DWM 471 Favourite Things

In the olden days when I went to a lot of conventions, the extreme happiness of being among likeminded lovely people was always followed by the bleak, post-con comedown of finding yourself back in the everyday, mainly Dalek-free world. At the moment Doctor Who feels a bit like that. After the excitement of the anniversary year, the world of Doctor Who seemed rather dull and pedestrian as it went into 2014.

The other day, we were talking about our favourite Doctor Who moments of 2013. What bits were best? Fan Twin leapt in with ‘finding new lost episodes’ (which is a phrase that doesn’t seem to make sense on the surface but actually sums it up perfectly), and of course we all agreed that that was absolutely, definitely, no-question the best part of the year. Especially as it allowed us to discover Colin. I am utterly in love with Colin. I am going to form the Cult of Colin and have a T-shirt printed with his face on it.

Then husband pointed out that we actually saw Paul McGann regenerate! Oh, that amazing day! Husband happened to be working from home, so we were sat at our separate computers in separate rooms, communicating via shouting. The internet alerted me that The Night of the Doctor was happening. I called to husband. Husband shouted back that he’d download it and we could watch it together. A few moments later, he shouted that he’d just been MASSIVELY spoiled and I’d better either stay off the Internet or watch it right now. We watched it. OMG. I screamed when he appeared. Yes, I actually screamed. In a good way. I will remember that fantastic moment always as the time when my heart was able to leap without the internet having spoiled it for me. Yes, that was definitely the best bit of the year.

But then there was Mark Gatiss’s superb An Adventure in Time and Space. That was the best bit. And the brilliance of The Five(ish) Doctors. That was also best. Fan Twin put in a vote for the War Doctor, who he loved. Non-Fan Twin got to see His Favourite Doctor (the Tenth) in action again. We remembered the surprise appearance of those eyebrows. And ‘the Curator’! And the photo of Mike Yates meeting Sara Kingdom! And let’s not forget the Eleventh Doctor regenerating into the Twelfth Doctor (or whatever numbers they are now. Fan Twin and Non-Fan Twin have been arguing about that a lot), and that beautiful farewell with Amy. They were all the best bits too. So my plan of having a nice run-down of everyone’s favourite bits in this column fell by the wayside as no one could decide, but because I like lists we’ve narrowed down our top five moments to (in no particular order):

‘I’m the Doctor – but probably not the one you were expecting.’

Colin.

‘Quel dommage, Davros!’

The eyebrows.

The revelation of just how horrific and terrifying The Web of Fear really was.

After all that, how could 2014 be anything but flat and dull? So I asked Fan Twin what he was most looking forward to this year. Before he could say a word, Non-Fan Twin leapt in. ‘The new Doctor! I bet he’s gonna be really cool.’ ‘Mummy was asking me!’ Fan Twin protested, but had to admit that that would have been his answer too. And of course that’s it in a nutshell, the reason why we need not suffer from Post-Anniversary Disappointment Syndrome: there’s going to be a NEW DOCTOR! (Husband and I are preparing ourselves for the new Doctor by watching – well, mainly rewatching – Mr Capaldi’s back catalogue, we’ve just finished The Crow Road in which he is utterly drop-dead gorgeous and actually I’d better stop there as husband is probably reading this so just let me point out that of course I’m only excited about upcoming Doctor Who because of the stories and it’s definitely not because I fancy the new Doctor).

And the more we talked about what’s to come, the more we realised just how much lovely stuff there’s going to be. Husband, for example, is looking forward to the release of the War Doctor and Twelfth Doctor action figures so the line up (specifically, the line up on his book shelf) will be complete. (Action figures don’t do a lot for me, but that will all change when the range of Dalek Delegate figures is released, as I am confident will one day happen.) I am particularly keen to read the forthcoming novelisation by one of the best ever Doctor Who writers of one of the best ever Doctor Who scripts, to wit, City of Death by Gareth Roberts. And there’re more books, and Big Finish stuff, and we’ve just reached Robot in our watch-through so we have got some amazing viewing ahead of us, and there’ll be a whole year’s worth of new Doctor Who Magazines to read. I might even take the family to a convention! And if we get bored, we can always watch all that fab stuff from 2013 again, so it’ll sort of never be over. It’s almost like time travel…