Episode 34: Doctor Who

Welcome to Nerdificing with Danny and if you I'm if you was sitting across from me Danny Fernandez, and we are today talking about dr who. Yes, before we get into anything, there's a new segment I'd like to introduce cold. I'm actually, oh god, yeah, and you did not. I love that. I'm the or co host and you did not go over this because I forgot about it until right up until we started. But yeah, I'm actually it's the segment that I'm bringing. Yeah, you're going to encourage

people to do this too us. Yeah. Well, you know, sometimes they're right and sometimes we don't care. This is one of the times I do care. Don't abuse this don't make me cancel the whole segment, y'all, but I'm gonna give you the appropriate shouts out when you do point out something in a nice polite manner. Yeah. Uh. Thomas Allen on the page pointed out that I did call Jean Claude van Damn Russian. I said his Russian accent. He is not Russian. He was born in Belgium and

that's his nickname was Muscles from Brussels. And I totally forgot that, and so that was right. And one other person they weren't actually correcting, They're actually just kind of adding on to the story, but they actually pointed out something that uh, I kind of missed the same episode two Street Fighter when I was saying that it was the r bumper or something on the Genesis controller, it was I want to get their name in it to um infinite content. Soul brother to one five on Twitter

pointed out that it's the start button. It was the start button that you have to press in Street Fighter to switch it from punch to kick, which is just all bad, which is even worse than a trigger button, because that's what you used to pause. How did you pause?

Probably select? But yeah, thanks y'all. Yeah, like Danny says, you know, we make a give us a gentle nudge if we make a make a trip up, and we'll shout you out a gentle, very gentle think of think of the bruises we have from just existing and just just love tap and we will make that correction because we do want you all to have the correct info. But how would you how would you how do you speak to your little niece or nephew or like grown as adults. We're grown adults, but please talk to us

like we're three. And there's really not even anyone's fault, but just everything that we're used to. So the energy always feels the same when someone's like, hey, people don't realize how much how when you have like thousands of followers, how much you get people that are not nice, that don't follow you, that aren't friends with like you know what I mean, that are fans of you? Are to read tone on the Internet. Yes, it's something Reddit has created.

One of the few good things they've created is the slash s to say that you're being sarcastic. Our guests has been sitting here just silently and politely, probably making small notes in her head that like, oh, y'all mess this dog all the way up because she is I think when Danny said this was the episode, I was like, oh, so we're definitely going to get this person, yeah and collectively, and she was like I already yeah, yeah, yeah, she is the Doctor Who critic for nurdiced comedian and writer

Riley Silverman, Hello, um, actually not yeah. I was like, in my head, I was like, how do you not know muscles from Brussels? And then and then you said it, so I didn't have to say anything. Well yeah, well you know, look, I'm I would only make myself look worse if I pointed out the fact that it was like, I don't know where Brussels is Germany, right, not Russia. Well I think we already established it's in Belgium. That was like the whole point of your thing. I'm not

I'm not even like an action person. And I knew that Jean Clan van Dam was muscles from Brussels. Yeah, oh my gosh. Um Okay, So, Riley, what was your first introduction to Doctor Who? I am weirdly got into Doctor Who first through Torchwood, the spinoff series. It was a thing where I had to watch episodes of it

for work, and I liked it. But I'm also a weird com leash in this nightmare person and so I almost like, for years I wanted to watch Doctor Who, but in my head I had this whole thing of like, I can't give myself the amount of time it takes to watch six fifty years of a show, which I have since done, but at the time, like it's weird because most people I know who are fans Doctor Who of the modern series, like, aren't people who go like

I know a lot. I have a lot of people who are fans of the original series, But people who I talked to you on day to day basis who run into me and like like my hardest person or whatever, tend to be like David Tennant fans or something like that. Nobody said to me like, no, you don't have to watch the Classics if you don't, like you can jump in on the news show, and like, I recommend the classic eventually, but it is it's a very different show and it's a lot of work to get into, just

like watching Old Star Trek or whatever. You know. I watched it before, so I was like afraid of it and then but when I started watching Torch Boy, I was like, I gotta see how this works. So I went back and started with the five original like the return of the show with Christopher Cockleston, and I fell for it pretty quickly and just plowed through it all and then went back and watched all the Torch towards

as well. But yeah, it was It's It's that was seven years ago this point, because I've it's become like a lifestyle for me since. But yeah, it's just something about it really clicked with me in a way that like very few other shows have. And it actually I would say maybe no other show like it's. It's the only show I have a tattoo for. And I'm literally sitting here with a Doctor Who t shirt and I

have that as my coat. So that's so funny. But the people that we've had because I have my dragging, I feel like you're known as Doctor Who personally in our circle, I'm the Dragon ball Z person. Like when anyone has a podcast or a panel about DBZ and I have that's the only tattoo I have is a Dragon ball Z tattoo. And um, Kyle Shy, remember if

you came on for the Avatar one. He has an avatar tattoo, and it was like, this is van dam just like all about Claude van dam yea, yeah, I have it with love from Russia and John Claude van Damn under it. It's just fun. He always muscles from Russell's men. He ate russell sprouts and the protein gave him because one stereotype Russians love Brussels. For me, it's because I'm so fickle and I knew I wanted a tattoo, but I was like, what am I going to always love?

Have I always loved? And and something that that is going to stay with me? And that's why I got my DVZ tattoo. It just made sense as opposed to getting like a boyfriend's name or something that that's the worst thing, even if you're married. Don't even if it's your kid, okay with your kid break But yeah, I like mine is a doctor who tattoo, but it's not like the doctor who fonts, and it's not really one that like if I ever to fall out of love with this show, I'm like, I now my armies be

burned off. It just says deep breath what's the name of an episode of the show which happened to have really a personal significance to me when I started transitioning. So that's why I got it. It It was like a gift to myself after being on hormones for over a year. I'm gonna get this tattoo to commemorate this, and that's what this was about. And so you'll ever get more

Doctor Who tattoos. I have thought about it because us I had a really big issue this year with getting my I had I had a surgery back in March, and I'm supposed to have it in January, getting pushed back, and I had a lot problems with it in fighting

insurance companies. And then around that time, people had like sent me some gifts for the show and like presents, like like get well soon gifts or whatever, and like then like mental health gifts because I was like freaking out about surgery being canceled and the fandom of Doctor

Who kind of co opted the Elizabeth Warren. Nevertheless, she persisted slogan to Nevertheless, she regenerated when they turned the Doctor when they cast a female to the Doctor, and so I thought about getting in the script, Galla frame, which is like the circular font thing that they had. It's like this like alien languages like layered and has like connected lines and it's hard to described out physical pictures,

but it's basically like layered circles. I was going to get just and s R in script gallafraan somewhere my body, so it's like my regeneration after my So I might still do that at some point because it's cool. That also one that I don't think like screams like if you don't know what it means, Like, yeah, it just means like it's like a significant thing for me, because

I did think of it. Also, getting the non doctor who tattoo I thought about getting about a year ago, and I'm kind of glad I didn't go through with it. Was I was going to get the Rebel Alliance logo from Star Wars, but in the shape of a snowflake. Uh. That thought like a cool resistant snowflake then. But yeah, I think I think as much as I love Star Wars, I don't think I would have been that one would not have aged as well for me. I think like in thirty or forty years, hopefully I'll be like, why

was our resistant stuff. I don't know again, hopefully. I think it's funny that I'm going to be like ninety five and have gokuon Bvegetea on me Grandma, because mine is. I went with a subtle one too, because mine is just imperious Rex and kind of like your old English

a little bit for those who don't know. That's name more the Submariner's battle cry, and it's lentin for everyone that it's so you know, the number one Marvel character, name More the Submariner at the only one that no one has the rights too, I think like universal ad it or something at that point, because it's weird because he's like in this weird kind of X Men kind of Fantastic Four guy, so I think no one knows

what to do with him. But yeah, I like that one because it wasn't like a because I'm I'm always the type who's who's like, I don't want to do the thing everyone's doing. So I wasn't gonna get an X Men logo, He's going to get anything Superman or Batman, nothing Wolverine. And I was like, who's like a like far enough character to where like if you know, you know and it's like I like Naymore's energy, even though

sometimes he can be a total tool. Like I like just like I'm going to get what I want and I don't care. I'm gonna do what's best for me and my people. So that's how dry and live like that. Yeah, yeah, I guess we should talk about the and this show. So I kind of wanted to hear though in your own words, Riley, like what Doctor Who is for someone? Like if you have you seen I have not seen any I can't, So here we'll go to my Doctor Who history because I came in with Eccleston really liked it.

