Doctor Who Am I — A Review.

1st February, 2023: Dr Who Am I.

Right … 

It’s Wednesday, 1st February, 2023: and I have a free evening.

When do I never?

At any rate, I have a free evening: which means I’d normally watch a film.

A fictional story film, that’s designed to entertain.

Hopefully entertain: I’ve seen the odd clunker, over the years*.

Tonight, though … ?

I’m going to watch Doctor Who Am I, the 2022 documentary about the 1996 TV movie — and backdoor pilot — Doctor Who.

I’ll finish this post — and let you know more — tomorrow night.

~≈🩺≈~

2nd February, 2023.

Doctor Who Am I opens with a field of stars: and a montage of audio clips from episodes of Dr Who, spread over the show’s history.

Then closes in on San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge.

It then shows us writer Matthew Jacobs: and he and fellow producer, Vanessa Yuille, prepare to move some of his belongings out of storage.

Matthew is soon to move house … and — as he’s the writer of the 1996 Dr Who TV movie — do something he’s not done before.

Man up … and attend a US Dr Who convention.

After brushing up on on his own history — his father, Anthony Jacobs, played Doc Holliday in The Gunfighters, — and talking to the movie’s producer, Philip Segal, and to cast members, Paul McGann (The Doctor), Daphne Ashbrook (Dr Grace Holloway), and Eric Roberts (The Master).

After brushing up on that, Matthew has to face the one thing he’s been nervous about for so many years.

The fans … … … 

~≈🩺≈~

Now … 

What DID I make of Doctor Who Am I?

Did I go into it, as nervously as Matthew Jacobs?

Well, yes.

I was expecting … 

Well, lord knows what I was expecting.

I was vaguely expecting to be insulted: vaguely feeling I — a fan — would be shown up by a documentary that shows us to extremely odd.

About the weirdest person … ?   Was, bless him, Eric Roberts†: wearing what seemed to be sunglasses, indoors!

Instead?

It shows a bunch of fans who are keen to dress up: and fair more openly enthusiastic about the show than their UK counterparts.

As a thought?   One US fan pointed out that they’d been to a couple of UK conventions: and mildly disappointed that we looked like we’d walked in off the street‡.

American fans do like to dress up: and show amazing creativity in doing so.

One couple attended a convention with their baby: in a custom made Dalek Caan pram.

Another fan is visited at home … complete with an unnervingly accurate K1 robot in his garage.

US fans also seem far more confessional about their pasts, and what brought them to the show, than UK fans.

It reminds me of some of the Alcoholics Anonymous meetings I’ve been to. 

As for Matthews Jacobs himself?

Doctor Who Am I shows how some fans feel about the show: finding it a safe space, during tough childhoods.

Something Jacobs himself tells us he can sympathise with.

He’s a fan: who was lucky enough to visit the set when his father was working on the show.

But also a fan sharing the fact his father was bipolar … and a fan who lost his mother to suicide a few years after that visit.

One can see why Jacobs was nervous about attending conventions.

The TV movie still has something of a reputation.

But?

You can also see he fit right in the the rest of a very welcoming family.

Doctor Who Am I may not be the world’s greatest documentary.

Doctor Who Am I may not be the best crowdfunded film I’ve seen: the only other one I’ve watched is the utterly beautiful Troll Bridge.

But Doctor Who Am I is a very watchable eighty minutes of documentary: one that’s worth your time, fan or otherwise.

Doctor Who Am I.

★★☆☆

*        There’s a 2006 film called The Raven I suggest you avoid: you can’t even use it as fertiliser.

†        His version of the Master was interesting, I felt.   Delgado and Ainley played the character as a gentleman cad.   Simm, Gomez and Dhawan as a madman … but Roberts puts in an performance as a high powered Time Lord mafiosi: one you could just imagine thumping someone with an alien baseball bat … just for the hell of it …

‡        I’ve only ever been to a few conventions: I’ve never had the money to go to as many as I’d like.   Most of the earlier ones … were male dominated, and saw most of us in jeans and t-shirts.   The last one I went to, about ten years ago?   Was pleasantly surprising: there were girls, there.   In costumes.   (One young woman came as Anthony Ainley’s version of the Master.   But had to keep gluing her beard back on!)