ooooooo... Man, thats a tall order. Doctor Who stuff is everywhere. I mean that show ran for like 20 years or something.

Are looking for the old shows? Comics? novels? The new series? I guess it's not as like in walmart or anything but Amazon and Ebay have them.

It's not like you really need anything but the Fourth Doctor anyway, eh?

~Tobe (The Scarf rocks!)

You're right, my question was perhaps a bit broad.

I do think the TV show is where I think I ought to start (after all, it is the core of the franchise, isn't it?) but exactly where in the huge thing is something I am not sure of. In general, is the new series an appropriate jumping-on point, or is the original series more worthwhile? Should I start with the movie? I'm a Douglas Adams aficionado, so should I go straight for the handful of episodes he wrote or save them till I'm more familiar with the Whoniverse? Additionally, how does Torchwood fit in, and should I ignore it for the moment, or what? I'm asking for opinion mostly because I don't KNOW exactly what it is I'm supposed to be looking for. Essentially I'm guessing that the best course of action would be to start with the beginning of the 2005 series and go back to the earlier ones if I find myself interested. Or is it better to understand the Doctor Who legacy before approaching the new stuff?

Dr. Who looks to be a daunting franchise. Any advice would be appreciated.

One thing I notice (All though it's not true with all Doctor Who fans), is that their first Doctor usually ends up being their favourite.

DON'T LET THAT HAPPEN TO YOU! BE A MAN! FIGHT FOR YOUR RIGHT TO TARDIS! ....

I'd personally reccomend starting from the start and working your way forward. It's usually the easiest way. Although, it is quite possible to just watch the newer series, and ask any Who fans you know about anything that may confuse you (Like the Doctors regeneration).

Best thing to do? TORRENT THEM ALL! =D

Also, (And I know that all the old-school fans cry 'Heretic!' when I say this, but), David Tennant for the win. ^_^

I haven't seen the tenth series yet, but I was really just trying to make people respond. And yes, there's a huge page on the universe and time lords, incarnations, etc somewhere, I don't have it off the top of my head though.

Doctor Who is not just one of those cult classic things thats really just a hour long movie. It's just as massive as Star Trek and Star Wars, just without the American media around to screw it up. XD

And I can't SAY to torrent them because BITTORRENT steals from the poor penniless movie makers and eats babies.

Oh and Tom Baker FTW!

~Tobe

I haven't seen anything of the orignal 8 Doctors, but I've watched 9 (Chris Echelston) + 10 (David Tennant) on SciFi here in the states, and it's fantastic, in Echelson's words. Thrilling stories, great acting, decent CG, and an overal enjoyable experience. The stories sometimes tend to be repetitive when you look at the base of them (running away from hundreds of zombies that can kill you with a touch is used dozens of times) but the storytelling is believable enough to look past it. I understand the originals are probably better, but I personally love the new ones to death.

Ok thats easy if you got charter cable go to channel 101 and look its BBC you will find Doctor Who in fact im watching it now !

Quote:

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Ok thats easy if you got charter cable go to channel 101 and look its BBC you will find Doctor Who in fact im watching it now 🙂 !

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No, I get some crappy cable service that's exclusive to my college, and I don't think it provides BBC. In any case, that wasn't quite what I was asking.

Ohwell i tryed to help

So, I've spent the last week or so absolutely devouring the new series, and I've now seen every episode of the Ninth and Tenth doctors up through The Runaway Bride, in order. BRILLIANT. I loved Eccleston so much that it took me a bit of time to warm up to Tennant.

Next I'll probably be watching all of Torchwood in order, but I obviously can't take such a completionist approach to the first seven doctors. I've been youtubing a few episodes and some of it's fantastic (some not so much). Does anyone have any specific recommendations of serials that are worth a look?

Oh, and as an aside, I love the Fourth Doctor's scarf and I've found instructions on how to knit the huge thing at doctorwhoscarf.com I am taking up knitting, just for that purpose.

Send me one.

~Tobe

Forty bucks worth of yarn lovingly crafted into a twenty-foot scarf and you expect me to just send one over to THE MAN?

Yep.

i'll have one too if you're sending out free gifts..

WHEW.

After months of alternating between tireless work and total procrastination, I am bumping this post to declare that I have finally put the absolute finishing touches on my scarf, based on the one worn by Tom Baker in the 12th season of Doctor Who. I finished knitting it last week, and today I put the last couple tassels on the scarf and deal with all the loose ends from changing yarn colors. All in all, the scarf is 13 feet long, just enough to wrap loosely around the neck once and nearly touch the ground on both sides. I suspect it shall stretch.

There will be pics soon! Maybe.

When I started, I knew nothing about knitting, but by now I'm actually quite good at it. I'm thinking of maybe knitting up a few more of these babies and selling them on the interweb at some point in the future.

By the by, has anyone been watching the current season? Top-notch stuff. The finale airs tomorrow.