I love I love the thub Doctor. That's that's what Eccleston was for me. He was like, look, I survived the war and you know what's going I'm gonna pop off for gott to pop off, but I don't want to pop off anymore. And then we got Tenant, which was a dream. Then he changed Mint Smith and I just could not dig it. And everyone's like, just get back in, it'll be good, but I just never did.

And then it just kind of turned into that thing where it fell behind the queue of the million things that we have to watch but I plan to revisit. I think if you like Eccleston, you'll like Peter Capaldi because Peter is my favorite doctor. He has a layer and he's not everyone's favorite doctor, but I like him because when when he first comes in in series eight, he's pretty grumpy, so he has an Eckelson vibe a

little bit. That's actually what this tattoo is from. But then like he kind of like I think he's the doctor.

And I won't go too deep in this right now, we're gonna reet and talk about the show, but he's a doctor that I feel most had like an actual, like defined character arc of development, Like he comes in like kind of lost and grumping and trying to find himself, and by the end of it, his character has like found himself again and it's like very much about like kindness and empathy, and that gets me back to like

the show. So for me, like on its most simple form, Doctor Who is a serialized sci fi series about a time traveling alien who travels space and time in a spaceship that looks like a time machine and spaceship that looks like a police box for nineteen sixties, and that's and basically travels around, usually with a companion, once in a while alone but very rarely because it shouldn't travel alone, finding people like kind of stumbling upon people who are

in trouble and helping them. And that's basically the premise of the show. So it's not unlike how like the premise of Star Trek is like, Hey, we have a thing that's happening in this area space, let's go check it out and see what's going on. That's basically what

Doctor Who is like. They're often like the it's kind of quirky and at the hardest, which is the ship that they that they fly around in, which stands for time and all through dimension in space, Like they'll be like, oh, we're gonna go to this cool vacation planet and then they show up instead of a planet instead and like there's like trouble of Bruin and they'll kind of figure out what's going on and then stop it. Are they often here on Earth the other? Yes? Okay, both yes equally?

Would you say I'll make it goes from season to season? Okay, it can be. Some seasons are really earth heavy. We've actually had a pretty earth heavy several years, but other seasons, they almost never come to Earth. So this most recent scene, they always look human. For the most part, there are aliens that are alien aliens, but for the most part, doctors always the doctor looks well humans look time from the show. Yeah, there's a lot of humanoid races on

this show. Oh so there's an episode is actually actually a quote from the show. Someone says, when you look human, He goes, no, you look time lord. So there are what we perceived to be human. Time Lords basically look like humans, but they have two hearts and that's like the difference. That's the big difference between them. And they also can regenerate and have like longer, and they also can they've also I'm really glad that So I'm just gonna ask some questions. Sure, um, and I'm gonna let

you continue. So do they choose what they look like when they regenerate? Some can not, all can, um, Some people have randoms, sometime lords have random regenerations. Others can choose it. It's not super dug into the plot. That's kind of one of those things where it's just like in one episode the writers thought it was funny. They have this woman changed her appearance a bunch. So I guess sometime Lords the show is so fast and loose

with cannon that it's like really fun to watch. Fans then like scramble to try like no, this, this is what this means, because basically what happened is there was one episode in the seventies where a character or named Romana who was the Doctor's companion, but she was also

a time lord time lady. They replaced the actress in the second season that they had her, so they had her regenerate into this other actress and so they just had like a jokey scene the first episode with her where Romana kept walking in with different forms until she like solidified the ones it's gonna take and then travel with the doctor and it was La La Ward who

was amazing. So that's like, so then like when you if you play the Doctor Who role playing game and you play, like if you're playing as a time Lord, you can choose like customized regeneration as one of your options, whereas you played the Doctor, you have like you can't choose your regeneration, Like the doctor can't like consciously choose his or her regeneration happens at random random generation, so

there's two questions. Yes, so I remember there was a limit on how many regenerations that has uh, have we reached that it's been reset because the thing is the thing with that something like that, and that's that is a thing that was written into the show back in the like seventies and when they first started like fleshing

out time Lord culture. Because when the show first started in sixty three with William Hartnell the first Doctor, the phrases that I'm using time Lord regeneration two hearts galliph right, none of that was part of the show. That was all Doctor was just a weird alien and he and his granddaughter were traveling the universe in this police box. That like Tartists has now become like on the show

the term people used for these ships. But in that episode, like the granddaughter just called her ship the Tartist because of the initials. That wasn't like the official title for it. But it's just been reckoned over time, Like yeah, they're all called tartists. So the original one was like thirteen regenerations, and then what happened was at the end when Matt Smith became Peter Capaldi, there was they they had squeezed in an extra regeneration when they did the fifty the

Anniversary special. So there's a regeneration between Paul McGann, who was the Doctor, who the actor who played the Doctor in the nineteen nineties TV movie who was the eighth Doctor,

and Christopher Eccleston, who was the ninth Doctor. They squeezed in John Hurt as what we call the War Doctor, and the reason for that is because Eccleston didn't come back to the fifth Nivvertuary special, so they replaced so since he wouldn't come back for it, they wrote this new version of a doctor to kind of fulfill his role. So the idea is like basically when the show came back into thousand five, when it was kind of like had this soft reboot where it still had the old continuity,

but it's kind of a new format show now. It went from being a serialized twenty two minute episode show to being an hour each week, and each hour was

like a pretty self contained story. They introduced this concept of there had been this awful genocidal war in between when the show ended and when it came back that they called the Time War, and at the end of that Time or the Doctor, it was between the Doctor's race, the Time Lords, and their greatest enemy, the Daleks, and the end of the Time War was at that point was written to be that the Doctor did something that

was called the Moment. He unleased weapon called the Moment that destroyed both races, and he was the only survivor of the war. And that's why Echolson's Doctor is so torn and tormented because he has this guilt of being the destructor of his own own race on another race as well, which is very against what normally the creed

of the Doctor is, which is very antigenicidal. And like there's an episode in Classic Who called Genesis of the Daleks where the Time Lord send the Doctor, which is Tom Baker's Doctor back in time to the Daleks home world to try to prevent them from ever being created in the first place, and he ends up not doing it because he doesn't feel like he morally has the right to to deny and that our species the chance

to exist. And it's a really interesting, fascinating episode. And so that was kind of the the crux of the new show was that Doctor had like broken his own promise, and that's why they brought in John Hurt, like he was like, he hasn't even referred himself as the doctor. He's the one who failed to be the doctor, and then that's why he's The other ones are all feeling guilty from then on. So that was one regeneration that

was squeezed in. And also you may remember during David Tennant's run this net Present episode where he starts to regenerate and then like sends his energy out of him into a hand and turns into a new doctor. So that was like counted as regeneration as well. And so basically what happened was when Matt Smith was at the end of his run, he said, like, I've used my regenerations. I'm dying. When I die, I'm dead. And then through plot things that I won't spoil for people haven't already

heard it. They like Rea set his regenerations, and so Peter Capaldi was the first doctor of this news cycle and they've kind of now gone like, we don't know how many he has because they don't I think. I think when they made thirteen as the number that was back when the show, I had no idea they would last and come back after break, so it was easy to toss out like a number. It seems super fluck when you're on like when you're all on the fourth Doctor,

it's easy to go. Yeah, thirteen regenerations, We'll see whatever. Now that we're on Doctor, it's like, I don't want to say a set market. We might hit twenty six at some point because we're kind of going through these people every three years or so. Yeah, I wanted to go through some of these facts about when it was premiered. It was all over the map there, so no, no, no, I want to stop you because I want you to go through those facts after these messages. All right, those

were some juicy messages. I know you're like, oh, we'll get into the meat if you Why did you stop? Well, guess what, we're back. It's a difficent I'm iffy. He's over there, Riley's here with us here, so yes. So. Dr Who first appeared on BBC TV on Saturday, November twenty three, nineteen sixty three. It was actually eighty seconds later than it was scheduled to air due to the

assassination of John F. Kennedy Biggest Day. Yeah. In fact, like they almost canceled it because it didn't do very well and they had to re air it to get it like people to lately they like and they fought for it because um, essentially Sydney Newman created the show. He was a Canadian and he was like a head of drama at BBC at the time he created it. He also created the Avengers TV series, The Wonderful and uh you know I'm talking the British Brian Adventures not

being superheroes. Yes, so he created it. But Verity Lambert, who has mentioned down here, she was really the like mother of the show, like City Newman was like, and he's very responsible. He has a lot of credit for it. But but Verry Lambert really is who brought all these disparate bits of it together. Um, so she was really important to it and she fought to get them to

rerun the show. And also some of the stuff that she did that was really important, which is mentioned on here is the dialeks were basically so like the first the first serialized story was called an Unearthly Child, and it was like the doctor and his granddaughter Susan were on earth. He had two teachers who that were like in school with Susan, who were confused because there was something she seemed to have like an impossible knowledge of

like these really complicated math and science things. But then like history, she was like completely dumb on because she's from a different planet, different time period. So they like investigated her and they like followed her after school and she was like living in a garbage dump and they like a like a like a warehouse yard like workyard. Um. And so then they followed her in and they felt like they found her and her grandfather living in this box.

