Now that The Doctor knows who he is, and knows to keep a better eye on his companions, it's time for him to have some therapy sessions about his interpersonal relationships. And once that's over, there is also a problem with planets disappearing. Sometimes, even entire solar systems. Three major interplanetary problems are introduced (and two of them solved) this season, amongst The Doctors and his companions trying to get some downtime, only to be sucked into some really weird traps.

Donna is the A+ companion in this season. As The Runaway Bride she encounters two different faces of The Doctor, only...they're the same face? What does that mean

301. The Runaway Bride
(10, Donna)

We ended our last season with The Doctor's sad separation from a companion. Then a random woman just appeared on his TARDIS, this is his first adventure with that woman, and serves as a mini-therapy session as he talks about his grief and loss. There's also a spectacularly campy villain.


302. The Doctor's Wife
(11, Amy, Rory)

The Doctor's...married? Not really. We determined last season that Leather Doctor and Smiling Doctor both belileve they are the last surviving Time People, so when The Doctor received a message begging for help from a fellow Time Person, he rushes to a planet where we get an in-depth look at a relationship that the series usually ignores.


303. The Three Doctors
(1, 2, 3, Brigadier, Jo, Benton, Omega)

We saw in the first season how The Flute Doctor was exiled to Earth and forced to regenerate into The Kung-Fu Doctor. This Doctor is mostly Earth-bound but occasionally the incompetent Time People need his help in space and send him on very specific missions. Well, they finally have one so important that they need not just Kung-Fu Doctor but also Flute Doctor and Grouchy Doctor too all add their unput to stop a rogue Time Person.


304. The Celestial Toymaker
(1, Steven, Dodo, The Toymaker)

This is a wacky, mostly animated episode (due to the BBC having erased a bunch of the episodes from the 1960s) about a chaos god messing around with The Grouchy Doctor and his companions.


305. Midnight
(10, Donna)

Smiling Doctor takes a break from his companion (The Runaway Bride) and goes on a relaxing train trip for tourists where things get real weird and real wrong real fast.


306. Pyramids Of Mars
(4, Sarah Jane, Sutekh)

Scarf Doctor and Sarah Jane end up being trapped by The God Of Death in a fun, archeology-focused adventure.


307. Planet Of The Ood
(10, Donna)

A very polite race of aliens is being used as slaves by a greedy corporation. The Smiling Doctor and his Runaway Bride get caught up on the corporation's home planet and are determined to end the slave ring.


308. The Sontarem Strategem
(10, Donna, Martha, Sylvia, Wilfred, The Sontarans, UNIT)

One of The Doctor's companions from the first season is now working for UNIT and sends a distress signal to The Doctor. A warlike race that we've encountered a couple of times has created technology that threatens human life in a variety of ways.


309. The Poison Sky
(10, Donna, Martha, Sylvia, Wilfred, The Sontarans, UNIT)

Continuing from the last episode, The Smiling Doctor and his companions try and save the Earth. An evil and easily manipulated tech nerd is involved in the possible destruction of the human race, which hasn't at all been relevant at any point in 21st century history.


310. The Doctor's Daughter
(10, Donna, Martha)

We know The Doctor has a granddaughter floating around, surely he must have a child that produced said grandchild. While his UNIT friend and The Runaway Bride are still travelling with him, he ends up in the midst of an unusual civil war that creates the circumstances for him to have a child.


311. The Pandorica Opens
(11, Amy, Rory, River Song, Daleks, Cybermen, Sontarans, Autons, Sycorax, Judoons, Silurians)

Bowtie Doctor stumbles into a trap connected to those weirds cracks in the walls he's been seeing since the first season. Also, that woman from the library in the first season appears to be involved.


312. The Big Bang
(11, Amy Rory, River Song, Daleks, Autons)

Oh no, is The Doctor the reasons for all those cracks in the walls? Is that woman from the library way more important to The Doctor than we could have possibly imagined? Did one of his companions wait literally thousands of years to re-enter The Doctor's life? What's the deal with the fez?


313. Turn Left
(10, Donna, Rose, Sylvia, Wilfred)

While The Smiling Doctor checks out a street fair, The Runaway Bride enters a fortune teller's booth and experiences what her life would be like without The Doctor, which, in turn, shows her what would happen to The Doctor without her.


314. The Stolen Earth
(10, Donna, Rose, Sarah Jane, Martha, Jack Harkness, Sylvia, Wilfred, Harriet Jones, Gwen, Ianto, Davros, Daleks)

Luckily for everybody everywhere, The Smiling Doctor and The Runaway Bride did encounter each other and now the two of them, having run into Bad Wolf again, end up encountering a ton of characters from our first three seasons as the Earth is transported away and invaded by Daleks.


315. Journey's End
(10, Donna, Rose, Sarah Jane, Martha, Jack Harkness, Mickey, Jackie, Sylvia, Wilfred, Gwen, Ianto, Davros, Daleks, K-9)

K-9 is pretty much a kitchen sink, so let's just use the cliche "everything and the kitchen sink" are thrown into this episode as The Smiling Doctor must save The Earth from The Daleks and then somehow get it back into its proper galaxy.


316. The Rebel Flesh
(11, Amy, Rory, Mme Kovarian)

They're not precisely autons but there is a manaufactured alien race of doppelgangers designed to keep miners from being killed in dangerous operations. This, of course, leads to the problem of Who Are The Real People and Who Are The Dopplegangers?


317. The Almost People
(11, Amy, Rory, Mme Kovarian)

Things from the last episode get even more complicated as a Doppleganger Doctor gets involved in the adventure. Which one is he? Naturally.


318. City Of Death
(4, Romana)

Time to go back to The Scarf Doctor Days for a good old fashioned art heist involving The Mona Lisa. 


319. The Space Museum
(1, Ian, Barbara, Vicki, Daleks)

Now let's travel even further back as The Grouchy Doctor and a couple of his original companions find a museum in which there are exhibits focused on them!


320. Kerblam!
(13, Graham, Ryan, Yas)

It's Amazon.com in space. The Steampunk Doctor sees how poorly employees are treated by a space corporation. See how it indirectly helps AI start to kill its employees, even though it was programmed to help them. See how corporations make everything go horribly, horribly wrong whilst, naturally, underpaying their workers.


321. The Star Beast
(14, Donna, Sylvia, Shirley, Shaun, Rose Noble)

The Smiling Doctor is back but having been regenerated into his old face. He doesn't understand it. Things then take a worse turn when he encounters The Runaway Bride who, last time we saw her, would literally explode if she ever rememberd The Doctor and her adventures with him. Oh, there's also a very cute little alien who needs help.


322. The Giggle
(14, Donna, Kate Lethebridge-Stewart, Mel, 15, Sylvia, Shirley, The Toymaker, Shaun, Rose Noble, Vlinx)

It's another multi-Doctor, multi-companion episode as that chaos god who we encountered earlier this season has laid a trap in the early days of television that has become a problem in the early 21st century.  Can the extensive team The Once Again Smiling But Not As Much Doctor has assembled stop the chaos god from overpowering humanity?


323. The Devil's Chord
(15, Ruby, Maestro, Susan Triad)

The Once Again Smiling Doctor regenerated into The Crying Doctor during the last episode. This new face has a new companion and a new very campy, very fun antagonist. Buuuuuuut...is she connected to the chaos god from the last episode? And if so, are there more of these gods?


