I think I watched "Aliens" too much as a kid.

Almost a year ago I'm at my local chain bookstore, ready to purchase the latest volume of Negima! and perusing through all (but few, sadly) splatterpunk novels that are in place within the horror section. I'm trying to decide if there's something here I want to buy too. Then out of the corner of my eye I see someone's wrist holding something shiny and metallic. My field of vision and sound is suddenly overwhelmed with both a bright green LED light and an electronic buzzing sound.

My first thought? Stun gun. Some years ago someone told me about how he fended off a derelict turned would-be robber that was armed with one. So I felt my swift reaction was at the time justified: I smacked the offending object out of my assailant's hand, then shoved him into the bookshelf, sending paperbacks cascading.

It was a scared-looking teenage kid, but even after deducing he was harmless, I was a little too pissed to care at that moment. Namely, I asked him what kind of shit he was trying to pull, and how he thought he got off on sticking foreign objects into other people's faces.

"It's the Doctor's sonic screwdriver," he half-shrieked. "I was just playing around! I'm sorry!"

I had no idea who The Doctor was. Or what kind of a twisted purpose a "sonic screwdriver" served. Because THAT was my first ever experience with the Doctor Who franchise, people. Some dumbass kid walking all over a Books-A-Million and jamming his 11th Doctor's Sonic Replica into other people's faces full blast.

I made the vague threat that his sonic whatever-it-is would become a sonic suppository if he kept up his sonic shenanigans. Then I left my potential purchases, the spilled books, and the shaken kid there, fuming and livid. What kind of a show was this Doctor Who anyway? Who did these people think they were? So I started to ask around.

It wasn't long before I got a mysterious response from someone I follow on Twitter: "No answers for you. Start with the 9th Doctor. Go!" So I obliged. Why not?

My verdict at first? I hated the first few episodes I saw. The Doctor's flippant and passive attitude in the face of mortal peril was one big goofy grey area for me. Plus he wanted to negotiate peace terms with other very violent sentient life-forms. What bullshit, I first thought.

There were aliens trying to KILL this other hero alien, for crying out loud, which in my book justifies what I call the Ripley Response. I watched Aliens maybe way too much as a kid. If an ugly-looking alien screws with someone in a movie, I think they have the God-given right to shoot it, flamethrower it, or blast it out of an airlock into oblivion. Yeah!

Then this episode came along called "The Long Game". I won't go into tiny details here, but basically The Doctor kicks this dude out of the TARDIS because the latter was trying to wrongfully exploit a cybernetic enhancement he had put into his brain for profit. GTFO of the TARDIS, Adam. Nice seeing you. It's been real. FINALLY, there was a tangible right and wrong that this character followed.

Then I got into the show. I'm by no means a die-hard fan, but I've enjoyed most of the episodes and I'm awaiting the new season too. I'll also venture so far as to say Doctor Who has made me a slightly better and more open-minded nerd where I wasn't before. Whenever I dust off Fallout 3 and play it again, for example, I try to help some of the NPCs instead of focusing on blasting Raiders with a Mini-Nuke for the umpteenth time.

But by no means am I buying a replica Sonic Screwdriver. Ever.