My daughters have continued to expand their Doctor Who horizons in the past few months (we’re currently on a Seven-and-Ace kick), which has led them to a broader awareness of my own fannish activities. The last time I mentioned some breaking guest news from Gallifrey One, for example, one of them pouted, “I really want to go to Gally…”

It dawned on me last weekend that although getting them to Gally with me is unlikely to prove financially feasible any time soon (flying roughly 2000 miles isn’t cheap for one, let alone three or four—never mind the cost of lodging, food, and souvenirs), we have a local Doctor Who con (CONsole Room) where they could dip their toes into the experience.

So I wandered over to the CONsole Room site to see what the con might have in store for my girls, should we decide to go. At this early stage (we’re still seven months out), there isn’t a lot of detail to be had. However, there is a headliner who’s been announced, and having seen her myself at Gally, I can vouch for her being a great guest: Neve McIntosh (a.k.a. Madame Vastra). I bet the girls would love her.

Except they currently have no idea who Vastra is.

Now I’m in a bit of a pickle. I have been trying hard not to force any viewing on my kids, because I want them to want to watch my favorite show, rather than to feel pressured into it, thereby enjoying it less. I’ve presented some options throughout the Classic/pre-Hiatus run, and let them choose among those curated offerings. My reasoning is sometimes peculiar, but so far they haven’t come away disliking anything, even the more esoteric and oft-disparaged serials.

With the modern/post-Hiatus era, though, I’ve been a bit more particular. We watched some of The Sarah Jane Adventures—and some of Sarah Jane’s adventures—together, and I knew they’d love seeing her meet the Doctor again in School Reunion. I felt strongly, though, that they should know Rose as a character before throwing the two of them together, or the impact wouldn’t be the same. So we started with Rose and went from there.

I’m pleased to report that their reaction to School Reunion was just as I’d hoped, but eventually our viewing schedule was disrupted by awkward things like their own school year starting up again, and their penchant for choosing Classic serials when we do make time to watch together. We are thus suspended just over halfway through Series Two, waiting to move forward with modern Who.

The trouble now is that we need to get at least to the eighth and ninth episodes of Series Five (The Hungry Earth / Cold Blood) before they see Neve in action at all (she has played all the Silurian women to date, including Alaya). And if I want them to see her as Vastra, we have to get another series in (S06E07: A Good Man Goes to War) to even meet the character, much less see all of her appearances to date (the last being S08E01: Deep Breath).

Given our track record over the last six or seven weeks, I don’t think seven months is enough to get through the fifty-eight episodes up to the introduction of Vastra. I am thus considering ~gasp~ skipping a bunch of episodes to allow the girls to fully appreciate meeting an actor at a con.

It breaks my brain a little.

In looking at Vastra’s storyline, though, I’m realizing that’s easier said than done. I can’t just throw them in at her first appearance in AGMGtW—they simply won’t have the backstory. To begin, AGMGtW follows immediately on from The Rebel Flesh / The Almost People, so we’d have to go back to those. More importantly, though, River Song’s true identity is revealed—and they don’t know anything about her.

We could conceivably get away without getting fully into who Amy and Rory are, as the girls have jumped into the middle of a few different Classic Companions’ runs now, and done fine. However, River’s story is a unique case for the viewer. So we could just dip in and out of the Doctor’s timeline with River (except in the order the Doctor experienced it, which… may not be the right order if one’s picking and choosing anyway; hmm…): Silence in the Library / Forest of the Dead (S04 E08-09), The Time of Angels / Flesh and Stone (S05 E04-05), The Pandorica Opens / The Big Bang (S05 E12-13), The Impossible Astronaut / Day of the Moon (S06 E01-02). Then they’d be set up for AGMGtW, to be followed by The Snowmen, The Crimson Horror, The Name of the Doctor, and Deep Breath for their full Vastra education.

Then there’s the problem of how many of those episodes have larger implications to other storylines (read: spoilers!). To begin, River’s portion of Series Five comprises the four series-arc-relevant episodes. Watching those almost feels like negating the need for the girls to see the rest of that series, despite some other decent stories. Meanwhile AGMGtW itself (the nominal reason for the whole River detour) is something of an event episode—that is, it’s both the mid-series climax and the answer to the big “Who are you?” that had been hanging over River since we’d all first met her. Further, it’s the first of yet another two-parter; I would have to screen Let’s Kill Hitler before I could move on with Vastra’s adventures.

Even looking ahead just with Vastra, The Name of the Doctor effectively wraps up three series’ worth of loose ends, leaving only the 50th Anniversary Special and a Christmas Special to round out Eleven’s tenure. Showing my daughters this denouement before they’ve even seen The Eleventh Hour feels like the worst kind of betrayal. (Granted, I’m the kind of person who would never dream of skipping ahead in a book to see how things turn out, while at least one of the girls has been known to do so.)

In the end, perhaps I’m more comfortable with having my girls under-appreciate their encounter with Neve than in pushing them too far, too fast in their modern Who education. It seems like such a colossal waste of the experience to rush into all these stories without being properly grounded. So although I’m willing to cut a few corners, I’m not ready to cut the number outlined above. I think we’ll just keep going as we have been, and screen The Snowmen at the last minute. They’ll still be thrilled to meet Neve.