THE DOCTOR WHO EXPERIENCE!!!

The wonderful Exhibition.

It's Sunday the 20th February and thanks to the best Christmas present ever from my wonderful girlfriend Katie, we are going to the official opening of The Doctor Who Experience at Olympia 2.

And what an experience it was. We spent the morning at The Clerkenwell Vintage Fashion Fair (K's choice of treats) which was excellent. If you're interested in reading more about that part of our day check out K's blog: The Little Red Squirrel. Meanwhile, back in Doctor Who world we arrived at Earl's Court tube station with time to spare, to discover that it was fifteen minutes until the next train to Olympia meaning we'd be late. I panicked because our tickets were for entry between 3.30-4.00 and I was worried we wouldn't make it in time. But fortunately for me, we did. I did have a bit of strop when I thought we weren't going to get there but K remained confident we would. She was right and as we entered I genuinely regressed to an 11 year-old boy.

We queued for about fifteen minutes but I wasn't bored as K had got me the Gold package which came with a goody bag including: a programme, an exclusive Cyberman Lithograph limited to 3500, a lanyard and a card stating 'I was one of the first to enter the Tardis,' and with some set pieces and costumes from the most recent series to keep us excited the anticipation built and built, until finally we entered  a small room and were invited to walk through a crack in time only to be transported into Starship U.K. This, oddly was one of favourite parts of the whole experience. This room was classed as part of the Experience where photography is not allowed. The room was littered with wonderful props and set pieces from the original series, including Nestine spheres, some silver Yeti spheres, the yellow pool robot from Paradise Towers, a cyber helmet from The Invasion and one of the copies of the Mona Lisa from The City of Death. And all these wonderful props just scattered in boxes on the floor, with no indication as to what they are anywhere to be seen. There are specially recorded scenes featuring Matt Smith as The Doctor, who has somehow managed to get trapped in the Pandorica again, but this time it's the Pandorica II, "they had a spare, but it's not even a different colour."

A sneaky snap from the DW Experience Programme.

The Tardis then appeared and we entered the fantastic replica set where we were given various control panels in order to fly the Tardis, I ended up in front of the Diagnostic panel. 

A sneaky picture of the Tardis Interior replica.

After our flight we left the Tardis having arrived on a Dalek spaceship. Here, the experience could have really fallen apart, but we've arrived in a new paradigm Dalek ship and just as we're about to be exterminated the Golden R.T.D Daleks show up claiming to be the children of Davros and we witness an epic space battle through huge windows that really make it feel like you're in space.

The Supreme Dalek

Somehow we escape this only to find ourselves in a cave full of the Weeping Angels. I honestly tried my hardest not to blink.

Finally we ended up in the under-henge and were treated to a 3D extravaganza with Daleks, Angels and cybermen reaching out at us. In the end the Doctor manges to escape the Pandorica II and banish the baddies. I exited the experience with a true feeling of glee.

Me and the TARDIS.

Then there was the wonderful Exhibition. Which included: replicas of all eleven Doctors costumes, the current Tardis exterior, a series of Cyberman helmets through the ages, the ninth and tenth Doctors Tardis intrior, the Melkur, The fifth, sixth, and seventh Doctor's Tardis intrior and exterior, K-9, Davros, 6 Daleks, 2 Cybermen, 3 different Sontarans, 2 Cybermen, an Ice Warrior, a Zygon, and the K-1 Robot to name but a few.

All in all, I throughly enjoyed the Doctor Experience and I recommend it to any Doctor Who fan, old or young, newb or Old-Skool Whovian and at only £18 for an adult £14 for a child and £52 for a family of four it is really worth the money. I'd also like to say a huge mega thank you to K for treating me to such a wonderful day...