When a friend of mine posted this to Twitter recently, I had to agree. If you have no idea what we’re talking about, it’s because you’ve never seen Doctor Who, the BBC science-fiction television series that has been a staple of geek love more or less constantly since its debut in1963.  

The show features a character called the Doctor (it’s a name, not a title) who travels around Earth and other places in the Universe in a time-space machine called a TARDIS (an acronym for Time And Relative Dimension In Space), which, due to a malfunctioning chameleon circuit is permanently made to look like a 1960’s London Police phone box. This gives it the appearance of a blue phone booth that is, like a Bag of Holding, much bigger on the inside than it is on the outside. TARDIS prop used in Doctor Who series

The original Doctor Who series ran from 1963 to 1989, and featured eight different actors playing the titular character. Instead of employing the James Bond method (ignoring the issue) they use a bit of science-fiction magic to explain this. The Doctor, you see, is from the planet Gallifrey, and when a Gallifreyan’s body becomes too damaged to heal, it will attempt to regenerate. An unsuccessful regeneration results in a dead Gallifreyan, but a successful one results in a new actor standing up and saying “Hullo. Where am I? Who am I? Oh, right. I’m me. I’m hungry. But for what, I’m not sure…” 

It’s a bit of a corny device to keep the show going when the main player bows out, but like an Apple product, it just works. During the original run, the Doctor was played by William Hartnell, Patrick Troughton, Jon Pertwee, Tom Baker, Peter Davison, Colin Baker, Sylvester McCoy, and Paul McGann.

The Eleven Doctors (L-R Top: William Hartnell, Patrick Troughton, Jon Pertwee Tom Baker; Middle: Peter Davison, Colin Baker, Sylvester McCoy, Paul McGann; Bottom: Christopher Eccleston, David Tennant, Matt Smith)

In 1996, an attempt to restart the series after its 1989 cancellation featured actor Sylvester McCoy, the last-known Doctor, regenerating into Paul McGann in the TV film Doctor Who. The film was not as commercially successful as producers might have hoped, so the idea of using it as a springboard for a renewal of the Doctor Who TV series was killed.

Then, in 2005, writer/producer Russell T. Davies convinced the BBC to let him have a go at rebooting the series. Christopher Eccleston was cast as the Doctor’s ninth incarnation, and the melancholy master of time and space found a niche with fans—both in the UK and in the US when the show was broadcast on cable’s BBC America station.

But Eccleston left after just one year, and David Tennant was cast to replace him as the Tenth Doctor. In the years since, Tennant has been voted “Best Doctor” by fans on numerous occasions, and seems to have even replaced the former favorite, Fourth Doctor Tom Baker, in most fans’ hearts.

After three wonderful years, Tennant decided to leave Doctor Who. And since he’d been cast as the Royal Shakespeare Company’s official Hamlet, who could honestly blame him? That’s not a chance everyone gets, and for Tennant to say “No thanks. I’d rather be the Doctor than Hamlet” would be neither expected nor reasonable.

David Tennant as Hamlet. Photo Royal Shakespeare Company, Ellie Kurttz/AP.

Since producer Russell T. Davies was leaving the show along with Tennant, it looked to fans like this might be the end (again) of Doctor Who.

The show has been saved, in my opinion, by two things.

First, when Davies left, his duties as Producer, Show-Runner, and Head Writer were filled by Steven Moffat. Moffat’s previous credits include the amazing ‘relationships’ show Coupling, the TV drama series updates of Victoriana staples Jekyll (based on The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson) and Sherlock (based on the collected works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle featuring Sherlock Holmes), as well as several of the most popular episodes of Davies’ rebooted Doctor Who series.

And then, there’s Matt Smith.

Matt Smith as the DoctorSmith is a baby. At only 27, he’s the youngest actor ever to play The Doctor. He has a mop of mouse-fur colored hair that resembles a horse’s forelock. He’s gangly. He’s not particularly good looking. But he may be the best Doctor, well, ever.

Why is Smith so good? And why is he more “my” Doctor than Tennant, Davison, or even Tom Baker?