And then they're like they like argue with him and pushed their way in, and then he's like, well, you see my ships, and now we have now to take off. So they like left Earth and like went through time. They like trial back in time to like the Stone Age. That's the very first episode of the show and the Doctor in the original run. We'll go I know, we're gonna go more into each doctor as we move on.

But this is interesting because the show was so different than The Doctor wasn't really the hero of the show. He was kind of just like the foil for things to be happening, Like he was the reason why they were in this ship and they were traveling places, and he was a little bit cantankerous, a little bit crotchety.

He became more of a hero as time went on, because as actors left the show, it stopped being like originally, the Ian and Barbed the teachers were kind of like the heroes of the show, and like Susan was like a sidekick character, and the doctor was kind of not a not an antagonist, but he was kind of like this crotchety old man that was like like when like the reason why they were stuck in this ship. As people started leaving the show, that doctor kind of became

the constant and then became the lead. It's it's really interesting with this show how much just like necessity of invention creates canon, like the entire concept of regeneration, which I think we skipped over that when we were talking

because I was digressing a lot. The regeneration is basically a concept in the show where whenever an actor wants to leave the show, the actors played the doctor, they regenerate into a new form, which is basically a whole new genetic code for somebody, but who has the same essential memories and basic personality or not even personality, but like code of ethics and stuff as their previous versions.

But they could be widely different personality wise, and they can have very different behaviors and in tastes and interest and concerns and stuff at that, but a common creato basically, and it's just a genius way of yeah, And it came out of William Hartne was very ill. He was he had he had like a really bad illness and he could not get through the show and he would, like we joke about it a lot now, but he had a hard time saying his lines sometimes and he

would just like stumble over them. And back then they didn't have time to like take a like stop and refilm the scene, so we just cut it in a lot of flub lines on the show, and we wrote the screen junkies on his trailer for the show, like we had a joke about flubb lines, and people kind of took us to task for maybe fun of Heartnell because he was ill, but like it was we took

a bunch of flub lines. So they were like, we have to replace William Hartnell, and rather than just like find another actor who seems similar to him, they replaced him with Patrick Trouton, who was very different and how he approached the doctor and so that kind of locked in that we can change this character when we regenerate them. And so like the next doctor after Patrick Trouton was on Pertwee, who was like this like velvet coat wearing,

like secret agent guy. So that like a good example of a thing where the show needed to change for a practical reason, and so they just found a way to make it work with the plot. It's super smart. Yeah, No, it was crazy too, because I mean November twenty three is such a weird time to drop a show because like that was five days away for things, even even though this was in London. Yeah, I think they're not they're not super concerned about Thanksgiving. That's true. I mean,

you know but years before me and Danny were born. God, okay, so you've mentioned Riley, You've mentioned Dollis, Yes, quite a bit. And I think that most people, even if you're not, like if you haven't seen the show like me, but you would recognize these characters. Can you describe them to everyone's salt shakers with arms? Yeah, they they're the weirdest things because they are. They were in the second serial. The first serial was The Unhearthly Child, which had like

the alien the um, the Caveman or the stone Age. Yeah, and it's funny too because it's shot. They had like one set they had no money and they like shot it like in the tiniest set on the BBC lot. So the Daleks were the next serial and it was Terry Nation who was the writer of it, and he created these dogs and there they were made on a very low budget. Newman was really against it, Like Newman was like, I don't want any buck eyed monsters on

the show. But then they like very lamborous, like this was the only script that we had ready to go, so we had to film it. But then it was a huge hit because the Dollegs despite seeming like the silly because they basically looked like rolling salt shakers with a plunger in the middle of their head, which is like like like they shoot guns out they do. They do so many weird things with it, like they like if it grabs someone's face, they can like suck stuff

out of it. But they also taught they have like little like almost like the sound robotic. Yes, they have a very danger Will Robinson vibe to them. They're like yeah, but the thing is they're there, Yes, they're aliens. They are. They were a race of beings called the Colds who fought in a planet wide war against some other race called the Falls. This is all what came out of

like later season. At the time, this was a little bit less defined, like the Daleks and the Falls were enemies in this original storyline, that's all we really know about them. And there have been like a major war, and the Dollegs were like hold up in this city.

But basically when they were in this war, the College were mutated and put in these traveling machines to protect them, and then they became this like maddened, like supremacist race that basically wants to destroy all things in the universe but them. I'm so angry because I'm as I'm listening along, I'm kind of like googling just to see what things look like and to bounce back, and I realized that

Kalid's is Daleks backwardship. Yeah, so the Daleks are really interesting because they seem so silly, but there's something about them when they are used right, they're so creepy. And so the Dollargs are very much credited for this success to the show because kids in the UK really thought they were scary and like there's there's like a running gay with old Doctor Who fans of like hiding behind the sofa cushions because Doctor Who was on and the Dollegs are a big part of that. And they just

they talked very slowly and do they move slowly? They do, especially early on newer Newer who has kind of sped them up a little bit and given them the ability to fly. Really, yeah, it was a running It was a running gag because they like they used to be like the joke was like, well dolls, the simplest solution of dollargs has just put a stairwell in your building or something. But then during the they mate. No, they're they're mutants that like they're like they're like basically like

organically created. Yeah, because it's like how do they how do they make more of them? Yeah, basically a manufacturer. They're like they're like scientifically genetically engineers. When trying to say okay, okay, yeah, that's that's one thing that was interesting as someone who's more of a doctor who knew when I started watching, When I first saw the Daleks,

I was like, Okay, this is ridiculous. But as you kind of watch it and see almost the seriousness that the doctor has when that there's no way around it, you feel that that heaviness with yeah, with him. There's an episode in the first season in the modern series called Dolak. It's like the middle of Eccleston's run and you've meet the dogs for one Dollek by itself for the first time. It's real creepy. It's a scary episode. It's a base on our siege plot, and it's just

really scary the Dolleks. There are some pretty good dolle plots throughout the history of the show, and there's also some really bad dollar plots. They are an adversary that is really well used when properly used, and just ridiculous when used too much. They get kind of clownish and they get a little overdone, and they their mythology has been so spread out and made strange that it's it's

hard to like still find them scary. But they also been taking a break from using them a little bit, Like they haven't used them a lot in the last couple of years, and I'm hoping that when they finally do bring them back, it'll be like a huge it'll be like really intense, and I will say, I'm sorry to catch but I want to point out, just for people following along with my you you've spoken serials. You said cereal a unruly child, and just for the looking at it, and you can correct me if I'm wrong,

it looks like when you say cereal. It's a collection of episodes. One through four was technically serial a based on Yes, yeah, so basically modern I mean sorry, Classic Doctor who was rarely ever one episode, one self contained story. It was always used at least a two parts, usually more usually each usually it was at least four, sometimes could be six. At the largest ever was twelve plus one thing that was considered a bonus episode. It was like a attempt to spend off to a different series.

And then the second longest was ten episodes. And then there's arguments because there's a season during the Six Doctors run where the entire season is also a kind of a cereal, but with like mini cereals in it, So like like does that whole season count it's one cereal or is it a collection of episodes of multiple But yeah,

that's that's where you're getting, like nerd fandom. But yeah, so whereas modern Doctor Who is typically an hour long and there's a beginning, middle, and end of that story, and then our classic Doctor Who is roughly four to six twenty two minute episodes that tell one continuous story, which can be weird to watch when you're used to modern TV because they're still used like a beginning, the middle of the end of each episode and a lot of like resetting the arc in each new episode so

that like this episode has like steaks and for momentum and stuff like that. What can be really it's it's a strange thing to get used to watching, especially when you're watching them, Like if you sit down and watch like one arc and like a sitting and you like you spend like two hours watching this four episode thing. It can be weird to get this constant resetting of things.

