Doctor Who: The Last Christmas Special Ever?

Doctor Who: The Last Christmas Special Ever?

by Cynthianna

Warning: This review contains spoilers.

You sometimes wonder as a fan of a long-running popular television program why it wishes to imitate every other show on the telly. Just because many TV series produce a Christmas special for broadcast every December doesn’t mean your series has to have a Christmas special or even should have a holiday special, does it? Doctor Who from 1963 to 1989 never had a distinctly Christmas special, but since its 2005 reincarnation it somehow sees the necessity of producing one every December 25, featuring killer Christmas trees, homicidal angels or evil Christmas stars. “‘Tis the season to hate Christmas!” it seems to sing.

So, after viewing this season’s special, I have one word of advice to those planning next year’s Christmas special: Don’t.

Okay, maybe it’s two words: Please don’t. Take guidance from the original series—if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Use the extra money in the budget to produce another regular episode or two, give the cast and crew a pay raise, or go on location big-time. In other words, put the money and resources to good use and produce quality programming instead of a Christmas special that’s not needed or possibly even wanted by some of the fans.

Having said that, the basic premise of this season’s special, Last Christmas, is a good horror tale of dreams nestled within dreams and of face-hugging dream crabs whose shape is directly ripped off from the Alien/Aliens franchise. If the story had been broadcast on or near Halloween, minus the addition of Santa Claus and possibly re-designing the aliens to look less like the popular movie monster, it might have worked. As it is, it’s yet another Christmas special that advertises how its creators don’t quite get the true meaning of the holy day. After all, if you don’t believe in Christ, then you don’t have to celebrate Christmas or add it into your show in any form, do you? Maybe you should just write sci-fi/fantasy episodes with a more generic tone and leave the Christmas specials to others to pen?

One could ask why is Santa Claus in this Doctor Who script at all. We’re told that he’s a universal symbol that all the characters can relate to during their horrific dilemma, but truly, who is Santa Claus? He’s a part of your dreams—nightmares you might not ever wake up from—according to Last Christmas. Not quite a great thing for young children to be told and indicative of how far the show has traveled from its family-friendly origins. If youngsters aren’t terrified of killer Christmas trees, homicidal angels, and evil Christmas stars, they can now be frightened of Nightmare Santa and the face-hugger aliens who can make your happiest dreams deadly. Should parents go ahead and send their children’s psychiatric bills to the BBC?

Perhaps there is some hope in the fact that Santa Claus himself is played quite warmly (despite some of his throw-away lines) by Nick Frost. And perhaps—without even realizing it—Steven Moffat has written a most Christian motif into the ending of Last Christmas. The Doctor says to his companion he doesn’t know who brought them together in their nightmarish adventures of dream states, but the camera pulls back to reveal a tangerine (looks more like an orange really) placed on the windowsill. 

Placing tangerines (oranges) into Christmas stockings is a long-standing tradition from St. Nicholas’ Day, December 6, when children are given gifts in the saint’s honor. The orange globe represents one of the bags of gold that Nicholas tossed into the window of the home of three young women whose father wasn’t able to provide dowries for them, so they weren’t able to marry. Mirroring God’s unconditional love, Nicholas tossed the money into their home—no strings attached—so that the young women could go from a state of hopelessness to hopefulness about their futures. Their lives were changed for the better all because of this beautiful gift that they never asked for or expected, freely given.

 As St. Nicholas stands as a symbol of God’s love and his gift of the gold (tangerine/orange) a symbol of the gift of the Savior promised to all people, perhaps we the audience are being given a hint just Who is actually directing the Doctor’s travels and what special purpose the Doctor serves in helping humanity unconditionally.

With the promise of the true gift of Christmas, Clara and Danny wouldn’t have to suffer through a maudlin scene of this is our “last Christmas,” since we’re never promised another one with those we love, for with Christ at the center of the Christmas celebration we are all promised an eternity of Christmases with those we love. Eternity—it’s a heckuva lot longer than a short life span here on earth. Eternity—we get to spend forever in God’s unconditional love. What a great way to time travel with those we love! 

If only the Doctor, Danny and Clara could accept God’s unconditional love, given as the gift of the Christ-child born on Christmas day, then we’d see more emotionally and spiritually mature characters who wouldn’t have to act maudlin, whiney, childish, or confused. They could act confident in the fact that they have a loving Higher Power watching over them in all the challenges they face, now and in the future. What an uplifting and happy Christmas special that would be!

