Mary McNamara: Being a ‘Doctor Who’ fan means learning how to love and lose and love again

I’m four episodes into the reign of Ncuti Gatwa’s Fifteenth Doctor ... well, five if you count the “Doctor Who Special 4” in which he met his companion Ruby Sunday (Millie Gibson) ... well, five and a half if you also count the “Doctor Who Special 3” in which he emerged, via the world’s first bi-regeneration, from the side of the Tenth-turned-Fourteenth Doctor (David Tennant).

In any case, I’m burrowed into this season of “Doctor Who” and as per regenerative usual, I’m feeling conflicted.

Not with Gatwa, who is an absolute delight; I’m just in the final stage of grief/acceptance that is required of all Whovians every few years. The previous Doctor — Jodie Whittaker (Tennant’s special-episodes Doctor notwithstanding) — is gone and it’s time to let go and embrace the new one.