I’ve discovered a small but growing number of readers really enjoy my blog but have never seen a single episode of Doctor Who.  I became aware of this after receiving a series of comments, emails, Facebook posts, and late-night phone calls that started dropping subtle hints.  Here’s but one example:

• “I never really gave a tinker’s dam about your blog in the first place, and that goes doubly-so now that you’re writing about Doctor Who, whoever the hell that is.  We’re done!”

After reading between the lines and teasing out the undertones I decided I might need to address this problem.  I’ve never written a primer before, so brace yourself … this might get rough.

A list of characters you’ll see in the show (I’ll tackle Dramatis Personae in a later post):

• The Doctor — A wise-cracking British time-traveller who regenerates into a new actor every few years.
• The Companion — A woman (usually) who smacks the bejesus out of The Doctor whenever he needs it.

Where the characters might be in any given episode (not to be confused with setting):

• Anywhere in time and space, except possibly Kansas.
• The TARDIS — This is The Doctor’s time machine.  It looks like a blue phone booth.  That’s because it is.

Things that might happen during any given episode (I’ve never been any good at plot):

1. Tentacled aliens bullied by their society’s rigid caste system time-travel to Elizabethan England where they take over the bodies of British Royalty in order to learn how to behave in polite company.
2. The Doctor and (more likely) his Companion stop them.
3. The Doctor, proud of himself, slips and falls, and winds up hanging from a cliff as the episode’s cliff-hanger.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this romp.  And please note any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is truly unfathomable since this isn’t a work of fiction and was never intended to be.

Years truly,

Keith

Copyright © 2013 Keith Parker