***

You can read my review of Death in Heaven here:
http://momsday.blogspot.com/2014/11/the-death-of-doctor-who-as-engineered.html

Doctor Who vs. Marvel's Agents of Shield: Creating strong female characters:
http://momsday.blogspot.com/2014/12/doctor-who-vs-agents-of-shield-creating.html

I got the Doctor Who Let Down Blues: http://momsday.blogspot.com/2014/08/i-got-doctor-who-let-down-blues.html

My Sexy Saturday -- Happy Halloween!

This week's My Sexy Saturday blog hop postings are supposed to revolve around Halloween. Excerpts are supposed to come from spooky, scary, frightening, or chilling adventures where your hero/heroine meet and get into a lot of hot water or they're being chased by brain-eating zombies, etc. For those of us who tend to write more romantic-comedy than horror fiction, this can be somewhat of a challenge!

Here are seven paragraphs from my romantic-comedy Leaving Who... A scene where things get a bit on the scary side for Cici Connors when she sees her friends John Smith, Captain Mac and Babbling Brook as they really are and not as she normally perceives them.

Leaving Who
from Mojocastle Press

After touring the universe with the sometimes inept time traveler John Smith, Cici Connors wants one more thing—to go home. Will the imminent destruction of Earth throw a kink into her plans? 

“She looks different than when she first came through the door, you mean,” I repeated. “Please tell me she is one of your lot.” Before the words had left my lips the figure in front of me blurred and reformed into the image of tattered dress-wearing Idris, better known as the Doctor’s wife. “She’s… she’s done it again!”

Captain Mac sat beside me and put an arm around my shoulders. “Don’t fight it, Cici. Your mind is trying to find the best way to represent what she is. She’s a tough one to get a handle on—even for us.”

“You mean you see her as a multitude of personas, too?”

“I mean I see her like I’ve always seen her—like how I see John and myself. We’re not human so we don’t have to visualize each other as humans would.”

“You’re saying you don’t even remotely resemble the way I’ve imagined you?”

I looked at Mac’s hand resting on my arm. Suddenly the hand lost its five fingers as they melted together and began to curl upwards, rapidly changing from a human flesh tone into a bright mauve color. The arm became a tentacle and flowed into a solid blob instead of a torso. I willed myself to look into his face and then at the faces of John and our female guest…morphing and blurring into a pinkish, purplish, grayish mass of endless eyes and tentacle-like appendages and fangs dripping saliva and…

I passed out for the second time in as many days.

Leaving Who and Loving Who are available in e-formats and print from Mojocastle Press, Amazon and wherever fine ebooks are sold online. (Coming soon: Losing Who--is it the end for Cici and John Smith, or has Cici just lost her mind once too often?)

Enjoy the rest of the My Sexy Saturday excerpts!

http://mysexysaturday.blogspot.com

Two Short Book Reviews for Two Long Books!

Raising Steam by Terry Pratchett
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A fun tale for fans of the Discworld series. I'm a follower of the wacky wizards and their magic and sadly they only make a brief appearance in this tale, but over all there's plenty of action, adventure, terrorists (of the dwarf variety), and steam engines. Who could ask for more?

View all my reviews


  People of the Morning Star by W. Michael Gear
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Fascinating look into the Mississippian culture at Cahokia of a thousand years ago... I lived across the river from the mounds and always wondered what its citizens had been like before they disappeared. There's a large cast of intriguing characters in this story--from a thief on his way to becoming the first P.I. to a captured/enslaved warrior on his way to becoming the first paramedic--and the story has more twists and turns than the Big Muddy itself. There is a lot of graphic violence in the plot's resolution, so readers are forewarned if this isn't to their tastes. However, the full-bodied realization of what the Cahokians' city and culture must have been like captures your imagination and makes you wish you could have been there in the day.

View all my reviews

Racism: Not MY Science Fiction!

 

I'm a nerd. Like my earrings?

Some days I have to pinch myself and ask, "What year is this?"

To be clear, I don't drink and I'm not on any medications. It's just that sometimes people and events strike me in such a way that I can't quite believe I'm living in the twenty-first century. For a writer of speculative fiction, it's doubly odd to think that others who love to read, write, and discuss science fiction/fantasy books, TV, and film like I do would hold onto outdated beliefs of racial superiority and want to celebrate these beliefs by honoring a publication that prints such content.

