Fans were called to the Pottle Auditorium by the whirring of the Doctor’s TARDIS this past Wednesday, fulfilling every fan’s dream. However, it was not the true TARDIS, the time traveling spaceship belonging to the Doctor and a strappingly, deceivingly young man wearing a suit was not there either. Waiting for students was history professor Dr. Bill Robison adorned in his tie and fez.
Robison was hosting his own lecture for the Then and Now series, as a part of FANFARE. This event takes place annually in Hammond. An avid Doctor Who fan himself, Robison was excited to conduct the lecture.
“I’ve been a fan since 1980 and then my daughters started watching it [so] I started to watch it again,” said Robison.
Some of his favorite episodes included “Blink” featuring the weeping angels for the first time, “The Pandorica Opens,” “Vincent and the Doctor” and “The Day of the Doctor.” His favorite Doctor was originally the fourth, Tom Baker.
This lecture had been a prominent scheme for the past three years. Robison had decided to do it last year until the body of Richard the Third was discovered. By popular demand, he changed topics to cover the event instead.
But not all of his students were happy with the change.
“About half said, ‘Why the hell didn’t you do Doctor Who?’” said Robison, who also believes that many of his students watch the show because Doctor Who appeals to history enthusiasts.
“[The show’s writers] are so whimsical that it is hard to get mad at anything [that they portray incorrectly] so it doesn’t really matter to me what they’re doing,” said Robison.
Doctor Who has been running for 50 years and has a total of 13 Doctors [counting John Hurt who portrayed Doctor 8.5 in ‘Day of the Doctor’] who travel through Space and Time in a ship that resembles a blue police box on the outside and yet is “bigger on the inside”. Robison’s lecture covered all 12 Doctors and the times they went to prominent, historical points in time including Pompeii, Victorian London, World War Two and the Cold War.
Halloween lectures are a good way for professors to relay information to students since they can be either educational or just for fun. Robison claimed this particular lecture was the latter.
Typically following professor of communications Dr. Joe Burn’s lectures the previous week, Robison said that it becomes fun for the men to see who gets the most laughs at the end.