Doctor ... Who?

Since I began writing time travel based fiction, the analogy with the long-running BBC TV series Doctor Who has been growing.

In all honesty, I never envisaged any correlation to the iconic programme when I took the plunge and changed from writing full-on historical fiction to slightly Gothic Sci-Fi with 'The Unnatural History Museum' four years ago. If anything, the X-files was my closest analogy, but even early on in the process, I once or twice found "The Doctor" being mentioned in discussion on how to determine the genre and style of my stories.

Ironically, I haven't really watched or read any Sci-Fi for at least a decade - despite a childhood largely dominated by watching either David Attenborough documentaries or a massive raft of series like Star Trek, Quantum Leap, Babylon 5, The X-Files, Blakes 7, Voyager, etc. etc. - and though I did watch David Tennant as the Doctor after the series re-release in the Naughties, I certainly haven't been aware of the Doctor's exploits until 'she' hit the headlines - and I must say I'm in awe of the lines provided for Jodie Whittaker!

Yet, though my own strong female lead time travel series was written in a Dr free vacuum, by some crazy process of parallel evolution, I can see similarities, and there have been at least a couple of lines which I've thought (that's the kind of daft stuff I come up with e.g. Pythagoras' shades, episode 2), while after watching episode 3 ("Rosa") one of my proof readers excitedly informed me that the Doctor had just stolen one of my lead character's lines, by quipping that she was "Banksy" - an idea I'd come up with at least seven months before, in my unpublished Deeper Realms novel 'Dinosaur Girl' (the prequel to my currently available Deeper realms stories).

And so here it is - the line in question. In this scene we join the anxious and slightly bemused young paleontologist Dr Eve Wells, who has just survived a reality shifting journey to the prehistoric rain forests of the Eocene and finds herself kicking-back in her flat with the ultra confident Ravenna Friere ...

‘You mind if I watch some TV?’

Eve looked at the time traveller incredulously but shook her head, too tired to care.

Ravenna took the remote, and the screen was filled with a western saloon scene. The classic seventies sci-fi movie Westworld. A moustachioed man in a cowboy outfit was graphically shooting a black-shirted android who was blown to the floor spurting fake blood.

‘Intriguing dystopian concept, but I have seen it,’ Ravenna said briskly, ‘mind if I ..?’

Eve shook her head and the Mediterranean girl flicked the channel once more: a documentary on how coffee beans were harvested and dried. Ravenna lingered for a moment then shook her head and changed the channel again: Steven Spielberg’s Classic Jurassic Park. ‘Certainly not,’ she muttered and flicked again: a reality TV programme where young men and women went to live as Roman Citizens for a month. ‘Interesting,’ she said with an amused look, then sighed whimsically.‘Your confusing culture makes me want to laugh and vomit in equal measure Eve Wells.’

Eve turned to gaze at her.

‘Your culture?’

‘I have visited many places Wells, lead many lives. I am not from round these parts as they say.’

Eve frowned. ‘Many lives?’

Ravenna glanced away evasively, keeping her tone neutral. ‘And I have met some interesting people’ she continued before she had time to comment further.

‘Like who?’

Ravenna thought for a moment. ‘Da Vinci was a lovely man, inspired – a real charmer – but the sex was nothing to write home about,’

Eve’s jaw dropped, ‘– only joking, Eve Wells, our working relationship was purely platonic.’

Eve’s mind was racing, could it really be possible that the girl who sat across the room from her had … ‘You’re kidding! You really met ..?’

Ravenna looked at her levelly for a moment then flicked off the TV and shrugged.

‘Of course.’ She frowned as if it were obvious. ‘He too was a time traveller – where do you think he got his ideas for the helicopter and submarine from?’

Eve gawped.

‘But …’

‘Charles Babbage was a real sweetie to, we had such a blast working on his difference engine.’

‘Charles Babbage!’ she echoed, ‘you helped to make …’

‘Yeah, yeah, the first computer: a terrible mistake really – and I should have kept my nose out of the internet in the early 80’s – would have made the world a far simpler place.’

Eve’s eyes widened as the words sank in.

‘You’re not joking are you. So who else …’

‘Anne Boleyn,’ the Mediterranean girl replied in a tone which was tinged with pride and yet also mildly bored, as if she’d been through it a million times before. 'Winston Churchill ... Louis IX of France … Matisse … Darwin.’

‘You met Charles Darwin?’

‘He was an interesting man – if a little obsessive – though oddly more fun than Shakespeare.’

‘William Shakespeare!’

‘Over-rated,’ the time traveller continued dismissively, ‘though I kind of had a thing going for Marlowe – he was quite a guy – we even agreed to disagree about religion. The fatal misunderstanding over his supper bill was just so sad.’

Eve didn’t know whether to laugh or gawp. ‘Then there was Fred Estaire, Ivar the Boneless. Descart … and that whole Joan de Arc thing was just a terrible misunderstanding on the part of the Commune of Paris,’ she broke off and swilled her glass thoughtfully, ‘… oh – and I am also Banksy.’

Eve spluttered into her glass. ‘That also was a joke Eve Wells.’