Free Adventures with the Wife in Space: Living With Doctor Who by Neil Perryman Page A

them giving it a second thought. They didn’t even comment when I hung a poster of Tom Baker and some Sontarans on the door to my room (a free gift with
Doctor Who Magazine
). They probably thought I was being ironic.
    So, alone in my room, I watched
Doctor Who
on my trusty portable and, without irony, I was happy.
    I was happy until I saw ‘Ghost Light’.
    Broadcast over three weeks in October 1989, ‘Ghost Light’ seriously messed with my head. It didn’t make any sense. Not even remotely. Not in a ‘this doesn’t make any sense and is therefore complete rubbish’ sort of way, but in a ‘this doesn’t make any sense in the same way that a David Lynch film doesn’t make sense, so it must be amazing’ sort of way.
    ‘Ghost Light’ was made for the video generation. It was so complex, it had to be watched again, so it could be analysed , dissected and, well, made sense of, I suppose. And this would have been great if I’d owned a video recorder, because analysing
Doctor Who
came naturally to me. I’d just spent a year being trained in the basics of semiotics and postmodernism, so ‘Ghost Light’ came along at exactly the right time. I’d even read
The Unfolding
Text and notfound it particularly silly. I knew it was possible to treat the programme as a serious subject, and if there was ever a story ripe for serious discussion, ‘Ghost Light’ was it.
    Sue: OK, I’ve definitely got it, now. This isn’t a real house. It’s a time travelling zoo. They are actually travelling backwards in time and that’s why all the dead animals are coming back to life and the ghosts think they exist, when they don’t. It’s not that hard to work out when you put your mind to it.
    And then a few seconds later
…
    Sue: Actually, maybe I’m wrong. I can’t get my head around this.
    Me: Stop guessing, then.
    Sue: I hope this makes sense in the end. That’s all I’m saying.
    When Ace and Inspector Mackenzie explore the attic, they find Mrs Pritchard and Gwendoline hidden under some sheets.
    Ace: They’re just toys. They’re just Josiah’s toys.
    Sue: Oh, I get it. They’re robots.
    Me: Stop guessing!
    Sue: OK, I give up. I’m lost. It doesn’t make any bloody sense.
    But I had no one to share my theories with. Nobody wanted to discuss the mysterious life cycle of Josiah Smith and how the story’s over-arching theme of change was a metaphor for the series as a whole.
Not a single person
. Even when I was in a room filled with people who were funded by the taxpayer to talk about nothing but television morning,noon and night, no one wanted to talk about
Doctor Who,
and that included my first serious girlfriend, Candice.
    Sue: Did Candice like
Doctor Who?
    Me: We never really talked about it.
    Sue: Were you ashamed of it?
    Me: A little.
    Sue: Oh. I was joking.
    I tell a lie. There was this one time when I tried to convince Candice that the Doctor’s companion, Ace, was a feminist role model:
    Me:
Doctor Who
is very progressive these days. It’s nothing like it used to be. The companions don’t scream at the monsters any more – they throw high explosives at them instead. In fact, the companion is almost as important as the Doctor.
    Candice: Sorry, what? I wasn’t listening.
    I do have one abiding memory of watching
Doctor Who
with Candice, though. Well, perhaps not
with
; she was in the same room as me when the final episode of the classic series was broadcast in December 1989. It was in her flat and she was packing for our Christmas break. In fact, I’m sure I missed large chunks of that episode because Candice kept asking me for my advice about which clothes to take with her. And because I was a good boyfriend, I tried to give her my undivided attention, even when the Doctor and the Master were engaged in a fight to the death just a few inches away from her.
    This memory is tinged with sadness, though. Not just because I lost touch with Candice and the last time I heardfrom her she was well on her way to