Serial 1: Night Of The Doctor/Rose
(9, 8, War Doctor, Rose, Mickey, Jackie, Autons, Sisterhood Of Karn, Daleks)
55 minutes

The foppy Doctor we saw at the end of the last season has aged into a kindly hard-ass. Apparently, there's some war taking place between The Time Assholes and The Daleks, and people are afraid of both of them. After a ship crashes, The Sisterhood Of Karn from Season Three offer The Doctor a chance to become a warrior as he is forced to regenerate into a different face. Flash forward an indeterminate amount of time, and he has regenerated again into a goofy leather jacket wearing guy who ends up on Earth in the 21st century, where the Autons, who we haven't seen since Season Two, are basically retrying their plans from Spearhead In Space, but The Doctor ends up meeting a girl named Rose and her boyfriend as they team up to defend Earth.


Serial 2: Aliens Of London/World War Three
(9, Rose, Mickey, Jackie, Harriet, Slitheen)
90 minutes

Farting aliens trying to take over Earth does not sound like a wonderful premise, but The Doctor and Rose manage to pull it off.  And we meet a plucky member of parliament named Harriet Jones.


Episode 3: Dalek
(9, Rose, Adam, Daleks)
45 minutes

We've seen The Doctor battle multiple armies of Daleks. He was there at the beginning of The Daleks. He has survived So Many Daleks. They were even in that war that keeps getting mentioned. So how bad could just one Dalek be?


Episode 4: The Long Game
(9, Rose, Adam)

TV bad. So bad. TV make Earth humans lazy, dumb, whatever stereotype you've heard. There are several Davies-era episode where this is the theme, while Moffat modernizes it to Internet bad. So bad. This TV bad episode gives us a better look into The Doctor, though, and plants the seed for an even better better look into The Doctor in a future episode.


Serial 5: The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances
(9, Rose, Jack)
90 minutes

It's World War Two and The Doctor and Rose meet a new companion (Jack), a scary little boy, and unpack a weird intergalactic mystery that accidentally threatens the whole world. This episode is fantastic, and has one of the best climactic Doctor quotes of the whole series.


Serial 6: Bad Wolf/Parting Of The Ways
(9, 10, Rose, Jack, Mickey, Jackie, Daleks)
90 minutes

The phrase "Bad Wolf" has been following The Doctor and Rose since they met. When they, along with Jack, travel to the future, they stumble upon what they think it might mean. Oh, and Daleks. They stumble on Daleks. Lots and lots of bloody Daleks. Oh, and TV? Still bad.


Episode 7: The Christmas Invasion
(10, Rose, Mickey, Jackie, Harriet, Sycorax)
60 minutes

The new Doctor's regeneration didn't go well, so while he recuperates, Rose, her mother, her boyfriend, and Harriet Jones must work together to fight off an alien invasion at Christmas. This episode features one of the most Badass Doctor moments near the end of it. Though whether it was necessary or cruel is very debatable.


Episode 8: School Reunion
(10, Rose, Mickey, Sara Jane, K-9, Krilltanes)
45 minutes

Sarah Jane is back? And that stupid tin dog? They're back for hijinks with The Doctor's new crew of Rose and her boyfriend. They battle...Giles from Buffy The Vampire Slayer. And...is he kind of a vampire here? Weeeeeeeeeeird.


Serial 9: Rise Of The Cybermen/Age Of Steel
(10, Rose, Mickey, Jackie, Pete, Cybermen)
90 minutes

Rose has daddy issues. Maybe that's why she ran off into space with a centuries old man. But when the crew accidentally travels to an alternate dimension, she finds her father is alive. Oh, and there are Cybermen EVERYWHERE. While it would be nice, and all, to save this dimension from The Cybermen, the real issue is Can They Ever Get Back To The Dimension They Came From? Well....not all of them.


Serial 10: Army Of Ghosts/Doomsday
(10, Rose, Mickey, Donna, Jackie, Pete, Cybermen, Daleks)
90 minutes

Cybermen AND Daleks? That can't be good. That whole Other Dimension adventure totally destroyed the walls of time...or something...and The Cybermen have broken through and inadvertently released a ship of Daleks from The Time War. And get your hankies ready because Bad Wolf is back, and it means sad times for The Doctor. 

A few years ago, I was asked to come up with a Doctor Who In 50 Episodes List on Facebook. For people who wanted to get really into the series without getting Super Really Into The Series.  With over fifty years worth of episodes, the prospect of becoming a fan of Doctor Who can be completely daunting.

I've compiled this list of episodes that I like, so it's very subjective. I have tried to make it so that there is a rough arc to the seasons. I don't give a fuck about episodes that are historically important, this is a guide intended to make you Like The Series, not be an Expert On The Series.

Here are the basics you should know: The show is about an alien time traveler. He takes companions, almost always humans, with him as he explores time and space. The companions change frequently, and in this guide, you sometimes get no closure. You might love a particular companion in one episode, and, in the next, they've been replaced by people you have no context for. Also, when The Doctor gets very ill, his appearance changes. By which, I mean, he is portrayed by an entirely different actor.  This is a cool concept, but it can be jarring at first. It will happen Thirteen Times over the course of these eleven seasons.

Last season ended with the promise of A Darker Direction. And it's hard to take that too seriously when the new Doctor's costume is so clowny. But this era is a shade darker than Baker's jellybabies and Davison's celery.  This season is filled with Mean Old Asshole Time Lords. And Time Ladies. People, damn it, Time People. I wish some sort of war would wipe them out of space once and for all.

 Serial 1: The Two Doctors
(6, 2, Peri, Jamie, Sontarans)
135 minutes

Usually, a multiple Doctor episode features the most recent faces of The Doctor teaming up to battle something Time Lord related. But this time we go way back to the second face of The Doctor as he and Jamie (remember him?) end up being trapped by Sontarans who are trying to master time travel. It's up to the current face of The Doctor and his shittily-accented companion to rescue them and restore the timeline. Or whatever. It's a grim way to start A Grim Season.



Serial 2: Revelation Of The Daleks
(6, Peri, Davros, Daleks)
90 minutes

It's been a while since the genocidal grey trash cans have bugged The Doctor. So The Supreme Dalek and his army set out to kill The Doctor....yawn. But, oh shit, it's Davros, and his New Even More Perfect (TM) Daleks. They're so dreamy and creamy. Surely a war between two Dalek armies will result in fewer Daleks by the end of it. How could this be a bad thing?


Serial 3: Terror Of The Vervoids (Trial Of A Time Lord)
(6, Mel, Time Lords, Vervoids, Valeyard)
100 minutes

This is part of a season long arc where The Doctor is put on trial by those asshole Time Lords for being un-Time Lord like or some shit. So the framing device is The Doctor in court recounting his un-Time Lord like adventures. It's not a great season. It's not even a good season. But Terror Of The Vervoids introduces a new companion, and focuses more on the adventure with the aliens than on the trial aspect.
​

Serial 4: The Ultimate Foe (Trial Of A Time Lord)
(6, Mel, Glitz, Time Lords, The Master, Valeyard)
55 minutes

It's  the end of the arc that we mostly skipped! Who is The Valeyard? Do we care? Is The Doctor guilty of anything besides not being as much of an asshole as those other asshole Time Lords? Oh, also The Master is in this for some reason? And the trial is in a future that won't ha--look, it's an okay episode, and I didn't want to cut out all of Colin Baker's run, since it's totally not his fault that his era was so blah.