But it was designed for an era people never rewatched stuff, people with just everybody watching the show, and it was like probably useful that if if you miss an episode and came back, you wouldn't be completely lost as what was happening, because you had kind of like a resetting of who the important power figures were and stuff like that. People forget that we didn't have like VCRs, like people

didn't record things back then. Yeah, well you're talking about in the sixties you kind of started to go into the doctors, but I wanted to officially go into them. So we have currently thirteen We're going to start from the top of the first doctor. Maybe you can just give like a line or two because there's thirteen of them of like what people should know about this doctor. So the first one up is William Hartnell from nineteen

sixty three to nineteen sixty six. Yeah, so he basically, like I said, he started out kind of cranky and kind of like slightly have a serial role with the with the companions, softened up over time when he was kind of was Do you think was that what was written for him or is that what he brought to the character. He actually I think he actually was instrumental in softening the character. He thought the character was to

grab and wanted to make him. He wanted to be more the hero of the show because one thing was like children loved he was like he he liked having a character that like his grandchildren could watch and like kids on the street with because he had always been

like military men and policemen and stuff like that. So I was gonna say, what we forgot to mention is that the program was originally intended to appeal to a family audience as an educational program using time travel, which is really smart as a means to explore scientific ideas and famous moments in history. If you don't know what

else did that wishbone? Uh much later, And actually, I the Modern Show the newest season is kind of going back to that education definitely, and in the same way that the original one did, where oh we're in space and we're learning a little bit about science and we're learning a little history when we go back in time, like the two historical episodes this current season have been. One was about Rosa Parks and almost about the partition

in India. Yeah. But but I mean, from what I can tell from this series, it did get very adult ish, right, I mean always family friendly. It's gotten darker in the modern era, but it always tries to be still kid friendly,

and kids still love the show. There are some episodes or people are like, it might be too scary for kids because in the UK they're not as married to what time a show runs, so there are some episodes where like if they're super scary, they'll run it later in the night because like they have like a they have like limits, but typically runs at the same time. But yeah, for the most part, it's still it's still at its core a show that's designed for kids and adults.

It's gotten more adult, Like it's not adult in the way that like Ballastar Galactica as adult, but it's adult, and that it might have like complicated themes and emotional things happening in it that you don't expect that you would, like we'll talk about it when we get to the episode guides. There are some episodes that are very like there's a lot of care for depth and things happening. Um, but just the way yeah, the one through these doctors

for you real quick. So yeah, William Hartnell original Doctor kind of like it was like the prototype. A lot of things you don't know, Like I said, we don't know that he's a time lord. We don't know that he's from Gallifrey. We don't know that he has two hearts. In fact, I think I think that even like inspect him at one point only has one heart because I've just been treated like a human basically, so that kind

of stuff is there softens over time. There's an episode called The War Machines, which I think is the first one where you really see him like step forward and like kind of seems like he's taking his role as

a defender of Earth. He leaves. Patrick Troughton is the next Doctor, and he was from nineteen sixty six to nineteen sixty trout And, unfortunately is the Doctor who bears the biggest brunt of missing episodes because the BBC dumped a lot of old footage and we're kind of they're finding more and more of his stuff, but a lot of his era has just lost to history. We're getting

some of it back. But Trouton really is, in my opinion, the doctor that helped define the Doctor as a character, as a hero as we as we know him today. A lot of what modern doctors are doing comes from what Trouton did with the role because he was a little bit younger, so they could like let him do some more action e stuff and they could like have him run around a little bit more than than Hartnell could.

So that's part of why that happened. And also at that point it was very clear the Doctor is the hero of the show. So but Trouton did. Trouton's big thing he dressed more like a hobo, you know that heart No, dressed like like a very like like polished gentleman. And Trouton had like patchwork pants and like a coat

that was too big. And his whole thing was he would disarm people by pretending to be dumb and silly, and they would like kind of like underestimate him, and then he would like actually be the smartest person in the room, but they wouldn't know it. This is a

really dumb question. But as a doctor actually a doctor um sort of, it's it's complicated, Like doctor did go to an academy on Gallifrey and like is very very smart and like they have in some episodes said it's one of the things for Cannon changes every every like this show has no real official can because sometimes doctor will say, yes, I have I have doctorates and these things,

but the doctor also lies a doctor jazz and jazz. Yeah, it's also a thing where because each showrunner kind of puts their own spin on it, and the departing shore Run or Stephen Moffatt had this idea back when he was just a fan back in the nineties, he posted on an IMDb message board that was this idea of what if the word doctor in our This was when

he was a fan, before he was involved in the series. Yeah, I think he might have written a couple of like not like like side things, but the show wasn't back yet. The show was like in the middle of what we call the wilderness years. He said, like, here's an idea, what if we got the word doctor from the doctor? Like this person who comes and helps people is like that because the doctor says, like, I call myself the doctor.

It's a promise I make to myself that I'm going to help people, basically, And so they what if we got the word doctor in our culture because of it? And then when he was showrunner he made that cannon. He had had a character tell the doctor and we get that word from you. You know, can you talk about how the name came to be doctor? What does doctor who mean? It was a joke. The joke is basically, I'm the doctor and they go doctor who, and that's the joke. So that's the name of the show was

a joke. And there's a lot of fighting the very first episode and it happens a lot on the show. And it's also a thing that people fight about a lot on the internet because the character is called the Doctor, but some people will say doctor Who, and people really mad. There is not not named doctor Who. It's a doctor. But if you've watched Classic Who, he has called doctor Who in the credits for most of the run series, and so it's not that cut and dry. Yeah, I'm

actually back. It's funny. Yeah, it's it's well. Actually, So, Doctor Trouten was the kind of the template what we think of the modern Doctor. John Pertwee is the first color in color doctor that's the nineteen seventy and seventy four.

He's the third Doctor. This was an interesting thing talking about the way the show has to change to the times, the that his series feels totally different to what came before it, partly because it's in color, and it feels much more like a seventies hard boiled like spy show, but alien and yeah, the premise of that early, especially the first few seasons of his run, the Doctor has been exiled from Galla for a to Earth, and he can't travel in space sometime, he can only stay on Earth.

In this one time period, and so he gets a job working for this organization called a UNIT, which is the United Nations in Televince Task Force, which also can

be unified whatever it changes all the time. He's the scientific advisor for Units, and he there's like a whole supporting cast of like soldiers and there's this really great supporting like he's the leader of unickname Brigadier left Bridge Stewart, who has become like a predominant like NPC essentially on the show PC, I'm playing too many games like a

supporting character who would make reappearances over the years. And then unfortunately Nicolas Courtney, the actor he played him, died and they never brought him back in the modern show, but they brought his daughter back to do his death take over his role. But so John Pertus character was. He worked for Unit. He stayed on Earth for the most part, and he was very like Smarmie and he was kind of like the seventies spy character he had.

He's very much like the kind of thing that Austin Powers was parodying, Like like he if you look at his picture, he's wearing like a velvet nightclub singer jacket. He would do like the Nucian I Kedo was his big thing, which like he basically like he like with karate, chop Aliens and go Hi. And he had he had gadgets. He had his Oh, he had like a car called the Humobile. He had a little old gelope he wrote around and called Bessie. And he had like like a

spiral copter. He'd fly right, he would just I love the ruffles on his shirt. Oh my gosh. His era introduced one of the next most prominant villains of the show, which is his character called the Master, who is the sort of antithesis to the Doctor. He's a renegade time lord as well, but he's one. It's it's very much a Xavier Magneto relationship, and it's a very much friend of mees over the course of his and not unlike Magneto. Some eras he's really really evil and some eras he's

just like a misunderstood. Yeah, there's a lot of that going on. So something you said that he does brings up a very interesting question that leads into something that's very important about Doctor who that I feel like you can confirm. We'll get into that after the messages. Welcome mag everybody is I am back still with Danny and right like hello, and we're only on Doctor four and there's so many it's fifty five years of show. I'm

sorry that I can't. But here's the thing. If we skipped any you would get a him actually about it was so um So yes, let's talk about Tom Baker, who is the fourth Doctor. Tom Baker is the Doctor Who, especially for American audiences, was like the doctor on the Classic era because that's the point when most PPS stations were definitely running the show. So he's the doctor when you imagine Doctor Who. If you're if you think of it as a guy with a scarf and of Fedora,

that's the doctor you're thinking of Tom Baker. And he's great. He is really he lives up to the hype in my opinion, because I I did when I watch to Classic Who, I was afraid I wouldn't like him because sometimes some of the people who are fans of him, not all of him, not of them. Some of them are also some of the fans of the most like prickly about certain things. But he's a really, really, really fun doctor. I don't know why, but he looks like

a modern day Freddie Krueger outfit. Do you see this at let me watch where's Freddie? Like that? And then this like these colors, this color scheme. You go, I'm gonna remember when this is when this episode goes out, I'm gonna tweet Freddy Krueger and and this anyways, please continue. That's what I jumped to, the color scheme in the hat. He was just he was very fun to watch. He had a booming voice that could fill the room, and he's just very charming. He played the role longer than