Oh my God you were serious. o.o

That's so cool. =D

I'll be watching. Loved "Blink", rather liked "Human Nature ", which managed *not* to ruin the original book and liked "Utopia". I was less than impressed with last week's episode and loathed the "Daleks in Manhattan" thing. I also don't understand why we had a rerun of the Impossible Planet, but hey, anything's better than that Manhattan thing.

With any luck, BBC3 will move from a constant diet of reruns of this series back to a constant diet of reruns of Eccleston so I can watch them again for a change.

As for the original topic, my favourite Doctor was indeed the one I grew up watching, so that would be Seventh Doctor, Sylvester McCoy. Well-recommended are "Curse of Fenric", "Ghost Light" (although for about the first 2 or 3 viewings you will probably be wondering what on earth is going on - the novelisation makes marginally more sense!) and "Remembrance of the Daleks". I really enjoyed "Survival" too, which was the last one to air until Paul McGann's movie.

I have "Time & the Rani" on video, which is the first of the Seventh Doctor episodes. It is weird. The producers still hadn't decided that they wanted to go dark & manipulative for this Doctor, so instead we got slapstick and spoonerisms. Mind you, the Doctor trying to choose his new wardrobe is quite amusing.

I've not seen any of his other episodes with Bonnie Langford playing companion Mel; I was always a big fan of Sophie Aldred as Ace.

One thing to bear in mind though is that the BBC has never been very good and putting into action its sci-fi ideas. Wherever the Doctor has to go back in time, say to Victorian times, the idea is sumptuously realised. If they're in the future, you may have to expect tin foil and catsuits - oh and lots of quarry locations Provided you can forgive the clunky sets and things, then I think you can have a good time watching.

I can, alas, offer little advice on the other Doctors. I haven't seen Peter Davison & Colin Baker episodes since they first aired when I was knee-high to a grasshopper. Jon Pertwee has been growing on me, although initially I wasn't a fan, since as far as I was concerned he was Worzel Gummidge and Spotty in SuperTed... His episodes and (I think) some of the early Tom Baker ones have the advantage of featuring UNIT and Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart.

I'd also really like to see "Battlefield", which reunites the Seventh Doctor with the Brigadier and brings UNIT into confrontation with Morgan Le Fey...

Of course, all of the above ignores the books that are available. I think the Beeb has stopped printing Past Doctor books for the time being, although you can still pick them up. Paul McGann's era had about a million books, there are around 10 Seventh Doctor stories and many others to be found. Plus there are the original Target novelisations of individual episodes (see cyberpad.tripod.com/target.html for details). And then there are the Virgin New Adventures, which deal with the Seventh Doctor and follow roughly where the series seemed to be going when it got cancelled. Plus one story for the Eighth Doctor, rounding off the whole thing.

And Dirk, that is so cool that you've actually knitted that scarf! Many congrats are due to you!

DW

PIX PLOX!

Congrats Dirk, I've wanted one for a long time, But I'm too lazy.

~Tobe

*bows to DWUK*

She's probably the best person to talk about classic Who at the moment.

And for the record, the series has been running since 1963, rather than just for twenty years.

Last night I watched many episodes of the latest season, since I've missed them all entirely.

After the utterly fantastic, and a little creepy (and with a frightening doctor at the end) Human Nature/Family of Blood, The last one I watched, at 3 am, before going to bed was Blink

I may very well never sleep again.

You watched that at 3am? You're a braver one than I am, Gunga Din. I hereby announce that any episode penned by Steven Moffat is made of win. "The Empty Child", anyone?

However, I am now renouncing current Doctor Who. Any show with Catherine Tate in it regularly is not a show I wish to watch any more. Not to mention when *I* appear to know more Doctor Who backstory than the writers and executive producer...

DW

Yeah, I hadn't heard anything about that episode. Now I know, and I fear T___T

...Tate is in more than one episode? What? Man! I can't stand the woman, she ruinied the Runaway Bride for me, I liked everything else about it, but she was horrific.

As for the backstory, well, since I know very little indeed, (though I'm working on it I assure you ) I just assumed that as a time lord, any backstory was kind of, flexible. Not to the point of rediculous mind you (ala Daleks of Manhatten) but flexible enough to tell a given story.

Well, it would be nice if the writers acknowledged it when they were retconning. I mean, even if they just said "The Time War which we keep alluding to and about which very little has ever been revealed really messed up the timelines, so some of the things the Doctor did and said in the past no longer actually happened. Oh and everything you know about Gallifreyans is a lie."

Specifically, since when is regeneration a choice?

*grumbles* I imagine I'm looking at old Who through rose-tinted (no pun intended) glasses. There were indeed some appalling episodes and many people loathed what it had become by the time Sylvester McCoy appeared. "Time & the Rani" = ack. I also accept that I am no longer the target audience - although it is supposed to be "family" viewing, so in theory it ought to have something for people with attention spans longer than the average 3 year old's...