Serial 5: Time And The Rani
(7, Mel, Rani, Tetraps)
100 minutes

New Doctor! Return of one of them there evil Time Lo-- Time La-- Time People! This is the second episode in a row where I'll admit, it's Not A Great episode. But there wasn't much to choose from. Low budgets, mediocre writers, no real direction to the seasons, except the heavy handed Trial Of A Timelord. We don't even get to see why the previous face of The  Doctor had to regenerate. But it's not a terrible story, and it's fun to watch the new guy run around trying to figure things out.


Serial 6: Dragonfire
(7, Mel, Ace, Glitz)
75 minutes

It's time for a changing of The Companions. Mel, we hardly knew ye, so Get Out. It's really strange to try and describe the episodes of this era. Shit goes down between characters and aliens you've never seen before, and never will again. Some of it is interesting.


Serial 7: The Greatest Show In The Galaxy
(7, Ace, Psychic Circus)
100 minutes

Ok, this is fairly easy to explain, The Doctor and the companion we met in the last episode go to a Psychic Circus. Evil clowns. No escape. Robots. This is the kind of weird sci-fi adventure you can explain to your friends and not have them immediately ask "Why do you watch that shit?"


Serial 8: Curse Of The Fenric
(7th, Ace, Haemovores)
100 minutes

This is another weird timey-wimey episode. We find out just how Ace, The Doctor's companion for the last two serials, came to meet up with The Doctor in the first place, and we get some super dark family shit to go with it.  It also has one of those timey-wimey things where a creature time travels to help create itself, and by not creating itself it's existence is...just watch the episode.


Serial 9: Survival
(7, Ace, The Master, Cheetah People)
​75 minutes

Wouldn't it be really weird for a children's science fiction show to end with the spunky point-of-view companion character essentially turning into a cheetah person and then she and her time travelling friend step into their time machine and are never seen again? Because that's sort of what happened if you were watching the series as it came out. We're not going to leave you in such despair, but this episode is at least interesting, as it also features that rubbish bearded Time Shithead, The Master. He's definitely a villain here, but more Of Circumstance than he usually is. It's kind of fine that this killed the "classic" era of Who, as it was getting fairly disappointing.


Serial 10: The Enemy Within
(8, 7, Grace, The Master)
90 minutes

Usually, a regeneration episode involves The Doctor doing something heroic, and at the very end of the episode turning into a new person, saying one cool line, and then ending. In this episode we get to spend a decent amount of time with Sylvester McCoy. It's unclear how long it's been since Survival, but he is on his own, bringing the ashes of The Master to dump out in space or something. But ohhhhhh, even as ashes, The Master fucks shit up, and his chaos leads to The Doctor having to regenerate in America. This wraps up what is easily The Weakest Season of Doctor Who. 

A few years ago, I was asked to come up with a Doctor Who In 50 Episodes List on Facebook. For people who wanted to get really into the series without getting Super Really Into The Series.  With over fifty years worth of episodes, the prospect of becoming a fan of Doctor Who can be completely daunting.

I've compiled this list of episodes that I like, so it's very subjective. I have tried to make it so that there is a rough arc to the seasons. I don't give a fuck about episodes that are historically important, this is a guide intended to make you Like The Series, not be an Expert On The Series.

Here are the basics you should know: The show is about an alien time traveler. He takes companions, almost always humans, with him as he explores time and space. The companions change frequently, and in this guide, you sometimes get no closure. You might love a particular companion in one episode, and, in the next, they've been replaced by people you have no context for. Also, when The Doctor gets very ill, his appearance changes. By which, I mean, he is portrayed by an entirely different actor.  This is a cool concept, but it can be jarring at first. It will happen Thirteen Times over the course of these eleven seasons.

We spent all last season with Tom Baker, his scarf, his silly robotic dog, and a series of mostly female companions. This season will run in the opposite direction as we have multiple doctors, returning companions, and a Doctor who finds the bright scarf so tacky, that he garlands his new outfit with a fucken vegetable.

Serial 1: Logopolis
100 minutes

The Doctor and Adric, the child companion he picked up last season, end up with two more accidental companions as they tangle with The Master who has a new face, sort of. He actually looks Much Like the previous version but is slightly younger. Same rubbish beard, though. This time, the upper hand is his, and The Doctor totally dies! Well, as much as The Doctor can die, I guess.


Serial 2: Castltrova
100 minutes

The Master can't win. So the new, younger-faced Doctor and the ragtag group of companions he inherited are going to track that fucker down and stomp him 'til he's dead, too!  That's how this show works, right? No, I guess not. This episode is mostly the two new companions dragging the disoriented Doctor around a strange planet while The Master kidnaps Adric to...See This Is Why You Don't Take Kids On The TARDIS. Ugh. 


Serial 3: Kinda
100 minutes

Sssssssssssssnakes innnnnnnnnn sssssssspaaaaaaaaaacccccccccccce? How will the three new companions and their celery-wearing Doctor fare now that The Doctor sort of has his shit together? Well, one of them will be stored away on the TARDIS for most of the adventure, while the flight attendant and the child battle a hypnotic cult and bickering scientists. And a snake. Don't forget the gigantic snake.



Serial 4: Earthshock
100 minutes

Sometimes, you want something to happen, and then it happens, and you feel kinda bad about it. All I'll say is that The Cybermen are back in this episode, and they are Not Fucking Around.


Serial 5: Mawdryn Undead
100 minutes

That last episode was kind of dark. Let's do something more fun. Let's find a new villain to try and kill The Doctor, oooh and a desperate young man, and...Hey Look, it's a previous companion! ish. The Doctor and his crew travel back and forth between 1977 and 1983, and between Earth and Somewhere Else, as they encounter a villain trying to unlock Time Lord technology! Fun! 


Serial 6: The Five Doctors
90 minutes

Oh Shit. It's All The Doctors. And it's Many Many Companions. And it's The Master. And it's Time Lords. And it's Daleks. And it's Cybermen. And it's Rassilon. And it's chaos, as four of the doctors must work together to stop themselves from being erased from time, while one of their incarnations is trapped in a...well, he didn't want to do this special, so he's just archival footage. Do YOU want to be trapped in archival footage? I didn't think so.


Serial 7: Planet Of Fire
100 minutes

Look, some shit's gone down since The Five Doctor ordeal, a companion Had Enough and walked out, Daleks came and went, a whole mess of things you could look into if you wanted. But here you get to meet a new, Terrible Fucken Companion with an American accent on par with every high school student's Terrible British Accent. There's also a new weird robotty companion who wasn't often used, because It's Fucken Awful. But here, The Master uses him for his nefarious purposes, and at the end of the episode, the only decent companion stays behind. Great.


Serial 8: Caves Of Androzani
100 minutes

This final Peter Davison episode shows up on virtually every Best Episode of Doctor Who list I've ever seen. It's got social commentary, heroics, and some surprise cameos, including the introduction of the new Doctor who is going to take the series in a darker direction.


Serial 9: A Girl's Best Friend​
50 minutes

But that darker direction is going to have to wait! Forget The Doctor, let's check in on good old companion, Sarah Jane Smith, as she goes to take a vacation from her investigative journalism, only to end up reunited with That Stupid Fucken Dog companion, and have to solve a mystery involving some witchy neighbors. This was supposed to serve as the pilot for a Sarah Jane series, but sadly, that particular series never surfaced.