324. Lux
(15, Belinda, Mrs Flood)

Yes, there are more of these gods! The Crying Doctor has yet another new companion and they end up having to rescue a theater full of people who've been trapped by....a cartoon? It's a mixed media adventure with a lot of meta references but it's really fun.


325. The Well
(15, Belinda, Mrs Flood)

We end this season with a call back to The Smiling Doctor's train trip. It appears that the antagonist, who we never precisely met, still exists and has become, potentially, much more dangerous. In the background of this story, we learn that The Earth seems to have not just disappeared physically this time but disappeared historically, as if it never existed. This seems like it might be a big problem next season.

At its core, the entire modern era of Doctor Who has been less about creating good sci-fi and more about being nostalgic for the 20th century version of the show. And that's ok. It has created some wonderful emotional moments and some genuinely good sci-fi that isn't dependent on you enjoying a random sci-fi episode from fifty years ago.

Russsel T Davies was the showrunner for the 9th and 10th doctors, which was a love letter to Daleks, Cybermen, and The Master that also introduced three very different companions who each had their own merit, and got to team up with some classic companions for a big showdown at the end of his run.

Steven Moffat, who wrote the 11th and 12th Doctors, liked creating his own villains, mainly The Weeping Angels and The Silence, but drawing in some more obscure 20th century villains like The Zygons. Sure, he also threw The Daleks and some Cybermen in from time to time, and he had a wonderful take on The Master but his series was really a love letter to fairy tales. His ending was flat and uninspiring but there were tons of highlights during his run.

Chris Chibnall, who exclusively wrote the 13th Doctor, wrote terrible fanfic in the guise of Doctor Who episodes. Occasionally, one of his writing staff would sneak in a good episode while he wasn't looking. He didn't know The Doctor at all, and so wrote her as a woman who never knew what she was doing and never felt comfortable being herself. It was very frustrating. His Master was initially fun but got bogged down in a terrible storyline called The Timeless Child that also turned the Cybermen into a much stupider and toothless enemy than previous versions. The first two times he wrote The Daleks were very boring but at the very end of his run, he wrote a wonderful time loop Dalek episode and then threw a lot of nostalgia at his final episode, which ended up being one of the very few highlights of his era.

Then Russel T Davies came back for the 14th and 15th Doctors, and he wrote...a love letter to his previous time writing Doctor Who. It's very self-indulgent. It really relies on people already loving the series and knowing obscure episodes from the 1970s. There are no Daleks, no Master, no Cybermen. There is a whole new pantheon of villains who are mostly very entertaining but who are also tied to obscure 20th century villains that only Russel T Davies cares about. It was a slog to get into but then early in his second season, he started to do something really interesting and I was totally on board for his finale. And then I watched his finale, and it was awful. But it doesn't negate its interesting setup.

If you've been on this Headcanon journey, I think you'll find this to be a really strong season. If you don't bother with the beginning of the 15th Doctor's adventures or his terrible final episode, you get a much stronger Doctor than poor Jodie Whittaker's 14th Doctor from last season.

Episode 1: The Star Beast
(10/14, Donna Noble, Wilfred, Sylvia, Rose Noble, Shaun, Ruth)

Using an amazing villain from the Big Finish Audio Plays, The Fourteenth Doctor turns out to be the same face as The Tenth Doctor, which seems dangerous when he runs into Donna Noble who, last we knew, would literally explode if she ever remembered who The Doctor was. Her whole family returns, including her daughter for this space shenanigans on Earth story.


Episode 2: The Giggle
(10/14, 15, Mel, Donna Noble, Kate Stewart, Sylvia, Shaun, Rose Noble, Shirley, Vlinx)

An audio remnant from one of the first ever TV shows wreaks havoc on Earth as people start behaving like Youtube comments. Neil Patrick Harris as The Toymaker, is clearly responsible for this mess, and it's up to The Doctor, Donna, Kate Stewart, and a long absent companion of The Sixth and Seventh Doctor to sort everything out. Also, Two Doctors!


Episode 3: The Devil's Chord
(15, Ruby, Susan Triad)

The new face of The Doctor has a new companion, and they decide that their first time-traveling adventure should be seeing The Beatles record their first album. Unfortunately, someone has altered time so that there's no more joy or emotion in music. This is a very silly episode but it's tied into The Giggle and is a campy blast!


Episode 4: 73 Yards
(Ruby, Kate Stewart, Susan Triad, Carla, Cherry, 15, Mrs Flood)

A Doctor-Light episode where Ruby finds herself on her own. Luckily, it's on her own planet, in her own time, relatively close to where she lives. Unfortunately, she's haunted by the specter of a woman who won't leave her, and who drives anyone who tries to talk to her away from Ruby forever.  There are some wonderful moments of humor at the beginning, and the overall plot is a nice little slice of political sci-fi tropism.


Episode 5: Dot And Bubble
(15, Ruby, Susan Triad)

Doctor Who has swung wide several times trying to do episodes about social media. They're usually terrible. This one has the nice twist of Russel T Davies channeling Steven Moffat's "Blink" but imagining what would happen if the people The Doctor was trying to save were more revilable than sympathetic.
​

Episode 6: Lux
(15, Belinda, Mrs Flood)

The first ever live action/animated hybrid episode is also the first episode that goes full-meta, as The Doctor and a new companion find their non-white selves in mid-twentieth century Florida where they have to flout segregation to solve the mystery of a group of people who disappeared while watching a cartoon in a movie theater. This is a really fun episode that reminds us that the pantheon of gods we started seeing back in "The Giggle" are still floating around wreaking havoc.


Episode 7: The Well
(15, Belinda, Mrs Flood)

A terrifying sequel to the David Tennant era episode, "Midnight", The Doctor and Belinda encounter a planet where a military base has massacred themselves for reasons no one can explain. The one survivor is a Deaf woman who watched all the madness unfold. We also discover that a small problem from the last episode (they can't seem to get back to Earth on the day Belinda left) is a much bigger problem as even humanoid aliens have never even heard of Earth.


Episode 8: Lucky Day
(Ruby, Kate Stewart, Shirley, Conrad, 15, Belinda, Carla, Cherry, Vlinx, Mrs Flood)

Ruby meets and falls in love with someone who, as a child, encountered The Doctor and Belinda and who has become obsessed with them. Of course, nothing is as it seems, and UNIT has to step in and help her pick up the pieces when Conrad turns out to be a very human villain.
​

Episode 9: The Story And The Engine
(15, Belinda, Mrs Flood, The Fugitive Doctor)

The Doctor goes to his favorite barber shop in Nigeria to relax, only to discover that the shop is being used to fuel a god machine using storytelling. The Doctor is briefly shown as The Fugitive Doctor, as we discover that she left one of her companions behind to become entangled into the storytelling engine.


Episode 10: The Interstellar Song Contest
(15, Belinda, Mrs Flood, Susan Foreman, The Rani)

It's Eurovision in space! With a touch of the comic series "Saga". A terrorist from an oppressed race is willing to commit mutiple genocides to get his revenge on the corporation that destroyed his planet. Of course, The Doctor isn't having it. 


