I know I am showing my age by saying so, but I remember when police boxes like this were really to be seen on the streets of England. I remember where I was, in the town of Leatherhead, Surrey, when I heard that President Kennedy had been shot. And I also remember where I was the very next day, at home nearby, when I watched the first ever episode
the longest-running science fiction television show in the world, and … the “most successful” science fiction series of all time.
I didn’t watch any more of that first series, probably because my parents thought it too scary for their eight-year-old boy. Over the 48 years since then I have seen quite a few of the nearly 800 episodes, but I have never been a regular fan.
But I know that several of my blogging buddies are fans, although the Americans among them cannot have been watching for anything like as long as I have. Among them are James McGrath, who has posted on Harmonizing Judas With Doctor Who. As part of that he has started a meme
to come up with the most creative, outlandish, entertaining or humorous way of harmonizing the [biblical] accounts that you can.
His own offering harmonises the different gospel accounts of Judas by bringing in Doctor Who, and his TARDIS time machine in the form of a police box. My offering towards his meme (first seen as a comment on his blog, slightly edited here) is a continuation of his own story. This isn’t so much harmonising the gospel accounts as reconciling their harmonised accounts with the science fiction world view:
When the Doctor had finished with Judas, he took the TARDIS to Gethsemane, while Jesus was praying and the disciples were sleeping.
“Jesus,”, he said, “you don’t have to die. Just come with me in the TARDIS.”
“No, Doctor. Get behind me, Satan! God’s will has to be done.”
“OK, but come with me for a short trip first, and I’ll bring you back here, before your friends even wake up.”
First they travel ahead three days and appear outside a guarded tomb. The Doctor makes himself look like an angel, puts the guards to sleep, opens up the tomb, and takes the body. Then he sends Jesus out to comfort a woman in mourning.
They move on and in the evening materialise the TARDIS inside a locked upper room, and Jesus takes another trip outside.
Then a few more appearances, including one by the Sea of Galilee, and another at the Mount of Olives, where the TARDIS hovers in a cloud and draws Jesus up with a tractor beam (oops, wrong sci-fi series there I think).
Finally they fast forward a few years and appear in a blinding flash on the Damascus road.
Only then does the Doctor take Jesus back to Gethsemane. “Now at least they won’t forget you after you die”, he says in parting.
Or maybe the biblical accounts of the Resurrection are more believable taken at face value …
By the way, in case anyone from the BBC reads this (Tom, that includes you!), I claim copyright on this storyline, but I am prepared to licence it to the producers for a reasonable fee.
Not to be picky or anything, but the character isn’t called ‘Doctor Who’. He’s called ‘The Doctor’. It’s only the series that’s called ‘Doctor Who’!
OK, Tim, so how about “Doctor Who Meets The Gospel”?
Maybe “The Doctor” was actually Luke. Too much of a coincidence. I never was a big Doctor Who fan either. As far as British TV, I liked The Avengers, The Prisoner, and Monty Python much more. To show how I am aging, I now prefer Lark Rise to Candleford.
A good one, Gary. That could explain the different orders of some events in Luke’s gospel: the author witnessed them out of order!
Aha good to see someone else who relates where he was when JK was shot to the launch of Dr Who. I remeber it well. And on and off (off at present) I have watched it ever since. My younger brother (3 when it started) was certainly barred for some years., and then gravitated to behind the sofa as my elder brother went to Uni.
Like Gary I was a Python fan from the time I first watched it in the early series – when Mum was out and could not censor my viewing, and Dad was taking a late class at the Poly.
Hi Peter, I followed a link from Dr. McGrath’s site.
I can tell you’re an original fan because in my DVD of the first series (the very, very first series) William Hartnell is credited as “Dr. Who” and not “The Doctor.” Therefore I think it is appropriate (especially for fans of the original series) to refer to The Doctor as Dr. Who.
Thank you, Colin and Matt. I too am a Python fan though I didn’t see all the early episodes. Tim must have forgotten the credits in those early episodes.
Yes, of course, in the credits he was called ‘Doctor Who’ (not just in the first episodes, but in many others), but he was never addressed that way in the series except in a joke. The all-knowing Wikipedia explains:
‘In the first episode, Barbara addresses the Doctor as “Doctor Foreman”, as this is the surname the Doctor’s granddaughter Susan goes by, and the junkyard in which they find him bears the sign “I.M. Foreman”. When addressed by Ian with this name in the next episode, the Doctor responds, “Eh? Doctor who? What’s he talking about?” Later, when he realises that “Foreman” is not the Doctor’s name, Ian asks Barbara, “Who is he? Doctor who?” (In an ultimately-unused idea from documents written at the series’ inception, Barbara and Ian would have subsequently referred to the Doctor as ‘Dr. Who’, given their not knowing his name.)…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctor_(Doctor_Who)#.22Doctor_who.3F.22
I have a recollection of a William Hartnell episode. The Doctor introduced himself as “The Doctor” to someone they had met. The other said “Dr Who?”. To which Hartnell replied “Quite”.
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