A Letter to the Eighth Doctor

As something of a postscript to our McGanniversary celebrations, Dominic Fellows intercepts a letter to the Eighth Doctor.

Hello Doctor, number eight aren’t you?

It’s The Doctor here, fourteen I think, though I could be fifteen I lose count these days.

Anyway, I know I’m breaking a few laws of time here but I need to tell you something of vital importance.

For me, its May 27th 2016, which is significant for reasons I can’t divulge. For you, if my calculations are correct, it’s January 1st 2000 and you’ve just left Grace in San Francisco.

I’m afraid to say that this is actually where our travels end. For a time. Some malevolent force is conspiring to stop you before you even get started, the most evil force in the galaxy in fact: indifference. A word of advice, never underestimate indifference, its destroyed so much art, but I digress.

Now where was I, oh yes, as I was saying, this is where your journey ends, before its begun. I need to tell you a story, can’t tell you who it’s about, aforementioned laws of time and all that, but I’m sure you’ll understand.

It’s about a man who came into the world in a blaze of glory. His accolades, for want of a better phrase, welcomed him with open arms. They took him into their hearts and loved him completely. And then he was gone, his reign over as soon as it had begun. There was hope for more, but it wasn’t to be.

Fortunately, this is not quite where the story ends. While those in power, sought to forget him, his followers would not. So they kept him alive the only way they could. They told stories. Many of these stories were written down and shared. Although the man was gone his presence was felt. But they didn’t stop there, some of these stories were depicted as art, so there was still a face to the name. In time, some say he came back. They never saw him, but they heard of his new adventures. To the world at large, he seemed to be a footnote in the annals of history, but to those that knew, he was something far greater, something they could believe in and hope for and eventually he did return, more triumphant than ever. There had been others since then of course, but to have him back, if only to say goodbye somehow made it all worthwhile.

So it seems that everything has a way of working out for the best in the end, but probably not the way you expected. It seems that life, even a mythical life, always finds a way.

Thanks to the erraticism of the TARDIS it’s now May 27th 1996. And I want to tell my younger self not to worry. That’s all.

I have to sign off now, said too much as I always do and no doubt there’s a Rill somewhere that needs saving.

And so as the cockney said to the cricketer;

‘You know what Doctor? You were my Doctor.’

Dominic Fellows is an actor and writer from Birmingham in the UK. He is also producer of the group Stripped Down Theatre (find them on Facebook). His shows have had more than one or two ‘geeky gags’ in them.