Doctor Who Fandom Challenge Day 30: When Do You Become a Fan of Doctor Who?

[miss_s_b]

(a list of the questions and links to all the answers can be found on this entry)

This is a question that's open to interpretation. It could mean:

• "When does one qualify for the epithet fan?", or
• "what age was I when I first became a fan?"

I really don't like interpretation one. Like the ladies of the Verity Podcast, I firmly believe that the only "qualification" necessary to be called a fan is applying that label to yourself. I'm not going to gatekeep. I'm not going to say "you're not a proper fan unless you do/believe/like/know x". That's just shitty behaviour. If someone loves Doctor Who, in whole or in part, and they want to be known as a fan, that's good enough for me.

The second interpretation, then.

Unfortunately, that's harder to answer. I don't actually remember a time when I didn't watch Doctor Who. But when I was, say, three did I know what being a fan meant? I don't know.

Comments

[magister]

It was somewhere during the Key to Time season, so I was about 7.

[andrewhickey.info]

In my case the first episode I specifically remember was The Five Doctors, but I also know that at that point I already knew the names of every past Doctor, Terrance Dicks, Terry Nation and John Nathan-Turner, had read multiple Target novels, bought the occasional DWM and had decided that Troughton and Tom Baker were my favourites. So that puts a hard limit for me of five as the very latest that I became a fan.

[strangecharm]

I can't tell you how old I was (Andrew probably could) but I became a fan when I first heard Doctor Who and the Pirates.

[pmoodie]

I agree with you about the definition of a fan. If you say you're a fan, no-one can tell you you're not, and vice versa.

I was heavily into the programme from the ages of 5-13 or thereabouts, then began to lose interest. I started buying favourite episodes when they began to come out on DVD, then fell in love with the programme all over again when it came back to telly in 2005. I'm probably a bigger fan now than I've ever been, but I still don't watch recons of missing episodes, read tie-in fiction or like Sylvester McCoy, so I suppose I think of myself as a casual fan, if there is such a thing!