What do you, the US fans love about Dr Who

I was wondering what you guys love about Who.

Heh, here we go.

I'm actually a part of a new group (You can find us on Facebook) called "LOOK UP", individuals who would like to see a return to more optimistic and hopeful forms of fiction and entertainment, as opposed to the onslaught of fatalistic drek we have now. I mean, the most popular show on our shores was about a Meth Cook, and before that it was a federal agent that routinely tortured suspects for information. And before that, it was about a bunch of air crash victims.

But I digress...one thing we do is push that media and shows that are positive. We're not unreasonable - violence and "grittiness" have their place in the narrative, and no one can accuse Doctor Who of not having a pretty high body count, even back in the 60s, but it's one of the shows we celebrate.

It's The Doctor. Word for Healer. The man with two hearts that carries around a screwdriver to fix things. It's a refreshing change of pace from our usual hyper-violent, over-sexualized torture fantasy crime dramas. The 50th Anniversary even featured the Doctor saving his world, after all the times we watched him save ours. He was able to save his.

The reason why this particular US Fan loves Doctor Who is it's about leaving a place a little better then you found it. It's not about ideology or political identity - it's about people, first and last.

"Everybody lives, Rose.
Just this once...
EVERYBODY LIVES!"

I'll agree with you, Rust... but you need to rewatch Lost. It's about people with no direction finding meaning and purpose in their lives. It's about leaving the darkness for the light.

I'll take your word for it. Personally, I don't have the endurance.

I like Doctor Who because it is a quirky, fun, adventure show that nobody in the US knows about, except for a few of us college students who watch each night in our dorm rooms on the local PBS station. I was made in a mysterious far off land called England that was hard to communicate to because a letter would take about a month to go back and forth. There was nothing to buy from it until one bookstore began to stock Target novels, and suddenly I discover that there is a huge history to the show, and more people have played him than the guy with the curly hair and impossibly long scarf. Then I heard it was not going to be made anymore, and I my PBS station is dropping the re-runs. I know there were a few more episodes left to be seen, but not in our town. Then I met a guy who knew a guy who had VHS of those episodes. And he knew a guy who had a lost episode with Cybermen. So we traded.

It felt like a secret society who loved this show from a far off world.

Then the internet came and everyone in the freaking world loves Doctor Who. And I couldn't be happier!

But in those early days, I wasn't a popular student. I got picked on and teased by other students because I got A's. But when I went to college, I found something that put those days behind me and I found something to hide from the real world. Traveling through space and time was a lot more fun than waiting for the nuclear doomsday that we knew was coming any day. And if the Daleks could survive that holocaust, I could survive my life.

When I was a kid, was looking for something to watch at night, saw the Doctor Who- Science Fiction listed on PBS in TV Guide, so gave it a shot. Came in on the middle of the episode, so it was hard to figure out what was going on, but the initial hook for me was at the end when I heard the theme music. Loved it. (the Howell theme, btw).

Looked ahead in the guide to see when it was on next, and turned out it was a daily series, M-F at 10PM.

What cemented it for me was the serial format of the show. With the cliffhanger endings, you wanted to find out what happened next time... and it gave me something I could look forward to every weeknight.


Sadly, that is not the case now. Going to an episodic format- no cliffhangers, having only the span of one episode to squeeze a full story in, then being more kiddie oriented... it's just not the same. Not a fan of Nu Who... only the classic series and the BF audios for me.

Fascinating guys!  I agree with you Cruel Angel, I miss the cliff hangers. I dislike it when their is a two parter with a cliff hanger and there is a trailer for next weeks after it, it defeats the purpose of that cliff hanger.

Doctor Who is...

Hope. Possibility. Solution. Escape. Curiosity. Fun. Adventure. Exploration. Friendship. Potential.

I've been a fan for decades. Doctor Who has continued to provide my core system of beliefs, it has created a cultural companionship with others, and offers world views that relate our humanity to a larger order of existence.

In short, Doctor Who is EVERYTHING.

  

I got into Doctor Who in the 90s around the time of the TV movie, back when no one knew what Doctor Who was. I never got to see the original series on TV, though I vaguely remember it on PBS when I was younger. I read a lot of the books (and not knowing what they were talking about) before I started watching more of the show on VHS.

One of the appeals to me was its format of being a serial. I might be going out on a limb here, but I'm probably one of the few people who have watched American serials from the 30s and 40s (on VHS). I have always enjoyed that "Tune in next week" type of cliffhangers.

I guess what appeals to me about Doctor Who is that the Doctor is a thinking man's hero. That when it comes to difficult choices, the Doctor usually picks something unexpected to save the day.

Rust mentioned Day of the Doctor and in it, the (War) Doctor is faced with a moral dilemma: either he destroys both his homeworld and the Daleks or he lets the war continue until everything is consumed. But, as we all know, the Doctor chooses neither, and that's why he's my hero.

You (UK'ers) realize that Doctor Who was on TV in the U.S., every weeknight, at prime time elementary school kids' hours (7PM), right? When cable TV hadn't become ubiquitous and there were only 5-7 channels on TV (not counting the 2 fuzzy UHF channels), right? PBS (at least in New England) ran Doctor Who, Python, Fawlty Towers, Are You Being Served, etc. all the time... better than 90% of the stuff on the networks

Now if you said "Blackadder" or "The Dangerous Brothers", that would be another story... didn't get into them until college when a friend who lived in England for 3 years brought the tapes back with him.

I go back a couple of years, I grew up on the Twilight Zone, Outer Limits, and Star Trek, I had to wait til Star Trek the Next Generation for some good SiFi stories, Dr Who has kept me going all these years in between the gaps, the stories are great and for me the show has always been a little campy, still til today and I like it, it's an event every time I watch the shows, it the only show I watch every week, most everything else is movies and sports on the Telly

Ben C is right, I like BBC shows better than the US ones now,been watching them for years you have a quirky sense of humor, oh, by the way, I'm a huge Beatles fan