Watching Doctor Who: Series Twenty Three

Can I just plead guilty and get this over with?

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, season 18, season 19, season 20, season 21 and season 22. I’m collecting my thoughts as I go in a Twitter thread.

There was a time when eighteen months felt like a long gap between series of Doctor Who. Season twenty-two had finished in spring 1985, and it wouldn’t be until autumn 1986 that the series returned. That might not seem too long now, when it feels that any TV series managing to broadcast a new series within twelve months of the previous one finishing has pulled off a minor miracle, but in the mid-80s it felt like the movements of geological time. Revelation Of The Daleks had been broadcast while I was still in middle school, but by the time Trial Of A Time Lord began I was in the second year of high school and about to be one of the first wave of British children to take GCSEs.

The problem was that for me, and for a lot of other people, Doctor Who had ceased to be something essential during that gap. Quite by chance a couple of months ago, I…