When your birthday coincides with the start of the longest-running science fiction series on television, you will likely share the stage on key milestone dates with the beloved quintessential British television show. I know – I should be a diehard super fan of Doctor Who but unfortunately towards the later end of the Matt Smith era (12th incarnation of the Time Lord) I fell out of love with the series. Firstly it was perhaps the fact I sometimes found myself overly obsessed with when stripped down to barebones a children’s television show. (People will try and tell you a different story particularly fans of (or should that be since) the 2005 reboot) I can recall my love waning during the airing of “grown-up” cousin Torchwood. I do not think I even watched the final series of short episodes (what they term for the Netflix generation as “limited series”) of Torchwood. My love of the Doctor just slowly ebbed away. It was a natural phenomenon. I did not fight against it, I just let the character go, even if in reality I was saying goodbye to a good friend.

They say your favourite doctor is the one you grew up watching and for many people that would be Peter Davidson (who probably is the most popular of the original generation of Doctors) but personally, it was Percy James Patrick Kent-Smith but you will know him professionally as Sylvester McCoy. Plus I had the biggest crush on Sophie Aldred as companion Ace. I have covered much of this ground before, as it is all part of the process of Growing Up. However, we have now moved on from the 50th anniversary of the show to a whole decade (yes ten years later) and the 60th anniversary. Yes – believe it or not – I have gone from 32 to 42 in those intervening years.

When the Whoinverse mini-site launched on BBC iPlayer 22 days ago I suddenly felt nostalgic. If the first-ever episode from November 1963 had been included I would have probably given it a watch. I have only ever seen small excerpts shown in various documentaries over the years. It is a strange curiosity for my birthday to fall on the same day as a TimeLord from the planet Gallifrey and for him to own (be part of) a time-travelling device. Time travel is probably one of the topics constantly on my mind and more so on birthdays as you tend to look back, on the journey so far.

I would consider Diamond Geezer a TimeLord of sorts – there he is daily – dedicating a large chunk of his time to keeping a record of his life online. I first stumbled upon the blog following a link from Arseblog (which I used to read daily at the turn of the millennium). I have been reading DG almost daily (well during working days at least) since 2002 – as it happened to be one of his regular ‘Count’ features. Occasionally I leave the odd comment on an entry disputing the location of Cliveden between the county of Berkshire or Buckinghamshire or lamenting Arsenal’s 2024 title run-in with money bags Manchester City. His entry on my birthday was as interesting as you would expect but it got me thinking… 

Will I ever return to the BBC show? My initial response is never say never. Well, I hope at least one of my offspring will discover the adventures of the Who Doctor (as my Mum still affectionately refers to it) but time will tell (no pun intended). It is the same as the Marvel Cinematic Universe which rightly so deserves a separate entry in its own right. In that particular case, after a decade, other life events/challenges would become an obstacle to watching not just between three to four films at the local multiplex over twelve months but also a selection of crossover television shows across multiple platforms (Channel 4 to start with – a free public service broadcaster before having to shell out for Netflix and then eventually Disney+). I managed to get through two seasons of Agent Phil Coulson.