anybody and actually playing it because he did. He was on the show for seven years, seven seasons, and he it's funny because you can tell by again he's like done like and he actually when I mentioned law the Award the second Romana, they actually like had a romance and got married and then divorced over the course of the time. So when they first start getting on the show, there's a lot of like sparks flying, there's a lot

it's a really good era. Douglas Adams wrote for the show during his era, and it's it feels it's where the show starts to feel more like what we think of as modern hill. Peter Davison is the doctor after him. Pete. Davison's era is a lot more hard sci fi than like Baker's era had a lot of horror kind of stuff to it, and then a lot of it like veered into harder sci fi and there was like some more silly, rompy kind of stuff in the middle. Davison

did it for a few years. He has a very crowded tartist like there's like there's three kids in his tartists. In the beginning of it, he has a companion die under his watch, which is like a big deal at the time. And he also he's the one who wears a cricket outfit with a with a celary stick on his lapel. And he's just kind of nice. He's just a friendly dude. He's a he's a good, good, good bloke. I guess it's the big things when we did Yeah,

so he's yeah, he's fun. Uh. He was young. He was the youngest person never played the character at that point, so it was like it was interesting to have this like fresh face, blonde, young cricket player on the show. Colin Baker, the next Doctor of the six Doctor very controversial and was written very arrogantly was written originally to be like they kind of wanted to do what Peter Capaldi's doctor did, which was start kind of unlikable and become like by the end of it, didn't get a

chance to do it. Was actually fired by the BBC because he was very unliked. He has the worst costume, well not the worst people some people who love his costume Bretting Mad that says the worst. But he did not like he wanted like a more like stealthy, kind of like downplay costume, and they go, what if you had no taste at all? So they did that. He so that's his outfit. It's as a bunch of patchwork stuff.

His care his doctor is very arrogance, very self aggrandizing and very and like strangles his companion and it's hardist in the first one. So he's like they made him unlikable and his so he's he's unfortunately serve with some really weird storylines that don't do him justice. And he's actually a doctor who in the audio dramas on Big Finish has really kind of come into his own and kind of Colin Baker as an actor has really kind

of become an ambassador of the show. And it's kind of nice that he's kind of gotten an appreciation and as he's gotten older, because he I think he could have been a really great doctor and wasn't given the material to do it. And so what's great about the big finishes. He's now given that material and has been able to shine. Have you seen people, because you go to a lot of cons do you see people? Cause but yeah, people, people's outfit is wild. People make that outfit,

they do it. Yeah. He it's like if it's a bunch of colors, like just his whole suit is all different colors. Yeah, every doctor has fans, every doctor. That's why I don't like to be like, oh, he's the word I like every doctor. It's not a doctor I don't like. And I actually liked Colin Baker's doctor. And there are some fun plots during his era. It's just it's real dark too. Semecer McCoy is the last Doctor of the classic era. He played him from eighty nine

the show was canceled. His doctor kind of goes to a bit of metamorphosis as well, Like he's kind of this silly buffoon when he first comes in and he like his whole thing, his like first season is saying idioms wrong, Like he'll like start saying it one way and then say it the wrong way. I can't even think, like yeah, it would be like a lot of like, well, you know, a bird in the hand is worth a leaf, Like that's what he would say, and like what so

that would be hit. But his character has He's the one if you'd see pictures of a doctor with like a vest ask question marks on it, like a bowler hat and an umbrella with the question mark at the end of it. He had a great companion named Ace, who was like a very tough like like street wise like she she was a waitress on a on a space station. But she's like the like tough like she's kind of the prototype of characters like Buffy like female

like strong female warrior characters. And the kool Waits whole thing was like they were kind of they were trying to bring back mystery to the show, so there was like a plan to do that and then the show was canceled. But there was a lot his doctor or would intentionally like lie to his companions because he was like trying to man to wait them so that he could fill his plans like he would trick his companions and being upset that he could like trick the enemies

or whatever. Paul McGann is the least longest last thing Doctor because he's only in it for at the time, one TV movie. He has since come back for one like web based like prequel episode special another Doctor though, Who has found a huge, huge audience in audio dramas audience and they're really good. But the game is the There was a basically the show was canceled at eighty nine. Fox and the BBC tried to bring it back in the mid nineties. It was going to be at Fox

and BBC joint production series. It ended up not getting picked up, but they did air it as a made for TV movie and so Paul McGann played that, and then we didn't have Doctor Who again until two thousand five. I mean, there were books, there were audio things, but the but that was the big thing. So then eccleston ninth he's great, he's really good, did not get along rust T Davis, the show runner, like they'd worked together before, but some reason they clashed on the set of the shops.

Different than any other Doctor I mean one he has a leather jacket. His outfit is what Colin Baker said he basically asked for when he was a doctor. He's like, I want a character who was like to have sex. No, I just saying, he looks like he's a man about tech.

Like he looks like like a younger by the way, even though some of the other ones might have been younger, but he looks more like I guess because when was this in the nineties, never mind two thousand five, Like he looks like yeah, like like they're trying to appeal maybe to to this like younger. Yeah, what was the

new show? It was in the new series was coming back from his doctor is the survivor of the time war, and he's in a lot of pain, and he's got like a kind of PTSD from the war and a lot of regrets and a lot of self loathing because of already did, which is why I think his outfit is so muted. It's like he and have time to think about what he wants to wear. He just throws on a jacket and a T shirt and goes way

or a jumper um goes on his way. And he was only there for a season and Eccleston had problems with Russell to Davis, and he ended up leaving the show at the end of his first season and has not really been a fan of the show ever since, and which is why he didn't come back for that.

But he will, I will say to his credit, he is very sweet to the fans still, and he actually did an appearance this year at London Comic Con and he or the London TV and Film test for whatever, and he like, there's a lot of great shots of him running into other actors who have played with Doctor and he's very cordial and nice to them, and he there's been videos once in a while to pop up or he's like send a message to fans who are sick.

So he will still be the Doctor for fans, but he just doesn't watch the show and doesn't have the same investment in the show that most actors who have played it do. I think because his experience with it was so bad. Unfortunately David Tennant replaced him. Yeah, I was gonna say, David Tennant seems to be this is just speaking from an outsider perspective. A lot of people's

favorite Doctor. I would say that he and Tom Baker tended me that to the people are the most Why do you feel like David Tennant resonates so much with so many people? I think he's just very charming. He's very fun to watch. He's he feels very heroic and very dynamic. So it's very easy to fall in love with.

Is he comed he seems Comedic's m Yeah, he's the silly, quirky, like goofy boy doctor and he's got a little bit of emo vibe to him, like like these memes of him crying in the rain, and there was like a love story with him and his companion Rose, which people got into. It is a lot of people who are like big shippers get into the show in this era and he's great and he's like he's like got he runs around in the suit with a sweeping trench cope. It has like a cape kind of vibe to it.

So and I think also like he was the doctor when the show was voice starting to find its voice in the modern era, so I think he's like the solidified doctor in people's heads. Yeah, And before we move on, I do want to point out the thing that we went to break with that people are like, what is that question? He's going to ask. So you're saying that

per Tweet had this like karate chop. Yeah, and when this is when I was watching, and one of the big things, especially Tenant would always drive home is that he never wanted to use violence. Yeah, and and so like that was the That's why I like the Sonic

screwdriver because it doesn't hurt name or something else. Yeah, well, they actually I will say that the most recent season, there was an episode of Doctor she used Venetian I kudo and she did it, and it's it's presented much more as like a pacifist form of web of fighting. Like it's it's done as like a defense fighting as

opposed to an offensive fighting. And the way she does it in the episode, I love that she walked up to someone and just put her fingers against his throat and was like, I'm holding like basically like a pressure point move. And so like that's kind of how they read con that era. Since if he brought up the Sonic screwdriver, can you explain to people what that is? Yeah,

it's an expedition skipping device. It's a it's a thing that they use on the show to get the Doctor out of locked doors or like to hack into computer systems and things, and every every doctor looks different. Yes, okay, because it was a really big deal. I remember at Comic Con this year to get the thirteenth Doctors Sonic Screwdriver, and I literally my dumb but was like, oh, there's I thought it was like Sonic the Hedgehog because I

saw people kept tweeting about it and not even kidding. Um. I was like, man, it must be like limited edition, but you got your hands on one right. A friend of mine, my friend Aaron Byery, was at Comic Con.

I always up in Portland. I was at a Queer festival, comedy festival, and Aaron Byery got got her hands on it and shipped it to me from Texas, so I got it before it like hit the stores, which was great because they did not get my hands on the Funko Pop And I'm like really bummed about it because it still hasn't been released the mass market yet. But yeah, so every doctor some don't even have them, but everyone's.

