Not too hard to tell what this piece is about, but Christmas Day almost brought a little tear to my eye as I settled down to watch Doctor Who with my family.
It’s very rare that we’re all together, but this gathering did give me chance to experience something that everybody has been talking about since Easter 2005 - that strange ability for Doctor Who to bring the entire family together, united in front of the box for 60 minutes. I’ve been a bit dubious about it all really, but it turns out to be true. I’m usually banished to the black and white portable upstairs when one of those strange sci-fi things I like is on, but not this Christmas. Indeed, I was pushed to find a decent vantage point in easy reach of the nut bowl, so packed was the living room with nephews, brothers, sister-in-laws and parents. But there we were come 7pm, each and every one of us.
And something else that nearly brought a tear to this hardened TV viewer’s eyes… That old cliche about kids hiding behind the sofa when Doctor Who is on? Turns out to be true, too. Well, behind the cushions at any rate. Five-year-old nephew sitting next to me, very brave for the most part, whispered a request for me to hand him the cushion to duck behind every time the robot Santas with the big guns came on. After 30 years, things have come full circle in the Wright household (although it’s the 35-year-old who’s still getting the Doctor Who Annual from his mum on Christmas morning…)
