It is quite the understatement to say I have a weird relationship with Doctor Who. I was nine when it came back in 2005 and I liked it. Who didn’t? I got the annual for Christmas one year, I think. I probably played it in the playground a few times. Basically, for the next few years I enjoyed it when it was on and didn’t think about it when it wasn’t.

Then it all changed – and if life had symmetry, the meaningful thing to write here would be what I thought about The Eleventh Hour when that first aired, exactly ten years ago today. First of all, that is disgusting, I hate the passage of time, what do you mean I’m in my mid-twenties, I want a refund. Secondly, I would, but I don’t bloody remember watching it. Maybe I did, once, but it was overwritten by the literal dozens of times I rewatched it in the following few years. Matt Smith’s era of Doctor Who ended up being a perfect storm of everything I loved – my favourite Doctor, favourite companion, favourite love interest, favourite arcs and writing. So in hindsight, it’s funny that it hadn’t quite clicked yet. I was the same kind of casual fan of series 5 as I had been of the previous four. I don’t remember watching series 5, except the Pandorica episodes. Ten years later they’re my lasting favourites. Maybe it was a sign.

2011 is where it gets weirder. Through series 6 I was getting more and more into it – episodes lingered in my mind for a few days where they hadn’t before – and then something snapped in my brain on the 4th of June, when the mid-series finale aired, and I quite literally thought about nothing else for about three years. I remember more about the Doctor Who tumblr fandom’s ups and downs in like, 2012, than I remember of my GCSEs. My mum used to limit me to four Doctor Who facts a day because otherwise, if you looked even a tiny bit like you were listening, I would never have shut up about it.

I sort of got out of it by the time Peter Capaldi’s first series started, without really meaning to. I lived in France for a couple of months with crap internet, and the obsession faded without the perpetual obsession motion machine that was tumblr, or being able to actually watch it. So then I had four or five years not really thinking about it much with the occasional period of the obsession surfacing again. And now, for the last few months, I have been well and truly back in it again. And I love it. I’m not on tumblr anymore and I’m not really in the Doctor Who bits of twitter, so I’m not having to hide from my least favourite part of Doctor Who – The Discourse – at every turn. It’s my favourite show again and I don’t have to defend it to anyone and it feels great.

In the last few months, as I’ve been getting back into Doctor Who again, I’ve mostly been rewatching my way through the Twelfth Doctor, because I’ve mostly seen them all before but the first time round I did not give those episodes the appreciation they deserve. Peter Capaldi’s time as the Doctor came and pretty much went when I wasn’t actively into Doctor Who, so all of my love for him has come from watching and rewatching his series years after their airdates. I feel a bit bad, actually – I wish I could go back and watch his series as they air, and discuss them with people, and have the sense of community and excitement I had around series 6 and 7. But then, you know, I remember The Discourse. I am little bit better now at not taking it so personally when people don’t like something I adore, but I don’t exactly want to test how much.

But the Eleventh Doctor’s era. Oh, the Eleventh Doctor’s era. I love Matt Smith’s time as the Doctor so much I almost can’t talk about it. I’ve had to strengthen my fandom through my Capaldi rewatch before I could even think about rewatching Matt Smith episodes. I wasn’t strong enough yet, fresh off a couple of years of not really watching Doctor Who. Those episodes – I can’t just watch them casually, like I might watch any other show. Or even any other era of Doctor Who. I have to give them my full attention and also like, fight the ghost of fifteen-year-old Alison to have even the tiniest chance of being slightly calm. I briefly thought about watching The Time of Angels a few weeks ago, but thankfully remembered I cannot possibly watch one without wanting to binge the entire era immediately, especially if I was so foolish as to choose an episode with River Song in, and who knows what that might do to me. A controlled watch of The Eleventh Hour – the best opener ever, not that I’m biased – seems a safer place to start.

The emphasis on stories, on how to grow up and whether to bother, on your life and your reputation being what you make of it – I am so lucky, I think, to have an era of my favourite show whose philosophy I agree with so completely. Doctor Who and its forgettable monsters and its ridiculous CGI and its eternal optimism is the perfect show. Not to sound like a complete cliche, but now more than ever, in these uncertain times. The only thing I know for certain is that when we see Matt Smith say “Hello. I’m the Doctor” at the climax of this episode, I will cry, if I’m not already crying. It’s what fifteen-year-old Alison would have wanted.