How to Start Watching Doctor Who

Hint: Not at the beginning

It’s only appropriate that the best way to start watching the time-travelling saga of Doctor Who is to take a non-linear, non-chronological path through the nine seasons since the 2005 reboot. The Doctor isn’t limited to living life in the same order as the rest of us, and he admits to using his TARDIS to skip the boring bits. We can take the same approach to binge-watching the show.

Rules of the road: For the sake of brevity, I’m going to assume that you want to watch Doctor Who and don’t need any additional persuading. I will not include any spoilers — you can read this entire guide without learning anything critical. And right now I’ll give you the bare minimum of backstory as an initiation.

Pay attention to the episode titles as well as the numbers. There are Christmas Specials for most years (slightly longer episodes that were first broadcast on Christmas Day) and there seems to be no agreement whether they are the last episode of the season or the first episode of the next one. Because of this, episode numbers are sometimes different on different streaming services.

Background

The Doctor — He’s from a race named the Time Lords. You find out in the very early episodes that his entire race was wiped out by the Doctor himself. He was forced to do that — and kill all of the Daleks (his arch-nemisis) at the same time — in order to end the Time War. And then…not much more is revealed about the Time War. But a recurring theme is his loneliness, and the fact he is the last of his species.

Doctor Who — the TV show — actually started in 1963. It was rebooted in 2005 with what we will call Season One. There is continuity from the Classic Series, but the flavor of the show is very different. Enemies from the Classic Series, such as the Cybermen and The Master (an evil Time Lord), reappear in the reboot from time to time. The Time War (and resulting genocide) happened off-screen at some point between the Classic Series and the reboot.

Time Lords enjoy a rather special trait — they can regenerate. If they suffer a mortal injury, a spontaneous burst of energy will replace their body and personality with a new one. They retain knowledge of their past regenerations but the changes can be signficant. They’re only able to regenerate twelve times so it’s not something they do lightly. You’ll therefore see several different actors playing the Doctor. It’s sort of like James Bond — but with an in-story explanation and a very clear continuity from one actor to the next.

The Doctor has a vessel that allows him to travel in time and space. Its name is the TARDIS and it has the outside appearance of a blue police box. The wonderful thing about the TARDIS is that is always seems to transport the Doctor to where he is most needed. It also automatically translates the alien languages he’ll encounter. It’s bigger — much bigger — on the inside than it is on the outside, thanks to Time Lord technology!

(These police boxes were apparently common in the UK middle of the twentieth century as a way to summon police before telephones were in every home. The in-joke is that the TARDIS was designed to be able to transform its outer appearance to match current surroundings, but its chameleon circuit was damaged while it had taken the shape of the now-iconic police box.)

The Classic Series Doctor was always a renegade in the eyes of the Time Lords. He stole — or borrowed, he’d have you believe — the TARDIS and ran away from his home planet of Gallifrey. Ever since, he’s been meddling in the affairs of races and planets and events as he sees the need, which is verboten in the eyes of the Time Lords.

The Doctor often travels with a companion, typically someone from Earth, typically female. This helps balance the always (so far) male Doctor and also gives him someone to explain things to, which is helpful to the audience!

Apart from that, there’s not a great deal else to know. He has a sonic screwdriver, a benign device that can open things (but seems to become increasingly more useful as the seasons pass). He also has a piece of psychic paper, which looks like a blank ID card but whenever he flashes it at someone it displays whatever the Doctor wishes the viewer to see.

Okay, enough of the background — onto watching some Doctor Who.

Watching Guide

Here’s your starting point: Season Five. Don’t start with Season One, because, to be honest, the episodes were more bad than good. The show was still finding its feet and deciding what it wanted to be. And the best guest writer in the first four seasons took over as the Head Writer in Season Five. He took it upon himself to welcome in new viewers, so that’s where we’ll start.

We’ll dip into the earlier seasons as we need to in order to enjoy the best episodes and fill-in essential plot elements as needed. To avoid spoilers, I’m not going to explain myself as to why I’m recommending this order. It should all become apparent over time.

If, at any point, you think “I’m in” and want to see everything front-to-back, then feel free to abandon this guide and start at the beginning of season one.

Season Five

Season Five begins moments after the Eleventh Doctor makes his appearance after regenerating. He’s coming to grips with his new body and the TARDIS is spinning out of control. That’s pretty much all you need to know apart from what you’ve already read.

