Doctor Who

I have a question to ask you. Who is your first doctor? This question only a few will understand, as here we are not talking about a physician, but a 1200 years old Time Lord, from the planet Gallifrey in the Constellation of Kasterborous.

My first doctor happened due to love for cricket. But before I met him my interaction was not with the doctor, but the background score. A score which I heard in 1989, from a program which ran in UK, known as Top of the Pops (a musical countdown show). The song was Doctorin’ the Tardis (don’t ask me what Doctoring means), from the group The Time Lords (how original).

Wiki-Article on Song: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctorin%27_the_Tardis

The song Doctoring’ the Tardis, became number 1, but the critics rammed it calling it (as per wiki) – “pure, unadulterated agony … excruciating”; “a record so noxious that a top ten place can be its only destiny”

Destiny it was. The group even wrote a book on how to be number one. The name of the book, The Manual (How to Have a Number One the Easy Way).The top of Pops Video can be seen here:

See the countdown – Kylie Minogue (Got to be Certain). Some longevity, she still got a top 10 after two years.

Ok, you still thinking what Doctorin’ means? Well it has to be something wibbly wobbly and timey wimey.

That was 1989, and the question was good music and I hummed. Till the year 2000 while been a member of the British Library, I had a chance to rent a few videos cassette (yes video rental – VHS format, imagine that watching the classic in a classic) of the old shows.
This is how a video cassette player looked like:

And the video cassette I picked was a man wearing a white sweater which cricketers normally wore. Hmmm, any guesses.

Yes Whovians, have guessed it. It was the Peter Davison, the 5^th Doctor. The episode – Black Orchid. And cricket? Well the 5^th Doctor called cricket as “the greatest game in the universe”, and why not. More on that in another blog piece.

So back to the 5^th Doctor and Black Orchid episode. It was a shock to see the TARDIS, bigger on the inside concept. I had to rewind the scene again and again to understand it. I thought, OK. Well it is a science fiction show, of a time-traveler. Back to the Future had a car, HG Wells had a chair and this Doctor fellow has a box.

But you can see him play cricket in the Black Orchid episode.

The episode was set in the year1925 and was like an Agatha Christie, Poirot detective episode, and it had a reference to India in it. Well, cricket, India, time travel, detective plot and fear and concern by the hero. It is different. I loved it.

In the episode there was a moment, which got clear to be in reboot later. See the moment here:

Yup about the Master.

Post indoctrination now as Whovian now, he still holds a special place. Just like the 9^th Doctor, who revived the show back again in the reboot.

And when ‘Time Crash” episode, was shown during the 10^th Doctor Timeline – I was like – Oh My God! He is back. And as the 10^th says, the 5^th incarnation was his favourite, it was a nostalgic moment. In a flash as to took me back to 2000 and the struggle for preparing the CAT exams with my back behind the walls in my personal life.

That is my story. So, tell me now…who was your first Doctor and what was the story?

Enjoy the journey from 1963 to 2012 via this video, which is has the TIME-LORDS song, Docotorin’ the Tardis with all but two Doctors: