r/gallifrey

I am a veteran Doctor Who fan who first started watching in 2008. I've seen all televised stories (bar most of the missing ones).

My fiancé and I started dating in 2024; he had never seen any Doctor Who. Naturally I had to fix him; in exchange, I agreed to watch all of Buffy. We spent most of our weekends together marathoning one or the other.

Under my guidance, he started watching with Matt Smith's Doctor. I wrote a detailed viewing checklist, advising him on what to avoid to not spoil other seasons. He watched the show– off and on– in roughly this order, with a tiny bit of crossover here and there:

S5
S6
S7
S1
S2
S3
S4 + 2009 Specials
50th
Time of the Doctor
S8
S11
S9
60th + S14 ("Season One")
S12
S13 + 2022 Specials
S15 ("Season Two")
S10

He only finished "Twice Upon a Time" tonight, and is officially done.

I never steered him towards or against any one season, era, or Doctor, and only advised him when plot spoilers were relevant. As we watched together, it began to strike me how much his takes on each season and Doctor just... don't line up very much with general fandom consensus, fan spaces being something I explicitly told him to avoid. I never coached him to think one way or the other, even when I wanted to.

... which is the main reason I wanted to post this. I just find it significant that, without guidance, he came to conclusions that are entirely his own and even often entirely at-odds with my own.

I know the order he watched in seems absolutely wild, but he avoided plot spoilers and I ultimately I think it made for a more interesting time. A lot of fans' insistence that you must watch in broadcast order from 2005 onwards I think leads to a lot of burnout, and generally I think fans overestimate the benefits of chronological viewing. (You're already skipping the first twenty-six seasons either way!)

I asked Do you think you missed out on anything not watching in order? A: "No. I think watching out of order actually gave me more of an appreciation for certain Doctors."

His favourite Doctor? A tie between Matt Smith and Jodie Whittaker

His least favourite Doctor? Peter Capaldi (!!! I know!!! Blasphemy, but he thoroughly dislikes him. Not the actor personally, of course.)

His favourite season? Series 4. (I agree with him on this, but S4 has a lot of nostalgia attached to it as the place I started watching.)

Least favourite season? 9 and 10. (I love S10, I think it's Capaldi's best, but he really disliked these two seasons, only finishing them because I encouraged him to).

Favourite companion? Rory. "Who doesn't love a good simp?"

Least favourite? Nardole. (Q: "So do you prefer even Ryan and Graham?" A: "Yeah.")

Favourite version of the opening titles? Ncuti Gatwa’s version

Least favourite opening titles? Peter Capaldi “gears” version

Favourite season finale? Series 3. The Sound of Drums/Last of the Time Lords (What.)

Some random thoughts of his:

- "Clara's fine with Matt Smith, terrible with Capaldi." OMG I can't believe he thinks this. Honestly. I absolutely think Clara only came into her own once the "Impossible Girl" thing was over with.

- He was shocked when I told him Peter Capaldi was a fan favourite. He prefers Thirteen any day. He likes his Doctors more playful.

- Favourite Master? Missy and John Simm (Series 3 John Simm specifically. He didn't like him when he returned in S10).

- Least favourite Master? Sacha Dawhan. (He was surprised again when I told him this version of the Master is thought to be a highlight of Whittaker's time).

- "Twice Upon a Time"– the final episode he had left on his checklist– he thoroughly disliked. "It ruined the show for me." In his annoyance, he said he wouldn't watch the show again when it continues post-Ncuti Gatwa. (I'm sure he's kidding lol)

- I have seen him cry at a few episodes. "Silence in the Library"/"Forest of the Dead", "The Angels Take Manhattan", and "The Time of the Doctor". (I only have to say "Raggedy man, goodnight" to remind him of how upset he was. He hates this.) For myself, the closest I've come to tears is the Series 2 finale.

- He has a talent for guessing plot twists. This sometimes makes it frustrating when we’re watching a film, because once he’s “figured out” the movie, he can’t help but not pay attention… Anyway, he guessed River Song’s identity a few episodes into Series 6. The speed at which he has accurately guessed a lot of things has at times made me feel dumb and inattentive; considering he's on his phone a lot while we watch TV is saying something.

- He found “Flux” hard to follow (likely not helped by his ADD) but we watched it all in one sitting with Whittaker’s final episodes. He agreed with me when I observed that in retrospect the Kate Stewart plot seemed more interesting than what was done with UNIT in Gatwa’s time.

