‘The waiting,’ Tom Petty once remarked, ‘is the hardest part’ – and with nearly nine months to go until Doctor Who returns to our screens (the longest gap between episodes since its rebirth in 2005) the wait is going to be harder than ever.
With no Torchwood or Sarah Jane Adventures to fill in the time this year, what are fans to do to pass the time until Series 7 arrives?
CultBox has a few helpful* suggestions…
Watch lots of old stories on DVD
There’s a whole world of Doctor Who out there which a lot of people don’t either know or care about: 26 years’ worth of time-travelling through wobbly sets, dodgy special effects and plenty of other clichés that are only half true.
Yes, a lot of the classic episodes are interminable to watch, either through sloth-like pace, horribly jarring green-screen or, in our case, Jon Pertwee; but even if you aren’t a fanatically dedicated completist or consumed with a winsome nostalgia for a glorious age long gone, there are some really great stories that still stand up in 2012.
Dig out Remembrance of the Daleks, Pyramids of Mars or Inferno and enjoy. Or alternatively, find copies of Timelash, Invasion of the Dinosaurs or Paradise Towers and get spectacularly drunk. Either way, the time will fly – unless you accidentally find yourself watching the woefully-named Time Flight. Nothing can stop that dragging like half a dog trying to take itself for a walk.
Watch the new series being shot
Instead of going on a sleeping-and-vomiting-with-strangers holiday to Ayia Napa this year, why not spend the summer hanging around industrial facilities in South Wales watching Doctor Who being filmed?
What little you see might ruin the excitement of actually viewing the finished product when it arrives on BBC One, but think of all the exciting footage you can get on your phone to make into a YouTube video before you realise you’ve been stalking Casualty’s second unit for a week. Simply tag the clip ‘Doctor Who Series 7 spoilers’ anyway and watch the hit counter rise like a horse with a jetpack.
Have a baby (‘time head’ optional)
Nine months will pass and waiting for Doctor Who will be the very least of your worries.
Build a TARDIS of your own
Whip up a dimensionally-transcendental time machine out of a cardboard box, a bit of fuse wire and an old Nokia battery and jump forward to the autumn.
It’s a radical solution, but the benefits are bountiful beyond the excitement of seeing brand new Doctor Who. For one thing, you’ll miss the Olympics. If your interest in London 2012 only extends as far as being concerned about the massive sensory overload of minor sports that’ll explode from the BBC channels like an unkindness of ravens leaving the Tower of London because it’s been turned into a table-tennis venue, this is a perfect way out.
Jump into your homemade space/time craft, zoom forward to September, and before you can say, ‘Press the red button to watch Steve Rider talking earnestly about the nineteenth round in today’s equestrianism,’ you’ll have missed the whole thing.
Become Steven Moffat
It’s not the easiest thing to do, unless you find a Being John Malkovitch-style doorway that leads directly into his mind, but there’s no better way of passing the time until the new series starts than actually creating it yourself.
Story arcs or standalone adventures? The return of River Song or the return of the Daleks? An attractive new female companion in her early twenties from contemporary Britain or an attractive new female companion in her early twenties from contemporary Britain? YOU DECIDE.
*Probably not that helpful at all, really. But at least, by reading it, you’re marginally closer to the new series of Doctor Who than you were at the top of the screen.
What are your plans to pass the time until Series 7? Let us know below…