Well, I’ll admit that when I first saw Tennant as the Doctor, I actually laughed out loud. I initially viewed the casting of a heart-stoppingly handsome man as my favorite Time Lord as yet another example of the warped Hollywood aesthetic infringing on my beloved Britain. “British people,” [says a woman who’s never been there] “aren’t drop-dead gorgeous as a rule of thumb. They look like normal people.”

Ahem. Maybe a bit naive of me, I’ll admit. And before I get a slew of angry emails, I’m not trying to slander the beauty of Britain. There are undoubtedly many attractive people in England, Scotland, and Wales (Christian Bale and Prince William immediately come to mind) but I just didn’t imagine anyone cast as the Doctor would, or should, be one of them.

My first Doctor was Tom Baker. He was not the most attractive man on television, even by the late 1970’s standards that made Telly Savalas into a sex symbol. Baker had a bigish nose and a gap in his front teeth. He wore strange clothes. In fact, with his huge coat and looooooong scarf, and ’70’s curly ‘fro, a la Roger Daltrey, he looked rather…alien.

Which is, of course, the point. The Doctor is NOT a human being. 

“But, you look human!” ~ Lady Christina
“Well, we came first, so actually, you look Time Lord.” ~ The [Tenth] Doctor 
The Planet of The Dead, 2009

I think the key to Matt Smith’s amazing portrayal of the Doctor lies in the fact that The Doctor isn’t supposed to be normal. He’s a bit of an oddball. Some of the Doctors have achieved this otherworldlyness better than others. Some have been more personable than others. Some have been fun, others broody. But until Smith, none have managed to pull off all of the traits you’d expect in a 900-year-old alien.

The First Doctor, William Hartnell achieved the proper degree of alienness, but was a bit too stiff and formal to ever be considered fun.

The Second Doctor, Patrick Troughton was a bit too ‘evil-eyed-mad-scientist.’ And, he had a Three Stooges haircut. Not his fault, but still…

The Third Doctor, Jon Pertwee, was a little more fun, and almost achieved the well-roundedness of character I wanted to find, but was hindered by his time period. Early 1970’s production values and some truly awful scripts probably hurt Pertwee more than his acting or interpretation of the character ever could have.

The Fourth Doctor, Tom Baker, was my favorite for many years, because he managed to bring the seriousness needed in dramatic and life-threatening script situations, but followed them up by offering a Jelly Baby with a cheerful sincerity that made you think “Hell, the world may end, but at least we have candy.”

The Fifth Doctor, Peter Davison, was the youngest Doctor yet, and his vanilla ice cream suit and cheery outlook modernized the Doctor quite a bit. He was kind of dim though, and not as quick-witted as some other Doctors.

The Sixth Doctor, Colin Baker, seems to have been paralyzed by coming in the wake of what was, at the time, the two most popular Doctors Who ever. His portrayal is a mashup of the other Baker and Davison. Unfortunately, he was never able to find his own footing in the character, and his Doctor is a bit lackluster as a result.

The Seventh Doctor, Sylvester McCoy was a Doctor losing his mind. He started as a kind of buffoon, but that humor quickly gave way to a dark, introspective character who seemed on the verge of breakdown.

At that point, the series was cancelled until the 1996 TV movie.

The Eighth Doctor, Paul McGann, is positively VICTORIAN. He would have been much more welcome in a Sherlock Holmes adaptation than a desperate drive to jump start a failing science fiction series.

And after Davies’ reboot in 2005,

The Ninth Doctor, Christopher Eccleston, is depressed. Not just moody, but full-on, ‘you-need-whatever-Gallifreyans-take-instead-of-Prozac’ sad. Granted, he’s the last of his kind, and his planet has been destroyed and time-locked, but he’s just…not much fun to watch. It’s like watching Morrissey do Macbeth.

The Tenth Doctor, David Tennant, is beautiful. I tried desperately to NOT watch the show when Tennant came, because, as I said before, I thought he was too pretty and was probably a bit of fluff. Tennant surprised me by being, not just a good actor, but actually very interesting as the Doctor. His journey begins as a madcap jaunt across the universe and ends as a Shakespearean tragedy. Beautiful, moving, and breathtaking.

And Smith. Eleventh Doctor, fun when he needs to be, silly when called for, smart, devilishly clever, kind, personable, and young. This Doctor is at home doing stage magic, playing “futbol,” or saving the universe. He’s a little ugly, a little weird, and very, very charming. 

