Why we love Doctor Who… according to a psychologist

How and why do we get so attached to a show, a character and a world that isn’t real? 

“The reason science fiction in general works is it explores psychological and societal themes, but in a fantasy world where you can explore them in ways that’s more difficult in real life. So you explore gender identities, ideas of aging, ideas of death, all in ways that allow a different angle by not being tied by realism,” Paddy O’Donnell, Professor of Psychology at the University of Glasgow, explains.

For children, they’re struggling for independence from the parent and to explore, but as O’Donnell explains, “they’re worried about safety. So what they need is a safe place in which they can explore those issues.

“Doctor Who starts with a police box, which isn’t really a police box. It’s coloured blue, which is the colour of calm and motherhood. So it’s a kind of mother. It is the mother ship. It protects while allowing exploration all of these dangerous universes. The Tardis itself is a safe base in which to explore the world,” O’Donnell adds.

On the Doctor himself, O’Donnell notes the importance of his asexual characteristics.

“The Doctor is interesting because he manages to combine excitement with security. The first thing about the Doctor is that he’s not going to sexually attack you. One of the reasons he’s not going to exploit you is because he’s not even really human – he’s a Time Lord and we don’t know if Time Lords even have sex at all. That device is actually quite important as it takes him out of the sexual competition game.

“The Doctor combines both masculinity and warmth – they’re attractive but not in an aggressive masculine way. It used to be more of a father figure, but more recently they’ve gone for a younger but slightly vulnerable male. He doesn’t dress in a very sexy way. It’s not kind of medallion and a hairy chest and all of that kind of stuff. He doesn’t leer at you. His body language is non-sexual. All of them adopt certain mannerisms that make him appear a trifle weird, just a little bit robotic or other-worldly,” O’Donnell adds.

Both adults and children seek an attachment object, which the Doctor himself offers.

“The Doctor meets your basic needs. You project yourself into this world and he meets your basic needs. Those basic needs are to provide excitement while protecting you. The attachment object is the Doctor.

“The easiest way to activate an attachment need is to put someone under threat. New horror movies frighten you but provide no attachment, or they frighten you and give you an attachment object that you move towards which then destroys you. Doctor Who stops at that point. It always reassures that the attachment object is there. The attachment objects aren’t just there to reassure you, but to allow you to continue to explore,” O’Donnell explains.

Once you’ve set up this environment in which fear can be explored, you need to introduce fear, which traditionally has been the Cybermen and the Daleks. Doctor Who explores fears that are to do with children’s own deep psychological needs.

“The childish fear is that you’re suddenly being brought up by aliens. There is an emotional base in that for children, an angry adult is a terrifying object – they become a monster. Being suddenly confronted with something that was human and suddenly seems alien and abhorrent is actually a very childish fear and the Daleks and Cybermen are a representation of this fear. They get put in their place because you can escape this fear.

“I suppose the need is to be reassured that the world is human, that bad things in the end don’t happen. Of course one of the features of the Time Lord is that he never dies, he might go away but he always comes back. The attachment bond is never fractured,” says O’Donnell.

One of the advantages of attracting a range of viewers is that Doctor Who can offer different things to different viewers.

Adults can identify with the Doctor as somebody who is a super-human child protector. “All parents think they have superhuman powers to protect their children. In the fantasy we all believe that – our children will suffer no serious fate because we can stop the world getting to them. It’s a delusion that I think every mother and father has.”

Full article here

SPOILERS! The TARDIS is regenerating

Peter Capaldi explains why the TARDIS is changing .... again

On this day : End of an era

24 years ago today, the original series of Doctor Who came to an end with the final story 'Survival' with Sylvester McCoy as the seventh incarnation of the Doctor and Sophie Aldred as his teenage companion Dorothy 'Ace' McShane. It also had a cameo by the popular 1980's comedy duo Gareth Hale and Norman Pace.

Survival was the fourth and final story of Season 26 of Doctor Who. As such it was the final story to be broadcast, although not produced, of the classic series. The serial aired on Wednesday 22nd November 1989 and ended 3 weeks later on Wednesday 6th December 1989. Each episode were 25 minutes, and hard to believe by today's standard that was all we got back then at the end. 

