Watching Doctor Who: Season Nineteen

Being the adventures of a young man with a pleasant, open face

I’m currently watching the classic series of Doctor Who on Britbox, attempting to watch all 26 seasons in 26 weeks. For my take on previous seasons: season 1, season 2, season 3, season 4, season 5, season 6, season 7, season 8, season 9 , season 10 , season 11, season 12 , season 13, season 14, season 15, season 16 , season 17 and season 18. I’m collecting my thoughts as I go in a Twitter thread.

Doctor Who was ever-changing but one thing about it always remained fixed: it was broadcast on Saturday nights, some time after Grandstand had finished. It had been broadcast at that time since it started, and it would remain there forever.

Or until 1982, when in a rather shocking bit of news, it was suddenly moved to being shown on weeknights, and not just once a week, but twice! No longer would we have to wait a week between episodes, instead we’d have one on Monday and the next one would be the day after. This was both exciting and unsettling. The series had already changed dramatically over the last year, and now it would be happening on a school night, not at the weekend?

Then on top of all that, we had a whole new Doctor as well, an event so momentous that the BBC actually repeated old episodes (not…