Holiday Special: Wish World
(15, Belinda, Ruby, Shirley, Mrs Flood, The Rani, Conrad, Kate Stewart, Mel, Susan Triad, Carla, Cherry)

The Rani and Mrs Flood's plan comes together as they use Conrad and a pantheon baby to create a mid-twentieth-century-like dystopia. This is technically part one of a two-part finale but, trust me, you're better off not ever watching it.

The second season of my non-chronological doctor Who watchthrough focuses on two of the most famous villains in the canon. The Daleks and The Cybermen. Each of these inhuman alien races is focused on evolving humanoids from their emotional baggage to create genocidal killing machines.

While they are both at the forefront of this season, the underlying story is one of how people process being abandoned.

We will see several companions separated from the various faces of The Doctor and see how they cope with life without him. And because this is a season of an action sci-fi show, we'll end the storyline by throwing a bunchh of Daleks and Cybermen at a love story and see how The Doctor copes with it.

201. Dalek
(9, Rose, Adam, Daleks)

The Leather Doctor and Rose are visiting a museum when they stumble upon an alien that The Leather Doctor identifies as an ultimate killing machine. Why is it so dangerous, though?


202. Eve Of The Daleks
(13, Yasmine, Dan, Daleks)

Steampunk Doctor encounters a time loop on Earth where a small band of Daleks keeps resetting the timeline, resulting in them and some innocent humans repeatedly dying.


203. Genesis Of The Daleks
(4, Sarah Jane, Harry, Daleks, Davros)

Meet The Scarf Doctor! This jellybaby obsessed face of The Doctor has taken his companions all the way back to when The Daleks were invented, and he debates the ethics of destroying them before they become an interstellar problem.


204. Ark In Space
(4, Sarah Jane, Harry)

Scarf Doctor and the crew from the last episode live out the movie Alien, only instead of the terrifying xenomorphs, they're mostly battling bugs and bubble wrap.


205. Terror Of The Zygons
(4, Sarah Jane, Harry, Brigadier, Benton)

It's the Loch Ness monster! And weird rubber chameleon aliens. They are Not messing around. It's some good old fashioned mistaken identity shenanigans with The Scarf Doctor and friends!


206. The Brain Of Morbius
(4, Sarah Jane, Sisters of Karn)

It's a Frankenstein's monster style adventure with Scarf Doctor and Sarah Jane. The lovely Sisterhood of Karn will be reappearing a few times in this continuity, and their first appearance is a fun one. This episode has it all: buggy aliens, a wrecked spaceship, and an assistant with a hook hand!


207. The Hand Of Fear
(4, Sarah Jane)

A criminal in stasis has his pod blown up but his hand survives (this part of the season has some serious George Lucas vibes), and causes chaos for Scarf Doctor and Sarah Jane.  


208. The Long Game
(9, Rose, Adam)

The Leather Doctor and his companions end up on a sattelite that broadcasts TV shows to Earth and other planets. But it's bad. TV bad. 


209. Vengeance On Varos
(7, Peri)

A corrupt government uses TV to broadcast public executions to entertain the masses. It's not long before The Overdressed Doctor and his companion end up on the chopping block.


210. Dot and Bubble
(15, Ruby, Susan Triad)

If TV is bad, wait until you see The Crying Doctor's take on social media. A planet of influencers is being targeted by a species of monsters that they can't seem to be aware of. (No, it's not The Weeping Angels.) 


211. The Empty Child
(9, Rose, Jack Harkness)

It's London in the Blitz, and The Leather Doctor and Rose encounter a small child in a gas mask obsessed with finding his mommy. Is there something demonic at work, or is it alien in nature? They also meet another time traveler.


212. The Doctor Dances
(9, Rose, Jack Harkness)

Continuing from the last episode, we learn more about the people wearing gas masks, as well as Jack Harkness.


213. The Dalek Invasion Of Earth 
(1, Susan Foreman, Barbara, Ian, Daleks)

In a dystopian future, Daleks have settled on Earth and completely subjugate the human race. Fussy Doctor, his grandaughter, and the companions he abducted last season must survive in this world, at least until they can get the TARDIS to take them away.


214. A Girl's Best Friend
(Sarah Jane, K-9)

In the last episode, The Fussy Doctor abandoned a companion when she wasn't doing precisely what he wanted. Earlier this season, The Scarf Doctor abandoned a companion who wanted to leave. Now we catch up with Sarah Jane when she receives a package from The Scarf Doctor, which contains a robotic dog that will help her solve a very Scooby Doo like mystery in her life back on Earth.


215. Bad Wolf
(9, Rose, Jack Harkness, Mickey, Jackie, Daleks)

The Leather Doctor, Rose, and Jack Harkness are ensnared by the TV satellite from earlier this season. Only now it's being run by Daleks! 


216. The Parting Of Ways
(9, Rose, Jack Harkness, Mickey, Jackie, Daleks)

Everything looks especially bleak, so The Doctor sends Rose back to Earth while he and Jack battle the Daleks. Only Rose refuses to be separated from The Doctor and gets her mother and boyfriend to help her get back to the space station.


217. School Reunion
(10, Rose, Sarah Jane, Mickey, K-9)

While on a mission to figure out some strange goings on at a British school, The Smiling Doctor and his crew run into Sarah Jane who is also investigating the school. How will she react to this much later face of The Doctor who abandoned her so long ago (from both their perspectives).


218. Rise Of The Cybermen 
(10, Rose, Mickey, Jackie, Pete, Cybermen)

The Smiling Doctor, Rose, and Mickey accidentally pass through dimensions and land on an alternate Earth where Rose's father is alive and is involved in the creation of Earth's version of The Cybermen.


219. Age Of Steel
(10, Rose, Mickey, Jackie, Pete, Cybermen) 

The Smiling Doctor and friends must stop The Cybermen they encountered in the last episode from taking over Earth and turning all the humans into a new type of Cybermen.


220. Inferno
(3, Brigadier, Jo, Timelords)

While we're crossing universes and dimensions, The Kung Fu Doctor stumbles into an approximation of Star Trek's Mirrorverse, where everything is diamatercially opposed to what it's like in our universe. There, an environmental catastrophe looms and The Doctor can't convince anyone to listen to him. When he returns to our dimension, he encounters a similar problem.


221. Resurrection Of The Daleks
(5, Tegan, Turlough, Davros, Daleks)

When The Cricket Doctor once again encounters the genocidal trash cans who've been haunting The Doctor all season, he decides that this time, he's going to kill Davros in order to protect the universe, which causes one of his companions to decide to leave.


222. 73 Yards
(Ruby, Susan Triad, 15, Kate Lethebridge-Stewart, Carla, Cheery)

The Crying Doctor's companion gets separated from The Doctor on Earth, where she is followed by a woman who is always 73 yards behind her. Whenever this woman speaks to someone, they become horrified and refuse to speak to Ruby ever again. This includes her family, and UNIT, who initially plan on helping her.


223. The Girl Who Waited
(11, Amy, Rory)

The Bowtie Doctor and Rory are separated from Amy while waiting to take a holiday. Amy is put in an accelerate timestream and is much older when Rory comes to rescue her.


