Slashdot Mirror
Ask Slashdot: How/Where To Start Watching Dr. Who?
stinkfish writes "I am a big fan of science fiction, especially good TV science fiction. For some reason Dr. Who is a show I have watched very little of. My question to Slashdot is, whats the best strategy for enjoying this classic show? Looking at the wikipedia page on Dr. who, I see there are 11 Doctors, so is hard to pick a good starting point. If it was just up to me, I would start watching from the very beginning. But I know my wife would not watch a show that dated, though she is a science fiction fan herself and enjoyed a few seasons of Torchwood. So where do I start? Here's an article on this topic; is there more to say?"
You aren't alone. I never got into this show, and I've just never been particularly interested in trying.
And you know what else--I thought "Lord of the Rings" was boring (both in book and movie form), "Babylon 5" was poorly written and acted, and the movie version of "Starship Troopers" was much better than the book. There, I said it.
I assert that being a geek doesn't mean having to like *everything* associated with geek life. And if you have to FORCE yourself to get into it, you're probably going to take all the fun out of it anyway.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
This is probably blasphemy to a lot of /.ers, but the new seasons, 2005 onwards, are alright. Good a place as any to start. I've been meaning to go back and watch the whole Trial of a Timelord season, but haven't gotten around to it yet.
Admit it. You post strawman arguments as AC so you get modded Insightful for refuting them, rather than Troll
...without even having watched it then she isn't really a "science fiction fan". That sort of prejudice will get you nowhere.
Also, don't base your aesthetics on what your wife will tolerate.
With Billie Piper and C. Ecklsteiner.
Then, David Tenet.
Then - I haven't seen them, but get caught up.
From there - you'll know the flavor of Doctor you like, and be able to make a more informed choice.
The nice thing about a Time Travel series - is you need not watch it sequentially!
Start with the beginning of the modern show, then sample previous eras here an there as you go. The discs of the old shows usually have entire story arcs on them, so you can treat it like a buffet.
If she doesn't want something dated and enjoys Torchwood, I think I would start with Doctor Who circa 2005. There are Torchwood tie-ins that will become apparent.
To-do List: Receive telemarketing call during a tornado warning. Check.
I would recommend that you start with the 'newer' series, from about 2005 onwards. This will get you Christopher Eccleston, David Tennant and Matt Smith. The older ones just look aged, or rather pants (McCoy & McGann never really seemed to fill the role properly).
Opinions are like arseholes - everybody's got one and this is mine.
If you have a *lot* of drugs you can start with the older stuff, but not all the way back. Maybe some Pertwee? If you are really really high, it's pretty entertaining. Otherwise, start with 2005 (Christopher Eccleston).
Start with the first series of the modern production (Christopher Eccleston) and go forward, and intersperse it with some stories from the classic series. For the classic episodes I don't think it's necessary to go in totally perfect order, but try to go in Doctor order to get a sense of the show's progression.
It has the newer feel, somewhat like Torchwood. My wife (and I) enjoyed the new run immensely.
Vote monkeys into Congress. They are cheaper and more trustworthy.
My understanding is that most (all?) of the First Doctor's episodes are sadly no longer extant.
Tom Baker is the best doctor of them all, start with him, then go forward or backward it doesn't matter, every other doctor pales by comparison.
Once you get into the mythology, even the older ones tend to be loved (something to which my wife and kids will attest--I was watching since I was a lad).
I use irony whenever I can, but my shirts are still wrinkled...
...and watch some future episodes
For me, that "dated" feel of Doctor Who was what made it great. Though some of the very early black and white ones where a little too much for me, some of the B&W ones were great. I still enjoy the last few "modern" seasons, but the look and feel of the show has changed a lot from the classics for me, and I just don't enjoy them as much. The sets and effects are a little TOO perfect in the new ones, which really breaks my suspension of disbelief.
If you want fun, start with Tom Baker and go forward from there, but you will miss a lot of important back story and character development that happened early on.
I agree with this. I love the new material, but no matter how hard I try, can't go back to the old. It's... I don't know if it's dated, or cheesy, or what, but it's something, and I don't like it.
"16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
I had been considering that question, myself, and then decided that if I were to introduce someone to the show, I'd do so with a new series episode, and one that would give the newbie an idea of why kids used to watch the show from behind the sofa.
One word: "Blink."
You really can't start at the beginning. The very first shows are available on DVD, but then there are gaps where shows got taped over because the BBC could not imagine anyone *ever* wanting to watch something that was already broadcast. Yeah, TV executives haven't improved very much.
I have no idea where you should start. :) The first black and white episodes are good too see where it all started. Shoestring budgets, but even then the Daleks were pretty cool.
I have actually read a whole lot of Doctor Who Books published by BBC rather than see the series......I have also seen some of the earliest episodes and the latest ones. I must say- Books were better.
I started with the first season of the modern ones. Hooked me, and now I've seen all the modern ones as well as the specials. I would suggest the same thing. The older ones move much slower.
Even if you did start watching from the very beginning, you'd have a tough time tracking down all the episodes, since a good number of them are simply lost to time. That is to say, there's NO way to watch them all. Some have been found again, some have been animated based on radio broadcasts, some have been restored...but some are just gone.
My advice for someone new to Who: give the new series a go. It's incredibly accessible and available, and David Tennant does a great job at playing the Doctor. If he can't make you fall in love with the whole thing, maybe it's not for you. And once you're in love with the series, you'll probably have an easier time accepting the older, lower-budget episodes of days gone by, and you'll be positively drooling for the back story the older episodes provide.
Of course, someone with a different favorite Doctor may tell you to start elsewhere, but I think my argument of accessibility/availability is still a good one. :)
Their may be a grammatical error, misspeling, or evn a typo in this post.
Start with the 11th Doctor.
It's a sort-of fresh start and while it does reference the past Doctors, if you're interested in knowing more - look up the episode on Wikipedia and I'm sure a bigger nerd will have linked to the past episode.
The biggest things that came back from past episodes were the Steven Moffat episodes from the previous seasons - those might be worth viewing just to catch up and also to see how good Doctor Who can be if in the hands of a good writer.
Previous Steven Moffat stories:
Series 1:
1.9 "The Empty Child"
1.10 "The Doctor Dances"
Series 2:
2.4 "The Girl in the Fireplace"
Series 3:
3.10 "Blink"
Series 4:
4.9 "Silence in the Library"
4.10 "Forest of the Dead"
Just listing those episodes reminds me of a lot of the stuff introduced in them that are referenced in later episodes.
All browsers' default homepage should read: Don't Panic...
The new series has much better special effects, but, occasionally, they pay homage to the old series, so those bits will be lost on you. The old series has, by today's standards, cheesy special effects (perhaps even cheesy by the standards way back then).
However, the old series does have some very good stories, so if you can suspend your criticism of the special effects, start with the old series. Many of my favorites are in the Tom Baker (#4) era. In the new series, anything written by Steven Moffat is brilliant.
Although there tends to be a Dr. Who bias whereby whichever Doctor you see first is your favorite Doctor (similar to one's first James Bond), my personal favorites are Tom Baker (#4) and David Tennant (#10).
If you reply, do so only to what I explicitly wrote. If I didn't write it, don't assume or infer it.
The BBC didn't save all of its old tapes, so many of the oldest episodes were lost. Some have been converted from private collections (VHS/beta tapes) to fill in the gaps.
At one point in time, WTTW in Chicago ran through all the doctors (to the then current one) in order, and I recorded every single episode. I regret to admit that I, like so many others, consigned those tapes to the trash years ago.
Anyway, just keep that in mind if you do decide to go back and watch the earlier series. I really liked the first three Doctors, by the way. Baker was fine--I first found the series while he was on--but I was never convinced that he was the ultimate one (I know, that's blasphemy to some).
I use irony whenever I can, but my shirts are still wrinkled...
I generally agree with the article that starting with the 2005 series is the easiest way to get into Doctor Who. There are a few references to old stuff that you won't get, but they're subtle and not important to understanding what's going on.
If you want to start with the classic series, the more accessible places to start are either with Season 7's Spearhead from Space (the Third Doctor) or Season 12's Robot (the Fourth Doctor). Many episodes in the first six seasons were thrown out by the BBC, so they can only now be watched through audios and slide-show like reconstructions which can a bit challenging to watch. There are some restoration issues with the Third Doctor's stories, but at least all of the episodes are there.
Note that not all of classic Who has been released on DVD, so some of it may be a bit hard to find (at least legally).
Tom Baker....anything before that is too dated. The Tom Baker episodes hold up well and he is very entertaining.
I would start with the revival, that would be the 9th doctor, Christopher Eccleston. If you want to include torchwood and/or the sarah jane adventures (although a kids show is better than most stuff on tv), heres the viewing order i kinda pieced together along with all the specials.
Doctor Who S1
Doctor Who - Children In Need Short (2006)
Doctor Who - Christmas Invasion
Doctor Who - Attack of the Graske
Doctor Who S2
Doctor Who - The Runaway Bride
Torchwood S1
Sarah Jane Adventures - Invasion of the Bane
Doctor Who S3
Doctor Who - The Infinite Quest (actually takes place between 3x09 and 3x10)
Doctor Who - Time Crash (2007 Children In Need)
Doctor Who - Voyage of the Damned
Sarah Jane Adventures S1
Torchwood S2
Doctor Who S4
Sarah Jane Adventures S2
Doctor Who at the Proms
Doctor Who - The Next Doctor
Doctor Who - Dreamland
Doctor Who - Planet of the Dead
Torchwood S3 - Children of Earth (some of the best television ever)
Sarah Jane Adventures S3
Doctor Who - The Waters of Mars
Doctor Who - The End of Time
Doctor Who S5
Sarah Jane Adventures S4
Doctor Who - A Christmas Carol
Doctor Who - Space & Time (comic relief 2011)
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
Current head writer Steven Moffat's episodes are pretty much golden. Search through the episode list and start with those. I started with The Empty Child - a gorgeous horror tale with the Ninth Doctor, set in Blitz-era London, with a little gas-mask child walking the streets. Properly spooky stuff, superbly written and directed. Blink is a modern classic, inventive plotting, clever ideas and (surprisingly) very little of the Doctor. it also boasts the best monsters (the Weeping Angels) since the series revival.
