Sitting Shiva for The 11th Doctor
By Lesley Kluchin

I tossed and turned all night and couldn’t sleep….and this morning I awoke feeling like another of my dear family members had passed away. I realize that is an odd emotion because the only person I have lost recently is a character from my favorite television show, Dr. Who, and yet I am in mourning.

I also know, that it is silly for a woman my age to feel these emotions, and yet not terribly uncommon for someone like myself who once walked upon the stage and felt the fictional heartbeat of a character to the very depth of his or her make-believe soul. Those characters were brought to life through my interpretation and portrayal on the stage, and my understanding of the author’s vision. They became real to me while I spoke their lines and walked their strides and lived their invented life for the short time the curtain was up.

I am also someone who creates my own three dimensional characters and plucks them out of my head and drops them down onto a piece of paper to tell one of my stories. I try to make them dance off the page and become real enough so that readers can laugh, cry, love or hate them. And why do I do this? Because I am compelled to do so. I have all the great literary geniuses to thank for my passion to write. I have Shakespeare, Austen, Tolstoy, and Conan Doyle to thank for reading wonderfully descriptive three-dimensional characters in their plays or novels. Protagonists who touched my heart deeply because they spoke to me in a special way. I admit it, for years I have fallen in love with all my favorite literary characters. Yes, they all are very real to me and they visit me in my darkest hours and brighten up my world when I need them to make me smile. They are my friends, my comfort, and my salvation when tragedy strikes and momentarily blocks out the joys in life. They help me survive what is difficult and motivate me to endure and regain my composure. They bring me strength and courage and are my references to every situation I encounter.

All my favorite novels, plays, or poems can be read over and over again, and unlike a television show, they are a just a touch away on my bookshelf. Even walking past them brings joy to my face just thinking about how each character in every book instantly regenerates and comes back to life the moment I open the cover of the book. On a rainy afternoon I can reach for my beloved Pride and Prejudice and Fitzwilliam Darcy and Elizabeth Bennett emerge like the phoenix. They dance, sling insults, and fall in in love before my eyes as I drink in Jane Austen’s words. And Sherlock Holmes dashes out the door into the dimly lit streets of London solving crime after crime, investigating every unseen bit of evidence by observing what those around him fail to notice, and I cherish each and every case. Sometimes in my mind I join him… darting in and out of the corridors of the narrow streets of Victorian London as my heels click and clank on the cobble stone lanes and I lift my petticoats up slightly to gain a faster pace just to keep pace with my favorite consulting detective. I hold my breath as Hamlet beholds the ghost of his father, or Romeo first gazes upon his beautiful Juliet…..they all live forever in the pages of my precious books.

But last night a character that is near and dear to my heart died, and there is no hardbound novel or kindle story that I can run to in my hour of need. I can’t reread every page or touch my fingers to the words when he disappears or linger a little while longer to hold on to him before he dies. No, he is simply gone. And that is just too painful for me. It is too much like real life and that is what hurts the most. When certain characters die, they just die. Without a book to bring him back to me he is gone. Forever. This Doctor was MY Doctor..(Whovian fans each pick a favorite to become their very own, you know.) And the 11th was mine. But, this time the writers are my enemy….they got it wrong!!! He didn’t die in his prime and regenerate….he aged frail and weak like a real human being – too much like the father I lost, or the husband I watched suffer as he wasted away from cancer. No, this time my wonderful character- with whom I loved to travel the universe and escape the mundane world each week is no more. I can no longer step into the Tardis to help him save the Universe. This character has really died. And Just like all those I have loved and lost in real life, he cannot come back. The writers made sure that came to pass. And perhaps that is why I hurt so much and tossed and turned all night. Oh sure, I might glimpse an old episode now and then, but it will be painful to do so for a while. I am not ready to see his character so young and healthy when I know now how he ends up. Aged and frail... I don’t think I can bare that. Not yet.

Don’t you see??? Everyone knows that characters are real once they have been written. They exist for the reader, the viewer, the listener. They become real!!!

I shake a fist at you, Stephen Moffatt for writing the script the way you did. You took away Rory and Amy and now The Doctor??? And replaced everyone with Clara,( who I never really warmed up to), with a new Doctor who has a face I don’t think I can love….
Sometimes, you just aren't ready to let go...And sometimes you need to cling to a sweet kind face in front of a make believe three dimensional character that exists only on the screen because Television isn’t the same as having a book to hold. I can make up my own vision of a character from reading a novel. But, I have no book to cling to when I am feeling blue and missing the Doctor….I cannot jump into the tardis and be off into the past or the future with my smiling silly Doctor…..he is gone. And I hate that. I have enough to be sad about in real life….enough things to force me to forge ahead each day with a smile….so why Mr. Moffatt couldn’t you have left me with my one guilty pleasure? Why did you have to take away My doctor too?
Sometimes, when life and reality take away the flesh and blood souls we love in the real world, then the only ones we can turn to are the fictional beings we have come to care about….The phrase from Romeo and Juliet comes to mind….”Oh wilt thou leave me so unsatisfied?” That is how I feel after last nights ending to The 11th Doctor. How do I fill this empty void in my heart???? Some people and some characters are just irreplaceable. And the 11th Doctor is one of those…he cannot be replaced. Therefore, I am in mourning. I am Sitting Shiva…So, Good night Raggedy Man. I will miss you. Dr. Who will never be the same.