Unless you've been living under a sound proof rock you can't have failed to notice the hoopla coming out of the BBC during the last few days as they built up and announced the latest tenant to take up residency in the TARDIS none other than Peter Capaldi. For those not familiar with him he's best known for playing Malcolm Tucker off of The Thick of It. Which is a firm favourite with this blogger and highly recommend it if your looking for a series to work your way through. A look through his CV will reveal he's been in more things than that though, he's what I'd call a proper jobbing actor who appears to have been around forever and has been in virtually everything over the years.
Of note is the fact Peter will be the first oscar winner to play The Doctor although truth be known I'm more impressed by the fact we have another actor playing the Doctor that appeared in Minder. I fully enjoyed having a snoop of his wiki page and remembering the things I'd seen him in that I'd forgotten which included The Comic Strip Presents..., Prime Suspect, Neverwhere, Sea of Souls, My Family, Peep Show and Waking the Dead. Statisticians will be pleased to know that Peter also keeps up the tradition of all the Scottish Doctors having appeared in Rab C. Nesbitt. I haven't been this excited by the announcement of a new Doctor since Chris Eccleston got the gig. I'm really optimistic about where the show can go and what Peter can do with the part so its a hearty welcome to the show from this blogger and I hope you'll have loads of fun.
I don't know about you but this "New Doctor" malarky doesn't half make me feel old. Being a fan of the show I've gone through it a few times although no where near as much as the fans who've been around since the show started. When I was a kid my doctor was Peter Davison and it was during his time I had my first experience of regeneration and as a toddler I didn't have a clue what was going on. In short my first experience of regeneration was the story "The Five Doctors" during which most of the previous Doctors rocked up for an anniversary story. I was surrounded by adults saying "Oh he's aged" "I'd forgot he was Doctor Who" "That not the real him" and "where's the mad one with the scarf" in short I didn't have a clue what was going on but then again I was three. I can distinctly remember an uncle trying to explain it to me and every time Peter Davison appeared me yelling "there he is, there's the doctor!" It was like the world had gone mad and I was the only one who had noticed.
I still hadn't got my head around the concept when Colin Baker turned up on the scene. I can remember thinking that as viewers we weren't meant to notice (which admittedly sounds daft in hindsight) and that I was in on some kind of secret because I noticed. When Sylvester McCoy stepped aboard the TARDIS I had clocked on although I wouldn't fully understand the off screen aspect of this change until later, plus say what you want about season 24 but at least it provided a proper explanation of regeneration in the dialogue.
Sadly at this point the TV show would come to an end, it had been on borrowed time for a few years after an hiatus but after three Doctor's in a short time I soon found myself without a Doctor and without a TV show to go along with him. During this time I discovered previous Doctor's through the Target Novelisation's in libraries, there was an early 90's repeat season and I started getting VHS's - as well as acquiring a collection of Targets. By the time news of the show making a comeback in 1996 surfaced I was a full on fan with experience of all the Doctors. This was my first time experience of the build up to "who the new Doctor would be" during the earlier changeovers they kind of "just happened" but there was a lot of buzz around this with names such as David Hasselhoff being mentioned. Paul McGann would eventually get the part and prove to be a good choice in a shaky production but sadly a series didn't materialise.
Fed on a diet of the series continuing since McCoys time in book form and later audio's I remained cautiously optimistic that it would return. In 2003 the news broke that it would be coming back and it would be under the helm of Captain Russell Tiberius Davies. I found out early that he would be played as a soldier but it was an infuriating few months before we would find out who it was, I was hoping for a name like Alan Davies or Ian McShane but was pleased when Chris Eccleston who like Capaldi is someone who I'd put in the category "proper jobbing actor whose done the rounds." He was a strange one was Chris as no sooner had he done the media publicity circuit as the series was about to start it announced he was off. I wasn't really fussed or paying attention to the media over who would be next as there seemed to be a general acceptance in fandom that David Tennant would be next and he was.
A few years went by and Tennant proved to be successful then after a strange period where it was announced we'd have a string of specials in 2009 it was announced that not only was Tennant leaving but so were the heads of the production team. There were a shedfull of names banded about for the Eleventh Doctor including the usual suspects and some newer names. The BBC announced that The Doctor would be revealed on a TV special and speculation sky rocketed in the weeks leading up to the unveiling. A largely successfull unveiling saw releative unknown Matt Smith unveiled with him having blown away new Executive Producer Steven Moffat at the auditions. Being a youthful Doctor this brings us neatly back to where my regeneration journey began with Peter Davison. Blimey that ain't half a lot of regenerations, knowing my luck I'll probably get another one for Christmas...
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