My love for Doctor Who dates back to when the show was rebooted, back in 2005. I was 3, turning 4 at the time. My late father was already incredibly into the show--he'd gotten into it when PBS (I think it was PBS?) began running Tom Baker's episodes in the States. Naturally, he got the rest of my family (me, my mom, and my sister) into it when the show started back up. It's one of the few good things my dad left me.

I very vividly remember the old bumpers. See, when New Who was originally being aired in the States, we didn't have BBC America yet. Instead, we had the Sci-Fi channel. I can't find the exact bumper I remember, but this ad from 2007 ends with a very similar bumper, except with Ten in there instead of Nine. But I have a very vivid recollection of the version they used for Ninth Doctor episodes, so if anyone out there has it, I'd love to see it again.

Also, while I don't remember ever seeing that specific ad (we really only watched the Sci-Fi channel for Doctor Who), shoutout to how much 2000s cringe it oozes. I love it. It sounds like Ten's Tinder profile.

Anyway, from then on, it was a weekend tradition when a series was running. Sometimes we'd eat dinner while we watched, sometimes it was after dinner, it really depended on when the episode was airing. Baby Jay was fascinated by this show. In fact, the earliest imaginary friend I remember having was literally just Nine. Like full stop, one of my imaginary friends as a child was the Ninth Doctor.

I was simply obsessed with the weird little British sci-fi my dad had introduced me to. More than once, for art projects in school, I would end up doing something DW related. Multiple years I've been given DW related gifts, many of which will be explained on my collections page. It was just part of who I was as a person; I really fucking liked Doctor Who.

My dad also introduced us to Classic Who, although I was really the only one of my family that liked it. My mom found it confusing somehow and my sister just didn't seem to be a fan of it. For years, I'd say my favorite Doctor was the Fourth--so much so that even after the fact I liked Twelve more, my senior quote was a quote from Four. Although, annoyingly, the yearbook staff at my high school somehow listed him as the 40th. I remember putting it in correctly, thanks for the typo.

As I mentioned on the biases page, I remember watching handfuls of Classic Who episodes purely because we owned them physically. The Five Doctors, a handful of Fourth Doctor stories. I really need to sit down and watch more of it, especially now that Tubi has 1-7 (since I'm American and can't use the BBC iPlayer) but I digress.

My family and I watched through Tennant and Smith, but when Peter Capaldi took over, that dwindled. My mom and dad both didn't like him much, and while my love for the Twelfth Doctor only really became apparent during series 10, I liked him. I don't even think my dad watched series 10. I have one specific memory during its airing, though--my sister and I went to Six Flags with our grandparents the weekend that The Eaters of the Light aired, so that next weekend I remember convincing our mom to let us not help with dinner because we needed to watch that episode first before World Enough and Time aired.

After Twelve's run ended, we all fell off of it. We were getting rid of cable, since we realized our streaming services were easier to deal with, so we stopped getting BBCA. I still have yet to loop back and watch Thirteen's episodes, and I've heard so many stories about how her episodes were all sorta...meh, so I'm a little less inclined to sit through them. Someday I'll do it! Someday.

I also have yet to watch the 60th anniversary episodes, or the Christmas special. I'll get on those as soon as I can will my brain to watch things, but frankly I'm more willing to rewatch older episodes because they're things I've seen before and have a special sort of comfort to them.