I don't as a rule like to write columns about Doctor Who. Si Hunt's superb story-by-story section (which starts on a high with the still-hilarious "Eileen" anecdote, and never lets up) and Lissa's various 20 Reasons To Love... are such warm, wonderful and well-written tributes to the great Timelord that there is nothing of value I could add. Now that they've teamed up to tackle the BF Audios, who knows what wonders are to come. But despite my normal reservation on the subject, I have to admit that Doctor Who is a part of my life, influencing what I read (currently Justin Richards excellent relaunch to the EDA range, "The Burning"), what I watch (currently rewatching "Delta and the Bannermen" from the original off-air recording circa 1987), and what I listen to (just finished "The Twilight Kingdom" audio starring Paul McGann); it permeates my speech which, as my long-suffering sitcomesque wife will attest, is peppered with quotes - and also misquotes (but then what's the use of a good quotation if you can't change it); it even occasionally means that I stroll across the shopfloor at work a la Tom Baker in the late 70s (yes, that may be a little sad, but it's surely better than that John Inman phase I went through in the 2nd Year). So given the sometimes significant presence of all things Whovian (Whoesque? Whoee?) in my life, there are occasions when it dominates and takes priority over many other thoughts and considerations. Consequently you can begin to see not only why my Council Tax is accidentally unpaid, but also why this week's ramblings are firmly on the subject of Doctor Who. And when I tell you that in the race to be the subject of this week's mumblings, it beat off pretty strong competition from "my brother in law is marrying an Internet bride" you can perhaps begin to see just how significant this week's Who happenings have been.

Because of course the powers that be (whoever they be) at the BBC have started filming the new series of Doctor Who this past week. In Cardiff. It's made the news, we've seen snatched photos of this and that, and we've apparently learned that Eccleston's look will be the fairly nondescript leather jacket & trousers that he's been sporting since he got the part. We've had sneaky peeks of new companion Billie Piper alongside 'an unidentified actress', we've had Russell T Davies getting terribly gushy in praise of Who, we've had exciting shots of director's chairs and hospital wheelchairs on the official BBC site...

...And we've seen the TARDIS!

The Outpost Gallifrey website has a covert photo of a police box, standing in a dark, nighttimes alleyway. They had other shots, screen-captures from BBC Wales (which were of course lovely isn't it) but the single most exciting pic' was of the incongruous shape of a blue, police telephone box of the 1960s.

I have to be brutally honest now, even shockingly so, and admit that of late my excitement for the forthcoming new series of Doctor Who has tailed off. I can still remember how gobsmacked and stunned I was last 26th September when I saw the announcement on the BBC's website. Once I'd recover from the initial amazement I emailed the news piece to my brother, with the oh-so witty subject line: "He's Back - And It's About Time". (Keen followers of Curnow brothers trivia may be interested to know that he returned it with the one-word Cyber-endorsement, "Excellent!") Then there were the months of endless speculation about who the new Doctor was going to be. Rather like the seven and a half million years waiting for Deep Thought to tell us the answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything (if I may be allowed just one final Adams reference) it really was a case of everyone having his or her own theory as to who the new Who would be.

Then there was the thrill of finding out that the new Doctor Who was-- Bill Nighy!!! Followed by the even greater thrill of finding out that the new Doctor Who was actually-- Christopher Eccleston!!! Since then we've had endless Internet debate, tantalising titbits from RTD courtesy of DWM, most recently the rather surprising announcement that the new companion would be played by ex-pop starlet Billie Piper, last heard of getting hitched to Christopher Evans. What is it about her and the name Chris?

But nevertheless, for all that, my excitement has recently tailed off. For one thing I made a conscious decision early on that I would try to learn as little as possible about the new series, so that it will be fresh and exciting when it finally airs. OK, I know who the two regulars are, and the numbers of episodes. I know who the writers are as well. But other than that I've studiously avoided RTD's back page columns in DWM, as well as the Gallifrey Guardian newspages. Whereas most telefantasy magazines nowadays have large SPOILER labels in appropriate places to aid in any such attempt to remain ignorant, DWM for some reason stubbornly refuses to do so, with the result that I find myself half-looking at each page with my glasses off, until I'm sure it's safe to look at properly. This is a by no means infallible method I readily admit, and as a result I also know that the first episode is called "Rose" and that one of the other episodes is called "The End of the World". I also know that there is an episode provisionally entitled "Aliens of London" - curiously enough this always reminds me of the Dalek line "Humans of London" from the second Dalek story; but since the one other thing I know about the new series is that the Daleks won't be appearing in it, the title clearly isn't a deliberate homage. (I'm probably just a human seeing patterns in things that aren't there...)

So despite living in an age where we know virtually everything virtually instantly, I've managed to learn comparatively little about the new series. Perhaps that's precisely why my enthusiasm has faded away, because the lack of information makes it seem distant and currently absent from my life. But that feeling, or lack of feeling, has at least temporarily changed this past week, because when we know that Mr Eccleston is out there acting away, putting his heart (both his hearts in fact) into it, it does make it very much part of my day-to-day life.

And in addition to that, we've seen the TARDIS!

In fact, if I'm honest, seeing a blurry shot of a police box prop is, for me, the most exciting development in the whole new series business so far. The list of writers is impressive, but not really surprising. As for the casting of Christopher Eccleston - well although I know the name, and know he is an actor of some repute, and although I can even name a few things he has been in ("Shallow Grave", "28 Days Later", "Our Friends in the North"); despite all that I have never actually seen him in anything. When Richard E Grant was announced as the BBCi Internet Doctor for the webcast "The Scream of the Shalka" last year I instinctively felt that he was absolutely wrong for the part, and overall I still think his performance there was severely lacking (admittedly he wasn't helped by the fact that the animation made the character look like a rather underfed vampire). Conversely when Paul McGann was announced in 1996 I immediately felt that it was an excellent bit of casting, and even just his delivery of the lines, "I was with Puccini when he died... It was so sad" or "These boots, they fit perfectly" confirms that. Yet, other than the excitement of finally knowing who Who was (do you see what I did there?) I have not had any reaction, good or bad, to learning that Mr E. has got the gig.