The classic ones are pretty similar looking what they're kind of like gray with a red thing, but modern doctors all had their own. I think the Eccleston and Tennant had the same one, and then Capolity used Matt Smith's for a few years before he got his own. But and then he's got this this Smith One's got destroyed and then he got his own that he used for like a season. There was a season where he didn't have one at all, when he used sunglasses instead of screwdrivers,

and people did not like it. People were not happy. People don't like it when you really change your doctor who sometimes So where was I so David Tennant? Matt Smith. Matt Smith is the pretty boy young doctor. He was the the next one after Tenant. He was Steven Moffatt's first doctor as showrunner. He's also the big one where the show really broke in America because the show moved from being like rerun on Sci Fi to being aired the same day that the aired in the UK on

the BBC. So I would say Matt Smith is right behind David Tennants as far as what doctor modern fans connect with. Oh, despite being younger and being kind of quirkier, he's a little darker of a doctor than Tenant's doctor. He despite being also at the time and still the youngest actor to play the role. He also has like this very interesting old man quality to him, and he feels like an old soul and is a little bit more and down. He's a doctor who thinks he's going

to die, but he's fine. He also very much based his performance on Patrick Troughton, so he's very similar to Trouton and that's so I kind of like him. Um, Peter Capaldi my favorite doctor. I loved it, which is not very not a popular opinion, but I really like him. He's just he just has so much fun with it. He's like the rock star grandpa doctor is the best

way to put it. He just like there's some really heartbreaking moments with him, and and it's a tougher era for some people who aren't who are looking for Like you said that the family friendly kind of like simple fun stuff happening. It's tough. There's some really heavy episodes in his run, and there's a lot of like inconsistent plot things that happened too. But I really love him, and I think Peter is also just my favorite actor to have played the Doctor because he just loved He

grew up as a fan of the show. He was a huge fanboy from day one, and he just loves being loved being part of it, and you just got I just got that sense of someone just loved being there. And then we've got Jody Whittaker, who is is coming up in the ranks for me. She's amazing. She's the first woman to play the doctor. She very quickly settled in the settled in the role in my opinion. And we haven't got a lot of details about her yet.

But how many episodes have aired so far? So far we've had six, and how much is supposed to be in a season? Do you know this year it's only gonna be ten. Usually it goes to twelve. But they've actually been there about twenty two minutes. These ones are These ones are about an hour, so they're fifty minutes, not counting commercials and breaks and stuff like that. Her doctor so far is a little bit she apologizes a lot more, which has been criticized because it's a woman.

But I don't view it as much as woman saying sorry. I think of as character who is who has all this weight on her shoulders from what's come before her. Because Peter Capaldi's whole run was like am I a good man? And it's like I don't. I'm not, but I should try to be. And like the last words that he said before regenerating into her was talking to himself and his future regeneration, saying, run fast, laugh hard, and be kind. And that was the like the rules

the doctor gave themselves. And so I feel like that's what she is doing. And so she's funny here. She's she has a lot of what Tenant had going on, the kind of like nnic nous and kind of like like getting distracted in trains of thought. But she just seems to have a lot of empathy and a lot

of concern. Like there's an episode in this current season where the companions like to begin with with with her by accidents and like they got sucked into space together and then they got they found the tartist and they like, we're trying to get back to home, and she got them home the same day they left. But then they all decided to go travel with her more anyway, and she's worried about it. She's like says, like, I can't guarantee you'll be safe, and I can't guarantee you won't

be the same. You won't you won't be very different by the time they get back and she's like worried about them, and so that was a moment where that that was very different because usually doctors like run away with me and how fun this will be great, Where she's like, are you sure you want to do this, and then they say yeah, She's like, okay, cool, come on, and so it's fun. So she flips on a dime

emotion wise, but is very fascinated and excite. It very much feels like a character who had been dragged down by life for a long time who suddenly has a new lease on life. So for me, narratively, I feel like you can see a very strong thread of what was going on with Matt Smith and Peter Capaldi's doctor especially, and what Jody Whittaker is doing now. So I think it's really interesting. I'm really looking forward to seeing what

happens with her. I hope she's around for at least two or three more years, but I I'm curious because like right now, I think we're still establishing her. But I will say that it was it was very quick where I stopped. There's always an adjustment period with a new doctor because you're so used to the last doctor. Where it's like this person is not the doctor. That was very short with her, and by by the third episode, I kind of forgot that was supposed to thinking about it.

So when they regenerate, she regenerated as like what we're looking at right now, like with her costume and her age and she picks her The costumes are not regenerated with the doctor. Typically they just like go clothing shopping or like fine clothes and pair they are they just like naked and they're wearing They're wearing the clothes. Is that what it opened up with, Yeah, she's wearing When her first episode she's wearing the clothes Peter Capalty was wearing.

So it's and I actually caused plate as that look at this year Gallifrey One' an annual doctor convention and I went in the torn up blue velvet jacket that Peter Capalty have that I have my blonde hair. Is it like an emotional moment for who like doctor? Who fans to see like you know your doctor means it's a combination. It's sadness of the doctor you like leaving and excitement for the new doctor. Right for me, this

show was a show about change. It's a show about the fact that you keep moving forward to keep adapting that, like I mentioned, it has had so many different faces and tones over the years that for me, I embrace when it tried. Like this has been a tougher season for me to get into because of some major changes in the way the narratives are being presented and the

plots are happening. But I'm trying to be It's tough because I'm looking at it now if i's as a professional critics, I have a little bit more detached from my normal just like wanting to love it, but I am trying to like cut it some slack and go no, no, this show is doing something different now, and that's okay.

Likes it's a show about change. Yeah, So because I will say yeah, Riley mentioned, uh, she mentioned how a lot of times I only seen you know, I guess technically two or three regenerations, and they yeah, you're right. They oftentimes say they're kind of final piece, which is almost like their goodbye to the fans. And you know when David Tennant on his regeneration, O, man, he was like, I don't want to go, and I was like, I don't know. Yeah, Doug tears, I was done. I was done. Yeah,

it's yeah. He went on to do broad Church, which was which I hated him, which I mean like he was good, but I hated it. What's tough about kill Grave is he actively played killed Grave very similar to how you played the Doctor, which was so mean of him to do. Like he basically a lot of similar mannerisms, the same the same London accent because he's a Scottish accent, but he killed with the exact voice. He difference. That's what shook me. In broad Churches, he uses his Scottish Yeah,

I love broad Church. He showed on our broad Church Chriship and is the showrunner doctor who now really yeah, which is why Jody Whittaker got cast as the doctor because she was talking to him on the set of He was already thinking of her. But yeah, that Joe. The story was that she was talking to him on the set of broad Church and she was like, keep me in mind. He wanted me to come in and play a battye or something. He's like, well, you could

audition to be the doctor. She killed it apparently, which I can see. Um. So, Riley, you mentioned some episodes, but we I just wanted to talk to you about, like, um, well you wrote an article about the best ones for people to start if they're trying to jump in. Yeah, I wrote an article that was I wrote it last year kind of like as a preparing for Jody Whittaker article. What I would say is that if you just want to jump, this is a shell that you very much can just jump in with. It is not a show

like there will be things you don't immediately get. That's okay. I have watched the entirety of the show, and there are things that I forget about or that I don't remember, or it's fine, and like also, it's not as good at continuity as you might think it is, and so there are a lot of things that are recon and things that are changed and things that are done differently

each time. So I would recommend if you're going to jump in, either jump in with Rose the two thousand five like premiere the new Modern series, or you can jump in now with Woman Who Fell to Earth, which is Jody Whittaker's first episode, and you can just watch this current season and then maybe if you like it then you can go back and watch more, or if you the other episode that I'd recommend starting with if you're not going to do one of those two things

is the Eleventh Hour, which is Matt Smith's first episode, because I think that, more so than Rose and more so than the premiere of any other modern doctor, it is the episode that most like. It starts from like a fresh beat and explains who the doctor is and

kind of gives you the tone of what's happening. And I would say, watched the Eleventh Hour and watched maybe the whole fifth season, and that will give you a pretty good bearing of what this show is um and that I think you do the same thing now with this new season. I think that I think that woman fell to Earth and onward. It's a good way to start the show fresh if you need to do that.

It's a show it's been on for as long as this one has knows that it cannot assume that new viewers are going to watch the entirety show, and so every few years they do try to make a jumping on point for new fans to watch it. So, yeah, that's so I recommend if yeah, if your goal is I've never watched it before and I want to watch it now, and you've already listened to this entire podcast, not just just screened and yelled and ran away it.

