Doctor Who: Our Imaginary Friend

What do you think of the Eleventh Doctor? Now that the first season featuring the regenerated Doctor has ended, we've had a chance to evaluate.

The BBC television series Doctor Who began in 1963 and except for a gap of some years has been running ever since.  In the UK, for most people Doctor Who is a childhood memory.

My earliest memories of Doctor Who are of the Doctor Who movie made in the 1960s, which ended up as all scary things did on Saturday evening television. I remember the Daleks chasing after the elderly Doctor and his granddaughter Susan and my heart beat so fast from the excitement because I just could not see how ANYONE could escape those horrid Dalek things.

The writers of the new Doctor Who series seem to have decided to play on the childhood-memory aspect of the Doctor while introducing the 11th Doctor. It begins with a young girl meeting the newly regenerated Doctor, who is still dressed in the raggedy clothes of the 10th Doctor. The Doctor discovers that the crack in the bedroom wall that the girl is afraid of is actually a portal to hell (kind of like the one in my basement, only drier). He runs out to the TARDIS and tells the girl he'll be back in 5 minutes.

Twelve years later, the Doctor is back, the girl, Amy Pond, is all grown up and working as a Kiss-o-Gram girl,  and they save the universe from something-or-other. Amy gets to introduce her childhood imaginary friend, whom she calls 'The Raggedy Doctor', around to all the folks who thought she was a bit nuts. And the Doctor invited Amy for a ride in the TARDIS. Just wait 5 minutes and he will come for her....

Two years later.....

Besides the Doctor-as-imaginary-friend thing, I also noticed that by the end of the episode, Amy Pond had known the Doctor for most of her life. The Doctor had known Amy for part of one day. Mind you, the writers didn't really follow up on that and after the adventures of the current season this disparity no longer applies. But I kind of identify this: the central figure of My Whole Life, that I've known for years, thinks of me as 'that odd girl I just met today'.

Other BBC America stuff
BBC America has begun showing their television series Law & Order UK, a spin off of the US Law & Order series. One of the stars of the British series is Freema Agyeman, who played Martha Jones on Doctor Who. I supposed because the L&O: UK writers thought the audience would expect her to pull out a laser cannon and start killing Daleks, they put Freema in mousy sweaters and gave her character a personality very like that of Annie the ghost from Being Human. (Well, I do like Annie the ghost, but I'd think a prosecutor would have a bit more of an assertive personality.)

I had heard that Freema had turned down a role on Torchwood, again playing Martha Jones, in order to do L&O:UK. Which was a very good thing since if Martha Jones had been at Torchwood during that last season she wouldn't have survived the bloodbath--- they even killed off the pet pterodactyl!

My mother and I both thought Law & Order: UK was pretty good. We are both Law & Order fans and also both like British television--- though my mom prefers hers without werewolves and/or Daleks.  But I thought the pilot episode of L&O: UK needed a bit more spark--- maybe they could have borrowed Chris Meloni and Mariska Hargitay to play visiting American cops Stabler and Benson. Stabler could have given the Brit cops lessons on how to bounce a perp's head off the interrogation room walls....