Posted in: BBC, Doctor Who, HBO, Opinion, streaming, TV, TV, YouTube | Tagged: bbc, doctor who, jon pertwee, opinion, Peter Davidson, tardis, tom baker

Doctor Who: Why "The Girl Who Waited" Will Always Be My Sister

Full disclosure? This isn't exactly our average Doctor Who article. In fact, the beginning might have you wondering how the classic BBC series is going to factor in at all. But trust me. I think it's a journey worth taking, and it's something that I've wanted to share for some time. With it being now my third year as BCTV editor, now seemed as good of a time as any. But first, a little background.

I was born the youngest and only boy in a family with five older sisters. My Dad was a 20-year Army vet from an old steel town in Western Pennsylvania who never made it past the 9th Grade until he got his GED over two decades later. He was also the complete opposite of every stereotype that may have popped into your mind based on that description. My Dad was a beautiful man. He was my hero. He was my "Superman." My mother, not so much. She was an angry, bitter woman who took to Schmidt's Beer the way Popeye took to Spinich. Except she was Bluto. She used to tell us that she was "glad" to have had all of us but if she had to do it all over again… well…, so many times that it wasn't until I was in my 30's before someone made me realize that that's not a good thing to say to a kid. That's one of the nicer examples.

But I had my sisters, so fuck her. And they were every bit the pop culture professors I needed growing up. L passed on to me a love for Stevie Nicks, Queen & the crime novel Helter Skelter (when I was 10, by the way), and an appreciation for the darker and edgier things in life. I could always count on her to wake me up to sneak out into the living room after our Dad passed out asleep in his chair and our Mom passed out literally on the couch to watch Saturday Night Live. M made me realize that cheesy, corny & poppy should be embraced and that there isn't an emotional moment out there that can't be remedied with the right pop song. But if there was one sister who meant the most to me, one who is both the reason I'm writing this as well as the reason why it's taken me so long? Well, for the sake of this piece I'm going to call her "Amelia." Now Amelia had a huge fanboy in her baby bro. There wasn't anything she didn't know about television. She had the TV Guide memorized by the time our Mom had angrily given up on the crossword puzzle. And the scrapbooks! I still remember the first time she let me help her with the tape as she was adding an image from The Powers of Matthew Star.

But best of all, Amelia shared with me her biggest passion… Doctor Who. She had discovered it on our local Philadelphia PBS Channel 12, beginning with the Tom Baker years. And she was hooked from the moment the TARDIS sound came through the living room television's tiny speaker, brushing the hair of our by-then-drunk Mom to guarantee she would pass out and not interrupt the show. And when the PBS station had fundraised enough to bring in Jon Pertwee, Peter Davidson, and more, her obsession only grew. It wouldn't be until I was in my 30's when I came to understand the bigger picture about why she loved the Doctor so much. Because the Doctor and that bloody blue box was the escape she so desperately wanted & needed. Because of all of my sisters, Amelia got it the worse because she wore her geek loves on her sleeve. And she paid for it in three lifetime's worth of "idiots" and "stupids." But goddamn it if Amelia didn't still wait. And waited some more. And kept waiting. Until she just couldn't wait anymore.

Because in the end, our Mom was  "The Master" and The Master always won. As she had with my sisters before Amelia. See, she wasn't going to have "her daughters" embarrass her by being looked at as "freaks" and "weirdos." Oh no, she was going to do whatever it took to keep that from happening. So I watched over the years as she psychologically beat the geek out of each of them- though depending on her mood, things could get quite a bit more literal. For Amelia, the name-calling eventually takes its toll. Only so many hours you can spend literally wrapping yourself up in a musical cocoon to keep the abuse away. Only so many years you can spend waiting for a police call box to arrive to save the day. So Amelia… my "The Girl Who Waited"… stopped waiting. And I never saw that girl again.

But this is Doctor Who we're talking about, folks! A glimmer of hope even in the darkest of times! Because what The Master didn't know… what she could never, ever understand… was that Amelia spent years moving in a world filled with wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey stuff and a multiverse of possibilities. Somewhere out there in another dimension, a beautiful, brilliant blue box did appear to her. And when he opened that door and extended his hand, she took it and never looked back. Spending her life traveling to places she only read about and hoped to visit for years… and others she could never dare to imagine. Saving the day, of course. Because that's what Amelia would do. While back on Earth, her brother awaits her next postcard or telegram, adding them to the wall he has set up in her honor. And he loves her. And he misses her. And he hopes she stays lost with that "madman" forever.

As for her baby bro in this reality? Well, now you know one of the reasons why I do what it is that I do. Not just for Amelia but for all of my sisters. Because each of them loved me enough to pass on the things they cared about so they wouldn't be lost. So every time I wake up and turn on my laptop to start my day, I do it carrying the responsibility of making sure I'm doing right by them. It's funny because when I tell the writers that I want Bleeding Cool TV to be a "big tent" where everyone feels welcome & respected even if we don't like the same things, I mean it- but I'm also not being completely honest. Because we're more than that. We're a fucking lighthouse, and our job is to shine the biggest and brightest beacon into the dark places that still thrive out there. To lead those who still feel lost – like my sisters did – to a safe harbor, even for just a little while. Because I owe that to Amelia, and we owe that to all of the "Amelias" still looking up at the sky at night waiting for their beautiful blue box.

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