I won't mention the names of the publication,the  sci-fi convention, or the individuals involved because this isn't a rant or tirade to tear down the reputations of these institutions or individuals. (I'm honestly worried about them.) This is just an attempt to come to terms with the horribleness of a situation that fills my heart with fear and dread. And, as a writer, I work through weighty problems in prose.

I think the Twilight Zone moment came for me when I expressed my horror on an online forum at the idea that a beloved sci-fi con would even contemplate honoring  a science fiction-oriented publication that would print racial slurs as "humor". I was told I was on a "witch hunt" and trying to "censor" free speech. When I tried to explain that an editor of an ezine is both legally and morally responsible for the contents of said publication and must take responsibility for the outrage that its content could incur, it seemed to fall on deaf ears. Here's what I said:

A "compiler" (of an ezine) is still considered an "editor"--they are the person or group of persons who put together a magazine or ezine. They put their name(s) on the publication as the person(s) who take responsibility for its contents. If this editor doesn't want to take responsibility for the contents of his ezine, then he should have struck his name off it a while back. I have nothing against the man personally--never met him--but as a professional writer/editor I have to make judgement calls on what is suitable for publication all the time. (I'm paid to do this!) If the writing of a manuscript is substandard--the book doesn't make it out of the slushpile. If the content is offensive to the majority of readers in 2014 (that's 2014 not 1854), I have to tell the publisher that the content is possibly something they wouldn't feel comfortable publishing. It's the way the publishing world works. If you are "self-publishing" you are essentially taking on all the legal responsibility of a publisher upon yourself as "editor/compiler". 

So, once again, does the convention want to "honor" (give credit and glorify) racist jokes? I would think the majority of convention attendees would be adults who wouldn't find racist humor funny. I never said that this editor couldn't attend the con or that he has never helped out at other cons. Good for him! However, if he has taken on the responsibility of publishing racist commentary and his name is on the publication, then he must accept the outrage publishing such racist commentary can incur in the year 2014. 

 That's about it. I grew up loving science fiction in the era of the original series of Star Trek where Mr. Spock talked about "infinite diversity in infinite combinations" and other such nonsense. Thing is, I believed it. Uhuru was an African professional woman who worked alongside an Asian navigator and people from diverse Caucasian backgrounds on the bridge of the starship Enterprise. They didn't make juvenile racist jokes at each other's expense. They reflected Gene Roddenberry's dream that some day soon all of mankind would live in peace and harmony. 

It's a beautiful dream. Why are some folks in the twenty-first century trying to kill it?

Are they afraid it's coming true? You look into any elementary school these days and you won't see what I saw when I entered first grade in the South. You see white kids and black kids and red kids and yellow kids and brown kids and kids who are something altogether unique. We've become a multicultural and diverse society. Star Trek is coming true! My heart soars!

But for others... they're afraid. They don't like change. They want to live in the nineteenth century where slaves and women knew their place and don't speak back to their superiors. And so they lash out through the glorification of demeaning, bigoted humor to put people of color, women, homosexuals, and other minority groups in their place. The worse thing of it for me is that these haters dare to call what they write science fiction.

Oh, Gene! Please come back! We truly need your shining optimism about mankind's diverse and peaceful future!

Do those who espouse racist beliefs have the right to exercise free speech under the U.S. Constitution? Absolutely. Do these same people deserve to have their racist speech honored at a volunteer convention where some of the volunteers aren't white, heterosexual males of a certain age and social status? No, they do not. If the white heterosexual males of a certain age/status can't see why some volunteers might feel nervous and uncomfortable knowing they're not really accepted by the convention's board of directors because of the color of their skin, their gender identity, or other minority protected status, then it might be time to take the board to a first grade class and introduce them to the next generation of science fiction fans.

Because what it comes down to is this: a fan-run sci-fi convention is about the fans. They are a diverse and lively lot, and they live in the year 2014--not 1854. 

Let's not take a step backward. Let's "boldly go where no one has gone before!"

True science fiction fans celebrate diversity. They do not attempt to squash it.

(Feel free to leave a comment below. Please act like adults and use your manners--no profanity,  name-calling, or finger-pointing. In other words, plese refrain from cursing or other nasty words. This is a family-friendly blog. Thank you.)

