Day, Night, Time, Name...all that of-the-Doctor stuff is confusing.

I originally favored Tennant myself, but as Matt Smith put his mark on the role over the years, I became more comfortable with him. I'll acknowledge that his interpretation of the Doctor is one of the most vivid and exciting of all of them. Each actor gets to create his own Doctor, and everybody has their favorite; but there seems to be a broad consensus that Tom Baker and Matt Smith had particularly powerful influences. And they have their similarities, something I saw in that final scene in Day, a sort of Willie Wonka gazing in the mirror effect.

There seem to be several recurring patterns among the Doctors. Hartnell and Pertwee were older and fairly dignified, and I suspect that Peter Capaldi is going to be of that mold. Or maybe not, since Moffat et al delight in disrupting your expectations. Tennant and McGann (and also Pertwee) were of the dashing heroic mold. Eccleston and McGann were alike, and it's interesting to see now that John Hurt's warrior Doctor bridged the gap between Eight and Nine. Pretty-boy McGann turned into gnarled old John Hurt as a result of the Time War, and then regenerated into a still-soldierly, and grim, Eccleston.

The fact that the show has been around so long gives it a unique character. There have been over 800 episodes so far, and I think I've seen no more than a third of them. But what I have seen forms a fairly coherent tapestry across the decades, and as every succeeding production self-consciously builds on the history, the tapestry becomes richer and richer...and more complex. I have to think about it to understand what just happened, and put it into historical context. And that's a fascinating process. I enjoy thinking about Doctor Who. Very little on television has ever had that effect on me.

Lord help me, I've become a Whovian! You'd think I'd know better, at my age.