Interestingly, it is the last canonical televised adventure to feature the TARDIS prop designed by Tom Yardley-Jones's and commissioned by John Nathan-Turner. It made it's first appearance in The Leisure Hive and remained in use for the whole of his time as producer. It had a final outing in the 1993 Children In Need special  Dimensions in Time before being retired. 

Synopsis:

The Doctor brings Ace back to her home town of Perivale. Her old friends are being kidnapped by a race of alien hunters called the Cheetah People, who were shown the way to Earth by the Doctor's old enemy the Master (Anthony Ainsley).

 

Anthony Ainsley (20 August 1932 - 3 May 2004)

 

 One of the Cheetah people

Before broadcast, Sylvester McCoy was asked to come back in and record the outgoing dialogue which is heard as The Doctor and Ace walk back to the TARDIS. 

  "There are worlds out there where the sky is burning, and the sea's asleep, and the rivers dream; people made of smoke and cities made of song. Somewhere there's danger, somewhere there's injustice, and somewhere else the tea's getting cold. Come on, Ace. We've got work to do"

DVD is currently £6.95 on Amazon

Tom Baker: "I'm Still Doctor Who"

 Fourth Doctor Tom Baker told the audience at the Doctor Who Celebration that he is still the Doctor.

“I had a fantasy that I was going on to something else,” he told host Nicholas Briggs. “Which was a fantasy of course because I didn’t go on to anything else.

“I’m still playing Doctor Who in Big Finish. I remain playing that lovely character. He’s really rather like Tom Baker really.”

When asked if he felt that age mattered when playing the Doctor he said: “It doesn’t really matter. Nobody has ever failed at it. It would be quite interesting to see one with a hump.”

An evening with Steven Moffat

Traffic Experimnent Vashta Nerada

To celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the greatest science fiction drama series that is Doctor Who, Traffic Experiment are releasing  a very limited run of Vashta Nerada [Doctor Who Theme], their reworking of the iconic music, on 10" vinyl. On the B-side, they are including a new original Traffic Experiment track that has been written for our next album, but for now is only exclusively available with this vinyl release.

 10" Vinyl

10" pressing (1 of 500) in classic black pure virgin vinyl, contained in an audiophile anti-static, 100% non-abrasive inner sleeve and full colour printed, premium 300gsm heavy card outer sleeve.

The vinyl features the original release of Vashta Nerada [Doctor Who Theme] on the A side, and a brand new, previously unheard Traffic Experiment track on the B side.

Pre-order includes immediate download of 1 track in your choice of high-quality MP3, FLAC, or other formats. A link to the complete album will be emailed to you the moment it’s released. 

Pre-order Now  £6.50 GB

shipping out on or around 23 November 2013 

edition of 400  

Find out more  at their homepage (see link above)

10" Vinyl + signed A2 poster

10" pressing (1 of 500) in classic black pure virgin vinyl, contained in an audiophile anti-static, 100% non-abrasive inner sleeve and full colour printed, premium 300gsm heavy card outer sleeve.

The vinyl features the original release of Vashta Nerada [Doctor Who Theme] on the A side, and a brand new, previously unheard Traffic Experiment track on the B side.

The full-colour A2 poster features the artwork from Traffic Experiment's 'Vashta Nerada [Doctor Who Theme]' and is signed by all the band. Note that the poster is shipped separately in a tube to keep it crease-free (not folded and packaged with the vinyl)!

Pre-order includes immediate download of 1 track in your choice of high-quality MP3, FLAC, or other formats. A link to the complete album will be emailed to you the moment it’s released.

Pre-order Now  £9.50 GBP

shipping out on or around 23 November 2013

edition of 100 

Google Maps Easter Egg Lets You Explore The TARDIS

 

Tucked away in a single streetview image of what appears to be a mere police box, a newly discovered Google Maps easter egg lets you go inside the TARDIS.

