Raven's Roads
Living an interesting life: the travels and musings
of motorcycling author Linda R. Moore

May 30, 2007

Thinking Out Loud: Man with a long scarf

Thirty years ago, Star Wars was released. There’s a lot of talk about that, but when this movie first came out I was just a little too young to appreciate it. Only around the time of The Empire Strikes Back did I sit up an pay attention (and made up for the missing years in spades.)

But something else happened thirty years ago. One chilly Fall evening back in 1977 I became the latest British seven-year-old to watch a TV show from behind the sofa–to her family's amusement. Pushing the limits of my Saturday evening bedtime, I was watching my first ever Doctor Who episode, The Horror of Fang Rock. The adults may have been chuckling at the witty sparring between Leela and The Doctor, but I was more interested in hiding from the creepy green monsters slithering up the side of the fog-enshrouded lighthouse.

And then the eerie zippy music would ring out, and I'd have to wait a whole week for the next one. A week! It was insufferable.

To the limits of my pocket money, at least, I became a great fan of Doctor Who, collecting reference books and novelizations and even the magazine which I read end to end. Every year the Doctor Who annual was a much-anticipated Christmas present. Because of this show, I learned the merits of rummage sales and charity shops. As a pre-teen, I distinctly remember shoving other kids out of the way to leave the school sale with the biggest armful of Doctor Who book I could muster.

Tom Baker was never my favorite Doctor. I was fond of Colin Baker and Peter Davidson; Adric was my all-time favorite assistant (I cried when the ship he was in blew up, and still count Earthshock as one of the best, most tense episodes ever). I had a soft spot for blunt, feisty knife-wielding Leela. Inspired by a chance going-out-the-door type conversation last week with a friend from Colorado, guess what we’re watching tonight?

It helped my writing, too. Based on the Minotaur legend, The Horns of Nimon poured out into half a dozen short stories, scribbled in a lined composition book. While most of my peers were checking out boys and learning how to apply makeup, I chanted the names of the doctor-actors like a mantra and played with a battery-operated K-9. I wielded a soldering iron for the first time when Dad found me a schematic to make a Dalek voice synthesizer. I still like the smell of hot solder.

Then they canceled the show. Just like that. An entire nation sulked.

When they brought the show back, I ignored it, sure it could only be as awful as the American-made movie a few years previously. But in the end I tried it anyway, and was delighted. The old wittiness and silliness was there, with up to date scenarios, fast paced action and lots of blowing-up things. But they got the feeling just right, probably because it was created by a bunch of people who'd hidden behind the sofa on cold Autumn weekends. In the making of the new show, these people were reliving their childhood.

Me too.