Doctor Who Headcanon Reimagined, 1: Doctor Who?

Having been watching Doctor Who on and off but mostly off for the last forty years, I am excited by the current re-re-rebooted series featuring the fourteenth and fifteenth doctors. After a divisive Twelfth Doctor, and a Thirteenth Doctor who was, herself, very interesting and entertaining, but whose overall storyarc was less than satisfying, I'm relieved to be optimistic about the show, even if it still had a couple of clunker episodes.

I've already done a How To Watch Doctor Who project that focuses just on the great episodes, and how to watch them in order for most enjoyment.

This is something different.

If you love continuity, you're going to either want to skip this one or watch it very, very closely. This is Doctor Who told incredibly out of order. Each series will have a theme and/or a complex storyline. Each season will use multiple Doctors and companions, and will rarely (but not never) follow their adventures in such a way that you see a companion's growth as a character.

I did this, not just because I think it's fun to try and experience the series in a new way but I offer this to people who haven't watched Doctor Who, who would like to see some of the old episodes but can't stomach watching the 20th century episodes for several months in order to get to the modern stuff. We start modern and bop around so that you're never stuck in the black and white era or the 4,000 minute long serial era for very long.

The first season is all about learning who The Doctor is. He's a seemingly somewhat immortal time traveler, and when he gets really ill, he regenerates into an entirely different looking/behaving person who tend to have a sort of temporary amnesia. We're going to be introduced to the first thirteen Doctors (except 4) in this season, out of order, usually including their first episodes where they are unsure what kind of person they are and struggle to get a handle on their new personas.

The first 13 doctors, art by @Aaroonio

101. Blink
(10, Martha, Weeping Angels)

Some argue that this a terrible introduction to Doctor Who because The Doctor is hardly in it. That's why I enjoy it as an entryway. This is a fun sci-fi/horror story with a mysterious character who we're soon going to get to know. And there are really imaginative monster antagonists. We'll call this face of The Doctor, The Smiling Doctor.


​102 & 103. The Family Of Blood / Human Nature
(10, Martha)

Now we find out who The Doctor i---oh, The Smiling Doctor has to go into hiding during World War One. His companion is there watching over him but racism is making things difficult. As are aliens.


104. Time Heist
(12, Clara)

Meet The Grouchy Doctor. He and a new companion find themselves in the middle of a bank heist with no memory of how they got involved and what their aims are. They puzzle it out as shenanigans unravel around them.


105. The Woman Who Fell To Earth
(13, Ryan, Yasmin, Graham)

The Steampunk Doctor crashes to Earth and acknowledges she was just a raving Scotsman (aka The Grouchy Doctor). She meets a new crew of potential companions tracking down a monster who appears to be hunting humans for...teeth?


106. The Invasion (episodes 2, 7 & 8)
(2, Jamie, Zoe, Brigadier, Cybermen)

It's Cybermen vs UNIT (we are meeting both for the first time), as a black and white era Doctor (The Flute Doctor) must make military alliances on Earth to keep it from being destroyed.


107. War Games
(2, Jamie, Zoe, Timelords)

The Flute Doctor and his companions find themselves in the midst of a very confusing war. Just as they begin to sort everything out and plot their escape they're taken to The Doctor's home planet of Gallifrey. While The Timelords (The Doctor's race) keep everyone separated, we learn a little bit about how The Doctor's face keeps changing.


108. Spearhead From Space
(3, Brigadier, Liz, Autons)

Picking up from the previous episode for the first time, we meet Kung Fu Doctor, and see him interact with someone who was familiar with The Flute Doctor and is confused as to why he looks and sounds so different. We also meet the Autons, an odd race of mannequins.


109. Terror Of The Autons
(3, Brigadier, Jo, Mike, Autons, The Master)

More mannequins! More Brigadier! The introduction of another Timelord called The Master.


110. Rose
(9, Rose, Mickey, Jackie, Autons)

We follow The Autons to twenty-first century London, where their plans intertwine with The Doctor's, just as he has been regenerated into The Leather Doctor. He meets a woman named Rose, who he invites to be his new companion.


111. The Christmas Invasion
(10, Rose, Mickey, Jackie, Harriet Jones)

Oh, hey, it's The Smiling Doctor again! Only, oooh, this is his first adventure with that face. Rose and some friends we met in the last episode help a seemingly exhausted Smiling Doctor remember who he is and what he should be doing: saving Earth from aliens! 


112. The Eleventh Hour
(12, Amy, Rory)

The Bowtie Doctor, also confused, lands on Earth and discovers cracks on a young girl's wall. As he and a potential new companion investigate the cause of the cracks, he scares off some aliens by revealing several of the faces he's already had on this weird journey.


113. & 114. The Hungry Earth/Cold Blood
(12, Amy, Rory, Silurians)

The Bowtie Doctor's companions from the last adventure join him on a drilling expedition where they go too far beneath The Earth's surface and get involved in interspecies warfare.


115. Vincent & The Doctor
(12, Amy)

After the previous episode's events, The Bowtie Doctor takes Amy to visit one of Earth's greatest painters.


116 & 117. Silence In The Library / Forest Of The Dead
(10, Donna, River)

The Smiling Doctor and a friend are drawn to a library where an expedition has arrived to research why there are no people there. One of the members of the expedition seems to know The Smiling Doctor but he has no idea who she is.


118. Time Crash / Castrovalva
(10, 5, Adric, Nyssa, Tegan, The Master)

This is a fun, weird continuity floof. Our friend the Smiling Doctor runs into a face we haven't met yet: The Cricket Doctor. They suss each other out. Then we follow The Cricket Doctor into his first adventure where he wakes up surrounded by companions who know him but, as we're becoming accustomed to, he isn't sure who he is or what he should be doing. Oh, and The Master is around, which is annoying.


119. The Enemy Within
(7, 8, The Master)

Two new faces in one! The Umbrella Doctor has The Master's remains, and is trying to determine what to do with them when, of course, something goes awry that ends up causing The Doctor to regenerate in America where everything is a teensy bit darker and more violent, and we meet The Goth Doctor.


120. The Fugitive Of The Judoon
(13, Yasmin, Ryan, Graham, Judoon, Fugitive)

And now we're back to the Steampunk Doctor. A military alien race has quarantined Earth as they search for a criminal who, you're never going to believe this, turns out to be The Fugitive Doctor.


121.  The Two Doctors
(6, 2, Jamie, Peri, Sontarans)

Another multiple Doctor affair, featuring The Flute Doctor and The Overdressed Doctor, sees some Sontarans and some Earthlings and some other rogue aliens teaming up. One of the alien races is always searching for new and more refined culinary experiences and they bring a very silly element to an otherwise grave situation.


122. War Of The Sontarans
(13, Yasmin, Dan, Sontarans)

There's not a silly culinary alien in sight when The Sontarans due to some weird timey-wimey scenario, end up on Earth during World War One and therefore on Earth for the entirety of the 20th and 21st century? Steampunk Doctor must try and correct a very jumbled history. 


123. & 124. The Time Meddler
(1, Vicki, Steve)

Reaching way back into the black and white era, we meet The Fussy Doctor and his companions. Another time traveler, The Meddling Monk, is messing up history by exposing ancient civilizations to twentieth century technology.


125. An Unearthly Child
(1, Susan Foreman, Barbara, Ian)

This is actually the first episode of the original run of Doctor Who. A teenage girl is followed home by concerned teachers who discover that she lives in a dump with her grandfather, The Fussy Doctor, who then abducts them to take them on adventures in space and time.