LY #68 Watching Doctor Who

I didn't expect a packed theatre, I'll tell you that right off.  That's why I didn't enter the Old Mill movie complex at 6:50 pm when I bought my ticket.  How many Doctor Who fans could there be in Bend?  When I finally returned to find a seat at 7:20 I walked all the way up the stairs to the back and finally heard my colleague Tim Petersen hollering, "Kake, Kake."  So I took the seat next to him in the back row.

I was, of course, at Regal to see The Day of the Doctor in 3D, the 50th Anniversary special TV show + "making of" documentary.  It was a huge hit over the weekend in the UK, the third highest money maker over the weekend.  And according to the BBC, it sold out around the United States and "was watched by an average of 2.4 million, a record for BBC America."  Some argue that the movie's box office even beat out the Hunger Games.

Much of the movie, sadly, was a bit over my head as I haven't been a fan for a long time.  I will need to read Alan Kistler's fan-boy explanations.  I see now that I'll be catching up on this millennia's Doctors over Christmas break.  I've seen three of Chris Eccleston's but none of David Tennant's or Matt Smith's.

Tom Baker, Day of the Doctor

I became a Doctor Who fan when PBS stations were broadcasting the Tom Baker series in the 1980s and I still think of Baker as Who.  When his eyes and then his elderly self turned up in the movie last night, the fan-girl next to me (and several others throughout the theatre) let out a shriek of appreciation.

Tom Baker as The 4th Doctor

I was introduced to the Doctor in 1985 by Michael Swan, a young graduate student at the University of Utah.  In the winter of '85, I moved into a 19th Century mansion on South Temple in Salt Lake City.  It had been broken up into apartments sometime in the 20th Century.  Michael lived in the apartment above mine.  He had told me when the apartment below his was available and I leapt at the chance of getting out of my cockroach haven.

When I moved in, we became like siblings.  Many weekday nights he would make us instant hot chocolate around 10 pm and then we would watch TV together in his apartment, first Monty Python and then the Doctor.  Mike was like the little brother I never had.  I thought about him last night as I watched the movie, thought about how much he might have enjoyed it if he hadn't died so young.