Pinterest is a great way for people to find and share pictures and tidbits on their favorite passions. My pins tend to center around comic book characters, epic sports cars, random favorite anime series and other science fiction odds and ends. Pinterest even provides various categories for you to browse based upon your general interests and I find that I frequently browse the Geek category.
The thing is, the category may be called Geek but what it really should be called "Pining for Dr. Who and Sherlock Fan Girl Pins". Let me get this out of the way, I am a true nerd/geek (whichever you choose) and I am very much "Old School". I have met and know more than my fair share of women who are true, Old School nerds/geeks like me. Old School meaning that the person in question has been this way ever since they can remember. Science fiction has always dominated my interests and most likely will continue to do so until I pass on into the next world (can the next world be cyberpunk please?).
"What does this have to do with the Geek category of Pinterest?", you ask. Okay, go to the Pinterest website and browse the Geek category for 5 minutes. What do you predominantly see? Pins gushing over how adorable David Tenant, Matt Smith and Benedict Cumberbatch are. Now, I know next to nothing about this Sherlock show that can be found on BBC and BBC America, but I do know a thing or two about Dr. Who. In fact, I can pretty much guarantee that I know far more about Dr. Who than 90% of these fan girls posting about how awesome Doctor number s10 and 11 are.
You see, the BBC rebooted Dr. Who back in 2005 after more than a decade without airing the various adventures of the Gallifreyan Time Lord and his ever present "Companions" in his Time And Relative Dimension In Space (TARDIS). This new series is quite excellent from what I've seen and the Doctor has been played by 3 separate actors over the last 7 years. Doctors 9, 10 and 11 (Christopher Eccleston, David Tenant and Math Smith respectively) have all done an excellent job of furthering the mystery, intrigue and quirkiness of the character. As a result, there are now legions of new Dr. Who fans, a much greater percentage of them women than ever before, fawning over the Doctor. All of these new found fans aren't real Whovians (as they call themselves) in my mind and need to understand and respect the immense history this show has.
When I was 7 years old and visiting my father in Minneapolis during the summer, I stumbled onto this strange science fiction show starring a tall man with curly hair in a hat, a very multicolored scarf and an English accent, playing on PBS every day. The production value was shabby at best and the monsters looked very fake but the show was the coolest thing next to Star Trek that I had ever seen. This show was Dr. Who, of course, and I had started watching during the Tom Baker years. No one I knew or talked to had ever heard of this show and I soon discovered that Dr. Who had been around for a very long time, even back then in the early 80's. I only got to watch Dr. Who when I was visiting Dad because he had cable, which something that my mother never believed in. When I was able to, I watched the show religiously and came to know about such things as Daleks (a villain that I've had a life long obsession with), Cybermen, The Master, Sontarans and Silurians. I didn't just experience Tom Baker (the 5th incarnation) as the Doctor, I spent time with Patrick Troughton (2nd), Jon Pertwee (3rd), Peter Davison (5th) and even an episode or two of Colin Baker (6th). Some of the episodes I watched were so old that they were still in black and white.
Like I said, I never once encountered anyone else who knew what Dr. Who was or had even heard of it. It was like my own little secret, daily science fiction television show. Eventually Dr. Who all but disappeared in the 90's and I left it behind..... until 2005. Dr. Who came roaring back with a new face, and new companion and a much higher production value than anything seen before. During that roughly 15 year gap, my science fiction tastes had matured considerably and regarded anything science fiction to be found on television to be of questionable quality. I'm not someone who consumes mass quantities of television (I haven't had any television service for close to two years now and have gone long periods of time without it in the past) so the return of Dr. Who was a minor blip on my radar. I did tune in to watch the return of the Daleks and Cybermen and was very satisfied with the stories told. Here we are six years later and Dr. Who is huge franchise now.... full of fan girls dreaming of being whisked away in the middle of the night by a handsome stranger with an English accent and his blue police box.
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