Given that Ash and I talk about Doctor Who more than we talk about videogames or our own video series, it’s not particularly surprising that we get this question a lot.

“You talk about Doctor Who a lot,” the question usually starts. “Please stop doing that,” it usually ends. “That’s not a question,” I usually reply.

When it doesn’t end that way, however — when the person in question finds Doctor Who interesting but, confronted with a series that started in 1963 and is still going, simply does not know where to start — I usually have a pretty clear answer for them.

You can find that answer after the jump.

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Don’t worry — the HAWPcast episode itself isn’t an unfunny Gears of War discussion. We have a discussion about an unfunny Gears of War episode.

Anyway.

You can listen to it here. We discuss Attack of the Clones, Firefly, Mass Effect, and a bunch of other, random stuff. At the very, very end, we talk about the new Doctor Who. If you’re not at all interested in Doctor Who, just stop listening near the end once we start talking about it. There’s nothing in our conversations from that point on that doesn’t include the words “Tennant” or “Moffat.”

In this episode of  Hey Ash Whatcha Playin’s official podcast, I gush about Jason Rohrer’s Sleep is Death, Ash talks about meeting Jason Schwartzman, and we determine exactly how gay I am.

I also state my intention to watch every single episode of Doctor Who, starting with the first episode in 196(EDIT:)3. Ashly is skeptical.

Enjoy.

UPDATE: This is the Scarface video Ash and I are talking about (Thanks, Otacon).

I don’t know if this has been established in one of the HAWPcasts before, but Doctor Who makes me cry like a little bitch. There are some episodes that literally make me bawl, as if something important had happened that legitimately warranted that degree of emotion. Doomsday, of course, is one of big ones. If I ever need “a good cry,” instead of turning on “Philadelphia” or “Step Mom” or whatever the fuck movies normal people cry at, I will sit down with some ice cream, watch Rose fall into a parallel dimension and sob like that girl in the audience of American Idol who really loved Sanjaya. Of course, when David Tennant regenerated, I completely lost my goddamn mind. I thought Doomsday was bad; I had no idea I could cry that hard for a goddamn fictional character.

As upset as this scene makes me, for some unconscionable reason, I always want to watch it. Anthony told me he had the same problem. For some reason, we both have a really strange, inexplicable urge to watch a character that we love dearly vanish before our eyes in a burst of fiery passion and sadness and horror over and over again. I actually literally just watched it, which prompted me to write this post. I knew it was going to happen. I saw him stumbling into the TARDIS, I knew exactly what was coming, and of course I cried my eyes out alone in my dorm room like a crazy person. I just have absolutely no idea why I would do that to myself. What about that scene, which obviously makes me so noticeably upset, compels me to review it again and again? Am I just masochistic? Or is there some degree of enjoyment that can be derived in the acknowledgment that a fictional character has endeared himself to you to such an extent that you bawl until your eyes burn? Or should I just stop writing this post because I sound increasingly crazier as it goes on?

Go to a Renaissance Fair dressed up like the Doctor and look ridiculously confused about where you are and what’s going on. Mutter something about time being switched up, and how the technology you’re seeing doesn’t make sense for the period, and wonder aloud if you’ve made a mistake somewhere and merged two alternate timelines.

And if any of the staff catch on, experiment: is it possible that a Renaissance nerd, who, being a nerd, likely has a knowledge of other nerdy things, will be aware of what you’re attempting to do? If so, are they willing to take their Renaissance roleplay a step further and acknowledge your quirky roleplay, and not just pretend that they are a Renaissance-era wench, but a Renaissance-era wench who has met a time traveller and now has to cope with that fact? Could you, in fact, convince a random attendee or customer into being your companion for an hour purely by the force and bluster of your contrarian roleplay?

While listening to the Tenth Doctor’s regeneration (because you like the music), idly surf Digg and come across this article.

I just accidentally found a way to double the sadness of watching your television friends disappear.

Granted, this only works if you like both Conan O’Brien and Doctor Who. In which case, you are a turbo-nerd.