Given that Ash and I talk about Doctor Who more than we talk about videogames or our own video series, it’s not particularly surprising that we get this question a lot.
“You talk about Doctor Who a lot,” the question usually starts. “Please stop doing that,” it usually ends. “That’s not a question,” I usually reply.
When it doesn’t end that way, however — when the person in question finds Doctor Who interesting but, confronted with a series that started in 1963 and is still going, simply does not know where to start — I usually have a pretty clear answer for them.
You can find that answer after the jump.
Start with the 2005 series of Doctor Who. It’s part of the exact same canon as the “classic” series, starting in 1963 and running until the 80′s, but it’s specifically written for newcomers to the show. There’s also a really cool sense of scope and myth to the 2005 series; characters will make references to people and places you’ve never seen, adventures you’ve never personally witnessed, but they all existed in the classic series. It’s not like in other fiction where a character will make a reference to something made-up that happened offscreen (“hey, Anakin, remember that time we fell into a nest of gundarks?”) and you have to pretend that the writers aren’t bullshitting — when the Doctor talks about Makra or the Cybermen or Skaro, you get the sense that those stories really exist, without quite knowing enough details about them to rob them of their magic.
The 2005 series is streamable on Netflix, as are all the subsequent series. Search for “Doctor Who, Season 1,” and so on, until you reach the end of Season 4. At that point, the numbering gets weird because the BBC is stupid — instead of a proper 13-episode series, the next season is five separate, one-hour specials: The Next Doctor, Planet of the Dead, Waters of Mars, and The End of Time Parts One and Two (in that order). These specials are a really, really important part of the canon, and should not be skipped under any circumstances (even though the current series that’s currently airing on BBC right this second is called Series 5, for some fucked-up reason).
“But Anthony,” you say. “Five-ish seasons of thirteen episodes-ish each? That’s a lot of fucking Doctor Who to watch.”
Yeah, fair enough. If you want to skip the absolute least interesting bits of the 2005-2010 series (I’d argue they’re all worth watching at least once, but if you’re in a hurry, then you gotta do what you gotta do), you can (somewhat) safely skip the following episodes:
Season One:
The Unquiet Dead
Season Two:
Tooth and Claw
The Idiot’s Lantern
Fear Her
Season Three:
The Shakespeare Code
Daleks in Manhattan
Evolution of the Daleks
The Lazarus Experiment
42
Season Four:
The Doctor’s Daughter
Unicorn and the Wasp
You’re still looking a pretty hefty chunk of TV, but still — that’s almost twelve hours you’ve skipped, just there.
Okay, so, Doctor Who seasons 1-4, plus the specials, comprise the Russell T. Davies era. He was the showrunner during this period, and he defined the tone and style of the show. After the specials, Steven Moffat took over the show. His run of the show just started this Easter, and will continue on semi-regularly over the next few months. Having watched the RTD era, you’ll be ready for the Moffat era (you can’t just jump into the Moffat era because certain fundamental rules about the Doctor Who universe — regeneration, the TARDIS, Time Lords, etc — are not immediately mentioned).
You’ll also be ready to go back and watch the “classic” series, if you so desire. Most of the classic episodes I’ve seen really haven’t aged all that well; they’re slowly paced and full of needless filler. For the most part, they’re really only worth watching to see the different incarnations of the Doctor and how different they were from one another. Nine and Ten never laid a finger on anyone, but Three got into fistfights and swordfights all the goddamn time.
I can personally recommend the Fourth Doctor serials “City of Death” and “Genesis of the Daleks,” though. The former was written by Douglas Adams, and the latter is just really fucking cool, even by modern standards. “An Unearthly Child,” the very first Doctor Who episode ever, is kind of boring after the first part (with all of time and space to explore, the writers decided to go to the fucking caveman era), but there’s a definite magic in its first, half-hour segment.
There’s also this list of not-shitty classic Who serials, linked to me by someone I can’t remember. I haven’t watched all of the episodes on here, but I’m working on it.
Anyway, that should settle things. Any questions?
Personally, I’d start them off on a really good episode to convince them that the show is awesome. Something like “The Empty Child”, “Blink” or “The Girl in the Fireplace” (Steven Moffat can write something fierce) to show them the best of the new Dr. Who, then set them loose on season 1 sequentially.