224. Army Of Ghosts
(10, Rose, Jackie, Mickey, Daleks, Cybermen, Torchwood)

The Smiling Doctor and Rose check in on regular old Earth and discover that humanity has grown accustomed to visits from ghosts, who stop in on a schedule, which people seem to find comfort in. Only they're not ghosts at all but Cybermen breaking in from another universe. When The Doctor is approached by an organization called Torchwood to help discover what the Cybermen are up to, Rose finds a sphere that contains The Daleks who survived Bad Wolf.


225. Doomsday
(10, Rose, Jackie, Mickey, Pete, Daleks, Cybermen, Torchwood)

There are come genuinely funny moments when the invading Daleks and the invading Cybermen interact while trying to take down Torchwood but it's otherwise a dire affair as The Doctor realizes he and his crew create the problem when they broke into the alternate world way back in "Rise Of The Cybermen." The only way to stop both invasions is to close the barrier forever.

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.

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.

If we know each other in real life, or if we are friends on social media, you know I am a huge fan of Doctor Who, in general. I'm critical of parts of it, but, for the most part, as long as I don't see  Mark Gatiss's name as the writer of an episode, I go into it with an open mind.

I was incredibly excited for the Thirteenth Doctor. I like Jodie Whitaker as an actor, and I enjoyed the first season of Chris Chibnall's Broadchurch (I haven't seen the other seasons).

I, uh. I don't love it. I love Jodie Whitaker as The Doctor. I love some of the risks they've taken in the interest of writing a more progressive series. I like the idea of the companions. But ... it took me years to be able to finish an honest Twelfth Season comprised only of episodes that I like. Chibnall's take on the characters is Super Clunky. His companions are rarely given enough time to be interesting, and his Doctor never quite  figures out who she is, which didn't work when Moffat/Capaldi tried it for a single season a few years ago, and it didn't work for Chibnall/Whittaker.

But in November 2019, I started rewatching the modern Doctor Who episodes with my partner. And I used this series of blog posts as a guide. It's been great, and helpful. I had made some mistakes in episode selection when I created the original list, and we would watch a Not So Great episode, talk about why it didn't work, and then I'd find an episode that I'd previously left off, and update the list. I stand by the current incarnation of this list. And I'm glad through three full seasons, I was finally able to get ten episodes that I enjoyed watching. Even if it took until the final episode to reach that number.

Episode 1: The Woman Who Fell To Earth
(13,  Ryan, Yasmin, Graham, Grace, Tim Shaw)
64 minutes

The Doctor: "Why are you calling me madam?"
Yasmin Khan: "Because… you’re a woman?"
The Doctor: "Am I? Does it suit me?"
Yasmin Khan: "What?"
The Doctor: "Oh yeah, I remember – sorry, half an hour ago I was a white-haired Scotsman!"
​
It's a whole new Doctor. This one, a goofy steampunk engineer is an absolute delight. She spends most of this episode trying to figure out who she is, and why some tooth-stealing alien is killing humans.


Episode 2: Demons Of The Punjab
(13, Yasmin, Ryan, Graham)
50 minutes

As a favor to Yasmin, The Doctor and crew head to Partition era Pakistan to learn about Nani Umbreen (Yasmin's grandmother)'s past. Of course there are aliens involved. It's Doctor Who. But there are some great misdirects, interesting historical notes, and significantly less whitewashing than most Doctor Who historical episodes. While you may learn a lot, and there are certainly political notes, this feels more like a character driven story with political messages than a political statement that they wrapped a plot around. It is my second favorite episode of this season.


Episode 3: KERBLAM!
(13, Ryan,  Graham, Yasmin)
49 minutes

It's Amazon Dot Com in the future! Fewer humans. More robots. Less humanity. This was the first episode of Whittaker's reign that felt like a fun, classic Doctor Who scrape. 
 

Serial 4 : Spyfall
(13, Yasmin, Ryan, Graham, The Master)
120 minutes

An alien race is killing international spies indiscriminately. The companions realize that they really don't know anything about The Doctor. The Master is back. The fictional version of Google is run by a truly evil dude (no, not The Master). Plus, important female historical figures serve as temporary companions when The Doctor is separated from her more boring, contemporary companions. The new Master is fantastic in this serial.


Episode 5: Nikola Tesla's Night Of Terror
(13, Yasmin, Ryan, Graham)
5o minutes

There have been some great comics and stories about the two warring 20th century genius inventors: Thomas Edison and Nikola Tesla. Edison is, according to history, justifiably cast as the villain in most of these stories. Here, too. This is just a fun, one-off historical story, which have become rare as the 21st century of the show has matured.


Episode 6: The Fugitives Of The Judoon
(13, Fugitive Doctor, Ryan, Graham, Yasmin, Jack Harkness, The Judoon)
50 minutes

Vinay Patel is far and away the best writer from Chibnall's era of Who. Having also written "The Demons Of Punjab". This episode, reintroduces The Judoon, introduces a new Doctor, and brings back a companion we haven't seen since the end of our Season 9. Everything about this episode is perfect. I loved it even before the returning companion. 


Episode 7: War Of The Sontarans
(13,  Yasmin, Dan, Swarm, Azure, Passenger, Vinder, Sontarans)
​59 minutes​

This is technically the second part of a six episode storyarc, but it's not only stronger than the first part, it's much more interesting if you haven't seen the first part. The Doctor and her companions (one of whom is new) have become unstuck in time and are locked out of the TARDIS. And history is unglued, as historical Earth events have been interspersed with familiar Doctor Who aliens. And several mysterious new lifeforms are also trying to fix the timeline.


Episode 8: Village Of The Angels
(13, Yasmin, Dan, Azure, Bel, Passenger, Weeping Angels)
56 minutes

When I started including the 2021 episodes in the continuity, I pulled out five not very good episodes from 2019 that led up to "The Timeless Child". I already wasn't enjoying Chibnall's run, but I thought Chibnall was an Idea Writer who wasn't good at execution.  There are many of them in comics. I can see their intentions and their world-building concepts, and their sense of characters but they lack the ability to translate that into dialogue and plotting. I thought that was Chibnall's flaw. He structured his entire second season of Doctor Who to answer a question posed in "The Brain Of Morbius", which was the first episode of this website's Season Three. It didn't need an answer, but it was an intriguing concept. It was just also a confusing mess. Chibnall writes like a fan of the series who lacks any understanding of what makes the show work. He's not an Idea Writer, he's a Fanfic Writer. I am hoping that when Russell T Davies takes over the show, the pre-credit teaser to the very first episode is an homage to Bobby Ewing's return to Dallas, and we find out it was all a fever dream? Whose? Jo Grant's Doctor. Let Davies give Grant a whole new back story who had a dream she was ... *a spoiler would go here* ...

I hope the series gets to a point where I can erase this episode, too. It's not very good, but it's significantly better than parts 1, 3, 5 and 6 of Flux, which are incoherent nonsense with a dull thud of a finish. There's at least a coherent plot in this episode, even if it is Incredibly Stupid and contains a reveal that falls somewhere between laughable and a solid reason to stop watching the show forever. Yes, this episode includes The Weeping Angels, and no it's not going to make you enjoy their presence.  


Episode 9: Eve Of The Daleks
(13, Yaz,  Dan, Daleks)
58 minutes

This whacky time loop episode with two human guest stars and Daleks is a perfect antithesis to the horrible clusterflux of the previous season. It's silly in an endearing way.


