Sundays and Tuesdays and Thursday Afternoons

I really like (read: am obsessed with) a British show called Doctor Who. It’s sci-fi, it’s part of British pop culture, and it’s gaining quite a following in the U.S. It’s about a Time Lord called the Doctor who travels through time and space, usually with a companion.

I highly recommend the show – it’s funny, scary, dramatic, and everything in between.

However this post isn’t about Doctor Who. It’s about the small things in life. Okay, it’s a little bit about Doctor Who.

The following is an exchange between the Doctor and his companion, Amy (s5e2).

Doctor: Big day tomorrow.

Amy: Sorry, what?

Doctor: Well, it’s always a big day tomorrow – I’ve got a time machine; I skip the little ones.

And then in a later episode (s6e1) the Doctor says: There’s loads of boring stuff, like Sundays and Tuesdays and Thursday afternoons.

I beg to differ.

Doctor Who Crash Course

The British television show, Doctor Who, is an easy show to be obsessed with. There’s so much richness about it, so much that could be debated, just so much surrounding it. The Doctor Who culture includes a long history, a huge fandom (“Whovians”), behind-the-scenes (“Confidentials”) of every episode (Update: Doctor Who Confidential has been cancelled), holiday specials, and a fan-based band (“Chameleon Circuit”) which plays Timelord Rock – a new genre inspired by the show.

Doctor Who originally ran from 1963 to 1989. Classic Who, as it’s known, is very different from the rebooted version that made its debut in 2005. Potential viewers need not worry that they have all those seasons (or series, as they say in the UK) to catch up on; there are a number of different starting points to break into the show. More on that in a bit.