That’s what my friend did for me. Starting of with The Empty Child is the best way, I think — you get a sense of the Doctor as a character more than you do in Blink, and a great example of how wonderful and engaging the storytelling can be.
I agree with you Anthony, but if someone had time to just watch one episode I would say start off with “The Girl in the Fireplace” with DT. Its the same episode I caught on Sifi a long time ago that fueled my Doctor Who passion. Its no longer my favorite but its really amazing how good it is even now. It sort of reminds me of Firefly even.
I would have to disagree with you on the matter of Daleks in Manhattan and Evolution of the Daleks and they shouldn’t be skipped if you can help it.
If you want to introduce some one to the series i would show them The Girl In The Fireplace, then start season one.
Or if you just want to scare the pants off them, make them watch blink and put a large marble statue behind them when they are watching it. alternatively hire the kid down the block to knock on the door after you finish with The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances and have them say “are you my mummy?”
Holy fuck, I had no idea the reboot episodes were on Netflix! Brilliant! I’m starting that shit tomorrow. I won’t skip any episodes though, cause I think every bit of information and history is good stuffs. I’d like to finish it before the new season gets far; I’d rather not have to catch up on much of that as well. My only sadnesses is that I won’t feel too much emotion when the 10th Doctor regenerates, since I already know what happens. Then again, I’ve a long way to go and a lot of things to see, so I might end up crying like a person that cries because I can’t think of a comparison.
Anyway. Hopefully my expectations haven’t been set too high. I’ll try to go into the series with a pissed off look about my face. Maybe I’ll wear a “FUCK YOU, DOCTOR!!??” shirt and watch the first episode while strangling a puppy. Then I’ll be ready for fucking anything.
Tooth and Claw isn’t that great of an episode but it’s quite interesting becuase well torchwood and so on.
just have to say that I was about to write a comment about you being an idiot right now. Then I saw that it was a list over episodes to skip. Not like “hey 4 seasons in 12 episodes”
Haven’t listened to the HAWPcast yet, but in case you don’t bring it up – what do you think about the tone and character changes for the 2010 series? Everything I’ve seen seems to indicate that Moffat wants to grab the Sarah Jane audience.
–SPOILERS–
-First interaction with the new Doctor is with a child, who becomes the new companion. (A telling change from the 10th Doctor is the 11th’s willingness to put the child at risk, ‘don’t hide, take my hand’)
-CGI effects are simpler and easier to understand (that’s a big difference I saw between 2005-DW and Sarah Jane Adventures; SJA always had more ‘cartoonish’ visuals).
-The designs of the Doctor, Amy, and especially the TARDIS are much brighter and more vibrant. (The new TARDIS makes it difficult to catch what the characters are doing in long shots, but is always very colourful and visual)
This isn’t to suggest that DW hasn’t been, or shouldn’t be, a children’s show; it just doesn’t seem nearly as good as the Davis Who. Besides that, this episode seems to be cobbled together from old DW themes and plots (meet a child, skip ahead accidentally, ‘Girl in the Fireplace’; leaving with the Doctor just before the companion gets married, Martha; Alien taking over bodies, there are a few of these but I was thinking of ‘the Doctor Dances’ for taking over specific people and the hospital element). My girlfriend and I have been watching the old serials (and just finished re-watching the 2005 series) and we’ve never had a worse reaction to a Doctor change.
I haven’t seen the first episode of the fifth season yet (mainly because I’m still catching up on the 4th season + the post-season 4 Doctor specials), but I’ve heard from several places that it is unimpressive. If this is true, I would say it’s par for the course, so-to-speak.
Most sci-fi/fantasy shows seem to have problems with the first episode (or, often as not, episodes). I imagine this often comes from trying to establish a universe (or in Doctor Who’s case, reestablish), ingratiate the characters to the audience (which usually doesn’t work up front, although the audience often grows to care for them over time), and establish the tone for the series/season…oh, and tell a single episode story that is interesting in its own right (this is the biggest stumbling block it seems, mainly because of trying to accomplish all of the other baggage).
“Rose” falls into this I feel, because even though the Doctor and Rose are engaging from the beginning, the actual plot about a ‘plastic entity’ is rather less than compelling as a plot device and isn’t even plotted particularly well either. “Everything Changes” in Torchwood is also a rather weak start compared to what the show became a few episodes later, and to give examples from non-Davies shows, the first few episodes of both “Buffy” and “Angel” are rather underwhelming and unrepresentative of where the show would go as far as quality and subject matter.