Episode 10: Power Of The Doctor
(13, 1, 5, 6, 7, 8, 14, Fugitive Doctor, Yaz, Graham, Kate Stewart, Dan, Vinder, Ace, Tegan, Jo Grant, Melanie Bush, Ian, The Master, Daleks, Cybermen)
87 minutes

To say I was worried about the ending of Chibnall's reign as Doctor Who scribe would be a massive understatement. I don't enjoy his dialogue or his inability to take parts of a story and tie them into a conclusion. I don't even expect him to make satisfying conclusions, I just want him to make an ending that doesn't make me want to hurl a laptop across the room.

And he did!

Oh, this is a horrible mess of a story with too much going on, and a lot of things seeming like random fan service. But at least it's fun. There are characters who pop up in this episode who haven't been on the show IN 57 YEARS. No other show can do that. Toss in your Daleks, your Cyberpeople, whacky Master, and the daftest regeneration of a Doctor since David Tennant regenerated into David Tennant, and you at least know that you've definitely watched an episode of Doctor Who, and not some generic knockoff.

And while this wasn't the female-centric episode that I wanted (I posited an entire season of Whittaker's Doctor along with Clara, River Song, CyberBill, Kate Stewart, Ashilde/Me, and Missy inside the Diner TARDIS before Moffat threw a bunch of those characters out the widow), it made some awesome choices, allowing some classic characters to get well-deserved closure. 

It's a better multi-Doctor finale than I imagined or hoped for, even if it was, again, kind of an uneven mess. But for Chibnall's run? This was probably his third best episode after "Fugitive Of The Judoon" and "Eve Of The Daleks". It was 100000000000000000% better than "Flux".

I created the Doctor Who In Significantly Fewer Episodes list several years ago, in response to a Facebook request about how to watch the series without Watching The Entire Series. I even watched much of the abbreviated seasons that I created myself, and thought they were great.

In late 2019, I started dating someone who wanted to see Doctor Who without having to watch The Entire Series, and took it as an additional experiment to see if my order worked. We didn't make it far into the classic series before he tuned out. The episodes are Super Long (they're all serials that end up being movie length or LoTR movie length) and they're, you know, mid-twentieth century sci-fi, so you have to be either really nostalgic or in the proper mood.

When we moved into the modern era, he got really into it. Although, like me, he's a completist, and wanted to watch All Of The Episodes. Until we watched two that weren't on my list. Now he's okay with just watching the good stuff. And, for the most part, my list has held up. But I have added and dropped a few episodes for clearer story structure, and I've also removed some episodes because, apart from sentimental moments, they didn't really hold up as well I remembered.

It's still a very subjective list, but one that, I believe, makes a great condensed series of Doctor Who episodes.

Here are the basics everyone should know before getting involved: 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 series format, 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 Many Times over the course of this headcanon.

Last season was all about grief and getting over the terrible things you've done in life. We met Clara, several times, we wondered who she was, we found out, we moved on, The Doctor regenerated, he was cranky, Clara has started to decranky him, we moved on. This season follows their adventures together, and features one of the most fun multiple Time Lord stories in the show's history.

Episode 1: The Girl Who Died
(12, Clara, Ashilde)
45 minutes

The Doctor. Clara. Aliens. Time travel. Death. The usual. Surely there will be no consequences spinning out of this perfectly fine, but not remarkably interesting episode.


Serial 2: The Zygon Invasion/The Zygon Inversion
(12, Clara, Osgood, Kate Stewart, Zygons)
90 minutes

It's a reunion for pretty much all the non-Timelord characters from "Day Of The Doctor". Have The Zygons broken their treaty with humanity? Will companions and beloved recurring characters die? (Wait, didn't one or two of them die in "Death In Heaven"? I guess not Very Much.) It's all sorts of mistaken identity hijinks with the greatest doppelganger aliens in the franchise.


Episode 3: Face The Raven
(12, Clara, Ashilde,  Judoon, Ood, Ice Warriors, Silurians, Cybermen, Sontarans)
45 minutes

Oh, hey, it's that immortal young woman from the series premiere! She has her own place now, and seems to be running it very well. She's clearly up to something that doesn't involve The Doctor and...OH NO. EVERYTHING GOES WRONG. SO VERY VERY WRONG. 


Episode 4: Heaven Sent
(12)
45 minutes

For the first time since the inception of the series, this episode features almost no one except The Doctor. He is being menaced by...something, but this is ALL Peter Capaldi as The Doctor, on his own, trying to figure out where he is, and if he can undo the events of the previous episodes. In my opinion, it's one of the best episodes in the history of the series.


Episode 5: Hell Bent
(12, Clara, Timelords, Sisterhood of Karn, Rassilon, Daleks, Weeping Angels, Cybermen)
45 minutes

The Doctor is Very Cross about the last two episodes, and goes to Gallifrey to make The Time People suffer. Previous villains abound, as The Doctor Shall Have His Revenge.


Episode 6: Husbands Of River Song
(12, River, Nardole)
60 minutes

During the holiday special a couple of seasons ago, The Eleventh Doctor married River Song. It's all very wibbly-wobbly-timey-wimey. Well, this version of The Doctor runs into River on her own adventure, and she is married to...perhaps several other people. Don't worry, there's no slut shaming, or pro or anti polygamy stances taken. It's just that The Doctor is desperate for River Song to recognize him, and she has no idea who he is.


Episode 7: Pilot
(12, Bill, Nardole, Heather, Daleks)
45 minutes

The Doctor seems to have retired to Earth to become a college professor. Another staff member realizes there's something very unusual about him, and decides to get involved in his life. Thus, he gets involved in hers, and, voila, meet the new companion, Bill.


Episode 8: Smile
(12, Bill, Nardole)
45 minutes

The Doctor and Bill go to a human colony on another planet where something has gone wrong. This is actually what seems to happen on every companion's second adventure with The Doctor, but I've skipped all the rest of them because they weren't very good. This one, involving some creepy emoji robots, is a fun little adventure.


Episode 9: Oxygen
(12, Bill, Nardole)
45 minutes

The Doctor and Bill go to space! Capitalism is bad! Space future is tough! The Doctor is good! Bill is human! Capitalism is bad! Space adventures are fun!


Episode 10: Extemis
(12, Bill, Nardole, Missy)
45 minutes

The last episode ended with what seems like a radical change for The Doctor going forward. But he needs to fix that change, while not letting Bill know it has taken place. Meanwhile The Vatican has asked The Doctor to read a text that causes all humans that read it to end their own lives. This is part of a trilogy that we won't come back to. And the A story is just kind of okay. But the B story brings Missy back into the fold, and that's definitely worth the watch.


Holiday Special: World Enough And Time / The Doctor Falls
145 minutes
(12, Bill, Nardole, Heather,  Missy, The Master, Cybermen)

It's the final part of Steven Moffat's era of Doctor Who. Will Missy continue her journey to be a good person when she's literally confronted by her past in the form of her previous incarnation, The Master? Is Bill Pots the first Cyberman? Are we stuck with Nardole for much longer? (He really is The Worst.) Is The Twelfth Doctor seriously going to regenerate into The First Doctor again? I guess it would be kind of cool if the whole series ended up being cyclical. Right?

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.

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 mucking 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, Timelords)
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 seeded chaos throuugh the entire universe. Since then, we've seen The Daleks a bunch of times, but only had to deal with Those Time People (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 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 trope. 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)
45 minutes

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.