All things considered (14 episodes) the Eleventh Doctor is my favourite Doctor. He's just the right shade of alien, oblivious, brilliant and full on performance. The Eleventh Hour was the reason I paid the licence fee last year - a gorgeous, imaginative fantasy about a time-travelling imaginary friend, a crashing spaceship, a brilliant magician, spunky eye-candy and a plot of deft nonsense. That story hits all the classic fantasy notes, from Narnia to Roald Dahl's wibblier flights of fancy.
Hope you enjoy the show.
Most of the episodes are still around. Some have been lost. Others have not been released to DVD yet.
You can get An Unearthy Child, the first episode from Amazon or whatnot. Now, mind you, it is "live teleplay" and in black and white, so it is going to be a lot different then today's doctor who.
I will echo what a lot of people have been saying. Start with the reboot with "Rose". It not that the older stuff is bad - it is just very different.
For example, I would recomand "Robots of Death" - a Tom Baker / 4th Doctor story - when you get done with the "modern" stories. I think it was 3 [or 4?] 1/2 hour episodes that's now a 90 minute "movie". The pacing is very different.
Start with the 2005 reboot with Christopher Eccleston. It's a nice introduction that doesn't need any background to get in to, and it's recent so you don't have to watch 40 years of stuff to get to the good stuff (good as in not horribly dated and of poor production quality). One thing of note is that if you do start with Eccleston then you will notice they frequently refer to a particular past event (Read backwards for spoiler: RAW EMIT EHT). This event didn't happen in any of the earlier episodes you skipped, but just prior to the 2005 reboot, sort of to distinguish the new series from the old, so you didn't miss anything.
I watched all of the 4th Doctor (Tom Baker) and one thing you'll notice from those older episodes is how poor the production quality is sometimes (rubber monster suits, dialogue that is completely obscured by background noise). So you're better off starting somewhere recent like 2005 then going back and watching the older stuff. I never got around to watching any other old doctors, you probably won't either.
I agree but the older ones do feel dated and 'holding a purple sheet of fur over your head' to play a monster is hard to swallow for most people.
Avoid Colin Baker and Peter Davidson (especially any with Adric) and its good cheesy SciFi entertainment.
I am a free slashdotter. I will not be modded, blogged, DRM'd, patented, podcasted or RFID'd. My life is my own.
unfortunately you will not be able to watch it from the beginning. So many early shows have been lost. I started watching Doctor Who with Tom Baker and only seen a few of the earlier Doctors on Netflix. I recently got caught up with watching all the episodes of new series. Personally I found the new series not as entertaining as the old. It is not to say the newer ones are bad, they are actually pretty good in their own way but when compared to the older, they are lacking and much, much darker.
To answer your question, if you were going to try to addict someone with Doctor Who, start with Tom Baker. Once addicted then try to make them hard core by watching the black an white series that's available.
yeah, was just going to say the same thing myself, Christopher Eccleston was the relaunch of the series after it was cancelled back in the day (80's?), it was all interesting and exciting again, and at some point catch a few of the Tom Baker/John Pertwee ones too (but remember they were shot a while ago) otherwise you won't be able to join in on the "who was your favourite Dr" discussions down the pub oooooohhhhhhhh, don't forget the old movies, check this: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0060278/
sag
Tom Baker seems to be a favourite but most people tend to like the one they grew up with.
There are two Dr Who Films that you might want to view, I'm not sure how they well regarded they are by fans but I like them. They have Peter Cushing in and are about the Daleks. They were made in the 1960s. You can at least have a laugh at the terrible FX and funky music.
The films don't really have anything in common with the TV shows.
There are 7 Canonical doctors, and then there's the remake series. I'd suggest you ignore the latter entirely, and start with Hartnell (1st) or Tom Baker (4th). The series varied reasonably in style over the years it ran; some of the doctors had story arcs while with others the episodes were closer to being one-off. It was a fantastic series.
For every problem, there is at least one solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.
I grew up watching the old series and I think I have the answer you're looking for: 4 key episodes from the old series and the infinitely more watchable new series.
The modern series definitely stands on its own, but it does have a lot of in-jokes and references to the old series, so it might be worth finding a few key episodes from the Tom Baker (4th Doctor) years. I'd recommend just as a sample the ones where Douglas Adams was involved: Pirate Planet (you'll recognize the writing if you've read THHGTTG), Shada, and City of Death. You will also want to watch Genesis of the Daleks, as Davros and the Daleks play an important role in the Doctor Who multiverse.
So there's 4 old episodes to get your bearings, and then dive into the new series from the beginning (and listen carefully for a mention of that nice young man Arthur Dent in series 1).
f u cn rd ths u cn gt a gd jb n cmptr prgmng
After that I would take a look at several serials from later doctors. For instance for Troughton the Wheel in Space or the Krotons. For Pertwee Carnival of Monsters. For Baker The Talons of Weng-Chiang or City of Death. And so on. You may like to look at different companions/assistants as well.
Each Doctor has a different feel, and by looking at the various doctors you will find a few favorites. Then you can look for episodes that feature your favorite Doctor or Companion. A limiting factor on this may be available episodes, though Netflix and Itunes has a good selection.
The current incarnation there is no reason to not start with the current series. The last christmas episode, in my mind was quite strong. If you stick with Matt Smith, there is really no reason to go back. If you want to go back further, then start with Eccleston and the relaunch "Rose". There is quite a bit of history and buildup during the first few seasons. I something think the purposefully cut the series apart when they hires Smith. It seems they did this couple times in the before when they felt they were getting bogged down.
One thing with the first twenty some odd series is that they are classic tv. They expected people to sit there and wait for the story to develop. Sometime it is strained when they required a 6 part serial and the 4th and 5th part are clearly filler. There is a lot of corridor acting, of various quality. If one serial is not to your liking, there is probably another that is more dramatic or whatever you want. It can get a bit Shakespearian. But many are really well made TV. Remember the original serials were serials, meant to be wants in small chunks.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
Good choice, unless it's someone who can't deal with scary very well (me). I love Doctor Who, but the Weeping Angels freak me the fuck out. If that had been my first experience I might have run and never looked back.
Still... good Doctor, excellent writing, creative premise. It's a solid first episode with the aforementioned caveat.
"16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
It is for this reason that I would advocate watching the series in sequence starting with Jon Pertwee, the third Doctor.
You'll enjoy the transition into color, and the best Doctor of all, Tom Baker, will be refreshingly modern when you get to his episodes. If you can handle the camp, prepare yourself for the most awesome, un-remarkable, un-religious religious experience of your life.
with anything pre-Christopher Eccleston. The original Dr was somehow both tedious and campy.
Start with whatever you happen to see now (because the episodes are usually self-contained, or close enough to it) and then netflix from the beginning.
Don't watch Torchwood (love it!) until after you've seen at least one full season with David Tennant as the Dr.
And for the love of god, don't get anywhere close to the Dr Who mini-series/movie from Fox? from about a decade ago.
Doctor Who is not so much science fiction as a kind of theatrical sitcom based on a certain set of premises. If you keep that in mind, you'll be more able to enjoy its many interesting quirks and it's - ahem - relaxed pace.
Occasionally, depending on the writer, a given script makes reference to some genuine science, or at any rate a tenable line of speculation. Other times it's utter nonsense. What's more, the production often finds a way to allude to the fact of it being nonsense, whether through a stray comment muttered by the Doctor, or by outrageously ridiculous costumes or pompous dialogue. The real question regarding a given episode, therefore, is whether it's good theatre?
The answer is highly variable. Some episodes are just great at first encounter. They stand on their own merits. With others, it depends in part on context. An episode might not seem to have much on the go, except when you can see it as a counterpoint to one which preceded it. This often happens during a transition between doctors. Over the first few episodes, the new actor has to establish a new character whose quirks are distinctive and yet somehow create a familiar impression. Wit is a large part of it.
Given a complete choice of episodes, but being constrained to watch only a select few of them, you could do worse than to choose the very first and last of each doctor. That will give you a sense of how the series has developed, and what the characters are like. These are also the episodes which are most likely to have been worked on the hardest. There are better episodes than these scattered here and there, but I can't say that I've ever found a pattern to them. Even the better writers have their off days. I agree with the general sentiment that Tom Baker made an outstanding Doctor, as did Jon Pertwee, but inevitably some of those episodes were not as strong as others.
Parity: What to do when the weekend comes.
to be honest the story of the good doctor spans nearly 40 years of social mores, acting and special effects constrictions. I'ld say grab the first of the new stuff and watch a few. then watch some torchwoods and perhaps some sara jane. then mix and match some of the older stuff. it's VERY well done but each doctor reprints their own time's belief about how much science is shown vs cleverness or violence.
I would suggest you not follow a formula until you've watched a few and decided which stories interest you the most or you may become overwhelmed and thus numb to the simple joys of the dear doctor's hacking the cosmos.
Once you've partaken such simple joys then consider a list or mandated watching order, the stuff is so good that it can be watched again several times.
Doctor Who is all ABOUT being a low budget special effects science fiction show. Despite Eccleston being a great version of the doctor, Tom Baker remains "the" Doctor, in most people's eyes (not everyone's, but clearly most). Peter Davison is also considered the favorite of (I believe) Russel Davies and it would be a shame to miss him.
It also brings more meaning to characters that show up or are hinted at in the reboot of Doctor Who. The Master probably means jack to anyone who hasn't gone back and watched the original series. And you'd miss out on K9. And you'd miss out on Sarah Jane. The awesome original Tardis that looked less like a used antiques store and more like a space ship. You'd miss great (some would say, awful) stories like The Happiness Patrol ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Happiness_Patrol ).