How to do it:

• Click this link
• Move your mouse around a bit. The standard Google Maps directional arrows should pop up, with one little addition: a pair of double arrows. Click those. (Note: If you’re enrolled in the new Google Maps UI beta, the arrows might not appear. Instead, hit the up arrow on your keyboard. If it’s still not working for you, see the note at the bottom of this post.)
• Bam! You should now be in the TARDIS’ bigger-on-the-inside (smaller-on-the-outside) interior.

I figured it’d just be a single, static shot, but no: you can click all around the control room, complete with StreetView’s signature panoramas, navigating all the way down below the main platform for a glimpse at the heart of the TARDIS itself. You don’t seem to be able to click into any of the hallways — that’s probably for the better, really, as we don’t want any of you getting lost.

Can’t find your way in? Look for these arrows:

(Note: Word is that this easter egg doesn’t always work in the new Google Maps interface, which many of you have likely opted into by now. No problem — just open the link in Chrome’s incognito mode [or whatever your browser's private browsing mode might be called] and you should be back at the old Google Maps interface without requiring you to tweak any settings or log out of Google.)

 

Source

Doctor Who set to appear at Dylan Thomas Centre

In the wake of the announcement thatPeter Capaldi is to replace Matt Smith as the Doctor, a Doctor Who day is being organised at the Dylan Thomas  Centre on Saturday 2nd November as part of the Dylan Thomas festival  2013 being organised by Swansea city council. 

Festival organisers are lining up Doctor Who stars and writers for the day, including Louise Jameson who played Leela to Tom Baker's Doctor, and Peter Miles who played Nyder in Genesis Of The Daleks.

There will also be a children's workshop with comics artists Mike Collins, a writer's panel  and an invasion by the Daleks. 

Councellor Nick Bradley, Swansea Council's Cabinet Member for Regeneration, said: “Dr Who has been an enormously popular programme on British TV for five decades. It has millions of fans, not just in the UK but across the rest of the world too.

 “We also, of course, have strong links with Dr Who in Swansea, with buildings like the Guildhall having been used as filming locations and major stars like Kylie Minogue visiting the city to film scenes".

 “It's events that like this that raise Swansea's profile and strengthen our growing reputation as a leading city of culture.”

Source

Gigantic Dalek straw sculpture in Cheshire

A gigantic Dalek sculpture made of straw has been created in a field in Nantwich, Cheshire and was built by the local Snugbury's ice-cream store. The sculpture was made to coincide with Doctor Who's 50th anniversary.

Colgan Announces Into the Nowhere

Jenny Colgan has announced that her second Doctor Who book is preliminarily titled Into the Nowhere.

 The novel is expected to be part of the newly-announced Time Trips range of eBooks, set to begin in November to coincide with – duh! – the show’s 50^th anniversary. She joins authors like Nick Harkaway (Edie Investigates; Angelmaker), Trudi Canavan (The Black Magician Trilogy; The Magician’s Apprentice) and A.L. Kennedy (Paradise; So I Am Glad).

 

 

The series is set to follow in the footsteps of other popular eBook releases like Devil in the Smoke, Summer Falls and the Short Trips short stories, and will be an ongoing range, with each book about 10,000 words in length.

Jenny, who previously wrote Dark Horizons, said:

“It is such an honour to be part of the prestigous Time Trips line-up, with so many excitingly fresh perspectives on the Doctor’s life and adventures.”

 

Colgan, who met Fifth Doctor, Peter Davison when she was a child, is a proper fan of Doctor Who, and hoped to write another adventure for the TARDIS when Dark Horizons was released – and now she’s got her wish! Dark Horizons, which featured the Eleventh Doctor travelling on his own, received very favourable reviews, and yesterday, she took part in a Who event at Heathrow airport. She revealed Into the Nowhere on this morning’s The Wright Stuff, which she said will feature snakes and skeletons, and will be released in 2014.

Later on next year, a set of Time Trips will be collected together as a traditional book (remember them?). So us poor folk who don’t like all this electronic bookery will be able to read them too. Hoorah!