Serial 1: Children Of Earth
(Jack, Gwen, Ianto, Rhys, Frobisher, The 456)
5 episodes, total of 225 minutes

Yikes. What do you do when ALL the children on the planet stop moving at the same time, and start delivering, in unison, a message from aliens? What do you do if you're a government who knows who these aliens are and what they want? What do you do when those aliens want 10% of the children left on the planet, or they will kill everyone?

This miniseries is Dark As Hell. And even though there was another miniseries, this serves as a perfect ending point for the Torchwood series, and is, as mentioned in the season description, one of the best things to ever come out of the Doctor Who franchise.


Episode 6: The Doctor's Wife
(11, Amy, Rory)
45 minutes

Returning to The Doctor's adventures, we're reunited with Amy and Rory as The Doctor is called to an unknown planet. Is it possible that other Time Lords have survived the Time War? Welllllll, maybe, but this is mainly the story of The Doctor and one of the most important parts of his life that we often see, but which is rarely addressed.


Serial 7: The Rebel Flesh/The Almost People
(11, Amy, Rory, Gangers, Madame Kovarian)
90 minutes

The Doctor, Amy & Rory end up in a the nearish future where Not Autons but kind of sort of Autons are created to keep humans from getting killed in industrial accidents. Of course, being a science fiction story, this goes Horribly Wrong, and it's up to The Doctor and his "ganger" (a synthetic duplicate of himself) to teach everyone lessons and save the bloody day.


Episode 8: The Girl Who Waited
(11, Amy, Rory)
45 minutes

If I've learned anything from sitting down and watching Star Trek, it's Never Take Shore Leave, Never Go To The Planet Where Everything's Fine And Go Hang Out At The Water Park Or The Laser Tag Planet Or Whatever, because something there has gone horribly awry, or there is a serial killer there, or both. This is a particularly devastating character study episode where things sort or turn out fine in the end, and yet its resolution is still emotionally gutting.


Serial 9: The Good Man Goes To War/Demon's Run
(11, Amy, Rory, River, Vastra, Flint, Strax, Mme Kovarian, Maldovar, Cybermen)
55 minutes

A cult called The Headless Monks have been working behind the scenes in the last few episodes and have been seriously messing with one of The Doctor's companions. River Song steps in to help save the day, and finally reveal who she is, and why she keeps popping up along The Doctor's timeline. We also get to watch the founding of The Paternoster Gang.

​
Episode 10: God Complex 
(11, Amy, Rose, Weeping Angels)
45 minutes

Holy Hell, we're at the end of the season already? Wowsers. The Doctor & Companions end up at a spooky hotel that kills everyone who enters it. Yaaaaaaaay! It's even a labyrinthian hotel, and the thing that kills you is a minotaur. Take that, tropes! Again, it's mostly a character study, and while not quite as devastating as the previous episode, we do say goodbye to Amy & Rory forever, as they end up with one of the most optimistic endings for The Doctor's companions ever.


Holiday Special: The Wedding Of River Song
(11, Amy, Rose, River, Mme Kavorian, Maldovar, The Silence)

This is mostly a resolution of plot points from last season's Holiday Special ("The Impossible Astronaut"/|"Day Of The Moon") and "A Good Man Goes To War". It's also an alternate timeline adventure, so we get to see familiar characters in new and exciting roles. It's not My Favorite Episode by a longshot, but it's a nice coda to the River, Rory and Amy saga from this season.

Episode 1: Midnight
(10, Donna) 

Donna is taking a relaxing spa while The Doctor takes a train ride that goes Very Wrong as an unseen enemy possesses various other people on the train and appears to be trying to ruin their lives for its own entertainment. 
 

Episode 2: Turn Left
(10, Donna, Rose, Wilfred, Sylvia, Trickster)
45 minutes

While The Doctor peruses a flea market, Donna is forced to relive her life as if she had never met The Doctor, thus dooming the world several times over. But one of The Doctor's former companions swoops in to help save the day. For now.


Serial 3: The Stolen Earth/Journey's End
(10, Donna, Rose, Sara Jane, Mickey, Jack, Martha, Gwen, Ianto, K-9, Jackie, Wilfred, Sylvia, Harriet, Luke, Francine, Davros, Daleks)
90 minutes

So much happens in this episode. The Daleks from Doomsday. Davros. Every companion from the modern series, and some from the classic series. Even the woodwork comes out of the woodwork to help The Doctor when the Daleks steal Earth and a variety of other planets in their attempt to kill everything Not Dalek. At the end, all of the companions are dispersed. Now, we've seen companions evicted from the TARDIS, killed by Cybermen, abandoned in alternate dimensions, and returned to the entirely wrong part of England, but this episode gets my vote for most heartbreaking removal of a companion ever. 


Serial 4: The Wedding Of Sarah Jane
(10, Sara Jane, Luke, K-9, Clyde, Trickster)
56 minutes

The Trickster, who was somehow involved in Turn Left, has devised a plot to trap Sarah Jane Smith out of time. Luckily, The Doctor shows up, and he and Sarah Jane's army of children set out to rescue her.


Serial 5: The Waters Of Mars
(10)
60 minutes

Lonely Doctor is usually a scary Doctor. But when he shows up at a Fixed Point In Time, he sticks around to see an important historical moment that he's not allowed to change. 


Episode 6: The Eleventh Hour
(11, Amy, Rory, Prisoner Zero, Atraxi)
45 minutes

The new face of The Doctor is the youngest yet, and he encounters a young girl with cracks in her wall that do not sit well with him. How is he going to fix this?


Episode 7: The Hungry Earth/Cold Blood
(11, Amy, Rory, Silurians)
90 mins

The Doctor and his new companions' vacation in Rio turns into a mining hill disaster when a drill reaches further beneath the Earth's surface than anything has ever gone before, and ends up disturbing a classic Doctor Who species. Also, that pesky crack in the wall appears to be ... following them?


Episode 8: Vincent & The Doctor
(11, Amy, Vincent)
45 minutes

The Doctor and Cracks In The Wall Girl (now a woman) go back and visit a depressed Vincent Van Gogh. There are some alien shenanigans, for sure, but this episode is about being human, and trying to help the mentally ill. It's excellent.


Episode 9: The Lodger
(11, Amy)
45 minutes

Separated from Cracks In The Wall Girl, The Doctor moves in with the Carpool Karaoke Guy (no, really), and completely ruins James Corden's life by trying to be a decent human being and a good friend.  Also, aliens kill a bunch of people.


Serial 10: The Pandorica Opens/The Big Bang
(11, Amy, Rory, River, Vincent, Daleks, Cybermen, Judoon, Cybermen, Sontarans)
90 minutes

Soooo...about those cracks in the wall. It turns out. Maaaaaaybe. Possibly they're The Doctor's fault. And a whole mess of alien villains (The Cybermen, The Daleks, The Sontarans, and The Judoon to name a few) have to stop The Doctor before he destroys all of time. Oh, and that lady from the library is back to help him out. She's way more of a badass than he is, sweety.


Holiday Special: The Impossible Astronaut
(11, Amy, Rory, River, The Silence)

Along with The Weeping Angels and River Song, The Silence are one of the coolest things Steven Moffat introduced to The Doctor Who Universe. He built a whole season around them. Unfortunately, the season is mostly terrible and unsatisfying. But their first appearance is creepy, and worth a look. Plus, this episode sets up some interesting problems for Amy and Rory going forward.