- Opinion on the Timeless Child? Just “interesting” and unique; he thought it made sense when I told him it was inspired by the writer’s feelings as an adoptee. Doesn’t get why it’s controversial. When I explained, he rolled his eyes and sarcastically said in a dumb mocking voice “Hurrrr you can’t change the origin story!” “How can you be mad at that when the story always changes and evolves?”

- Only getting around to watching Series 10 at my insistence, because it’s one of my favourite seasons, he said Bill Potts was the only thing that made Series 10 watchable for him. Again, he was surprised to hear contemporary viewer response to her was... mixed. Her death made him genuinely mad. He has punched me many times for getting him into this show.

- Q: "What do you think of Ncuti Gatwa's seasons?" A: "They were okay, a little rushed. Confusing story format."

- Q: Are you excited to watch the Classics, or interested? A:"... Look, I'll give it a crack."

... I've got some quibbles with a lot of his thoughts, but he's a genuine fan and loves the show.

My only point in writing all this is that the fandom sometimes feels dogmatic; I avoid these forums generally because things like Chibnall bad, Moffat king, and RTD2 a disaster are just taken as read, said with the manner in which one might mention that the sky is blue. It is inhospitable to a diversity of thought and feelings, and may rob viewers of watching something they might come to like, in whole or in part.

I have seen people write these things while professing to not having watched the seasons in question.

Don't get me wrong, I sometimes agree with the consensus; but art is subjective and let's not let these views just insist upon themselves.

Edit: Oh, I forgot to mention.

His least favourite villain? The DALEKS.

ARE YOU KIDDING ME.

For RTD1 we all know Russell wanted to capture the balance of monster of week adventures and character driven drama in shows like Buffy or Smallville

the Third Doctor was a response to gadget focused spy media such as James Bond or the Avengers (no not that one)

You can even see a tinge of Alan Moore in the genes of the Seventh Doctors era

I'd say Eaters of the Light personally.

There's something about the atmosphere of that episode. It's quiet, takes place mostly in empty British moorland. You've got some old folklore, there's nothing particularly high budget about it. You've got your classic get captured, misunderstanding, and escape through silly popcorn trick.

All it needs is to be a two parter, the length of a classic four parter. and there'd be plenty of room to add more misunderstandings, a few more capture and escapes, and more moments of just sitting and having a chat.

It gives me real Stones of Blood or the Daemons vibes. It's appropriate since the writer also wrote the Classic Who episode Survival way back when.

I think there is some merit to this idea. The Cybermen and Daleks go so overexposed it became a classic example of the inverse ratio between the amount of screen time and the amount of quality.

Shoving a Dalek episode in every year meant they ran out of stuff for them to do. And both Daleks and Cybermen became unthreatning. Like comper Parting of the Ways to Victory of the Daleks or Asylum of the Daleks. There is no mence no more because their can't be. In Magcians apprentice they are just background props. The Cybermen just became joke villians with the Dr blowing up the 7th Cyber Fleet in 2 seconds. They are hopless in Closing Time. Nightmere in Sliver tries to make them scary again. But they don't feel like Cybermen and the idea that they can upgrade while being damaged is nonsense. Not to mention the endless the Master hires the Cybermen as his his goons.

Honestly Resolution and Haunting were good because they gave them something to do. Even if we look passed the idea that a Dalek can be cut in three and glued back together like a jigsaw.

Not helped by the fact that the writers will keep giving them new powers just for this episode then recton it in the next one. The Weeping Angles are maybe the worst for this.

Restricting it to once per doctor maybe twice if said doctor sticks around for 5 years. Would force them to write a good episode and stop creative fatiague. 4 met the Daleks and Cybermen 3 times in total in 7 years. Dose anyone think his era suffered for it? Even then Destiny is a coast off Genesis and Revenge is like a 60s hold over script.

So if it were up to me the rules for them should be

1. once per doctor / once every three years. Quality > quantiy

2. no more team episodes with them, Daleks and Cybermen should be the full focus on every episode they are in. Use the Sontarons as henchmen enemies for the Master or some other baddie.

3. Make the Dr and script take them seriously. The Daleks were behind the Time War and the Cybermen killed Adric and cause his frist regeneration. The Dr should take them seriously. I am 100% fine with the Dr goofing around when its monster of the week no cares about. Not Daleks and Cybermen.