All I’m saying is, there’s no reason to bail on the Moffat Doctor just yet. The first-episode-or-so doldrums seems to be a curse that most if not all head writers of sci-fi or fantasy tv shows must face.
@Anthony
I just saw the first episode of the new series, and is it just me, or did Prisoner 0 make no sense at all? I mean, when you do see him in his “true-form” he looks like an upside-down sock puppet! then later he dissolves into a drain…why can’t he just be a particle cloud when he’s not copy-catting someone?
Yeah, Prisoner Zero didn’t do much for me. That whole “oh no she’s talking out of the wrong mouth” thing might have been scary (like, Empty Child, “what’s that noise oh the recording stopped ten minutes ago” scary) if we actually had any reason to find Prisoner Zero intimidating at all.
It is evident that you like Doctor Who, but have you tried convincing any of your friends to watch it as well? I also watch an obscure foreign TV series (Kamen Rider) of which there is an old 70′s and 80′s series and a new 2000′s series, and I’m trying to watch all of that. The difference between you and I is that you have Ashly to talk to about it as she also watches it, but I’m an only child and all my friends don’t give a shit. So have you convinced any of your friends (other than Ashly) to watch Doctor Who? If so, what did you do to convince them?
I’ve tried, to be honest, but they’re really not into it. I successfully got my friends into Firefly, but Doctor Who is just too cheesy for them.
My gf hates cheesy stuff and its so hard for her to watch anything even slightly cheesy. But I think she might go for this new series of the Doctor. Its just styled such a way that it might be not as cheesy. Also its kind of awesome to finally not have to wait like 6 months for another serving of Doctor Who.
That’s not totally true – Christina is really into it.
Never aplogize for watching/talking about Doctor Who. If people don’t like it they can turn it off.
Also I’m just as surprised how much I like the Matt Smith Doctor. I had the same experience as Anthony said RTD said I would. I hated him, and now I like him.
I feel the same way. I was sad and pouty that I’d have no more RTD and no more Tennant’s Doctor. But, Matt Smith and Moffat’s version has been really engaging and awesome. Not better, but definitely on par.
-SPOILER-
Does anyone else think the woman in the Blink sequel (only saw the previews until this weekend) looks like/is River Song?
Is it possible the they purposefully made Matt Smith’s first few seconds shitty in the hopes that it would allow them to pleasantly surprise us when given a full episode?
I’m starting to believe that myself.
To add to that list, I did successfully get a (former) girlfriend into the show with Human Nature/Family of Blood. This was before Netflix and I only had the Series 1 and 3 DVDs on hand, but it’s a wonderful compromise between great storytelling (incredibly emotionally powerful despite being Plot Device Land…one of the two times Doctor Who made me tear up a little) and the relatively light SciFi content…while still introducing some of the base concepts as “John Smith” is reintroduced to the Sonic Screwdriver and the TARDIS.
I’d recommend that over the Daleks in Manhattan two-parter, which kinda requires an appreciation and knowledge of Daleks, and just how fucking insane they are, to fully appreciate. It’s better storytelling and more in-line with the Doctor Who universe, but it’s less “lay-ready”
Blink, which was mentioned above in comments but not in the list (to which I agree), was a massive diversion from the usual Doctor Who storytelling and I wouldn’t entirely recommend it as a one-shotter. It was fantastic, but not necessarily an accurate representation to the usual song and dance presented. That’s actually probably why the fan base ate that shit up – it was a great example on how the occasional diversion from the usual order can be done well without fucking up.
Oh. Did I mention that I’m one of those weird kids that loved Series 3 above the other series in the recent line?
Agreed, on Blink. Blink is super-fun, but if you start a newbie off with that, they’ll be really disappointed by every other “normal” episode.
And thanks almost solely to my love of Utopia and Gridlock, I’m kind of with you on the Series 3 thing.
I must thank you guys for getting me into Doctor Who. I have heard about it off and on for the past couple of years, after hearing you guys talk about it all the time I decided to watch a couple episodes….two days later I came out of my room a changed man.