Serial 10: The Mark Of The Rani
90 minutes

It's not Coli Baker's fault that a lot of his episodes aren't very good. They gave him a ridiculous costume, the writing was fairly mediocre, and he inherited the companion with the awful fake accent. But here he runs afoul of that goddamned evil Time Lord, The Ma---wait, nope. It's a NEW evil Time Lor-- Time La-- Time Person, The Rani. Oh, wait, The Master is there, too.  Stupid Time Lord bastards.

Serial 1: The Brain Of Morbius
100 minutes

We begin this season with a Frankenstein's monster stories, and a lovely group of ladies called The Sisterhood Of Karn.  This first serial has it all, alien bugs, a hook-handed assistant, wrecked spacecraft, an elixir of immortality. This season is going to be bonkers fun.


Serial 2: The Hand Of Fear
100 minutes

It's not even in these short seasons that we get to say goodbye to a companion. So let's wave sayonara to Sarah Jane, as she departs of her own free will to return to the glamorous life of investigative journalism. But first, they are menaced by a HAND!!!! Is it the absent hand from the hook-limbed assistant in the previous episode? Was this season written by George Lucas? It's  mystery.


Serial 3: The Deadly Assassin
100 minutes

Oh great, it's those fucken TIme Lord assholes again. Morbius was grumbling about them in the first episode. What Do They Want? OH NO. Someone just killed one of those high-collared assholes, maybe The Doctor's new companion will---wait a minute, THERE IS NO COMPANION!!!! Who will help The Doctor get out of this mess? It looks like he's all on his o---is that The goddamned Master, again? Fuck.


Serial 4: The Ribos Operation
100 minutes

This is, technically, the first episode of the sixteenth season of Doctor Who (see how much I've cut for you, Be Grateful!). The entire season was an extended take on The Keys Of Marius, and it was pretty good. We're not going to include all of it, because it would take up a lot of space, but if you like the first episode, you can always adventure out on your own and follow the story. In the nowwhile, we have a new companion, and she's a Time Lor--Lady--Lord? Gender is also wibbly-wobbly-timey-wimey.


Serial 5: Destiny Of The Daleks
100 minutes

This is, technically, the first episode of the seventeenth season. Holy shit, right? And that companion we met last time? The Time L---something? She's regenerating! Meet her again for the first time! And...Daleks? It seems there is another race that is setting out to do what The Doctor hasn't been able to do...wipe out The Daleks. Will The Doctor and Davros end up in a buddy comedy trying to save the adorable little Garbage Cans Of Death? No. No they won't.


Serial 6: City Of Death
100 minutes

Interstellar art thieves have targeted The Mona Lisa. And they're not just interstellar, they're Time Travelers! At least they're not Time Lords, though, right? This episode was cowritten by Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy guy, the Dirk Gently guy, the funny fucker who wrote great sci-fi. So this is a more fun than usual episode. Enjoy it!


Serial 7: The Leisure Hive
100 minutes

This is the first episode where a companion Bites The Big Mortal Thing. But not, like, forever. No, it's not the Time Lo--La--Lo...it's not even a humanoid, and it's a companion you've mostly been protected from, so it's not going to be as therapeutic for you as it was for fans at the time, but the episode starts with a BOOM!  And then, the vacationing Doctor and Romana (The Time L---Person) stumble into a Recreation Generator, which has a Very Unfortunate Side Effect for The Doctor.


Serial 8: Full Circle
100 minutes

It's time for Romana to go back to Gallifrey. Surely this means more hijinks with those High Collared Asshole Time Lords. Wait, this is The Wrong Planet, morons. This planet has way too many children on it. Kids are So Annoying. I'm so glad that all of The Doctor's companions have been grown ups since Screechy Susan and Vicki disappeared in season one.  Maybe the Doctor will actually get a male companion who is age appropriate to his----DOCTOR, ONE OF THOSE LITTLE SHITS HAS STOWED AWAY ON YOUR TARDIS. GET HIM OUT!!! GET HIM---Damn it.


Serial 9: State Of Decay
100 minutes

Stupid child companion. Stupid robotic dog companion that somehow got rebuilt since the explosion. Stupid Romana, still being stupid on the stupid TARDIS.  (Narrator leaves to kick rocks) This episode centers on a planet with medieval culture that seems out of place, and a group of bat gu---IS THIS A VAMPIRE EPISODE? (Narrator gnashes teeth. Kicks boulders.)


Serial 10: Warrior's Gate
100 minutes

I have to come clean. I've been hiding something from you. Remember how I told you I didn't include the season long story arc in season 16 because it was TOO LONG. Well, these last serials are actually a trilogy called The E-Space Trilogy.  It's a void between worlds kind of thing, spacey-wacey, sciency-wiency. And it serves to get Romana and the stupid dog Off The Goddamed TARDIS. But this kid appears to be sticking around. And...holy shit, we made it through an entire season without The Doctor regenerating. Pretttttty coooooool.

Episode 1: War Games Part 10
25 minutes

Much like last season, we start with a single short episode, as opposed to a serial. War Games was a ten episode epic about a battle for supremacy on alien planet where they have abducted Earthlings to, essentially, act as war reenactors from various periods of Earth history. It takes ForEVer. But in the tenth episode, we meet The Doctor's race, The Time Lords. And what a bunch of pretentious assholes they turn out to be. No wonder The Doctor doesn't hang out with them. After he calls on them for help, they not only send his companions back to where they came from, they force him to regenerate, and exile him to Earth. What a fester of shitbags.


Serial 2: Spearhead From Space
100 minutes

Imagine waking up with a new face, on a planet you know but aren't from, and all you want to do is fucken sleep it off, and some military jackwits who knew your old face drag you to their hospital. By the time you feel better there's some sort of invasion thing happening involving fucken mannequins. Hold on, this is ALSO the plot of the damned reboot from 2005 but with extra bonus military.  The Autons are such a ridiculous enemy, we surely won't ever see them again.


Serial 3: Terror Of The Autons
100 minutes

For fuck's sake. Autons again? And who the hell is The Master? Another damned Time Lord? An evil Time Lord? I mean, they all sort of suck, so what makes this guy eviler than the rest of them? Oh shit, is this guy also trapped on Earth now? Is this the point where the soundtrack would go Dun-dun-DUNNNNNNN?


Serial 4: Colony In Space
150 minutes

So The Doctor is the most competent Time Lords, and he has been banished to Earth, where he managed to trap another Time Lord. Ok. But now bad shit is going down somewhere and The Time Lords have no choice but to call up Earth and be like "Ohhhhh, hey Doctor, how is Earth? Yea? Wow, that totally sucks. Look, you're Still Grounded but mommy and daddy need you to go and fix this mining disaster that we just can't wrap our heads around. Ok? When you're done, you're going to have to go back to your room, but for now, enjoy the night of freedom. And....try not to die. LOVE YOU." And, of course, The fucken Master is going to show up in this shitshow, too. Time Lords are THE WORST.



Serial 5: The Time Monster
150 minutes

You know, you say he's exiled on Earth you Time Lord Assholes, but you do keep needing him to run errands for you, and Every Fucken Time, The goddamned Master shows up to try and foil him. How may times does The Master just hypnotise his way into shenanigans, only to have The Doctor foil them at the last minute, but allow him to escape. Well, this time it'll be totally differ---no, same thing again, huh? Ok.


Serial 6: The Three Doctors
100 minutes

Another damned Time Lord errand? Only this time, instead of The Master, it's some other Criminal Time Lord named Omega? This sounds like every other episode but with a slightly different villain. Only this one's in a mask instead of a goatee. What makes him so special? Oh Shit. You need not only the current Doctor, but the two previous versions of The Doctor to take him down. How the fuck is crotchety old due going to be helpful in this scenario? You know what, I'll just sit back and see how this works itself out.



