The Doctor is back!

Back in 2005, I was pretty excited when BBC America and Scifi channel announced they would be broadcasting the BBC reboot of the Doctor Who series. I only slightly remember seeing a few episodes with Tom Baker back in the day in my younger days on PBS. Nothing that I could remember specifically, but I'd heard great things the original series from other friends and bloggers and since it was a reboot, I thought why not get in on the ground floor.

I soon discovered that I liked the concept of a rebooted Doctor Who. The only problem was that I did not like the actor, Christopher Eccleston, in that role. Maybe he didn't have the right humor or he seemed a bit too serious at times, but I just wasn't about to give up another year of my viewing time to a show whose main character didn't interest me. I was aware that they had replaced him, but I was so disappointed in what they had tried to do with Mr. Eccleston that I had not reason to invest my time with David Tennant.

Well, I have to say, that was a huge mistake.

Recently, I'd had the pleasure of watching a bit of Doctor Who on BBC America, actually they had a marathon of sorts during the recent July 4th weekend. They showed a few hours of Doctor Who. The marathon episodes spanned the course of several seasons, eventually ending with an episode from the latest season with Matt Smith as the Doctor. I have to say that I regret not giving Mr. Tennant a chance to impress me, because after viewing 3 of his episodes during July 4th, I was saying to myself, this is the Doctor. He was funny, strange, whimsical and at times a complete angry pain in the ass, but not so's you noticed. I truly think that he was the Doctor they had envisioned when they set out to reboot the series. That being said, I think that Matt Smith is an excellent replacement. His acting paired with Steven Moffat's writing, he created my other favorite British shows, Couplings, is just awesome. The Doctor's helper is Karen Gillan, who is funny, very smart, brave and a bit more flirtatious than other Doctor companions, which is something new I think for someone in that role. Course, I've only seen the first 3 episodes from season 5, 2 of which I had to download straight away from iTunes after viewing the marathon.

I have gone Doctor Who crazy. At lunch today I decided to hit Best Buy up for a few more episodes from the David Tennant stack, including the one where he changes into Matt Smith, which I've not seen yet. I also decided to sign up for Netflix so I could stream all the earlier seasons, with the exception of season 1 which I will just write off as a bad experience all around. I'm sure that others will disagree, but I'm just happy to have rediscovered Doctor Who. I look forward to what the rest of season 5 will provide and hope that season 6 will be just as great.

I just wanted to spread the word that if you've never given Doctor Who a shot, check out the episode "Blink". If you don't get hooked by watching that one, you never will.