Peak Engagment with the Show?

Odd question in some ways.  I never engaged with the show like that because to me that just isn't important.  Oh I picked up a fair bit from osmosis, like you do, but knowing what scenes were shot first, the exact titles and exactly who wrote what, Yeah I sorta know that, and I can check it up if I want but it just isn't important to me.   To each their own I suppose.

The Matt Smith/Ponds era has been my favourite, but I agree with charlesuirdhein. I have never engaged with the show in the way you do. Never really been interested in when scenes were shot & where etc.

My interest in Who has waxed and waned over the years, Tom Bakers tenure was a must see, but by the time of Colin Baker I was struggling with my interest in the show, I got interested again once Sylvester McCoy took over, then the show was cancelled and I eventually found BF. Since the revival, the show has been something I've enjoyed and wanted to see, but it's never had the level of must see that I felt with the first seasons of Lost or with Game of Thrones. This latest season though has a stronger pull on me than other revival seasons.

However, like others have said, Ive never know about location shoots etc, except what I occasionally gleamed and remembered from the various "making of" shows over the years.

1984 was probably my peak engagement with the show. I'd discovered DWM the previous year - just before the 20th anniversary, as it happens, so it was like pouring petrol onto a fire - and it changed me from someone who loved the show but knew very little about it into somebody who became quite annoying about production codes, location filming and guest actors. On the plus side, it also made me aware of what other things people had done so I became interested in other shows that featured actors, writers and directors from Who which made me more catholic in my tastes and more prepared to give something a go than I had previously because of the increasingly obscure connections with Doctor Who. Which, on reflection, is probably why I enjoy Who's Round so much because of that history-by-association.

It also affected my reading: if there was a quote or a reference I would often go and search it out, because it had been mentioned in Doctor Who, so I became a little more receptive to poetry and other plays - Terrance Dicks' novelisations and the Letts/ Hinchcliffe/ Williams eras in general were fantastic for throwing in references to classical literature so I became a little bit of a magpie for stuff that had been mentioned in a story and where it came from, so I might clarify the above and say that from about 1977 onwards was my peak engagement but 1984 was when I started to get really obsessive about it

When I found that PBS Denver was showing DW in early 1982, it was a full story every Sunday Morning - all Tom Baker. Then they started "stripping" the show,showing one episode every weekday evening at 530PM. So I was watching DW like 6 days a week - again, all Tom. Then Peter came along and the weekday stories flipped backwards to Pertwee. Lots and Lots of DW for me back then. Was that a peak? I don't know, yes probably. I remember bicycling a couple of miles to the B. Dalton bookstore and buying the Programme Guide - that was how I first gained an inkling of the history of the show.      

Still, I got excited when Colin came along - I liked having another manic Baker in the role... and then came the hiatus... and then the axe happened and that rather killed it for me. I gave McCoy a chance, but the show didn't feel the same to me anymore. I should have stuck it out, giving up about halfway through McCoy's run, just about the time the show got good again.

I'm sure I've been more engaged the last 3 years or so that I've gotten back into Doctor Who, than ever before. I've watched almost the whole series in that time, all the episodes with Doctors 4-8 the second time and a number of them the third time, plus purchasing and listening to almost all of Big Finish's DW offerings at least once, and more than half the Monthly Range and many box sets the second time.

Just getting that involved with the stories has ruled out a lot of things, from getting to see much of other work that DW cast have done to DW in printed media. In fact, I'm having a terrible time just remembering what happened in the stories. At least my memory is good about being jogged, I was amazed at all the things I remembered from the 70s and 80s when I saw them again, and thankfully my memory is also good at remembering what I liked if not why.

I did go out of the way to look at a lot of DW related stuff on YouTube several years back though, and to pursue a complete set of BF extended extras mainly for the BTS stuff, but I'm sure I'm still missing out on a lot of great bonus features as I'm mostly opting for economy class on DVDs.

For just the show, it was that first year when I watched all of it (2012) and then 2013-14.

Since then, I've taken longer and longer to watch new episodes. There was a bit of a lack of enjoyment in parts of Series 10 - mostly the Monk arc (my wife jumped ship til Christmas after The Lie of the Land!) but now we're between The Ghost Monument (which we watched the week it aired) & Rosa. My wife is saying to go on without her if I want but the momentum is completely gone so I'm in no hurry.

I guess I've gotten to an "I'll get to it when I get to it" mindset when it comes to Who - except when I think I'll be spoiled for something major (but there's no story arc this season - what can be spoiled?!)

The last four episodes included two of the very best imo ('Witchfinders' and 'It Takes You Away') so well worth a look!