In short, he’s a lovable alien, and more the Doctor than all of his predecessors.

Best. Doctor. Ever.

Maryhill Winery

most famous person in the world who has been mistaken for a homeless man

Got to turn left    Is that guy going    That guy sort of looks   Is that a tour bus
at the next         to step off the        a little bit like              parked in the parking
street to get to   curb? I’m not sure   Bob Dylan. Didn’t he      lot at The Dalles
where I’m going   he even sees me.    play at Maryhill last       Best Western?
on time.             Hit the brake          with some other            I wonder why it’s
OH MY FUCKING GOD THAT’S BOB DYLAN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
SCREECH
I ALMOST JUST HIT ROBERT FUCKING ZIMMERMAN WITH MY CAR.

Accustomed as I’m sure he is to heavy New York traffic, he took no notice of me and kept on crossing the street. I continued where I was going.

Now, you have to understand that Bob Dylan is not the first rock star I’ve tried to kill accidentally. I almost killed Poe too.

In 2001, when Depeche Mode was touring in support of their Exciter album, and they invited Poe to open for them on their North American tour. She was promoting her album Haunted. That August, Wa and I drove to the Gorge Amphitheater in George, Washington to see them. It’s a long trip, and we were hungry, so we stopped at a restaurant that was ominously named “The Golden Harvest.” It sounded to me like the diner where everybody gets killed in a Stephen King novel, and that should have tipped me off.

I had blueberry pancakes, hash browns (with ketchup), a glass of orange juice, and one egg over hard. I know exactly what I ate because I saw it all again.

Take my word on this one: the only thing worse than being sick is being sick in public.

I started feeling bad at about 6 that evening, and as Poe was playing her songs, I became more and more nauseated. Eventually, although I didn’t want to leave, I felt I had to go find somewhere to throw up, because I knew it was on the way. I tried to make it to the bathrooms.

I failed.

I failed on the amphitheater’s stairs. I failed all over my brand new Dragonflies t-shirt. I failed in front of about 100,000 people.

The worst part wasn’t even getting sick. It was the embarrassment of hearing people around me ask if I’d had too much to drink. As a lifetime teetotaler, just about the worst thing that can happen to you is for people to think you’re drunk, and to not be believed when you tell them you have food poisoning. “OH!!! She has “food poisoning!” One guy actually said that, and even made little finger quotes in the air around the words “food poisoning” to show that he didn’t believe me. For a person who has spent their entire life trying to stop other people from drinking alcohol to be mistaken for a drunk is like being a Christian who is accused of attending a Satanic ritual. Its pure anathema, and it hurt me more than the pains shooting through my stomach.

I drank as much water as I could and threw up again in the bathrooms. Throwing up in public toilets is an experience I hope to never repeat.

I felt a little better, so I returned to my seat. By this point, Poe was singing her last song, the title track from “Haunted.” She decided to perform her first stage dive. The crowd caught her, and lowered her to the floor. She began running up and down the aisles with her cordless microphone, singing the end of “Haunted” over and over again while the band on stage played on.

“Do do do do. Do do do do.”

Up and down the aisles she went, performing impromptu duets with enthusiastic audience members. She came up our aisle. She moved toward the stairs.

Yes. Those stairs. I saw it in my mind in slow motion before it happened. Poe, all 6 foot tall, beautiful green-eyed, slender 120 pounds of her was going to slip on my puke and die. She was going to step in my blueberry pancakes. And my hashbrowns. And my orange juice. And my one egg over hard. And she was going to skid backward, fall, and crack her lovely blonde head on the pavement. Poe would die because I had dared to eat at the Golden Harvest.

“Do do do do. Do do do Aaaah!”

She barely skipped a beat. She caught herself with her free hand, grasping at the hand rail and spinning around as if it was all intentional.

“Do do do do. Do do do do.”

She turned around.

“Do do do do. Do do do do.”

Back to the stage she went.

“You’ve all been fantastic,” she said. “Except the drunk guy who puked on the stairs.”

“Star Trek”
Directed by:  J.J. Abrams
Written by:  Roberto Orci, Alex Kurtzman
Based on:  Star Trek original series by Gene Roddenberry
Bad Robot, Paramount Pictures, Spyglass Entertainment

Stardate: 5.07.09

I am receiving a distress signal. It is originating from the vicinity of my heart.

