Everything old is new again. At least, it is until you see it again. That happens a lot.
Human beings are creatures of habit, and by extension, so are our creations.
Example: I like to joke about various rashes I have. That is completely untrue, and also a terrible example.
Example: Doctor Who is a science fiction, family-friendly show about an alien who looks human, that travels through all of Time and Space in a machine that looks like a Blue Police Phone Box from 1960’s London. The Doctor usually travels with an assortment of human companions, and when seriously injured, is able to regenerate on a cellular level, completely healing themselves but forever altering their outward appearance.
Repetitive themes, is basically what I am getting at here. A creative well that keeps on giving. Same software, new casing. Still can’t do wood.
Here’s the kicker: 55 years and 14 regenerations later (we see you lurking, Meta-10), we are still tuning in, turning on, and dropping out of our regularly scheduled social media for the bell-ringing salivation that grabs hold and pulls us into the vortex of love and hate that is our fascination and dedication to a fictional sandbox.
We are addicts. We adore this world so very, very much. And despite the efforts of its temporary Captains to dispense provocative canon violations whilst steering us into icebergs of polarising plot threads, we return. We recommit to another year, another series, another special. The vain hope that this time, THIS TIME, it will be different!
Spoilers!
There is nothing new under the sun. We are all variations on a theme. We are are all on a spectrum of Humanity, and how we live determines where on that spectrum we sit.
If you’re thinking of it, someone else has likely already brought it in to reality. That doesn’t in any way de-value you, or what you think and feel.
The Doctor is also a variation on a theme. A Time Lord who can change faces and physiology and personas, who skews between chaotic good to lawful good within the same sentence. The best possible answer to all our archetypes, and what we would all secretly like to see in ourselves.
That there have been other Doctors does not in any way de-value the current Doctor, or what they think or feel.
Here’s the kicker: 385 words later, you are still reading. Still tuning in, turning on, and dropping in on a column that is hosted on a blog, created by a group of people who produce a podcast about something you care about very deeply.
Even though we may revisit the well of Thematic Repetition, haul up a can of Old Familiar, and drink in its heady, comforting swill, doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy it. It may just be that the person beside you is drinking for the first time.
Thirteen is falling from her TARDIS. I have no idea how it’s going to go. And I am beyond excited to be let down once more. Everything old, will be new again.
So as I scratch away at the rash of my ill-conceived post, I have to admit that this took longer to disseminate than I had intended. And for that I apologize. I guess I had to take the Long Way Round.