You could definitely get by with only the modern incarnation of the show, but if you have any appreciation for this type of science fiction (Red Dwarf, Blake's Seven, etc) then you definitely have to at least consider going back as far as the fourth doctor and catching up from there.
The Christopher Eccleston series was the beginning of the "current" Dr Who program, and that makes it an excellent place to start. You don't need to know much of anything about the previous Doctors' adventures (though it helps if you know what a Dalek is, etc), and allowing for the usual sorts of hills and valleys along the way, the production values, writing, acting, etc. are all very good. Once you've caught up with that, you can go back and sample the earlier Doctors, watching the ones you enjoy and skipping the ones you don't.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
That show came to prominence in the late 70s on PBS in the US. For this viewer, his era is then only one that matters. Watch an episode featuring him, and you'll know why.
at the beginning
Start with Battlestar Galactica (2004-2009) and skip the Doctor Who altogether. All episodes are available on Netflix and it's a better use of your geek-time.
America is all about speed. Hot, nasty, badass speed. -Eleanor Roosevelt, 1936
I watched some of the old stuff as a kid with my dad, missed the series starting back up, then got my wife into it right after the birth of my daughter. We had a lot of time where there was a sleeping baby preventing you from doing very much, so we got a NetFlix subscription and caught up on what had been happening since the 2005 revival of the show.
Start with the 9th doctor (Christopher Eccleston). The show had a great run in it's heyday, fizzled a bit, and went off the air for ~10 years. When it was revived, it kept a lot of the flavor of the old show, but didn't assume that you as the viewer had seen any of the old stuff. This is a great starting point, especially if you don't know much about the old series. From there, you move on to David Tenent - getting top quality actors and giving them weird stuff to do is awesome entertainment. The techno-babble is techno-lite and babble-heavy, and you don't even care because it is *fun*. Torchwood spins off from the second season of David Tenet, so that should give you a little backstory that was lacking if you started watching that series cold.
Once you've done that much, jump around a bit. Matt Smith's 11th doctor started a little slow, but is growing on me. Catching some of the original William Hartnell 1st doctor episodes was a hell of a throwback, and honestly, it is amazing how much conceptual integrity there is in the show even from those early days. Big chunks of Patrick Troughton's 2nd doctor are missing (destoryed by BBC for shelf space). The 3rd and 4th doctor episodes (Jon Pertwee, Tom Baker) are some of the most iconic and best remembered. Doctors 5-8 are a bit of a hole in my experience - I don't remember them from being young, and I haven't gotten back to them this time around (not yet, anyway).
Because Dr Who is such a part of British scifi culture, it also has a lot of material that surrounds it. Articles, books, radio shows, and 'Dr Who Confidential' (a making of for the new series), tabloid speculations about both the doctor and favorite companion characters, etc. If you like to go deep, there is plenty of extras out there.
-V-
Who can decide a priori? Nobody.
-Sartre
Early Dr Who has a lot of good material, but the pacing tends to be very sluggish and the production values tend to be strictly high-school. The series went on hiatus in the 1980's and deservedly so, in my opinion.
The show came back in 1995 as a made-for-tv movie starring Paul McGann. If you can find it, it's pretty good -- better production values, faster paced, and decent acting. McGann got robbed, in my opinion, as he made an excellent doctor and only had one chance to play him on-screen.
The show returned again in 2005 as a re-imagined series of 13 episodes, more edgy and gritty than the original as was Battlestar Galactica. I have to say, the first episode starts out a little silly, but it rapidly improves and is going full-bore by episode 3.
The new series is available on Netflix instant play, so if you have an account you can start watching it now.
Each new season (with one exception) is 13 episodes plus a 14th "Christmas Special". There is an overall story arc that is foreshadowed early on and reaches climax on episode 13. The Christmas Special is usually a stand-alone episode but may foreshadow the following season.
The new series interweaves a bit with Torchwood, a Doctor Who spin-off aimed at adults (with a much harder edge -- be cautious letting kids watch it) and also with The Sarah Jayne Adventures, another Dr Who spin-off aimed at a younger audience.
Have fun.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
First, you'll need to travel back in time to when you were 13. Now you should be able to appreciate this "sophisticated" show.
To start at the Christopher Eccleston - David Tennant - Matt Smith era you can watch every single episode here http://www.icefilms.info/tv/series/1/353.html Great place to begin
Since you seem to be seeking painful experiences, it doesn't really matter where you start. In fact, just start from the current episode and watch them all in reverse order.
While you're at it, allow me to suggest some other material you may like, including such classics as "Whisky Made From Diabetics' Urine" and "George Lucas to Resurrect Dead Movie Stars."
Have fun and remember to pick a safe word in advance!
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
would be like watching Enterprise, and not wanting to watch original Trek because it was dated and didn't have bucket-loads of CGI for space battles.
He's good, but for the full flavour, you need some of the early stuff.
Start with 'An Unearthly Child', then 'The Daleks' - the first two stories of Hartnell. Try 'Tomb of the Cybermen' - the first existant Troughton. Watch 'War Games', then 'Spearhead from Space' to get the transition to Pertwee's doctor. Most Pertwee stuff is pretty good, but with special mention for 'Terror of the Autons'. Tom Baker had a lot of good stories, but again, special mention for 'Genesis of the Daleks', 'Pyramids of Mars', and 'The Masque of Mandragora'.
Peter Davison is a little harder to pick and choose, as they were running loosely-connected plot arcs over entire series at this point, but 'Earthshock' is a good one.
From Colin Baker, I'd pick 'Vengeance on Varos', and for Sylvester McCoy, 'Battlefield', and 'The Curse of Fenric'.
Remember, budgets were pitiful, it spent a lot of time being perceived as a children's show, and yes, they did script pacing differently back then. Sets are wobbly, some effects are woeful, and some acting isn't up to much. But underneath are stories, characters and entire mythologies that make something greater than the sum of their cardboard spaceships and bad chromakey effects.
The Daleks, the Cybermen, the Doctor himself, these will be myths and legends long after everyone's forgotten Firefly.
http://i.imgur.com/mZYW5.jpg from http://www.reddit.com/r/doctorwho
This is a pertinent point. If you're watching Doctor Who because "it has this attractive person in it" or "because I like the romantic tones", then you're not the audience for actual Doctor Who. The recent Doctor Who has some gorgeous women in it and some really great moments between them and the good Doctor, but they are incidental when you watch Doctor Who because the doctor is awesome and you like science fiction.
Keeping this in mind will help one decide whether or not it's worth the effort of expanding someone's doctor who experience if they only came to it post 2005.
Don't let the door hit your ass on the way out
http://nitcentral.philfarrand.com/discus/messages/1135/30026.html
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
I'll take a shot at Firefly -
Joss Whedon's inclusion of the killer pixie character ruined the show.
The source material was set in the time of Reconstruction after the Civil War, dealing with how the crew, essentially former Confederates dealt with becoming even a marginal part of the new "world" should have been the focus.
Killer Pixie - as you label her, was a real game changer and such changes will always upset the balance of a narrative. The dustbins of obscure works are populated with books, comics, etc, which could have sailed along smoothly, but for someone who thought they had a better idea - often the creator of the work itself.
River could at any moment appear in the role of Deus Ex Machina, to bail Mal and the good crew out of any jam. That's tough for any fan to swallow, it's like having a reset button you can press any time things get ugly. Build in some high degree of unreliability could restore some of that balance ("ah, crap she's suddenly in a coma and can't come save us, looks like we have to get out of this one ourselves!")
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Start in the last couple of episodes of the Pertwee era, just so you get a regeneration story, then watch every Tom Baker you can get your hands on, in order.
Then skip until you get to the Ecclestons, so you know who Rose Tyler is (it ought to be called the Rose Tyler era, really), then watch all of the Tennants.
After that you can be itinerant about it, jumping around the story lines. Kind of like a Time Lord.
Yep, everyone is saying "Start with the 9th Doctor"
Be picky about the "Classic" series. But if there's a classic to watch, it HAS to be "Genesis of the Daleks" It's long, but there's a reason it was voted the best DW story of all time.
The BBC have also been doing some interesting things recently. The "Mara tales" box set, Kinda and Snakedance, have had the some of the old effects replaced with new CGI ones. If they'd had the CGI Mara snake in the original back in the eighties, kids would have run screaming from the room instead of peeking out from under the dining room table, or from behind the safety of a sofa cushion!
Some good classics to mix in when you're ready:
1. Genesis of the Daleks
2. Planet of the Spiders
3. Horror of Fang Rock (Personal favourite, not everyone's)
4. The Key to Time series (The pirate captain is just awesomely over the top)
I watched the 3rd and 4th Doctor as a kid and I've found Mat Smith is doing a wonderful job of bringing the character back to life. (Tenent wasn't half bad, but a little too reminiscent of the 5th Doctor for me...)
XML is a known as a key material required to create SMD: Software of Mass Destruction
Abso-blinking-lutely, awesome ep.
Patent litigation: A doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction... in which everyone seems willing to push the button
I'd suggest using a TV. LCD or CRT won't matter. A DVD player might be the best way to watch Dr Who on your TV, but other options are available. I used XBMC on an Xbox to watch Dr Who.
The best place to watch Dr Who would be someplace with comfortable seating and few distractions. Probably your living room if you have one.
If you're wondering when to watch Dr. Who, I found it best to watch in the evening. Usually between 9pm and 11pm. After that, I'm too tired to pay attention. Before that, I'd rather do something interactive. Of course, YMMV.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
DON'T START THERE!!!!!!
Blink is a *fantastic* episode (although, the later appearance of the weeping angels was a bit of a "Fry's dog" for me. Their first appearance was fantastic, they didn't need to be brought back and have their impact lessened), but it's not the best place to start. It's so good, that other episodes may have trouble living up to that bar. I personally liked "Silence in the library" as a good "out of the blue" starting point, but you really should sit through the 9th doctor to get a feel for the series, then let the really good episodes come to you.
There are some people that if they don't know, you can't tell 'em.
