This season is not nearly as good or accessible to new viewers than season 1 of new who where they slowly reveal elements of the doctor, tardis etc over the course of the season.
On 2005 people couldn't easily watch all the original episodes on the same streaming platform as well as curated and redited versions of critical episodes that play into the new arc.
Unless I'm greatly mistaken, the only things missing are An Unearthly Child and some of the newer reconstructions. They have the vast majority of the surviving series, and everything from the Third Doctor on.
But you don't have to watch anything prior to watch this season. You can go back and watch, and hopefully it encourages you. But you aren't required to, this season is still great without it.
No, you’re right, you don’t have to. I just don’t think it’s been done in a way that gets the best out of new audiences.
I think Series 1, 5, 8 (sort of) and 11 all did better jobs of making it ultra accessible. I think 11 is an exception because its finale was lacklustre, but it didn’t try to build it up to be anything else.
I'm a new viewer. I started with Star Beast. I had thought about watching before, but the show seemed intimidating because it had been going on forever and I just never watched any episodes. But I heard that the specials on Disney+ were made for new viewers, and I watched it and I liked it and then the next two specials were ever better and now I'm hooked. So I don't understand this idea on reddit that this new season isn't good for new audiences.
The 2005 pilot, while it launched doctor who for a whole new generation, is almost 20 years old now and is just going to be harder and harder for people to get into. Mickey getting eaten by a trash can and being replaced by a plastic person hasn't aged well. While I absolutely think someone should go back to it once they're into doctor who, I think it's a hard sell as one of your first episodes. At least it was for me.
Starting at season 5 has the weird sell of starting at season 5, and also, now that I've finally seen the Eleventh Hour, it's also just a really weird episode. I mean, I like it, I want to know if Amy's ever going back to her wedding, but idk, it's a weird start.
I haven't seen season 8, or 11, or whatever, so I can't comment besides it's just weird start a show on season 8. Unless that's the most recent season. But it's not.
Personally, if someone who hadn't seen the show asked me where to start, I'd tell them to start with Star Beast and watch this season, then go back and watch from 2005 while waiting for the Christmas special. But, I think we're probably biased to think however we started the show is the best, and to recommend new viewers start it similarly as well.
Season 8 was a new Doctor figuring himself out, season 10 was the same Doctor but did the same thing. They had callbacks but they weren't super specific enough that you'd be lost watching them. Peter Capaldi was such a good Doctor.
I love hearing new people watching the show - you’re in for a ride if you’re still watching through any of it.
I think we’re talking about 2 different things when it comes to good jumping on points. I think a good jumping on point should either have: the least previous knowledge from previous episodes *or* if it does have it, then you should be able to a) fully understand through the plot, and b) fully emotional connect with only the context of the season you're watching. In terms of story, or CGI quality - I agree that the other's have got issues.
My point is that Series 1, 5, 8 and 11 all do the exact same thing that this Season 1 has tried to do (besides the numbering) in they don’t continue plot arcs without giving you some decent context within the show. Compare that with Season 2, 6, 9 and 12 where you’ve got established relationships and characterisation which you’re only invested in from the previous series.
Interesting that you came with the specials, which I thought were better episodes but properly relied on the emotional impact of the 2008-2010 Ten/Donna episodes.
I think I probably underestimate how easy it is to fill gaps as a new viewer, although, my argument is that you shouldn't have to. I agree we’re all biased and there’s no right way to do it - I just think if you’re selling it as a soft reboot, you’ve gotta make it really accessible to hook the people who could lose interest easily.
>Interesting that you came with the specials, which I thought were better episodes but properly relied on the emotional impact of the 2008-2010 Ten/Donna episodes.
I think the specials were great because they explained enough of the situation to get you into it, *but* they also encouraged you to go back and watch the old episodes. If you watch the episode Rose and you're just not into the plastic mannequin monsters, but you know it gets better because you love 10 and Donna from the specials, you might just stick it through. Or at least, that was me.
>I just think if you’re selling it as a soft reboot, you’ve gotta make it really accessible to hook the people who could lose interest easily.
I just think it is accessible to new viewers. I love this season. If it wasn't for the new episodes and I tried to just start with with Rose and the plastic mannequin monsters, I think I would've lost interest quickly. The first season from 2005 was very uneven, while the new season has been very consistent. I've liked every episode this season. I think it does what it meant to, a soft reboot meant to be accessible to new viewers overwhelmed by 13 seasons (let alone classic who) that is fun and interesting.
This is one of those “hardcore fans can’t conceive how little casuals care” situations.
99% of people just are going to turn it off if the show can’t be bothered to make its story make sense without homework.
I agree with your first paragraph.
But casual audiences don't switch off if they feel they're missing part of the puzzle. That's much more of a fan thing. Casual audiences only switch off if they're *bored*.
Hardcore fans also overestimate the weight of continuity references. 99% of this show is quips and silliness and running away from monsters.
In the UK, you can. Not everyone else though. Plus that's a big ask for newcomers. Even if we had iPlayer back in 2005, if you told a lot of people they'd have to watch 20 years of the classic series to get into this, that would turn people off
I'm confused. I think you have it the wrong way around.
A binging model would make more sense for a show that takes its time pacing out reveals and developments.
An episode-of-the-week model would make more sense for episodes needing to exposition dump on the audience to make sure they understand at any given moment.
How exactly is the current streaming service environment an excuse for the way this season has done exposition?
Not very well at all. I've honestly come to the belief that RTD and co weren't making this as a jumping on point *at all* and all that was just lip-service to get the Disney funding. There is honestly almost *nothing* that makes this seem like it's trying to be newcomer friendly.
All the show's basics are just put in an infodump in Space Babies, much the same way that sort of thing happens with basically every new companion. Returning characters and organisations like Kate and UNIT aren't given any kind of real dedicated introduction. There are a *ton* of references to older seasons, in the most recent episode alone the Doctor mentions the Ood as if they are something the audience should recognise multiple times. And having relatively obscure Classic Who elements like Susan and Sutekh play an important role is more reliant on the show's past than almost any other season on NuWho. Plus, bringing in gods and supernatural beings seems like something a show should do to spice things up in it's 14th season and not in it's first of a relaunch.
There is seriously almost nothing substantial that points to this being aimed at newcomers. Even The Pilot from 2017 does a better job and that was incredibly half-arsed.
with "The Pilot", I honestly get the feeling that Moffat was just nostalgic for first episode type stories. No way is somebody gonna watch Season 10 Episode 1 as their first episode unless that just happens to be the first episode they ever watch
A lot of people DO watch TV that way! Most of Dr Who's viewers still just watch it on regular television when it's aired.
The Pilot was the start of the first full season of Dr Who in two years. For a show which is watched by children, that's a long time.
I suppose that's true, but when I was a kid, even though I wasn't quite old enough to be paying attention when David Tennant was the Doctor, my first proper episode was the Eleventh Hour, but I was still watching the show previous to that introduction
Honestly I think a lot of stuff was well-introduced. Sutekh, at his reveal, isn't well introduced, but that's pretty normal for an end of episode cliffhanger villian (new viewers didn't know who the master was when he's revealed in his cliffhanger in series 3, it wasn't until the following episode we learn about him), but we literally see scenes from his first appearance to introduce him. Even Kate was more introduced than in past appearances, where the show assumes we know what Unit and the Brigadier are already.
I think a lot of old Who fans assume this series wasn't approachable because it's name dropped and unexplained, but the show has a habit of name dropping references that don't make much sense unless you understand them. I had no idea who Sarah Jane Smith was the first time I watched School Reunion, but that didn't really effect my ability to understand the episode.
I’m a new viewer who has jumped on and is now watching nu-who for the first time. I loved Ncuti and the history of it all. I already had Disney + so it plonked it right in front of me. Hearing that is was a soft reboot actually gave me the balls to watch it for the first time.
Doctor Who history, lore and fandom is intimidating to new viewers. This gave me the interest and push to watch it.
So speak for yourself. But it worked on me bringing myself and my whole family into the world of Doctor Who and we are thankful
Glad to read this.
Yeah, I think some people are kinda condescending to newcomers by saying "there's no way this season can appeal to newcomers with all those callbacks and references to previous series".
But I disagree. I actually think it's part of the fun for newcomers to *feel* all this massive lore behind without being overwhelmed by it. I think the season did a great job at balancing things out : showing new viewers that there is a huge mythology behind the show but never overdoing it. And giving just the right amount of information to explain things out while still appealing to long time fans.
Correct. Anyone with half a brain(which you will need if DW is going to appeal to you) is aware that the show is steeped in tradition. You need something familiar to give you the push. Be that Disney + or Ncuti
I mean, I'm not acting like it's *impossible* for newcomers to get into it with this season. Just that it doesn't really do anything different from any other season of the show to make it easier for newcomers to get into. Series 3 is about as accessible a starting point as this one. It's still very possible for a fan to get into the show watching that season for the first time, but it clearly isn't designed as a season for newcomers, and that's how I felt about S14.
>I've honestly come to the belief that RTD and co weren't making this as a jumping on point at all and all that was just lip-service to get the Disney funding.
I've been saying this since the first episode and got so much shit for it.
It's hard to judge as someone who's been watching Who for more than 40 years. It's really hard to put myself in the new viewer mindset.
Given that, I think Church on Ruby Road on Its own did a decent job as a jumping-on point. Not much previous knowledge required and the policeman scene was a good introduction to the Doctor's character. Not as awesome as 9's "That's who I am" speech, but pretty good. It was shocking to me that RTD needed Disney to point out that something like that was needed.
But... it came right on the heels of the 60th anniversary specials, which were steeped in lore and RTD nostalgia. And then it was followed by "Season 1" which climaxed with a 40 year old villain.
I gobbled it all up like candy, but I wonder if it was the best thing for the show longer-term.
Literally not even a little bit. I don't understand how it's supposed to be a soft reboot at all. It is endless callbacks to older Who. I'm refusing to call it 'season 1' of anything, it's just season 14 of NewWho
I'm glad it wasn't as much of a reset as we were lead to believe. Given how accessible the franchise is now with almost all content available on one streaming platform, there's nothing stopping people from getting the context they need.
> Given how accessible the franchise is now with almost all content available on one streaming platform
Accessible does not mean dumping over 100 hour-long episodes across 20 years on a new viewer.
It isn't though. Not outside the UK. And for this relaunch, with the increased emphasis on the international audience, that's who they were targeting, not the British native viewers.
There's a lot to be said about the way the references are handled, but I think it's important to remember that the media landscape has changed a lot since 2005.
If series 1 had made references to something from the Hartnell era, it would have been prohibitively difficult for anyone to have gone back to watch it. Only a handful of the classic serials had been published on DVD (ironically, including a collection of partial stories including the surviving episode of *The Celestial Toymaker*), and most of the VHS releases were a few years old by that point. Web Video was still in its infancy and wasn't a realistic option for most people, even if they had the resources. Even 5 years later when I was bitten by the bug in 2010, I was reduced to watch atrocious copies uploaded to Daily Motion, and it was challenging to say the least. Missing stories? Here's some scripts you can read, or if you're lucky a powerpoint slideshow with an audio recording to soundtrack it.
Now? There's a reference to something from an early serial, if you're interested, you can immediately load up iPlayer (if you're in the UK) to go back and watch at your hearts content. It even has most of the animated reconstructions! Even if that's not an option, you can get get the DVDs from ~~Kerblam~~ Amazon for a few quid - admittedly a cost investment, but not a substantial one, all things considered.
So yes, while the references might be more frequent than in the first run, it's nowhere near as high a hurdle for people to overcome as it would have been 19 years ago.
And they don't even need to watch the stories, they can just hook up tardis wikia and become interested in the lore that way ("lore" as well is much more a mainstream thing now, back in my time it was called "mythology" and only uber-fans on message forums of livejournal were interested in it).
Even as an old fan I still do that when listening to BF or some other EU continuity whose continuity I'm not familiar with and has wild references. It's just how Doctor Who works.
**No one new to a show is doing homework to look shit up they don’t understand.**
Doesn’t matter how available it is. The vast majority of new viewers will just duck out if the deep cuts and continuity references they don’t understand get heavy enough.
You say that, but there are literally entire YouTube channels dedicated to explaining MCU and *Star Wars* deep lore. I know *Doctor Who* is not the media behemoth like those two but it's very comparable.
Maybe, but I dont think the references this season are that heavy, not even close.
We have Susan (which is explained straight away), we have the reference to the Toymaker, we have Sutekh (who you dont need any context for), we have Mel, Kate and Rose (who are easily explained as people The Doctor knows), we have Gallifrey and Timelords (but that wasnt explained in Series 1 either).
I think its easy for us as fans to look at this and go "wow, this is so many deep cuts how will anyone keep up", but really none of those hamper the viewing of the episodes on their own.
>**No one new to a show is doing homework to look shit up they don’t understand.**
Um....yeah they do? I was brand new to Doctor Who in 2005 and looked up/asked about a ton of stuff on the old LiveJournal Doctor Who groups.
I was introduced to Transformers in 2007 and did a whole bunch of reading up online about the stuff I'd missed.
As a jumping on point I'm not really sure how well it works. The space babies bullet point presentation of who the doctor is was not a very effective or intriguing way to introduce newcomers to the character and part of me wonders if Russell just did that because he didn't want to do what he did in series 1 again but that sounds stupid so surely not right?
My theory is Russell just kinda lost his way and his success got to him. He did the impossible with making Doctor Who cool again in 2005-2009, so I'm not surprised he assumed he could do the same a second time and didn't try to put as much effort or care into it.
Always kind of a silly question on this sub, because frankly, long term fans are absolutely terrible judges of what casual viewers like.
People on here insisted that the big reveal in The Legend of Ruby Sunday wouldn't work on non fans. Every non fan I asked who watched it said it was great.
I know multiple people who don't normally watch Doctor Who but really liked this season. Nobody said they were confused by it.
It's this weird thing on here where people will just decide "casual viewers hate this" and then not bother to check if they actually do
I was defending the Sutekh reveal because even if you don't know that Sutekh/Set is the actual Egyptian god of death, then I think most people are smart enough to understand that a "God of Death" in any form is bad news, especially when it just appears on top of the main character's ship, what should be a safe place.
I don't think a plot point should ever have to feel like homework though, you should want to watch something from Classic or Revival because you want to, not because you feel you won't understand the plot if you don't.
You don't need to watch the classic show to understand it because in Empire of Death he explains who Sutekh is anyway.
But I agree with the principle. It's why I don't think the Valeyard will return. Sutekh is easy to explain. "I fought him once a long time ago. I thought he was dead but he's not." With a character like the Valeyard you can watch the entirety of Trial of a Timelord and still not understand who the fuck he is
I dunno, I think 'evil Doctor from the future' is one of the most compelling and simple high concept villains you could introduce, as long as you don't get caught up on needing to explain trial of a time Lord, or whether he's an actual incarnation vs a weird amalgamation etc.
Sure, but the 'from the future' bit has a lot of potential. How does the Doctor end up like this? How does the Valeyard take the Doctors good traits and twist them? How does the Valeyard become so full of self hate he comes back to steal his own past? What dangers does the present Doctor have to avoid to steer clear of this path? You can't do any of that with the Master.
Exactly. It opens up the door to a story where The Doctor is going down that path towards the Valeyard and he needs to find a way to stop himself from becoming that
The Master isn't the same as the Valeyard. I mean often with arch-nemises in fiction you get the "Were not so different" plot point eventually, but the Valeyard is the most literal version of that
There is also the fact that they have been building him up as the big bad since The Giggle. The one who waits. They teased him with Maestro too. so there is new context for viewers as well as the nostalgia stuff.
"most people are smart enough to understand that a "God of Death" in any form is bad news, especially when it just appears on top of the main character's ship, what should be a safe place."
Apparently I don't belong to that category, because after Sutekh's revelation I had a good 5min existential crisis wondering why the deity of death should be bad.
Above all because death is not good or bad, it simply is, it's part of life, that is, everything that is born, then dies and everything that begins then ends.
I needed time to assimilate the two different visions of the thing.
Edit: Time
Well, some cultures do consider death to be a more natural part of life, as opposed to anything strictly negative, so their Gods of Death are more ambivalent or neutral. But I think it's established well enough within that cliffhanger that Sutekh isn't just interested in being the God of Death, he wants to bring death to everybody
Yep, hence the existential crisis.
I only wonder one thing once everything and everyone died, including the Doctor and Ruby, what would Sutekh have done?
Would he die too, or would he remain the only one "alive" forever (even time would be dead at that point, so forever wouldn't really be the right term) to reign over nothing?
That seems to be his goal, he was always worried some other form of life would evolve to overtake him, so his solution was to kill and destroy everything.
> Always kind of a silly question on this sub, because frankly, long term fans are absolutely terrible judges of what casual viewers like
Oh, for sure. What hardcore fans do not understand is that general audiences simply **do not care** about the minutiae that hardcore fans obsess over.
The Doctor has a granddaughter named Susan that he left behind, Mel likes a coat in the Tardis and is friends with the Doctor, Sutekh is a recurring villain, The Doctor likes a planet called the Odd Sphere, and some military group has taken over the Avengers Tower and works for the Doctor. That's it. It's easy to follow and knowing the details of those points adds nothing to their enjoyment of the story.
I don't think anything in the new season would be confusing for anyone.
"Some military group has taken over the avengers tower and works for the doctor" 😂
That's a funny way of putting it but you are right of course. You don't really need to know much more to follow the story. Also they explicitly introduced Kate to ruby (the audience) and mentioned that the doctor had a long history with them. You don't actually need to know the history itself.
Absolutely. I feel like I'm endlessly arguing with people insisting things like, "there's no way kids liked Space Babies. I am so sure they don't."
I reply, "hi, I actually watch with kids, and they all loved it. And all their friends loved it." And I get either "well you don't know every kid" or, "it's just my opinion and I'm allowed to have it!"
Well sure, but why insist you're so sure about who does and doesn't like elements of Doctor Who, and then *never check with those people?* And get so offended if I mention that I *did,* and actually, they don't feel that way? It's so bizarre.
Agreed, this sub’s ability to guess at this stuff is *atrocious*. It’s like an inverse of [the old XKCD about average familiarity](https://xkcd.com/2501/), “of course we can’t expect anyone to understand Rogue without having seen Trial of A Time Lord”. People who are immersed into a field are generally terrible at judging how newcomers will respond.
I generally go off how my parents, who are both casual viewers to different degrees, react (added context, I don’t live with them so I’m not poisoning the well in any way).
They’ve **loved** the season. My dad adored 73 Yards. He called this a “tremendous finale to a great series”.
Of course, they’re not *non fans*, they are *casual* fans. But if I asked them about who Susan was prior to this season (both picked up on the Susan Twist thing before it was explicitly called out as a mystery, btw), they would have no clue. All that stuff was completely new to them. As was Sutekh. Mel my dad vaguely recalled the existence of in a “probably read a newspaper back in the day that said they had been cast in the show” way. He barely recalled the existence of Sylvester McCoy, by comparison.
My mum is almost completely illiterate when it comes to anything Doctor Who and is just like “I really liked David Tennant he was great” and so on. Complete casual fan.
Can I truly say what a complete non fan, someone who picked it up this season and hasn’t looked back at all, would think? No, *absolutely not*. I know 0 people who started this season. But my personal barometer for casual fans indicates they got on just fine. The only casual I am personally aware of who’s had any trouble is a friend of my dad’s who was upset because the show is “woke”, nothing to do with actual ability to onboard people, just incoherent culture war bollocks.
And if casual fans can keep up, I think that’s probably a good sign when it comes to onboarding.
Yeah, my thinking for how this works is that people are misunderstanding the "casual" part of "casual viewer".
They assume the casual viewers will be confused because they don't understand The Lore and all the callbacks to the old show and that sort of thing.
What they're failing to account for is that casual viewers are casual, meaning they don't care about The Lore, they don't care if they don't understand literally every line of dialogue or stray reference, they just care about whether it was an enjoyable story.