I’m currently on a quest to watch every classic series episode. I own just a few dvd’s (Remembrance Of The Daleks, City Of Death, Earthshock, Genesis Of The Daleks, The Five Doctors, Tomb Of The Cybermen, the “Beginnings” boxset with An Unearthly Child, The Daleks and The Edge Of Destruction, plus the Specials boxset) but I’ve downloaded a lot of the classic episodes too, plus the 1996 TV Movie. Watched every new series one, plus Torchwood, although I still need to check Sarah Jane’s Adventures.
I’ve been a fan for about two year only, but I can safely say that Doctor Who is by far one of my favorite “things”, like gaming, for example. I recommend every sci-fi fan to check it out (and also Firefly, which Anthony also seems to like a lot).
Watched The Eleventh Hour this saturday too, and I think I can safely say that Matt Smith is absolutely fucking amazing. Can’t wait for the next episodes.
Oh, and don’t skip any episodes. They’re all worth it, in some way (Fear Her, for example, will make everything else you watch seems like a present of the gods).
And finally, if you’re a fan, check out the Gallifrey Base forum, it’s really good. My nickname there is Empty Child.
As a huge Doctor Who fan, this might seem a bit weird for me to say, but I’d be tempted to advise starting Dr Who with this latest episode, and just reading up on things such as the timelords and regeneration (although I imagine that’ll all be explained in time to Amy, so it might not even be necessary).
Whilst there have been some fantastic episodes since the revivial, and the birth of my favourite Doctor, Christopher Eccleston, Russel T Davies has churned out so many god-awful episodes that the series as a whole was soured for me whilst he was the lead writer.
Tennant’s talent was totally wasted on RTD’s episodes, which was demonstrated when he was utterly fantastic in episodes such as Blink.
The greatest Davies episode was his last, The End of Time Part 2. An episode I’d encourage newcomers to watch, were it not necessary to watch The End of Time Part 1 (the second worst Dr Who episode of all time, the worst of course being the season 3 finale, where Doctor Who managed to emulate both Gollum and Tinkerbell at the same time, in the worst scene ever to be broadcast on British TV) to understand it. Whilst it wasn’t perfect (I felt the death scene was a little dragged out, and the Master’s lightning hands never stopped being ridiculous), Tennant’s final scene was superb.
I know some (Anthony and Ashly certainly would, going by the podcasts) would disagree with this standpoint, but I honestly believe Dr Who will become so, so much better now RTD has left, and will avoid the situation seen under his reign, where great episodes were hugely outnumbered by abysmal tripe.
I personally found The Shakespeare Code to be incredibly interesting, but maybe that’s because I’m an actor and was entertained by all the little things in that episode.
This is great! Hopefully, I can get my other friends on the bandwagon. And on a side note, Even though Human Nature and The Family Blood are very important parts of the series 3 story, they are insanely boring IMO.
I know i’ts really early to answer the following question, but here goes. You and Ashly said that you will probably not watch the new season at all, but now that it is released, have you changed your minds?
Personally I really liked it. Sure, it had some flaws, but it was a lot better than many season 1-4 episodes.
In short: yes. We talk a lot of bullshit, but I think we both knew that we were going to at least give Matt Smith two or three episodes, and we already like him. Unless, for some reason, Moffat manages to make the show unbearable (ie, by completely contradicting things established in RTD’s run, or by allowing Riversong to be as annoying as she was in the Silence of the Library two parter) we’ll be watching.
I would start them off with a great episode like BLINK. That was the first episode I ever saw of Doctor Who and I was hooked.
Hey! I liked “Fear Her!” And not the shittiness. I liked the little throwaway funny bits:
[s.... spoilers?]
The Doctor: hehehehe, tickles!
The Doctor: I’m… being facetious, there’s really no call for it.
The Doctor: look at the hairs on the back of my manly, hairy hand
The Doctor: snatching a living organism out of time and space like that would take an ENORMOUS amount of energy! This baby’s just like “grr, I’m havin’ some of that!”
The Doctor: [...] what you NEED is a hand to hold. [the Doctor takes Rose's hand, which was mistook as offered to hold when she was actually just pointing at a screen. She laughs.]
The Doctor: Paupa New Guinea surprises everyone in shotput.