Wow, and I think the new ones are incredibly cheesy and over the top.. I remember loving the originals as a kid, and I think I'd be able to enjoy it even with the cheesiness.. same kind of idea as Thunderbirds or Captain Scarlett, etc.
which is totally what she said
..with some Lalla Ward and you won't want to get out of your bunk for weeks
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
I suspect you will find the newer stuff more accessible. I would start with the Christopher Ecclestone season and watch through to the present day.
After that, you may want to sample some of the older stuff, so here are a few suggestions for the various Doctors:
William Hartnell: An Unearthly Child, The Daleks, The Dalek Invasion of Earth. The first two are included in a set called In The Beginning
Patrick Troughton: The Tomb of the Cybermen
Jon Pertwee: Spearhead from Space, The Sea Devils
Tom Baker: Robot (his introductory episode), Genesis of the Daleks, Pyramids of Mars, Robots of Death, Deadly Assassin, City of Death
Peter Davison: Earthshock, The Caves of Androzani
Colin Baker: Revelation of the Daleks
Sylvester McCoy: Remembrance of the Daleks
In my opinion, seasons 12-15, the first four seasons of Tom Baker, are the best of the older series. But the list above should give you a taste of the whole thing. See what you like.
All opinions expressed herein are my own, and not those of my employers, who are appalled.
In that case, if I was to start with a Ninth Doctor episode, I'd probably start with "Dalek". While "The Empty Child"/"The Doctor Dances" is a better story and has a much creepier premise, "Dalek" establishes the Daleks of the new series, reveals the basis of what happened between the old series and the new series... ... and most importantly, shows just WHY the Daleks are so feared in the Whoniverse when the common conception from non-Who fans was that they were oversized dustbins with a screeching voice that couldn't handle stairs.
Yes. I remember some of the books being really good (as a teen). Bit disappointed to find you are the only other person advocating the same. What sort of nerds prefer the TV over a good book?
If I have seen further it is by stealing the Intellectual Property of giants.
If you are REALLY interested in Doctor Who you would start with "An Unearthly Child". Forget this namby pamby "Try the 2005 series and then the older ones" B.S.
The 1963 series is the best to start with. The Doctor is a complete unknown and quite sinister, Susan is weird as hell, Ian and Barbara are out of their depth and just trying to survive. There is no guarantee anyone is going to live to the end of each episode and the stories are still surprising after all these years. Don't miss out on the greatest era of Doctor Who just because it's "old".
Where would we be if Wheel had hid her round rock in a cave instead of showing everyone how it rolls?
If you want a scary new-series episode, I think "Twilight", from the next season, is a better starting place. (I think it's better than that season's Moffat 2-parter, but I admit that's a minority opinion.) "Blink" is great, but I think you want to start with an episode that doesn't rely on the viewer already knowing what show he's watching, and why the Doctor is anyone at all.
I'm a huge life-long fan and have watched it all, multiple times, and love every episode, but let me give you are realistic list.
Here are what I recommend, in order. Don't start with the new series, start with the old, specifically:
1) Destiny of the Daleks (Tom Baker)
Watch this one first, it will get you hooked on to Doctor Who!
2) An Unearthly Child (William Hartnell)
You can see how it all began
3) Spearhead from space (Jon Pertwee)
Has a monster you will see later in the new series
4) Inferno (Jon Pertwee)
Today's Slashdot story about drilling to the core of the earth is of relevant interest, you will see what happens
5) Frontier in Space (Jon Pertwee)
One of my favorite stories with the Master
6) Genesis of the Daleks (Tom Baker)
See the Daleks
At this point look for the Key to Time series (Tom Baker, 6 stories), watch a few episodes by the 2nd, 5th, 6th, and 7th doctors, then you can move to the 2005 series.
For example:
2nd Doctor, watch War Games
5th Doctor I recommend Earthshock, the Five Doctors
6th Doctor watch The Two Doctors, Revelation of the Daleks
7th Doctor watch Remembrance of the Daleks
After this, watch more Tom Baker, or move to the 2005 series.
Enjoy!! You will love this show. It's truly the best science fiction show ever created.
I've been introducing one of my girlfriends to Doctor Who, via Netflix. I filled her in with some background (read the wik entry at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctor_(Doctor_Who) and you'll be set), showed her an early Tom Baker ep (The Ark in Space) to give her a sense of the old show, and then started off with the reboot.
If you want to watch more of the old series for background, seek out the first ep, "An Unearthly Child", and "The Three Doctors" and "The Five Doctors", to get quick exposure to the early incarnations.
Of the "original" Doctors, the Tom Baker and Jon Pertwee, and some of the Sylvester McCoy, eps are probably the most enjoyable, IMHO.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
I would recommend reading up on the mythos on Wikipedia. Get an understanding on the Doctor's background, recognize that Sarah Jane was kind of a big deal and get your feet wet with some background on the Time Wars. The older shows are basically crap compared to the new ones, not merely in special effects, but in the quality of the writing.
Then start with Eccelston and keep moving forward. Torchwood's storyline interweaves quite often with the series and should be watched contemporaneously starting with the 10th Doctor.
(Stay with me: there's a point to this story) The first time I had sushi I was a guest in some sort of luxurious retreat in Japan. I think each meal cost some $200-300 per person (in grad school I ate Jack in the Box for a whole year, to give you a sense of my wonderment). Needless to say, the meal was totally, utterly wasted on me. I actually disliked it, in fact. Nowadays I love sushi, yet to this day I can't pinpoint when I had that second meal of sushi. I just remember always loving sushi, except for that first meal. Somewhere between that first and the second meal the revelation came, unforced and unannounced.
Dr. Who was the same way for me. My first episode was David Tennant's second (I love love LOVE Tennant btw) and after it was over I just sat there scratching my head in bemusement. I was with my family-in-law so you know, when in Rome .... I thought it was a bit naff, to be honest (Earth is saved thanks to ... I won't give it away, but come on: a beverage?!). Now I absolutely adore Dr. Who, yet I can't remember when I watched that second episode. I just seemed to always love it, except for the first time.
So my advice is: pick the first episodes of any particular actor who plays a modern Doctor -- i.e. Christopher Eccleston, David Tennant, Matt Smith -- and if you don't like it outright, set the other episodes aside for awhile. Come back to it when you have a particularly boring afternoon when you can't think of anything interesting to do, and then watch the next episode. You'll probably find you have come to love it already!
P.S. I happen to like Tennant and Smith, so those get my vote for a first Doctor. Actually I think Smith may be the best of the modern Doctors, but this is so highly dependent on the quality of the writing that it's safe to say that if you don't like one of the three, you won't like the other two.
P.P.S. And, if you missed it: as others have mentioned, if you're an Amazon Premier member, all the modern Doctor Whos are free to watch on Instant Video.
I would suggest hitting some of the Tom Baker Dalek episodes for context, so at a minimum RAW EMIT EHT makes sense. At a minimum, "Genesis of the Daleks" is important.
"I guess the moral of the story is, don't paint your airship with rocket fuel." -- Addison Bain
I'd recommend Blake's 7 over Doctor Who, to be sure. Much more adult themed - don't forget that Doctor Who is more or less a children's show, varying with doctor, writer and era.
But if we're going with Who, my favourites have always been the Pertwee and Baker ones. They also have sensible pacing - the earliest being painfully glacial and the modern ones look like everyone involved was on cocaine when they made them.
... who is at least faithful to the novels' main character as depicted by Flemming, and it's Lazenby.
All other are showman ruining splendid, dark, brutal stories, and turning them into a Hollywood sanitized farce.
And co-starring in this movie is Diana Rigg, making it by far the best Bond ever.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_Her_Majesty%27s_Secret_Service_%28film%29
I'v been a long-time fan of the Doctor. We started watching it in the 70's in graduate school. Most every Saturday night a bunch of us would get together at a colleague's house, eat pizza, play bridge, hearts, spades, video games, and then watch Monty Python, Doctor Who, and Saturday Night Live. I have, over time, collected all of the available episodes, including many from the 60's that the BBC so thoughtlessly destroyed, but that fans have reconstructed as well as possible. The early Doctors are well worth watching, but for someone with no exposure to the old (a lot in black&white), you might want to start with Christopher Eccleston who was the first of the "new" Doctors. The first episode that he starred in was called "Rose", and brought back an old enemy, the Nesteen (sp?) Hive. Basically, a petroleo-organic life form that can animate store window manikins/dummies. Like Pinky and the Brain, it's purpose is to take over the Earth! :-) Anyway, check out Amazon.com or Netflix. You should be able to get plenty of new and old episodes from them.
Sometimes, real fast is almost as good as real-time.
"when they were first broadcast in the 19070s"
Ah, so you've met the good Doctor. Or at least someone with a Tardis.
(Pertwee is my favorite Doctor as well.)
Next we're going back for the Tom Baker and Jon Pertwee years... the classics.
It is a show that has maintained its charm.
One word: "Blink."
"Blink" is wonderful. I got a friend hooked on Dr Who by accidentally showing it to him.
If the universe is someone's simulation -- does that mean the stars are just stuck pixels?
I've actually been watching from the beginning, even the "Loose Cannon" reconstructions for the missing episodes. I'm around April of '72,
The first 2 doctors were interesting for the cheesy effects and acting and obvious attempts to keep it relatively non-violent, having started as a children's program.
I'm having a really hard time getting past this 3rd doctor/(almost) always on Earth/random new monster shows up and is battled by the navy/"The Master" is always behind it, however.
The series took a long hiatus from 89-2005, and was then basically rebooted. You can start in 2005 without knowing anything about the show before that point.
If you go to Amazon.com, they seem to be advertising "the complete first series", etc. - and they're starting from the 2005 series (with Christopher Ecclestone and Billie Piper). Start there, and work onwards. You'll be just fine.
(If you like it, you can then work your way back and try some of the classic stories. Genesis of the Daleks is well worth it, even if the special effects are a tad dated, what with being 35 years old now.)
My Journal
I use Amazon Unbox for all of the new series, including specials. This however doesn't cover everything modern. There seems to be some cartoon that you have to have a proxy to download from BBC. Cheers!
