The Geeks’ Revenge

Now, I’m back from a three night adventure in London, and whilst I would very much like to go into the details of that such visit, a time will come later on when I can do all of that. So instead, I thought let’s do a random culture blog because I really ought to.

It’s been Youtube Geek Week, and to my shame, I have absolutely not been following. But I’ve come on this morning to find some exasperatingly exciting videos which I’ve missed, and now wholly caught up on. The thing about Youtube is there are different uses of it. There are people who go on to cry at videos of kittens (let it all out…), to cringe at skateboarders falling off skateboards and then there are people who have an account and subscribe to the ‘vloggers’. Of course, there are people who do all of those things (like me). I’m going to talk about the vloggers because that, for me, was the centre of Geek Week.

A notable video was Alex Day’s new Chameleon Circuit music video, “Teenage Rebel”, and although the music may not be to your taste, I love the stories they tell for the sake of the Doctor Who fandom. Chameleon Circuit is trock, timelord rock, in case you don’t know. It was to my amazement that they actually managed to get unprecedented time filming inside of the Tardis set. I, personally, would have died having been given that opportunity. The actual music video is here if you want to view that, but I’ll embed the behind the scenes so we may freak out together…

Can you see this going somewhere? Doctor Who. Oh dear me, Doctor Who. I feel a rant coming on… Doctor Who has done its “big announcement” and had its limelight so I feel its necessary to blog about it. And I won’t censor my views. I refuse.

Doctor Who has changed, and I don’t think its for the better. I can’t go into the entire series or we’ll be here too long, so I’ll simply talk about the whole live ‘ceremony’. What even? What was that about? A fusillade of self-proclamation. One of the greatest things, I thought, about Doctor Who was that it was subtly brilliant. It had depth, character, story, emotion, and it had kept all this subtly and courteously. Now it has become something of a trend, or a fashion, to say you love Doctor Who, and the stories milk that fact. And it shows, people, it shows! They aren’t deep stories (if there’s something in them, it doesn’t amount to much plot-wise) and the focus is no longer on getting those deep stories. It’s about promoting the ‘coolness’ of Doctor Who. Frankly, I’m raging. Doctor Who isn’t about being popular; being quirky or cool; or even being a geek or still further, British.

What it was, was a collection of stories made with great skill and care into a fantastic television program, which, yes, contained a somewhat british elegance to it, and made the geeks of this world (unite!) feel truly complete. I’m trying to say, and I hope you’ll understand this despite a bad explanation, that without those stories that made Doctor Who’s success and the content of that brilliant television program being the primary feature of Doctor Who as a concept, all of the things it creates now (the ‘geek’/british pride, the dw community), will crumble as quickly as any fashion does. And if we don’t understand that, I know for sure that Doctor Who has certainly lost one otherwise loyal follower, but it may even find that it loses its entire meaning altogether.

The live ceremony was a shambles. It was a load of rubbish. And I’m quite happy to be frank about that. So I’m calling all old Doctor Who fans, and any true-hearted geeks. Take a stand. Make some noise. And save Doctor Who!