The Children's Own Programme That
blah blah blah
Part Four
Forwards in families, sideways in families, as Sylvester
McCoy said in "Battlefield" part one. (Well, sort of...) Keeping to the
same generation as my brother, but moving sideways, as it were, we come
(very carefully, for obvious reasons) to my wife. Her attitude to Doctor
Who can perhaps best be summed up by the Doctor's comment about Earth in
the twentieth century, when he says "I tolerate... but I don't enjoy it."
So while my wife is not a fan by any stretch of the imagination, neither
has she turned me into some sort of sitcom husband, forever sent out to
the shed to watch my creaky old videos because she won't have them in the
house.
If truth be told, if it wasn't for Doctor Who (and in particular the 1996
TV Movie) my wife and I would probably never have met. As a child she
never watched the show, as for a lot of the time they didn't have a TV in
their house. Because of this, of course, she doesn't have any 'nostalgic'
associations with the show, which in itself is fairly unusual in somebody
of our generation. Nevertheless, she did catch some of the McCoy stories I
believe, and at least had seen or knew enough of the show's existence to
be interested in seeing the 1996 TVM. Those people not fortunate enough to
be in America on 14th May 1996 were nevertheless able to watch the film
prior to its UK transmission, through the magic of VHS - my brother was
one such, and he in turn lent the video to my wife (obviously, she wasn't
my wife at the time...). So the very first time we met was when she
returned the video. Entertaining, thought-provoking, and good for the love
life - is there no limit to the magic of Doctor Who? .
One of the delights (for me that is) of having forced my passion on my
wife all these years... erm, I'm still talking about Doctor Who here,
OK... One of the delights is that even without my trying, by osmosis if
you like, she has picked up on a lot of the details and references. So
when I go around gleefully declaring that the cat litter tray has "a
spirit, an ethos, a bouquet all its own" she doesn't instantly think I'm
insane. Well, OK, she probably does, but not because she wonders what on
earth I'm talking about. When living in the same house with the same
person for any prolonged period of time (he typed, inelegantly making
marriage sound like a season of "Big Brother") it is inevitable that
certain things begin to become 'the norm'. Consequently, my wife by now
probably considers it only natural (albeit, as has already been
established, quite insane) for me to switch the PC off with a wave and a
"Goodbye Duggan!". Equally she knows that 9 times out of 10 if our cats
are fighting I will berate them with, "If you fight like animals, you'll
die like animals!!!" Of course, my wife has in her time made the mistake
of pointing out that they actually are animals. I say mistake, because my
reserve plan is to race down the hallway shaking an umbrella and yelling,
"There will be no battle here!" After a couple of performances of that, my
wife is resigned to the former quotation.
On the basis of what can be learned from various Doctor Who Message
Boards, it seems that the scenario of a couple comprising one fan and one
non-fan is by no means something unique to me and mine. Whether it be
wife, husband, boyfriend, girlfriend, or small furry significant other
from Alpha Centauri, it seems that a lot of us have partners who find our
love for the good Doctor utterly inexplicable. This can be seen as a
challenge, of course - how do you make your other half 'see the light'? Do
you show them a range of classics, whilst hiding "The Monster of Peladon"
and "Silver Nemesis" in the basement? Or do you talk earnestly and
emotionally of the complexity of the series, the underlying message and
uniqueness of the concept, of how the Doctor makes us consider things from
more than just one point of view, of how it promotes compassion and
understanding, and so on and so on? Or, alternatively, do you tacitly
agree to only watch the programme when you are on your own, and never,
ever, on pain of death, mention it when you have company?
I'm going to tackle those options in reverse order, unless there are any
objections... Well, my wife has never threatened me with death (at least
not for talking about Doctor Who). She would be laughing hysterically if I
tried to convince her it was deep, meaningful and life-changing. And...
well what the fans call 'classics' and what the non-fan enjoys is rarely
the same thing. Granted, my wife will acknowledge that "The Robots of
Death" is quite good so there is some common ground; but she has never got
past the respective first episodes of those giants "The Deadly Assassin"
and "Genesis of the Daleks" - both summarily dismissed as being too dull.
But to make up for the bursting of that particular bubble, having a
non-fan 'on tap' (as it were) can give the devoted fanatic a fresh
insight. My other half and I both agree that the gel guards in "The Three
Doctors" are not the greatest monster to grace the series. Nevertheless my
wife was 'impressed' not by the costumes but by the ingenuity
demonstrated. The huge eye is clearly a giant light bulb, just as the
creeping grub in part one of "The Ark in Space" is a bundle of bubble wrap
painted green - but both designs have attracted compliments from Mrs
Curnow for their inventiveness, if not their effectiveness.
My wife will not I'm sure wake up one morning suddenly possessed of the
burning realisation that Doctor Who is actually the greatest TV show ever
(heathen!) but I also know that somewhere, deep down, she has a sort of
grudging admiration for it. Without getting unnecessarily sentimental (yeuch!)
she is certainly aware that it is a fundamental part of me, not just in
terms of the contents of my bookshelf but in how I am (and what I say to
the cats). There is also the fact that just occasionally, as the stories
come out on DVD, or as UK Gold go through them, there will be a story that
does impress her, and it's almost worth having a non-fan in the family for
precisely that reason! That moment, that brief flash of wonder, reminds me
of the first time I saw "City of Death" or (my all time fave-rave) "Castrovalva".
As an ironic twist in the tail, however, I ought to point out that one of
the stories my wife likes is "The Chase"! Yes, you heard me right,
stutteringDalekfakeDoctormicrophoneboomMortonDillutterdrivel "The Chase".
Unbelievable!
Women are such complex creatures, aren't they...
To be concluded...
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