November 7, 2012

The 2009 Doctor Who Special episodes were all released in a 5 DVD disc set in January of 2010 and in the US in February 2010.  The Complete Specials not only included great DVD extras such as David's video diaries and footage from his appearance at 2009 Comic Con, but we were also treated to a wonderful foreward written by David in the DVD booklet.

In a suburban house in Paisley a wee boy was sticky-taping the leg of his oft-snapped spectacles back together. He couldn’t remember a time when they hadn’t been augmented with at least one area of peeling sellotape. Suddenly and quite without warning there was a rupture in the fabric of space and time and a tall, skinny man tumbled through a wormhole in the middle of the living room and landed in a puddle of brown coat at the boy’s feet.
“Who are you?” asked the boy. Confused and a little scared, but mostly loving it.
“Oh - oh, hello. It’s you! I’m you… you’re… me.”
“Eh?” the boy asked. (Try as she might the boy’s mother could not get him to say “pardon”.)
“I’m you. In your future. I’m thirty-eight years old.”
Because he was eight the boy accepted this quite quickly. “Is that my coat then? Can I try it on?”
“No, no, no - ” interrupted the skinny man, slightly disappointed his time-travelling was being greeted with so little wonderment. “This is my costume. These clothes are The Doctor’s. In thirty years’ time you get to play The Doctor. What do you think of that?!”

“Tom Baker leaves!” the boy boggled.
“Well… yes, eventually - “
“And then I take over?”
“Not quite, no, there’s a bit of time in between but…”
“And that’s what The Doctor wears?”
“Yes. Yes it is.”
The boy took a moment to give this his full attention. “I prefer the scarf.”
The skinny man looked a little crushed. “But this is really cool. People write about this outfit in newspapers and style magazines. This is geek chic!… But actually you’re right; people never really get over the scarf.”
“Are the monsters good?” the boy asked.
“Oh there are some great ones. And you get to fight the Daleks, and the Cybermen - “
” - and the Zygons?!!”
“Erm, no, no not the Zygons. But loads of other ones that you’ll love. And guess what… Sarah comes back! And K-9!”
“K-9 leaves too!!” the boy groaned.
“Well, yes but he comes back - with you. And there are loads of great companions. Some of them aren’t even born yet - but they’re just brilliant! And you won’t believe this, but you know Bernard Cribbins from ‘The Wombles’?”
” - and ‘Jackanory’ - “
” - and ‘Jackanory’, yes. Well he’s in it too. You get to do all sorts of scenes with him.”
“That’s amazing!”
“It is.”
“Why do I have to wait so long?” asked the boy.
“Eh? I mean, pardon?”
“You’re really old.”
“I don’t think - well - not so - it’s all relative.” The skinny man protested.
“And how come your hair’s all dark?” the wee boy asked.
“That just happens… round about twelve I think.” The skinny man regarded his younger self. “Look there’s quite a bit of stuff to get through first but hang in there. It’s worth it. I promise. I can’t tell you how much you’ll love it.”
“Really? Do I really get to be The Doctor?”
“You do. And listen - you are going to have: the best time of your life.”
And with that the skinny man disappeared in a swirl of pulsing temporal vortex. The wee boy held his damaged glasses in front of his face as the wormhole blinked out of existence. That was unexpected, he thought. And pretty unlikely. Then he turned his attention back to the sellotape and the glasses. “The Creature From the Pit” Part Two was on later. He needed to be ready.

David John McDonald, 3rd November 1979/2009