Unlike some points in my life, it’s pretty rare when Doctor Who actually crosses my mind these days. I think about it when it’s time to make a blog post here, and when I listen to the weekly Verity! podcast episodes, but if I didn’t have those already-scheduled, regular reminders, I would hardly ever give it a thought right now.

There are so many other things vying for my attention: the state of the world weighs on me, I’m smack in the middle of that “sandwich generation” place between taking care of my kids and my parents, and I’m trying to get my fiction writing career off the ground. When I want to escape my cares and indulge in a story, more often than not it takes the form of either a recently released book I’ve been looking forward to or of an Asian drama I can binge over a matter of a week or more.

Frankly, Doctor Who has become familiar enough that I no longer naturally turn to it to unwind.

I didn’t used to think of myself as a neophile, always looking for something fresh and unexplored to amuse me, unsatisfied with revisiting old favorites. I can’t tell whether this current tendency is due to one of the particular stressors mentioned above (and Prime knows there are enough even just within the category of “state of the world” to choke a horse) or to some combination thereof, but the fact remains that this is where I’m at.

Perhaps that’s why my glee-to-indifference cycle is so short these days when it comes to Doctor Who news. I get truly excited every time something new breaks: Tegan and Ace are returning! Ncuti Gatwa will be the new Doctor! Tennant, Tate, and Cribbins will return! But since we don’t even have any idea exactly how long it will be until any of these things hit our screens—with the obvious exception of the 60th anniversary special—it’s hard to maintain any sense of anticipation. So much else is going on now.

I used to be able to reach for a Doctor Who disc to distract myself. But over these last fourteen-or-so years as I’ve morphed from a neowhovian into a paleowhovian, I have long since passed the point where I still have new-to-me episodes to explore. Apparently my brain needs novelty to distract itself these days, because if I have any idea how the story goes (with a few extremely rare exceptions—and none of them are currently Doctor Who), it just can’t hold my attention.

To be clear, I still love Doctor Who. Among other things, it has brought me some of my dearest friends. The lack of new material has really reduced its draw for me, though, and with that reduced interest, a sense of loss. I kind of miss when Doctor Who was one of the biggest interests I had.

It makes me feel like perhaps I can relate more to those fans who grew up watching the show, and now find its current incarnation not to their taste. The difference, though, is that I’m just waiting for more, while many of them have given up entirely. I suppose that’s why I’m still comfortable calling myself Neowhovian.

Bring on the next new thing.