Doctor Who?

How do you explain Doctor Who to someone who has never seen it before, or even never heard of it?

This may only make sense if you've seen the 2012 Xmas special!

I've been attempting this with our new German exchange student, and telling her 'it's about an ancient alien who travels through time and space in a blue phone box, and takes people away with him' makes very little sense and makes the Doctor sound a tad serial-killer/stalker-ish.  Also the whole regeneration thing sounds well suss. 

It is kind of hard to sum up this culmination of 50 years of British eccentricity in a few sentences.  It's been part of my life for as long as I can remember, so it takes a real cultural mind-set shift to be able to contemplate how you could exist without it in your life!

There's a young man on youTube called Charlie McDonnell (?) who has done a pretty good summary of why Who rocks, and why we love it despite and because of its faults.  Check him out at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jf6H4gkErt4

If you're a Whovian, how would YOU describe Who to a newbie?
If you've never seen it, please consider having a go, it's got a lot to offer if you let it try :-)

And yes, I named my cat after a character in it.