When I give thought to my heroes I first consider the ones given to me as a very young child.
At 7, I was at the court house getting my last name changed to match the man who married my mother.
It occured to me then that I would be cool to be called John Wayne. At the age of 9, I discovered Doctor Who.
However, it wouldn't be until the age of 11 that he would take hold and become my lifelong hero.
Doctor Who is a show that always had clear definitions of what was good and what was bad. In some ways this wasn't a good thing.
It caused me to see the world in Black and White, make hasty judgements of others and assume I was always right. Those were the negatives.
On the postive side, it did instill within me a sense of justice and gave me a moral code of conduct. Doctor Who made me WANT to be the hero.
But, as I grew up, and found out the world was mostly gray, I nearly felt lied too. Of course, Doctor Who was always intended to entertain.
It was I who added into it all the things a child needs in growing up: a Role Model.
Doctor Who had been on for 20 years when I started watching. It had a sense of solidity - a need we all have. It had variety - another need.
The thing about Doctor Who is, it had the ability to fill ALL the needs a person has. To feel like you are a part of something grander then the self.
When other people look back at Doctor Who from back in the day, they see a cheesy show. I see, like all old friends, flaws that make them unique and special.
I really enjoy Doctor Who of today. I think it is fantastic in fact. It is like seeing an old friend again after they have been travelling abroad.
I know he won't be able to stay around forever, but I am sure glad he's come back for a while.
But, I always knew he'd come back - he said as much:
Like you, I grew up on Dr. Who. I started watching when I was eight, back in 1980. I don't know, though... I didn't ever come away with the same sense of "black and white" you're talking about here, but that might be because most of my Dr. Who exposure was to the fourth, ninth, and tenth doctors, all of whom showed that there was both good and evil, but made it plain there was a wide variety of gray in between. Especially the tenth.
ReplyDeleteI agree the new version of Doctor Who is nearly always about Gray. If you revisit the Tom Baker years, you can see what I mean, though. He was the good guy, the Villain was teh bad guy. It was almost always very clear. But hey Big Simon! Always nice to see another Doctor Who fan! I hope you get a chance to listen to our weekly radio show too! ~Peter Pixie
ReplyDelete