I remember watching this when I was very young in the 1960's. I've always been interested in the fantastic, in science fiction, and the Daleks aren't that frightening, Cybermen are much more so, because they were people.
When the BBC reinvented the franchise a while back with Christopher Ecclestone I was a bit cynical about it but enjoyed the first series.
I started to have a problem with it; as soon as the Doctor appeared everything was always sorted out. My vague memories of the original were that he often had to solve problems and, even though we all knew it would be ok after 60 minutes, sometimes looked to be actually in trouble.
Then the David Tenant doctor "just happened" to be able to regrow an arm. It was unlikely, even for something that's just made up, a kid's story. Also, given how many years the series has run, we should have known this already and had an aha!, we know he's ok moment.
Then I got bored. The Doctor always knows more than we do. It doesn't matter what the hell happens, he will lay his hands on the problem and it magics away. Sometimes it's a bit sad or things are irrecoverable, but usually we don't know and can't see the answer.
Basically the Doctor is some kind of secular Jesus. People get picked by some arbitrary method and he redeems them some of the time, or he ignores them and they are in some kind of torment. We don't even have the detective story conceit of knowing but not understanding most of the things that Sherlock later assembles into a coherent explanation, it's just a boring magic show where whatever happens will always turn out right because the Doctor will huff and puff it away.
This irritates me - it's part of our culture of learned helplessness. I know it's only bad TV, but asking yourself questions that revolve around are you pathetic enough to be rescued by some external agency is beyond useless. It's normalising victim culture. We live in times when everyone thinks the world is coming to an end next week, and this is pandering to the divine interventionists. But there is nobody to rescue us; we will have to work it out for ourselves, humans trying to live their lives against the howling, uncaring void and stick to their principles while they do it. Divine agency also means you can be a complete monster but it's ok, because you can be forgiven. Your victims are in a better place, like the vomit inducing ending to the Star Wars series. Please, stop it. Redemptive violence isn't. Honesty and simple love, putting aside hatred, listening to your so-called enemy and engaging human to human, is a much harder path for adults.
I don't want to be picked, I don't want to be redeemed by any kind of Jesus. The prospect doesn't excite me even slightly, I don't want to watch it. I can't be bothered watching TV that ends on the same plot point: we need a hurdlegy spludger! Ah! Didn't you know you can make one from cheese and a sonic screwdriver as long as it's Tuesday? Then the rest of the show is a search for cheese that the baddies have hidden and waiting until Tuesday while they try and catch you. Please, all that writing talent, can't you do something interesting with it? Also, the SF is long gone, it's now a family-safe horror/magic show, full of invented gotchas and unlikely nonsense, a bit like the unlamented Charmed, yawn.
So, sorry, I don't care about the 50th anniversary, I think it's been turned into yet another boring safe money machine by the BBC. I'd rather read a book or watch Battlestar Galactica - it touches on some difficult adult themes and has a fantastic cast. It's also proper SF, not a magic show, despite its mystical bits.