This is not my mother’s Star Trek. It’s not even *my* Star Trek. But somehow, I think that might be okay.

J.J. Abrams, creator of Lost and Alias has taken the characters from the original Star Trek series and pulled them into a rebooted universe that has the flavor of the original and the flair of some of Abrams’ showier work. Through clever use the usual suspects of sci-fi, time travel and alternate universes, Abrams gives himself the freedom to work within the framework of the classic television and film franchise without being too constricted. And the result is a film that is finely crafted, honest to the original work from which it is drawn, and fun.

The details are impeccable, from the hideous pea-green uniforms to the 1960’s retro future ship’s bridge. If we were living in the future 40 years ago, this is definitely what it looked like. Most importantly, the film stays on track by keeping the characterization of our beloved sci-fi heroes intact and human. There are no caricatures here, only carefully crafted impressions of the originals.

The relatively unknown Chris Pine (Just My Luck, Smokin’ Aces) is a superb James T. Kirk. Pine’s young Captain is a boyish, brash, charming, and irascible brat with a chip on his shoulder and fire in his belly. He also manages to pull off Kirk’s fabled womanizing without looking like a fickle jerk—no small feat.

Zachary Quinto (Heroes) is so astounding as the half-human, half-vulcan Spock that it’s hard to believe this is his first feature film. His characterization is so spot-on that even in a scene the young actor shares with the venerable Leonard Nimoy, where the young and elderly Spocks come face-to-face, the audience is left breathless and impressed.

All the actors manage to embed their characters with subtle traits created by the original actors, but still make the performances enough their own that we don’t feel we are watching someone imitating another actor. An excellent supporting cast including Bruce Greenwood as Captain Christopher Pike, John Cho as Sulu, and Simon Pegg as Scotty rounds out the set of heroes.

Still, for all its red shirts, dilithium crystals, and warp drives, Abrams’ Trek bears the same resemblance to Roddenberry’s original series that “Eleanor Rigby” bears to “I Want To Hold Your Hand”—it’s the same band, but a non-fan might not know it if you didn’t tell them. Abrams has pulled off the remarkable feat of staying true to the original work but making an entirely new, unknown story.

The film’s one truly weak link is Eric Bana as the tepid villain Nero. Bana is no Khan. Hell, he’s not even *Shaka* Khan. Thankfully, Bana’s scenes are few and short, so audiences are mercifully spared the long-winded statements of terrible purpose usually imposed by such tyrants. And because of this, the film is spared from what is usually Bana’s crowning achievement—single-handed destruction of every film he’s ever made.

And that distress signal? It stems from a sense of loyalty that seems to be wavering. The original Star Trek series is, and always has been, my favorite. But I feel myself being pulled towards Abrams’ rebooted universe like a spaceship drawn into a black hole. For now, I’ll say I’m keeping my options open. But let’s hope that the newest “old generation” of Star Trek lives long, and prospers.

Don’t get me wrong—I love my job. I mean I *really* love my job. But sometimes there are too many problems I can’t fix, you know?

But I have things to look forward to. My boss and I are going to a conference in a couple of weekends and I get to give a presentation on the graphic design work I did on the college catalog last year. Apparently, everyone loves it. Personally, I feel I was too constrained by time and other unreasonable factors, so it wasn’t my best work. But I will concede that it is better than what we had before, which was — I swear I am not making this up — laid out in WORD.

Ahem.

I did the layout in Quark….ewww. Would much rather have been using InDesign, but Quark is what the printer uses….

See what I mean by unreasonable constraints?

Other good news:

Tears For Fears coming to town in July. That is NOT a typo.

I am so pumped. After seeing them, I will have seen almost all the bands I ever wanted to see:
David Bowie, NIN, Depeche Mode out of the way.

Just holding on for Sting, Seal, and U2.

My review of DIARY by Chuck Palahniuk was published here at Lollipop Magazine.

My article “In Chuck We Trust” was published here at Youthquake Magazine.

Presbyterian

I went in at 11:00 am and had both upper wisdom teeth , or, in dental parlance, tooth #1 and tooth #16, removed. This is not as bad as it sounds.

