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I’d record it, watch it countless times, and then discuss it at school — often until friends would just tune me out, or walk away. It was a show a lot older than I, and in the distant pre-YouTube era, I spent years catching up. There were lost weekends spent indoors, and lots of parental talk of my eyes falling out. But even now, as a decades-strong fan, it’s kind of crazy to think the BBC classic turns 50 — 50! — this November 23, continuing its reign as the longest running TV sci-fi series.
To me, Who was, and is, unique, occupying a niche beyond the reach of other sci-fi shows I loved as a child. It’s not as slick as Star Trek, nor as showy as Battlestar Galactica, and yet it’s a touch smarter than both. Engrossingly tumbledown, and almost stage-like in its pacing, it’s far more adventurous in scope, and braver in its simplicity. It has always worn its often cringe-inducing cheesiness on its sleeve; though at its core, it takes itself very seriously.
Case in point: this 1975 interaction between the Doctor and enemy Davros (creator of the doctor’s arch-nemeses robot race, the Daleks). Yes, it’s ludicrous: a rubber-masked, three-eyed alien hovering about in a chair — and a scarf-wearing posh guy basically telling him to settle down. But there is also genuine ethical debate here, and relatively complex thought experiments: “It is interesting conjecture,” as Davros himself says. Everyone looks so quirky, but is being so, I dunno, rational. It’s just all so British.
Indeed, I’ve always seen the doctor as a sort of hybrid of Sherlock Holmes, H.G. Wells’ Time Traveller and a passionate stamp-collector — the beyond-competent amateur filled with plucky optimism. But there’s a danger in pigeonholing both Doctor and show, because as any good fan knows, the key to its ongoing success is change, or rather, regeneration.
To date we have met 11 (soon to be 12) very different incarnations of the Doctor. From William Hartnell’s stately, lapel-clutching original, to Christopher Eccleston’s leather jacket-loving ninth incarnation, it is often asked: Who is best? Britons seem to think it’s No. 10, David Tennant. Many critics point to the fourth Doctor, played by Tom Baker (pictured below) as the best in the series. I, for one, am guilty of the great Whovian bias: favoring the one you grew up watching. I will forever defend Sylvester McCoy’s seventh Doctor — the one who introduced me to the Who world more than a quarter-century ago — as the standout.