July 6th could be an excuse for Whovians to celebrate.
It could easily be argued that today, July 6th, is Doctor Who Day (not to be confused with Doctor Who Comics Day, or the episode ‘The Day of the Doctor‘). The inspiration is derived from the classic 1975 Doctor Who serial ‘The Android Invasion,’ starring Tom Baker as the Fourth Doctor, and Elisabeth Sladen as his companion, Sarah Jane Smith.
(Edit: TARDIS Day on November 23rd is also sometimes called Doctor Who Day.)
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In this story is the English village of Devesham, which is fictional outside of the show. (There is, however, an Evesham, England.) Chief Scientist Styggron of the planet of Oseidon creates a replica of this village on his home planet. The “fake” one is inhabited by android replicas of the inhabitants of the original. Meanwhile, on Earth, some of the humans have been replaced with androids. This is all part of Styggron’s plan for his people to take over, not only Earth, but other planets due to high levels of radiation on Oseidon. Styggron is assisted by Senior Defence Astronaut Guy Crayford of Earth.
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Where do we get Doctor Who Day from all of this, you ask? Well, in the replica village, it is always July 6th. The Doctor has a vague sense that there is something odd about the place, with things such as dead phones, an unused pub dartboard, and freshly-minted coins. The most blatant clue, however, is that every page of a day calendar has the same date. Upon seeing this, the Doctor refers to the location as “a village without a future.”
The concept of living the same day over and over literally happened to the Doctor in the Series Nine episode ‘Heaven Sent.’ A parallel could also be drawn between that and the repetitive patterns in the Doctor’s life — regenerations, companions, enemies, etc. A good portion of Doctor Who is based on repetition, hence July 6th being Doctor Who Day.
The most obvious comparison to make here is to the fantastic 1993 movie Groundhog Day, starring Bill Murray… We never did find out exactly what caused Phil Connors to get stuck in a time loop in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, but he supposedly broke the cycle by bettering himself as a person. Wouldn’t it be fun for the character to show up on Doctor Who to discuss the matter with the Doctor?
Admittedly, I did not come up with the concept of Doctor Who Day being on July 6th. I got the idea from Larry Carroll of Zap2It. I chose to write about it, however, so that I could give my thoughts on the topic. So, anyway, should we make this holiday official? We could turn off our phones, eat jelly babies, drink ginger beer (which the Doctor does in the story), and play darts.
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