Serial 7: Planet Of The Spiders
150 minutes

We haven't been paying a lot of attention to the companions in this season. There's The Brigadier, some military people, and there have been a couple of scientists helping out (attractive female scientists of course, this was the 1970s). Well now there's a journalist named Sarah Jane who will be around Quite A Bit More Frequently than most companions. Well, the pesky journalist, one of the pesky military types, and a rock sent by one of those pretty scientists lead The Doctor to a spider problem. A very complex spider problem, and Oh Shit, it's time to regenerate again.



Serial 8: Ark In Space
100 minutes

Yo. This show must involve actual time travelers because this new Doctor with his Huge-Ass Scarf is clearly starring in the movie Alien here. Only this came out Before Alien. Mind. Fucked. Only instead of those nightmare-inducing Xenomorphs it's...green bubble wrap? But it does eventually turn you into a giant insect. Fun!


Serial 9: Genesis Of The Daleks
150 minutes

The genocidal trash cans are back! Sort of. Wibbly-wobbly timey-wimeyness means we're back at the time The Daleks came into being. Man, their creator is cuh-ray-zee. But since we're back a the origin point for the race, surely The Doctor will just kill their creator before they come into being and we'll never have to see them again. That's obviously what's going to happen. Right?


Serial 10: Terror Of The Zygons
100 minutes

It's the Loch Ness fucken monster! And weird rubber chameleon aliens. They are Not Fucking Around. Let's wrap this season up with some good old fashion monster fighting and mistaken identity. And let's put aside UNIT (the military outfit that showed up seven times this season!) away for awhile. 

A few years ago, I was asked to come up with a Doctor Who In 50 Episodes List on Facebook. For people who wanted to get really into the series without getting Super Really Into The Series.  With over fifty years worth of episodes, the prospect of becoming a fan of Doctor Who can be completely daunting.

Garden variety Who Guides advise you to start at the beginning of the 2005 reboot, or at the beginning of Stephen Moffat's tenure as The Doctor, and progress forward until you catch up. One slightly more creative method suggests you start with The Eleventh Hour (the first Eleventh Doctor episode, also the beginning of Moffat's run on the show) watch up to the final episode before the 50th Anniversary special, and then Go Back to the beginning of the reboot until you get back to Eleventh Hour, and then skip back to the 50th Anniversary special. I like the creativity, but there are a Ton of Bad to Awful episodes of Doctor Who in every season, and if you're not a super fan, why subject yourself to them.

There is also The Complete Masochists Order of Doctor Who, which says start with the first episode from 1963, and keep going until you eventually catch up.

That's infuckentimidating.

I suggest starting in 1963, and skipping entire swaths of the show. Even doing this, I recognize, is hugely daunting. But if you choose to watch it like it was a current Netflix show, ten episodes a season, which you can watch back to back, one a night, every time your ex calls, however you choose, and then take a break before diving into the next season.

I've compiled this list of episodes that I like, so it's very subjective. I have tried to make it so that there is a rough arc to the seasons. I don't give a fuck about episodes that are historically important. The first episode featuring The Daleks is thirty-seven excruciating years long, and wouldn't inspire a modern audience to want more of them. This is a guide intended to make you Like The Series, not be an Expert On The Series.

Here are the basics you should know: The show is about an alien time traveler. He takes companions, almost always humans, with him as he explores time and space. The companions change frequently, and in this guide, you sometimes get no closure. You might love a particular companion in one episode, and, in the next, they've been replaced by people you have no context for. Also, when The Doctor gets very ill, his appearance changes. By which, I mean, he is portrayed by an entirely different actor.  This is a cool concept, but it can be jarring at first. It will happen Thirteen Times over the course of these eleven seasons. Strap in.

Episode 1: An Unearthly Child
25 minutes

Teenagers are weird, huh? With their rock and roll, and their doing homework. Two nosey teachers decide to follow one of their students, only to discover her crotchety grandfather is some sort of time traveling alien, and he Doesn't Like Them. It's a damn good thing they didn't follow her into his unreliable time machine. Oops.


Serial 2: The Keys Of Marinus
150 minutes

The old man has chilled out a bit, and has brought the companions to a beach party planet! Oh. It turns out the water is poison, the beach is made of glass, and several people appear to be trying to kill them. Bummer. They also keep getting separated. Luckily, Susan fucken screams every two minutes like a parrot getting its tail stepped on, so they never lose her for long. Each episode of this serial involves finding a piece to a puzzle that will help save the planet. OR WILL IT?


Serial 3: The Aztecs
100 minutes

We're back on Earth! Finally, Barbara and Ian are back home. Wait a minute. This is waaaaay early on the timeline. And Barbara is a fuken goddess. Take that, crotchety Doctor. Watch as she changes an entire culture to keep a couple of her dumbass companions from accidentally getting married. What's that? She can't change the culture? Time can't be altered? Oh. Well, that doesn't bode well.


Serial 4: The Dalek Invasion Of Earth 
150 minutes

Now we've gone too far forward in time. Stupid Doctor and his Stupid Wonky-Ass Phone Booth Looking Time Machine.  Still, at least we're still on Earth, and it's filled with humans and...are those garbage cans with lasers attached? What the fuck is a Dalek? Why are they killing Everything? Is it even possible to save Earth? And, if so, will it come at A Great Cost? And will Ian and Barbara ever get home?



Serial 5: The Space Museum
100 minutes

The Getting Less Crotchety All The Time Doctor takes his companions on a fun excursion through a museum filled with alien artifacts. Even though all Ian and Barbara want to do is go home, and Vicki...who the fuck is Vicki? Are you telling me we finally got rid of the whiney teenager, and we've replaced her with another whiney teenager? Cripes and for fuck's sake. Well, at least the population of the planet isn't trying to rebel against the museum staff and destroy it, right? Shit. And wait just a damned minute, are they being tracked by Daleks?


Serial 6: The Chase
150 minutes

Poor Ian and Barbara have been trying to get home this entire time, but Stupid Doctor and his Stupid Time Machine can't get it right. And now there are more fucken Daleks following them through time. This adventure gets completely wacky as The Doctor, his companions, and The Daleks gor from planet to planet enacting a wide array of hijinks, but maybe, just maybe, by the end of it, Ian and Barbara will finally get back home. Wait, who the fuck is Steven?



Serial 7: The Gunfighters 
100 minutes

It's a wild west American holiday, complete with a terrible approximation of an American ballad, American guns, Americanish accents, and...Dodo? Really? There's a new companion and her name is Dodo? What the fuck? Well, tarnation, iffen they didn't plum find themselves in the middle of a darned feuuuuuuuuuud. Luckily, everything will end up settled at the OK Corrall. Ohhhhhhhhh. THAT feud. Well, horsefeathers, this is fittin to be complicated.


Serial 8: The Tenth Planet 
100 minutes

I know I said I was going to avoid mediocre episodes that are historically important, but this one is kind of necessary. Meet The Cybermen. They're like a more humanoid looking version of The Daleks. I mean, they're like The Borg in Star Trek. I mean, look, they're tropey now, but The Cybermen predate The Borg by many years. And, also like The Daleks, they pop up frequently in The Doctor's travels. And by the end of this serial, Polly and Ben (wait, who the fuck are Polly and Ben? Where did Dodo and Steve go---you know what good riddance to those two anyway) have to contend with a very ill Doctor as he regenerates into an entirely new face.


