Dr Who made me the man I am today – sort of. I’m twenty eight years old, and so am towards the younger age of those who can claim to have watched it first time ’round. I barely remember Colin Baker – Sylvester McCoy was my doctor. And he was brilliant – half-remembered episodes like that one with the sweet monster, that one with the fucked-up space circus, and that one with the cat people – are defining childhood almost-memories.

But the man I am today? How do I justify that cod-hyperbole?* Like this: Circa 1988, I was in the process of being indoctrinated by the fascist organisation know as the Cubs, a kind of pre-Hitler Youth feeder organisation for the Scouts. I was a bit suspicious of Cubs, because while it seemed to involve some things I was definitely in favour of, such as pissing about in woods, it also seemed to involve things I definitely was not in favour of, like being told what to do by older people, and acting the same as everyone else. These were, of course, vague misgivings – I was seven / eight years old, after all – but the deciding factor was that Cubs was on Wednesdays, which meant I’d miss Dr Who. So I dropped out of Cubs, disappeared into my own fantasy world, and am the man I am today. And not, for example, the type of person who is comfortable at dinner parties.

What does this have to do with anything? Fast forward twenty years. I have a lovely girlfriend who, despite being a bit younger than me and (the shame of it!) not English, has seen far more Dr Who than I have. I saw the McCoy episodes at the time, have caught a few episodes of Tom Baker era on my friend’s cable/satellite tv back in the nineties (similarly, this is the only way I knew about music videos), and love the new series’ of Dr Who while hating Russel T. Davies, which is, of course, exactly how he would want it.

Lovely Mo, in contrast, has seen loads of it due to the magic of America’s Public Broadcaster** , but in a jiggery-pokery kind of order that means it’s all mushed up in her mind the way the James Bond films are in mine***. So, utilising the magic of modern technology, we have decided it’s time to watch all of them, from the start of Tom Baker’s reign onwards. Well, actually, I think Mo thought we were just going to watch the Tom Baker episodes. But we’re not. We’re going to watch them all.

* Is cod-hyperbole in danger as the fish stocks plummet?
** The ex-magic. They show Keeping Up Appearances now.
*** he jumps off a cliff and opens his union jack parachute then skis down a hill and into a lotus which then turns into a submarine then jaws turns up somehow then someone says ‘no, Mr Bond, I expect you to die’…