Nazca, Peru.
As a result, the tourist industry in the area had almost ceased to exist and the touters and tour guides were beside themselves when a handful of tourists arrived.
Anybody else out there spend their childhood choreographing a full-blown action sequence of gymnastic prowess involving various household implements to the melodious tones of the Doctor Who theme tune?
No? Oh.
My family loved The Doctor from a young age, even though the monsters he faced generally scared the pants off me and my siblings. Plus, I refused to believe that any actor other than Tom Baker was *really* The Doctor, and in fact proclaimed that the others were “just silly” or “too old to really be Dr Who” and that I was going to go play in the backroom and fight the marauding army of skeletons sent forth by the evil King and Queen of Timeland with my soft toys instead.
When the show returned to our screens 5 years ago, I’d spent a good decade without The Doctor and I admit I hadn’t lost sleep over it. The reruns and wobbly sets were a childhood memory and the videos in our cupboard a Sunday afternoon distraction.
But the new show! It was a genius combination of the exciting and the inane; cheesy, juvenile and daft but with an injection of serious sci-fi. There were times over the first 4 series that it crossed the line from nutty into cringe, especially when the scripts happened to have been written by a certain RT Davies, but most viewers seemed prepared to overlook those shortcomings in favour of the uncontrollable childish glee the show’s return to the screen brought them.
But most important are the principles that The Doctor brings to a new generation of children. He’s the ultimate kick-ass pacifist, who doesn’t want to fight but will in the defence of the innocent. He always gives his enemies the choice between redemption and destruction – he doesn’t fight with conventional weapons and rarely wields a gun; instead, he uses science and cunning to turn the weapons of the weeks villain against themselves. He betters each person he meets and inspires the meek to be brave. And best of all, he embodies a wide-eyed and deep-rooted wonder of the universe in which he lives, of the same ilk as that which permeates the hearts of travellers when they find themselves blissfully lost and surrounded by a beautiful foreign landscape for the very first time.
If you’re very lucky, The Doctor will also bring jelly babies.
Welcome to Series 5 then! What have you got for me this time?