4. Have tha Daleks and Cybermen talk to each other. I don't understand why in 60s Who the Daleks talk to each other but later on they bearly talk. Everyone loves the Cyberleader and Luitenent scenes. No reason why they can't.

5. give them proper ranks. One thing I liked about Victort was the class system. There is no reason why Daleks should be a monolith. Having a class system gives them a sense of culture.

6. Give the Cybermen names again. They had them in the Tenth Planet no reason why they can't have names again, you do this and have them have ranks, its not a controdiction.

7. Have them kill a load of people. This shouldn't need to be explained by Daleks should go full Eric Saward on the guest cast. Because that is their goal. Same with the Cybermen.

8. Don't make them too invulnerable. It should be possible to kill and Dalek or Cyberman but difficult. I kinda hate it when they are all killed in one fell swoop, when nothing could kill them before (I'm looking at you Nightmere in Silver). Think how in Earthshock its possible to kill a Cyberman but diffcult. Or the Daleks in Remmberance.

I had a bit of a weird intro to doctor who. I started with Matt Smith for whatever reason I think he just caught my eye. After Matt Smith I was hooked and watched doctor who until the end of ncuti. I am now watching the beginning of the 2005 series and on s2e3 they reintroduced K9 and from there I was wondering if the 1963 series is any good? How does it compare to the 2005 doctor who.

TLDR; Is the 1963 doctor who any good to watch?

I've been watching Classic Who with my parents and we've entered the Fifth Doctor era, and whilst I'm excited to see Peter Davidson's version of The Doctor I've been taken aback by the way they've written Adric in Four to Doomsday. When he was with the Fourth Doctor, and even in the admittedly limited screentime he had in Castrovalva, he was fairly pleasant and helpful, coming across as someone who knew he was intelligent but generally avoided sounding insufferable or arrogant. And most of all he had no real difficulties working with the female companions.

He generally got along fairly well with Romana, outside of some moments in State of Decay and his faux-betrayal (though since this story was right after his brother died I was willing to cut him some slack). He had a fairly enjoyable dynamic with Nyssa in Keeper of Trakken and was reasonably amicable to Tegan in her first two stories outside of a few moments that seemed more like him being stressed given The Doctor's situation than any sneering misogyny. He also came across rather well in Castrovalva with his clear desperation to resist The Master's commands. Overall, whilst not without his moments of arguing or going against the Doctor/Companions, I and my parents found him generally likeable.

Then we got to Four to Doomsday, and it was like he'd been replaced by a completely different person. Within the serial's first episode alone he acted extremely patronising to Tegan, ridiculing her desperation to return home, insulting her intelligence by telling to pick up a maths book and get a better job than air hostess, and finishing by declaring how 'this is the problem with women' and saying how stupid they are. When scientist Nyssa pushes him on this he says it doesn't apply to her because 'you're not a woman, you're a girl'. Beyond that he also just carries himself with an air of arrogance and is all in all the definition of insufferable.

I knew he had a very negative reputation but when I first told my parents about it they were confused as they only particularly remembered him as yet another companion (it has been years since they watched his stories). I was increasingly surprised myself whilst watching his first 6 stories, though I did know he was supposed to be worse with with Five than Four. Suffice to say my parents and I now understand his reputation, but we also agree that this is such an abrupt and bizarre change that it really seems like the consequence of terrible writing decisions rather than any clear arc. Why, oh why, did they do this? They had so many options to give this expanded TARDIS team a defined dynamic, and they chose the worst of all. I feel a lot of sympathy for actor Matthew Waterhouse for having his character become so disliked due to sudden character assassination.

Lets hear your theories!

RTD said he make Gatwa's sonic look like a TV remote control because the previous ones 'looked like guns'. But they don't. They look like lightsabers or Harry Potter's magic wond. A banana looks more like a gun fankly.

Dose RTD know what a gun looks like? Has he never seen a James Bond movie or American cop show, or Looney Tunes. Did he forget about the times his own episodes had guns? Did he retwach the end of time and think to himself 'that black gun Dave is holding looks just like his blue light stick'.

https://www.reddit.com/r/doctorwho/comments/1c0shqt/thoughts_on_the_15th_doctors_sonic_screwdriver/#lightbox Gatwa's sonic

https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fpreview.redd.it%2Fserious-question-which-sonic-screwdriver-is-the-best-v0-5gekdyn0gfu81.jpg%3Fwidth%3D1080%26crop%3Dsmart%26auto%3Dwebp%26s%3D20cc1fc6ac1490640fb546c380e75058ca2a2ab6 Other Sonics

Contrast with the 80s Cyberguns, which look like guns https://thedoctorwhosite.co.uk/cybermen/weapons/

What he is doing is the equivilent of boxing banning shoes from the ring for saftey purposes when boxers don't kick in the first place, so it makes no difference. Its just so dumb.

