As some of you may know, I really enjoy a little British show called Doctor Who. I am a relative newcomer to the series that has been around since 1963, but in the short time that I have followed the series I have become quite the fan. I don’t consider myself to be any kind of super fan or anything like that, but I really like the show. I was always intrigued by it. Here was this show from England that played every Saturday night on my local PBS station. It seemed like it should be really cool, but it also always seemed really old. At least, when I was a kid.
As I got older, it stopped being on PBS, and then when I entered adulthood, it started back again, but it was newer, more appealing visually. I still had a hard time jumping into the series because I just felt overwhelmed. It seemed like when tried to watch some random episode I just had no idea what was going on. I am a completest, meaning when it comes to collecting things, I want the whole set and can’t stand when one piece or part is missing. I watch my shows the same way, especially with Netflix. Netflix was made for people like me. This made it really hard to really get into Doctor Who for me because there was so much to cover that it would take forever to catch up. But, I was brave, and jumped in any way. Sort of. I still had to go back to the beginning of the reboot, which isn’t actually a reboot per se, but basically the beginning of Christopher Eccleston’s Doctor (Number 9, but we’ll get to that). I watched all of his one season and then made the switch to season 2 which meant, in this case a new Doctor, which took some adjusting. As I watched I was trying to keep up with everything that was happening and figure out how everything worked in this new universe.
I think the most difficult thing about getting into Doctor Who is trying to sift through 50 years of history. My goal with this new series is to help newcomers to the show, as well as others who have been curious about the show, to become more comfortable with it from the start. I am going to try to cover the basics, the “what you need to know” before starting the show. I am then going to cover each of the new seasons of Doctor Who and let you know which episodes can be skipped, and which episodes can’t. The earlier seasons and movie (Doctors 1-8) I will not be covering in as much detail for a couple of reasons. First, there is just a lot to cover. I mean a lot. Second, being a completest, there is literally no way for me to cover all of it. There are many episodes that are missing, so there’s no way to watch those and familiarize yourself with them. The third, and biggest reason, I am just not as comfortable with the earlier stuff. I appreciate it because it set the ground work for the show I enjoy today, but I also feel that almost all of it was before my time.
With this initial post, I thought I would cover some of the common terms that you will need to know when talking about the Doctor Who series. These are words or concepts that play throughout the series, so it is important to have some kind of base knowledge of them.
First up is Gallifrey. That’s the planet that you see pictured up above. It is referenced a lot in the show because it is the home planet of the Time Lords (like the guy pictured above). This is a race that is very old and they have mastered the ability to travel throughout space and time. As their name might imply, they do seem to feel a need to meddle in and protect time. They have set strict rules and guidelines about time travel, which they themselves break all the time. There is a love/hate relationship between the Time Lords and the Doctor. At times they look to him to be a savior, and at times they banish him to Earth and take away his ability to travel through space.
Time And Relative Dimension In Space- or T.A.R.D.I.S. This is the Doctor’s spacecraft/ time machine. It doesn’t look very big, but along with traveling through space and time and regeneration, the Time Lords also mastered “bigger on the inside” technology. The TARDIS is very spacious once you get inside, which becomes a running joke in the show whenever someone new comes into the ship they make mention of it being bigger on the inside. This ship can travel to anywhere, or any time in the universe in an instant. It disappears when leaving and then instantly reappears in its new location, or should I say her new location, all while making the iconic TARDIS sound.
The last term for today is the Doctor. This is very important, so pay attention. The Doctor is our main character. We don’t know his real name. It’s a secret, and a powerful one too. The Doctor is the name he chose to go by as he set out on his adventures. Here’s the important part: it is simply the Doctor, not Doctor Who. Doctor Who is the name of the series, and is in reference to the fact that we don’t know who this guy is, and in reference to the instances when he introduces himself as the Doctor and everyone always responds, “Doctor, Doctor who?” But his name is just the Doctor. He has been around now for over 1200 years. He accomplishes this because the Time Lords have learned a little trick called “regeneration”, so they don’t die, they just regenerate. This means their body becomes a brand new body with a brand new face and new personality. This is one of the most ingenious things ever done in television. We are now on our 12th Doctor (sort of, more to come on that later) played by a different actor. This enables the show to be as long running as they want (like 50 years), without committing to one actor for that long, or the actor feeling like they have to commit for that long. Plus, it’s like starting a new series every few years. It makes it fun. So, because of the regeneration trick, you will hear people talk about their favorite Doctor, and which ones they didn’t like and the whole time you may have been wondering “Which one is Doctor Who?” (it’s ok, because when you did wonder that you didn’t know better). Now you know that all of them are the Doctor. Over the next little while in this series we will talk about each one and you will get to know them a little bit, and maybe by the end you might have a favorite. That will be coming in later installments, but next time I will be covering some of the classic monsters from the series. “Exterminate!”
