Trust Me, I'm The Doctor...

Forget any other news reports you may have seen this week. As we approach Saturday, 23 November, there's one news item that's slowly, insidiously taking over the public consciousness. Sure, it's the 50th anniversary of the assassination of John F. Kennedy... but it's also the anniversary of the very first episode of Doctor Who . You can't say you hadn't noticed. Fifty years deserves to be a milestone of epic proportions for a TV show. Not only has Doctor Who been running for longer than most of its viewers have been alive, but it's gradually worked its way into British culture. Even those who don't know their 4th Doctor from their 8th can tell you what a Dalek looks like, or the Tardis. At some point Doctor Who stopped just being a TV show - it became an institution. My essay Lost in Time and Space: Growing Old with Doctor Who (readable online at The Weeklings ) looks at the programme's phenomenal history, and also revisits one of its classi