The Doctor Who Experience!

Dust off your Converse, it’s time to save the universe! When you enter the Doctor Who Experience, you enter the Whoniverse itself, complete with danger, spacey-wacey knick-knacks, and a mad man with a box.

If you don’t get this, I highly suggest you watch an episode or two. Not only will this entry make more sense if you do, you’ll also understand some of my obscure references more. But if you don’t want to read through all my gooey, giggly fangirling, then you should at least check out the photos. Some of them are pretty dang cool.

We start by getting our tickets in a fairly normal looking convention building. Normal, that is, until you see, on your right, the shop where you can buy all sorts of bits and bobs in varying shades of TARDIS blues, and on your left, the Time Vortex itself. If you follow the Vortex, falling down the rabbit hole, as it were, you find yourself in that most British of places…a queue. But this is a fun queue, because, while you’re waiting for The Experience to begin, you’re surrounded by costumes and props from various episodes of s5. There’s the cape and mask Queen Liz wore in The Beast Below; then the 1940s Daleks from Victory of the Daleks; and the spiky dress the regal fish queen wore in Vampires of Venice. And then the doors open.

The guide comes forward to tell you no flash photography is allowed and there will be moving floors, strobe lights, and fog machines. You enter the room and sit on the benches to watch the introductory video. It’s part reminder of what happened in series 5 and who the Eleventh Doctor is, and part set-up for the plot of the Experience. The crack in the universe becomes a crack in the wall and the wall itself slides apart to reveal the National Museum aboard Starship UK (The Beast Below). As you walk through and enter the Museum, a bodiless guide (just a face—like in Silence in the Library) turns your attention to the gorgeous Van Gogh piece of the TARDIS bursting with light in one corner; then the great telescope from Tooth and Claw in another corner; but before she can show you anything else, the sirens start up and the television goes all fuzzy.

A transmission from the Doctor himself! It seems he’s gotten himself trapped in the Pandorica yet again and needs our help. Or, well, Amy’s help. He’s really disappointed that we’re not Amy, we’re not even Rory, we’re…shoppers. But we’ll do. We’re to follow his instructions to the letter and enter the TARDIS. Which materializes from behind the wall to our left. The doors pull back and we file in, good little companions. (I drag my hand along the blue door as I pass. It’s my first and last time to feel the old girl and I could swear I feel the Time Vortex running through the bright blue paint.) The corridor leads to the main TARDIS console room.

The Doctor appears on our screens once more. He tells the kids to take the TARDIS controls; he needs there to be no mistakes and, besides, adults are boring. They “drink coffee and say ‘ughh’ all the time.” I happen to agree and I’d love to take the old girl flying, but every available control is taken. Probably better that the kids have it. Can’t have any mistakes, not with the Doctor trapped and River off godknowswhere. Then we’re off, the TARDIS shaking and billowing smoke from the console. And as soon as we take off, we land. And apparently it’s dangerous. But we all file out the back doors, down the back corridor…

And right into the Dalek’s hands! It turns out the Doctor, in his infinite wisdom (note the sarcasm), sent the TARDIS onto a Dalek ship! Just as we’re surrounded by three Daleks (not the old ones, but the new candy-colour ones from Victory of the Daleks)…up pops another Dalek ship. The old ones this time, and there’s a feud between the two factions. They fight, which allows us to escape.

I’m lucky enough to pass through the next corridor without any trouble, but the Doctor warns us to be careful as we go along. He tells us not to blink. Lucky me, at the head of the line, I don’t see a single Weeping Angel. But, of course, that doesn’t mean they aren’t there.

Another hallway and then they give us glasses. Protection, the Doctor says. I think he just likes 3D glasses. He’s such a hipster child. The Pandorica! I’m not really sure what we did, I don’t even think the Doctor is, but our being there with the TARDIS allows him to escape. There’s just one problem. There always is, with the Doctor. Turns out that when the most feared being in the cosmos escapes his bonds a second time, it reopens the Crack in the universe. But lucky for us, the Doctor is…well, not prepared, but he’s clever. Just as we’re swirling through the Vortex, with Daleks and Cybermen and Angels (oh my!) all reaching out for us, he reverses it and sends us back to where we’re supposed to be.

He thanks us and we exit. Back into the real world. And while the Experience was by far my favorite part, seeing all the props and sets and costumes was really, really wonderful.

My favorite parts of the second half:

+ The TARDIS sets. I had a bit of a love affair with the TARDIS today, because, even though it’s called Doctor Who, how much of a time traveler can you be without a time machine? The show, the plot, the Doctor himself, wouldn’t work without the old girl. I want one.

+ The monsters. Seeing an entire row of Daleks, from each era, and how they progressed (the section was called Evolution of the Daleks, ha), was pretty dang awesome. And then the Silence. And the Slitheen and the Scarecrow (from Human Nature/Family of Blood *shudders*) and the dolls (from Night Terrors—curse you, Mark Gatiss!). Ah, it was really awesome.

+ Watching a guy (I think he does work for DW, though he made it sound like he’s worked for a bunch of other films/shows) work with clay to make a model head of some monster or another. I could’ve sat and watched him for hours. How does that become your life? I’d kill to get a job doing something I loved on a show like DW.

+ Watching all the kids. I came into DW rather late; I was 14 when Rose aired on SyFy in place of SGA reruns. I love it, I love the magic and the scifi and the mythos—but I don’t love it in the same way 8 year olds do. I can think more ~complex thoughts about it, but the Doctor is right to place so much faith in children; they see things entirely differently. And it was glorious to watch all the little kids run around going “LOOK, IT’S A DALEK” or whispering to their dad, “there’s a Slitheen around the corner.” (And most precious award goes to that little boy, omg.)