You Know You've Been Watching
Too Much Original Series When . . .

Your friend starts asking you if she can borrow your stun gun and jaunting belt. (This friend of mine has never seen TP at all.)

You see a message signed "John" on TPDIS and have to scroll up to the headers to check that it's John Panell, and not John-the-leader-of-the-TP (who needs a last name).

After your computer crashes, you scream, "TIM, come fix my computer!!" then get weird looks from your parents.

You get a little teddy bear from one of your teachers for good luck for your exams and you tell her it is called "Bron" the "Nola Bear"

Travelling on the London Underground you find yourself wondering which of the many abandoned L.U. stations was used in the original series.

You spend the first half of your school's dance trying to blow up the speakers with TK, and playing "Heart of Sogguth" (a little on-the-spot game consisting of swaying back and forth until Geoffrey yells "Jaunt, Ariana, Jaunt!")

You're on your way to ER and keep on thinking "^(_^*#^$ing Kultans..."

You're trying to describe the made-for-TV movie "Medusa's Child" to someone and you keep insisting on calling it Medusa Strain.

You're on the London Underground, and you see a teenage Chinese lad using some sort of strange looking electronic device, and you begin to wonder...

....then reality kicks in and you realise that its a Gameboy or Nintendo. You decide to post this, and let your mind wander... Then you look up again, and he's gone! And you ask yourself, "Did we stop at a station?"

You're asked to design a room in art class and you do a whole new Lab. When the teacher asks you erase the big box thing in the room and you say "That's TIM, I can't erase TIM!"

When you're looking through discarded library by books you see a science fiction book called Mind to Mind checked out by M. Bell in 1978 and you go nuts and buy it.

You and your roommate are hauling a very large heavy cart with her computer on it (lucky) when you start joking about the advantages of TK and matter transporters. (John wouldn't understand, but Liz and TIM would.)

Your roommate gives you one of those nesting dolls and you ask her if there's a mind control chip inside of it. (There wasn't, but I had to ask.)

You actually sit down and watch Oprah, simply because today's episode is about a little boy who is being raised by oriental monks because he is considered to be some sort of child god.

When reading Jude Deveraux's new book An Angel for Emily, you keep calling it a Man for Emily every time you make references to the book to others, and only your brother knows that you have messed up the title.

You are consistently late to work/school/etc. and soon realize what you are forgetting to allow time for is the *travel* to your destination. Something inside you just isn't convinced you *need* travel time. It's just across town/campus, you *shouldn't* even need time to find your jaunting belt/band.

You discover that you have more than one copy of The Medusa Strain on 8mm film and have no recollection of ever duplicating it, yet both copies are labeled in your hand writing. You assume that you must have been under alien control when you duplicated it, and begin to wonder why aliens need copies of The Medusa Strain. (I guess we know what The Living Skins' favourite episode is!)

You are half asleep and are awoken by the following words from the TV: "Imagine a clenched fist slowly opening . . ."

Your softball coach keeps everyone inside for no reason other than she'd rather watch A Rift in Time than play softball.

Some kid asks you where room thirteen is, and you're about to Telepath TIM and ask him for the co-ordinates, and then realize he'd prefer to hear, "downstairs, third room on the right."

A parents offers you a drink at dinner, and you receive a puzzled look when you say, "No, thanks. John wouldn't approve."

You call your PC/Mac TIM

You wake up early in the morning and are so groggy you forget to put on your glasses. It takes you 4 chapters of Slaves of Jedikiah to figure it out. You've seen it so many times, your mind fills in for the blurryness.

You're a counselor for a group of four-year-olds at a day camp. While all the other four-year-olds watch "The Jungle Book", your four-year-olds watch The Blue and the Green.

The only reason you wind up doing the homework in the end is because John and Liz wouldn't approve of you not doing it.

You have to decide if you really, really, really want to see the first few minutes of 'Star Trek' because you've only got two more minutes of A Man for Emily to go.

