Just Under a Week After The Day of the Doctor

I actually think that Doctor Who is one of the most important things in our culture.  It’s one of the most rich and interesting things that has ever been made in this country.

- Matthew Sweet, The Culture Show: Me, You and Doctor Who

Me:  It’s been a long, strange week.

Him:  What’s been long and strange about it?

Me:  The hours mostly.  I haven’t managed to do half of what I had planned.

Him:  Which was?

Me:  There’s a couple of things I need to reply to, and an opinion piece that’s been gazumped at least twice by BBC leaks.

The Him plays with his foot.

Me:  Did you feel there was a…  I don’t know.  A bit of a deflating feeling, I suppose.  After the events of last week, the Whoniversary and all that.

Him:  Not really.

Me:  Good.  It hit me, but that’s to be expected.  I’ve watched the BBC3 Aftershow party since-

Him:  Was it great?

Me:  Not…  No.

Him:  What was wrong with it?  Was it that guy you didn’t like?  Called ‘Rick’?

Me:  He didn’t help. 

Him:  Was he your favourite part?  Or was the One Direction bit your favourite part?

Me:  The One Direction bit was lovely.  Just goes to show that the Time-Space Visualiser actually works.

Him:  I’m sorry, I just don’t care.

Me:  It was a bit of a disaster on the whole.  Still, nice to see Jackie Lane.  The Culture Show special was the other end of the entertainment spectrum from the Aftershow party, but you haven’t seen that. 

Him:  It was beautiful.  Can I leave now?

Me:  Soon.  There was a lot that I didn't just agree with, but feel like I've been banging on about for ages.  Those moments left me feeling a bit vindicated.  "Yes!  That's exactly right!"  That sort of thing.  Overall, it was great.  It looked beautiful and managed to carve some new marks into ground that's been trodden into a quagmire over the last half-century.  I tweeted about how I thought the Culture Show special was superb, and then we got a reply from Matthew Sweet, the presenter.  This delighted me so much that I panicked off Twitter, and sat blushing in a corner for the rest of the evening. 

Him:  Maybe he’s just a nice guy and replies to everyone.

Me:  Shush.  I’m special.  Ummm… I think that’s probably about it.  You haven’t seen or heard anything about the Christmas special have you?

Him:  No.

Me:  Right, well we’ll wrap up and I’ll go and write the things that I should have been writing earlier on in the week.  And then I can get back to reading comics and books about comics as 'research'.

Him:  Ok.

Me:  I’ve got some plans for next year.

Him:  I have no idea.

Me:  Well, when the dust’s settled with the missing episode rumours we can remount the Ascent, but there’re also a couple of other things I’d like to have a shot at.

Him:  It’ll never end!

Me:  We’ve got all the stories watched up to The Space Pirates1 – I just need to type up what we said.

The Him grows an arm out of his back.

Me:  And then…  If any of the stories we watched as recons are returned, then I can just recon the write-ups2 and we can do a proper entry for the story itself.

The Him drags himself up the wall with his new arm.  Wings begin to sprout.

Me:  Otherwise, there’s the thing about British horror comics that I’ve been trying to write.  The Doctor got jealous at being ignored and kept flinging stuff at me to make sure I was paying attention, so it's been waiting patiently for the last month and a bit.  I’d like to get back to that in 2014.

Him:  Would you?

The Him’s jaw distends by about six feet as his eyes start to glow a virulent blue.

Me:  Yeah.  And I want us to meet Tom Baker.   

Bones crack - tendons scream - a terrible metamorphosis concludes.

 

Somehow.

The Him emits a piercing shriek and launches through the window, flapping deftly into the cold November darkness.  Distant screams blow in on the frigid air.

Me:  Born in a barn?

Pause.

Can I type you saying ‘squawk’?

Him:  No.  No you can’t.

Me:  Fair enough.  Lovely.  G’night.

1.  And we’ve watched every (available) story that isn’t The Ambassadors of Death – most of them before we started this blog – in case I hadn’t mentioned that at some point.

2.  Our recon of The Web of Fear can be found in the Travers Tales set here.  Go and have a look, if you haven’t already, and you’ll see what I’m getting at.  Also, we’re hedging our bets that there’re still goodies yet to escape from the BBC Canteen…