A Trip Through Time and Space

Last Saturday I travelled with two good friends of mine up to London to the Doctor Who Experience. As a big, big fan of the show, I felt this would be a really enjoyable day, and, I was not proved wrong.

In case you’ve not gathered, I love Doctor Who. With a passion.

After a relatively-eventful journey to London (what with getting the wrong bus from Epsom, a long walk which turned into a run, and purchasing railway tickets just as the train approached the platform – and putting the card in the wrong way!) we got to the London Olympia 2 venue. Because we’d pre-booked, there was no queue, though it was quite quiet anyway. Going up the lift and hearing the familiar Doctor Who theme was quite an exciting moment.

The Experience was in two parts; first was an interactive part with specially-shot videos featuring the Eleventh Doctor, which took our group through the crack in time onto the Starship UK, where we had to rescue the Doctor from the Pandorica 2 (they hadn’t even changed the colour!). The TARDIS materialised and, our moment came. The moment Doctor Who fans had always dreamed of doing: walking through those police box doors and into the TARDIS console room.

And wow. The recreation of the 2010 TARDIS interior was stunning. We’re 21, and we were just as taken aback as the small children who were with us. It was a great little sequence with us flying the TARDIS through railing-mounted joysticks, with the floor bucking to give the impression of travelling through time and space, eventually coming face to face with the deadly Daleks, who, almost as a nod to veteran fans, proceeded to bark that DALEKS CONQUER AND DESTROY! After that, we walked underneath and through a forest full of Weeping Angels, until a 3D movie experience where the Doctor was finally freed. It really was like being in a mini-adventure straight off the TV series, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. The verisimilitude with the TV series was further enhanced when we saw a making-of video telling how the crew from the BBC television department had a crucial role in the design of the sets. I was sceptical that this was only for kids, but I was happily proved wrong.

OK, now onto the real palm-rub-enducing stuff. The exhibition!

First of all, there was this lovely mural of Radio Times covers past and present, emphasising the un-breaking link between the Beeb’s magazine and it’s arguably most successful show. I won’t bore you with my opinions on the mostly-meddlesome and pandering that goes on when Blue Peter (didn’t that fall out of being cool in about 1976?) decides to get together with the Who gang.

After this was a showcase of the Doctors past and present, complete with a display of the current TARDIS prop and a less-than-completely-convincing Matt Smith waxwork in full Doctor garb. It was quite an eye-opener for my good friend Elliot, who’d not seen the costumes of some of the early Doctors, and was really rather impressed with the transition over time from the crotchety old gentleman, through to the crickety-crick-cricket stuff, gliding past the excesses of the 80s and onto modern times.

Funnily enough, Elliot overheard a small child protesting that Peter Davison’s fifth Doctor “wasn’t a proper Doctor” and “looked stupid", much to the chagrin of my friend Jack, who was out of earshot. Luckily, the child’s mother reassured her child that Davison was a “good Doctor”. Jack was happy, and I think that lady probably had a crush on Davison back in 1981; he was the youngest cast so far then and was, supposedly, quite a dish. With celery, no doubt.

It was great to see a wide variety of props, including numerous TARDIS keys, ranging from the Yale lock key – it looked like it was lost property from any shop – to the more intricate Gallifreyan designs. The sonic screwdriver throughout the years was showcased, and I was amused to see the prior one to the current model exhibited in its burned and ruined state. I’m no big fan of the Sonic, but it was nicely done.

Another wonderful area showed off TWO of the TARDIS control rooms in their full glory. This was sheer brilliance. I got to walk onto the Tenth Doctor’s TARDIS, the mesh floor springing just like it did on television under the Doctor’s scampering feet. In reality, the central construct looked enormous, and glowed in a soothing turquoise light. I actually took the opportunity to re-evaluate my declining view of this TARDIS. It was beautifully intricate, and bestowed a glimpse, especially so of the Ninth Doctor, of it being through the wars and showing the signs.

Now, I must point out that Jack and myself are quite ardent classic Doctor Who fans. Which meant that, what was around the corner from the 2005 TARDIS, resulted in a sharp intake of bated breath from both of us. What was this, I hear you ask? Well… the 1984 TARDIS. In all it’s retro-sci-fi glory. This particular console means a lot to me and Jack, as we’ve seen it a fair few times with our respective favourite Doctors. To see it beautifully cleaned and working – with flashing lights and working Time Rotor, just like on all our DVDs – was quite something. It might look dated with it’s CRT screens and wonderfully pressable-looking clunky keyboard buttons, but it was one of the highlights of the day. Even Elliot managed to say, despite seeing some awesome newer TARDIS consoles, that the 1980s one was, indeed, his favourite.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There was also the authentic 1980s TARDIS prop. Wow. Just. Wow.

Now, the real meat and potatoes. MONSTERS! I’ll let the photos do the talking…

Wow! There was plenty more, but that should do you, dear reader, for now. After wading through the smorgasbord of monsters, mutants, baddies and aliens, we came to what we expected. A shop! So we could, well, shop!

The gift shop was quite well stocked with a variety of merchandise, tons of DVDs, cut-outs of Amy Pond, T-shirts and other nick-nacks. Unfortunately, we decided not to purchase anything, it was pretty expensive; a souvenir programme with not much meat to it costing £10. Jack had fortuitously purchased two of the special green-screen prints that we’d participated in in the Previous Doctors exhibit. That was fun, pretending to grasp the TARDIS. Hopefully he’ll upload them soon, whenever he scans them. I have a partial picture here.

And that was that! A great day out, but it wasn’t over yet! We also had lunch in Pizza Hut in Kensington, where I took full advantage of my unlimited soft drinks. it was a hot day and I’d unfortunately missed breakfast, and the running for the train didn’t help.

Afterwards we’d decided to travel to Forbidden Planet on Shaftsbury Avenue. This was a really quite huge science-fiction merchandise store, with tons of Doctor Who stuff and other franchises. In the basement was a veritable treasure trove of books, DVDs and comics, some of which I will definitely be picking up.

Oh, and we found this in the middle of the shop…

Not to mention this outside Earl’s Court tube station. We did far too much TARDIS-hunting…

And to think, we took the train home. Still a great day, with great friends. Go and see this event if you are a Whovian, it’s worth the £20!

Wow, I’m all blogged out now. This blog entry has been a lot of fun to write, I must say. I’ve a few other non-Who topics on the horizon that I will be bringing to you soon.