Fantastic

It was a Saturday evening ten years ago today. I plopped my six-month old daughter in my lap in front of the television, all because once upon a time there used to be this thing that I loved. I loved it a lot. And it was there throughout my childhood until one day it wasn't any more. As I grew older, I forgot about it a little bit. Until I forgot about it a lot.

I heard the odd rumbling every now and then that it was coming back. To be honest, I wasn't even that excited. It had tried to come back before.

Yet there I was, sitting there, my gurgling, squirming progeny cradled in the crook of my arms. I leaned in towards my daughter’s ear and I said: “This is Doctor Who. You’re gonna love it.”

The music started. That music. That strange, ethereal, swooping music. And that little blue box from years gone by was suddenly back - swirling and hurtling into a cascading blue vortex. In so many ways, it all came rushing back.

"I'm the Doctor, by the way, what's your name?"
"Rose."
"Nice to meet you, Rose. Run for your life!"

People sometimes like to say that the hairs stand up on the back of their neck, but they don’t mean it most of the time. Not really. It’s just evocative shorthand.

You know what? The hairs did stand up on the back of my neck.

From a dispassionate, purely objective, critical point of view, it wasn't perfect. It was slightly clunky and ramshackle in the endearing way that it always had been. Thing is: I’m not a dispassionate person. To me, it was perfection.

I was right, by the way, she did grow up to love it. Keep running, Doctor.

UPDATE: When I wrote the above, I hadn't yet read the below. Great minds and all that...