Baseline

Obviously I wasn't born in a vacuum. I've heard of Doctor Who.

Best to start with my baseline.

• I'm American, not British which is probably why I've been able to escape all Who-mania.
• I saw a total of 5 minutes of Doctor Who on PBS at the age of 13.
• Despite being a Who-retard, I've watched plenty of Star Trek, Firefly, and the original Buck Rogers and Battlestar Gallactica. I'm a fan boy.

I seem a prime candidate for my experiment, having a love for Science Fiction but a near non-existent knowledge of the Doctor.

Before I began the first season (1963!), here's what I knew about Doctor Who (or thought I knew):

• Doctor Who is an alien time traveler
• He's on the run from some group called the Time Lords
• He has a hot jungle-girl side-kick
• He wears a long scarf and is pretty damn homely for a traditional hero
• Sometime in the 80's they replaced him with a blond dude and the series tanked (imagine my surprise when I realized there were 10 doctors...)
• His time machine is phone booth for some unknown reason
  

After telling my friends about my plans to start from the beginning, they spoiled the following before I could stop them:

• His name isn't Doctor Who, it's just The Doctor
• The Daleks are some sort of robotic enemy of the Doctor who like to exterminate
• The Doctor actually IS a Timelord
• There are 10 total doctors at the present time, a nice mechanism for replacing old actors
• It's a police box, stupid. And it's called the TARDIS.
  

Maybe it's a British thing but I find it outrageous to change actors in the middle of a show. They did it with 007 and they did it with the Doctor. Imagine if Indiana Jones or John McClane were played by different people. Americans so strongly identify the actors with their parts that we've dug up Harrison Ford and Bruce Willis, despite their advanced age, to roll around in a 4th installment of their given series. I hope they have good insurance... I hear the AARP has a good plan. Much like the James Bonds of the world, I expect each actor will bring his own flavor to the roll.

Because of the need to find these shows to watch them, I needed episode lists and was exposed to further 'spoilers'. I quickly found out the format of the show, how many seasons, episodes, and stories there were, when each doctor made his appearance and exit, and the fact that the Doctor has a revolving door of different 'Companions.'

NOTE: Companion must have slightly different connotations in the UK. To me it sounds a bit sexual. Unless the Doctor swings both ways... And who knows what the sexual practices of a time traveling alien really are? James T. Kirk claimed more strange alien tail in the name of exploration than any astronaut before him... who can blame the Doctor for mixing it up in the TARDIS? If he wants both male and female companions, more power to him. I'm sure it's quite lonely in the 4th dimension.

I think perhaps companion is used for lack of a better word. As in 'traveling companion.' Ah, well. No free love for the Doctor, though he might be able to use his Doctorate to convince young women to submit to a physical.