In a previous blog post, I revealed how I started writing down the UK Top 40 in 1993 and carried on for another 20 years. Alongside this sat another lengthy undertaking. This began on the 23rd of November 1998. Doctor Who fans will recognise this date as the show’s 35th anniversary. Sod all else was happening at the time for Doctor Who, so I thought it was the perfect time to begin a full rewatch. But I was going to do more than just watch it.
My idea was that I would watch every story in order, then create a fact file about it. This would briefly include the plot, but also everything we might learn about the Doctor, his companions, his home planet, the history of the various planets he visits including Earth, his enemies and so on and so forth.
I referred to this ongoing project as my Doctor Who website. This despite the fact that I had no Internet access in November 1998 and it would be several years before I did. It was in fact a Microsoft Word document. I hoped that in the future it might become a website. In fact, although I did put several entries from it on this blog and on Facebook a few years ago, it never became a website.
How long would you imagine this would take you? If you assume a rate of one story per week, then you should reach Survival within 3 years. I was 22 at the time and assumed I’d get it done by the time I was 25 or 26.
It took me 3 years to polish off the 50 stories from the 1960s, which placed me almost one third of the way through. I revised my reckoning - at the latest, I’d finish by the time I turned 31. This means it would’ve taken rather longer than I had anticipated, but at least it would be finished.
Then something unexpected happened. In the summer of 2001, I fell in love. Soon, I was living with someone and, before too long, married to her. This somewhat slowed my progress. Essentially, life gets in the way of pointless projects.
So, after another 3 years, I’d ticked off another 35 stories, placing me at the end of Tom Baker’s 2nd season. But then the unthinkable happened. Doctor Who returned to television. Suddenly, rather than 156 stories, there were potentially unlimited stories for me to cover. The project had grown considerably in scope.
I reached the hundredth story in 2008, a decade after I started. Then, in 2009, my first child was born. You can see where this is going, can’t you?
Progress massively slowed. Seven stories in 2010. A further seven in the following 3 years. I began season 20 in the summer of 2014. I reached Terminus in August 2015. And then...
... that’s as far as it went. For the past three years, I have been waiting to see when I would get around to doing Enlightenment. By then, I have realised I was never going to finish this project. I thought that The Five Doctors would be a good place to finish. Only three more stories to get through. Surely?
In 2018, I came to the realisation that that was never going to happen. Terminus was my terminus. Which is appropriate in its own way.
I started to write this blog entry in November 2018 and I’m finishing it in January 2019, which is fairly typical of how this venture has gone. The 42-year-old can see no further point in carrying on the ridiculous project that the 22-year-old started. And now, maybe, after many years, I can actually watch Enlightenment. And I won’t even write anything down.
