"When the time is right, we will emerge and take our rightful place as the supreme power of the UNIVERSE! " -- Daleks, 'Genesis of the Daleks'

TV Wil Wheaton's just discovered Doctor Who:

"The best thing about being a geek who makes a living writing about geek stuff is that I get to do the things I love and not feel like I'm goofing off. So even though I was sitting on the couch watching Genesis of the Daleks for the entire afternoon, I felt like I was being productive."

I'm sure there's some kind of scientific term for this, but the thought of Wesley Crusher grown up watching the 'Have I the right' scene certainly warms the cockles. To answer his questions:

(1) Whovians. Although I haven't heard that being used in since the show went on extended hiatus (how can a show be canceled if it keeps coming back and continuing the same story?). I think it's most Doctor Who fans these days. Or BBC viewers.

(2) It's all grotesquely uneven, which is a tradition that is still being continued in the new series. Which is probably why we love it so -- if it was perfect we'd have nothing to moan about. But really, there wasn't any excuse to follow up The Caves of Androzani with The Twin Dilemma. But that means ...

(3) That although the 80s looks like a very fallow period for the show there is still a range of really decent stories but they tend not to be the norm because the production staff were over worked, underbudgeted and usually didn't have time to see what was really working and what wasn't. Most of it was on instinct so most of the classics were happy accidents.

(4) I don't know that people feud about Doctors so much as production eras. Tom Baker's tenure can be broken down very clearly into the Hinchcliffe era (gothic), Williams era (undergraduate humour) and Nathan Turner (weird) and even McCoy's three years can be split between the spoon playing of the first year into the mad manipulator playing through the final two. Everyone seems to be a fan of some of it. The problem with picking Doctors is that there are people who really, really hated the Colin Baker tv stories but love his Big Finish audio dramas which have rather rehabilitated his reputation.

[I'd usually post something like this on Behind The Sofa but since that's about to go through some kind of regenerative cycle ...]