Similarly, the news that Billie Piper was cast as Rose Tyler left me totally unphased. A little surprised maybe, and my wife is in fact dead against it (like Romana on the "Shada" video, Mrs Curnow is appalled). But personally, perhaps having learnt my lesson from the infamous Bonnie Langford riots of the mid-80s, I don't object to the casting at all. Neither an inspired nor a terrible choice, just... well, fine.

Since I'm being a bit downbeat, I ought to own up and also add that the one proper shot we've had this week of the two regulars has worried me a little. Quite apart from the rather nondescript look to the Doctor, the set-up of the photo concerns me. Much as I'm pleased to see the writers getting a bit of credit, shouldn't the photo have had Christopher Eccleston in the centre, rather than Russell T Davies? I'm not suggesting that the Cult of Celebrity has claimed another saint, but surely this week should have been Eccleston's moment of glory, not RTD's. And it has to be said that the choice of photo for the homepage of the BBC site, with Eccleston somehow looking like Kenneth Williams, was rather less than inspiring too.

But at least we've seen the TARDIS!

Ah yes, I was coming to that. I really don't mean to have depressed anybody, and I'm not for one moment suggesting that the new series will be anything less than excellent. Russell T Davies is by all accounts a superb TV writer (strangely enough, just as with Eccleston's acting career, I know a lot of RTD's work by title, but I have never seen anything he has written). The other writers (whose work I have seen/heard/read) are all strong - and perhaps more importantly, varied - writers, who I'm sure will give us a great mix of stories. The production values, the performances, the look and feel and status of the show will ensure that it is good, exciting, high-profile, prestige programming. Even if I sit there mumbling that it's not like it used to be (an option I haven't yet ruled out, so be warned) I know that I will still be watching it, and objectively speaking I'm certain it will be good quality television.

No, all I'm saying is that at this stage in the game, I'm not all that excited by a new series coming to TV. In fact I've been more excited recently by the discovery earlier in the year of part 2 of "The Daleks Masterplan", aired in 1965 and believed lost for more than 30 years; or by Panini reprinting the early Tom Baker comic strips from 1979/80 in a bumper volume (isn't the front page for "City of the Damned" powerful). Or by the DVD release of "The Leisure Hive" which has the best set of extras I've ever seen. Doubtless there will in due course be the trailers, and the listing in the Radio Times, and of course the first airing itself, all of which will crank up the excitement, and by then I'll be back in the swing of things I'm sure. But at the moment it's almost like something that is happening to somebody else, but which doesn't affect me...

But of course, we've see the TARDIS!

The "almost" in the last sentence (alright, last but one sentence, nitpickers) is a qualification largely based on a single murky photo of a police box. There's just something about that TARDIS exterior - for one thing it confirms that the traditional police box shape will be retained in the new series, despite its total irrelevancy in the modern world. Yes it's true that there have been various different police boxes over the years - the first one allegedly lasted until 1976 when it is supposed to have collapsed on Tom Baker and Lis Sladen while recording "The Seeds of Doom"; the next one was apparently replaced in 1980 because JN-T felt it didn't look right. Paul McGann's TV Movie got one specially built, and very nice it looked too (and by the way, whatever else that TV Movie might have added to/inflicted on the Doctor Who mythos, is there anything more delightful than the idea that this superhuman, time-travelling, crusader for truth and justice, keeps a spare key in a cubby-hole above the 'P' on the sign). But nevertheless throughout the show's whole run it has been a significantly consistent and identifiable feature. Doctors may have come and gone, the console room may have shrunk and gone through wooden/BBC-computer/goldfish bowl phases, but the police box exterior has remained constant.

Even seeing Ant Cox's impressive homemade half a TARDIS this week has been exciting because even though it's not an official BBC still from the filming, or anything like that, it's a new, previously unseen shot of an immediately recognisable blue box. Personally I think he should go into business making police box shells for the Who fan that has everything. Maybe he could do a deal with Karfel Productions. While I may not be getting worked up about imagining how Eccleston will play the Doctor, or what sort of companion Billie will be, or whether Joan of Arc really is in the new series, or who the Aliens of London are, or whether he really is going to wear that damn leather jacket... I am nevertheless getting just a little thrill every time I think that sooner or later that battered old police box will be back on TV, and that every time we go through its doors it will be into a brand new exciting adventure in time & space.

If I can quote from the late Terence Dudley's Target adaptation of his Davison story "The King's Demons": "The Doctor looked back at his ever-faithful TARDIS with a deep glow of affection. There it stood in the middle of the medieval meadow; standing proudly in spite of its battered lines and its lack-lustre paint; shabby but respectable, bludgeoned but unbowed, threatened but indestructible. His TARDIS... a police box!" That says it all really doesn't it. The TARDIS is, to quote another Davison story, more than a machine - and the same is true of its presence in the show itself. The TARDIS is more than just our equivalent of the Enterprise, or Babylon 5, or the Liberator; it's one of the team, it's a regular, it's like an old friend.

So never mind whether Cardiff will really pass for London, or whether Billie is going to wear those horrible baggy flairs for all thirteen episodes, don't worry about any of that stuff...

...Because we've seen the TARDIS!

Vworp, vworp!