I laughed a lot during that episode, nevermind the stupid “OMG SUPER EMOTIONAL FLOWER-ALIEN HAS SUPER POWERS! SOMETHING SOMETHING IONIC ENERGY DRAWINGS!”
To be fair, “creatures of the abstract which feed on potential energy” sounds like a flimsy reason for Weeping Angels to send you back in time. To me, at least.
I watched I think half of the 2005 series… with the guy with the big ears. I think I stopped watching it on a Episode where the Aliens kept farting. It was stupid.
Does it get better than that? It waaaaaaas lame.
Yes. It does get better. Just keep with it.
yeah, the toilet humour thing made me wince every time.
Fortunately, that’s the only toilet humour I can remember in the entire series (since 2005, at least).
Right, so I started watching it yesterday and…now I’m obsessed. The only thing that held me off from it today was artwork. And now I’m about to dive back in like a fat man dives into lard.
Also, someone should have warned me that I’d get Rick Roll’d in one of the episodes. Shit was not cool. Not cool.
No. i wouldn’t.We make no sense at all.
you have just saved my life.
I just listened to your podcast and I have to disagree with your guys assesment of Moffat’s skills. I take issue with you guys saying that Moffat’s episodes don’t show the emotional depth of the Davies episodes. I say they show more emotional depth. One thing I’ve never liked about the Davies episodes were that he would always go for easy sentiment. The most obvious example of this is in the last episodes of Season 3. The old doctor effect and the “clap your hands if you believe in the doctor” moments were the most embarrassed I ever felt watching Doctor Who. Moffat on the other hand is more subtle about the emotional resonance and I would say that he introduced some of the themes that Davies got to play around with later. In “The Doctor Dances” he introduced The Doctor’s desire to rescue everyone, even if they appear to be the villain. And while you mentioned “The Girl In The Fireplace” several times in the podcast, I don’t think you mentioned that it was written by Moffat and was the episode where the sadness that would come to define the 10th Doctor began.
I’ve been meaning to catch up on this series since most of my friends watch and reference it all the time. Thanks for this sweet guide on where to get started and why.
I’m sort of starting to be interested in this series, only because you guys talk about it all the time in your podcast, and if you guys (who are quite awesome in my and my friends’ eyes) like it, then it must be good. I’d probably be a dork and watch all of it, though; I tend to do that with all kinds of different animes and whatnot (I actually watched all of Bleach up to where it was at in summer of ’08 in Japan; that was about 160 episodes, and I haven’t seen any of the movies for it). If I’m really going to watch something, I usually set aside a lot of time a day for it (I usually watch about 10 episodes of something a day in order to get caught up in it as quickly as possible, so that’s about 3 hours a day) because, as you guys kind of said, some stuff is important to the plot, no matter how small, and I like to know exactly what’s going on in a story (also why I don’t skip cutscenes in video games, regardless of how terrible or long they may be; I like to know where what I’m playing through is going, and for where everything eventually goes to make sense, so skipping scenes is just foolish to me).
Thank you so much for explaining all of this! Seriously, I cannot thank you enough, Anthony! I started watching the first series last week on Netflix (streaming to my 360) and I kept watching it all and finally hit the end of the 4th season last night (cried like a bitch from the whole Donna thing). I totally didn’t know where to go next because when I wiki’d it I kept seeing that it said I should go to Matt Smith from there because that was the 5th season, but I knew that Tennant Who still had a bunch of specials that I was going to miss out on if I went straight to Smith. I tried asking my fiancee about it, but while she’s a fan of Who, she’s not a big enough fan to actually keep up with what Doctor and episode goes where in the grand scheme of things, so thank you VERY MUCH for laying it all out here.
I was wondering this exact question yesterday. Thanks for posting this!
I feel like people should watch The Unquiet Dead and Tooth and Claw, though, because it does establish important things about Torchwood.
(Plus The Doctor and Rose are really adorable together in both episodes…)
Example:
Rose: I’ll tell you what, though; WEREWOLF
*hugz*
Yeah. “Adorable” is the exact right word.
So was the accidental hand-hold in “Fear Her.”
Those were pretty cool episodes. I think Tooth and Claw pretty much sums up Torchwood, myself.
Yeah, but in Army of Ghosts they reference Torchwood’s inception, anyway (“created when queen victoria blah blah bork bork”.)