I recently finished watching the whole series. Took me ~13 months to get through the classics, and I spent the few months before that watching the modern series. If you don't want to jump into the middle of something, these are your only options for starting points:
Personally, I recommend starting with "Rose", watching through the latest stories, and then catching up on the classic seasons if you really feel the need.
Let q be a radix > 1. I am in ur base-q, killing 10 d00ds.
I liked the First Doctor. I never got hooked on the show, but some years after my parents' kids had all moved out, they started watching Dr. Who on PBS, and I occasionally caught episodes when I was visiting them.
The special effects in the early shows were great - they'd have some scene in a cave and be dropping big cardboard rocks on people because real Styrofoam was just wayyyy too expensive for their budget, and it was fine. So it was kind of weird seeing the Eccleston versions where they actually were spending a lot of money on visuals.
I only caught a couple of the David Tennent episodes, and he didn't seem to have really turned into The Doctor by then, unlike Eccleston who did that pretty fast. Haven't seen any with the new kid yet - he looks way too young for the part.
(Roger Moore? Are you serious? Dalton ok.)
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
...on everything that came from a UK studio (was it IFC?), but then those lights got really intense out of a BW TV set we had. I couldn't get into it or suspend my disbelief enough to engage. But seeing how some of you have pointed out that it's Science Fantasy, I guess I can breathe more easily now.
WARNING: Smartphones have side effects--most of them undocumented.
A friend of mine put this together as a "essential guide" to the classic Doctor Who:
http://woodelf.wordpress.com/2011/01/27/essential-doctor-who/
I highly recommend it.
Dan Bongert <*> http://www.tiltingatwindmills.net
This is a Chao. A Chao says "Mu."
If you have not seen An Unearthly Child, then you are not allowed to comment.
Start at the very beginning. I wish that I had. For the record, I started watching with the 4th Doctor, the first one broadcast in the US.
The only thing worse than a Democrat is a Republican.
Here's a list of which classic Doctor Who stories you can stream through Netflix or Amazon Instant, and here's a list for new (post-2005) Doctor Who.
This has to be one of the best episodes ever... not even eclipsed by the 2010 Angels episodes. My next top picks would be the old episodes that first introduced the Daleks, followed by the ones that filled in their back history.
Really, you could go about this many ways... I'd suggest looking up an episode guide and picking the theme you want to start with; themes, just like time lords, hop all over the Dr. Who continuum; you don't even need to watch them in order (other than watching Blink before the later Angels episodes).
Avoid Colin Baker and Peter Davidson (especially any with Adric)
But then you'd be cheating yourself out of the deep sense of contentment that comes when the credits roll on the last episode of "Earthshock"!
Breakfast served all day!
I would tell you to start with the season that started with the current Doctor. Then go back and start on a season when a new Doctor starts. Every doctor has his own arc and don't really cross over each other much. In some of the newer ones, you won't make the connection to some of the "older" characters that make guest spots, but then when you work your way back to the season where they show up originally, you'll be like, "Oh, OK I get it now". Someone else put it in another of the comments that the great thing about a time traveling show is that you don't have to watch them sequentially. That's kinda true, but I'd say its nicer to watch the episodes of a season that way, and to watch a Doctor develop from the start of his first season as the Doctor. Good luck with catching up.
I'm biased because he was my first doctor, but I think it's fair to say the show got more serious during Tom Baker's run and it's a very long run.
1) It's written Doctor Who not Dr. Who.
2) I have watched from the beginning up though the Fox movie (shudder) and into the new Doctors and you cant really skip much because the original run gives you so much on UNIT, the companions and why they are important, the reoccuring villians (Daleks, Cybermen, The Master etc).
3) Tom Baker is the best Doctor. Followed by Tennant. We should all forget McGann ever played the Doctor (even if it was for only 2 hours and subsequent radio and books events).
In the 70s I was a teenager & the show was still pretty juvenile and had become self referential so not only did I outgrow it but it sowed the seeds of its own demise.
The 200x-201x version is much more aimed at an adult audience. I'd suggest starting with it.
You mean "Midnight," not "Twilight."
Breakfast served all day!
Yeah, so I do. Correction acknowledged.
Play the Dr. Who pinball and you'll be set.
http://ipdb.org/machine.cgi?id=738
10 MD
There are two possible ways I would suggest.
If you're sure you want to watch all of it start with the third Doctor portrayed by Jon Pertwee. Warning: These were produced a long time ago and they require more attention span than most people seem to have. They're charming if you're willing to take them for what they are.
Alternately I would recommend you start with Christopher Eccleston as the Ninth Doctor. These are paced and produced in a much more modern style so are more popular with less tolerant audiences.
My personal opinion is Dr. Who really hit it's stride under Eccleston and David Tennant and has gone down hill significantly with Matt Smith. I'm not sure if Matt could do the part justice but it's hard to tell with the mediocre shows after Russell T Davies and Julie Gardner left the show. I will always remember the days my wife and I watched this show together. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
- I've got bad karma because I won't parrot everyone else's opinion
I can think of lots of things that I would hate if I first saw them now, but because I liked them when I actually saw them, I'll like them forever.
Maybe I liked them because they were good in the context of the time, like a lot of stuff with special effects, animation, etc. that's bad enough by modern standards to be distracting. Maybe I only liked some things because I saw them as a kid. But as bad or simplistic or whatever these things might be by todays standards, and my own current standards, these things get an exception because I liked them once
I'm not saying classic Doctor Who necessarily fits into this kind of category for everybody, I'm just throwing it out there.
I've been a fan of Doctor Who since the Pertwee era, but missed out on everything from Colin Baker to Sylvester McCoy due to non-carriage in my area, only catching a few episodes through local fan groups, until the DVDs came out. I've been watching them as close as possible to original order since, but have been making slow progress (I've gotta stop watching the procedural crime franchises).
I introduced a friend to Doctor Who starting with Eccleston. We watched everything up to Tennant's last specials, then inexplicably he didn't want to see any more of it, nor anything else. I may have managed to get him to watch "Planet of the Dead" but not "The Waters of Mars". From this and other things, I deduce we are unfriends.
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
They call it a reboot, of sorts. Even though it isn't really, except a bit in tone. Unfortunately, you're sort of stuck having to refer to it as the "new series" or the "rebooted series", because instead of calling it season 27, 28, 29, 30, and 31 they call it seasons 1 through 5 of the "new series" or the "2005 series". I don't know if that was all a marketing decision or what. :/
I find your position easy to relate to. I've spent years being aware of the show, somewhat tempted to try it, but the number of season has always put me off. I've spent a large chunk of my life watching all the Stargate (among other series), so I knew that such number of seasons is a big commitment, particularly when I find it hard to relate to the older stuff.
But then when Season 5 started and all my sci-fi-watching friends were jumping around from happiness, I couldn't resist anymore. So I started at the rebooted Season 1. In retrospect that definitely was a good place to start. It's fairly new, so I could relate to it rather easily. Everything is explained as if it's the first time you see it, all characters and concepts are well introduced. Plus the series picks up the pace quite fast and as soon as you reach Season 2 and the Tenth Doctor (David Tennant) you will find out why he's one of the most popular doctors. Once I went through all the new seasons, ending with the end of Season 5, I suddenly had a lot of time to spare before Season 6 came along. And so I started exploring the original series, the first eight doctors.
Someone recommended to me to check out the Fourth Doctor and particularly to start with the episode the Ark of Truth and then watch the next few episodes. That was a great idea. I was introduced to the character in an interesting, but not too important episode, then suddenly I was watching one of the key origin episodes in which the Doctor is present at the creation of Daleks. After watching the series since reboot, this was really a big deal. Afterwards I watched a few episodes featuring other doctors. Eight Doctor is just a movie, which is easy to find. The others were a lot harder to track down.
It turned out that BBC has taped over a lot of their archive tapes, destroying many of the key episodes. That became the number one reason why I didn't try watching the whole series from the very beginning - a lot of it was missing. Amazon surprisingly features a decent collection of a few episodes in its videos on demand. I got a gift card for it when I was buying a textbook, so I tried it and in the end was quite pleased, as I found some episodes I couldn't find anywhere else.
And so watching the rebooted series and then picking up a few (often random) episodes from the original series worked out quite well. The new series provided a good foundation, so I could follow all of the old episodes...
There are two kinds of people - those who are radioactive and those who have already decayed..
Cayenne, you did it! You just gave me the idea thats gonna make us all buzzword rich! We're gonna virtualize televisions sets. One TV, many people. One set, but each watcher sees and hears their own show. I get to watch "Damnation Hell: The Bloodening" on the same set at the same time she sees "Wuthering Twilights: Team Gypsy." Arguments over the remote are a thing of the past. We're gonna be rich.
OK, so anyway, you go ahead and work out the minor details about how to make that happen, and when you get it, just forward them to me so I can file my patent...
He put his boots up on the table and made a face. "The sig," he smirked. "You can waste your life in search of the sig."
You CANNOT just jump in and start watching the rebooted series...you MUST start at the very beginning and watch the episodes in order...
You know what? If anyone says that, pay no heed. Personally, I think if you're trying to get your wife interested, you should start with the first series of Matt Smith, beginning to end, that way you get a whole story arc which is really accessible and a really great Doctor. I considered recommending you start with the Ecclestone Doctor's first appearance, but he can be a little annoying and there is too much played upon a possible romantic connection between him and Rose, which I didn't enjoy...but your wife might.
Basically, what icannotthinkofaname said, but I think starting at the first Doctor, or any Doctor before...Tom Baker would turn your wife off it faster than you can blink. Hook her on Matt Smith/David Tennant/Christopher Eccelstone, then go back to the beginning.
Also, everything is canon.
It's a time traveling show in which characters continuously change the outcome of past events. (HA! Get it? Past... events. In a time traveling show that regularly jumps between ancient past and beyond distant future.)
