Never That Young

Dearest Rachel –

So, this morning, I woke up to the bright sun pouring in from what seemed to be all sides of the room (you know how it is; the bedroom has windows all around it, apart from the one wall that’s attached to the laundry room). But when I grabbed my phone to check what time it was, I was disgusted to discover that it was only 6:30 in the morning. So I decided to roll over and go back to sleep, if I could.

What happened from there was a dream of what seemed like epic proportions, probably worthy of Andrew Cartmel himself. and if you don’t recognize the name (although I’m not entirely sure why you wouldn’t, being the fan that you were), just think about the last couple of years of the old series of Doctor Who. The whole scenario started in a large high school gymnasium, theater, with a performance involving most of the New Who doctors – David, Matt, Peter, and even Jodie – although the real action was taking place in the wings and the green room. I can’t go into a lot of detail regarding the plot and the dialogue, because dreams fade from memory so quickly, but there was alien mind control and puppeteering going on, and far too many disappearing students.

I found myself behind the eyes of the seventh doctor, as he interviewed the headmistress as he was going through certain documentation regarding the cases of the missing students. Even as he was doing this, he was in touch remotely with his companion, Ace, who was working somewhat under cover as a student – and essentially, as bait. She was already developing a fear of the theater tech department, because that was where the nerve processing center was, and even in her voice, you could hear the PTSD.

There were other side plots to this dream, such as the custodian/groundskeeper being one of the original human puppets, so that he could serve as a muscle to capture the necessary students. Still, I’m sure that a number of the aspects of this dream would be familiar to anyone like you who seen fifty years worth of the stuff; there were bits of “Remembrance of the Daleks,” mixed with “School Reunion,” and so forth – I’m not about to claim that my dream was an original story or anything like that. It was kind of fun to listen to McCoy’s Doctor do what seemed to be his best turn at a Colombo impression as he grilled the headmistress, even as the papers he was flipping through slowly but clearly began to implicate her in the whole scheme, even as she feigned ignorance and even concern about what was going on. Document after document suggested first that she was at least aware of what was going on, and then that she was basically behind everything in the first place.

Of course, there were things missing from the story, such as any clear alien influence – you sort of expect a harnessing of the students’ energy or soul in order to power something, as a general rule of the series. Indeed, now that I think about it, it’s the one thing that made the show as a whole palatable for younger audiences in the first place – the fact that the evil behind everything that the Doctor has to fight is always something from beyond the Earth itself (which rather makes sense, as you wouldn’t send a high-powered alien to fight anything less than high powered aliens). It was never mankind that was the true evil behind any scheme in any episode, despite the fact that we know how capable we as a species are of it, without any alien intervention (that we know of). Then again, if the show depicted a more realistically hard-bitten and cynical view of humanity, would the Doctor be so likely to be on our side in the first place?

Anyway, I can’t continue to elaborate on the plot, as it’s already pretty much dissipated in my mind. I’m also coming to the conclusion that, while the characters are slightly different (as far as which doctors and companions are playing which roles), it’s a fairly derivative story. Which is fine; it’s a dream after all. I can’t expect a masterpiece, and I’m not sure I really want to, because of its transient nature. It would have been impossible to commit to text in the time necessary, and I’d hate to think I’d lost an absolute epic. Still, it was enough to be worth telling you; you’d probably wish you could have seen it yourself, and maybe encourage me to try and create a few AI-generated images resembling the plot and scenes that came to mind. I’m not sure I have that level of energy for it, though.

What struck me (and I know this is unfair, but that’s how things are) was just how old Ace looked. I suppose the effect of being the Doctor’s companion will wear on somebody; and even before they had met, Ace had seen some stuff – especially when we read the expanded universe novels between the cancellation and the revival. But understand, her actress is six years my senior, and yet was playing a high school student when we were first watching it in college. So when you get down to it, she was never that young. Just imagine what she would look like if she were playing the role now. Yeah, passing her as a high school kid now would be beyond impossible. And it seems that my mind took that into account. She really looked like it had taken a toll on her.

I know you always wanted to hop in the TARDIS if it were to appear on our block – and maybe you would drag Daniel and I in with you if it had – but I wonder if it’s just as well that it’s all fiction. Setting aside the standard practicalities like disease and sanitation of certain venue in the past – to say nothing of the many alien scenarios we might end up in – the fact that the Doctor is almost drawn to battling evil on the regular would take the youth that you so treasured within yourself, and absolutely wreck it. As light-hearted as the show is about it (and you’ve seen the episodes, you know that assessment is tinged with sarcasm), the reality of history is far worse. And let’s not forget that humanity is perfectly capable of being awful without some kind of extraterrestrial force nudging us along; indeed, the two most iconic villain races were based on the most poisonous ideologies of the twentieth century. The ancients created gods in their own image; sci-fi tends to create villains in ours.

It’s not the sort of journey for a perpetual youngster like yourself; and if you’d had the opportunity to go, you’d never be that young again afterwards. And that’s assuming you’d survive.

Sorry this is such a downer note to end on; getting back into the news cycle is probably doing me no favors. I’ll catch you up when I have something else for you. Until then, keep an eye on me, and wish me luck. I’m going to need it.