Really—I’m not just putting on a brave face. The trick is to find the world’s best dentist . And surprisingly enough, I’ve found him in the most unexpected of places . I have come to expect very little of the medical professionals in this town, so finding the world’s best dentist here comes as no little surprise. Why don’t I expect much?

Our sleepy town boasts some of the worst MDs I’ve ever met. Forget bedside manner, these people can barely read CHARTS.

Q: What do you call the person who graduated last in their class from medical school?

A: Doctor.

Think about the implications of that joke. All you have to do to become a doctor is go to med school and PASS. Which is more difficult than, say, passing your driver’s test. But you don’t have to be a genius. You just have to be average.

Now, think about the difference between Einstein and your high school physics teacher.

Maybe your physics teacher was pretty great—mine was. After all, he taught physics to this chick , and she went to outer space. But no matter how great your teacher was, he or she probably wasn’t Einstein. And more than likely, your high school physics teacher sucked. Why?

There are a few smart people, and a lot of kind of smart people, and zillions of dumb people in this world. And some of those people, from all three categories, join every profession. Some become teachers.

Some become doctors.

The really brilliant ones often get to take their pick of positions when they graduate. They usually pick flashy hospitals or research positions—places where they can hone their skills and publish studies that will win awards.

The pretty smart but not genius ones usually get the rest of the good positions—large cities, big university hospitals—places, essentially, where they are in a good position to earn money and move into private practice or research.

But what about those other people? The ones who barely passed their MCAT. The ones who get confused about the difference between Typhus and Typhoid. They still passed. And they’re still Dr. Somebody. More frighteningly, they’re somebody’s doctor.

They take posts where they can find them—sometimes in large cities, where they “blend in,” but often in health clinics, small hospitals in semi-rural towns (like mine) and private practice wherever people need a doctor so badly that they can’t choose a better one if the one they have is a butcher.

The same could really be said of dentists, and that is why you, and I and everyone we know has a horror story that happened to them, or to a friend or relative, about the terrible things the dentist did to them.

Remember: 50% of dentists graduated in the bottom half of their class.

But as I said, I found Dr. Right. I highly recommend him to anyone in the area. Hell, I’d recommend him to people from out of state if I thought they would fly up here and see him.

So he pulled out two of my pearlys. And luckily for me, they weren’t impacted, came in straight and there was a lot of room for them. I wouldn’t have even had to have them removed if it wasn’t for the fact that I developed carries (cavities) in both of them. And the one on the left was causing waves of pulsating pain to shoot across the entire left hemisphere of my skull. It felt like someone was kicking me in the temple with a steel-toed jack boot and then stabbing me in the eye with an ice pick, then kicking me again, then stabbing me again… This repeated every time my heart beat.

Lub-dub, lub-dub

Kick-stab, kick-stab

So he pulled them. And because he’s the world’s best dentist, I have no swelling and no pain.

Maybe it went so well because I chose to get it done on Woden’s Day. He is, of course, a god of wisdom in addition to his other attributes. And strangely enough, the Anglo-Saxon word for ‘tooth’ is ‘tooth,’ so I hereby re-dub yesterday “Wodentoothsday”—Or Wisdomtoothsday, if you prefer.

Either way, I’m just glad to have them out. Now. If I can just get my feet fixed….

What other names did your parents consider for you?

ZOMG!  My dad picked the “boy” name and my mom picked the “girl” name.

Had I been a boy, I would have been “Bartholomew Zuma.”

My parents are both a bit into 16th and 17th century literature, and although they both love Shakespeare, my Dad also loves Ben Johnson.  One of Johnson’s last and best comedies, written sometime between 1620 and 1630 is called Bartholomew Fair.  Zuma Zuma was the name of Frank Zappa’s jazz-influenced side project.  When he wasn’t working with the Mothers of Invention, he was jammin’ with those hep cats.

My mom took my first name, Jessica, from Frank Herbert’s Dune.  But she also liked the idea that the name had originated (in its recognizable English form, at least) in Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice, wherein Jessica is the name of Shylock’s daughter.  And for a middle name, she picked Elizabeth, since it was the name of Shakespeare’s rather formidable queen.

My parents are such geeks.  <—-that sentence fills me with pride.