Obviously it’d be ideal if everyone watched every episode, but if you’re in a rush, Tooth and Claw is pretty boring and all of its overarching shit gets explained in later episodes, anyway.
There’s no forgiving The Unquiet Dead, though. If anything, teh series might be better without the “you look beautiful for a human” line, so the love story can develop more gracefully.
I agree about tooth and claw, and the unquiet dead. Though I think the real question is how the hell did you two end up so versed in the UK’s culture? Its all Stephen Fry and Dr Who reference’s… how did you end up watching all this stuff?
Oh and by the way Oscar Wilde, as great as he was, is Irish not English, I hate to lower our intelligence score in your mind.
Nice Article. Make sure you watch Sylvester Mccoy’s “Remembrance of the Daleks”. That episode made me really like the 7th Doctor.
Also, Ash really does need to do some Amy Pond impersonations. When Amy said “people always have a reason” in the new series episode “The Eleventh Hour” it reminded me quite a bit of the HAWP back and forth.
Tom Baker’s “Genesis of the Daleks” is also very good, and everyone should watch the scene where the first doctor says goodbye to his granddaughter Susan, even if they don’t watch the episode.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=81gFI9aNSlo
The 1996 Doctor Who film is really good.
You can really skip almost all of season 3. Except the end. And Blink.
You can skip the end. The end’s the worst.
Excuse me? The Master is the greatest super villain ever! Jon Simms was the best actor they could have picked to play him. Up until that bullshit tinker bell-jesus bit, it was awesome.
And if you like John Simms as the master you should really check out Life on Mars, he was more convincing in that.
You get into that you might even like Ashes to Ashes, but no John Simms in that one.
So I have a similar but completely different problem/question. I am a doctor who fan. I started watching sometime during the tenth doctor and was instantly hooked. I’ve watched the majority of the new series but my problem lies in this. I really, really want to watch everything since the very first episode back in the sixties but I can’t seem to find anything but a handful of any series before the current ones. Is there some sort of database/DVD box set where I can find the entirety of Doctor who from the first incarnation to now? I’ve been trying to find it to no avail and I remember Anthony saying something about starting the exact same quest in one of the podcasts which suggests to me that such a collection does exist. Any help in this matter would be greatly appreciated though I also understand if the answer is simply that my desire is impossible to fulfill. Also, “Just google/torrent search it” doesn’t help much since I’ve tried my hand at it to no avail. Specifics are what I’m really looking for…
http://isohunt.com/torrent_details/53293189/doctor+who?tab=summary
There you go, that’s the whole shebang.
I’ve bee a Doctor who fan for, oh about the past 21 years. My introduction to the Doctor was at age 9 with Sylvester McCoy. Since then I’ve watched every iteration of the Doctor, though I’ve not subjected myself to every episode.
So, I’ll be honest and unpopular now. My favourite of the 11 Doctors is: Matt Smith. The latest Doctor is my number 1, and he’s only done 2 episodes thus far, which to me is a testament to how good he is.
To go further and be even less popular, the worst doctor in my opinion? David Tennant. I know, blasphemy. I really enjoyed Eccleston, and when Tennant took over all my Who Fan Friends were telling me how great he was, how he blows Eccleston away, etc. I was pretty jazzed for Tennant, and then he turned out to be total pants.
I find him instantly annoying. His performance feels really forced, nothing about his Doctor feels genuine or real. It’s like he’s trying to be this goofy cartoon and it’s total pants. Then he tries to get serious and broody and it’s even worse. And finally I find his voice to be something a kin to nails on a chalk board. I also fear his eyes are trying to escape from his skull and get away. I’m not sure why he decided to play the Doctor in constant deer-in-the-headlights mode, but it was a poor choice.
I would start people off with the first Matt Smith episode. It’s a truly charming introduction to the Doctor. Not knowing about regeneration is not a huge impairment to one’s understanding or enjoyment of the episode. The Eccleston season is a pretty decent launching pad as well.
The nice thing about the Doctor is you can really jump in pretty much anywhere. There’s so much happening in the Doctor Whoniverse that you’re always going to have to hit the ground running no matter when you choose to jump in. Part of the charm I think.
Trust me!
I’m The Doctor!
HOLY SHIT SKIP 42, eh i guess everyone has opinions.
