The Sci Fi channel recently picked up the BBC revival of Doctor Who which started to air in 2005 in the UK. I was interested in seeing it, but I had my reservations after suffering through the miserable Doctor Who movie on FOX back in 1996 (featuring the Eighth Doctor). The Doctor and I were friends back in the 80s on the local PBS station as I watched mostly Tom Baker as the Fourth Doctor get into shenanigans.
In college, I watched a bunch courtesy of my friend Scott who had a large collection of episodes. I really enjoyed Doctors 1(William Hartnell), 3 (Jon Pertwee), and 4 (Tom Baker) the best. #2 (Patrick Troughton) was OK as well, and I never cared for Doctors 5 and 6 (Peter Davison and Colin Baker - no offense, but there episodes never 'clicked' with me). I never really saw any Seventh Doctor (Sylvester McCoy) episodes, but I hear they were good. At any rate, I have always had this inkling to watch some of the classic ones, and when the new ones came out, I eagerly awaited seeing them since I had heard good things.
So the new series picks up with The Ninth Doctor (Christopher Eccleston) in London. I immediately liked the characterization of this Doctor and it led me to enjoy the show that much more. Three episodes in, and I can't wait for more. I was surprised to hear that Eccleston opted out after this series and they have a new actor to play the Tenth Doctor for the series that begins next month. I think Number 9 was a good blend of Tom Baker and Jon Pertwee, and I hope the Tenth Doctor is just as good. My only disappointment is that so far the stories are earth-based (similar to the Second Doctor), and I hope as the series progresses they venture out more.
In other Sci-Fi news, I gave up on Battlestar Galactica. It was just too hard to get back into once I fell behind in recording the episodes. So now my TiVo (when it works - stupid cable box!) is down to the CSIs, Amazing Race, 24 (for Daniel, but now that he has a DirecTV DVR, this might go away), Survivor, Most Haunted, and South Park.
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