Serial 9: Tomb Of The Cybermen
100 minutes

See? More fucken Cybermen already. But this slightly more youthful looking Doctor guides Jamie and Victoria (wait just a damned minute, what happened to Polly and B---nevermind) through a Cyber graveyard, only to discover, surprise surprise assholes, The Cybermen aren't dead! This new doctor is certainly more inspirational than the last one, I hope he sticks around for a while.


Serial 10: The Enemy Of The World
150 minutes

Well, if you happen to like the new actor playing The Doctor, it's your Luckiest of days. The Doctor, Jamie, and Victoria (whew, I know all of those people!) are hanging out in the far flung future of 2018 (woah, we are about to be living in their Far Flung Future!) where a megalomaniac has seized power (as if such a thing could possibly happen in 2018....*narrator sobs uncontrollably*). But the megalomaniac happens to look Exactly Like The Doctor. So he's the perfect alien to rescue society from him. Although....what if he were to get his hands on the TARDIS? The companions might not even notice? Why that would change every-fucken-thing. And this is how The First Season ends? That's troubling.

1. Don't.

                                                                                            -or-

2. Just read the main books in the proper order: Gunslinger, Drawing Of The Three, Wastelands, Wizard And Glass, Wolves Of Callah, Song Of Susannah, The Dark Tower. 

                                                                                            -or-

1. The Stand: It is sacrilege not to start with the first Dark Tower Book, The Gunslinger. But Stephen King books shouldn't be a religion. Like The Bible, The Quar'an, or Dianetics, Stephen King's bibliography is fictional, full of Very Bad Advice, and includes some concepts about Otherness that are Flat Out Wrong, and Fucked Up in 2017, but you could see how a talented drug addict trying to make ends meet in Maine in the 70s and 80s would have had those Fucked Up ideas.

In my Very Biased rating of Stephen King books, I had this as #9 on my list, so it may seem weird that I say that, technically, this is A Better Book than The Gunslinger, which I placed at #1. 

The main problem with The Stand is that The Complete & Uncut version, which is the one you should read, accept no limitations, is that it is Fucken Long. 1400 pages. The second, almost as main problem is how race is discussed in a way that is totally in line with how someone socially progressive in the 1970s wouldn't realize they were being Fucked Up.  It can be a chore to forgive, just know that King would almost definitely Not Be This Level Of Fucked Up in 2017. And not because he doesn't think that Fucked Uppedness would sell, but because he is, by all accounts, A Man Who Is Trying To Be Better At All Times. He's not your All Lives Matter Uncle on Facebook, he's a product of a time where racism was different, and most white people, particularly in fucken Maine, didn't have progressive discussions of race. 

What makes The Stand great is that almost every chapter  in the first 100 pages or so could be The Opening Chapter. He is constantly introducing new characters or situations that makes it seem like he's starting to tell you a story, so, even though this book is Long, it's paced such that the beginning flies by.

It is heavily tied-in, thematically, with The Dark Tower series. It also introduces one of the main villains. And, again, it's a great story. And it makes sense to start with it. Partly because it's well-told, but partially because it's almost too long to put anywhere else, as it doesn't contain any of the main non-villain character from the series.

2. The Eyes Of The Dragon: Deep inhale.

I haven't read this book all the way through. I haven't tried since I was in high school, and I have a visceral memory of Hating This Book.

This is, however, Firmly Set in the world we encounter in The Gunslinger, but it takes place earlier than The Gunslinger, and Oh Shit, it's the same villain we met in The Stand. Only instead of being in a late 20th century apocalyptic story, it's an epic fantasy about magic and political intrigue in ancient(?) society. So...is this The Future of The Stand?

(Shrugging emoji.)

3. Everything's Eventual:  This is a short story collection, and you do not have to read every part of it. You're on a schedule. I get it. If there is a local or used bookstore near you, you should buy it there. If there is a Barnes & Noble, you should just read a couple of the stories there, and not feel bad about it.  Those robots can mainline a rust smoothie.

The first story you're going to read are "The Little Sisters Of Eleuria". It's a cool pre-Gunslinger introduction to Roland Deschain and his quest for the Tower.

The second story to read is "Everything's Eventual". It will in no way be clear what this has to do with The Dark Tower. Go with it.

4. The Gunslinger: The true, actual beginning of The Dark Tower series is my favorite and, arguably, The Best. It's a Western-themed post-apocalyptic story featuring the main protagonist for The Dark Tower series, as well as introducing some other characters who will turn up later.

The important thing is that you Should Absolutely read the original version of The Gunslinger, not the 2003 re-edit. The re-edit is a George Lucased version of The Gunslinger. King went back and added some effects, changed the motivation of some scenes, and added more Tower Talk (language that he used more and more frequently as the series went on). It's not bad, but it's not how you should read this. Go to the library, go online, find the unaltered version. Trust me. There are Reasons.

5. The Shining:  There are massive differences between the book and the famous movie starring Jack Nicholson. Massive. But at the core of both is a young boy with a power of foresight called The Shining. This power will factor hugely in the quest for The Dark Tower. And at least one character from this book will show up a couple of more times in this chronology.

Fans of the movie should know that the book is more about the crumbling of a marriage and what children understand than it is about the creepy hotel. The hotel is still creepy as Hell, but it's more sinister than just vomiting an elevator of blood.

6. The Drawing Of The Three: Picking up as close as possible to the end of The Gunslinger, this book brings in the rest of The Major Players for the rest of the series. 

It's an 80s crime book, it's a Civil Rights story that deals with mental illness, and it's the story of a little boy who fears he's going crazy. They're all tied together by good old Roland The Gunslinger, who has his own battle at the beginning of the book.


​Everything in this book melds together really well. And the writing in the Roland portion of the story is the tone that the series will mainly feature for the rest of the series.

​7. the first half of Waste Lands: Back to the main characters! Back to the tone set in Drawing Of The Three. This is a straight-up Dark Tower book. No part of it is not vital to The Dark Tower series. I don't like breaking up a book into portions for this list, but this one definitely makes better sense this way.

​8. 'salem's Lot: This is going to seem extraneous. It doesn't feature anyone you've met yet, and it's a damned vampire book. Vampires? Ugh. 

But it's a fun, fast read, and while you will spend the whole book wondering what the fuck this has to do with the Dark Tower series, trust that it will. And not in a minor way. And no, it's not that The Dark Tower ends up being about goddamned vampires.

​9. It: This book is technically not Essential to the Dark Tower books. In fact, if you read It already, or saw the movie, you might be thinking, Why The Fuck Is This Book On The List? Well....there are some parts of It that seem like nonsense if you haven't read The Dark Tower, but it turns out they're all terminology from The Dark Tower universe, and Pennywise has some relatives who are very important to the series, so check it out.

​​10. the second half of The Waste Lands, and then Wizard And Glass: The ending of The Waste Lands was extremely frustrating, as the books were coming out, but they're all out now, so you can Ask yourself "Why Would A Writer Leave Us In The Middle Of The Scene? That Cruel---Oh, I'll just pick up the next volume then."See how easy that was? That cliffhanger? Totally hung. Umm...that's phrased wrong. I just mean that you don't have to sweat the situation they're in because it's right at the beginning of this book. This also begins the practice of some of the previous books that didn't seem so Dark Towery suddenly becoming Very Dark Towery, as we end up in the aftermath of a previous story. There's also some decidedly non-Stephen King books drawn in, but don't worry, you don't need to hunt them down and read them unless you want to, you totally know this stuff.