Episode 1: Everything Changes
(Jack, Gwen, Ianto, Owen, Tashiko, Suzie, Rhys, Andy, Weevils)
50 minutes

A Welsh detective stumbles on to an alien conspiracy involving Jack Harkness, The Doctor's companion, who we last saw in "The Parting Of Ways". He has an elite team of alien fighters, and a drug called Retcon that can wipe people's memories. I'm sure this will end well.


Episode 2: They Keep Killing Suzie
(Jack, Gwen, Ianto, Owen, Tashiko, Suzie)
53 minutes

Now that The Welsh Detective is a part of Torchwood, she has to use one of their sciencey toys to resurrect a dead former teammate to solve a series of grisly murders that all seem to involve Retcon. Somebody done Messed Up.


Episode 3: Smith & Jones
(10, Martha, Francine, Tish, Leo, Clive, Judoon)
45 minutes

Hey! It's The Doctor again. He's been wandering solo and off the radar for a while, but he's popped over to Earth just in time for some Moon shenanigans, and to meet Doctor Martha Jones. Welcome new companion, may your fate be less depressing than that of your predecessors.


Serial 4: Human Nature/Family Of Blood
(10, Martha)
90 minutes

In order to hide from some vindictive aliens, The Doctor has to forget who he is, and live as a human in the days leading up to World War I. Martha lives out the Louis CK routine about how time travel sucks if you're not White. And there's even a little kid who has The Shining. Can Martha keep John Smith safe, or will she have to reveal to him that he's The Doctor so they can survive The Family Of Blood.


Episode 5: Blink
(10, Martha, Weeping Angels)
45 minutes

One of the best episodes ever. The birth of wibbley-wobbley, timey-wimey, as a regular old non-companion human must defeat a new type of alien menace in order to return the TARDIS to The Doctor and Martha, whom she has never met, but who are trapped somewhere in The Past. 


Serial 6: End Of Days/Utopia
(10, Jack, Martha, Ianto, Owen, Toshiko, Rhys, Andy, The Master, Weevils)
95 minutes

Back at TORCHWOOD, coworkers are hooking up, members of the team are dying, Jack is being even weirder than usual, and The Rift is going slitheenshit. Jack is in the midst of deciding what to do with his team when he hears the TARDIS in the distance, and forces a reunion that sends him, The Doctor, and Martha Jones to The End Of Time, where they stumble on to cannibals, the last humans, and a Classic Villain.


Episode 7: Planet Of The Ood
(10, Donna, Ood)
45 minutes

The Doctor and his new companion encounter a slave race being sold by humans as "servants". The whole scenario is not okay, and The Doctor and Donna are going to do their best to fix it.


Serial 8: Sontaran Stratagem/The Poison Sky
(10, Donna, Martha, Wilfred, Sylvia, Sontarans)
90 minutes

UNIT, the military outfit that was super prevalent in Season Two, calls The Doctor for help. Well, to be specific, their officer, Martha Jones calls him in. Martha, Donna, and The Doctor have to stop a spoiled rich kid and an invading alien species from destroying the Earth. Classic sci-fi.


Episode 9: The Doctor's Daughter
(10, Donna, Martha)
45 minutes

During the first season, The Doctor was traveling with his granddaughter, Susan. So, of course, he Must Have a child who created that grandchild. Maybe this is her origin story. Or maybe it's just Donna, Martha, The Doctor, and some baby aliens playing some old-fashioned war games.


Episode 10: Silence In The Library/Forest Of The Dead
(10, Donna, River)
90 minutes

The Doctor and Donna are trapped in a library where the shadows are filled with space piranha. But they're rescued by someone from The Doctor's past and future. Unfortunately, he has no idea who she is.

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 near the end of the last season has aged into a kindly hard-ass. Apparently, there's some war taking place between The Time People 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.  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 bisexual time traveler named Jack, as well as a scary little boy in a gas mask. Together, The Doctor, Rose, and Jack 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, Rose, Jack, Mickey, Jackie, Daleks, 10)
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)
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, Sarah Jane, K9, Rose, Mickey)
45 minutes

Sarah Jane? And that stupid robot 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. 


Holiday Special: The Runaway Bride
(10, Donna, Wilfred, Sylvia, Racnoss)

Modern Doctor Who regularly (but not consistently) presents a Christmas or New Year's Special between seasons. We're going to take a page out of this book to give you the adventures of The Doctor and Donna Noble, who showed up in the TARDIS at the end of last season. We get an explanation, an adventure, and The Most Over The Top Villain so far in the series. It's really not one of the greatest episodes ever, but it makes Donna's abrupt appearance later this season much more fun, and gives us a coda to Rose's story.

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 Time Lo-- Time La-- Time People. I wish some sort of war would wipe them out of space once and for all.

Serial 1: Caves Of Androzani
(5, Peri, Adric, Nyssa, Tegan, Vislor, The Master, 6)
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 2: The Mark Of The Rani
(6, Peri, The Master, The Rani)
90 minutes

It's not Colin 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 Person, The Rani. Oh, wait, The Master is there, too.  Stupid Time People.


Serial 3: 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 poorly-accented companion to rescue them and restore the timeline. Or whatever. 


Serial 4: 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 wait, 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 5: Terror Of The Vervoids (Trial Of A Time Lord)
(6, Mel, Timelords, Vervoids, Valeyard)
100 minutes

This is part of a season long arc where The Doctor is put on trial by Time People for being un-Time like or something. 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 6: The Ultimate Foe (Trial Of A Time Lord)
(6, Mel, Glitz, Timelords, 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 jerk as those other Time People? 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 7: 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. Drama goes down between characters and aliens you've never seen before, and never will again. Some of it is interesting.


Serial 8: Remembrance Of The Daleks
(7, Ace, Davros, Daleks)
100 minutes

​Davros and The Daleks are back for the second time in one season. This is really the first ever Easter Egg episode of Doctor Who. There's a ton of references to previous storylines, as this episode celebrated the twenty-fifth anniversary of Doctor Who. 


Serial 9: The Greatest Show In The Galaxy
(7, Ace)
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 this?"


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 creates chaos, and his chaos leads to The Doctor having to regenerate in America. This wraps up what is easily The Weakest Season of Doctor Who. 


Holiday Special: Dimensions In Time
(3, 4, 5, 6, 7, Sarah Jane, Brigadier, Susan Foreman, Victoria, Liz, Mike Yates, Leela, Romana, Nyssa, Peri, Mel, Ace, K-9, The Rani, Cybermen)

This is a silly crossover with a long-running British soap opera. It was for charity, and it looks like it was made on a budget of four dollars, but it's a fun end to the Classic Era of Doctor Who that lets many of your favorite characters take what they probably imagined was their final bow, even though many of these characters will get cameos in the modern series. 

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 vegetable.

Serial 1: The Keeper Of The Traken
(4, Adruc, Nyssa, The master)

Fresh out of E-Space, The Doctor and Adric run into a new-faced The Master when power on a peaceful planet is set to be transferred to a possibly evil family. 


Serial 2: Logopolis
(4, Adric, Nyssa, Tegan, The Master, 5)
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 3: Castltrova
(5, Adric, Nyssa, Tegan, The Master)
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 him 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 4: Kinda
(5, Adric, Nyssa, Tegan)
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 5: Earthshock
(5, Adric, Nyssa, Tegan, The Cybermen)
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 Messing Around.


Serial 6: Mawdryn Undead
(5, Brigadier, Nyssa, Tegan, Vislor)
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 7: Enlightenment
(5, Tegan, Vislor)

A space regatta featuring humans plucked from different time periods interrupts Vislor's plan to kill The Doctor.


Serial 8: The Five Doctors
(5, 4, 3, 2, 1, Susan, Jamie, Brigadier, Sarah Jane, Romana, Tegan, Vislor, Zoe, Liz, Mike, K9, Daleks, Timelords, Cybermen, The Master) 
90 minutes

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 9: Planet Of Fire
(5, Vislor, Peri, The Master)
100 minutes

Look, a lothas happened 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 companion with an American accent on par with every American high school student's Terrible British Accent. There's also a new weird robotty companion who wasn't often used, because it's awful. But here, The Master uses him for his nefarious purposes, and at the end of the episode, the only decent companion decides to leave. Great.


Serial 10: A Girl's Best Friend​
(Sarah Jane, K9)
50 minutes

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 Robot 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 1: Pyramids Of Mars
(4, Sarah Jane)

This Egyptian tomb adventure ended up becoming relevant again almost fifty years later but that's not why I've edited the list to include it. It happens to be one of the better Gothic Horror episodes of the series, and it's just a blast to watch.


Serial 2: The Brain Of Morbius
(4, Sarah Jane, Sisters Of Karn)
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 3: The Seeds Of Doom
(4, Sarah Jane)
150 minutes

The James Bondiest of Doctor Who episodes is one of my earliest memories of watching the series. My dad and I watched what were, even then, old episodes of Doctor Who, on PBS, and I remember the encroaching trees, and the campy death scenes. Some worrywart from the 1970s called this episode unnecessarily violent but, by modern standards, it's tamer than a cartoon aimed at five year olds.


Serial 4: The Hand Of Fear
(4, Sarah Jane)
100 minutes

It's not often 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 a mystery.


Serial 5: The Horror Fang Rock
(4, Leela, Sontarans)

​Our only look at the companion Leela happens to be her best episode as she and The Doctor end up in a war against The Sontarans.


Serial 6: City Of Death
(4, Romana)
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 British guy who wrote great sci-fi. So this is a more fun than usual episode. Enjoy it! Also, the new companion is a Time Lo---Time La---Time Person.


Serial 7: The Leisure Hive
(4, Romana, K9)
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
(4, Romana, K9, Adric)
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. 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
(4, Romana, K9, Adric)
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
(4, Romana, K9, Adric)
100 minutes

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...you know what, we made it through an entire season without The Doctor regenerating. Pretttttty coooooool.

Episode 1: War Games (2024)
(2, Jamie, Zoe, Timelords)
25 minutes

This is an updated episode. This spot was previously held by only the final episode of the ten episode long War Games. War Games was always a good serial, but ten episodes is Too Long, and the best part of the serial was the final episode, where we met The Timelords for the first time, and then we saw The Doctor regenerate again. Well, in 2024, they released an edited, colourised version of the serial that's only 90 minutes long (instead of nearly five hours) that even provide some fun tweaks that give nods to the modern series, and even hint that a character long suspected to be The Master might actually be The Master's first appearance. Maybe.


Episode 2: Spearhead From Space
(3, Brigadier, Liz, Autons)
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 sleep it off but 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...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
(3, Brigadier, Jo, Mike, Timelords, Autons, The Master)
100 minutes

Autons again? And who on Gallifrey is The Master? Another Time Lord? An evil Time Lord? I mean, they all sort of suck, so what makes this guy eviler than the rest of them? Wait, is this guy also trapped on Earth now? Is this the point where the soundtrack would go Dun-dun-DUNNNNNNN?


Serial 4: Inferno
(3, Brigadier, Jo, Timelords)
175  minutes

One of the first really environmentally-focused episodes of the series is also our first time visiting an alternate timeline, as The Doctor ends up in something similar to Star Trek's Mirrorverse, trying to stop humans from accidentally releasing an evil into the world but the mirrorverse people won't listen to him and that world is destroyed. Luckily, this sends him back to the real universe and, oh dear, nobody is going to listen to him here, either. 


Serial 5: The Sea Devils
(3, Brigadier, Jo, The Master, The Sea Devils)
150 minutes

The Master is back for another ridiculous scheme. This time, he contacts The Sea Devils a race who once controled Earth before being driven into obscurity by humans. He helps them plan a revolt retake the planet. The ending is pretty Scooby Doo but it's overall a nice little romp.
​

Serial 6: The Three Doctors
(3, 2, 1, Brigadier, Joe, Benton, Timelords)
100 minutes

Another 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. You need not only the current Doctor, but the two previous versions of The Doctor to take him down. How is the crotchety old dude who could barely talk at the end of his tenure 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
(3, Brigadier, Mike, Benton, Sarah Jane, 4)
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 then it's time to regenerate again.



Serial 8: Ark In Space
(4, Sarah Jane, Harry)
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. And 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
(4, Sarah Jane, Harry, Daleks, Timelords, Davros)
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
(4, Brigadier, Benton, Sarah Jane, Harry, Zygons)
100 minutes

It's the Loch Ness monster! And weird rubber chameleon aliens! They are Not Messing Around. Let's wrap this season up with some good old fashion monster fighting and mistaken identity. And when we're done, 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 David Tennant'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
(1, Susan, Barbara, Ian)
​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
(1, Susan, Barbara, Ian)
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 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
(1, Susan, Barbara, Ian)
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 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 
(1, Susan, Barbara, Ian, Daleks)
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
(1, Barbara, Ian, Vicki, Daleks)
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 the new Susan, Vicki makes sure there's still some teenage whining. Well, at least the population of the planet isn't trying to rebel against the museum staff and destroy it, right? And wait just a damned minute, are they being tracked by Daleks?


Serial 6: The Celestial Toymaker
(1, Steven, Dodo The Toymaker)

This is an update to the canon. The first three episodes of this serial, which pits Steven, Dodo, and The Doctor against a villain who plays literal games with everyone, have been missing since the 1970s. Only the fourth episode of the show exists in live action form. However, in 2024, they released the first three episodes in animated form, using the original audio. This works perfectly for this silly, surrealist, romp. I even enjoy how it suddenly morphs from brightly colored cartoon to grave black and white live action as the characters get closer to the climax.


Serial 7: The Gunfighters 
(1, Steven, Dodo)
100 minutes

It's a wild west American holiday, complete with a terrible approximation of an American ballad, American guns, Americanish accents, and...Dodo? 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 
(1, Polly, Ben, 2, Cybermen)
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...we don't know these peopele. 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
(2, Jamie, Victoria, Cybermen)
100 minutes

See? We're already dealing with the Cybermen again. But this slightly more youthful looking Doctor guides Jamie and Victoria (wait just a minute, what happened to Polly and B---nevermind) through a Cyber graveyard, only to discover, surprise surprise, 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
(2, Jamie, Victoria)
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 lived through 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 the meglomaniac 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.