I would recommend, yeah, either Rose eleventh Hour the Woman Who Fell to Earth, and then watch onward from there. I used to recommend Eleventh Hour or Woman Fell to Earth before four rows only because the budgets and technology levels and thousand five are a little bit tough for new viewers. But I think once you're into the show and you're kind of invested in it, you get a little bit more like, oh, it's kind of charming, how

Babby effects look. At that point, it's a little bit the show finding its feet isn't as frustrating because you already know, but it's going to get somewhere that you really like. So I when I wrote my piece that was like how to binge watch the show, I basically did the way people do with Star Wars, where like here's you can view it in this order, view it in this order, and I put like six options, and one was like just jumping fresh, almost like start with

nineteen sixty three. And there was one that was like my version of the machete cut, which was this is ridiculous and I'll rush through it quickly. And you can read the article if you want to know more. But it basically start with Matt Smith, watch his first two and a half seasons or three, and then go back and watch Elston through Tenant, then come back with Day of the Doctor, and then watch through Kapa onwards. So it's a lot, but I think it's actually a good

way to do it. It's just because it kind of like it kind of like gives it a whole new like now you get this guy and then you reflect on why he's so sad about time workers. You learn about these guys, and then when you get to Day of the Doctor, Oh yeah, that's the guy that I liked in This guy there together in the episode at the same time. So yeah, oh well that'll be in

the fitnotes for you to look up. I mean, if I had to pick an episode, if I was, and this isn't based on like anything other than it's one of my favorite, it is, uh, you're you're you'll know the correct one when I say, because it's probably one of the most popular. But what is it Father's Day? Now? Yeah, Father's Day is great Father's Day. It's funny because you said Father's Day and on this list that we have

from the Internet. Of the s episodes, there's a Human Nature and well Family of Blood, which are both written by Paul Cornell, who is just a really lovely guy and he really gets the show. And Father's Day is one that we talked about. You brought it up, Oh man, Father's Day. I have yet to watch it since becoming a father. Uh. And it's so just to give a little backstory Rose who we mentioned, which was I don't think she is, but she definitely is one of the

longer running companions right because she was. She's not that long running. She's only in it for two seasons and then she has some resurgent parts. Um. I think Amy Palm was on for a little bit longer than her, and Clara Oswell definitely was long longer than longer than her. But she's I think, very enduring and very popular amongst the a lot of the fans. And also Sarah Jane Smith, who we didn't mention, who's a classic comedian, was probably

the longest running. Were close to it, but oh yeah, and it was crazy because it was with this one her Nickelston, I felt like they had this will they won't they? Especially Tenant when her especially happen and it had and you know, they had the whole thing because she had a boyfriend at one point and she abandons him for this doctor, and I think that kind of that kind of pushed it even more in that direction.

So they kind of building this relationship. And then in this episode she goes back into time to the moment her father passes away, and this whole episode and eccleston is the doctor, not Eccleston, but the Eccleston is the doctor and this one, but the doctor is against her trying to change time, but she wants to change and there's dire consequences. It's a good episode to establish rules of the series. Like it established is why you can't change major reveents in time, and that's a good one.

This actually, the most recent season had an episode that just aired called Demons in the Punjab, which is which I made a mispronounced. But it's it's a similar premise of I want to go back and see a family member. It doesn't quite have that dire consequence, but it's it's the same kind of thing of like, I don't know if we should do this because it's your own history, but it's a it's a it's they go a very different direction with it, but it's it's fun to see

episodes that use time travel in that way. The episode that number one on here, that is the one that most people recommend that people go and watch is Blink Blink. I think Blink is a really good episode of television, and it is one of the better episodes of Doctor Who. I used to say that I didn't think it was an episode to introduce a show to people because the

doctor is barely in it. But someone made the good point that it's a good episode to give an idea of what this show is without hap to note any of the characters involved, because the characters out of the main characters of it, you don't ever really see again. So it just gives you an idea of what this show is all about from an outsider's point of view. It's a really it's actually written by Stephen Moffat, who went on to be the show runner for the show.

It introduces one of the creepiest aliens of the modern series, the which were then later ruined by being used too much.

It should have been used this one time, and this one time only, called the Weeping Angels and their whole thing is their statues, and if you're looking at them they don't move, but if you look away or you blink, they can move, and like they and then they they touch you, they send you back in time and they like feed off the potential energy of what your life would have been if they hadn't touched it, which is really creepy and weird. But they're very scary because it's

it's it's just moving statues and they looked terrifying. They look terrifying, and the fact that you never see the move and then later on you show them moving and it ruins it. But when you see when they're on this episode, you never see the move. You just see them reappea, like like the lights come back on there in different spots than they were. So it really plays

on the scariness of statues. And the doctor is not there because they have sent him back in time and he doesn't have as chart as And so the main character, who's actually Casey Mulligan before she was like super famous Carry mull again, Yes, sorry, I always do it wrong, Carry mull again before she really blew up, is the main character the episode, and it's like her figuring the mystery out and you get a lot of things about like the idea of like cyclical time travel and the

weirdness of time travel, and it's a really fun little mystery episode. It almost feels like an episode of Black Mirror where it feels like it could be part of an anthology series if you don't know the Doctor at all, so cool. Yeah, I don't know if we missed we didn't talk a lot about companions. That could be a whole thing. But companions are basically the people who travel with the doctor. In the most recent season they're calling them friends instead of companions, and in the Classics series

they called them assistance, but they're basically audience surrogates. They're kind of the idea of, like, well, the main character is almost a god, so let's have this person is a little bit more mortal traveling with them, although there have been time lords and travel with him too, But yeah, they're basically there to be the kind of more mortal people to ask questions of a doctor and have Expedition explain to them when things were happening, and you know,

mentioning Father's Day to give there maybe some more stakes to the story than if we was just one person. Is a companion always human? Not always like I said, we had the character of Romana, who was she's the time Lord. Typically Yes, I'm sorry. It messes with my head because they look human right most No, there's never one, with the exception of there was one season where there was a shape shifting robot named Chameleon. For the most part, yes,

all the companions are are humanoid. Okay, okay, I don't think there's any I think the only non human companion is Romana. And I apologize Internet if I've gotten that wrong. And if you tell me Rory you're wrong. Rory was not an autom when he was a companion the Universal's reset at the end of the seas. Yeah. Um, I did want to mention our giveaway that we're doing. Yeah, so we are partnered with Entertainment Earth. You also go and check out our Twitter feed because we have posted

a giveaway which I actually have for Riley here. You get to open it on We don't have to open yes, but um, if you could tell the people what you're looking at, because is what they can win. Okay, you can win the candy doctor. I have this. It's amazing. Now you have another one. Yes, oh my god, you have Missy. I mentioned the Master earlier, which is the the adversary of the Doctor that the the Magnetos The Doctor's X. Missy is a female regeneration of the Master.

She was played by Michelle Gomez, who is Madame Satan on the Sabrina's Needs show. And she's amazing. She's so good, she's such a good she's such a good villain on that show on Doctor Who in on Sabrina, but are you talking about the new Sabrina. Yeah, yeah, you're right. But she's so much fun and she's a little bit she's even more on hinged on Doctor Who than she has on Sabrina. So it's really fun. And then also

it's a funco pop of Missy. And it's also a funco pop of the Tartest that had that has been painted for the missing Clara, which is a really cruel and mean thing to make. This. Yeah, this is the

thing that they made. Don't mean things like this is a sad, sad thing that happened on maybe but is it like commemorative and some the character died and someone painted the tardest and her memory, So I will make my last pitch for the show because you asked me earlier the show is about and I said, uh, simply, it was a traveler helping out. I what I like about this show is it is especially in an era where so many TV shows and movies about heroes are

are they said violent. There there's a lot of like, it's a lot of always coming. There's just violence in the show. Dr Kaginal does have to like go to action. But this is a character who always leads with empathy. It's a character who always thinks that there was going to be a pacifistic solution to the problem, that always wants everybody who survived, everybody to do well. And the

credo of this doctor. You know, Stephen Moffatt was speaking at Gallophrey one this year and he was talking about the when they created the Doctor, they go instead of giving him a gun, they gave him a screw driver. So they gave him a thing to fix things instead of instead of like when the Superpowers, they gave him two hearts. Like they made a character who is extra

full of love and support and empathy. And I like, if you want to hear me, really, I already ranted about this on the query podcast, so I'll kind of even though this is a Doctor Who discussion, I think that I'm a better person because of watching Doctor Who. Like, there are moments in my life where I have seen directly that I have behaved differently because I behaved the way that I think that doctor would want me to, or because the doctor inspired me to behave differently. Like

