I promise not to bore you too much. (Trust me.) I was born on January 25, 1972, three days after Day of the Daleks ended, and my full name is Christopher Krisocki. I've been told that the last name is Hungarian, but some people think it's Polish or even Czech. I usually go by the name of Chris, but since this is pronounced the same way as the first syllable of my last name, some confusion sometimes results. I think Christopher is too long, but at least it's not as long as a Chinese railway station.
I first discovered Doctor Who when I was about 8 or 9 years of age, when a commercial station, WOR, showed it on Saturday mornings. I was watching reruns of some Saturday morning cartoons, and decided to change channels. I came across either Robot or The Sontaran Experiment, I don't recall which, and decided to stay with it. WOR aired two episodes per week at 10AM for about the next year before they removed the program from their schedules.
In 1983, during sixth grade, New Jersey Network broadcast The Five Doctors on the anniversary day itself. This confused me greatly, as I had only seen Tom Baker on WOR, so I hadn't a clue as to what was going on! Added to this was the fact that even though NJN had, and still has, a network of four stations in New Jersey, I still could not get good reception in my area without cable TV, which was only downstairs at the time.
The following week, they began showing the Tom Baker stories as compilations each week, and two months after that another PBS station, WLIW, began to show these same episodes episodically. About this time, I was chosen to represent my school in a spelling-bee, which was held in another school. At this school was a display with various Pinnacle novelizations and posters featuring Tom Baker. This was to be my first indication that anyone else apart from me was interested in this "strange" program.
I continued to watch on both stations, but the Graham Williams years made me lose interest in the series, until, horror of horrors, I began to channel-surf during the NJN broadcasts. (By this time, cable had been installed upstairs as well.) Stories like Nightmare of Eden and The Horns of Nimon made me lose interest even more. Eventually The Leisure Hive was shown, and all my interest returned in droves. This story was the first one to which, the following weekend, I purchased the novelization, my first piece of Doctor Who merchandise.
Then the fifth Doctor came along, and yet another PBS station, WNYC, began to air the series, episodically, in the slot right after WLIW's slot. I now had three PBS stations showing it at once!
NJN then got the rights to show Jon Pertwee beginning in February, 1985, and he quickly became my favorite Doctor. A scant seven months later NJN broadcast An Unearthly Child, and the following week my father bought his first VCR, which was on sale, half-price, for $600. Each Saturday night I would have to plead to record the Hartnell (or Colin Baker) story being shown. He bought me a VCR in the summer of 1986, which promptly broke down the first time I tried to record anything on it! It was a Lloyds, so caveat emptor, everyone! A Sharp replaced it, and most of my episodes were taped on it, back when $5 for a 120-minute videotape was a sale.
I feel that most of the episodes made after this point in time showed a lowering of quality. I could not believe it when I saw Sylvester McCoy on a WLIW pledge drive. I was totally shocked. Of course, when Time and the Rani came to be shown, most of my suspicions were justified. To add insult to injury, WNYC showed it three days after NJN showed it. I absolutely hated it, and all of season 24. The rot had begun, and we all know what happened afterward.
My interest began to wane after this; I even stopped buying DWM for a few years. It wasn't until BBC Video decided to release The Hartnell and Troughton Years tapes that I would become interested in the series again. Since then, we've had "The US Telemovie with the Pertwee Logo," (to steal a phrase from The Completely Useless Encyclopedia) which was fun to watch, but when analyzed falls down almost completely.
Now, of course, we have the BBC novels, and before that the Virgin ones, our only source for "new" DW these days. To tell the truth, I did not like many of the Virgin novels, though I never had the degree of hate that some of the members of radw seem to display. The BBC books I've actually been enjoying more, since I personally find the 8th Doctor's character more appealing than that of the 7th. Having said this, I still feel there's room for improvement. I live in hope :-)
Last but not least, the Big Finish CDs, which I for the most part am enjoying greatly, though it's a pity Peter Davison seems to be getting all the duff scripts...

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