(P.S. If you like my TARDIS earrings in the photo above, check out my hubby's Etsy store: http://www.etsy.com/shop/TheophilusSaxe )

Book Review: The Science of Discworld

The Science Of Discworld by Terry Pratchett
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

You can't keep a good wizard down! I loved the chapters with the story line of the wizards of the Unseen University meddling with their "Roundworld" universe. My favorite character, Rincewind, finds himself named Egregious Professor of Cruel and Unusual Geography--how appropriate! The one thing that mars this otherwise enjoyable book are the non-fiction chapters. They're simply too long-winded for laypersons and detract more than add to the fun of the Discworld story. Really, for atheists these guys preach and preach and preach... Not a turtle in sight. Boring! It's much more fun to read about the wizards in action trying to unravel the mysteries of a planet very much like our own.

View all my reviews

Celine's latest vampire tale--Blood in Berlin

 Now available from eXtasy Books!

Blood in Berlin

By Celine Chatillon
Book 3 in the Kindred series
http://www.extasybooks.com/blood-in-berlin/



    In 1938 London, the vampire Edwin Carstairs attracts the attention of British Military Intelligence. A Nazi scientist known as Madame V is creating super-vampire-soldiers in Berlin and must be stopped. Edwin accepts the mission, hoping to prevent another devastating world war. But what will he and his team do when Edwin’s lost love Ophelia Jones is discovered taking an eager part in experiments that risk the very survival of human and vampire-kind alike?

Doctor Who Middle-Age Madness

At last the BBC announced the next actor to portray the Doctor on science fiction television's longest running series, Doctor Who. It's Peter Capaldi. Yeah!

 I'm thrilled because I think Peter will be excellent in the role. He starred in the David Tennant/Catherine Tate 2008 episode "The Fires of Pompeii". He also played quite a spine-chilling baddie in the spin-off series Torchwood in its "Children of Earth" episodes. I've loved him from the first time I saw him on screen in the wonderfully warm and witty movie comedy Local Hero. What's not to love about an actor who can play heroic, comical and pure evil characters with equal ease?

 

I think the persona of the Doctor needs a good balance of heroic and not-so-heroic traits. After all, he is an alien--he's not human (according to canon). What we puny humans may see as "evil" may not seem that way to him and vice versa. It makes for a very dynamic character, one that is at times unpredictable and at others dependable. It makes for a character that has been extremely popular for a half century now and shows no signs of diminishing in popularity.  

This brings me to the reason behind my blog post title. I really enjoy the idea of watching another "middle-age" Doctor (who, of course, is much older than he looks).  While the current producers may have thought that young people would only watch the show in record numbers with "one of their own" in twenty-something Matt Smith playing the title role, I do believe they've come to realize that it's not the age of the actor that matters but his energy level. I think Peter will have the right energy level in addition to the handsome, distinguished looks that women in  my particular age group will relate to well.

As the old saying goes, "Snow on the roof doesn't mean there isn't a fire in the hearth." ;-)

What does this mean for my ongoing Doctor Who-inspired series Loving Who (and its sequel Leaving Who)? The next title in the series that I'm working on is Losing Who. In a way Peter Capaldi becoming the new Doctor works into the plot outline quite well. Things change. My character Cici Connors experienced an abrupt change in the last installment, so a new face to confront and get to know is just par for the course at this point in her life journey. 

And who knows... Cici might find a good-looking man of a certain age worth getting to know better. ;-)

I'm looking forward to the fiftieth anniversary special coming in November and the Christmas special when Peter's Doctor will make his debut. How about you? Are you excited? Has Doctor Who "middle-age madness" taken hold of you? Or are you still crying about Matt Smith (or David Tennant or Christopher Eccleston or...) leaving the show? What sort of storylines or characters do you envision in the new season episodes? Are there any mortal enemies of the Doctor you'd rather not see?

Let me know your feelings in the comments below. You never know-I might just use one of your ideas in the plot of Losing Who!

Welcome to Nerdvana!

 

Doctor Who, Star Trek, MST3K, Babylon 5...So many fandoms, so little time!

It's like...Nerdvana.

A place where only a science fiction/fantasy fan would dare to tread...A room full of photos and original artworks and figurines and statuettes and autographed books, cards, pictures and even comic books. Yes, it's my new office. And I love it.

It's Cyberman vs. Dalek in a War of the Worlds!

I am a card-carrying nerd. I even have the fan club card to prove it! I actually belonged to the original Findlay College Sci-Fi Club. I'm not sure if the club is still in existence, but the school is now called "University of..." and has a lot more students, so perhaps they have an anime club at the very least? It would be nice to find out if they're any Whovians attending currently.

