Reflections on life at “De Witte Wand”…

Almost Time

The next series of Doctor Who launches this weekend with what, by all accounts is a seriously good episode. Still, with Steven Moffat at the helm, I expect nothing less.

I’ll be parked on the sofa, instead of almost behind it when I was very young, on Saturday evening to watch it. This time around, being almost fifty years older, I’ll also have the benefit of my PVR to record the episode for my continued viewing pleasure.

One thing which I can’t quite grok: for some reason, Martin does not like Doctor Who. It leaves him cold for reasons that I cannot fathom. He goes off into his study when it’s on. I find that somewhat bizarre, but that’s life. I’m from Mars, he’s from Venus.

5 responses to “Almost Time”

  1. Robert Dammers Avatar
    Robert Dammers

    My wife does not sail. My uncle’s trimaran, which it had been understood I would buy when he became too old to sail any more, was sold outside the family (pottering around the coast was an important part of my retirement plan). She also does not like opera (though she is a professional musician). Since my Glyndebourne membership came through just before we married, I have scarcely used it.

    Either or both ought to have been dealbreakers. But here we are, nearly 21 years on.

    As you say, that’s life.

    1. Geoff Coupe Avatar

      “She Does Not Like Opera”?! (emphasis added). Well, there you go – neither does Martin, but a good Madame Butterfly reduces me to a blubbering heap every time. Yep, life is strange – we’re coming up to nearly 30 years together, and we still look at each other and ask how is this possible?

  2. Mike Tremoulet Avatar

    Mars and Venus? One might say it’s a Plutonic relationship….

    (Okay, sorry. It’s late, and I’ve got a headache; that made me laugh perhaps much more than it should.)

    I’m working my way up through the current incarnation of Doctor Who; we didn’t get much of the previous Doctors while I was growing up, but I’ve recently been playing catchup with the modern series. Still a few seasons behind.

    Oh, and deal breakers? We could talk about the vast differences between Christine’s and my palate. Suffice to say, I’ve decided to cook two different suppers on more than one occasion. And yet, here we are. (Coming up on 7 years.)

    1. Geoff Coupe Avatar

      Groan 🙂 Mike, good to hear from you, despite that.

      I suspect that those of us who lived through the early years of the Doctor often view those episodes through rose-tinted glasses.

      They were often pretty terrible – cardboard sets, wooden acting and atrocious writing. But I admit that I still recall some of them with a smile. Still, I’m not driven to go out and purchase the complete back catalogue of Who on DVD as some people clearly do.

      However much some Who fans complain about Russell T. Davies, one has to give him credit for successfully rebooting the whole Who universe, and there have been some really exceptional episodes in the recent series. Funnily enough, most of them seem to have been written by Steven Moffat (“Blink”, “The Empty Child” / “The Doctor Dances” , “The Girl in the Fireplace”, “Silence in the Library” / “Forest of the Dead”… the list goes on) – which is why I’m looking forward to Saturday night on the sofa.

  3. […] I wrote about how much I was looking forward to the opening episode of the next series of Doctor Who. So I suppose I should write a few words on what I thought about it. Well, look, I’m not very good at this sort of thing, so I’ll just hand you over to the review by Teresa Jusino over at Tor.com. She seems to have read my mind pretty well. […]

Leave a reply to Geoff Coupe Cancel reply