The Crooked Treehouse
  • Tips From The Bar
  • Honest Conversation Is Overrated
  • Popcorn Culture
  • Comically Obsessed
  • Justify Your Bookshelves
  • Storefront

Popcorn Culture

Ruminations on TV Shows, Comics, And Music

Doctor Who In Eleven Seasons, Season 10: The War Doctor

10/5/2017

0 Comments

 
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 You might love a particular companion in one episode, and, in the next, they've been replaced by people you have no context for.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 Fourrteen Times over the course of these twelve seasons.

Last season we saw the end of Torchwood's story arc, the satisfying and optimistic end of Amy & Rory's time with The Doctor. This season should be a clean slate of adventuring with no continuity or storyarcs hanging over The Doctor's head except for his own. Ahhhh, glorious new beginnings.
Picture
The new face of The Doctor seems to be...slightly different than the previous ones.
Season 10: The War Doctor
(Matt Smith, Peter Capaldi, John Hurt, more)
Episode 1: Asylum Of The Daleks
​(11, Amy, Rory, Clara, Daleks)
45 minutes

It turns out that we're not done with Rory & Amy yet, and their lives have turned Bleak. And full of Daleks. The Doctor is reunited with his former companions by a Congress of Daleks who need The Doctor to go to the surface of Skaro, their home planet, and save them from their own maddest Daleks. It turns out, due to the whole cracks in time thing from Season Eight, they don't appear to have any idea who he is. And that's not the biggest surprise in this episode.


Episode 2: Angels Take Manhattan
(11, Amy, Rory, River, Weeping Angels)
45 minutes


Rory, Amy, and their precocious time-traveling daughter River Song get sucked into mid-twentieth century Earth where The Weeping Angels are seriously fucking up the timeline. I'm sure their involvement will mean everything ends up a-ok, and no one will be sad.


Episode 3: The Snowmen
(11, Clara, Vastra, Flint, Strax, The Great Intelligence)
60 minutes

The Doctor has gone all broody sadsack again, and he's living in the nineteenth century with The Paternoster gang, occasionally helping them solve mysteries. But a giant mystery in the form of Soufle girl from "Asylum of The Daleks" lands in his path, and he must discover how this Impossible Girl has come back into his life.


Episode 4: The Bells Of Saint John
(11, Clara, Great Intelligence)
45 minutes


Clara is alive. Again. And in modern times. Someone gave her The Doctor's number, and now he is determined not to let her die again again. The main plot of the episode involving wifi is on the extra cheesy side, but this is a good introduction to Clara in her finalish form. And it fits into a smooth, if not very interesting, Great Intelligence arc.


Episode 5: Name Of The Doctor
(11, War Doctor, Clara, River, Vastra, Flint, Strax, Great Intelligence, Whisper Men)
45 minutes


The Doctor, Clara, The Paternoster Gang, and River Song all end up on Trenzalore, which is where The Doctor is said to be buried.  The Great Intelligence, from the last two episodes, need the Doctor's name so they can go into the timestream and wreak havoc on The Doctor's timeline. We also find out why Clara is The Impossible Girl, which was a huge, exhausting, and complex season long storyarc if you were watching all the episodes she appeared in, but distilled down to the three episodes in this continuity is a satisfying, fun mystery.


Episode 6: The Day Of The Doctor
(10, 11, War Doctor, 4, Clara, Bad Wolf, Osgood, Kate Stewart, Elizabeth, Zygons, Daleks, Time Lords)
77 minutes


Waaaaaay back in Season Six, there started to be allusions to The Time War, a big terrible battle between Time Lords and Daleks that fucked up the entire universe. Since then, we've seen The Daleks a bunch of times, but only had to deal with Those Asshole Time Lords (apart from The Master) once. Welllll, welcome to The Time War. It's going to take three of The Doctors to figure out how to save Gallifrey and undo the damage they did in The Time War originally. Or...hold up...is THIS the damage they did in the Time War that they've been grumbling about? Unlike classic multi-Doctor episodes, we don't get every Doctor showing up with one of their companions to fill us with nostalgia, but there are some surprise cameos, including The Zygons, who we've not seen since Season Two.

Episode 7: Time Heist
(12, Clara, Danny)
45 minutes


WOAH THERE! This time The Doctor really did regenerate offscreen? For our purposes, yes. There was actually an episode after Day Of The Doctor where we see The Doctor regenerate into this new face, but it is FUCKEN AWFUL, and we don't have time for that crap. We're also mainly skipping over the whole The Doctor has a new face and doesn't know how to be who he used to be, how will we ever get used to him. We're launching right into an adventure where The Doctor and Clara have to rob a bank or else be slaughtered by the bankers. Weird twists abound!


Episode 8: The Caretaker
(12, Clara, Danny, Missy, Seb)

The Doctor goes Deep Undercover. In the school where Clara and Danny work. Which just so happens to be the school that Barbara and Ian worked out way way way way way back in Season One.  Nothing unusual could ever happen there. Also, The Doctor and Danny get along about as well as The Doctor and Mickey, or The Doctor and Rory.


Episode 9: Dark Water/Death In Heaven
(12, Clara, Kate Stewart, Osgood, Danny, Missy, Seb, Cybermen) 
90 minutes


Clara's got a boyfriend! Clara's got a boyfriend! Annnnnnd, he's dead. Sad Clara and Cantankerous The Doctor go to the afterlife to find out what happened to him, and end up running into Cybermen and an old foe with a new face. You're not the only one who can regenerate, Doctor face.


Episode 10: The Magician's Apprentice/The Witch's Familiar
(12, Clara, Kate Stewart, Missy, Davros, Daleks)
​90 minutes


Clara ends up teaming up with The Doctor's foe from the last episode in order to survive Davros and The Daleks. This episode actually reaches all the way back to an off-hand remark from "Genesis Of The Daleks" to explain why The Doctor didn't just kill All The Daleks and put an end to this millennia ago (although I guess he did, temporarily, in The Time War, but we've dealt with that already, get over it).


Holiday Special: Under The Lake/Before The Flood
(12, Clara, Tivolans)
90 minutes


The Doctor, Clara, and...ghosts...under water? It's another adventure where The Doctor tries to save a bunch of people from something he doesn't understand. And Clara is trying to get this The Doctor to be less cantankerous. He is, seriously, Colin Baker/William Hartnell rude, not at all the modern Doctor we had gotten used to. Maybe solving this mystery will make him more agreeable. Probably not.
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    RSS Feed

    Categories

    All
    Beck
    Buffy
    Cyndi Lauper
    DC Arrowverse
    Doctor Who
    Final Girl University
    Gabriels
    Genesis
    Jacob Collier
    Jimmy Buffett
    Justice League Animated Series
    Meat Loaf
    Muppets
    Neil Young
    Night Court
    One Album Discographies
    Pearl Jam
    Prince
    Queen
    Radiohead
    Reimagined Discographies
    Rem
    Snoop Dogg
    Stargate
    Star Trek
    Stephen King
    The Cars
    The Conners
    The Good Place
    The Mountain Goats
    The Rolling Stones
    The Simpsons
    The Weeknd
    They Might Be Giants
    Tom Petty
    U2
    Wrestling
    X-files

    Archives

    March 2023
    February 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    January 2021
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015

All work on the Crooked Treehouse is ©Adam Stone, except where indicated, and may not be reproduced without his permission. If you enjoy it, please consider giving to my Patreon account.
  • Tips From The Bar
  • Honest Conversation Is Overrated
  • Popcorn Culture
  • Comically Obsessed
  • Justify Your Bookshelves
  • Storefront