there was a day last year. I'm in for those of you haven't figured it out at this point, I am a transgender woman, and there was a day last year where I don't know if you guys have heard the news, but there was a big anti trans thing that happened where we were being like basically like being banned from the military. Not that I ever want to start in the military, but it was. It was very dehumanizing and a very hurtful thing that day, and I wanted to lash out with anger, and I wanted to

be like frustrated in full of rage. Was I occasionally do I fail? I do that occasionally? That day I just took a step back and said, what can I do to help right now? And the doctor Who's and it just ended and Peter Capaldi had given this big speech about like I don't do what I do because it's easy. I don't do what I do to win. I don't do what I do because I want to defeat somebody. I do what I do because it's kind, because it's right. That's why I do it, and that's

that's the only reason. And then just just be kind. And that stuck with me really hard, and so when that happened, I had a moment of like, what can I do right now to be kind? And so what I thought of was what's going to happen immediately because of this announcement, because of the backlash and stuff like that, is that people who are in crisis are going to

need extra help right now. And there's an organization called trans Lifeline that is a that is a crisis hotline for for for trans people specifically who the operators are all trained to speak with compassionate language and to not miss gender people and to understand where we're coming from when we call and we need certain things. So my response to this horrible news story was to just post a thing like, Hey, they're gonna need money right now

for these calls. Oh, let's raise money, and we raised I think we raised like five plus grand that day and it was like it just kept getting bigger and kept getting bigger and cat blew me away. And I remember thinking to myself, I actively thought to myself that day, today is the day that I chose to be the doctor and and that's like so it's it's this show to me inspires that in me, and it inspires me too.

There's a great moment at the end of the last Christmas special where the Doctor is supposed to be taking a man back to die and he's a World War One soldier and he just like goes like I'm gonna push his death back one hour, and he pushes it

back an hour when he drops him off. And he dropped them off in the middle of the Christmas Christmas Armistice, which was when the German and American soldiers put down their guns and saying Christmas carrolls and played football, which is a real historical event, and like that was like, like, this is the one day in the history of war where everyone put their guns down and didn't fight. And that's inspiring to me. And that's what this show is

to me. And so like, yes, there's goofy people in rubbers suits and there are dumb sci fi things, and for the most part it's just quipping and running around down hallways and running from goofy looking aliens. But there's just this message at the heart of it, which is uh, like when you mentioned you love uh David Tennant, David Tennis. Doctor always gives his opponents a chance to do right. Like, he gives them a chance and like once they like, he gives them a chance to save themselves and stop

what they're doing. And then when they when they don't, then he will move against them. But he always gives them a chance. And there is just something about that that inspires me. And so I've ranted a lot about it now it's like we'll wrap up, but that's my pitch for why the show is so great in my mind. And if that speech gets you riled up, I will say, there is the when the Master appears for David Tennant, and that was there is a moment where he does

that and it's so good. Yeah, So definitely check that episode out if you if that really got you, you know, fired up, and then do something dope. Yeah, that was so beautiful. Ile, Like you're the only person that was like made me cry. I'm over here, like, oh my gosh, we should always have people pitch. But it's so That's why I love having someone that's so passionate about it.

That's the best part of of Nerd Dumb. Yeah. I know we're going way longer than normal, but I just about this show well, you know, and again we wanted to hit on things. Even then we'll probably get written that we miss something, but yeah, what I wanted to I want to say that to that because I will. I get called out for forgetting things all the time. We move fast when we're talking on a podcast, we're talking on a thing. So I may have had things that I wanted to say or things that were corrective

and I just moved on. And it wasn't that I forgot. Wasn't that I intentionally So if there's a there's a character that you really love and you think, well, what you forgot taught my person, Like I didn't talk about Leila. I just wrote a piece about Lela for Sci Fi, So like, there there's a lot of things and talk about. We've had to do that with our own franchises that

we love. But also if if we did leave something out, just tell us why you love it like, hey, I grew up you know where I connected with this character and and yeah, least we have a show tweet at me. I love what I love about Doctor Who is that it's been on for so long and it's been so different over the history that two people who both love the show as much as each other might love it for totally different reasons. It's totally different eras. That's so fun.

It's and it's so fun for me to hear people who whose favorite doctor is John Pertwee, and I love to have them So I like John bertswe not my favorite doctor. I loved as someone tell me why he matters so much to them. And I have a friend of mine who loves him because she reminds her of her grandfather. And it's like really sweet and that's like cool,

let me let me hear more about that. Yeah, And what I was gonna say to do that note is like, yeah, I I noticed we get that all the time and usually comes from a place of like that's my jam, and I wanted to hear y'all talk about it. We're we're on the internet, we basically lived there, So definitely tweet at us and keep the conversation going, and don't forget the discord. I don't want any of your tweets about why you don't want johny Witwger as a doctor.

I don't care. I don't want to hear about it. We just want to hear about things that you tell me what you love about. I mean, that's just something I like in general. I think they're I feel like the Internet has become like hate has been currency like you. I think I've said this on the pod before, but like hate gets way more love, and I want to change that, especially in nerdom, and tell me why you love something, and and if you don't like something, just

pass on it. Find something you love and share that. Where can people find you? You can find me on Twitter at Raley J. Silverman and on Instagram Riley Silverman and I mentioned we mentioned the top that I write for Nerdice. I'm doing the reviews for this current season Doctor Who. I'm also right now recording I don't think I can say the name of it yet, but keep following me on Twitter. I'm in a live play podcast of the Doctor Who role playing game, and I am

playing the doctor. So that's that's an exclusive break. I haven't. We haven't been talking about it too much yet. We've kind of keeping it mums. So we're gonna launch it some point in twenty nineteen, so keep your eyes peeled for that. And I am uh one more thing I wrote for the honest trailers for a Doctor Who on Screen Junkies, and even if you've never watched the show,

I think it really funny. And also if you never watched and you kind of want to get like a really cool quick overview of it, watched the one for Modern Who, especially because it really I think because the people who wrote on it, Joe Star and Spencer Gilbert and Uh, Lawn Um Harris, like Lawn had watched on the show. Spencer and Joe had never watched the show, and they still cranked out along with myself and Uh and Dan Merrill, who watched. He did all of Classic

Who on his own. They had they had never really watched it, and it was really kind of fun, Like I worked with the guy with all of them on both of them, but Dan did most of the Classic Who on his own, but I worked with all them, wrote jokes for both of them, and it's a really good breakdown of the show and I think that if you are curious by Doctor Who and you don't know what it is and you kind of want to watch like a ten fifteen minute thing that tells you as

much as you can. I recommend those videos right and you know me, you can find me at if you wide away On Twitter and Instagram. The discord is discord dot g g slash Salt Squad. We have tons of rooms, lots of nerd fam jumping in there having combos. Danny announced the giveaway there first, so if you were in there you knew. I mean, you still gotta wait till we do it, but you know it's something to get you through the week. Yeah, we like to have fun in there. I was gonna say so this week what

oh yeah, the movie that I'm in drops this week. Um. I mentioned it last Ralph Breaks the Internet probably mentioned it one or two more podcasts. I'm so excited for it. It's a big deal. Yeah it's a big deal. And yeah, yeah, it's a huge deal. It hasn't fully hit ever because like people, I honestly, it's not I don't want to say it's not that I didn't think it was a big deal. It's just that I've been living with it for a while, and it was until people like came

up to me like this is huge. I'm like, is it? Is it? I guess is it huge to be in a Disney movie? I guess, um, it just feels weird. We're also really you know self, I'm self critical. I feel like we're constantly you know, it's a very competitive city and so it can feel like your accomplishment. You can forget your own accomplishment sometimes. Well I'm here to remind you. Yeah, so check that out A drop this week. I'm currently in Arizona right now, taking my niece and

you to see it because that's where they live. Danny is currently sweating me. I'm probably chilling like a villain. But also one thing I want to mention before we sign off, definitely check out our tea public tea public dot com slash Nerdifficent got lots of goodies there, and I was gonna say, I think that they're probably doing a Black Friday saying yeah, there's which is perfect because it coincides with this Thursday, which is when the nerd

Preme Nerdifficent shirt drops, only available for eight hours. Be there or B Square maybe I'll drop it during the Black Friday stale. I guess you'll have to pay attention to Twitter to find out. I love being indecisive. But you know, we learned a lot today. We learned about dr who learned that Belgium and Germany are not the same country. That we all equally at the same time. Everyone in this room, Zack in the booth as well,

has learned. Which big shout out to Zach in the booth and our man Dan, the man producer, Dan who puts together the research and you know, produces the damn thing. All right, y'all, we're gonna end this the same way we always ended. I'm doing on a laptop, so you know it's time to leave. Staying there to you