I know I'm a latecomer as a Whovian. Be fair: I don't have cable TV. I don't have TV for that matter.
When I bought my Kindle Fire I was already a subscriber to Amazon Prime. I knew this gave me the right to view selected movies and TV shows, but I didn't pay much attention. I had plenty of entertainment available in the form of MST3K (and related) DVDs. Being an owner of a Fire gave me the incentive to poke around the list of free content at Amazon. I found that...
...The first four seasons of Dr. Who where available to me without additional cost.
I had a Christmas vacation, I did. What to do? Let's watch some Dr. Who.
I've always thought that the quality of British television far exceeds that of 99% of the American crap. Nevertheless, I remembered the original Dr. Who series as being mostly boring (in spite of the charming characters). The new Dr. Who has quality on every level. The writing, characters, acting, editing, and special effects are all top drawer. Even when there's not a lot of "action", there is suspense and clever dialogue. An American series would probably just splice in a bunch of explosions.
I used to enjoy watching The X-Files when it was broadcast. The characters were compelling and the suspense in each episode was tense. What it lacked was any kind of over-arching story line. There were too many loose ends. I'm pretty sure that the writers had no clue where the series should go.
The story line of Dr. Who, on the other hand, seems to be guided by a confident hand. Viewers can be confident that teasers dropped in one episode will eventually come to fruition.
So, yeah. That's my admittedly "stratospheric" impression of the new Dr. Who.
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