The week before Christmas I was looking for new TV shows to watch via Netflix instant streaming. When Torchwood came up in my search I vaguely remembered hearing/reading good things about it, and I recognized John Barrowman’s name from a recent thread about accents, so I figured I’d check it out. I added the first season, and started watching…and quickly became a little obsessed.
It took me a couple of episodes to realize that Torchwood was a spinoff of Doctor Who, but after watching all three seasons over the course of a week (including two weekends) I found myself wanting to watch the episodes of Doctor Who that feature Captain Jack Harkness. I’m enough of a geek to have been into shows like Firefly and The X-Files, but watching Doctor Who had always struck me as being a whole other level of geek-ness – that said, I didn’t know much about it other than it had been an old show with a cult following that had recently been remade. I vaguely remembered there being a kerfuffle when David Tennant replaced Christopher Eccleston, so I had an idea that the Doctor character regenerated rather than died, but that’s all I knew about the show (except I somehow also knew that the blue police call box = TARDIS). I couldn’t have even told you David Tennant or Christopher Eccleston’s names.
However, my interest in seeing more Jack Harkness didn’t fade, and after learning that he first appears just nine episodes into the first season (of the “new” Doctor Who, all of which is available via streaming), I decided to try starting that show with the first episode. Ok, so, now I’m about halfway through the second season and am hooked on this, too.
Then, just a day or two ago, I learned that Peter Davison – who I loved as Tristan Farnon in All Creatures Great and Small – played the Doctor for a few years in the '80s. So now I’ve looked up the episodes of his that are available via streaming and have added them to my queue.
Is it only a matter of time before I decide to watch every single episode of Doctor Who that was ever made? :eek:
If you’re fortunate, that’s how this will play out.
I’m sure someone will be along shortly to recommend must-see episodes from the original run. I suggest watching The Three Doctors followed by The Five Doctors.
And then a Dalek story or three. If you don’t, say it with me people YOU WILL BE EX TERM IN ATED!
Yeah, I’ve seen a couple of Dalek stories already. And don’t think it’s not freaking me out that I now know what a Dalek is.
I don’t want to click on that in case there’s a spoiler. (I can’t get to YouTube from work, anyway, but tell me there’s no spoiler and I’ll check it out at home later.)
No spoiler, other than you will see the actor who currently plays the Doctor. But you are going to watch those episodes anyways. (It is the awesomely weird cold open from the Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson - Doctor Who special)
Also, if you already are fan of Firefly and X-Files, you pretty well fit into the geek category anyways. Just remember, you don’t have to like all of it. I find some of it to cross the line from “soft” sci-fi to childish babble. Even then the emotional themes keep me watching.
Peter Davison is my favorite, his Doctor was the first I saw from the beginning. But the current incarnation played by Matt Smith has a lot of potential.
To be fair, he was trying to explain the Doctor to an audience who had never seen the Doctor:
…and
Very true. I get annoyed at how the Sonic Screwdriver has become so sufficiently advanced a piece of technology that it has become indistinguishable from [a] magic [wand].
As they say, you never forget your first Doctor. Mine was Tom Baker, and that bit from School Reunion left me a blubbery mess.
That’s an odd inversion in my mind. * Doctor Who *is pretty mainstream if viewing figures are anything to go by - and I can’t think of a better definition of mainstream. Firefly is far more obscure and geeky than Doctor Who. Even Buffy is obscure in comparison.
I guess it not being popular locally might skew your perception of it, but trust me - it’s popular.
It’s an institution in the UK, but it has long been a very obscure cult show in the US. The reboot and the explosion of cable channels have made it much more popular, but I started watching Tom Baker episodes when it was on late at night on Public Television, and it was obscure even at Science-Fiction conventions, the Geekiest Place on Earth.
I’m a huge fan of two of both Doctor Who and Kate Bush, and neither are especially well-known in the US.
Just following up on my previous post, I did some googling.
Doctor Who gets 10-12 million viewers for most episodes.