Source

Doctor Who fans successfully rally to save endangered TARDIS

Here's why a local Doctor Who group in Salem had to begin a "Save the TARDIS" campaign.
Massachusetts has an art program where artists paint drab, boring utility boxes. Artist Amanda Dunham started painting one of those boxes -- as the TARDIS. Her reasoning for the project was:

I started thinking of something that would be significant to Salem, and the TARDIS is a time machine. It invokes the past and present. Salem being a place of historical importance, as well as a new (growing) art scene, it’s not just about the past, it’s about the present.

 

But not all was well in Salem for the big blue time machine. Rumors abounded that the box would be painted over. Well, part of it, at least. Dunham received an email from the city saying that multiple residents were concerned that people might confuse the painted utility box with an actual police box.

Which makes us wonder if there are a lot of British expatriates who grew up in the 1960s living in Salem. Police public call boxes did exist in the United States, granted, but were more of a late-19th-century convention.

Whatever the reason, there was some possibility that the "Police" part of the design might be painted over. But thanks to quick word of mouth through a local Doctor Who group, Dunham, says that a desire to save the TARDIS "just blew up somehow."
And so, at least for now, it seems that the Doctor's time machine is here to stay. Whew!

(via The Salem News)

Combat Crime - Use The TARDIS

A 'Think-Tank' have proposed the idea of reviving the old style Police Public Call Box, as seen in  Doctor Who; which has become a trademark of the BBC.

 

A 'TARDIS' outside Earl's Court underground

Over recent years, Police Stations up and down the UK have been closed down or their manning reduced. Now, a think-tank have suggested ntroducing high-tech versions of the Police Box, which would be more in parallel with the fictional Doctor Who TARDIS.

A better service could be offered to the public if the police left their out-of-date stations and moved into shopping centres and post offices, the report by the Policy Exchange added.

Faced with budget cuts of 20% in the age of austerity, forces need to manage "the police estate in a smarter fashion" and become "more imaginative" with how they interact with the public, the report argued.

In London, the number of people reporting crimes at front counters has fallen by more than 100,000 - almost half - since 2006/07, the Policy Exchange said, as people turn to other forms of communication, including over the phone and online.

As well as opening offices in shopping centres and post offices, the report recommends introducing  police boxes, which would be high-tech contact points featuring video links for the public to communicate with the police. The boxes could be used to report crime, provide witness statements, discuss concerns and access information, the report said.

A police officer calling for assistance as seen in the Tom Baker serial 'Logopolis'

Stay in a Doctor Who themed home

Tom NIcholls, 22, is offering a overnight stays in his home in Reading, UK for the discerning Whovian out there. He is raising funds for the Scout Association, which is a member of, and to celebrate the upcoming 50th anniversary of Doctor Who in November.

 His dad introduced Tom to Doctor Who as a young boy, and he has had been a Whovian ever since. 

"To date, I have raised between £6,000 and £7,000 for the Scouting Association just by hiring out my TARDIS and Daleks. When I heard I could rent out my home via wimdu, I thought it would be a good way to go that extra mile for the 50th anniversary" 

 "I'd love to show other fans around my collection and take a tour of my TARDIS, unless it decides to disappear off with the Doctor"

Tom's Wimdu advert reads as: 

Description

Do you love all things "Who"? Fancy living like a Time Lord for a night? Then my Doctor Who themed room in Reading is the perfect place for your weekend getaway!

I'm a huge Whovian living in Reading and I've decided to rent out my place to other Doctor Who fans to raise money for the Scouting Association. The double bedroom is decorated with a huge collection of Doctor Who memorabilia, including a life-size TARDIS and Dalek, posters, costumes from the 8th and 11th doctor and various collectable items.

Unfortunately the room doesn't bend the time-space continuum and isn't bigger on the inside than the outside, but there's still plenty of room to fit 2 people comfortably.

Reading is a lively town with lots of nightlife and dining options.

Source:

The Fourth Dimension

Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS

The read through for Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS was held immediately after production on The Snowmen wrapped for the day on Wednesday, 29 August, 2012. It took place in the BBC’s Roath Lock studios in Cardiff.

Principle filming began on Tuesday, 4 September, 2012 and ran through to Monday, 24 September. However, as the adventure contains a fragment from the very first episode of Doctor Who (see below) it could argued that Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS began shooting on 18 October, 1963 – the day the Doctor’s debut was shot!

