"That is textbook enigmatic!"

SciFi ran a Dr. Who marathon today. The episodes were from the "second" series, the David Tennant episodes.

I go back a long way with Dr. Who. I went to college in Oklahoma in the late '70s. I came from a small town in Missouri. I had very, very little money, so most Saturday nights found me either studying, taking advantage of the school's free film series (I learned a lot about movies that way), or watching TV. Oklahoma Public Television (OPTV) had picked up a bunch of British TV shows on the cheap, so the typical Saturday night lineup was Monty Python's Flying Circus, Fawlty Towers, and Dr. Who.

I'd never seen anything like it; the PBS station in my neck of the woods had only been on for two years and its signal barely reached my town. The schedule was heavy on educational and high-art programming. OPTV was low-brow by comparison. They were trying to put on a cheap, entertaining lineup. Instead of Love Boat and Fantasy Island, I got turned on to Dr. Who. That was the Tom Baker era. He knocked me out. So did Basil Fawlty, but that's another story.

Like all male Who fans of a certain age, I was madly in love with Sarah Jane Smith. The cheap, cheesy effects were a revelation; the emphasis on story and character instead of surface was a wake-up call to parts of my brain previously untroubled. It was delirious fun.

When Russell T. Davies resurrected DW, I was leery. Thirty years on, how could you do it? Sure, Battlestar Galactica had updated a '70s TV show to great effect, but could it happen again?

The new Doctor was brilliant from the first episode. Fans of a certain age (including myself) are now in love with Rose Tyler (Billie Piper). Christopher Eccleston was fantastic as the doctor. Even as CGI made better effects possible, the show nodded toward its cheesy, low-budget past (the "living plastic" arm in "Rose"). The first season was a joy and a pleasure.

Eccleston left after 13 episodes. He was replaced by David Tennant (Viva Blackpool). I had grown enamored of Eccleston's Doctor and even though Tennant was a capable actor, I wondered if he could do a good job as the Doctor.

Was I stupid. Davies upped the ante in the second season, exploring what it would mean to be an ageless wanderer. As the Doctor said to Rose, "You can live your entire life with me, but I can't live my whole life with you." The melancholy and pain at the heart of the Doctor's existence were probed and exposed, and Tennant handled every revelation with deft prowess. Take the return of Elisabeth Sladen as Sarah Jane Smith in the poignant "School Reunion." Sarah Jane has aged while the Doctor has not. She confronts him about leaving her; her heartbreaking question is "What do I do with the rest of my life now that I've seen the stars?" I defy anyone with a heart to remain unmoved when she demands that the Doctor say goodbye properly. Tennant, his eyes shining and his heart bursting, says, "Good-bye" then blurts out "My Sarah Jane!" I simply cannot imagine Eccleston delivering that line with anything near the power summoned by Tennant. It's a dart to the heart, but its also one small piece of a very deft puzzle that Davies constructs throughout the season. Piper's decision to leave the series resulted in a heartbreaking farewell to Rose, but even that moment of high emotion served to illuminate the tragic nature of the Doctor's dilemma--he's a man who will always need a companion, but none of them will ever stay. His line in the fourth act of "The Girl In The Fireplace" is spot-on: "I'm all right." That's his blessing and his curse. Those he loves will age and die and leave, but the Doctor will always be "all right."