And if that was not enough to make everything that was ever written/recorded possible in SOME iteration of the wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey... stuff - Eleventh Doctor basically (re)creates a blank slate making any attempt at canonizing past events moot.
While at the same time remaining a continuity of those events!
Hilarious, isn't it?
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
I stumbled upon "The Girl in the Fireplace" - a second-season episode of the 2005 reboot - on SyFy and loved it. That got me to watch the whole reboot. When my wife and I had finally "caught up", we actually went back and watched it again, this time incorporating Torchwood into it at the points that the two cross. We had actually tried watching Torchwood once before, and didn't quite make it through the first season. It didn't have quite the appeal. On the second go-around, though, I found that the second season was better than the first, and that the third - short as it was - was probably the best.
It's also worth noting that the reboot does have some replay value. We caught stuff the second time around that we missed the first time. So, as I've seen others advise here, one method is to start with the reboot, and watch those in order. With or without Torchwood (I can't speak for Sarah Jane).
Somewhere along the way, I watched the very first episode (felt really Twilight Zone-ish) and was mildly impressed with it. But I also managed to see several clips throughout the years, and had trouble getting past the very low-budget effects. But I've heard plenty of people talk about Tom Baker, so I suppose that option (starting with Tom Baker) is probably not a bad one. By the way, if you go back before Tom Baker, you'll actually find that a few episodes don't even exist anymore. That kind of thing tends to irritate the Sheldon Cooper in all of us.
So there's my history - take it or leave it.
Jesus told him, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me. - John 14:6 NLT
Tom Baker, David Tennant, Christopher Eccleston, Matt Smith with a special mention of Rowan Atkinson and Joanna Lumley.
As for the order of watching for those just tuning in - start with the Ninth Doctor and take it to the the end of the current run.
Throw in Torchwood after it and Captain Jack Harkness appear in the main show, and if you like you may try doing the same with Sarah Jane.
Although, that one (being a teen show) is on completely opposite side of the spectrum from Torchwood (which deals with some rather adult subjects), with Doctor Who being somewhere around the middle between those two.
If you like those, pick up the 4th Doctor and after that... experiment.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
Someone is watching all of the complete episodes in order. As someone who has watched almost all of the remaining episodes (in fact, I started watching Troughton's War Games episode for the 3rd time last night), it is fascinating hearing an outsider's perspective of some of the episodes.
I tend to agree with most of what has been said here. For Classic, start with Baker and work your way up. Even though I still think most of Pertwee, Troughton and Hartnell is great to watch, there are a lot of slow episodes in those first three Doctors that you likely won't survive.
For modern, start with Eccleston (altho he wasn't my favorite) if only because there is a lot of background provided that you'll need for the rest of the (new) series.
You can always use the Netflix streaming option to filter your choices. The newest four seasons are currently available via streaming on Netflix, so I'd start there. My wife got me interested in this show and that's where I started. I have to admit, when she makes me watch the old ones, I do often find them cheesy. If you just start with the old ones, I think you won't appreciate them enough to watch them all. However, if you start with the new ones, they will introduce you to most of the classic villains. Once you know them and enjoy them, you'll be interested in understanding their back story. Take for instance the Daleks. Their orignal story is really good, but I enjoyed it as much as I did because I knew them from the newer seasons. I just don't think that the story lines enough will be sufficient to keep your interest given the old special effects. But add in there the desire to understand their origins, and you have motivation to help through the cheesy parts. Just my $.02.
This question delights my nerd gland, since I endeavoured to watch all 695 episodes of the classic Who. I started in 2008. The pace and writing of the new series are very different from "classic" Doctor Who.
Because there are so few landmarks of linearity from one Doctor to the next, I think it's safe to start with whichever Doctor you like best. Since I have good memories of watching Tom Baker episodes when I was a boy, I started with Robot, the first Baker serial. I didn't want to have to wait ages and ages to get to the Baker stuff, and I also didn't want to end on the sour notes of McCoy and McGann. Starting with Baker and then looping back to Hartnell also meant that I would conclude with the transition from Pertwee to Baker, which was perfect.
I'm now halfway through the Troughton years (Doctor #2). It's pretty arduous slogging through the lost episodes, but you get used to it. I took a break from Who for a while and finished Blake's 7.
My personal ranking:
1. Tom Baker (a Doctor who's fun, has presence, conveys brilliance, and shines despite the show's meager budget)
2. Hartnell (the most dignified and patient doctor; the gentleman scientist)
3. Pertwee (grey pompadour ftw. He might climb this list someday.)
4. Davison (hypertensive fun. Cricketing whites 24/7.)
5. Troughton (too bad many of his episodes are boring)
6. Colin Baker (a bit angry and dysfunctional)
7. McGann (what a wimp!)
8. McCoy (utter retardation)
I have myself started watching Dr Who recently (in the last 3 years) and also introduced a few friends first hand to the series. As such, I have noticed there is a way that works, and a way that does not work so well, to get started in Dr Who as a virgin.
Start with the 2005 series (available for streaming in Netflix.) It was designed to be a perfect jump-in point for newcomers to the show. Some of my friends I had to force to finish, others also caught up mid way (even myself I had to force to watch the first few episodes.) Even if you don't like it, I strongly recommend you force you through it (I found the first few episodes bleh myself, but started loving it the minute they got to the episode Dalek.)
The beauty of this season is it was designed for newcomers all over. It introduces you slowly to the established myths and lore of the Dr Who universe. Some would say you should skip it, and strongly recommend that, but I think that would be a horrible thing to do to yourself.
Once you are done with Season 1, there is a very short clip called Dr Who Children in Need 2005 special. You really really should see it before going on.
Once you see that, next is a movie/special: "The Christmas Invasion". Watch that.
Now you can keep going with Season 2. You will likely LOVE that season, even if you did not liked the first one that much.
Now again there is a movie/TVSpecial to watch: "The Runaway Bride"
By this point you will had been introduced to the lead character of a spin-off TV Show: Torchwood. I would advice strongly to watch Season 1 of Torchwood at some point before you finish Dr Who Season 3 as the endings of Torchwood tosses you right before the last 3 episodes of Season 3 of Dr Who. If you follow this list and do go through it, just Watch Torchwood S1 before so you finish it before going beyond the episode Blink. This is optional, but I wish I had seen it in that order. Oh and one warning: Torchwood is NOT family friendly. I would say not even safe for work in many episodes. Also requires you to be VERY open minded. If those things bother you then just ignore Torchwood.
Then there is a tiny mini clip again, you can find it in youtube. Called "Time Crash"
It gets followed by a movie called "Voyage of the Damned".
Then as usual watch Season 4
Then comes a series of movies:
"The Next Doctor"
"Planet of the Dead"
"The Waters of Mars"
"The End of Time" (Part 1 and 2)
Then you watch Season 5.
Then you watch a new movie/TV Special: "A Christmas Carol"
Then, you have traveled in time into the future and you get to watch the new TV show that we all are still waiting for.
BTW, at any point you can go back to Torchwood, although there is another Tie-In with Dr Who, it does not get any buildup from within Torchwood. You will very likely love the main character so it's a cool thing to watch once you are done with all things Dr Who if you are still starving for more.
At some point you will catch up with everything that has been done in recent times, at that point I recommend you hunt down a website that has all the classic episodes up for streaming (remember NoScript while on that site, it's messy.) You can watch the very first episode there, and if your Dr Who hunger is still strong, you can keep watching those episodes until new episodes come out.
That aphorism definitely applies to me. I began watching Dr. Who in the late 70s/early 80s, and my first Doctor was Tom Baker. My girlfriend at the time even knitted me an 8-foot scarf, which I still have. Start there, because his characterization is accessible and often funny, while still showing courage, skill, and compassion. A great toothy grin, and carries off his derring-do with aplomb. The recent doctors are good as well, though I haven't watched as much of them as I did back in the day.
Also, if you watch them chronologically, then you'll just have weird experiences, like wondering why the doctor keeps wearing the same clothes for years at a time, and nobody commenting about the smell.
While Tom Baker is my personal favourite, for someone new to the series many of the episodes (especially with Romana II) could be impenetrable. And if you don't warm to K9 immediately he doesn't get any more charming.
For "classic" Who, always bet on Pertwee. More Brigadier for your buck, too. And you'll get to see when the show got colour.
It depends on how much of a commitment you are a willing to make. If you just want to try one episode to get a taste. I'd go with Revived Series 3, Episode 10 "Blink." If you just want to try one season, I'd probably go with the most recent Revived Season 5. If you are fairly certain you are willing to commit and just want to know where to start, go with 2005, Revived Series 1. If you are looking for a good Classic Who serial, go with "City of Death."
I'm a big Doctor Who fan (points if you know which episode my name is from) and I understand the series isn't for everyone.
If your not into black & white TV, old school BBC, or not totally realistic special effects, then your best bet is to start with the Doctor Who reboot, namely, when they picked it up back in 2005. If you enjoy the episodes, then you might find you want to see what all the hub bub is about.
Note: Everyone has their favorite doctor and suggest you start there.
I love Tom Baker (and Slyvestor McCoy), but you'd be missing out.
I suggest you start at the beginning. You can skip the episodes that don't have film of all the parts, because even I find them boring (and i'm a fan).
Sure, the 1st Doctor is cranky, the episodes are in black and white, and no nudity. But honestly, the stories are pretty good.
2nt Doctor I like, but then I'm part scottish, so go figure.
Okay, I guess if you wanted, you could skip out on the first 2 doctors and start it with Jon Pertwee, but I warn you. The writors got really fucking lazy during Jon's years, and we get the same villian for like 20 episodes in a row. Granted, the Master rocks, but I tend to like him more later on myself.
Tom Baker is probably some of the best episodes you'll find of the older stuff. Do NOT MISS.
5th & 6th doctor, peeps don't like, mainly the 6th doc, but then what do peeps really know? Some decent stories, okay companions. Do NOT MISS Peri's tits. I repeat, DO NOT MISS Peri's tits. Thank you.
