Doctor Who — Page 6

If you're really wanting to get into Doctor Who, I'd recommend watching the "new" Series 1 (with Christopher Eccleston), then Series 2-4 (with Tennant), then the 4 Specials ("The Next Doctor"-"The End of Time," with Tennant), and finally Series 5 (with Matt Smith.)  Then think about checking out some classic Who, which is, IMO, more difficult to get into.

If you don't want to dive in headfirst like that, here are the episodes I'd recommend you check out to see if it's your cup of tea (all from the 2005-present revival) - the bolded episodes are the particularly good ones:

Series 1
Rose
The End of the World
The Unquiet Dead
Dalek
Father's Day
*The Empty Child / The Doctor Dances (two-parter, my personal favorite episode)
Bad Wolf / The Parting of the Ways (two-parter, season finale)

Series 2
The Christmas Invasion (David Tennant's first episode; I'd also recommend watching the 7-minute Children in Need special before this)
New Earth
Tooth and Claw
*The Girl in the Fireplace
Rise of the Cybermen / The Age of Steel (two-parter)
The Impossible Planet / The Satan Pit (two-parter)
Army of Ghosts / Doomsday (two-parter, season finale)

Series 3
Smith and Jones
Gridlock
Human Nature / The Family of Blood (two-parter)
*Blink
Utopia / The Sound of Drums / Last of the Time Lords (three-parter, season finale)

Series 4
Partners in Crime
Planet of the Ood
The Sontaran Stratagem / The Poison Sky (two-parter)
*Silence in the Library / Forest of the Dead (two-parter)
*Midnight
Turn Left / The Stolen Earth / Journey's End (three-parter; parts 2 and 3 are crossover episodes with Torchwood and The Sarah Jane Adventures; season finale)

Specials
The Next Doctor
The Waters of Mars
The End of Time (two-parter, Tennant's last episode)

Series 5
*The Eleventh Hour (Matt Smith's first episode)
The Beast Below
The Time of Angels / Flesh and Stone (two-parter)
*Amy's Choice
The Hungry Earth / Cold Blood (two-parter)
Vincent and the Doctor
The Pandorica Opens / The Big Bang (two-parter, season finale)

* = episodes that have, in my experience, "hooked" people on the show

That pretty much saves me from having to do Doctors Nine through to Eleven but I must add Tooth And Claw in there (if anything for the novelty of being one of the few RTD penned stories that was rather well written and in the spirit of the original show).

Until Midnight (which is REALLY good) turned up I used to hold it up as proof that the then show runner could write for the show he was in charge of when he tried.

I'm also one of the few people on the planet who actually liked Love And Monsters (even if it didn't quite succeed at what it was setting out to do.

I also liked The Unquiet Dead (it was the first moment I felt like the show was truly back) and anything that scares small children has to be doing something right. It's strange that with so many audio adventures under his belt it's the only real Doctor Who story connected to Mark Gatiss that doesn't miss the mark.

I did list Tooth and Claw, I just didn't bold it.  I like it, but it's not one of my favorites.  I do love Midnight, though.  I'll add The Unquiet Dead, I'd forgotten about that one.

I am allowing myself high hopes for the Christmas Special this year (after so many awful RTD seasonal offerings) but I can't help but getting a real Tim Burton vibe from the trailer.

that looks like they are going to do a kind of "A Christmas Carol"  type story. 

The title of the piece is The Christmas Carol (which was referenced briefly in Ecclestone's Christmas set story The Unquiet Dead where the Doctor met Dickens).

I'm interested to see what they do with it.

I thought the title was A Christmas Carol, rather than "The."  A small thing, though - doesn't really matter.

I'm not a big fan of the title.  They could have come up with something more original, but whatever.  It looks better than the shitfests that were The Runaway Bride and Voyage of the Damned.

If only we could cross reference these posts to the A Thread.

It may well be A instead The.

The proof of the pudding will be in the cracking of my last tooth on the threepence.

When I saw the trailer for The Christmas Invasion I thought it looked rather special but it turned out to be utter bobbins (as have every Christmas special since the tradition was started).

I liked The Unquiet Dead though.

My girlfriend likes The Christmas Invasion for some reason, but I can't stand it.  First truly dreadful episode of the new show, and a harbinger of the downward plunge it would later often exhibit.

