Living with a Who Fan

Originally published Mistfall issue 19, September 1996

by Rosemary Stewart

Living with a Doctor Who fan is indeed a unique experience. Nothing quite prepares you for what is to come -- even when your adorable little seven-year-old begins tearing around the house with arms outstretched, fists clenched, yelling "EXTERMINATE!  EXTERMINATE!" at the top of his lungs.

You try telling yourself it's just a fad, all the while the miniature Dalek is trying to exterminate his sister. It isn't, of course. Once a Who fan, always a Who fan.

Are all Who fans that odd? Don't they just enjoy a simple television show? Right! They don't merely like the show, they're nuts about it. They will watch it at any hour of the day, purchase and listen to copies of the world's most annoying theme tune, and tape the shows off-air. They also spend exorbitant amounts of money on Doctor Who knick-knacks or memorabilia, commonly known as junk. They buy the videocassettes and even hold parties at which many of these individuals will sit and view programmes they have seen perhaps only three hundred and sixty-seven times before.

I have found that they come in groups. Terrifying as the thought is, there are clubs where the aforementioned sit about and watch ancient episodes again (!), discuss them amongst each other, swap "merchandise", and draw Who raffles. Where will it end?

That's not all, either. Who fans know everything there is to know about Doctor Who, and all its associated reference points. They will be able to tell you any mind-bogglingly trivial piece of information concerning the show: the plots, the characters, the actors, the production staff, and the sets. Surely no one on Earth can have as much useless information at their fingertips than a Who fan, and no one on Earth insists on pounding said data into the heads of others with quite the same amount of vigour. If I hear one more fact about papier-mache rocks I'll scream!

A Who fan's bedroom is a shrine to this, dare I say it, children's television programme. Magazines are strewn across every available surface, pictures and posters cover the walls, tiny police boxes stand guard by rows and rows of Doctor Who books -- a formidable sight for the unprepared. Whatever you do, don't move anything. All is indexed, counted and in order. The slightest nudge will change the course of history by disrupting the very fabric of the space/time continuum.

Oh, I should have mentioned by now that you will soon become particularly proficient at talking in scientific Double-Dutch the moment you start to live with a Who fan (he tells me it's "a socio-linguistic process akin to the phenomenon of cognitive osmosis".  Yeah, whatever). They will talk incessantly about alternate realities, the point of singularity at the heart of a black hole, about matter and anti-matter and other SF sound bites, regardless of the listener's interest or level of understanding (they'd make great Mormons). Don't let this discourage you though. You are not the only person who, having asked about the confusing difference between the inside and outside of the TARDIS, was given a reply as deep as it is opaque: "It's dimensionally transcendental". It's what?!

The Who fan is a stickler for detail but can appear at times to be the epitome of The Absent-Minded Professor. Talk about Space Cadets! These nerds (so many of them look like Brains from the Thunderbirds that it's scary) live in a world totally removed from our own.

They have absolutely no concept of time (unless a Who episode is about to be shown), they are forgetful (often they will go into another room only to return bewildered about their motivation for it), they are not able to hold a conversation without somehow relating the topic to Who, and they will drift away when you finally get to talk to them. They aren't being rude, it's just that their minds have become addicted to cosmic fluff. Everyday conversation is actually very hard for them to become interested in, to say nothing of participation.

Being a Who fan immediately predisposes a person to become a fan of other sci-fi TV shows. Any and all conversation will be littered with references to Red Dwarf, Blake's 7, and every possible form of Star Trek. You will soon begin to feel that your whole life is just a television show, sandwiched between the reality of SF TV.

In short, the Who fan can be an absolute nightmare to live with. Should this be your lot, it may be advisable to take heed of the wise words "if you can't beat them, join them". We need to show some tolerance for these poor souls. After all, this is a scary world full of injustice and brutality. If the Doctor Who fan has a single redeeming quality it's a sense of humour. We should be grateful for that.