7th Doctor, Sly McCoy rocks, but the series got cut short. I'm sure Ace was about to do nude scenes, not sure if that would be good, or bad, but i always had a crush on her in the 80's.
the "8th" doctor, Paul Mcgann, forget about it. Eric Roberts plays the master, enough said. Plus american made, we fucking ruin everything we get our hands on. If you dont' believe me, watch it.
Then it was dark. Who fans everywhere cried out in terror, etc.
2005, shit got reboot, but you should be watching that right now anyways.
After you download the 242gb worth of Doctor Who episodes that is.
Here's some links, sorry, could not find the big 200+ archive i downloaded (tooke a few months) of all the episodes. never can find it on tpb, but it's there.
anyways Tom Baker: http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/3494674/Doctor_Who_-_Fourth_Doctor_(Tom_Baker)_-_Complete
The lame american made movie from 1996: http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/5255446/Doctor_Who_1996_Paul_McGann
here's some colin baker (6th doctor): http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/5252515/Doctor_Who_1984-1986_Colin_Baker
2nt doctor: http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/4603553/Doctor_Who-_Patrick_Troughton_Megapack_XViD
Here's the latest stuff: http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/5974206/Doctor_Who_2005-2010_Complete
Anyways, Watch the newest stuff first, then probably watch the tom baker. If you need more, then there is still plenty more.
Enjoy!
Oh, Please support the BBC & Doctor Who by buying the newest episodes on DVD or Bluray. That is, if you like the series.
Be seeing you...
With over 460 comments, I'm not sure the original author will see this, but here it goes:
Start with Tom Baker, by far the best doctor ever. Cheesy special effects, but that version of the Doctor is the pinnacle of Doctor-ness. He also had most of the best companions.
Continue with Peter Davidson if you must, who got better stories and slightly better special effects, but who was an irritating git of a Doctor, and who had the most-irritating companion ever, Teagan.
Then you may safely skip forward to the new Doctor Who shows that started in 2005.
You should be aware that there are episodes that were lost in fires etc. So if you start from the beginning, you might be disappointed. Starting from the new series (2005) is probably OK for the uninitiated. If you watch the old series, you have to be prepared to watch some cheap sets and bad writing. Most of the sets were done with cellophane and papier mache. It is fun to watch, but if you watch the "confidential" series, the commentary refers back to the old series, where necessary.
Here's some of the "great" doctor who scriptwriting, down through the ages.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DtG5dK_HaGg
Seriously though - In Australa, we have been lucky enough to have Doctor Who grace our airwaves through our government-funded ABC channel, which has some sort of loving relationship with the BBC. This means we've always had the latest shows fairly quickly.. I'm a huge Scifi follower, and nothing comes close to Doctor Who at its best... but it needs to be seen at it's best, to appreciate it. Let me say it now - the older shows are dated. Very dated. Woth watching? sure!, but I believe it's first worth seeing at least some of the (great) newer series, with million dollar plus special effects that scifi seems to need to have any following. My opinion? Start at 2005 - (Christopher Eccleston), and then power through to 2010. Go back to the older shows later!
I grew up watching the occasional Dr Who on PBS...the original BBC America. I think it would be hard to watch the low production values today. Stick with the current series starting with Christopher Eccleston in 2004. The production values are much, much higher and the stories aren't serialized. When I was a kid, you'd need an entire afternoon to get though three major plot points. Now, you get a story you can enjoy then move on with your life.
Watch this series before trying out Torchwood. Things will make a lot more sense if you do. Torchwood is a spin off of the 2004 re-launch.
Only the dead have seen the end of War. - Plato
I think after 40 years of the good doctor.. i have an insight.. i never thought i'd still be watching it when i'm old an grey though... In answer to your question.. the turning point for the series when it 'grew up'.. as it were,.. is clearly with the wit and improvisation of Tom Baker.. (around 1973 to somewhere near 1980) I would URGE anyone looking for a starting point to start with his episodes.. ..And I sure wish I had some copies to watch too.. it's been 20 years since I last saw one of those episodes
There are really four epocs of Doctor Who. Epoc 1: The Black & White years. Doctors 1 & 2 (Hartnell & Troughton). The show in its earliest days. While there are things to be enjoyed here for hard core fans (like me) it's probably not for everyone. Unfortunately, many of the shows in this era do not survive, so it's impossible to fully appreciate or judge the first two doctors as fully as we might. Epoc 2: The Cheesy years. Doctors 3 & 4 (Pertwee & Tom Baker). Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed this era immensely. Jon Pertwee is probably my favorite Doctor. But the budgets and production values of this era is like watching a B-movie when you're used to big-budget Hollywood blockbusters. It can be painful. Still, a lot of seminal Doctor Who lore stems from this era, and for a true appreciation of Who, one must really start at the beginning of Pertwee's era and follow through to the end. (If you start with Tom Baker, you miss such formative events as the debut of The Autons, The Master, Sarah Jane Smith, and much of the background of The Doctor himself, as well as the Time Lords.) Epoc 3: The 80's. Doctors 5, 6 & 7 (Davison, Colin Baker, McCoy). Peter Davison was fantastic. Colin Baker was a joke. Sylester McCoy was intriguing, unfortunately the show ended (at least the original run) on his watch, so we didn't see as much of him as we should have. Cheesiness is still evident, but the show was evolving in this era. If you like the Modern Who enough to want to explore more, you could do well to start with the first 5th Doctor episode and see how far your interest takes you from there. Epoc 4: The Modern Era. Doctors 9, 10, 11 (Eccelson, Tennant, Smith). If you can't enjoy this show from the 2005 reboot, then you have no reason to watch anything earlier. The show has evolved into the modern era and become far more than anything before it. As others have suggested, you can watch from 2005 and get the vast majority of good "Who" without missing much. I have been a Who fan for over 20 years, and watched every extant episode at least once (as well as reconstructions of most of the "lost" episodes). I won't encourage anyone to take their interest in Who as deeply as I do (I mean, get a life, already). That being said, my vote would be to give the 3rd, 4th, 5th and 7th Doctors a chance. They all have their charms, and if you like what you see, the others might have something to offer you, as well.
Start with either Eccleston (2005 series) / 9th Doc or 11th Doctor (Matt Smith). Both are good to start.
Once you get to Tennant (10th) you can review some old eps eg 4th Doctor ones.
I'd avoid 'web planet' - that was unwatchable to me too.
SCIREV.NET - fanfics,reviews & more
I had started watching Dr Who before Tom Baker's time (I remember that I used to hide behind a chair when the Daleks came on), but in my opinion, Tom really brought the character to life, so if you have the choice, start with him. JMHO.
... or whenever it was that the leftwing nutjobs at the BBC decided to bring Doctor Who back (and ruin it).
You might see what my childhood was like - an all white country, where London wasn't a third world city, and we can't have that, can we.
White people have the right to have their own countries.
And if they'd stayed there and not colonized/oppressed/exploited the lands of the darker/more colorful/less pale peoples, those peoples wouldn't have wound up following them home, and they'd still have the whole place to themselves.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
It's the same for me, for things like music too. I don't get people who completely dis the music they used to love. I still like everything I used to like. My musical taste just expands with time, rather than shrinking or completely changing.
which is totally what she said
Then best start with the new stuff, beginning with Christopher Eccleston then watcdh the older stuff as you come to it
If you want to experience the full thing in "we have no money o vision" and you can't transform yourself to me aged 5 in Scotland on a Saturday night, then try starting with Jon Pertwee then move into Tom Baker.
I never saw the earlier stuff so can't comment, but those two had some cracking stories, the Green Death, the Autons (put me off Daffodils for years), Pyramids of Mars and some Dalek stories
Enquiring minds want to know.
"The body may heal, but the mind is not always so resilient." -- Deus Ex: Human Revolution
Just start with the 2005 revamp. It is not dated, it assumes many of the viewers have no idea what is going on and it is fun. Also I would recommend watching the corresponding episodes of Doctor Who Confidential right after each episode. These 'making of' really explore the back story, are very funny and often show relevan bits from the old shows, so that you can understand what is really going on. :)
I would suggest you and your wife find something more worthwhile to do with your lives.
As someone who has watched just about every doctor who made it really doesn't matter where you start in terms of backing story. It's not like the show has been particularly self consistent. The character of the doctor is supposed to be a big enigma so as far as learning about the character or the overall story arc it doesn't matter.
if you're looking to watch a bunch of classic doctor who then I'd go for the 4th Doctor series. These are the classics. There are a batch in the middle that have Douglas Adams as the editor (and sometimes writter) that are very funny. "City of death" typifies the style. The third doctor isn't bad either. I'd also recommend watching the very first episoide of doctor who ever made as well. It's insanely good for a show that old.
"But I know my wife would not watch a show that dated, though she is a science fiction fan herself and enjoyed a few seasons of Torchwood. "
Here's the thing, I'm not going to recommend Pertwee or Baker to anyone who has a problem with things that are dated. However, if you were going to watch the Eccleston series I suggest you find the time to watch Terror of Autons (Pertwee) and Genesis of the Daleks (Baker) on your own before you start watching the new show with your wife.
"MIT betrayed all of its basic principles."
IT'S NOT A REBOOT!!! How does someone who watch Doctor Who not know this??? It's a continuation.
As others have said, start with the modern (2005 onward) era. It's not a reboot of the series in the sense that the new Battlestar Galactica was. It carries the history (and baggage) of all the earlier shows, but it's plenty accessible if you've never seen any of them. And it benefits from having modern production values, as opposed to the campy B-movie production the series had before.
Each season has an overall story arc, so it's helpful to watch the shows within a season sequentially. Most episodes stand on their own, so watching them sequentially isn't strictly necessary. Seasons build upon one another, too. Watch them in order if you can, but don't worry about it if you can't.
And don't expect rigorous continuity. It's a fun adventure show. It's not hard science fiction. Sit back, enjoy the ride, and don't think too hard about the Doctor casually doing something in one episode that in a previous episode would have destroyed all time and space.