So start with:

• Season 5 — Episode 1 and 2 (“The Eleventh Hour” and “The Beast Below”). This will introduce the new Doctor and his new companion. Episode 2 (“The Beast Below”) was first broadcast the week before the UK General Election of 2010, which gives the story an added significance.

Then jump all the way back to…

• Season 1 — Episode 6 (“Dalek”). You’ll have to accept that the Doctor has a different face and personality, and a different traveling companion. This is the Ninth Doctor (Chris Eccleston) and his companion, Rose Tyler.
• Season 3 — Episode 1 (“Smith and Jones”). Another Doctor — the Tenth (David Tennent) — and another companion, Martha Jones.
• Season 3 — Episode 10 (“Blink”). Don’t worry that the Doctor is hardly in this one. That happens from time to time.
• Season 4 — Episode 2 (“The Fires of Pompeii”). Another new companion — Donna Noble.
• Season 4 — Episode 8 and 9 (“Silence in the Library” and “Forest of the Dead”).

Now you can watch the rest of Season Five. You’ve got all you need to see you through the remaining episodes.

• Season 5 — Episode 3–12. Interesting notes: Episode 10 (“Vincent and the Doctor”) was first broadcast during Mental Health Week in the UK. Episode 11 (“The Lodger”) guest stars James Corden, who was at that time unknown to US audiences but was somewhat famous in the UK.

Catch Up Episodes

Before you move on to Season Six, I’d recommend hitting the following episodes — either because they’re particularly good or they’re particularly relevant to the story of Doctor Who (or both!). There are quite a lot of episodes listed below, but they cover the most watchable episodes of everything before Season Five.

• Season 1 — Episode 1 (“Rose”). This was the very first episode of the reboot.
• Season 1 — Episode 2 (“The End of the World”). We’re back to the Ninth Doctor and Rose.
• Season 1 — Episode 7 (“The Long Game”)
• Season 1 — Episode 8 (“Father’s Day”)
• Season 1 — Episode 9 & 10 (“The Empty Child” and “The Doctor Dances”)
• Season 1 — Episode 12 & 13 (“Bad Wolf” and “The Parting of the Ways”)
• Season 2 — Episode 2 (“Tooth & Claw”). Now the Tenth Doctor is on the scene.
• Season 2 — Episode 4 (“The Girl in the Fireplace”)
• Season 2 — Episode 5 & 6 (“Rise of the Cybermen” and “The Age of Steel”)
• Season 2 — Episode 10 (“Love & Monsters”)
• Season 2 — Episode 12 & 13 (“Army of Ghosts” and “Doomsday”)
• Season 3 — Episode 6 (“The Lazarus Experiment”)
• Season 3 — Episodes 8–9 (“Human Nature” and “Family of Blood”)
• Season 3 — Episdoes 11-13 (starting with “Utopia”)
• Season 4 — Episode 1 (“Partners in Crime”)
• Season 4 — Episode 3 (“Planet of the Ood”)
• Season 4 — Episode 6 (“The Doctor’s Daughter”)
• Season 4 — Episode 11–13 (starting with “Turn Left”).

Then watch all of the David Tennant Specials. Instead of a regular 13-episode season, between Season Four and Season Five they released a handful of slightly longer episodes. These episodes can sometimes be tricky to find on streaming services. For instance, on Amazon Prime you have to search for “The David Tennant Specials” — they aren’t listed with the other seasons of Doctor Who. Also note that “The Next Doctor” is sometimes found at the end of Season Four!

• The Next Doctor (Sometimes listed as the last episode of Season Four)
• Planet of the Dead
• The Waters of Mars
• The End of Time

Season Six and Beyond

Season Six begins with the Christmas Special, “A Christmas Carol”. This can take some finding if your using a streaming service. Search is your friend. Amazon Prime has Christmas Specials lumped together as their own show and it becomes difficult to keep things straight.

Season Seven starts with another Christmas Special (“The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe”). It was announced that Jenna Coleman would replace Amy and Rory in during a mid-season break, but she makes a surprise appearance in the first episode of Season Seven, The Asylum of the Daleks.

There are a couple of special episodes between Season Seven and Eight. The TV show hit the fiftieth anniversary of its initial broadcast so look out for “The Name of the Doctor”, “The Day of the Doctor” and “The Time of the Doctor”.

By now you are an old hand, so you can roll right into Season Eight and Nine without giving it any thought.

Epilogue

I hope you enjoyed this guide. Please let me know what you think — either as a novice viewer who followed the guide or an experienced viewer who can critique the approach I’m suggesting.

If you liked it — please hit ‘recommend’. Thank you.