(And before anyone says yes I do know about kickboxing and Thai boxing were they do kick, and those are praticed barefoot. But Mohammed Ali boxers don't kick.)

This being from the same guy who decided Davros in a wheelchair was evil.

What is next? Are we going to change Sharez Jek's name to Shaun Jenkins in case anyone finds it Persophobic? Are we going to get rid of the Doctor hating pears incase it causes kids to not eat them and get fat? Are we going to remove 'police' from the police box in case someone thinks real police are time lords? Is the Master going to have his name changed because some clown will say its related to slavery?

It happens very rarely, but every now and again you can see some blood in Doctor Who. I was wondering exactly how many times it has happened?

Obviously it's all academic at this point, but an interesting thought is when Ncuti Gatwa actually decided to call it quits.

The only concrete date we have is that the Belinda's House reshoots took place in Penarth starting on February the 5th 2025.

All of the studio stuff is harder to nail down because the clapperboards are conspicuously absent from the Unleashed episode, and the datestamps on the released script are clearly fake, but the timeline as we know it gives two possible shooting dates

Gatwa's run of The Importance Of Being Earnest ended on January the 25th, leaving a ten day gap before Penarth. It's definitely possible that some stuff was shot then since it was all reused sets and costumes but cramming all of the non-Penarth stuff into that gap doesn't seem plausible.

At this point, Bonnie Langford was on tour in Les Miserables, which explains why she only appears on a video screen during the reshoots, and the Conrad scene was originally shot during principal photography and re-edited.

So a realistic start for the reshoot filming is late January at the absolute earliest, while there are claims that Billie Piper was cast and filmed separately around early April. So, as poorly shot as the scene was, it suggests that everything else was locked by around the end of March.

The process of actually writing the new scenes and scheduling cast, crew, locations etc makes things harder to pin down since it could have all been done in the almost three months where Gatwa was working full time on Earnest.

Which suggests that Gatwa's decision to leave came in Autumn 2024. Potentially at any point after Season 1 aired but the movie The Roses was already filming at that time and Gatwa's casting in Earnest was announced five days after Season 1 ended, which could suggest otherwise since the official casting announcement through to the end of the run was a seven month contract.

Either way, while Disney were very clearly dragging their feet on the issue, the timeline suggests that Gatwa could have been preparing to leave a lot earlier than previously thought, since he would have been auditioning and negotiating to do Earnest before Season 1 ended, and a decision from Disney was due.

Many of you have probably seen the Fugitive Doctor's new costume for the "Circuit Breaker" event.. I just wanted to share my contribution to the project!

A few months ago, I was approached by James Sutton, who had been leading the redesign of Jo Martin’s Fugitive Doctor costume, to create a collection of rings for the character.

Over the course of the project, I produced nine handcrafted brass and copper rings, with two ultimately selected for the final costume. Each ring has CNC engraved Gallifreyan patterns developed by Connor Cahill-Hayes specifically for the project, and heavily textured aged finishes. The goal was to create rings that looked ancient, alien and battle-worn.

One of the final designs, featuring a blue stone, was inspired by the ring worn by William Hartnell’s Doctor!

Read more about the process on www.pointyendprops.com in our latest blog post…

*apologies if this is too much like self promotion, I just think it's something people will be interested in :-)

The two rings that made the final cut (Photo by James Sutton)

The Full Collection!

Screen grab from a recent segment on \"The Whoniverse Show\"

The new look!

I am so over any and all mystery boxes in DW. We are all sick of 'Oh who could this be?' and its the Daleks/Cybermen/Evil Time Lord again.

But I the other one I hate is the companion mystery box. Amy, Clara, Ruby and Bilinda all have some 'mystery' to them that the Dr needs to slove. And its so over done and uneeded. Rose Martha and Donna don't have that. Also having a companion with some gymicky mystery just weakens the companion because the script is focusing on that not their character.

