Sometimes, the Doctor Who fandom can be a very dire place to be indeed. Generally speaking, though, it's the best fandom in the world, of course, though every now and then something happens that manages to rip the very stratosphere of our community apart... and then some. Take Series 8's shock reveal of Michelle Gomez as the first female Master, for example. Some loved it, others loathed it, and then there was the rest of us who were just thankful that our favourite show still possesses the ability to get people talking. Oh, and it got people talking, all right. The dramatic development proved to be so catastrophically controversial, in fact, that there's a small minority of former fans who are actually boycotting future episodes... whatever that even means. Steven Moffat has, naturally, responded to this by bringing Missy back in the Series 9 premiere. Way to go, Moff! In all seriousness, though, for some Doctor Who fans, the show's community is more like a family. They've made friends through it, met likeminded people from all corners of the world through it, and the series generally has the power to bring people together in a way like no other franchise on Earth. It's hard, then, when you feel like you're being isolated or pushed out of it, just because you don't agree with a storyline or disliked the latest episode for whatever reason. Freedom of speech is something that is generally frowned up within the Doctor Who community, which is ironic when it's one of the main things that our titular Time Lord strives to fight for. Maybe his own devotees should take a leaf out of his book once in a while? Just saying. Still, you'd probably be best just logging out of Twitter and taking a break from it whenever things start to kick off in the Whoniverse. Go for a walk, paint a picture, occupy your minds with something else for a bit... because you know that things will be back to normal again in a few short hours. A big, dysfunctional family, in every sense of the word.
Dan Butler is the Doctor Who Editor at WhatCulture.com. When he isn't writing his own articles or editing other people's, he can be found trawling the internet for gifs of Steven Moffat laughing. Contact him via dan.butler@whatculture.co.uk.
