Twilight Universe

Today an icon of my youth comes back. A man who is over 900 years old, and runs around in a tricked out Police Box. A man who has saved the world (and others) more times that I’ve had hot dinners.

Who is that man? Yes, yes he is.

Before I start punning some more and this turns into “Who’s on First” I should explain to the people that haven’t twigged yet.

The man I am talking about is Doctor Who.

Doctor Who was a staple of my geeky growing up. Much like Red Dwarf was, but Red Dwarf came later. Both shared the same, slightly cheap, BBC sci-fi sets. Both are great.

As a series it’s been going since the 60’s, hense the outdated big blue Police Box (a phone box specifically for police, that died out around the early 70’s). Its kind of funny to think that it was chosen because it would blend into earth’s decor really well, but soon the only reason you would have seen one is because of Doctor Who.

I see it now and I think Tardis, not police box.

So the big blue box was his time machine, and it was a workhorse. Eventually the series was cancelled in the veeeery early 90’s, with the odd one off, and a largely poor TV movie with Eric Roberts as the bad guy (yeah… do I need to say more?) apearing on our screens since.

Now its back. In less than an hour its back. I can’t wait.

I hope it will be great. It has Christopher Eccleston in the title role, one of our better character actors, so you never know. It seems to have lost some of the things that made it so identifiable.. but perhaps it has gained in other areas. I worry… but I will see I guess.

Doctor Who was genuinely scary. It tripped the switches in generations of children’s imaginations, and managed to do that without resorting to the babble and geekery of something like Star Trek. It had its own brand of campy geekery.

I hope this is, as the Doctor is want to do, a regeneration — not the final nail in the coffin.

Update: It wasn’t… awful. Suffered from poor directing and didn’t really find its stride very much. I have hope for the rest of it though, however it wasn’t the best start in the world.