​11. Hearts In Atlantis: While this doesn't say Part (Whatever) of The Dark Tower series, this is a series of connected novellas that all deal with the mythology of The Dark Tower. It has echoes of "Everything's Eventual", and, at this point, you should figure that these characters are getting drawn into the major story at some point.

This also the most Veitnammy Baby Boomery Porn you're going to experience. But it does serve a higher purpose. The Tower. All Things Serve The Beam. 

(I originally placed the Stephen King/Peter Straub book Black House before this one, but I found Straub's writing incredibly frustrating, and removed it from the list. But if you want to read it, it would have been #11.)

​12. Wind Through The Keyhole: This book is billed as The Dark Tower Book 4.5, as it takes place between Wizard And Glass and Wolves Of Callah. It was written well after the series was wrapped up, and it's mostly an excuse for Stephen King to tell some backstories, as this is essentially Roland telling more of his history to his assembled companions.

On the whole, it's not great, but the story within a story within a story is totally worth it.

​13. Insomnia: Another case of Not Explicitly About The Tower if you haven't read the series, it is Very Clearly a Tower book when you're this far into the series. All Things Serve The Beam, damn it.

14. Doctor Sleep: It's time to revisit with the survivors of The Shining, as their lives are totally hella normal now. Wait, they're not? (Placed here partially for the joy of putting a book about sleep after a book abut insomnia.)

15. Wolves Of Callah: Back to the whole main adventurey quest for the tower that's, you know, the whole point of this. And, hey look, it's characters from those seemingly non-Dark Tower books. Turns out, they Are Important to this story. Cool! Plus, another major non-Stephen King book is tied into The Dark Tower. You don't have to have read it to follow any of what happens in this book. But you've probably read it. Almost definitely. 

​16. The Regulators. It seems cruel to separate Wolves Of The Calla and Song Of Susannah. But there are two books which include Todash monsters (which we've seen in the official Dark Tower series, as well as in It) and take place in mirrored universes of each other. I had originally had The Talisman and Black House on this list as twinned books but I can't get into Peter Straub's writing. Luckily, I have no such problem with Richard Bachman.

18.Song Of Susannah: Picking up directly where Wolves Of Callah left off, we tie into all sorts of past plot points that you might have thought were buried a long time ago (and no, I'm not spoiling a return from the dead, I mean buried plot points, not people or monsters). 

It also really starts to feel like we may actually get to that friggen tower they've been talking about since The Gunslinger.

19. The Dark Tower: Finally. Gods. How long have I been reading this series? We're at the end, though. Hoooo-buddy. So now I present you with a choice. It's an important choice. I don't want to say Matrixy pill choosing because the Racist Pieces Of Shit Currently Ruining Our Country use that analogy, so let's say this is a Kobiyashi Maru.

I have mentioned before that you SHOULD NOT READ THE EPILOGUE. You shouldn't You just shouldn't.

So, if you don't read the epilogue, then this is the end. The quest is over.  Hooray!

Buuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuut...if you Do Read The Epilogue, then there's one more book for you to read.

​20. The Gunslinger Revised Edition.

But...but...but you said to...and now...NOW?...but...but.

Yeup. Trust me.

11. Misery:  If this list were based purely on merit, this book should be much higher. It contains actual metaphor. It's about his own life without being as cloying as the self-references are in the later Dark Tower books. And it's probably the most realistic book he's ever written. No magic powers. No inhuman monsters. No mythical wish fulfillment. This is just the story of an author and His Biggest Fan. Which makes it, in many ways, more terrifying than most of his books.

I just don't have any personal anecdotes about it. It's a good book. I read it. I recommend it.

​

12. Nightmares And Dreamscapes: During the conversation that prompted these posts, I admitted that I hadn't read a single book King had put out since The Dark Tower. I had purchased a few, but they sat on a small bookshelf, not so much as glanced at since I bought them.

So I picked up his novella collection, Full Dark No Stars, and after giving each story about twenty pages, decided that it was probably for the best that I wasn't reading his recent stuff. It felt...clumsy. It certainly didn't feel like a Master Storyteller had been anywhere near it. It was basic tropes told poorly about a bunch of two-dimensional characters.

Nightmares And Dreamscapes had made me want to write short stories. These weren't just unpopped kernels of ideas at the bottom of a 1990s air popper. These were delicious bite-sized stories. When I looked at the list of all of Stephen King's works, I didn't remember much about this book other than I Liked It. But all it took was a glance at the table of contents, and I remembered about a dozen of the stories very vividly, and am considering going back and rereading some of them.

13. Pet Semetary: I mention in the very title of this series that none of Stephen King's books gave me nightmares, and that is True. But I have several times dreamed that pets recently buried have come back from the grave to hang out. Luckily, none of them were bloodthirsty zombies.

It's been a while since I've read this, but I don't think it suffers from as many negative tropes as most Stephen King books. And I like the idea of a Magical Mainer much more than King's usual alternatives.

14. Wizard And Glass: I waited forever for this book. The third book stopped practically mid-sentence, and left me hanging for six Fucken Years. And I swore that if this book did the same, I was going to pretend the series stopped with Drawing Of The Three, and never read another Dark Tower book as long as I lived.

While it did begin mid-scene (as it had to), it did offer a complete story, AND it drew one of my favorite non-Dark Tower books, The Stand, into The Dark Tower mythology.

I wasn't reading comics at the time this came out, so I wasn't familiar with Dave McKean, and didn't buy the hardcover with his illustrations.

I was managing a liquor store when I got around to reading this. I have mainly bad memories of this job. But I had recently reconnected with an acquaintance who stopped into the store to hang out with me for a bit, and I was reading this behind the counter when he came in. He wasn't a Stephen King fan, but I mentioned the Wizard Of Oz overtones of this book, and we got into a long discussion about literature and books that we liked, and TV shows. He was still hanging out by closing time, so I bought some beer and Zima (it was the late 90s), and we went back to my house to keep the conversation going. His name was Ryan.

15. Firestarter: This is another book I haven't read in forever. So I'm mostly rating it by my memory of reading it, not by its actual quality.

I read this shortly after reading The Shining, and thought that they were moderately similar. I had the idea that Firestarter should be a sequel to The Shining. Where Danny has met someone else with The Shining/Push, and they have given birth to Charlene. 

It's opening is somewhat similar to the opening of The Stand, in the whole Running Away From A Government Agency That Has Fucked Up And Needs To Contain Or Kill You Before They're Discovered. But I remember The Stand's version vividly, and have only a vague recollection of it in Firestarter.

16. Dolores Claiborne: I bought this at the same bookstore where I was given the autographed copy of Needful Things. I had gone back and forth about whether to buy this book or Gerald's Game (which came out around the same time, and the owners convinced me to buy this one. 

The reason turned out to be that they had a pre-ordered a signed copy of Gerald's Game. I am pleased to report that it was not signed TO me, as that would have been a creepy gift for a fifteen year old.

I *think* I read Gerald's Game first.  You'll note it's not on the list yet. There is a cool moment in both books where a solar eclipse takes place, and the two characters see each other, but that's the only point of crossover that I remember.

Doloros Claiborne is a murder confession given by someone who is defending themselves against a false murder accusation. There's no magic. No monsters. King isn't always great when he writes female protagonists, or when he sets out to tell a monsterless story, but I remember really enjoying this one.

17. Night Shift: This is another collection that I admit, might be much higher on the list if I were to have read all these books as an adult.

