Daughter Picks Up Dr. Who Where Father Left Off -- All Thanks To Grandma!

Made By Loving Hands: The scarf was made by Grandma Helen when she was in her 80s.

When I was a teenager in the early 1980s I enjoyed watching Dr. Who. At the time our PBS affiliate played the episodes with Tom Baker, the fourth doctor.

I don't know how the project came up, but I asked my father's mother, my Grandma Helen, to knit me a Tom Baker scarf. My dad (Undisclosed Grandpa) watched the program a few times taking notes on what the scarf looked like.

Tom Baker back in the day.

Now my daughter is a Whovian and was excited about the 50th anniversary of the series. I forgot about the scarf until this morning.

I have watched a few episodes of the series made after 2000 to see what improvements time has brought. Still the cheesy special effects, only marginally taken up a notch by the march of technology. So many (re)generations of doctors I can't keep track. The soul of the show seems the same, the Doctor traipsing around the universe having dramatic moments with people from various times. Sometimes he prevents the catastrophe, other times lets it happen.

My brood, the nine-year-old son included, apparently think Christopher Eccleston the best of the later years. Interesting in that I caught the episode where Eccleston as the Doctor has to explain to his newest sidekick what the hell the Tardis is supposed to look like -- a 1950s police box -- as she has never seen one even though she has lived in London all her life.

The Doctor (Eccleston) doing all kinds of Time-Lordy stuff.

The beat goes on!

Courtesy M. T. Freezer