Bremen, Indiana 1987

I had five channels growing up. In our tiny income-dependent apartment, called the Huff Homestead by my sister's friends, who often gathered there, we never had cable. We didn't even get Fox. The channels were NBC, CBS, ABC, the religious channel, and PBS.

I'd just gotten into Star Trek: The Next Generation, starting a few episodes into the first season. TNG aired at 10:30pm that first season, but my mom gave me permission to stay up to watch it after seeing a television commercial because she'd been a fan of Star Trek growing up. I don't remember what my bedtime was at eight years old, but this was far later than I usually stayed up.

It turns out, when you stay up late one night, it's hard to go to sleep the next night early again. Which is why I was flipping through channels—all five of them—at 10:15pm or so. I stumbled onto a show on PBS with these funny, silly people at a department store sat around a conference room trying to pick a vacation. The show was Are You Being Served?, and yes, I would become a lifelong fan of that show at eight too! But that wasn't the main even this day.

That came when I left the channel on, wondering what other funny shows might come on next. The next show up was not a funny one. This one had mummies. And a sarcophagus that had a portal to somewhere else. A grinning man with wild eyes in a long scarf, and a smart, funny young woman who reminded me of my mom and my sisters. The show was Doctor Who, and the episode was Pyramid of Mars. I was instantly obsessed. I was already a fan of Egyptian mythology and history (all mythology, in fact) and had read a few books on Egypt, mummies, at the local library where much of my childhood was spent.

But add in robots, time travel, and two central characters who, in my eight year old brain, felt like friends I was traveling with more than simply two actors on a screen playing a part, and a lifelong fandom was born.

When I started watching PBS, Sylvester McCoy was the current Doctor. But PBS (at leat my local station, shout out to WILL) played the 4th Doctor stories in a loop. Which is why I was in utter shock when I saw the end of the 4th Doctor in Logopolis. Talk about mythology! I didn't know a Time Lord could regenerate. It was a complete shock to see the strange, papery figure of The Watcher follow the Doctor before merging with him to become his fifth self. Who was this smilling blonde man?!! It was even odder to watch the next week and see the Third Doctor transform into my Doctor again! I eventually found a book at a book store in South Bend (Doctor Who books were VERY hard to find back then) called Gallifrey. I stil have it. And it helped me understand how this worked, exactly. Eventually, PBS started playing the other Doctors.

I didn't realize that Doctor Who was episodic. PBS stripped them into "movies" or "omnibus" editions, which meant that the run time could vary WILDLY over the course of Doctor Who. I'll never forget the morning I woke up, so mad at myself for falling asleep during War Machines. Not realizing it was four hours long!

The history of Doctor Who stretches far and wide these days. I can honestly say there's not one Doctor I don't like. Between the past stories I've seen, the books, and the Big Finish stories, even the Doctors who were underserved in the story department have been given new life and have really had a chance to let their talents shine.

But, even when other Doctors get really close to my favorite, it's difficult to put them above Tom Baker. Part of this is purely nostalgia. He was my first Doctor, and he (and Sarah) left such an indelible pression on my brain. He is also just a talented actor, intriguing personality, and will probably always be the longest-serving doctor in terms of aired TV episodes. He had time to have different eras, and was served some of the best classic Doctor Who episodes.

It was with the Doctor I first really got into horror, and gothic horror. The Doctor has evolved as a character over the years, becoming more human and emotional as time has gone on. I understand the shift, but I kind of still prefer the Doctor as embodied by Tom Baker. His Doctor felt like he had a truly unknowable mind, far beyond the concerns we humans might have. A mad, mischievous force for good who rejected the establishment, questioned his own judgment, did not give speeches lightly—a true wanderer in a mad box tumbling through space and time.

Happy birthday, Tom!

And thank you.