Who's Who? He's the Doctor, Who Else?
- Publication: The Vancouver Sun
- Date: 1985-08-17
- Author: Lee Bacchus
- Page: D 3
- Language: English
"MY life revolves around Doctor Who." Sylvia Portillo, a 36-year-old telephone company supervisor from Seattle, is serious. After all, she has taped all of the Doctor Who programs since they first appeared on KVOS (Ch. 12, Saturdays at midnight) two years ago, and won't go out Saturday nights for fear of missing an episode.
Portillo and her friends, Katheleen Anderson, 35, and Anna Dahlia, 39, have come to Western Washington University for the Doctor Who Festival and Exhibition. Anderson and Dahlia, too, are serious about this quirky BBC science fiction export.
"If you want to quote me, you can say I'm in love with Tom Baker [one of six actors who has portrayed Doctor Who]," admits Dahlia.
"Saturday nights I go to bed at 7 and then get up at midnight to watch the show," Anderson says. "Sometimes it can be two hours long and I don't want to get tired."
"If you think we're just being shallow," adds Dahlia, "well, we just love escapism ... But Doctor Who is more fun than soap operas. I mean, how many times can you listen to. "Oh my God. Lance. it's you!"
So who the heck is Doctor Who and why is he quickly becoming a major cult hero in North America?
In the Carver Gym on the Western Washington University campus you don't have to go tar to find the answer. Wandering among approximately 600 fans —many from Vancouver — who are buying such Doctor Who paraphernalia as T-shirts, wallets, pins, buttons, bags, calendars, posters, paperback and record albums is Michael Hoperoft, a 22-year-old university student from Portland, who loves to talk Whoovian. Or is that Whoiee? Or Whoite?
"There's no set name for us," Hoperoft says. "I use Whoies. Like the Star Trek fans are Trekkies."
Hoperoft, a tall, paunchy redhead, is wearing a blue suit, with white socks, heavy black loafers and a long (it extends down to his thighs) multi-colored tie. On each side of the pointy part of his shirt collar he has drawn a question mark with a red felt pen. It's an homage to the Doctor, who wears a similar insignia on his collar.
Put Hoperoft's mouth in motion with a question and he motors until you shut him down with the excuse you have a Sunday afternoon deadline or something. But he's a great source of meaningful (and meaningless) Doctor Who information.
Such as:
• Doctor Who premiered on Nov. 23, 1963 as a 25-minute serial on the BBC and has resulted in more than 600 episodes over the last 22 years.
• Doctor Who is not the Doctor's name. "No one knows his real name." Hoperoft says. "He is always referred to only as 'the Doctor.' Doctor Who is just the title of the TV show."
• Doctor Who — sorry — the Doctor is not a human being. He is a renegade "Timelord" from the planet Gallifrey, and uses a time machine that looks identical to a British police call box to travel at will through time and space.
• There have been six different actors who have portrayed the Doctor. The first was William Hartnell, then came Patrick Troughton, John Pertwee. Tom Baker (the one who appears on KVOS's telecasts), Peter Davison, and the current Doctor, Colin Baker (no relation to Tom).
These role changes are explained in the series as a Gallifreyan form of regeneration. Apparently, the Doctor can change go through a metapmorphic renewal whenever he feels like it.
• Each of the Doctors had a different personality. Davison was a bit of a cricket dandy and like to wear a stalk of celery in his lapel.
Tom Baker, (the most familiar and most popular with North American viewers) liked to wear a gigantic woolen scarf (replicas sell for $50 at the festival) and offer everyone in this universe and others Jelly Babies, a popular British confection.
Colin Baker's character is simply crazy, Hoperoft says.
So we know who Who is. but how about why Who has such a charismatic effect.
"It's British. It's totally different from American science fiction shows," says Ron Katz, the 40-year-old president of the Doctor Who Fan Club of America, arid the man responsible for mounting the festival end exhibition in Bellingham.