I consider the first series with Christopher Eccleston to be practically perfect, despite every episode being set on or near earth.  But that unfortunate trend continues later--it's very bizarre that in a show with a plot device that literally go anywhere, anywhen, they keep coming back here, particularly in the present day.  What the heck is that about?  Use your imagination, writers, and show us some real alien worlds and strange things we've never heard of!  Present day earth gets boring, and that's not what I want to see in scifi, even if they seem to think it's what people want.  From what I've seen of the classic series, that was something they really excelled at back then, despite the limited budget and slower pace, and it's disappointing that the new show often fails to live up to it in that respect.

Just look at something like the Key to Time arc with Tom Baker and you'll see what I'm referring to.  I mean, a planet that quite literally pirates entire other planets, complete with pirate captain who has a robotic parrot?  A companion who is a fellow Time Lord and every bit as clever as the Doctor (if less experienced in travelling), and whose bickering yet respectful interaction with him is utterly fascinating to watch?  Assembling an artefact with the power to stop time throughout the universe, using it to prevent two groups from destroying each other, only to break it apart again when it turns out the higher being who asked them to retrieve it is actually going to use it for evil?  Now that's the kind of science fiction I can get behind!

Don't even get me started on the onslaught of emo angst that plagued the later Russell T Davies years.  That kind of thing has its full expression on Torchwood, which I shun since it is a pile of utter garbage, but it interferes a lot in the enjoyment of Doctor Who as well.  By the opposite note, the most recent series takes the complete opposite approach, having nearly no genuine emotional resonance whatsoever.  Steven Moffat excels at creating complex and interesting plots and time twists and generally far more interesting ideas than anyone else writing on the show these days, but it has to be said that he often fails rather wretchedly at writing believable female characters.  River Song's grating smugness succeeds only in being a massive annoyance, and Amy is a flat character devoid of any depth.  (Hugely unfortunate since I love redheads and she is undeniably very pretty!)  I know a fair amount of people didn't like Rose or her relationship with the Doctor, but she had heart and was infinitely more interesting than anyone else who has travelled with him these days.

It might seem, reading this post, that I don't actually like the new series at all, but that isn't true, because I'm quite a fan of it.  (The classic series surely has its flaws as well, lest you think I'm saying that it was so much better or something.)  But it's frustrating liking something that at the same time can be so flawed from the writing perspective, especially when the flaws are so obvious and could be avoided with a bit of effort.

I couldn't disagree with you more about Amy and River, Dr/Prof Song has to be the most nawty thing to step forth onto the shingle beach of an alien world in high heels since Jacqueline Pearce.

The Box set is even more tempting with little extras like this one :

Girls 

Sure, if you like meaningless shallowness masquerading as 'empowerment' or something, I can see how that would be appealing.  Otherwise . . .

If that's how you want to label the jar, it doesn't matter, I'm spreading it on my toast.

I'm with Bingowings.  I really like River, and I don't have a problem with Amy.  Rory's my favorite companion since 2005, hands down.

Rory is hilarious.

At least we won't get an Amy departure where she suddenly leaves the Doctor to marry some recently met random character.

It would be nice to have the Doctor travel with just a bloke for a while the Turlough audios make for a refreshing change (especially as he was in some ways like a young version of the Doctor himself).

It might work if Amy left and Rory and the Doctor traveled alone (at least for a while).

It would be like The Odd Couple on the Orient Express in space...under the sea...

When you guys use the term "companion" it reminds me of the Mr. Show sketch about the two young people and their companions getting lost.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jp83JZg0hU4

Keep in mind I don't watch Doctor Who, so there's no reason it would remind me of something else :p

Thanks Frink I've never seen that before and neither have either of my companions.

This article details exactly what is wrong with series 5 from a character perspective, and I agree with about 98% of it.

Be sure to read all three pages; the third contains an in-depth description of exactly how a new approach and some rewrites could have made it a far more enjoyable series than it actually turned out.

http://www.overthinkingit.com/2010/07/12/fixing-doctor-who-season-five-edition/

As I thought Series 5 was the most enjoyable series of Doctor Who since its return, I'm going to avoid reading that article, as nothing about the series really bothers me at the moment, and I'd rather not give myself anything to be bothered by.

Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgggggggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!

I'm not sure, I can't remember huge chunks of it and I've seen it twice.