The problem with that approach is that these alternatives are usually created with the knowledgeable fan audience in mind. Consequently they (fanzines especially) might not mean much to our newbie. So a video it is...

Should you choose a classic, a funny clanger, or a clips doco?

What criteria are important? Comedy? Stars? Speccy FX? Engaging, complicated, intelligent or silly storyline? Non-embarrassing plot? Acting? Recent story or old gold?

This may be harder to get right than at first it might appear. Fans invariably take Doctor Who episodes in the context of the show's history. For instance: "That's a JNT story, no way" or "Show the first Dalek/Master/Sontaran story" or "That's a William Hartnell, they're so slow, forget it" or... you get the idea? A true newbie is unaware of all these "issues".

They will react in their own way to what they see. A fan's reaction is dictated by what they know about previous episodes and what other fans have said about the writer/director/producer etc. The aim should be to forget about this baggage and make a sensible choice. Try to pick a story that the newbie's reaction will be "wow, I never knew that I would see that in Doctor Who". To make this work find out a little about what the newbie is personally interested in.

Here's my choices and some reasons... but you can all make your own.

For witty dialogue, and bitingly ironic characters it would be hard to go past Carnival of Monsters. It's a story of "odd but familiar" settings and disorientating plot strands. Most people in fandom don't seem to like it much though. I suspect its appreciation takes a little too much effort for some.

Jeremy Bentham (a noted British fan) once remarked that Doctor Who was at its best when its "roots were showing". By combining The Curse of the Mummy's Tomb with Edwardian BBC costume drama, Pyramids of Mars achieves this very effectively. The production is very high quality. Music, FX, casting, acting, direction are all superb. There's very little evidence of shot buying (shooting something that sucks and keeping it in anyway in the hope that no one will notice).

The story that introduced a million Elvis fans to Doctor Who and has been a perennial favourite of ABC TV since 1976 is Robot. Forget the cheesy dialogue in parts three and four where the Robot and Sarah have their lines mixed up from King Kong by mistake. The story introduces Tom Baker as the Doctor effectively. It's fun. It's action-packed. It has Miss Winters (and Jellicoe) and that line by Sarah about "flying saucers and flat earthers".

The Ark in Space is a compelling story about the future of mankind that has some gruesome parts (the solar stack, the Wirrn discovery) and intriguing characters (Vira, Noah). Think of the Earth High Minister's speech at the start of part three and the way it counterpoints with Noah's parasitation by the Wirrn. Chilling stuff!

City of Death has filmed locations, Tom Baker and Lalla Ward at their height, and a great cast (especially Julian Glover and Catherine Schell). Also it has some of Doctor Who 's funniest scenes: "My dear, nobody could be as stupid as he seems"; John Cleese and Eleanor Bron in the Lourve; "Leonardo, just paint over them and re-use them"; etc.

The Daemons is meant to be exciting. It has plenty of action parts (helicopters, motorbikes, etc.). Now it's available in colour is a great help. The characters are well drawn and the pace of the plot is typically electrifying. The story is not such a compelling one. The ending is a particular let-down but the performances by Stephen Thorne (Azal) and the Master (Roger Delgado) are what make the show a classic.

Tomb of the Cybermen has a tight, pacy story, roots showing, great characters and dialogue. In addition Patrick Troughton is at his best as the Doctor, there are many quite scary parts but... it is old, in Black-and-White, and the FX are slightly crap.

Kinda is a story most fans under-rate. It has a great script, multilayered plot and characters. It provides a real situation of challenge and internal conflict for a companion (how rare is that!?). An SF-head who dismisses DW as kids' stuff would be the best kind of newbie to show this one to. But beware: if you do and they start asking all sorts of complicated questions, you'd better have some answers ready.

Great direction can make a tired plot lifted from a 20-cent Western novel seem like the best story in years. This is what Graeme Harper achieved with The Caves of Androzani. Even the wallpaper is fantastic in this story... So the Mud Monster sucks, ignore that. Just revel in the acute self-pity and self-consumption of Sharaz Jek. And remember, Morgus is evil to the core from the first second to the last, but he will die one day.

Ones to avoid include most Dalek stories. They mightn't be a good move since they are likely to confirm presupposed prejudices newbies may have about crap effects. Any story to do with Time Lords usually require some knowledge of the show to be understandable.

Your choice depends heavily on the person, not the show. It will be fairly unlikely that anyone will get hooked by seeing just one serial. People tend not to change from being so disinterested in SF that in 31 years they've never seen Doctor Who to instant Whovian!

To be appreciated the series (or the books) need to be available regularly, easily and with no loss of money, credibility, ego or esteem to worry about.

And then to get really hooked on Doctor Who, the show needs to be taken away from you just when you want to see more...