Doctor Who - An Autistic Specialty?

One of the things I've noticed since getting involved with the online autistic community is that a lot of us seem to share a common love of Doctor Who, so I wanted to have a look at what about the show appeals so much to us as a community.

I'll start off with my own thoughts and experiences first. I remember watching it when I was at primary school, so somewhere between the ages of 5 and 11. My mum borrowed some VHS videos (DVDs were nowhere near being a thing at the time) of some old series from somebody she knew when she used to run the after school play group and I specifically remember watching Tom Baker's Doctor. I think he stood out to me because of his eccentricity, his colourful scarf and, of course his love of jelly babies. I was also captivated by the eerie theme music and The Doctor's greatest nemesis the Daleks. I've always, always been fascinated by Daleks. When I was a kid there was a shop near where my grandparents used to live that had a life size Dalek model and whenever we went into the shop I used to stand staring at it for ages, or if we were just passing by on our way to see my grandparents I'd stare at it through the window where there was a clear view of it. I'm not sure what I love so much about Daleks other than the utter ridiculousness of what is essentially a mutant octopus in an armoured pepper pot being the most dangerous creature in the universe. I quite like the ridiculous, which is why I'm such a big wrestling fan. In terms of the show as a whole I like it for its monsters, the freedom that The Doctor has to go any time and anywhere, and the running theme of isolation. The Doctor has always flitted from companion to companion but ultimately ends up alone, which I find very relatable.

For a bit of research I asked around on Twitter a few weeks ago to find out what my fellow auties enjoy about Doctor Who. Leading on from the last point I made there seems to be a common theme of relating to The Doctor as an alien misfit doing his own thing while always trying to do good in the universe. Acceptance is another common theme in the replies I got. The Doctor is very accepting of all beings and always looks for the good in them, trying to help without encouraging violence - particularly guns. Georgia Harper (@MindTheFlap on Twitter and author of the blog Mind The Flap) is somebody in the autistic community who's more in the public eye and is open about her love of the show. For her it became an important social tool while she was at uni. She joined Oxford University's Doctor Who Society and enjoyed having the structure that it gave to socialising with other fans. This makes a lot of sense from an autistic point of view as we often prefer structures and routines in our lives where possible. From personal experience, I know that unexpected events in social situations especially can completely throw me off, leaving me in a struggle to work out what to do or say.

There are lots of different reasons to love Doctor Who whether you're autistic or not. There's so much variety in the show that most people are bound to find something throughout its 56 year history that they like. I wasn't keen on Peter Capaldi's first 2 series and almost stopped watching at that point, but I decided to give it 1 more series before I gave up on it completely and I'm glad I did. His 3rd and final series well and truly clawed the show back in my opinion. There has been some criticism of Jodie Whittaker's debut series as The Doctor. While I really enjoyed Jodie's portrayal of the first ever female incarnation of The Doctor I do agree that the writing of the series as a whole left something to be desired, which is frustrating considering how brilliant Rosa (episode 3) was. I really hope they pick it back up for the next series. Of course, when the show returned from its long hiatus in 2005 it was in a different and much more modern format. Pre-hiatus the show was dragged out a lot more with storylines that spanned entire series, whereas from 2005 onward each episode is its own separate story (with just the occasional "To be continued...") but at the same time each episode also fits into the overall story of the series, usually building up to a clash with that particular series' big bad.

Doctor Who is something I've been intensely interested in for as long as I can remember, but because of the timing of its hiatus/return I didn't really appreciate it as a story telling device until it came back in 2005. While it ran before its hiatus I was only really old enough to appreciate it in terms of "Ooh, there's a monster. He looks big and bad," or "That sonic screwdriver looks cool!" I commented on a Twitter thread recently about our favourite Doctors, and I had to say that for me Matt Smith is THE Doctor because I feel like I relate to him so much more than the others.