Amy's is fine, since it don't really come up until she has been around for ages. So she is a character 1st and formost. Clara's impossible girl thing is just nonsenical. Like she 'dies' by jumping into a time vortex and that splits her into 100 different versions. So how is she dead? Did Scaroth die when the same thing happned to him? Also dose this mean she never ages she is stuck the age she is? Or is one of the babies in Space Babies really a baby Clara? How are we suposed to care about her if the Dr seems more intersted in 'solving her'?

Ruby has this bizzar 'untwist' that she is normal even though that makes 0 sense. Leaving a baby in on a doorstep in the snow is just reckless as is pointing at a road sign. Then you have Bilinda were her twist is she had a baby the whole time. In her her defence, it seems like for many scripts her character was added in after words. Like she is meant to be a nurse yet in Intersteller Song Contest people get hurt and she just stands there like she has no medical training. Contrast how Martha would patch people up and stuff. Now to be fair Bilinda isn't the only companion to have a background that gets ignored. Like Yaz being a police officer comes up like tiwce. Mel and Peri and meant to be super smart sicentists even though their skills are screaming and fainting.

And Bilinda's is so confusing, it feels like its been added in later.

Notice how other than Clara all the mysteries for our lady companions invlove babies in some way.

(Less than 10% of DW stories have been written by women fun fact)

Like Rose's dead dad is just a man who got hit by a car. There is no mystery or bigger picture it was just bad luck. Pete's early death is used to tell a story.

If it happned once or twice it might be fun, but its been done to death and I am so sick of it. It gose aganist the ideology of the show. The Dr is always banging on about the importance of ordinary people. But half the time they aren't ordinary, they are some super special magic fairy. Rose Martha and Donna were normal people who rose to the challange. But many of the later companions are tied to some gymmick.

I guess I liked the twist that Amy and Rory are River's parents. That has emotional stakes and dynamic. The others are just silly. Like Ruby finding her mother, ok nice for her. But why dose Louise just accept her when Ruby pops round? Why didn't Louise ever try to make any contact with her? Because if Louise did make contact with Ruby there would be no mystery. And Louise accepts Ruby because happy ending, even there is no reason given as to why she didn't try to reach out to her. Since we aren't told why she didn't I have to assume that Louise didn't want to contact Ruby, or was to embrassed? Also we don't know anything about Louise as a person (outside of some facts eg she is 35 she is a nurse ect). RTD has tried to hard to surpise us that he's failed to tell a coherent story. Because everyone expects Ruby/her mother to be the Rani or Romana or the Doctor's mother, RTD thinks he's being smart by 'untwisting' it. Which makes no sense, because no human being would act like the mysterious hood lady.

See also hyping up that the companion will die when they don't, ban that too.

Go back to having companions who are intersting because they are well written characters. I liked that CC didn't do that with his companions, but he forgot to make them interesting.

The last season ended a year ago almost, why are they not getting on with filming the next season already?

The Disney deal fell through, ok, get a new deal or just make it completely in house at a cheaper budget and get on with it.. This shouldn't be rocket science that takes years to deal with.

Its looking unlikely that we will even get a season for 2027, which is just poor, it means the gap between seasons will be from the middle of 2025 to whenever it airs in 2028, with only one Xmas special in between, seriously? That's so poor... It should not be taking this long

The BBC are handling DW so badly with these massive gaps, and with the choices they have made with show in recent years, it's terrible management

If people haven't been keeping up with online discourse, a growing theory is that all the promotional stuff with online text sequels to each Series 2 episode twenty years after broadcast is to lay the groundwork for this year's Christmas Special being a sequel to Doomsday and a return for David Tennant.

Which definitely seems like something RTD would do but sounds like an absolute disaster. It would be the third time and fifth episode he's used to give himself a lap of honour and redo his greatest hits in three years.

Doomsday was my first full episode so I definitely have a soft spot for it, but Doctor Who is in a perilous position as it is right now, and the last thing we need is to go full Season 22 and make everything about stuff from twenty years ago. Once Upon a Time Lord should been enough of a sign about why that should be avoided.

I'm hoping against hope that it's actually to promote Circuit Breaker but nothing would surprise me at this point.

So having recently watched the SNL sketch of DW I thought it was lacking in being a actual take on the current show, rather it felt a bit dated and was more a copy of parodies of classic who with a bit of nu-who thrown in.

For a actual take on the current era the Dead Ringers sketch was far better.

'It died of cringe' 🤣.. Rather unfortunately that could be said about the current era itself, it died from the general audience finding it cringe and stopped watching. There is always a twist at the end, and the twist was the audience not returning.