Of course Abed loves Doctor Who – I mean, “Inspector Spacetime”

My birthday was Thursday. I turned 26, and it was one of the best birthdays I’ve ever had. This was my first birthday with a “real” job, which means my yearly tradition of wallowing in self-pity was broken. And after work I got to see Jonathon Coulton and They Might be Giants perform just 10 minutes from my house and ran into an old college friend at the show, too. But the best part was getting home, warming up the DVR and watching season 3 of Community.

This amazing show-that-could has made me so very happy in its first two seasons. Just the fact that season 3 premiered on my birthday — and opened with a full-on musical number — would have been a great way to spend the last part of the day, but then it got so, so much better. Because then they revealed Inspector Spacetime.

Yeah, how spot-on was that spoof? Sure, the style and quality is more classic Who (and maybe some hints of Eccleson‘s run) than the last few seasons, but as someone who had never seen an episode of the show before this year, this is pretty much what I had imagined Doctor Who to be. The literal phone box, the silly hat, the goofy-looking, laser-firing trash cans yelling, “Eradicate!” … really damn spot-on.  Of course, I had to rewind the DVR to catch all the inside jokes thanks to immediately losing my shit and squeeing like the fan girl that I am when I realized what Britta was showing them.

The cherry on top of the Whovian sundae was Abed’s reaction — immediate adoration. And was there any doubt? Abed is a quintessential Whovian if I’ve ever seen one. Time travel, aliens, compelling characters, complex moral dilemmas, kitschy whimsy and above all, intellect and romance triumphing over brute force and cynicism … if this was anymore up Abed’s alley, it would be called “Abed would love Doctor Who” alley. And the scary thing is that I’ve been thinking about this very idea all summer.

That’s right, as I went through Doctor Who from the 2005 series onward this summer, there were a lot of thoughts that went through my head. One of the most frequent was, “Why hasn’t Abed talked about this show on Community yet?” It’s one of the most iconic sci-fi shows in all of television, but Abed hadn’t declared his love for it. Even as Abed was mourning the death of Cougarton Abbey in the premiere on Thursday, I wondered, “Well, why doesn’t he just watch Doctor Who? It’s a smart British nerd show with decades worth of episodes!”

So, when Britta mentioned a British sci-fi show that premiered in 1962 … I held my breath. “Ohpleaseohplease, Dan Harmon, please show some of the show! And please have Abed love it!” It might have been a parody, but Inspector Spacetime was still an awesome homage to this brilliant sci-fi staple that I’ve so quickly come to love. It was as if Harmon and the writing team at Community sent me and all Doctor fans a precious gift of love.

Of course, it’s time to look to the future — think of the possibilities! We might see more scenes from Inspector Spacetime and maybe even Abed as the Inspector for Halloween, but how about some cameos? Matt Smith could come on as the president of the Inspector Spacetime fan club … or David Tennant as a visiting Shakespeare professor! Or John Barrowman as anyone as long as he’s seducing everyone. This is going to be an awesome season.

Clacked by Katie Schenkel
on Sep 26, 2011 @ 15:00 EST5EDT