Doctor Who

For as long as I can remember, I've heard about the good Doctor, references, inside jokes and the like. Such as "Real Daleks don't climb stairs, they flatten the building".

The quandary was this: Where do I begin, with thousands of episodes aired? I was afraid of getting myself into something deep, dense, voluminous and possibly repetitive, impossible to get back out of.

The very simple yet belated answer was, of course, by accident.

On one of those sleepless nights, flipping channels, I saw astronauts in a Victorian library, and was immediately intrigued by the weird homage to Kubrick. Before the commercial break, I was treated to electronic ghosts and invisible floating piranhas.

Then this absolute beauty comes up, I paraphrase - "You've been living in a computer simulation, your physical body is elsewhere" - "But I've been dieting"

Bleak, subtle and sophisticated humor? Check, and count me in.

As it turned out, I had stumbled into the middle of a Sy-Fy Channel short marathon of Doctor Who. I resisted going to sleep until the damn thing ended five or six episodes later, at ten in the morning.

What wildly imaginative premises, what a high-quality level of writing, what a gem this is! There is serious brain-power at work here, courtesy of the BBC yet again, on a continuing heroic mission to sacrifice short-term profit for long-term legacy. As evidence, I present "Monty Python's Flying Circus", "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy", "The Singing Detective", "Brideshead Revisited".

From what little I've seen in half of a short marathon, Doctor Who deserves a ten out of ten.

Doctor Who was at it's absolute peak with Christopher Eccleston, David Tennant and Matt Smith. The stories from each season connected beautifully, the cast was memorable and the story was much more creative than it is now.

Seasons 1 through 10 are brilliant overall. Seasons 11 and 12 are so awful that they might as well be a different show altogether. From 2018 onwards, the vibes and tone are just plain wrong. Don't even bother watching any episodes post-2017.

I cannot believe it's been back on our screens for ten years, it seems like only yesterday the show returned with Rose.

What I've loved so much about interacting with people on IMDb is that no series seems to split opinion more then Doctor Who, fundamentally we all love it, it's why we tune in each week to see what's on offer.

We've experienced highs and lows and will no doubt continue along the same vein for many years to come.

Each Doctor has offered something, some perhaps more then others. Same for its producers, there are people that have loved and loathed both Moffat and Davies, both have given us some excellent and not so excellent episodes.

The format and premise of the show remains its key strength, he can literally go anywhere and do anything, most shows are faced with multiple constraints, that isn't the case here, the possibilities are endless.

We've had episodes that are widely loved, some of my own favourites include Blink, Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead and Vincent and the Doctor. Others have positively split opinion, Love and Monsters is a good idea, personally it's one I enjoy. I can appreciate an attempt at doing something different, it's a show that could become tiresome if it became to formulaic.

I like the format of the two part serial, it allows a greater character development, sometimes with the single episode there's sometimes a feeling that some characters are a little shy of screen time.

They have been guilty of using some of the Doctor's foes too often, the Daleks for example, they've popped up a few times too many, once they were the adversary I desperately wanted to see, not it's a feeling of indifference.

Long may it continue!! I couldn't contemplate Christmas Day without my hour of Who, Baileys and Ferrero Rocher.

Great big 10/10

I'm a 46 year old man, but I'm not ashamed to tell you I wept with all the regenerations of the Doctor, and for other episodes too (for example, the Van Gogh episode broke me).

But when Whitaker's time's up, I think I'll be having a sigh of relief. But only if Chibnall also going away. Especially when Chibnall is gone. Maybe even if Whitaker stays, and she's getting good stories, less companions (or "fam", for f* sake).

The stories are weak, boring and preachy. The Doctor isn't a force of nature that stops planets rotating, she's not the oncoming storm anymore. She's a boring, bland, preachy dimwit, who doesn't belong in the Tardis.

Get Moffat back, get Davies back, get people in the seats that love and understand Doctor Who and scifi. Otherwise this will be the death of the undying Doctor.