Doctor Doctor

Life has a funny way of moving the past back into the present. It’s even better when something that was once an integral part of my youth becomes relevant again. Such is the case with the television series Doctor Who.

It all happened so suddenly. One of my daughters started really getting into Doctor Who a couple of years ago. She was drawn to the series as the David Tennant years were winding down. She caught all the reruns she could courtesy of the DVR and our satellite dish. My oldest daughter was also paying attention to the newer series. I eventually found out my wife and youngest children were also watching it. I was indifferent to it. On one level I thought it was cool that my family was getting into Doctor Who. The problem was it wasn’t my Doctor.

I knew that Doctor Who went back into production several years ago. I barely payed any attention to it. I figured it was a reboot with the usual perversion and poor depth that is often associated with the modernization of the classics. I didn’t need another thing to get me angry. Trust me , the list of things that tick me off get longer as I get older.

For back story of my particular strain of the Whovian virus, I must throttle my mental Tardis back to my first introduction to the Doctor. I mean seriously , what else could it be? It was that music ! The television dial stopped whenever I heard that hypnotic music. I was all in. Once that music ended, I was thrown into adventures with odd creatures, an unusual hero and some great story lines. I also had to listen hard to catch what everyone was saying. Now my particular Doctor is, of course the definitive Doctor for my generation, Tom Baker ; the Fourth Doctor.

In the seventies and early eighties trying to find any consistent way to watch the program was insane. PBS was the only channel that played it. A British show being played in America on the Public Broadcasting System pretty much ensured that a whole lot of episodes were going to be missed. There was no such thing as a VCR/DVD/DVR/cable, internet or any of the other life changing technological innovations that would eventually come along. As I have stated to my children many times, we had one chance to catch something on television. We had to guess what probably happened during the episodes we missed. Chasing down the show was a regular thing for a number of years. Eventually it seemed like finding the show was impossible. At some point the show dropped off my radar. It was very hard to keep up with a program that kept getting moved around.

A few years later (somewhere in the mid 1980’s) I was flipping through the television and saw Doctor Who was on PBS again. I was elated. I sat back getting ready to see my tall, quirky, curly haired doctor with his long scarf. Bring on the Sci Fi goodness. Then I was horrified to see my Doctor was gone. All I saw was some curly haired guy in a clown suit playing the Doctor . I was boiling mad. Forget about it. I’m out. I’m done. The show is ruined .

As the years went by, and a cooler head prevailed, I learned that I had stumbled across the sixth Doctor.This was during the Colin Baker years. The whole concept of the Doctor regenerating into a different physical body wasn’t something I was aware of at the time. I’m not sure that it would have made a difference. There were quite a few intrinsic aspects to the Doctor Who story that were too hard to grasp with the horrible scheduling issues associated with PBS. Maybe Colin Baker was a good Doctor. Maybe he wasn’t. I really don’t know. I wasn’t even aware, at the time, that there was another Doctor (Peter Davison) in between Colin and Tom Baker. Following a legend is nearly impossible. I don’t care if it’s television, movies or sports. It’s a so hard to be “the next guy”. In hindsight, I need to revisit those Doctors at some point.

So, throttle the mental Tardis back to my living room in 2016. My Directv box blew up. I hooked up the replacement unit and started reprogramming all of the stations. As I was reprogramming, I flipped to a channel I was unaware that I had, BBC America. The elation that escaped me over 30 years ago filled my body . There he was ! Tom Baker , the fourth Doctor (my Doctor) was on my television. BBC America was playing “Genesis of the Daleks“. I hit the record button so I could preserve this treasure. I called my wife into the room. I showed it to my children after I came home from work. My family really loved it. I finally got to see my old childhood friend again. My kids got to see him in action. My family was glued to the screen. They where sucked in by the intensity.

As we watched , “Genesis of the Daleks” , I was surprised how much my family knew about Doctor Who. They were far more educated on the Whoverse than I knew. I was blown away. Maybe there is something to this new round of Doctor Who. My mind was instantly opened. Maybe this new Doctor Who wasn’t a desecration of all that I knew. The legacy of the Doctor was being honorably represented and continued. It wasn’t rebooted or rewritten. It was still going.

Now we have come full circle. We are currently gathering around the television and having regular family viewings of the old fourth Doctor episodes. We have a mixture of VHS and DVD releases. We are working through these classics. I find it amusing when I hear myself explaining to my kids how to properly take care of VHS tapes. It adds to the whole nostalgic “vault” feeling of the whole affair.

Through it all the cosmic forces have aligned. The Time Lords brought the tenth Doctor and the Fourth Doctor together in my home. What’s old is new. What’s new is old. The Doctor is alive and well.