Hello sorry I am being shy and anon but do you have any advice for someone who wants to get into Doctor Who again after briefly dabbling (and enjoying it very much) in like the early, early 2010s? I know this is mostly your art blog but you were the only person I could think of to ask you're like the Doctor Who authority of blogs I follow
Oh yeah of course! People can be really confusing about this so I'll try not to be.
So first, the majority of doctor who episodes are self contained stories that you could just watch and understand perfectly without any further context. even when there is some overarching context it's usually written in a way that's either pretty easy to glean and/or just doesn't impact your understanding of the story. 99% of the episodes don't even care if you know the premise and are just like "what if some people were on a spaceship and the devil was there? wouldn't that be fucked up or what??". Don't feel like you have to binge a 60 years long show to watch it. Some standalone episodes I think are fun if you (or anyone else) just want to check out one or two:
- The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances (A supposed-to-be-dead boy in a gas mask haunts a young woman in world war 2)
- Blink (A woman gets wrapped up in a mystery involving statues that make people disappear. This one is especially good if you flat out know nothing about the show. Has some really great time travel stuff.)
- A Christmas Carol (A christmas carol pastiche (of course) where the doctor tries to rewrite the past of a cruel man who's going to let a lot of people die. very sad and sweet. I love the "wintery planet with sky fish" setting of this one)
- Vincent and the Doctor (The famous Vincent Van Gogh Episode™)
- The Rings of Akhatan (A pretty lowkey little adventure story about an alien festival. has supreme autumn vibes)
- Flatline (A species from a 2 dimensional world tries to break into our 3 dimensional one. really fun special effects)
- Midnight (A tour bus breaks down on a diamond planet where nothing can survive. Something knocks at the door.)
- Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead (The Doctor and friend go to a library that covers an entire planet and finds that everyone has disappeared. Has a lot of really great, interesting concepts baked into it that I won't spoil)
- It Takes You Away (A girl is left alone in a cabin in the woods when her dad disappears through the mirror. Has a famously goofy ending that I really love)
- 73 Yards (A character is steps on a fairy circle and is followed by an old woman who always stands exactly 73 yards away)
- The Devil's Chord (This doesn't really have, you know, a plot, but it does have jinkx monsoon as an evil music god)
- Boom (The doctor steps on a landmine on an alien planet and cannot move)
- Wild Blue Yonder (A two hander where the Doctor and co are trapped on a dilapidated spaceship at the edge of the universe. really atmospheric with some fun/strange visuals.)
That being said, it does add a lot to watch it in order; there's a lot of plot twists, character dynamics, and general payoff you get if you marathon it. I would personally recommend starting with either the first episode of the 2005 show ("Rose") or the first episode of the 2010 season ("The Eleventh Hour") and just watching in order from there. I think you could also start with "The Snowmen", "The Pilot", or "The Woman Who Fell To Earth" if you wanted, but the first two (especially rose) are the better jumping on points.
some other little notes of advice I don't often see people mention:
- it's stupid sometimes just roll with it
- once in a while the show sort of "reboots" with different writers, actors, directors, and a new tone. it's much more like watching several small shows than one long show, so don't be too put off by the length!
- IMPORTANT: pretty much all streaming services will separate holiday/anniversary specials from the show proper and you have to deliberately search them up on the same service to find them. It's really necessary to be aware of this because many of these specials are the first or last episodes for characters/whole eras of the show and are genuinely unskippable. I strongly recommend looking up a list of the episodes and checking it after finales just to make sure you don't skip anything on accident.
- there's two spin offs (Torchwood, a more adult (read: gay sex) show about a mysterious agency that solves sci fi crimes, and the Sarah Jane Adventures, a pretty good monster of the week kids show) that ran concurrently with season 1-4. You don't have to watch them to understand anything happening in doctor who, but sometimes they cross over with the show in fun ways, Ex. the first season finale of Torchwood continues directly into season 3 of Doctor Who. My friend and I got a kick out of watching them at the same time so maybe you will too. (either way I recommend watching "Children of Earth", the torchwood miniseries, if you want to see a weird dark sci fi show about the government making contact with aliens. It's a bit like arrival (2016) if it was way nastier.)
alternatively, you can inject fast acting brain poison into yourself with this
anyways I hope this all reads as, you know, more approachable than the way dudes on quora recommend this show: