#also that one dr who episode

[autism-disco]

the unending cosmic horrors of the universe versus A Song

[cowlvent]

obsessed w the doctor fully turning his back on clara after this statement (physically and emotionally cutting himself off) and, feeling unmoored, pulling the console lever to exert some kind of control over the situation. he then continues to put space between himself and clara only to spin around, having undone several jacket buttons, and specifically shows off the red lining interior—symbolic of his emotional vulnerability in this moment. he asks her what she thinks of him (as a person), disguising it as a question about the new outfit.

[sparrowlucero]

Hello sorry I am being shy and anon but do you have any advice for someone who wants to get into Doctor Who again after briefly dabbling (and enjoying it very much) in like the early, early 2010s? I know this is mostly your art blog but you were the only person I could think of to ask you're like the Doctor Who authority of blogs I follow

Oh yeah of course! People can be really confusing about this so I'll try not to be.

So first, the majority of doctor who episodes are self contained stories that you could just watch and understand perfectly without any further context. even when there is some overarching context it's usually written in a way that's either pretty easy to glean and/or just doesn't impact your understanding of the story. 99% of the episodes don't even care if you know the premise and are just like "what if some people were on a spaceship and the devil was there? wouldn't that be fucked up or what??". Don't feel like you have to binge a 60 years long show to watch it. Some standalone episodes I think are fun if you (or anyone else) just want to check out one or two:

The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances (A supposed-to-be-dead boy in a gas mask haunts a young woman in world war 2)

Blink (A woman gets wrapped up in a mystery involving statues that make people disappear. This one is especially good if you flat out know nothing about the show. Has some really great time travel stuff.)

A Christmas Carol (A christmas carol pastiche (of course) where the doctor tries to rewrite the past of a cruel man who's going to let a lot of people die. very sad and sweet. I love the "wintery planet with sky fish" setting of this one)

Vincent and the Doctor (The famous Vincent Van Gogh Episode™)

The Rings of Akhatan (A pretty lowkey little adventure story about an alien festival. has supreme autumn vibes)

Flatline (A species from a 2 dimensional world tries to break into our 3 dimensional one. really fun special effects)

Midnight (A tour bus breaks down on a diamond planet where nothing can survive. Something knocks at the door.)

Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead (The Doctor and friend go to a library that covers an entire planet and finds that everyone has disappeared. Has a lot of really great, interesting concepts baked into it that I won't spoil)

It Takes You Away (A girl is left alone in a cabin in the woods when her dad disappears through the mirror. Has a famously goofy ending that I really love)

73 Yards (A character is steps on a fairy circle and is followed by an old woman who always stands exactly 73 yards away)

The Devil's Chord (This doesn't really have, you know, a plot, but it does have jinkx monsoon as an evil music god)

Boom (The doctor steps on a landmine on an alien planet and cannot move)

Wild Blue Yonder (A two hander where the Doctor and co are trapped on a dilapidated spaceship at the edge of the universe. really atmospheric with some fun/strange visuals.)

That being said, it does add a lot to watch it in order; there's a lot of plot twists, character dynamics, and general payoff you get if you marathon it. I would personally recommend starting with either the first episode of the 2005 show ("Rose") or the first episode of the 2010 season ("The Eleventh Hour") and just watching in order from there. I think you could also start with "The Snowmen", "The Pilot", or "The Woman Who Fell To Earth" if you wanted, but the first two (especially rose) are the better jumping on points.

some other little notes of advice I don't often see people mention:

it's stupid sometimes just roll with it

once in a while the show sort of "reboots" with different writers, actors, directors, and a new tone. it's much more like watching several small shows than one long show, so don't be too put off by the length!

IMPORTANT: pretty much all streaming services will separate holiday/anniversary specials from the show proper and you have to deliberately search them up on the same service to find them. It's really necessary to be aware of this because many of these specials are the first or last episodes for characters/whole eras of the show and are genuinely unskippable. I strongly recommend looking up a list of the episodes and checking it after finales just to make sure you don't skip anything on accident.

there's two spin offs (Torchwood, a more adult (read: gay sex) show about a mysterious agency that solves sci fi crimes, and the Sarah Jane Adventures, a pretty good monster of the week kids show) that ran concurrently with season 1-4. You don't have to watch them to understand anything happening in doctor who, but sometimes they cross over with the show in fun ways, Ex. the first season finale of Torchwood continues directly into season 3 of Doctor Who. My friend and I got a kick out of watching them at the same time so maybe you will too. (either way I recommend watching "Children of Earth", the torchwood miniseries, if you want to see a weird dark sci fi show about the government making contact with aliens. It's a bit like arrival (2016) if it was way nastier.)

alternatively, you can inject fast acting brain poison into yourself with this

anyways I hope this all reads as, you know, more approachable than the way dudes on quora recommend this show:

[aq2003]

i have officially found my least favorite 10th doctor take in the entire world. this post was specifically crafted in a lab to make me fuming fucking mad

[thetorturedlovergirl]

Mourning day for thasmin shippers

[biggest12fan]

'time heist' starts with stuff like "oh yeah the bank of karabraxos, most secure bank ever, zero successful robberies ever" and then the episode continues and the bank has like 5 cameras in total and a lot of conveniently big vents. 0 sensors, 0 nothing, just a mind soup alien

[stitchthelilo]

tbh i did see someone say the one who waits could be death, and i was like: ohh wait that makes sense…… would be cool for susan twist to be death! and it turns out that person was right?? wild

[multishipperbish]

storing this here cause i'll forget otherwise. i designed a tattoo for my mom (or myself if she doesn't like it) of the creepy gas mask kid from dr who in the style of Banksy because we rewatched the episode today and we got to talking about what it might look like. i fucked it up a little cause the arm was supposed to be pointing (instead of holding a hand) but i had no idea how to achieve that + he's not facing the right way to be pointing + he's not nearly as menacing as i'd hoped but whatever. i kind of really like it even though i keep finding things wrong with it. would go hard on either of our forearms i think

tw for gas masks. i know that shit is creepy as fuck so be warned. it's a transparent image so uhhh rip if you got dark mode on. i do and it's great for the night but shit for this image in particular. oh well

[lovecorevillain]

i like him a normal amount (lying)

[thepunkmuppet]

boom is the best doctor who since capaldi’s era and i’m not joking, we are SO fucking back

[that-bored-aroace]

just had a horrible awful vision of a fake Dr who episode where a one-off character bled out faintly singing life on mars by David Bowie after having a 10 minute conversation with (???) imaginary companion about his dreams to open a shop selling 70s music.

[doctorwhoisadhd]

you know what? i was just thinking and literally every episode with the trickster's brigade in it involves suicide somehow

whatever happened to sarah jane? (sja): andrea has to CHOOSE to die to go back on her deal with the trickster. you actually SEE her smile at sarah jane and then let go on purpose in order to fall to her death (this was a kids show)

turn left (doctor who): the right-donna has to kill herself in order to get past-donna to turn left instead of right — not only killing herself but meaning that she never existed in the first place

the temptation of sarah jane smith (sja): its quite literally basically like, yeah, sarah janes parents definitely crashed the car on purpose. and like, they never actually SAY it that obviously but they DO definitely CHOOSE to get in the car knowing they have to crash to set things right (again. this was a kids show)

the wedding of sarah jane smith (sja): again, peter dalton, like andrea, has to CHOOSE to go back on his deal with the trickster, probably the weakest example but like, he is still definitely CHOOSING to die instead of live

immortal sins (torchwood): this is actually somehow the ONLY one where the answer to "how do we beat the trickster" is NOT suicide, which is so wild considering that THIS is the gritty adult spinoff. no, the trickster they beat just fine. jack just decides to kill himself in order to (quite literally) ghost angelo with the most possible emotional torment

[dallasthetransgenderlegend]

I may be entirely biased but I do find the Neil Gaiman written episodes some of the most enjoyable in eleven’s run.

