To some degree, the modern geek knows about Doctor Who.
It’s been running for 26 seasons and off and on since 1963 through literally over a dozen incarnations (or in this case, regenerations). The special effects have often been on the cheap side, depending on how deep into the BBC historical closet they dip or what they’ve been able to kit bash on the limited budget at the time. But it has never been about the look.
It’s about the Doctor.
He’s a joyful madman in a little box tearing across space / time on wild adventures, saving the universe as often as he’s saving the little girl that no one else cared about. He’s clever and childlike without being mean spirited. And the best monsters are slightly silly (or don’t have the budget to be any better) and we cheer when he manages to win the day against them by being smart enough, and the worst monsters are the hateful ignorant ones and the ones with voids behind their masks. He travels with a mortal who keeps him in a state of wonder at the universe and help him from becoming lost in his vast age and all the fights he didn’t win and the all the people he couldn’t save along the way.
He’s a doctor; there to help with skill and knowledge while everyone around him is rushing to their weapons. The attempt at an American version focused on the flamboyance but really, he should have been more like Benjamin “Hawkeye” Pierce, wise and whimsical and saving lives.
My first encounter with the Doctor was in the late hours on PBS, midway through one of the multi episodic arcs that they did at the time. I’m fairly sure it was Stones of Blood with the 4th Doctor, Tom Baker. I managed to find it again and continued to watch it, jumping between seasons and Doctors and picking up on the lore along the way. At one point, I even tried to knit the famed scarf.
By the time the 5th Doctor was ploughing his way through yet another of those 6 to 10 part story arcs, I admit I was feeling some fatigue but continued on. Then as things hit the 6th Doctor, life and available episodes went through some changes so I have a sizable gap across the next few Doctors and it wasn’t until the reboot with Christopher Eccleston on late night CBC that I fell back into it.
It was questionable special effects once more, but with a format of longer episodes and summing up a story in one or two of those, with a trail of bread crumbs overarching a season long plot line. But it was the Doctor for a new generation. Clad in a black leather jacket, edgier and bitter after the final Time War, but still determined to save the world with the help of his Companion.
It spawned Torchwood and The Sarah Jane Chronicles and numerous animated and radio plays and new books of the in between years started coming out (I never saw Class or K9 but they are on the list to hunt down someday). The Doctor returned in full glory as the Thinking Man of Action, along with Companions that held their own against the classics like Daleks and Cybermen and even the long forgotten Silurians and Sontarans and the Master returned yet again (speaking of Companions, #TeamRory by the way). The lore of the Time Lords and the Final Time War was expanded upon and the Doctor worked his way through the pain and grief of being the last of his kind. New iconic foes were spawned like the strange Weeping Angels who devoured your life by sending you back in time but themselves were frozen in time so long as they were watched. Plus, new allies and old legacies and even a daughter populated this growing world of the Doctor.
I confess, I’m behind a few seasons but more so because of a lack of time to watch them and hunting down a format to see the latest ones. Still, it is a glorious time to be a fan of the Doctor, to see the places and faces that writers will take them, mixing new and old lore and exploring different ways to tell a story.
It’s never been about the special effects.
It’s always been about heart.
Or in this case, the double heart of one who sees the universe with child like wonder, who believes in the good of sentients, and who continues to grapple with weariness of immortality and the joy of life, and all the while crowing like Peter Pan before his Lost Boys at how clever he can be.
That’s why I watch Doctor Who.
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A Geek for All Seasons 
I’ve never been what I would call a huge Doctor Who fan but I love the franchise and am glad that it exists. #3 was my first Doctor and I fondly remember finding episodes on PBS at odd times as a child. To say that it was unique is an understatement. This would have been at some point in the 70s and certainly prior to my introduction to TTRPGS.
As the Tom Baker episodes started to become available, the programming became more stable and I’ll always consider him to be “my Doctor”. Somewhere through his run I ended up in high school and my time for time traveling hijinks diminished.
I started following the series again with Christopher Eccleston and stuck with it through the following two Doctors. I’ve got some catching up to do as well.
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