The vast majority of the adventure was filmed in studio but the scene on the apparent edge of a rocky ravine was shot on location, weeks after the rest of the episode was in the can. This nail-biting sequence was shot in the Argoed Isha Quarry in the Vale of Glamorgan on Wednesday, 28 November, 2012.

When Clara explores one of the TARDIS’ many rooms she finds the Doctor’s cot, first seen in A Good Man Goes to War and what looks to be Amy’s toy TARDIS from Let’s Kill Hitler. She also comes across a magnifying glass – possibly the one used by the Doctor in the console room in The Power of Three – and an umbrella that looks very similar to the Seventh Doctor’s brolly in Paradise Towers.

The adventure is written by Steve Thompson who also wrote the 2011 pirate yarn, The Curse of the Black Spot. It’s the first episode of Doctor Who directed by Mat King whose previous credits include M.I. High, DCI Banks and Law and Order: UK.

Gregor van Baalen is played Ashley Walters, also known as Asher D, formerly of the group So Solid Crew. Bram van Baalen is played by Mark Oliver who starred alongside Matt Smith in the BBC’s 2009 series, Moses Jones.

This is the second adventure in a row where we hear the Cloister Bell. The Eye of Harmony was also referenced in Hide – you can read about them both in that episode’s Fourth Dimension.
Lancashire is a northern English county and its most famous towns include the seaside resort of Blackpool, referenced in The Rings of Akhaten and the ‘real life’ birth place of Jenna-Louise Coleman. It borders several other counties, including Cumbria; indeed prior to the boundary reforms of 1974, certain regions of what is now Cumbria were part of Lancashire.

When the Encyclopaedia Gallifreya ‘leaks’ and we hear knowledge ebbing from its container, you might just be able to catch the familiar voice of Timothy Dalton – in other words, Rassilon himself from The End of Time.

Immediately after Bram tries to dismantle the TARDIS console we hear an audio mosaic of lines from previous episodes– some more clearly than others… We initially catch the Doctor’s granddaughter, Susan, from An Unearthly Child, revealing how the initials of TARDIS stand for Time and Relative Dimension in Space. Also from that story, towards the end of the sequence, you can hear one of the people she was addressing – Ian Chesterton – expressing his astonishment at the nature of the ship! The clips from that scene are taken from:


• An Unearthly Child, episode 1. (see above)
• Colony in Space, episode 1. The Third Doctor explains to Jo Grant that the TARDIS is dimensionally transcendental.
• The Robots of Death, episode 1. The Fourth Doctor discusses trans-dimensional engineering with Leela.
• The Doctor’s Wife. The TARDIS asks if ‘sexy thing’ is her name!
• Rose. The Ninth Doctor assures Rose that the assembled hordes of Genghis Khan couldn’t get through ‘that door’.
• The Beast Below. Amy Pond reflects that she is in space…
• Smith and Jones. Martha Jones struggles to understand the TARDIS.

New creations from Springfield Punx

See more over at springfieldpunx.blogspot.co.uk/

The Doctor in his new finery for Seried 33 (7) Part 2



As seen in episode 6: The Bells of St John
 

And classic Doctor (Tom Baker) with three Zygons. Last seen of course in the fourth Doctor serial 'Terror of The Zygons' (1975). As stated in a post yesterday, the Zygons return to face the Doctor (in more than one incarnation) for the 50th anniversary special.

All in the pioctures

Four and half minutes in to The Bells Of St John, the eagled eyed Doctor Who fans would have spotted this little nugget...

Clara takes this book off Artie the son of a family friend whom she is the nanny of (a role simlar to that of herself in 19th Century England). As you can see, the book is written by the Doctor's former companion Amelia (Amy) Williams (Pond). 

Clara asks Artie: "What chapter are you on?"

Artie:"Ten"

Clara:"Eleven is the best. You'll cry your eyes out"

Is that a hint that something sad is going to happen to the Doctor? With him being in his eleventh body? Does the title of the book SUMMER FALLS imply what is to come? The fall of the eleventh perhaps? Knowing now how the Moff writes Doctor Who;I think we're in for an emotional rollercoaster over these coming weeks.

