For Australians like Paul, the show's oddball quality was the gateway to a rich — if occasionally nerdy — subculture. Doctor Who fandom has a long history on these shores, beginning as university clubs in the 1970s and continuing today across a wide variety of Aussie podcasts, including Splendid Chaps and Paul's own The Doctor Is In. Everything about it felt right, from the weird almost Wurlitzer organ score, to the strange cinematography choices, to the bad costumes," Paul says. Technology aside, one thing that has changed about Aussie fandom is that it's no longer a boys-only club. Writer, presenter and podcaster Paul Verhoeven discovered Doctor Who at a point where the show had edged out of the mainstream into cult territory. Part of the appeal for him was finding something that wasn't like anything else on Australian telly.

When you're a little kid and everyone else is into James Bond or Star Wars or whatever, this was the thinking child's science fiction." The Whovians among us