Why Isn’t Your Family Watching Doctor Who?! Five Reasons They Should…

Zena Shapter TardisI’ve been watching Doctor Who since I was eight years old. I used to be terrified by its monsters. Each adventure swept me away so convincingly I often felt something was coming to get me. Still, I looked forward to every – single – episode.

Now that I’m a mum, and my two children are old enough, we’ve started watching Doctor Who as a family and I couldn’t be happier. Not only do I get to enjoy re-runs already knowing and appreciating each season’s overall story arc, but I can see it making my kids better human beings.

Better, you ask, how so?

Well, here are five things the modern seasons of Doctor Who teaches…

WARNING: SPOILERS!!

1. You Make Better Decisions In A Group

Whenever Doctor Who travels alone, he makes mistakes. In each episode he finds himself in a difficult situation facing impossible choices. Important decisions like that should never be made by a single person acting alone, as there are so many options in life, and multiple brains thinking together can better identify the most appropriate course of action. When Doctor Who has no one to talk things through with it leads to bad decisions. As parents, we want our kids to communicate with us, talk problems through with us and their closest friends. Doctor Who teaches them that this is the correct procedure!

2. Different People Perceive The Same Thing In Different Ways

To most characters in Doctor Who, he is a hero. But to others he is the predator, the storm, the beast, the valeyard… In helping one world or community, he might disadvantage or even destroy another. He tries to be as fair as possible and ensure no one suffers. But you can’t please everyone. The same is true in real life. No matter what you do, it’s never going to be good enough for everyone. So just do your best and leave it at that. I don’t want my kids worrying about how they’re perceived by every – single – kid – at – school.

3. Sometimes Love Means Sacrifice

To make love work, you need to compromise. Of course in Doctor Who this is taken to extremes – so Rory waits for Amy for two thousand years and the impossible girl throws herself into the doctor’s timeline to stop all his good work unravelling. I’m constantly telling my kids to treat others how they wish to be treated themselves. Now I just ask them, ‘did Amy want a weeping angel to consume her time-potential energy? No, but she did it so Rory wouldn’t be alone’, and they get it.

4. Attacking Isn’t Always Attacking

DalekZenaSome episodes of Doctor Who feature a monster attacking the doctor, his companion(s), the tardis or a group of people they encounter. At first it can be quite concerning! The writers are good at ramping up the tension! But more often than not the monsters turn out to have feelings too. They’re not attacking – they’re defending someone or something, trying to escape, seeking a new home, trying to rescue a loved one, in pain, or in need of help. The doctor finds out why they’re acting the way they do, and then helps to fix things. We should all be more like the doctor! Yes, there will always be monsters, plain and simple. But some monsters are only doing what we might do in the same situation.

5. Science is Fun, Clever is Fun

Zena Shapter Drawing Doctor Who

My inspired 9yr old daughter sketching characters from Doctor Who! She loves meeting new monsters so she can sketch them!

The scientific concepts and theories in Doctor Who are well-researched and well-explained. It’s great for teaching my kids about physics, biology and chemistry. More importantly, however, it’s presented in a fun way. Knowing things is fun. And if there’s one thing that all the characters in the show agree on, friends or enemies, it’s that the doctor is clever, and that makes him very powerful. Knowledge is power! And in watching Doctor Who my kids see this for themselves episode after episode. I want them to appreciate knowledge and learning. I want them to see it as fun too. So hurray for Doctor Who!

Of course there are plenty of other reasons why watching Doctor Who as a family is good – it’s thrilling and adventurous, it’s creative, it offers hope, as a writer of speculative fiction I find it personally inspiring, and snugging up on the sofa together to watch is my personal favourite!

Why don’t you give it a go? And if you already watch, what reasons can you add to my list?!!

Zena Shapter

Zena Shapter writes from a castle in a flying city hidden by a thundercloud, reaching across age and genre into the heart of storytelling. A multi-award-winning author of speculative and contemporary fiction, she teaches writing at festivals, libraries and schools, judges various literary awards, mentors and edits other writers, and encourages everyone to value the importance of creativity. She loves movies, frogs, chocolate, and potatoes, though not at the same time!

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