I'm pretty sure that I didn't get around to reading this until my senior year of high school.  By that point, I'd seen all of the So Far produced movies and TV episodes based on the short stories in this. And some of my favorite actually short stories (as opposed to novellas) by Stephen King are in here. And, in absolutely every case, the stories are all vastly superior to the movies. Some King adaptations range from Decent to Excellent. But most of the movies that came out of this collection aren't even interesting t watch. But the book is definitely worth reading, particularly if you enjoy very short horror stories.

18.  The Dark Tower: This book is only this high on the list with the following caveat: DON'T READ THE EPILOGUE. It will be tempting. After all, this is the culmination of thousands of pages (probably tens of thousands if you include all the non-Dark Tower books that King also ties into the story) of a story that began so well. And even though there are some Massive Missteps in the series (the cliffhanging ending of Waste Lands, the use of 9/11 as a plot point in Song Of Susannah, the sometimes interesting but sometimes Too Much use of Stephen King as a character in much of the later books), Some of the threads of the series are tied up nicely, and leave a satisfying ending PROVIDED YOU DON'T READ THE EPILOGUE.


This came out during a time when I used Livejournal frequently, and I made a spoilerless rant on my LJ about the end of this book. An acquaintance whose work I admired noted: Stephen King Told You To Put The Book Down And Not Read The Epilogue. Why Didn't You Trust Him?

So, if you're going to invest the time to read this series, tear out the epilogue, burn it, and use the ashes to spice the food of your enemies. DON'T READ IT.

​19. Carrie: Yea, yea, yea. It's a classic. Yea, yea, yea. It's his first book, and it is actually good. It's not as Dated as you might imagine based on some of his other early books.

It's only this low on the list because there have been fifty-seven? movie and television adaptations, and a fucken Broadway fucken musical. 

I read it. It was good. But I don't remember when I read it, or it affecting my life other than my thinking, "Stephen King's first published novel was pretty good. That's cool."

20. Everything's Eventual:  I wasn't sure whether this or Hearts In Atlantis would be the last on my in-depth list. They're both collections of stories rather than novels, they both tie into The Dark Tower series, and I may have read them back to back, smudging my ability to rate them individually. 

In the end, I decided I liked this one better purely because of the way each of them is set up. 


Hearts In Atlantis has a lot of  Vietnam-era nostalgia that appeals more to Baby Boomers than anyone else. I understand its importance and influence over American culture in the late 20th century, but TV and movies and books were inundated with the material so much that writing a Great Book About Vietnam in the 21st century is akin to writing A New Take On Vampires, or A Non-Problematic Story About A Woman Being Raped As Written By A Man. It's possible, but statistically unlikely.

Hearts In Atlantis is also a mostly chronological tale of interweaving stories while Everything's Eventual, according to King, was arranged by shuffling a deck of cards, with each story being represented by a different card.

While only one of the stories in Everything's Eventual is directly tied to The Dark Tower, it's an important story, and would be worth reading on its own.

Other books by Stephen King which I read and either enjoyed, or, at least, didn't hate, are Hearts In Atlantis, Four Past Midnight, Tommyknockers, From A Buick 8, Bag Of Bones, Wastelands, Wolves Of Callah, Song Of Susannah, Insomnia, and Cujo.

Books I couldn't get into at all: Eyes Of The Dragon, The Talisman, Christine, Green Mile.

Books I read all the way through that were So Awful I Was Angry: Dreamcatcher, The Regulators, Desperation, Rose Madder, Cycle Of The Werewolf, Gerald's Game.

Underappreciated literary connoisseur, Scott Woods, has warned that he is putting together his rated guide to the complete works of Stephen King. This has been inspired by the release of the new adaptation of It, which I was invited to go see last night, and which I have also been invited to see tonight but which I'm not likely to get to any time soon.

I'm not a horror guy. Or a fast rides guy. Or a Haunted House guy. But I've read every twentieth century, and most of the early twenty-first century books. And since The Esteemed Mr. Woods has me pondering whether or not to read any of the more recent books, or whether I might want to revisit some of the classics, I present you with the first ten choices from  my own rating guide.It's highly subjective, and attached to my memories surrounding the book, as well as the books' literary merit. Caveat emptor.

1. The Gunslinger: My dad's second wife was a lifelong Stephen King fan. She read every book when it came out. Except the Dark Tower books. She refused to read the series until it was finished. I was about seventeen when we had our first conversation about King's work, and I asked how she knew The Gunslinger was going to be the sprawling epic it became, and she admitted that she didn't. But by the time she remembered that she wanted to read it, The Drawing Of The Three had come out, and that's when she made her pledge. 

​I was in junior high when  first read The Gunslinger. I wrote a series of poems about it, the first of which was plagiarized by one of my friends who went to a different school. When, the next year, we attended the same school, and I read my poem at an open mic, an hour after he'd read the same poem at an earlier session of the open mic, we were hauled into the principal's office where I wept like an ill-tended wound at the betrayal, and he called me a liar. The teacher who'd run the open mic told us neither of us should ever submit it to the school lit journal, and we should forget about the poem and work on our friendship. That was the only year I went to that school.

Unlike some other epics, the original version of this book (I haven't read any of the subsequent rereleases, and don't care to) was a self-contained story unlike any of King's other works, and I treasured it, and reread it every time a new volume of The Dark Tower came out, and sometimes reread it on its own. I've read the graphic novel adaptation, and will probably see the movie, though I have very low expectations for it. 

2. Different Seasons: Arguably, Stephen King's most literary collection. Three out of the four stories in this book have been made into films. Two of them: Stand By Me (based on "The Body"), and Shawshank Redemption (based on "Rita Hayworth And The Shawshank Redemption") are excellent. One of them: Apt Pupil, based on the story of the same name, is Not At All Watchable.

I don't remember whether I watched Stand By Me before I read "The Body", but I probably did. I definitely read this before Shawshank Redemption.

I don't have many specific memories of the first time I read this book. I bought it from a bookstore that I'll write about more in-depth later. And I remember the owners asking me about it the next week.

Whatever I said must have impressed them because every time I went into the store after that, one or both of them would ask me why I was picking certain books, and how I was liking them. It didn't feel invasive, or like they were market testing me. They seemed really interested in this strange kid who would wander around their store and always buy something while his parents were in the grocery store.

3. The Drawing Of The Three: Still high off the fumes of The Gunslinger, I went and picked up The Drawing Of  The Three, the second part of The Dark Tower. Like The Gunslinger, it's a complete story. But, despite some character overlap, it feels like an entirely different genre. It's a fantasy book when we're in Roland's world. It's a 1980s crime book when he encounters The Prisoner. It's story about schizophrenia and civil rights, two things Stephen King doesn't write very well but he's slightly successful with in this volume....slightly,  when he meets The Lady Of The Shadows. And it's a coming of age with mental illness story in The Pusher. 

While this is more traditionally Stephen-Kingy than The Gunslinger, it's still a fun read, and it made me want more of this series. It's the last book of the series that I consider Truly Great. 

The second time I read it was just before The Waste Lands came out, and I was So Full Of Hope for what it would be. You'll note that it's not next on the list.

4. The Shining: I can't be the only person who read the book before I saw the movie. I love them both independently of each other.  I saw the movie for the first time in high school, when the dorm I lived in had a Jack-Nicholson Is Crazy-thon watching Batman, A Few Good Men, One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, cna capping it off with The Shining. Narratively, I would have had a Few Good Men leave the disgraced general to go to The Overlook Hotel and experience The Shining, where he's rescued at the end and redeemed into One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, but that doesn't hold, and BOOM he's the Joker in Batman.


