When I was young, Doctor Who, with all is wobbly scenery and rubbish special effects, was pretty much essential viewing.

It would sit in the Saturday night BBC1 schedule bumper-to-bumper with Jim’ll Fix It. The less said about that, the better.

But with its latest all-singing, all-dancing current version apparently hanging in the balance (Doctor Who that is, not any ill-advised revival of Jim’ll Fix It), I will not shed a solitary tear should it fall off our schedules. Not, however, for the reasons you may suspect.

Tom Baker, with his big hat, big hair, big scarf and big voice was my introduction to the Time Lord and remains, a bit like Sean Connery as 007, my favourite rendition of the character.

I used to see Tom Baker occasionally board the Ashford to Tonbridge train when I was a college student. He never had K9 with him (or that big scarf, come to that). But it was nice to see him rejecting the Tardis in preference for public transport.

But as I got a bit older, it seemed to get sillier and sillier. Frankly, when Tom’s Doctor morphed into Tristan (Peter Davison) from All Creatures Great and Small my interest was beginning to wane. How could a Yorkshire vet with a penchant for the ladies tackle the Daleks? I’d long since switched off by the time Sylvester McCoy had bounded into the role.

But I gave it another chance when it returned 20 years ago with the likes of Christopher Eccleston and David Tennant. And enjoyed it. For a bit. But then it stopped being a fun watch.

No, I’m not one of these folk who are going to hound it for becoming too ‘woke’ (a silly word deployed to dismiss any incorporation of our changing world for the most part), but that it became just too damn complicated.

Once upon a time, to enjoy it, you just needed to watch a self-contained episode, wonder at the Doctor’s sonic screwdriver (snigger) and be amazed at how the Doctor avoided near certain calamity.

Now it’s gone the way of all science-fiction. To fully appreciate and understand it you need to be a die-hard fan; remember storylines from the past; watch the spin-off shows. In short, you have to invest time and energy into the thing.

Life is, for the vast majority of us too short. It’s a bit like Star Wars; once a nice and simple three-film saga, now a sprawling mess of various shows you need to be fully committed to – and, most importantly, still care about. I don’t.

So if the axe is due to fall on Doctor Who, then so be it. The viewing figures suggest there will be no outcry.

It has had its day again and I suggest a trip around the outer reaches of the galaxy for another decade or so to allow its makers to remember what once made it so popular and less pandering to the obsessives.