Worst! Rescue! Ever!

Dear Doctor Who Fanbase,

I am one of you. I have been one of you for decades. In fact, I’ve been one of you longer than most of you Johnny-come-latelys have—about twenty-five years, now.

I’m enough of a fan that I’ve seen every episode that’s extant, from 1963’s “An Unearthly Child” onward. Most of them at least twice. In fact, I still have most of them moldering away on VHS tapes in my basement. Sarah Jane was my favorite companion long before she had her own show. Tom Baker and Peter Davison are my favorite old-school Doctors, but I actually liked Colin Baker’s sixth doctor, and thought his companion, Peri was super-hot. I have endured more Dalek invasions and Cybermen and cheesy garbage-can-liner monsters than you can shake a sonic screwdriver at, and frankly think that none of them were as annoying as the ceaseless repetition of Are you my mummy? from the modern-era “The Empty Child.” I am one of those—okay, I’m the only one—who numbers “Delta and the Bannermen” as among his favorite episodes.

So you can see, I’m not one of those fly-by-night fans who thinks that Doctor Who begins and ends with David Tennant. I liked him an awful lot, mind you. I still think that “Human Nature” and “The Family of Blood” are two of the most heart-wrenching episodes ever made, and that “Blink” is one of the most suspenseful hours of television produced ever. Period. I’m sad to see Tennant leave, but you know, Doctors come and go, and they always have.

Which is why I feel I must protest slightly over the excessive amount of show-bashing currently going on, now that the transition has started from Tennant to his successor. I’ve seen a lot of teeth-gnashing over the specials leading up to his regeneration. What about Donna Noble, they ask? She was such a brilliant companion (and she really was)—and all she gets out of the experience is a wiped memory and a lottery ticket? And as for the rest, that was the ending? Why didn't it end this way? Every angry fan who somehow didn’t like it claims that he or she could have written Tennant’s demise better.

But Doctor Who fans, I’d like to point out a couple of things. For one, companions never really have happy endings. Sarah Jane Smith rode along with the third and fourth Doctors for longer than anyone, and in the end got dumped off without even so much as a how-de-do, someplace miles away from home. Adric died. Tegan and Nyssa left the Doctor in disgust, deeply disturbed and distressed. We all know River Song ends up trapped in the library forever, and she hasn’t even been a companion yet. Peri Brown had a slug’s brain transplanted into her body. Companions just don’t have happy endings, by and large, so a blank slate and a lottery ticket sounds pretty good to me. But heck, you internet forum-loving fans complain about anything; when Rose Tyler got a semi-happy ending—wealth, her dead father resurrected and reunited with her mother, and even her own carbon copy of the tenth Doctor for her very own—you bitched about that.

The other thing I’d like to point out is that the two “End of Time” episodes were actually pretty good. The moment in which the Doctor heard the four knocks that presage his demise? Unexpectedly lovely. The interactions between him and Wilf, Donna Noble’s grandfather? Utterly touching. The subtle hints that the woman who’d been appearing to Wilf throughout both episodes was Susan Foreman, the Doctor’s granddaughter? For an old-school Who-lover like me, it really made the show. I suspect that, in a couple of years, when the Tennant era is a fond memory, you people will be able to look back on these episodes and separate your personal distress of the Tennant era ending from their actual merits.

The episodes have been written, filmed, and broadcast. There’s not really much you can do about them now, with your endless picking and what-ifs and what-could-have-beens. Arguing and fanwanking might be a pleasurable activity to ease your sorrow over Tennant’s departure, but it’s not going to change the shows themselves, nor is it going to bring him back. Enjoy the glorious seasons you had for what they were, please. They’ll still be available to watch over and over again on DVD.

Yours,
A Doctor Who fan who actually enjoys the show.

P.S. I still love "Delta and the Bannermen." Shut up.