My First Doctor: Michael
(Michael was kind enough to let me know about his First Doctor, and In the process I have discovered that he used to watch the PBS channel that I watch now. Thanks, Michael!)
My First Doctor: (by Michael of Big Orange Michael)
Many years ago, I lived in San Jose, California. This was in the mid 80s when local PBS station KTEH was one of the great supporters of Dr Who–to the tune of it aired six days a week. One episode an evening at 7:30 p.m. (it moved to 7 p.m. when they got East Enders) and then a complete story in episode format Saturday nights at 11:15 p.m. (Called the Saturday Night Late Night Dr Who feature).
I should preface this by saying I’m also a huge Star Trek fan and this was the time before TNG, so we only had the original 79 that I’d seen–well, a few times. My dad was sitting there with me one hot summer evening and asked me if I’d ever heard of Dr Who. I said I had but it was odd in that it had multiple part stories and I never seemed to see part one.
So, my dad said, “Why don’t we give it a try?” and flipped over to KTEH. The starfield opening swirled into view and lo and behold, it was part one of “Time-Flight.” I sat and watched, fascinating. Having nothing else Who related to compare it to, I thought it was quite good and tuned in the next night…and the next night…and the next night. I soon was figuring out how to program the VCR to record the late night features on Saturday–and they were running Tom Baker. My first T. Baker was “Terror of the Zygons.”
So, my first Doctor was Davison, which is odd since while I like him, he’s not my favorite. My favorite is McCoy, but part of that may be I met him once at the WhoMobile in San Jose and he answered my question about the Daleks. It was after his first season (which we’d not seen yet) and he said he’d go back and tell them the American fans wanted a Dalek story. A few weeks later, I found out the lead story to season 25 was “Remembrance of the Daleks.” Now, I know deep down McCoy didn’t run back to JN-T and say that a young American fan wanted the Daleks back, but I still like to imagine that is exactly what happened.
(Do you have a My First Doctor story that you would like to share? Comment here or e-mail me today!)
My First Doctor, Peter Davison, Sylvester McCoy, KTEH
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