As we look forward to a time when normal life might resume, I’ve been reflecting on life in lockdown. Amidst all the pain and tragedy of recent months it’s undeniable that a new spirit of positivity has emerged. The Doctor Who community can claim a high-profile part of this movement, thanks to the Tweetalongs and other online initiatives organised by our own Emily Cook.
As going to work, shopping and socialising got difficult, it was perhaps inevitable that many of us became more inward-looking. I lost myself in the stack of DVDs and Blu-rays that I somehow never found the time to watch before March. Rather than simply ticking these films and TV series off my imaginary ‘things I should see’ list, I’ve found myself in a whole new head space. While other people gained a new appreciation for the birdsong in their back gardens and other unexpected benefits of life’s slower pace, my mind wandered through a world of archive film and television. Who knew, for example, that the song the mice sing in Bagpuss is the same tune chanted by the sinister inhabitants of Summerisle in The Wicker Man? I was equally intrigued by They Came From Beyond Space, which I watched early in lockdown. The film was released in 1967 and features a scientist called Farge, played by Zia Mohyeddin. Farge obviously has some distinguished friends and colleagues, because his home laboratory includes a distinctive neon component from the Doctor’s TARDIS, as it appeared in the previous year’s Daleks’ Invasion Earth 2150 A.D.
When it comes to selecting episodes of Doctor Who to watch on BritBox, my ideal companion has been Paul MC Smith’s new book The TARDIS Chronicles. Paul obviously shares my enthusiasm for joining obscure dots. I was surprised to read, for example, that in the original run of the series the TARDIS control room included no fewer than 13 hat stands. They’re all described and indeed illustrated here, alongside forensic examinations of every wall section, console panel and police-box prop. While I eagerly await the end of lockdown, I know that I’ll also be nostalgic for the opportunity it afforded me to wallow in this kind of eccentric detail.