New Season of Sci Fi Classic Doctor Who Starring David Tenant

My name is Os Davis and I am a Doctor Who addict. The obsession began in my teen years when, after having peaking athletically at age eleven, my imagination leapt from the space between base paths to the space between starbases. There was "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" and the ubiquitous "Star Trek," of course, but what really sunk me into the throes of addiction was that crazy, low-budget British show on PBS. "Doctor Who."

Ah, "Doctor Who." The thinking man's sci-fi protagonist, a now nine hundred year-old time traveler who occasionally changes bodies so that "Doctor Who" the series may go on and on. (Or at least for the thirteen incarnations we're told he may have.) The Doctor, as he is simply known, is the sci-fi version of that great archetype in American cowboy flicks: The Man With No Name, a know-all angel who rides into the town to right the wrongs and disappears. The Doctor usually flits about through time and space with an often-human companion or two, a convenient device with which to explain plot machinations.

The original series ran from 1963 to 1989 before finally meeting a BBC director who not amused. Despite its international following (OK, following in the English-speaking world), "Doctor Who" was removed from the BBC schedule. After a half-hearted attempt to resurrect the show for an imagined combined worldwide audience with a much-ignored teevee movie in 1995, "Doctor Who" survived only through a paperback series and the occasional radio serial.

Perhaps the buzz of the show's 40th anniversary or the success of the "Star Trek: Next Generation" variants in England spurred on BBC execs to resurrect "Doctor Who." No matter, "Doctor Who" was back on screens in 2005, with the great Chris Eccleston (Jude, 28 Days, Shallow Grave) in the role of the Doctor. For fans of the old series, season no. 1 (or season no. 27) of "Doctor Who" has to be considered a smashing success. With updated special effects (No more rubber monsters? Awww…) and darker sensibility about the protagonist, "Doctor Who" a la Eccleston still stayed true to the spirit of the character so many geeks - I mean "fans" cherish.