By the time of Jon’s departure, I was aware months in advance of his character’s impending regeneration, and can remember becoming sad as the great ‘Omming’ Spiders signalled the end. Then this regeneration, oh no, this Tom Baker would never do. I wanted Jon back. Now.

Yet, from the ‘first generation’ of Doctor Who’s, Tom Baker became my all-time favourite. Deliciously odd, he really was the Doctor, combining everything from his previous regenerations and so much more. Many of the stories were great, the larger than life acting covering for the poorer than life sets and finally we were allowed glimpses of the inner Tardis with its many passages, courtyards and alternative control panels. Wow. The legend was secured.

But then along came K-9. A massive mistake, for it allowed the scriptwriters to become lazy. Faced with impossible situations that left you gripped to your seat, K-9 would quickly solve any dilemma and in the process signalled the demise not only of Tom Baker’s reign, but of the sheer imagination of the programme. Thank God, K-9 left when he did.

Lagopolis provided, to my mind, the most mature and intelligent regeneration to date. We knew it was over for our longest serving Doctor, but those episodes prepared not only the Doctor, but us viewers as well for the closure of that chapter. It was never quite the same after that.

When Patrick Troughton, Jon Pertwee and Tom Baker’s faces morphed into being in front of my eyes, I had never seen them before. But Peter Davison was already a well-known face from his ‘It shouldn’t happen to a Vet Days’.

The Doctor had gone from being a genuine alien to a mere actor. Then it happened again with Colin Baker, complete with poor scripts and poor scheduling. I actually started skipping episodes and, with the introduction of Bonny Langford and the return of the early stereotypical screaming female companion, my interest was definitely waning.

Cont/....