"The sets aren't slick, the monsters are a little hokey at times but It has terrific acting and great scripts and it has that special understated British sense of humor If you turned the show on and had never seen Doctor Who before you might wonder if it was all some gigantic joke."
A former Denver clothing store owner, Katz saw his first Doctor Who just three years ago. Today, he says there are more than 40,000 members who pay a $5 yearly membership (Canadians must pay $10) to belong in the DWFCA and to receive the club newsletter, the Whovian Times. (P.O. Box 6024, Denver, Colorado, 80206.)
"We get all sorts of people in our club," Katz says. 'About the only certain thing we know from our demographic studies is that the average age of our members is 32."
Ken Wong, a Vancouver environmental lab technician and staunch Whoie, is 35. Wong wants to be the first to form a Vancouver-based Doctor Who fan club. He has only 15 fans signed up so far but he posted his name and address (3751 Sunset, Burnaby.) during the festival and hopes to collect a few more local members.
Wong, an all-round science fiction and fantasy fan. saw his first Doctor Who in 1965, when the CBUT broadcast five serials. Wong, like Hoperoft, is a little hard to stop once he gets started talking about Doctor Who chronology. He can give you an exact list of which episodes have aired on KVOS: how many episodes have been lost or destroyed by the BBC (131); which local stations previously carried the program and when (CBUT-1965, CKVU-1976): and which of the many national Doctor Who fan clubs is the best (he claims the Doctor Who Information Network — 303 Houghton Avenue South, Hamilton — is the best Canada has to offer).
Caption: TOP: Whoies, some dressed as the Doctor, centre, and others as his coherts, at a Dr. Who convention in New Orleans. RIGHT: Ken Wong, Burnaby Whole, with Dr. Who book and magazine collection
The BBC tried, but there's no stopping the Doctor
Doctor Who is on hold in Britain.
Last year the BBC threatened to cancel the series but after howls of protest, including a march on parliament, relented and promised to continue the series in the fall of 1986 after an 18-month hiatus. It is riot yet clear whether the show will continue after the 1986-87 season, a question that has many Whoies living in a perpetual state of fear.
Locally, a representative for KVOS said the station plans to run at least 26 more episodes (the remainder of the syndication package) of Doctor Who (Tom Baker version). She said the series "is not doing as Well as we would like" and the station would have to re-evaluate its position at the end of the current run.
Disclaimer: These citations are created on-the-fly using primitive parsing techniques. You should double-check all citations. Send feedback to whovian@cuttingsarchive.org
- APA 6th ed.: Bacchus, Lee (1985-08-17). Who's Who? He's the Doctor, Who Else?. The Vancouver Sun p. D 3.
- MLA 7th ed.: Bacchus, Lee. "Who's Who? He's the Doctor, Who Else?." The Vancouver Sun [add city] 1985-08-17, D 3. Print.
- Chicago 15th ed.: Bacchus, Lee. "Who's Who? He's the Doctor, Who Else?." The Vancouver Sun, edition, sec., 1985-08-17
- Turabian: Bacchus, Lee. "Who's Who? He's the Doctor, Who Else?." The Vancouver Sun, 1985-08-17, section, D 3 edition.
- Wikipedia (this article): <ref>{{cite news| title=Who's Who? He's the Doctor, Who Else? | url=http://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php/Who%27s_Who%3F_He%27s_the_Doctor,_Who_Else%3F | work=The Vancouver Sun | pages=D 3 | date=1985-08-17 | via=Doctor Who Cuttings Archive | accessdate=24 March 2025 }}</ref>
- Wikipedia (this page): <ref>{{cite web | title=Who's Who? He's the Doctor, Who Else? | url=http://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php/Who%27s_Who%3F_He%27s_the_Doctor,_Who_Else%3F | work=Doctor Who Cuttings Archive | accessdate=24 March 2025}}</ref>