The above page lists the most watched finales ever in the US. An average Who episodes would come in at roughly position 65-70 in that list. Notably, an average Who episode is far more mainstream than the *finales *of the following genre shows (not counting non-genre shows like Sex in the City, etc.): 24 (8.9M), Star Trek Voyager (8.8M), Alias (6.7M), DS9 (6.6M), Angel (5.3M), Buffy (4.9M), Star Trek Enterprise (3.8M), BSG (2.4M).
These are the finales, mind you, not average episodes. Obviously we’ve never had - and probably never will, the BBC being the BBC - a pre-announced *Doctor Who *series ever finale.
It doesn’t compare to things like MASH, Seinfeld and Friends, for obvious reasons (namely that there aren’t enough people in the UK to actually reach those figures).
It gets twice the domestic audience share in the UK that ST:TNG got in the US; and ST:TNG is the highest listed show in that list.
(Hell it beats Moonlighting and stuff like that - very mainstream!)
So, in short, *Who *ain’t uber-geeky. It’s the most mainstream genre show there is! There’s a reason it was recently awarded the Guinness World Record for most successful sci-fi show ever!
As I said, local popularity might skew your perception of it. But just because it isn’t popular where you live doesn’t mean it’s not incredibly popular, any more than the weather being cold where you are means global warming doesn’t exist.
It’s watched by more people than almost any genre show ever. Certainly more than the cited Firefly (which is awesome, but is cult and uber-geeky!)
Saturdays at 11:30 pm on my local PBS station, right after whatever British comedy they were showing at the time. Star Trek nerds had it easy, they had conventions and syndication and even movies and books and there was talk of a new television show. But if you were a Doctor Who fan, you had to find your crappy PBS broadcast station to watch your show late at night with the sound turned down so as not to wake your parents. Ahhh good times.
I’ll still hit the link when I get home, but isn’t it stuff I already know by now after 1.5 seasons of the new show and all of Torchwood?
You seem to be using a different definition of “geeky” than I am: “popular” and “geeky” are not mutually exclusive. In fact, in Doctor Who’s case I’d say that its very popularity contributes to its geekiness: I’ve never met a geek who doesn’t love the show, even if there are raging debates about things like which Doctor is the best. And it spans several geek generations.
I’m not sure who you think you’re arguing against. No one denies that **Doctor Who **is a massively popular and well-known show in the UK. But the fact remains that, in the United States, it is *nowhere *near as mainstream as in the UK, and while episodes of the previous Doctors have aired on PBS channels, it is only with the reboot and airings on Sci-Fi and BBC-America that the show has increased in popularity beyond a *very *cult following.
Brave heart, Misnomer! There are always the novelisations… and original novels, short stories, comics and audio dramas – hundreds of each, not even counting the spin-offs. You need never be without Doctor Who-based entertainment again.
On which topic, have you seen any Sarah Jane Adventures yet?
Wait till you have kids before you do Sarah Jane. It’s great for sucking them into the Whoniverse. Attacklad and Attacklass are hard-core Who fans now, and SJA was the entry point.
We’ve finished the reboot and are looking for a source for the Baker years. Any ideas?
The statement “I’m enough of a geek to have been into shows like Firefly and The X-Files, but watching Doctor Who had always struck me as being a whole other level of geek-ness”
I’m not sure what that (“in the US”) has to do with it. “It’s not popular where I happen to be” is not the same as “it’s not popular”. It’s more popular than almost every genre show ever - period.
It’s not popular in my mother’s house (she doesn’t watch it), but that doesn’t mean it’s not popular.
Just imagine that the OP said “watching Doctor Who where I happen to be had always struck me as being a whole other level of geek-ness.”
Yes, objectively speaking, it is a very popular show. No, here in the United States it has not really been all that popular of a show until recently and it’s still only a niche market. I don’t think anyone in this thread will argue with any of this. I hope.
Misnomer, I watched some of the Tom Baker episodes when they reran on PBS in the 90s, and loved them. I have to admit that I tried to go back and rewatch some for nostalgia purposes, but the reboot has totally spoiled me. I don’t enjoy the old-school eps nearly as much as I used to. They’re still fun, though.
I had a friend in college whose mom knitted him a Tom Baker-style scarf.
(I can’t get to YouTube from work, anyway, but tell me there’s no spoiler and I’ll check it out at home later.)