The most recent time I saw the movie was one of the last times I did hallucinogens, and I was slightly worried about how the film would affect me, but I ended up spending the entire time staring at the hotel's carpets, and missed the plot entirely.

The scene that terrified me in the book that never made it into the movie was the wasps' nest.  As a kid who played outside a lot, and was stung repeatedly, I had difficulty reading this part. I was completely convinced it would give me nightmares, but it didn't. It reminded me of a nature trail in my town that we would field trip to every year or so. In the museum/gift shop there was an empty wasp's nest that terrified me.  As an adult, I took a date to the nature trail, and he Stepped In A Digger Wasp's Nest right in front of me. I have an old poem about this which is absolutely true. The wasps landed in his hair, and buzzed around him but left me alone (as a contrast, when I was twelve, I stepped in a yellowjacket nest on the ground, and, despite running faster than my compatriots, was the only person who was stung...and I was stung Quite A Bit).

So this book should have utterly terrified me, but I actually enjoyed it as a character study rather than a horror book. I thought about it when, the February Vacation after I read it, my family spent a week in a quiet (but not empty) hotel in Maine.  

This book has a lot of flaws, but it captivated me when I was younger, and it's flaws (mainly the Magical Negro trope) were done out of ignorance, not malice, and I'm willing to excuse them in his earlier works in a way that I can't when the time came that he Should Have Known Better.

5. It: This was the first book I ever read by Stephen King. My family was on our way to vacation in Florida, and my parents were willing to buy anything to keep me entertained. The problem was that I'd read all the children and young adult books in the airport store, so I picked up It.

This must have amused them. I'd been terrified of Gremlins, and Nightmare On Elm Street, and the horror movies that my friends liked. I was ten and had no room in my life for horror. During this vacation, I would cement my fear of roller coasters on Disney's Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. But I read that book from cover to cover.


I hadn't finished it during vacation, so I brought it in to read during Reading Time. The girls in my class noticed it first, and said there was Sex Stuff in it (I knew!) and I shouldn't read it, so the told my teacher, Miss Markarian. She asked what my parents would think of me reading such a book. And I told her they bought it for me. Thus, she let me read it in class, but wouldn't let me allow anyone else to borrow it.

The sex parts didn't really interest me. Nor was I mature enough to understand that The Losers Club was a bunch of traumatized kids from a community not unlike mine. The appeal of a group of outsiders facing some cosmic monster that was sometimes a spider and sometimes a clown fascinated me. It wasn't until I read it as an adult when I went "Uhh...why are these kids having a gangbang to celebrate killing a monster? This is...kind of messed up." As a kid, it flew right over my head.

6. The Dark Half was the second Stephen King book I ever finished. I wrote a ton of short stories and journaled fairly religiously when I was a kid. So the idea that you could excise a part of you that created a type of art you were uncomfortable with fascinated me.


I think my parents assumed that my choosing It had been a fluke of availability, so they were probably a little taken aback when I bought this the year it came out.

​
I had tried The Eyes Of The Dragon and  The Talisman between It and Dark Half, and I believe my parents thought the books had been too frightening for me. Actually, they both bored me. This was the book that made me pick up Dead Zone and The Gunslinger, and  follow down the dark, winding road of Stephen King books.

7. Needful Things: I haven't gone back and reread this since I was a teenager. 

There was a book store that opened up in the plaza where my parents did their grocery shopping when I was fourteen. It's where I bought Misery, Tommyknockers, Different Seasons, The Stand, and Four Past Midnight. 

I wasn't their first ever customer, but I think I was the first Avid Reader Kid they encountered. It was a British couple who owned the store, and they loved talking to me. And they loved how much money I spent there, as I didn't JUST buy Stephen King books there.


One week, I was feeling pretty down. I had gone into the pet store to check out hamsters, and at some point, I'd picked up a shaker full of fish food for my aquarium and stuffed it in my pocket, not realizing I hadn't paid for it until I was out in the parking lot. I was shook, and trying to figure out what to do. I loved that pet shop and not only didn't want to get caught shoplifting from them, I didn't want them to lose money from my mistake. So I went into the bookstore to figure out my next step.

The woman saw me come in and said "Oh good, you're here! I have a present for you." and went into the back.

I was expecting the cops to come out and drag  me out in cuffs.

Instead, she handed me an autographed copy of Stephen King's new book Needful Things. It wasn't just autographed. It was personalized. To me. She and her husband had been at a book convention, had the opportunity to meet him, and had him sign a book to me. I cried So Hard.

I did get a little skeezed out reading the book when it turned out to be a shop owner who trades people their desires in exchange for "mysterious deeds". I wondered what they wanted from me.

The next week I went in, bought some more books, and also sneakily returned the unopened fish food to the pet store and then purchased it.

There is a creepy dream sequence involving a twelve year old boy's sexual relationship with one of his teachers that inspired me to write several Also Creepy erotic short stories that, thankfully, have been lost forever and ever.

8. 'salem's Lot: My confession for this book is that I didn't finish it the first time I read it. I had been reading The Vampire Chronicles by Anne Rice (which was a trilogy at that point) and I decided I didn't care about vampire stories. 

So, shortly after vampires were revealed to be a part of this book, I stopped reading it.

I didn't pick it back up until I was reading Wolves Of Callah over a decade later, and they referenced one of the characters from 'salem's Lot, so I put that book down and went back and actually read 'salem's Lot and loved it in a way I might not have as a teenager, even if I'd bothered finishing it.



I'm not big on religion in the same way that I'm not super into vampire stories. But I love a good Loss Of Faith tale, particularly when it's not resolved. 

I spent about an hour talking about this book with a roommate who didn't read very often, but had read 'salem's Lot as a teenager, and had a lot of thoughts about it. I convinced him he should read The Dark Tower series, ad he initially liked it, but got bored during the fourth book, and so never made it to see how 'salem's Lot came into play.

9. The Stand: I read this the same summer I read Les Miserables. Those were, The Only Books I Read That Summer. In a parallel universe, I am still reading this book. M-O-O-N that spells Fucken Long Ass Book.

There are a ton of tropes in this book that I didn't pick up when I was a teenager. That's probably for the best.

What I loved was the world building, and I remember being surprised that when I finished reading this, I still wanted More.


So when The Dark Tower series crossed over into the world that The Stand had set up, I was overjoyed. It was when I first realized that King was building a Universe. Sure, a bunch of his earlier books had taken place in the same towns (usually in Maine), but this was Different. Something amazing was happening in The Dark Tower, and it was going to be tied into this book that I had wanted to be Somehow Longer.

I was also considering becoming a Deaf Education Major, and working with Deaf Children when this book came out, so I was excited that there was a Deaf character in this book. I remember explaining that to a Deaf friend and having him reply by making the Universal Whoopty-Doo sign with his index finger.

10. The Dead Zone:  If I've learned anything from comic books and Stephen King novels, it's that Having Powers sucks. There's always some cosmic or karmic price tag. "Oh, hey, you can see terrible things in the future, but that power is slowly killing you, and you only realized you had it after a prolonged coma." Yeesh.

I think much of why I liked this was that I was just beginning to distrust politicians as I was reading this, and the idea that a despicable man would have risen to power and destroyed the world, only to be stopped when he's exposed as a coward (he uses a child as a human shield during an assassination attempt), just sat really well with me.

If you're fairly certain your congressperson wouldn't gladly use a poor, minority child as a human shield to prolong their ghoulish existence, congratulations, you're probably delusional.

To be....continued. (But hopefully you won't have to wait as long as I had to wait between Wastelands and Wizard & Glass.)