17 faces that will be familiar to every Doctor Who fan

The other day, an old friend of mine stuck a Buzzfeed article on her timeline. It was called ‘24 Faces That Will Be Familiar To Every Feminist‘.

Did I laugh? For sure. Did I empathise? Well, of course not. If this is the way it is for women then fine; I’m not going to argue with that. I try not to get involved in gender politics if I can help it; too often I get accused of Mansplaining (whereas the truth is I have assorted online arguments with men and women and am equally condescending and patronising to both). I bring my children up to be as accommodating and reasonably-minded as they can be; beyond that I’m not sure what else I can do.

But I can turn that list into something a little closer to home, and here it is. And as with Police Academy, another installment is always on the cards.

(The list is entirely mine, but I am indebted to Stupid Faces of Doctor Who for many of the images – not the sort of Tumblr blog I’d normally follow, but these things do come in handy.)

1. When someone insists “HE’S NOT CALLED DOCTOR WHO, HE’S CALLED THE DOCTOR!”.

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2. When you witness an argument over whether Paul McGann is ‘Classic’ or not.

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3. “There’s only one Doctor, and it’s David Tennant.”

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4. “The Doctor’s supposed to be young and handsome. This new one’s too old.”

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5. When someone tells you how much they love the Rose / Tenth Doctor love story.

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6. “It’s not real Doctor Who unless it’s Doctors 1-8. This new stuff is rubbish. It’s not proper Doctor Who. I only watched one episode.”

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7. When you saw the Brigadier resurrected as a Cyberman.

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8. Fan theory, generally.

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9. “And what if Barty Crouch Jr. in that Harry Potter film was ACTUALLY THE TENTH DOCTOR?”

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10. When someone paints Michael Grade as ‘the man who killed Doctor Who‘.

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11. Oh look, it’s another ‘Bow ties are cool’ meme.

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12. “Ha ha! Look at Clara slapping the Doctor! Isn’t that funny?!?”

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13.When you meet someone who dismisses ‘Love and Monsters’ as a low point.

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14. “If you don’t like it, you don’t have to watch it.”

(Yes. Yes we do.)

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15. “I WILL ACCEPT THIS UNSUBSTANTIATED RUMOUR AS FACT, BECAUSE IT SUITS ME.”

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16. God some of these Facebook groups have silly names.

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17. “No, but Capaldi MIGHT regenerate into Smith. It could happen.”