Comments | dogwoodblossom: Doctor Who?

dogwoodblossom

Doctor Who?

May 28, 2010 22:59

Soooo..... I'm afraid I'm opening a can of worms here, but I want to start watching Dr. Who. I've seen a few random episodes (and some Torchwood) but I feel like I'm jumping into the middle. It's sort of vast. Can I just start with the New Who? Should I? Or do I need to start with the stuff from 1963 ( Read more... )

Comments 14

debris_k May 29 2010, 07:27:11 UTC

I can give you my personal experience, if that's alright. I started off with nu!Who's series 1 (series 27 of the whole Whoniverse, I believe) - Christopher Ecclestone as the Ninth Doctor *points at icon*, lovely young actress as the companion, and eventually Captain Jack Harkness shows up in the series as well (and the whole Torchwood spin-off is started off). I've watched all of the nu!Who series, but this current nu!nu!Who made me give the whole thing up for good (So much fail, it wasn't even funny anymore. :( ) but Nine remains my fave Doctor. Ten was good, once I got used to him (only took me a whole season, he was so differently energetic than Nine) and I didn't even mind Eleven (it was everything else about series 5 that I did ( ... )

dogwoodblossom May 30 2010, 01:28:54 UTC

Personal experience was what I was looking for. The consensus seems to be that the new stuff is a good starting point. Which is something of a relief, because even though I love campy weird shit from the 60's, 40 years worth of backstory is somewhat daunting.

I mean, TOS only has 72 (or 73 if you want to argue over totally pointless shit, which of course Trekkies do) episodes to skim.

debris_k May 30 2010, 06:29:22 UTC

And not all old!Who eps even exist anymore - some of the '60/s stuff (I think) got erased when the tapes were reused at the BBC, so, you know, one couldn't watch it all even if one really wanted to. :-)

amaresu May 30 2010, 08:25:47 UTC

No, they weren't erased. They were burned. Which is so much more terrible.

Thread 6

amaresu May 29 2010, 18:05:10 UTC

I'd recommend starting with Nine. He's a good jumping in point. You won't have to deal with plotting and story styles that may be off putting. Although I suspect you'll have less problems with that then most people ( ... )

dogwoodblossom May 30 2010, 01:35:14 UTC

I don't know if Talons is a character or an actor or what, but assuming it's sufficiently dated I will most likely find it amusing.

And of course you are correct. I have a high tolerance for terrible camp. It's gotta be really awful before I stop thinking it's funny.

So I think Nine then. Of course I'm still on my Star Trek kick and working my way through classic TOS but I am tired of feeling like I'm missing a huge chunk of classic sci-fi.

amaresu May 30 2010, 08:23:12 UTC

Talons is one I often see recommended to people just starting out. Which I don't get as it's terrible and boring. But some people seem to love it and I find much of early Four terrible and boring.

Classic Who is rather campy and it's lovely. A lot of people have a hard time getting into the formating. Each story takes place over several episodes done in a serial format. Also the really terrible special effects. I figured that since you watch a lot of other things made around the same time you'd have less issue with that.

I feel like I should do an audios pimp here, but figure you should at least get a chance to get into the show before I do that.

viciouswishes May 29 2010, 20:53:23 UTC

I started watching the Sarah Jane Adventures and didn't have a problem because I'm sure like yourself you've got some fannish osmosis about the shows. I then watched S4 New Who, then S3, then Torchwood, and then went back to watch S1 & S2 New Who before watching some of the First Doctor, which Jason wants us to watch in order.

dogwoodblossom May 30 2010, 01:39:05 UTC

Let me know how that goes (the chronological order thing).

amaresu May 30 2010, 08:28:25 UTC

He does realize that many of those episodes no longer exist right? Sure, there are reconstructions, but those are basically looking at a picture while someone tells you what was supposed to happen. The Invasion is neat because they animated the two missing episodes, but that was an exception.

I'm baffled by this as I know hard core fans who shudder at the thought of watching everything in chronological order.

viciouswishes June 6 2010, 14:23:21 UTC

Yes, he's well aware that they burniated. He tried watching the Rome one where it's reconstructed, but it was Boring so we decided not to be hardcore about those.

Thread 5