Doctor Who has been a favorite of mine since pre-school for me. I remember when I was a little kid, Doctor Who was shown during the day on PBS, and my first experience with the show was the episode "The Robot" first of the Tom Baker episodes. I was too young to really pick up on the nuances and really science fiction aspects to the program but I knew I liked it. I remember the first time I heard that theme music I thought it was scary and mysterious, it gave the show that much more appeal. 
Over the years I grew to really love the show and around 7th or 8th grade I considered myself a Wholigan (I know it's Whovian but it sounds better). It was around this time that I discovered the other actors who played The Doctor, and have grown to really like all of the actors who played him. To this day Jon Pertwee is my absolute favorite! I've always liked his cool and collected approach to solving problems. He was kind of the James Bond of the Doctors with his Venusian Aikido, his ties to U.N.I.T. (spy organization) and the various gadgets and vehicles that he had at his disposal. I found my love for the show wasn't really shared with a lot of American kids my age, most of my peers hadn't heard of it and when I would lend them a VHS tape they just didn't get it or thought the special effects were too terrible. It was very much a niche market back then rather than being the hipster icon that the character is today.
I've gone to a few of the conventions and have met quite a few of the classic actors like Peter Davidson (5th Doctor) and Sylvester McCoy (7th Doctor), Sophie Aldred (Ace), Deborah Watling (Victoria), Nicola Bryant (Peri), and Gabriel Woolf (Sutekh from "The Pyramids Of Mars"). My brother even directed and produced a fan made film "Time And Again", which I helped a bit with and also had a bit part (I'm not an actor and never really had aspirations to). It was fun and we had some good feedback on it over the years. I've watched the newer program and feel that it's lost a lot of the feel of the original show. In a lot of ways I think it's been dumbed down a bit (Doctor Who was never really serious minded sci-fi in the first place). Every once in a while I'll come across an episode that hits the mark but mostly it's a miss in my opinion. I still enjoy the original show and will remain a fan of the series.
