It's one of those little things you learn as you become more familiar with the human race. Port is passed to the left, and Doctor Who is watched from behind the sofa. I don't have this - apparently universal - memory. I didn't watch Doctor Who when I was small. I think one of my sisters did. I remember it being on in the background. I did think Tom Baker was scary. But then I also thought the patches on the ceiling above my bunk bed were scary, and the wardrobe was pretty menacing. Mr Baker wasn't particularly notable for his power to unsettle.
So I came to the Doctor relatively late in life, when David Tennant and Billie Piper were doing their thing. (A cryptic comment on a BBC forum - 'i hate billie pipr. she a rat' - is the reason my husband and I refer affectionately to rats as billies.) I've watched it ever since, and rented out the previous Christopher Eccleston series too. I love the idea of the Doctor, and I always hope that the particular episode I'm watching will be worthy of that idea, but usually it's not. The last one I saw was written by Neil Gaiman, and was very good. In addition to having an imaginative plot, it steered clear of the oozing sentimentality that tends to gurgle up and immerse the valiant actors in awful, awful dialogue.
My Doctor Who film, sadly only showing on the screen in my brain, is dark and unsentimental. The Doctor is played by Michael Gambon, which I think you will agree is perfect casting. The Master is played by Ian Richardson. It's directed by Peter Greenaway.
The Time Lords, having quite a bit of dossing about to do, decide to amuse themselves by learning all about the universe. They make robots that they send back through time to shoot documentaries. (These are of course infinitely superior to Discovery Channel documentaries, due to the lack of great big clamouring egos.) They themselves never go back in time because it would fiddle about with causality (if that's the word I want). Apart from the odd scallywag Time Lad, after whom is sent a robot programmed to locate him & drag him back by his immortal ear. The Master is sort of like a police detective and in charge of this bit of Gallifreyan law-and-ordering. The Doctor, on the other hand, is very much in the scallywag camp and is a repeat offender. (At this point he's played by Sam whatsisname from 'Moon') Eventually he ends up doing something that prevents Gallifrey from ever existing. He survives as he was outside the normal time continuum, and so does The Master, who was following him, and the robot that was programmed to find him. The Master takes it all very badly and re-programmes the robot to kill The Doctor. However he realises that The Doctor will reincarnate again and again, each time looking different. So he tries to programme the robot to take this into account. But like many programmers he is a leetle bit over-confident and under-correct, and ends up creating the first Dalek, who just wants to destroy everything. Hurray! Cue Michael Gambon, on the run for years, about seventy percent of his youthful scallywaggery drained out of him, hunted by The Master and feeling a bit guilty about Gallifrey and the Dalek situation. After that, I don't know what happens. But I would like to.
