A bit cheeky to claim this for England when it's currently made by BBC Wales, but it's high time I mentioned it in some detail. This show, a sci-fi ramble across time and space, has been around longer than me and has guaranteed longevity with it's ability to renew itself every few years (give or take a decade's sabbatical).
“My Doctor” (ie, the one I grew up with) should be Tom Baker (the 4th Doctor). But such is my terrible memory of my early years, all I can remember of those early days is feeling acutely embarrassed when Leela (the Doctor's semi-savage assistant, usually clad in a leather leotard) was on screen, and the six-year-old me didn't know where to look. So I suppose that Peter Davison (the 5th Doctor) takes the title, since he's the one I have most memories of.
However, since the series returned to our screens in 2005, I've been determinedly nu-skool in my tastes. Patrick Troughton (the 2nd Doctor) aside, I've not cared much for anything before Paul McGann (the 8th Doctor). This is not by design or deliberate choice. I just happen to think that the new BBC series and Big Finish audio adventures are more entertaining.
And the current series, overseen by producer and writer Steve Moffat (Coupling, Jekyl, The Press Gang), somehow fits the bill even more. It's as if someone remade Doctor Who according to how I remembered it, not by how it was. The aliens are a little more Twilight Zone and the twists are a bit more Tales Of The Unexpected than the previous seasons' Hollywood pretensions.
Sometimes the show is a little sappy and silly, but it is supposed to be suitable for kids so who am I to complain. At its worst I can still imagine some kid sitting cross-legged in front of the TV thinking something was the coolest thing he'd ever seen. And at its best I am, for forty-five too-short minutes, that kid sitting in front of the TV screen, thinking that was the coolest thing I've ever seen. Another forty years is not too much to ask, is it?
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