I really hope that this series will clear up some loose ends like the doctor’s daughter (what happened to her) and the woman he encountered at the library world (the one that says she already met him before)
after i asked you on twitter, this article comes up and answers all my questions. thanks so much anthony. im writing this comment right before i dive into season three. hearing you talk about it really interested me, but i wasnt about to go out and buy the DVDs. netflix comes to my rescue and its been almost consistently great since i started. i feel like im sort of rambling, but that may be because ive got an episode paused for me to start as soon as i finish typing this. i just want to say thanks again for the recommendation, and this article.
I thoroughly enjoyed dr who, from your recommendation thank you very much, and started to watch some Torchwood expecting the same quality.
The premise seems great: Doctor Who, but accepting that there is sex in the universe.
But I was dissapointed. Most of the five episodes I have watched was terrible, and my question is easy:
Does it get better?
Season one is horrendous, season two is pretty good (it’s less stupidly serious and much more charming), season three is fucking spectacular (like, better than most Doctor Who).
Stick with it.
I loved the BBC Americca premiere of Matt Smith’s Doctor! But I’m blah about the reappearance of River Song. I hate that bitch, hated her in ER, too.
Why wouldn’t you skip Girl in the Fireplace? Not only is it a pointless episode, but it actually makes the overall theme of Series 2 less cohesive. (I.E. It hinges on you caring about Rose)
The reason the current season is Season 5 is because those 1 hour specials that came after Season 4 are just that. Specials. They are not a Season; they are a bridge between Season 4 and 5 and they are the rise and climax of that which leads, ultimately, to The Doctor’s necessary regeneration and fills in a few bits and pieces along the way.
I have to say, when introducing anyone to Doctor Who, I would strongly suggest a precursor course of several Tom Baker episodes with a bag of Jelly Babies on the side. Call me in the morning!
I recently acquired through not piracy all of the Doctor Who episodes and have been loving nearly every episode… That was until I had a friend watch one with me. It was “Love and Monsters”: Easily the worst episode I’ve yet seen. He now writes it off as the silliest show he’s yet seen. Beh…
On the upside. The Satan Pit and Blink were fucking fantastic… well… most of the are.
I had absolutely no idea that Dr Who had any sort of a fan base in America. I would have thought that the cheap BBC special effects and (in places) inferior writing would have been a deal breaker.
The only advice I can give is that if you start with a series with David Tennant playing the Doctor, don’t go back to the 2005 series with Christopher Ecclestone; he’s really wooden in comparison.
Also, I feel partly responsible, as I hope all Brits do, that we allowed Catherine Tate to ever get on that show and didn’t lynch her beforehand.
I totally agree with everything you say, even the episodes you can skip…
what i always do with my friends is to force them to watch Doctor Who (it’s not really known in Germany) all the girls say that it’s creepy and some of the boys say it’s cool…a bit weird but still great to have some people who like it.
Btw loved David Tennant, but Matt Smith is awesome too, he’s doing a great job!
Did you guys know theres a free official Doctor Who video game which you can download from http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/dw/theadventuregames
its actual quite fun!
hey anthony,fate it seems has been telling me to watch doctor who
its been mentioned in like 10 different places
I dont mind watching a series all the way through,infact I love doing that,starting a new series and watching every episode ever made
did it with bleach,naruto,deathnote,psych,metalocalypse,southpark,avatar,family guy,simpsons,supernatural etc.
my question is if I am willing should I go back and start with the 60′s episodes? are they worth the watch?
my mom liked doctor who but stopped watching because it reminds her of her ex husband
Just watched the latest ep (the lodger) of DW. Pisses me off how well versed Amy Pond is in operating the TARDIS. How is it that she can perform searches on earth databases using the TARDIS console without any trouble? Maybe the Doc is using an intuitive OS like an IPHONE or some shit or maybe ms Pond is getting some off screen training. Not-fucking-likely, atleast 11 is progressing as a character a bit, the taste-and-spit-out-if-yucky quirk gets a comeback. And his comments seem to hint at a greater confusion and an unstable psyche, maybe I’m just desperate for him to have a character. Love yer stuff, getting into nerfguns at the age of 26 because of you guys, hope you’re proud. But then again, it was bound to happen.
Peace, love and all that good shit. And also cookies. And beer. And stuff.