DW

Copying some comments I made elsewhere:

The obligatory RTD "comedy" chav count has now been restored ("one of Britain's greatest talents", indeed!).

Although as I've said before: she actually surprised me in The Runaway Bride - I was expecting her to be far worse. But that still doesn't mean that she was more than passable, will RTD let her play it straight for a whole series, and how long will it be before she's making doe eyes at the Doctor and/or catfighting with Martha over it?

I must say that (as much as I dislike her alleged "comedy" and mystifying level of adulation) it'll make a change in terms of New Who to have a companion who's not young, trendy and conventionally "pretty" - but I'm wondering how long she'll stay that way, or whether or not the fact that Donna isn't a fashion plate, as smart as Martha or as... ummm...*struggles for redeeming quality* blonde as Rose is going to become as big a running joke as Jackie Tyler.

I'm sorry, but I'm getting a little uneasy about the way that the female companion is being portrayed as a Cinderella figure. I'm fine with the idea of them mentally getting their horizons expanded, but I don't like the way that this is outwarlly shown by them having to look gradually more fashionable and "sexy".

Can't we have one who's just happy to look like themselves, or who's shown as dressing up to make themselves look/feel good rather than because they're constantly on the pull, or whose horizons getting expanded means realising that they don't need validating by someone else?

(Rosie-Sue Tyler, I'm looking at you. Hence I'll miss Martha -who at least drew a line, even if I didn't like the reasons.)

And "a whole host of guest stars", eh?

Argh! Will someone please tell RTD that celebrity doesn't equal talent?

It's perfectly possible to make a decent, appealing small-screen drama on a sensible budget with actual actors, rather than constantly appealing to the lowest common denominator. I'm increasingly feeling as though I'm watching a dramatised version of the Spotted! column of The Sun<.

I don't actually think anything's been retconned.
And current Who, sadly, isn't making any mistakes that haven't been made before. Let's not start on Kenn Dodd and Bonnie Langford, shall we?

Yes, I'm disappointed by Last of the Time Lords, but it's top-quality drama compared to the likes of Timelash.

A pet gripe of mine: in the first of the new series, someone has spent half his life tracking down appearances of Eccleston throughout history (including, if I recall correctly, on the Titanic, so expect a major explosion of the space-time continuum at Christmas - unless such rules are suspended to allow a new version of "The Two Doctors"). He fails spectacularly to notice the other 8 dudes who have also been spotted throughout history and are inextricably linked to a mysterious blue box. I mean, how could that happen???

Bonnie Langford was OK. She was at least supposed to be semi-intelligent (Mel was a computer programmer, right?), although I will grant that she had a good set of lungs and the sixth Doctor must have been half-deaf by the time he regenerated. Ken Dodd I'm guessing appeared in "Delta & the Bannermen"? Not seen it yet, but I have heard things...

As I say, I'm looking through nostalgia and therefore I'm probably very much biased. However, current Who should not be making mistakes it has made before. The whole thing lost audiences and eventually got cancelled for a reason. Given how hyped RTD likes the world to be on his reimagining and rescuing of the Doctor from TV oblivion (and is anyone reminded of Roland Rat "saving" TVAM [and the Beeb] at this point?), you'd think he'd take care to learn from prior mistakes, not repeat them in new and spectacular ways.

Anyhow, those are my views on current Who, for what they're worth. I shall sink back into my cosy world of DVDs, Target novels & New Adventures

DW

It was around the launch of the Titanic, not on it.

Anyways, the ratings for current Doctor Who are actually improving, not dropping, so its not exactly making prior mistakes.
Over 8 million people watched the last finale.

Well, to be fair to the script-writers, it's pretty hard to maintain temporal continuity within some of the more ambitious episodes, let alone through the whole series and across the whole franchise. Some slip-ups here and there are forgiveable in my opinion...

As for the bringing in of Catherine Tate, having not seen The Runaway Bride, or really become acquainted with much of her work, I will suspend judgement until I see what she's like in the show. However, I believe the quality of the shows continue to improve - David Tennant has now really made the role his own - so I doubt the show will fail completely based on a few new casting decisions.

I'm not denying it's a great hit for the BBC and pulling in the viewers. Nor do I deny that it will probably continue to do so. But "Big Brother" pulls in the viewers and its quality is somewhat questionable.

I guess I'd probably watch it and continue watching it (without Catherine Tate) if it had been a brand new, original show. But it's not. It has a lot of history behind it and a fair amount of emotional attachment (as I've admitted, I'm clearly super-biased!). To me, it seems to be drifting further and further away from what I liked about the parts of the original series that I watched. I'm well aware that it has already evolved many times in its life and will continue to do so (educational, historical & scientific v entertaining stories), but it's just no longer providing me with much viewing pleasure. Hence I'm somewhat disappointed (albeit resigned) and will not bother watching it any more.

I found "City of Death" (Tom Baker, Lalla Ward & a cameo from John Cleese) on video in a charity shop on Friday and look forward to watching that while ironing this afternoon

DW