What happens when the episodes you love don’t match everyone else’s?
Here’s what it feels like to do fandom “wrong”… After drinks and awkward small talk in the student bar, we turned to the question.
The question you ask whenever you meet another fan.
The question thats hidden in plain sight…
No, not Doctor Who?
Not even whos your favorite Doctor?
Rather: Whats your favorite episode?
Titles that are hallowed in the annals of Nu-Who history.
Finally, it was my turn to contribute.
I didnt know it at the time, but Id just made a Doctor Who fan faux pas.
See, theres a problem with Love & Monsters.
A problem every Doctor Who fan knows.
To quote The Simpsons Comic Book Guy, Love & Monsters is the Worst.
The writing is terrible.
It has a terrible monster designed by a 9-year old child.
I know all this.
And, yet, I still cant help myself.
Maybe its the mood I was in when I first saw it.
Maybe its my own goofy sense of humour.
Maybe its the ELO-heavy soundtrack, or Peter Kays total commitment to playing the grossest monster in Who history.
To put it simply: I love Love & Monsters.
Now, Im not here to talk you into loving it too.
Thats a fools errand, believe me.
Im not even here to talk about Doctor Who (although there will be plenty of that).
Im here to discuss something Ive been thinking about for a while now.
Something that I think affects all of us as fans.
Im here to talk about The Simpsons Comic Book Guy.
You know the Comic Book Guy.
Hes the guy who knows everything about his favourite show, except how to enjoy it.
The guardian of his favourite series.
Hes the fun police, thehappiness patrol, if you will.
And Im worried we might possibly be turning into him.
(Even Im not that sadly obsessed with the episode.)
What do I mean by that?
Well, lets take Star Trek as an example.
If youre a Trek fan, you dont just say that you love the show.
Your personal rankings probably vary, but theyre there all the same.
The trouble is that these rankings start to become set in stone.
After a certain point, people no longer argue about the relative merits of Enterprise.
Eventually, to even suggest that Enterprise is the most-interesting Trek show becomes impossible.
If you think that, you cant possibly be a real fan.
Thats what I mean when I say were all becoming the Comic Book Guy.
Maybe youve noticed this, too.
Maybe your preferred Star Wars is The Phantom Menace.
Maybe you prefer new Simpsons to the 1990s golden age.
What matters is that youve probably experienced something like what I felt in that Student Union bar.
That strange feeling like youre somehow doing fandom wrong.
Its always been natural for humans to clump together for shared interest.
For our ancestors, that shared interest was staying alive and warding off sabretooth tigers.
For us, its finding other people who enjoy the time-travelling adventures of a 2,000 year old alien.
In a funny way, similar rules still apply.
Primate cultures survive by ejecting members who upset the status quo.
To question things is to invite calamity, starvation and sabretooth tiger attacks.
In a very removed way, we can act like that in fandom.
We respect received opinion about our favourite show.
My point is that were hardwired to feel like part of a tribe.
That means that when we get fandom wrong, it can feel oddly isolating.
I dont think Im alone on this one.
Id wager a lot of us have had experience with fandom being too rigid.
Love And Monsters is the worst episode of Doctor Who.
Season 7 is Matt Smiths low-point in the role.
Enterprise isStar Trekfor idiots.
Dont upset the status quo.
Sadly, this means somethings reputation can blind us to its merits.
No, Im still not trying to convert you to Love & Monsters fandom.
Instead, Im talking about classic Tom Baker serial City Of Death.
Released in 1979, the story wasutterly panned.
Reviewers called it pure farce and said its characters were so stupid as to be unbelievable.
Today, City Of Death is considered one of the best examples of Doctor Who ever.
It should be enough that Revolutions makes you happy.
But fandom isnt a private thing.
I suppose all Im saying is that itd be nice if we kept an open mind about things.
Because thats the wonderful thing about fandom as I guess everyone here knows.
Its wonderful that the internet has brought so many of us together.
Its wonderful that fandom is now something the vast majority of the population unashamedly embraces.
Its a hugely positive development.
