The Fourth Doctor
Week Four!: ‘The 13 Faces of the Doctor’
“To the rational mind, nothing is inexplicable; only unexplained.” – Robots of Death (1977)
There is a truism among Doctor Who fandom that whomever was the Doctor when you first discovered the show, that is your Doctor. There will always be other Doctors and some you may enjoy more, but that first one will always hold a special place in your heart.
So… yes, like most Americans about my age, The Fourth Doctor was my Doctor.
I remember quite clearly being a child, turning the channel, hitting PBS, and seeing scenes from Doctor Who that freaked my little brain out (… the art deco [though I didn’t know the term] robots in Robots of Death… Noah’s face drawn in pain looking down at his hand turned green bubbly and disgusting [actually wrapped in green bubble wrap] as he turned into … something else in Ark in Space …), but I quickly changed the channel and never watched it for very long. I was a Star Wars kid and this cheap PBS show was way too freaky for my sophisticated George Lucas tastes. Yeah, I had clear cut opinions even then.
That changed a year or two later when a childhood friend sat me down in front of the TV and just said, “Watch this.” I was lucky enough that my first full Doctor Who episode was The Pirate Planet (written by Douglas Adams.) There was science fiction, comedy, horror, madcap Tom Baker, and I was instantly hooked.
(fun side note: this friend also introduced me to Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and Dungeons & Dragons… A Nerd Hat Trick!)
So, I became a Whovian and started watching week after week, Saturday afternoons at 4pm became sacrosanct. I started devouring everything I could find related to the show. It was in this way that I discovered my first comic book shop in North East Philadelphia (along Bustleton Avenue.) Aside from finding other comic book worlds (that’s another story), this lead me to a treasure trove of DW paraphernalia: comics, magazines, books, program guides, sound effect records, reading the Target novelizations under the covers with a flashlight, stapling a ream of theme paper over my bedroom door and drawing the TARDIS doors… the whole lot. My aunt (bless her heart) even knitted me a long multicolored scarf (which I still have.) I was a child addict and it all started then and there.
Of course, a couple weeks after my first viewing of the show, I also had to deal with losing my Doctor. PBS was showing the show’s episodes in order, so it was only a matter of time before I hit Logopolis, the Fourth Doctor’s final adventure. In reading all the materials, I had known about regeneration, but it was still heartbreaking to see him go just as I was getting to know him… and who the hell was this waify blonde guy. Thankfully the following week, PBS then started the Fourth Doctor’s adventures all over again (with Robot) because, though Peter Davison had been announced as the new Doctor, his adventures didn’t make it stateside for another year or so. I got to meet Sarah Jane, Harry, Leela; hid behind the couch, and see all of the utterly brilliant horror-tinged early adventures of the Fourth Doctor.
Nowadays, Doctor Who is hip and cool with state of the art acting, music, special effects, and storytelling… not that I mind at all, but I do kind of miss the days of cardboard acting and a shoestring budget where you had to use your imagination a bit (… again with the green plastic bubblewrap. “I love the wobble…”, as Peter Davison says in The Five(ish) Doctors)
So… there it is. As I did say earlier, there may be other Doctors that you enjoy more (which definitely happened in my case… more of that in a few weeks), but that first one with the jelly babies and the ridiculously long scarf will always hold a special place.
“Well, of course I’m being childish! There’s no point in being grown-up if you can’t be childish sometimes!” – Robot (1975)
The Fourth Doctor, Ink/Digital Color, March ’14
Kelly, myself, and a scarf