And I have proof of being a nerd since...forever! Notice my 8th grade card. All A's and nice comments in English and Social Studies. Okay, I got a B in P.E. Yeah, I showed up to gym class, but I was probably bored out of my gourd most of the time and sat in the corner reading a book--a classic sci-fi novel probably. (I was big into H.G. Wells and Robert Heinlein about that time.) That's a nerd for you!

Some of my original cross-stitch work. Do you remember Avon's quote from  
Blake's 7?

It's been fun traveling down Memory Lane while we unpack and move into our new digs. In the bottom of long-ago packed boxes I've found my autographed photos of Colin Baker (The Sixth Doctor), Anthony Ainley (The Master) and George Takei (Sulu). My hubby and I have had a great time trying to find places to show off our favorite SF artists' creations, too. We have three Tempest at Hazard prints from Paul Daly hanging in the office and two Jon Kaufman's hanging in the living room. Nerdvana just keeps growing and going... and even in the more "mundane" rooms of our home there's usually a nod or two to our passion for SF fandom. Because once a nerd--always a nerd!

A "Pair-of-Docs" by Jon Sies and "Little Horsie Who #6" by Michelle Rondeau. Some original art I haven't been able to hang on the wall for years. Now I have a whole room (and more) to hang all my favorite SF inspired artworks!

Where and how do you display your fan memorabilia? Do you have your own Nerdvana? Tell us all about it in the comments section so we can drool over your SF/fantasy collections! C'mon! You know you wanna... you have to... because you're a NERD, baby, and proud of it!

LEAVING WHO has finally arrived...

LOVING WHO has finally arrived and is ready for sale at Mojocastle Press. Once again, here are the short synopsis and link:

LEAVING WHO
by Cynthianna
Mojocastle Press
http://www.mojocastle.com/authors/cynthianna/leaving-who.html

After touring the universe with time traveler John Smith, Cici Connors wants one more thing--to go home. Will the imminent destruction of Earth throw a kink into her plans?

You can read excerpts from LEAVING WHO at Mojocastle's web site and at this blog, in the posting right before this one.

Also, you can read a very nice interview I did at Wanton Reads this week. Find out why I write what I write (if you dare). ;)

http://wantonreads.com/author-cynthianna-shares-their-story/

Enjoy your week! (I sincerely hope your spring weather is as nice as ours was today, too.)

A Sneak Peek at LEAVING WHO

Welcome to another "Sneak Peek Sunday" excerpt! Since tomorrow is Earth Day, and the release date of my long-awaited sequel to Loving Who, Leaving Who, I thought I'd share a few paragraphs from it to whet your appetite. (Get it? Earth Day--Doctor Who is always saving the Earth from disaster so we chose Earth Day as the release day? Okay... keep reading and possibly you'll catch on.) :)

Leaving Who is available from Mojocastle Press

 
After touring the universe with the sometimes inept time traveler John Smith, Cici Connors wants one more thing—to go home. Will the imminent destruction of Earth throw a kink into her plans? 
 
Excerpt:

“You want…more than…me?”
 
His wide eyes and quivering lip betrayed how stunned John Smith was by my revelation, but somehow he still sounded indignant. The depth of his self-love knew no bounds. I could see the first Doctor booming such an arrogant statement to his companions who, of course, would reply apologetically, “Right you are. You know what’s best, Doctor.”
 
But he didn’t always. And neither did my traveling companion. Sure, watching the embers of the universe flicker until they were no brighter than a dying campfire did bring a tear to my eye—but so did a good chick flick and PMS. After so many wondrous sights, I’d become jaded and bored. My Doctor substitute didn’t seem to get it. I took another stab.
 
“Yes, I need more than just endless travels, endless fascinating sights. I need structure and routine occasionally.” I spun around on him and gestured wildly. “I need to be with people who love me for who I am—and don’t try to pawn me off on an interstellar slave trader in payment for a rickety transmat booth.”

He glared down his nose at me. “I explained that to
you thoroughly, Cici. It was an attempt to get him to lower the price. No one should have to pay that much for such substandard transport.”

“You’re damn right!” My voice rose an octave, echoing off the transparent dome above us. “It was worse than substandard. I’m still picking the splinters of wood bark out of my hair. As much as I love to hug trees, rematerializing inside a trunk isn’t something I ever want to attempt again.”

 (To find out if Cici makes it home without splinters, you'll have to purchase the book!) ;)

By way of explanation about this fantasy romantic-comedy series: I'm a big Doctor Who fan and have always wondered what would it be like if a time traveler did visit Earth and ask me to come along with him on an adventure. Things wouldn't work quite as smoothly as they do on TV, of course, and my romantic alien time traveler might have a few foibles and habits that are hard to get use to... This is what Cici discovers in the first book of the series, Loving Who. In Leaving Who, Cici makes a decision--she wants to go home. Somehow, with her alien friend John Smith and his colleagues Captain Mac and Babbling Brook, you know it's just not going to be easy, but it will be funny.

Enjoy the rest of the fun reads on Sneak Peek Sunday!
http://sneak-peek-sunday.blogspot.com/ 

Update: Due to technical factors beyond even a Time Lord's control, the release date for Leaving Who is now scheduled for April 28, 2013. My apologies for the wait.  And remember, fezes are cool. ;)

Book Review: State of Change

Doctor Who: State of Change by Christopher Bulis
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

There were never enough stories featuring the sixth Doctor and Peri, in my humble opinion, so the chance of reading one of their "missing adventures" is something I couldn't pass up. I enjoyed most of STATE OF CHANGE and really give kudos to Christopher Bulis for his expert research in ancient Rome. The apparent "Roman world" that the Doctor and Peri find themselves transported to is very realistic, and the mortal peril they encounter is well presented. My one complaint is that I never felt that the Doctor and Peri were that important in the scheme of things... There are many, many characters--all of them interesting in their own right--but I longed for more pages featuring interactions with Peri and the brightly dressed Doctor alone. Still, on the whole, a very well written novel that is sure to please fans of the classic series.

View all my reviews

My review of "Fort Freak" (edited by George R.R. Martin)

Fort Freak by George R.R. Martin
My rating: 4 of 5 stars


If you love "freaks" and superheroes, then Fort Freak is the book for you! The police precinct is well-realized in a series of short stories from George R.R. Martin's Wild Card universe that have been melded together to form a novel. The writing is excellent (as are the authors who contributed to the tome), but it is a long book to read in one setting, which isn't for those who are becoming more accustomed to novella-length works in e-literature. Still, it's worth the read if only to figure out if Ramshead solves a 30 year old cold case and if "Flipper" can get the Infamous Black Tongue off on assault, among other charges. The characters really do come alive in Fort Freak, and you'll never forget them. And who'd want to? I'd hang out in Jokertown any day of the week.


View all my reviews

Archon Hear a Who!

 In case you didn’t grow up reading Dr. Seuss like I did, Horton Hears a Who is a story about a very large elephant who hears a very, very, very tiny civilization living on a dust mote resting on top of a wildflower. Horton tries to convince his friends that these tiny beings in fact exist, but they don’t believe him because they can’t see or hear the microscopic people who inhabit Whoville. Horton doesn’t give up, and in spite of physical pressure and ridicule to give up his belief and destroy the wildflower, he perseveres until the tiny Whovillians make themselves known to all by shouting, “We are here! We are here! We are here!”

David Tennant as the 10th Doctor with the TARDIS

At a “First Friday” event I attended recently at the St. Louis Science Center’s Omnimax theater, a full-house of over five hundred fans watched a double bill of new series Doctor Who episodes featuring nanotechnology. The line to get into the theater snaked throughout the Science Center and out the door. All five hundred plus tickets were distributed—they even had to turn fans away they said because of the fire code. Many attendees came dressed in Who inspired costumes and T-shirts. Many said this was the first time they had realized there were so many fellow fans in the St. Louis area who enjoyed the same TV show they did. Many stated they had never heard of the St. Louis regional science-fiction convention Archon, but they’d attend Archon if they knew other Doctor Who fans and programming would be there.

Tom Baker as the Fourth Doctor

But what’s a classic children’s tale got to do with being a Doctor Who fan and a regional science fiction convention? Hang in there, and I’ll try to tie in the analogy the best that I can.