Could we be seeing more of these type of conections with Amy and Rory too throughout the remaining half of Series 33 (7)? In the Christmas episode The Snowmen, Clara had to choose just one owrd to attract the attention of the Doctor; and that word was POND. We just have to watch the mystery unravel and discover the truth to Clara Oswald in episode 13.

Page One

Jenna-Louise Coleman: 'I couldn't get auditions'

Jenna-Louise Coleman at Margaret Street Gallery, London: 'I was ready to leave Emmerdale when I did.' Photograph: Katherine Rose for the Observer

Fittingly, for an actress who last year debuted as a time- and space-hopping adventurer in Doctor Who, Jenna-Louise Coleman is thinking about multiple universes. She recently saw Constellations in the West End, a play that took on the idea of there being infinite dimensions – other worlds in which everything that can happen does happen. Sitting in a London cafe, she reasons: if parallel worlds exist, there's one in which I live in Hollywood and play an Australian in a sitcom, cracking terrible jokes about dingoes.

It almost happened: "Even though my Aussie accent is appalling," says Coleman, 26, who got to the final auditions for the sitcom job, in Los Angeles in 2011, before being called back to England to appear in the ITV drama Titanic. That job opened up a seam of British work – a part in Stephen Poliakoff's drama Dancing on the Edge, a role in Doctor Who – that hasn't let up since. The Poliakoff is an ensemble piece about 1930s jazz musicians. Meanwhile, she has made two meaty Doctor Who cameos to date, including a show-stealing appearance at Christmas, and will be the Doctor's official companion in the next series. Coleman's character is a woman called Oswin, who exists (uh-oh) across multiple dimensions.

Read complete article here: source

Inspector Lynley & Merlin Star Wants An Older Doctor

Nathanial Parker, who starred in the popular BBC children’s series 'Merlin', has complained that the actors who play Doctor Who are too young. 

 

The BBC has a chequered past when it comes to accusations of ageism. Now the debate has spread to one of the corporation’s most loved series.

Nathanial Parker, who played Agravaine in the popular BBC children’s series Merlin, has complained that the actors who play the Doctor are too young. “They just seem to be getting younger and younger,” he tells Mandrake.

Matt Smith made history in 2009 as the youngest actor ever to play the role in the television series, then aged 27. Before him, David Tennant was 34 when he took on the role and Christopher Eccleston was 41 when he made his debut as The Doctor.

Parker has called for the next regeneration of Doctor Who to be played by an older actor.

“An old Doctor Who, that’s what we need,” he says. Happily, the 50-year-old says he would love to play the part if the opportunity arose. “I’d love a part in it, I’d love to play The Doctor himself.”

David Tennant auctioning a Tardis

Footage from Project Motormouth, Dr Who convention - 19th Jan 2013. David Tennant auctions off a Tardis.

P.S. What Happened to Brian and the Ponds?

The BBC has revealed that a special Pond scene will premiere online tomorrow. The article states “we’ll discover more about Brian and the Ponds, post-Angels”.
More details:

Would Brian – and viewers – ever learn more about Amy and Rory’s life after the Doctor?

A special scene was written by Chris Chibnall that revealed some of the answers but sadly, the sequence was never shot. However, we’re happy to announce that we’ll be bringing you the scene tomorrow. Using animated storyboards and a voice-over specially recorded by Arthur Darvill, we’ll discover more about Brian and the Ponds, post-Angels.

 

It begins with Brian alone, doing what he once told the Doctor must be done – watering the plants. But his life is about to change forever…

Doctor Who’s Executive Producer, Caro Skinner, said, ‘We’re delighted we can present this lovely scene written by Chris Chibnall. People took Rory’s dad, Brian, to their hearts very quickly, so it’s fitting we can give the character a degree of closure in this poignant piece.’

P.S. is a short video written by Chris Chibnall and will be essential viewing for anyone who wants to know more about what happened to Brian, Amy and Rory. It will be available to watch on this site tomorrow, Friday, 12^th October.