[wherevenusholdssomeofficespace]

You know, in abducting Murphy's Law, the android is grown with Milo's DNA, but it doesn't seem to have Murphy's Law, because Zack ended up as the primary target of Dr. Ds inators. Admittedly the android is definitely not human, so it makes sense that it falls a bit short in being exactly like Milo and having Murphy's Law. And it's not exactly foreshadowing since we know the aliens are after Milo. But it's still a bit weird to see bad things happening and Milo not at the center of it. (Also highlights how many of Doof's issues are self-inflicted).

Also the fact episode happens right after Milo's world where Melissa confesses that she used to think Milo could be a robot, agrees with Bradley that it was in fact impossible for him to be a robot, which happens again in this episode with her vehemently insisting that Milo is not a robot is nice. It's a cute little details as it tells us Melissa's grown a lot in her understanding of Milo since she met him.

[aq2003]

i saw a post saying boom was good bc it feels like it could be done with any doctor/companion duo and honestly that was one of the things i felt was wrong with it

[toytulini]

Disclaimer im just processing some thoughts im not cancelling the show

have almost thoughts about how i find the like....narrative on here that if you have chronic "zebra" conditions youd want a doctor like House and wouldnt sue for malpractice bc at least youd have a doctor that cares about whats wrong with you but lets take it one step further. so often he does NOT give a shit about the patient and actively endangers them frequently with his god damn heoric era of medicine approach? non zero amount of times he gets a diagnosis but it comes too late, or he gets a diagnosis after their first wrong 3 guesses of the episode shut down the patients kidneys and they either have to get a transplant or they are just, doomed due to other preexisting conditions etc? idk. i know ppl are almost certainly exaggerating and just letting off steam about the very real failures of our current medical systems and the ableism baked in and All That Shit. i just think its weird how ppl romanticize House who STILL, FREQUENTLY, MULTIPLE EPISODES will actively dismiss shit in the exact way that is a problem in our current system, especially when hes being Forced Against His Will To See Clinic Parients, he loves to be dismissive as fuck of symptoms and if he was a real doctor i think he'd be fucking 50/50 on cases he Notices Something To Dig Into vs cases he dismisses as an Anxious Hysterical Woman Who Wants Attention, the only reason he's Right so frequently in his snap judgements is cos it reinforces the narrative. its like a crime drama that has the mastermind serial killer masterfully using "loopholes" and lawyering up all sneaky and dodging Justice and if only our poor little cop protags were allowed to do A TEENY BIT of Justified Police Brutality, they could Save Lives!

and like sometimes in the show they will have a patient die despite his efforts to narratively punish him. not to mention, i think its been at least mildly brought up and glossed over how much they absolutely do not think about insurance costs for these ppl for the insane amount of tests that find nothing and Wrong Medications To Force A Diagnosis they use? i think it was brought up once in the episode following a day in the life of cuddy where she had to fight a lawsuit bc a guys insurance like didnt cover his thumb being reattached but chase reattached it anyway while in surgery cos it was The Right Thing To Do and the guy didnt have the money to cover it and the insurance wouldnt pay unless he sued the hospital or whatever. thats like the only time its come up. whereas like frequently the doctor I go to for osteopathic manipulation tries to check in with me and make sure im covered by insurance etc and that im not going to go broke or get buried in medical debt seeing her.

idk. just some Thoughts. not a defense of our current system and all the flaws it enables and enforces etc. his approach to medicine is really reminiscent to me of what I know of the Heroic Era Of Medicine which i dont...love? and hes framed on here as being an asshole but would kill for his patients to get them a diagnosis etc. but hes definitely extremely paternalistic to patients ? and despite some good clippable lines about ableism and being against eugenics, it honestly feels like his stance on that is kind of a toss up.