Doctor Who Vews: Evidence of Doctor Who's Exciting Adventures in America

Note to faithful readers: This article is best enjoyed without scrolling down. Hopefully, some of the photos included make for punchlines. I'll let you be the adjudicators of the effort to funniness ratio.

During an ill-fated marriage some time ago, I was unlucky enough to go to America. It was an extremely dull fortnight. I began my odyssey of ennui in Los Angeles which I particularly loathed, then moved up the coast to Santa Barbara, a place which supposedly has character but which I found to be yet another particularly dull stop-off on the ticklist of bore-offs. Finally, we hit Monterey and something had to give. I was close to losing any sanity I had left in the knowledge that the holiday would be lasting another 12 bleeding days. Then: I saw it. And just as in Torchwood, everything changed. The hotel had left us a handy map of Monterey (see below).

Maybe not such an interesting article at first glance, I grant you but peer closer and the key to an enjoyable holiday suddenly becomes very obvious.

In that moment, I realised I was not so much on a holiday as on a mission. As a collector, I knew I had to find a full set of Doctors and that meant the trip had a pronounced and vital sense of purpose. As Romana II might ask, “Why can’t we do something constructive?” Well, I had something very, very constructive that I absolutely needed to do. And finding the complete set of Doctors was just the start.

Troughton was a difficult Doc to pin down but when I saw this, I knew he’d have been happy with my choice of accompanying photograph.

Stovepipe Wells. Stovepipe is a curious word. I have never heard anyone but a Doctor Who fan use the word stovepipe. But here it is in Death Valley: the Doctor’s hat in black and white.

Pertwee similarly couldn’t be found but I did find a particularly Pertweean road sign:

Yes, that pseudonymous villain leaves his mark everywhere!

For Tom, this one leapt at me from several hundred yards:

Davison was nowhere to be found either. But this place in Las Vegas got me thinking about that most delicious of DWM typos.

Colin was the trickiest Doctor to pin down and the photograph below represents my utter desperation to fulfil my ambition of an entire collection.

So, I know it’s utterly reaching to start using homophones but delightfully, Peri’s Boulevard sounds far filthier than it actually is.

Sylvester is my boyhood Doctor so this seemed an appropriate description of him:

Here’s me being 8…

…and failing miserably at it. Just as I completely failed to find 9. But here’s 10. This one was bloody easy:

And 11:

At this point in time, there was no sign of 12, let alone 13 so my Doctoring ended there. But there was much more to discover in America from the Doctor. A great deal more. Finally, I was having fun!

Who would have thought the grandeur of the Grand Canyon could yield two consecutive story alerts? Not only consecutive but stories which have won the best and worst stories of all time awards several times. Ladies and gents, I give you…

ANDROZANI:

And THE TWIN DILEMMA:

You might notice the small emblem below the conglomerate’s rock, reading TRAIL OF TIME. Surely all fans everywhere look at that and think TRIAL OF A TIME LORD? Here’s more:

Another Androzani connection became apparent in Death Valley, where I felt like I was actually seeing the infamous blowholes.

Perhaps the most vivid Who connections were those found in the hellish place that is Las Vegas. So hellish in fact that I insisted we stay just the one night in:

On the sweltering, sticky, sweaty streets of that Mecca of the gambling world, Who stories abounded.

CITY OF DEATH

THE ANGELS TAKE MANHATTAN

And more evidence of those stone menaces miraculously lay in a Las Vegas novelty shop:

Another planet I felt like I’d visited was the unnamed Planet of the Ood.

And a place where planets were created was clearly signposted:

Lots of delights were to be found in road signs actually:

Who else but a Who fan could find such joy in street signs reminding them of Katy Manning, The Highlanders, Day of the Daleks and every aliens’ favourite places of invasion? The holiday was starting to get exciting.

Perhaps my favourite peculiarity of American signage came in the form of renowned DWM archivist:

I’ve heard he’s from Sheffield but for my money, he probably lives here:

San Francisco was – obviously - my favourite but not final visitation in America. Not least, because it yielded this diamond:

So my trip taught me an awful lot about myself: I hated America, loved Doctor Who and in taking endless, tremendously geeky and obscure photographs whilst refusing to do any driving, I was positively screaming for a divorce.