I watched the first two episodes of the 1977 Doctor Who serial "The Robots of Death" tonight on one of the local PBS stations (the concluding episodes will be shown next week).

After seeing the initial scenes of part one, it all came flooding back to me. This was the first Doctor Who serial I ever saw way back in the distant past of 1983. This was where it all began for me as a fan, watching the Fourth Doctor and Leela combat murderous robots, not knowing a thing about Time Lords or why the Doctor travelled around in a funny blue box. It was so good to see it again and to revisit what made me fall in love with the show.

I must also admit that there's a bit of dialog in part one where the Doctor explains how the TARDIS can be larger on the inside that I totally cribbed for some fanfic I wrote sometime in 1983 or 1984. Only my story was about the Master trying to take over the universe using an army of mutant sheepdogs under his mind control. Oh, don't laugh, it's no sillier than the 1989 serial "Survival" where the Master used humanoid cats to do his bidding.