Doctor Who

So how do you actually start watching Doctor Who?

Because to my knowledge:

• Netflix has the first season or so, but the order is jumbled and episodes are missing.
• The original seasons, some of the reels they were on or whatever were lost/discarded.
• Every season is connected through its Timey Wimey Ball and certain former Doctors return at various points.

So then which season is a good starting point? A show going on this long has to have had some starting point for people coming into the show.

edited 27th Nov '17 7:06:32 AM by Soble

Well in terms of where to find them, Amazon Prime is streaming the modern stuff, while theres a streaming service called Brit Box that has all 26 seasons of the classic show. Plus if you already have BBC America as part of your cable package, I think you can watch some episodes online through the BBC website.

As to where to actually start, Season 5 of the modern series has a new Doctor, new companions and makes a good jumping on point from that sense. There's always season 1 of course, and season 10 isn't a bad place to start either.

It all boils down to how much continuity you want/need.

Britbox seems to be lacking Dalek stories but otherwise yeah they have everything.

Last i checked, Britbox has every story that exists or has a reconstruction, and they're commissioning recons of the rest.

I haven't been on recently but I know last time I did they didn't have Pertwee's Dalek stories. They were listed, but not available for viewing.

No, but I think you've made your feelings quite clear at this point, and the way you feel the need to bring it up anytime someone even mentions Ten creates a rather hostile environment for those that do like him. If this thread has gained a reputation as unfriendly to Ten fans...well, I think we should try to mitigate that. We can talk about how we feel about Ten and why, but the kneejerk reactions don't contribute to any sort of meaningful discussion - they only promote hostility.

On that note, allow me apologize if I over-generalized with my earlier "TENTH DOCTOR BAD!" post.

I apologize if it truly doesn't reflect the majority opinion. However much or little of it is here it's so strong it's left me genuinely surprised. My feelings toward the Tenth Doctor aren't strong enough to understand how he can provoke that level of reaction.

edited 27th Nov '17 10:59:17 AM by sgamer82

This thread probably dislikes Ten more than the norm, I'd say - I believe that I and several others think he has an arrogance about him that tends to go uncritiqued (whereas I feel that Moffat's era had quite a bit of critiquing the Doctor), and he and Rose tend to bring out the worst in each other.

Still, that's no reason to shit on the guy every time he comes up in conversation.

He's one of my favourite Doctors. I like him and find him engaging and fun to watch, despite disliking some of his actions; I don't like the messianic imagery the show builds around him, though, and it's easy to see how it could alienate people.

Ok. I probably should have put a Joking Mode pothole and used the smiley face to show that what I said was 75% humour.

That's legitimately on me.

So yeah, that was a joke and I screwed up. Sorry.

edited 27th Nov '17 3:26:14 PM by HandsomeRob

Series 2's production issues did most of the damage. I'm hoping that the audios can re-instate the subtleties which were meant to be present. (Rose was meant to spend the first half of the season really suspicious of the new Doctor, it was only the latter half where in things became romantic, and that was only after the Doctor, seeing her face removed in The Idiot Lantern, realised that he cares for her a lot and starts treating her better) You can almost see it in series 2 as is, but Tooth and Claw being moved at the last moment from the penultimate story to the second brought their romance from the very end of the season way back to the very beginning. Because of this, all of Rose's scrutiny of the Doctor in Girl in the Fireplace and School Reunion falls flat, because you've already seen her being wilfully ignorant of the dangerous of TARDIS life.

@Karkat: You're probably right. Sorry about that. It's just whenever anyone brings up 10, I have the sudden urge to kick him in the nards, and since I can't actually do that, it translates into verbally blasting him any way I can. But I shouldn't be blasting other people for liking Ten in the process.

I think what really gets me these days is that Ten could have been great. Yes, he was a dick, but so was Twelve starting out. The difference is that whereas Ten's flaws were largely ignored or glossed over, Twelve's were acknowledged full force. The show knew that Twelve was a dick, as much as it knew that Clara had serious issues and that the two were in a toxic relationship. It knew all this and ran with it, turning what could have been a repeat of Series 2 into some of the most fascinating television you'll ever see.Ten may have been a dick, but he could have been an incredibly compelling dick if the show acknowledged he was one and regularly called him out on his bullshit, and if it also acknowledged that Ten and Rose enabling each other was a rather bad thing. And the funny thing is, we actually got to see some of this in Waters of Mars and to a lesser extent in The End of Time, and it was some compelling stuff. But too little, too late.

edited 27th Nov '17 5:31:08 PM by kkhohoho

Yeah, Ten's flaws were celebrated by the show, Eleven's and Twelve's were castigated. We've been over this a lot.

Thank you. I hope we can continue along this road in the future.

My issues with 10 mostly come down to the writing. RTD can be a really good writer and show runner, but for the vast majority of his run, he was really working against his instincts. I mean, a whole show of Midnight/Turn Left level stories would be very different from the one we got, but that meant the show went kind of weird sometimes. RTD’s incredibly lacklustre story arcs didn’t help, meaning that story momentum that might have helped paper over the weaker stuff (like with Moffat’s seasons) was basically nonexistent.

And I’ll be fair and say that Moffat’s story arcs are kind of lacklustre in a different way. Season 5 aside, it really feels like he never actually plotted the whole thing out ahead of time, thus leading to minor details getting way too much focus (the Flesh) and weirdly paced episodes that are trying to be climactic but don’t really manage (A Good Man Goes to War).

@102229 Is that Metacrisis Tenth Doctor and Rose having their own adventures or is that a midquel, featuring unshown adventures that the actual Doctor and Rose had? If the former, where did they get a TARDIS?

If it’s Handy than they will have a TARDIS due to the deleted scene, where 10 gives Handy a chunk of the TARDIS and says to grow his own.

edited 29th Nov '17 3:31:10 PM by Silasw

My understanding is its set during Series 2.

That seems the simplest thing to conclude, anyway.

Yes, they're all set during series two.

Loads of Pics from Twice Upon A Time here

New Trailer

Was that a person made of ice, or glass? Ice would seem thematically appropriate.

The Doctor's clock and astral map! And I presume the roundels inside the hexagonal panels are meant to be the side of the TARDIS we don't really see in the black and white era.

Because it would've been in the way of the cameras?

Big Finish recently released a War Master set with Derek Jacobi reprising his role as the character. The whole thing is great, and Jacobi kills it; he's part grandfatherly, part Deldago master, but completely ruthless overall.