I guess Sarah Jane might have had something to do with that. She was such a sweetheart.

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.

Oh, and btw, the gap

It doesn’t give their celebrities the same access to personal trainers, rehab centers, cosmetic surgery and prosthetic appliances.

There are exceptions, of course. (Dame Helen is 68.)

I also watched The Day… twice, (mainly because I dozed the first time), and I still have mixed feelings about it. I liked The Name of the Doctor, much better.

I didn’t really take much religious significance from Clara’s appeal to the crack at the time but I can see what you mean. It had all the appearance of prayer.

Yes of course they were always going to get around that pesky regeneration problem and yes it was classic deus ex machina, which it pretty much had to be. The old d.e.m. gets too much criticism anyway. I suppose they could have come up with something more interesting but no need to detract from the main plot when everyone knew the regeneration was inevitable.

I suspect we will be seeing that confounded crack often in future episodes, whenever they get between a rock and a hard place.

I wonder if the long hiatus is partly to let the fans get over the loss of Matt Smith and get ready for an older and much different Dr Who.

Smith has become quite popular, maybe more so than David Tennant. I still favor Tennant, but I was struck by how he seems to have aged. I noticed it first in Broadchurch, a murder mystery mini series on BBC. I figured perhaps he was supposed to look a little run down in that role, but he looked equally bad this week as well. He is only 42 but for some reason unknown to me, British actors often don’t seem to age as well as ours.

For whatever reason, he just didn’t look fit and healthy to me.

The outcome was preordained, of course, which is probably why the story (in terms of events and actions) seemed OK but not great. It was a vehicle for the deus ex machina that broke the twelve regenerations barrier.

But wow, they poured on the emotion in the last third, and of course that’s what made it memorable. Even knowing that this wouldn’t really be the last regeneration, the death and resurrection of the Doctor is a momentous occasion.

I notice the religious terms come easily. Did you pick up a sense that Clara was praying at the Crack? And then the godlike Time Lords saved their prodigal son….Dies Domini ex machina, Time Lords move in mysterious ways.

I enjoyed it.

What did you think of Night of the Doctor? I actually sprang for the bluray so I had to wait until early December to see it. First viewing I was a bit disappointed, but I watched it again yesterday to condition my mind for today’s episode, and liked it a lot more the second time. I spotted some of the fan-stroking touches, like Tom Baker’s appearance in the final scene…the definitive 20th century Doctor, and the definitive 21st-century Doctor sharing a few quiet words. Nice.

Nine months til we get more Doctor Who. Oh well…three classic (twencen) Who DVDs are scheduled to arrive tomorrow. I’ll manage somehow.