This past weekend I had a bit of a
Sex & The City binge; it's okay, because I didn't eat Tim Tams or put on a face mask or anything like that - just immersed myself in some of the greatest dialogue and main-cast chemistry that television has gifted us.
Anyway, I was watching Season 5's
A Vogue Idea - where Carrie first visits
Vogue, and her editor discusses father issues and what they may have to do with Carrie's life being plagued with disastrous relationships - and pondering my own chequered history when it comes to mens, and something hit me (which, incidentally, doesn't really have anything to do with
Sex & The City, or father issues, for that matter):
It's all
Doctor Who's fault.
Allow me to (attempt to) explain.
It all started when, aged VERY YOUNG (I have to play
some cards close to my chest), I fell madly in love with the Seventh Doctor, played by Sylvester McCoy. At the time, his companion was Melanie (Bonnie Langford), and - naturally, since I had decided that I would grow up and marry the Doctor - I decided I
hated Mel.
There are some memorable drawings in the Bastow family archives penned by yours truly, depicting Mel meeting a variety of untimely and gruesome ends (tied up inside a volcano seemed to be a recurring theme). Because, after all, the Doctor would always turn up just in the nick of time to save her.
What I didn't realise at the time, of course, is that no one can really hook the Doctor in (romantically speaking). He is the ultimate unattainable man.
As Janet Fielding rather memorably told Paul "Eighth Doctor" McGann, Doctor Who has "two hearts, no dick".
So, there's plenty of potential for romance in the classic - not biblical - sense, and loads of loaded looks and snappy dialogue, but in the grander scheme of things, no hope for Who action. It's like dating someone who's taken a vow of chastity; only instead of being married to Jesus, he's married to the TARDIS.
Unsurprisingly, this means the romantic
Doctor Who fanfic business is booming. As is, regrettably, the fanvid world:
(Incidentally I can't watch Fourth Doctor episodes anymore without thinking of Tom Baker's alleged bedroom smalltalk of choice, "Tom's putting it in now...")
Thus, the core of most of
Doctor Who's URST is, well, just that - the exquisite pain of unrequited (or at least, unconsumatable - and yes, I just invented that word) love. After all, ten incarnations in and all he could do was mucho meaningful eye contact:
So, it follows that - after my formative years were spent marinating in endless longing glances and sad, crumpled goodbyes inside the TARDIS - I should end up pining for men who were no good for me, or just plain unsuitable, since as
Doctor Who demonstrated, pining's enough for some girls!
Funnily enough - though not
really, if you're a proper
Who nut - I preferred the olden times when there was simply no hope in hell that the Doctor would ever return his companions' affections; these days, they teeter ever closer to actual love scenes (which generally results in my barking "TWO HEARTS NO DICK!!!" at the screen).
So, there you have it - I spent thousands of dollars on therapy when I could have just done a
SATC marathon, jogged my memory, and realised that a lifetime of unsuitable choices in men can be easily whittled down and blamed upon the plucky Gallifreyan.
Hey, it's better than McDreamy.