Chelloveck
I give up on debugging. From now on, SIGSEGV is a feature.
I'm consider myself a long time fan of Dr. Who. I started watching some time during the fourth doctor (Tom Baker). I have fond memories when I was really young watching the show with my father in the late 70s and early 80s. I continued to watch the who up until 89 when it died. I was thrilled when I hear that they were making a made for TV Dr Who movie. I wasn't as thrilled when I finally saw it. I was also thrilled when I heard that BBC was rebooting the series in like 2004ish.
I've given some thought to where I would tell people where to start with Dr Who, and I feel that it is dependent on the person in question. If you can tolerate old black and white low budget TV shows then by all means start at the beginning. If you can't, but can tolerate color low budget TV shows with better, but still cheesetastic special effects then I recommend one of the most popular Dr's of all time Tom Baker (1974). If you want modern special effects then start with Eccleston (aka season 1) from 2005. The show is semi self referencing though, so starting earlier you have more background for the things that you learn in the newer series. The later in the series that you start the less nostalgia you will have. Of course since your just getting around to watching it now I don't think that the nostalgia factor would really do much anyway. You do not have to have watched earlier seasons to understand what is going on though. Dr Who is episodic enough to stand on it's own.
The Man in Black
(didn't realize I was logged out, ignore the similar post from 'anon coward', haha)
I faced a similar situation a few years ago. I had watched a bit of the Tom Baker era (#4) but really not much since then. What I found was that they made a theatrical film in the mid-90's with doctor #8, but IMO after watching that, it served more as a code for the earlier series (as it began with #7 being killed) than as a setup for the next, which was not revived til around 2004.
"Rose" begins with the Ninth Doctor, but there's no real connection to the movie; he at some unseen point already regenerated, so it really is starting from scratch.
Enjoy!
Maybe it's because this is where I started (as a youngin' back in 1980)... Start with "Pyramids of Mars", which is a great primer episode. If you like it, then watch The Android Invasion. If you can stomach the production values of THAT, you can watch any old Doctor Who episode with impunity! Then move onto "Brain of Morbius" and "Seeds of Doom". Now that you've gotten a decent dose of Tom Baker... go watch "The Five Doctors". This will get you a solid basis with the other characters and Doctors. "The Three Doctors" is optional, IMO unless you really like one of the first three.
But the best way to start is to watch the first and last episodes of each Doctor from 1-7, (read: 14 episodes) then start the modern series with Christoper Eccleston.
I also believe these are episodes ANY Whovian needs to have seen, (besides the first and last of any Doctor):
William Hartnell (Doctor #1): The Daleks, The Dalek invasion of Earth
Patrick Troughton (Doctor #2): The Tomb of the Cybermen
Jon Pertwee (Doctor #3): Ambassadors of Death, The Time Warrior
Tom Baker (Doctor #4): The Masque of Mandragora, The Invasion of Time, Full Circle/State of Decay/Warrior's Gate
Peter Davidson (Doctor #5): Black Orchid, Arc of Infinity
Colin Baker (Doctor #6): Trial of a Time Lord (I'm probably going to get killed for this, but if you watch it all in the same week and in order, it's one of the best stories ever written for DW!)
Sylvester McCoy (Doctor #7): Ghost Light
46. The Hobo smiles, his eyes glaze over, and he burps. "Beware the man who has lived longer than the Wasteland."
While Blink frightened me somewhat, Nothing scared the pants off me like "The Empty Child"
E8B8B
Actually, the campy cheesy-ness of those early episodes is what endeared Dr. Who to me. That only increased my wonderment and appreciation for the newest series, since the effects have much matured since then.
I also must say that I really liked Pertwee as the third Doctor.
I use irony whenever I can, but my shirts are still wrinkled...
I started watching Dr. Who with the brand new television series (which is aptly referred to as Season 1. This is the latest version of the property, and in it, you'll watch at least 3 Doctors, and MOST IMPORTANTLY, it will help make sense of what exactly is going on with the doctor in teh first place. After I watched the current edition of the series, all the way to the current doctor, I then started going back and watching the older versions of the doctor and got a great sense of what was going on, and enjoyed it. I realize having done it this way that if I would have started from the very beginning, it's very possible I never would have made it a few episodes further just because of the age of the show. But now I was able to go back and watch those earlier ones through a sense of nostalgia, and then enjoy them just as much. That's my advice, seeing as that's how I did it. I, too, was one of those who never watched it, convinced it wasn't going to be something I'd enjoy. I was wrong.
Sarbonn's blog: http://www.sarbonn.com/blog
Start with the tenth doctor (David Tennant) and Rose unless she can make it through the ninth doctor (Christopher Eccleston) without getting bored so she is caught up on the dynamic. My wife was just ok on the ninth, but liked Rose enough to watch. David Tennant is the doctor as far as she is concerned and she is a true convert since him.
Um, if you want a no-prior-knowledge episode, it really doesn't get any better than "Blink". At least three, er four, characters have to have the Doctor explained to them in that ep. In addition, it has THE BEST description of non-linear time ever!!!
And not just the first line?
In the fan community, this has changed into the idea that something is only canon if it appears in the original source material, and thus any Word Of God has no more weight to it than any piece of fanon cooked up by the fans. Though some fans honestly hold this opinion, many only use this as an excuse to ignore any Word Of God that they don't like. Some fans can even take this further, and use this to ignore parts of original source material they don't like, per the Fiction Identity Postulate. A recent example would be the Harry Potter fans who ignored or even protested J. K. Rowling's comment that she thought of Dumbledore as gay.
This is a given in works where the authors don't hold copyright and can be replaced, especially Shared Universes; if a writer is fired and replaced by another, anything the old writer has stated in interviews can be (and often is) freely Jossed by the new writer.
Also, note the "a concept from the field of literary criticism" part.
You know... criticism... as in "interpretation". As in "how it all ACTUALLY happened" explained by the person who DID NOT write the story.
Not that that can't be fun too. Ever seen Dante's Peak? Ever seen it as a Terminator/James Bond crossover?
Pay attention next time to evil robots, character back-story, absent fathers, female mayors with affinity towards waitressing living away from the main hubs of civilization, and how fate treats those who stand in the way of Sarah Connor and James Bond romance and him becoming the stepfather/mentor of the savior of humanity. The story culminates in a temporal rift that causes a rupture in Earth's crust, destroys an entire town and half a mountain - just so that particular time-line could occur.
But that is not the "official" story. Nor would it be continued in that vein.
Which is a pity. It would surely beat anything post T2 and Die Another Day.
What was it those two recent supposedly 007 movies had the apparently immortal secret agent do? Ah, yes... Win a card game against a guy who cries when he gets upset and chase around a guy stealing water.
And the less is said about the last Terminator the better.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
...is Death to the Daleks, a real gem of a story!
http://nathanlindsell.blogspot.com/
Catch The Dead Planet from Hartnell's work; don't bother with the rest. There are damned few episodes of Troughton's work that survived the BBC purges intact, and it's downright painful to watch the kinescopes of those that did. (This is too bad; Troughton's a good actor.)
Start with Jon Pertwee--the first decent doctor. Watch him and Tom Baker. Don't bother with Peter Davison. Colin Baker's only worth watching to catch up with DW continuity in the Trial of a Time Lord thread. I personally love Sylvester McCoy's work, but that's me.
Skip Eccleston altogether--a potentially interesting character development that never got close to being realized. Go right to Tennant; you could watch his stuff twice over if you're so moved. I cannot abide Matt Smith, but again--that's me.
I'm still lobbying for a female Doctor for the next incarnation.
I'm referring to the field of literary criticism version of the trope, not the fandom one.
I'm not interested in the Terminator stuff, sorry.
For every problem, there is at least one solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.
It's really a matter of what you like. There's a lot to choose from spanning several decades. For the modern viewer, it might be easiest to start with the new series with Christopher Eccleston. The earlier series has mostly good writing but truly terrible special effects.
Depending on your tastes, the effects in the old series may detract from or enhance your enjoyment. The bad effects, in a sense, made it what it was. They HAD to have good writing to keep people watching. Given their low budget and production schedule, they actually did a decent job and even if not spectacular they were sometimes quite creative.
I'm referring to the field of literary criticism version of the trope, not the fandom one.
Jolly!
But the specific target of your referral is not the issue at all - the trope you pointed at illustrates very precisely the circumstances that correspond to your case.
You are taking one part from the continuing story, written over many decades by many commissioned writers, and claiming that only the part you have arbitrarily chosen to be "true" actually IS "true".
Regardless of "word of god", or the fact that you are accepting the logic in use up to an arbitrary point in the story - but you find it unacceptable beyond that point.
In other words, you preaching the "Death Of The Author" puts you right smack in the middle of "My Doctor is the ONLY REAL Doctor" fan-group.
You're not just referring to the trope - you are also an example of it.
But that does not make your position any more correct than say... a man caught speeding arguing with the police how the speed limit is set too low.
Or someone claiming that the character of Superman can't really fly - only jump really high/far.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
Did you think I'm not aware of this? I not only am aware of this, I advocate it. Everyone should build/maintain their notions of canon for any story where they take an interest. There is no truth in these matters, only interpretations. People should not consider the BBC to be the only authority on the versions of the stories they have in their heads. Stories branch, and they belong to every individual.
For every problem, there is at least one solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.
Next time YOU write a storyline spanning two centuries be sure to remember to stick to that.
Considering that in this case there wouldn't be ANY stories without the BBC I do believe that they have a thing or two to say on the subject.
Particularly since they are practicing a VERY open-minded approach to it.
Did you think I'm not aware of this? I not only am aware of this, I advocate it. Everyone should build/maintain their notions of canon for any story where they take an interest. There is no truth in these matters, only interpretations. People should not consider the BBC to be the only authority on the versions of the stories they have in their heads. Stories branch, and they belong to every individual.
I don't think that you are not aware of it.
I just feel that you are not aware how... silly and... childish... and fallacious that is.
You know... Just like that "Superman can't really fly" guy out there somewhere.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens