Who New

Julian is almost two, which means in 8-12 years, he will be embarrassed by me. He will want me to drop him off at the corner so his friends don't see he had his mom in her 20+ year old car (because there is no way our car won't live that long) drop him off. He is going to feel this way regardless of what I do, even if I am a cool mom (because no matter how cool I am, I won't be cool enough to overcome the fact that I am his mom), even if I am a smart mom (because we live in America, smart is embarrassing), even if I am a hot mom (especially if I am a hot mom!) So, I have been thinking, maybe I should actually give him a reason to be embarrassed. I mean, if I think my behavior is embarrassing, I won't be hurt if he does too, right? I'll become a vegetarian (the sort who goes on and on about how evil meat is, the sort that makes you want to go eat a raw cow out of spite), I'll start wearing really ugly handmade sweaters (think Toni Collette in About a Boy) and, to top it all off, I'm going back to basics and embracing my deep and abiding love for science fiction.

Of course, this is just my way of rationalizing all the time I am spending watching the Sci Fi Channel. Here's how it happened: A few weeks ago, I was home on a Friday night.

Digression: Doesn't that sound so offhand and casual? So blase, so cool, and, yet, by adding the "few weeks ago" modifier, I make it sound like "home on a Friday night" is an uncommon occurrence for me, an occurrence so rare it is worth blogging about in its own right. Whereas the reality is that I am usually home on a Friday night, it is the rare Friday night when I am not home, and even then, we are probably having dinner at my parents' house which is practically the same thing except the food is better.

So where was I? Oh, yes, that's right, home on a Friday night and looking for something to watch on television. Of course, being a Friday night, nothing seemed to be on.

Digression: Who makes programming decisions at television stations? I swear, you can just hear these executives saying "No, people go to parties and out on dates and to bars on a Friday night. No one but losers and families stay home on Friday nights. Why not just schedule a Full House marathon for every Friday from now until the end of time and call it a day?" I mean, yes there are some people who actually go out on Friday nights, but a lot of people don't. It is nice that Monk and Psyche were on on Fridays, but those were not on this Friday night of which I speak.

Alright, so we were home on a Friday night and the only thing which was on which looked interesting was Doctor Who.

Digression: I used to love Doctor Who when I was younger. My love for Doctor Who is one of those things that falls into the "goes without saying, not even worth mentioning" category, like my love for Monty Python, Ursula LeGuin, and chocolate. (Yes, I just compared Doctor Who to chocolate.) I can talk for hours (and probably will at some point-consider yourself warned) about the social, cultural, and philosophical implications of Doctor Who. My favorite Doctors were Jon Pertwee, Peter Davison, and Tom Baker (in that order). I feel one of the meanest things that Public Television has done is ceasing to broadcast Doctor Who.

Of course, it wasn't the old Doctor Who, but the new Doctor Who. Fred asked if I had known about the new Doctor Who and I said I did, but since I had seen the strange tv movie on Fox ten years ago, I was a bit afraid to venture into any new Doctor Who experiences, preferring to live in the seventies and eighties. They could keep their swanky special effects and high production values, for all I cared. But, as I think I have made abundantly clear, nothing else was on.

OH MY GOD! We came in about ten minutes into the show, there was a huge trampoline like thing with a face talking to a blonde girl with a nice bum. I know enough about the world of the Doctor to know that the chick with the cute figure had to be a companion, but that was pretty much all I could figure out. Alright, so then trampoline thing manages to get her soul into the blonde girl and looks in a mirror and says "Oh No! I'm a Chav!" Which cracked me up. Then she goes and meets up with the Doctor and within minutes she is kissing him. Kissing! On Doctor Who!

So obviously, this is not the Doctor Who of my teenage years. I mean, with all due respect to Lalla Ward, the idea of anyone kissing Tom Baker is, um, yucky. But this Doctor is pretty cute.
Digression: Maria and I talked about this new Doctor and she agreed he is cute. I had a brief moment of panic when it occurred to me that this actor may, in fact, be younger than me. Maria pointed out that it will eventually happen that they will cast an actor who is younger than us to play the Doctor. True, but not this one. I have to accept the higher production values, some plot choices that are influenced by the X Files, and a cute actor playing the Doctor. Is it so much to ask that the cute actor be older than me? Apparently not, as David Tennant is slightly older than me. Crisis averted. Of course there is the other crisis, the crisis that some Doctor Who fans grow up to be successful actors and actually get cast as the Doctor. But I digress from this digression and, really, we don't have time to talk about my acting career, or lack of it.

Anyway, the episode takes place in a hospital run by the nurses, who are nuns and also happen to be human sized, bipedal cats. They can cure every disease, so it seems, and we soon find out it is because they are growing people who are infected, people who are trapped in pods (just like the Matrix), but from these experiments they learn the cures for many diseases. The lab humans are covered in pustules which can be passed by touch and, of course, they break out and mayhem ensues throughout the hospital. We find out (because Trampoline Lady's brain takes a brief foray into the body of one of these (dare I say?) lepers) that all they really want is to hug someone and be loved. The Doctor saves the day by drenching himself in all the cures concocted by the Sisters of Meow Meow Healing and then, I swear to you I am not making this up, he cures the lepers by touching them. Time Lord as Christ figure!

Of course, I am totally hooked. The problem is that Sci Fi isn't merely showing the new Doctor Who, they are showing the second series with the new new Doctor. Which means I am a year late and a Doctor short.

I'll admit, the fact that the sets don't look like they are old refrigerator boxes is going to take some getting used to.

And you thought I was going to do what everyone else is doing and talk about how great, fabulous, culturally relevant Battlestar Galactica is, didn't you?