You refuse to call your computer TIM, for fear of insulting "the real TIM".

You're having an EEG (brain scan) and someone behind you starts about 'unusual patterns in the background waves' and almost jumps out of their skin when you whirl around saying, "Wedge Shaped Patterns!?!" (Note: Do not whirl around very fast while wearing a heavy helmet with lots of wires sticking out of it!)

The smell of certain foods remind you of different episodes for no apparent reason (like cheese-its and A Rift in Time).

Your parents are watching some movie about a guy named John who is telepathic/precognitive (the movie didn't seem to know the difference) in the next room. You're listening to wisps of dialog. Walking in, you're shocked when "John" looks nothing like John-the-TP.

You have plans to make your home look like the Lab.

When trying to decide whether to lock the door to your townhouse as you leave because the only person inside is taking a nap, this thought enters your mind, "Well, I don't want to leave the lab unguarded."

If you've ever covered up the 'nometry' in trignometry and then put Galactic above it on your book cover.

You're flipping through parcel shipping orders at work (don't ask) and see the name "Bell", so you fold back the one above it to get a look at the first name. (I think it was Carol.:)

You see a reference attributed to an M. Bell in a sceintific article, and you think, "I didn't really think Mike would drop music to be a biologist".

You're in the middle of reading some of your writing from before you got your original series tapes and you find a quote from a first season episode: "I hear and obey"

You're sending ASCII (#$%$%#) characters at someone in reference to someone who's never even seen the show, and they tell you to watch your language 'cause TP John wouldn't approve!

You're figuring out relative ages of Seaquest characters now by figuring out relative ages of original series TP characters and working forward from there. (Bridger is younger than Stephen but older than Tyso, probably).

You see a sign that you think says "Hsui Tai" and you do a double take only to discover it says "New Tai".

You go a block and a half out of your way just to drive on the John Young Parkway.

You find yourself trying to telepath to TIM for your location when you get lost during Orienteering class.

You start having discussions about which operating system TIM is most likely based on/closly related to.

Visiting England, you keep looking for hidden entrances in the London Underground, and make a detour to Clacton-on-Sea (The Vanishing Earth).

You count Mike Bell and Mike Holoway on the list of the many, many Mike's you know.

You choose to write a paper on Euripides's Cyclops because of its connection to The Slaves of Jedikiah.

Your Database Programming Lecturer says: "You'll find Tim, most days, in the TP Lab." and that's the only thing you heard the entire lecture. (TP = Technical Programming, I think)

You're watching other SF, someone fires a raygun, and you expect the blast to be a white circle in front of the target.

You imagine John and TIM nagging you for getting too cold after a late night traying session (sledding on cafeteria trays).

You not only wonder what planet your prof got a strain of yeast from, but if the planet is a member of the Galactic Federation.

You find yourself hungry, but too lazy to cook, so you look at the ceiling lamp and ask it to prepare you some dinner

You start a company that specialises in cleaning telephones.

You have an urge to run down Teddington High Street in your underpants.

You consider skinny short tight sleeveless scoop-necked upper garments to be the height of fashion.

You look for hidden doorways in tube stations.

You mutter about people who tick you off either being Saps or needing to be packed off to the Trig to lose their aggressive tendencies.

You like big belt buckles.

One piece skin tight clothing gives you the creeps.

You have suspended tubing and opaque domes above *TIM*

In music class, the teacher plays a piece and asks what it's from. You raise your hand and say The Doomsday Men. He responds, "I don't know what or who The Doomsday Men are, but this is "Wagner". You're extremely irritated when he won't let you bring in The Doomsday Men and prove it to him.

You know you've spent the whole day watching TP when you can't resist looking at some junk mail just because the subject reads... 'Jackie incredible stun gun offer for you'

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You Know You've Been Watching Too Much Tomorrow People:
Original Series | In General | New Series