Archon isn’t the largest annual sci-fi convention in the US, but it has been around the block for quite a few years now—thirty-six years to be exact. It has hosted literary, artist, performing/filking and media guests. For purposes of this blog I’ll concentrate on Archon’s media guests. The fans have turned out in large numbers to see and hear these media guests give talks and presentations. The fans have waited in long lines for autographs and photographs. The fans have generally had a good time at Archon discussing and sharing their love of a particular media guest and/or the movie/TV series franchise he/she represents. In recent times Archon has hosted media guests such as multi-talented voice actor Billy West (Futurama) as well as the gang of Cinematic Titanic, featuring many of the original cast of the cult favorite Mystery Science Theater 3000.  (This year’s media guest just added to the bottom of the list: Gil Gerard. You remember him from the 1970s TV show Buck Rogers, don’t you?)

Matt Smith as the 11th Doctor with Amy Pond

With so many wonderful media guests in its past, a sci-fi buff might assume that Archon is not against inviting media guests to their convention, right? But it has come to my attention recently that Archon does not seem interested in hosting a media guest connected to the worldwide phenomenon known as Doctor Who. Why is this the case? I haven’t a clue, but perhaps you and your like-minded friends can help us find out why Archon doesn’t jump on this opportunity to cash in on the popularity of the world’s longest running science fiction TV franchise. 

Our wedding cake shaped like a TARDIS

I use the term worldwide phenomenon on purpose, for in spite of its origins at the BBC,the television series now plays on BBC America as well as on various PBS stations throughout the US. Doctor Who and its spin-off series Torchwood and The Sarah Jane Adventures have broken the chains of being cult TV shows from Great Britain to become American sci-fi favorites with regular viewers in the many millions on a weekly basis. The DVDs, audio plays, books, graphic novels and other related products can be found in Best Buy as well as your local comic book stores. You could even say it’s given the Star Trek franchise a run for its money.

Producer and writer Steven Moffat

I’m painting this picture so even if you’re not familiar with the series that you will still see how a media guest from the Doctor Who universe would appeal to many science fiction fans and not just a tiny handful living on a dust mote resting atop of a wildflower. Many Who fans would be willing to travel to the St. Louis area and pay the Archon membership fees to see these Doctor Who media guests. More memberships to the convention sold—more money for Archon to host even bigger and better conventions in the future. A win-win situation.

Here’s where the Horton Hears a Who analogy comes into play: It has come to my attention that several Doctor Who connected media guests have actually expressed an interest in attending Archon. Even better, these actors, producers and writers of the series were willing to come for free if their travel expenses were covered, and they’d be willing to travel from within the United States, since they’d already be in the US working on other projects.

Yes, that’s right. Who media guests expressed a desire to attend Archon and were willing to do so for the price of a domestic airline ticket. Increased sales of Archon memberships to fans who’d love to see a Doctor Who media guest would surely cover the price of an airline ticket, right?

The names of Doctor Who media guests who have voiced an interest in attending Archon? Hold onto your hats, folks: 

John Barrowman as Captain Jack

John Barrowman, Steven Moffat, and Alex Kingston. 

Are you able to peel yourself off the floor now?

Alex Kingston as Riversong

Yes, Captain Jack Harkness of Torchwood fame, the current producer/head writer of Doctor Who, and the vivacious Riversong who played a pivotal role in last season’s story arc all wanted to travel to St. Louis and meet the fans here in the middle of the country. But, somehow, they were turned away or simply ignored by Archon representatives.

Fortunately for fans with lots of money and vacation time, Barrowman and Moffat recently attended Comic-Con in San Diego, and many of the Torchwood crew will be at Dragon Con in Atlanta later this year. These mega-sized sci-fi conventions will benefit from the crowds Who media guests will draw. Alas, those of us who can’t afford to attend far away mega-cons are out of luck.

My novel about Doctor Who fans who meet a mysterious stranger...

Here’s the call to action: If the BBC is  still willing to send a Doctor Who media guest to Archon in the future, would you be interested in attending and supporting the con with your membership? If you are, please consider joining with the local Who fan club, the St Louis CIA, in signing a petition, sending an email, or letter to the Archon committee expressing your support for Doctor Who media guests. This link takes you to Archon's contacts info page. Please be polite and to the point in your communications. If you have any other ideas on how to bring Who media guests to Archon, feel free to leave them in the comments section below.

The original Star Trek fans were able to bring their beloved program back on the air back in the late 60s, so perhaps a letter writing campaign can demonstrate to the Archon powers-that-be that we aren’t invisible, dust-mote-dwelling denizens. We are many, and we have supporters like Horton who aren’t afraid of helping us to make our voices heard.

Let’s shout together as Doctor Who fans, “We are here! We are here! We are here!”