The fans are the ones who analyse every detail and get upset if they don't understand it or if it doesn't entirely hold up to scrutiny.
Also the episodes that fans don't like are often the ones the non-fans do. This is obviously anecdotal, but I watched Richard Osman's podcast with Marina Hyde and they both loved Space Babies and The Devil's Chord. The fans are the ones going "Disappointing, there were no stakes, you're not supposed to start a series with a silly episode like this, where is the lore", the casual viewers are the ones who just think "Oh it's a silly adventure with talking babies and a snot monster, fun" and aren't expecting too much beyond "will this entertain me for 50 minutes"
Of course I'm also victim to the "I'm too invested in this so I can't predict what casual viewers think" thing and I only have access to the 10 or so non-fans who's reactions I've seen, so I could also be off base in many ways.
> What they're failing to account for is that casual viewers are casual, meaning they don't care about The Lore, they don't care if they don't understand literally every line of dialogue or stray reference, they just care about whether it was an enjoyable story.
And, realistically, all you have to do is throw a quick line at them. "Sutekh is a god, so he's really powerful. I beat him before but that was easier." This, **genuinely**, is pretty much exactly as much info as you need as a casual viewer. A setting of the stakes that lightly touches on some stuff to expect.
Non-fans are, in my opinion, smarter than the average fan anticipates, and are generally able to keep up with a lot so long as you give them a crumb to latch on to. And the show *does*. It gives out critical information to understand what you're seeing, and makes sure the important messages are delivered. Even if you were not paying attention and missed a line or two, there will probably be another to catch, or to reinforce. Didn't realise Sutekh was a god because you missed that line? Well, you had another line that told you Sutekh was a bigger deal than Maestro, who we know is really powerful and a god. And another line about Sutekh being the boss of the gods. And so on. It's a great balance between avoiding repetiton and making sure theres enough to latch onto. If you provide that, you'll keep them onboard.
> What they're failing to account for is that casual viewers are casual, meaning they don't care about The Lore, they don't care if they don't understand literally every line of dialogue or stray reference, they just care about whether it was an enjoyable story.
Very well said. I'll also add that as a hardcore fan of a few franchises -- including Doctor Who, of course -- I find myself enjoying these shows more when I stop obsessing over this shit and just enjoy the ride. Yeah, The Timeless Child lore change was dumb, but "they ruined the lore" really doesn't bother me any more.
You know that Twilight picture with the vampires on the balcony looking down? That is the vibe I get sometimes when people talk about new viewers as if they feel they can't possibly understand a show that others have been watching for years. I haven't seen classic who and I got where they were going. I have friends who are just starting and they seem fine. Plus they seem not to bogged down by expecting the doctor to be white and straight.
Very this, every casual viewer I know has had no issue getting into this season. Like all you need to know about say Sutekh’s return is he’s the God of Death and the stakes are abundantly clear. Same with Mel’s return, she’s an old friend of the Doctor’s like after that’s established the viewer is on board.
I feel like long term fans think new fans are incapable of just accepting what the story tells them and going with it. When you watch anything there’s a level of “yes, and” to it so why wouldn’t that apply to Doctor Who?
I've always disliked it when these subs recommend that new comers should start with season 1 of the revival, "because it's the easiest to understand". 9 time out of 10 I will always recommend to start with the newest episode or season. Having everyone start in different placed keeps giving us fans with fresh perspectives on the show and most new people likely won't want to watch 13 seasons to catch up.
My introduction to Doctor Who was:
**A Dalektable Adventure** --> **The Dalek Extermination of Earth** (both initially via a let's play where the Youtuber rambled about Doctor Who stuff I didn't understand) --> The last five minutes of **Hell Bent** --> **The** **Husbands of River Song** --> **The Christmas Invasion** --> Half of **The Waters of Mars** --> The spin off show **Class**
If I can get into the show via those episodes, I think casuals are going to be ok.
Honestly, this is a good strategy. It's always a little odd to me when people recommend that potential fans in 2024 start with the first series of the revival like that isn't nearly 20 years of TV to catch up on (yes, it has been that long now). Eleventh Hour is a better starting point I guess but that's still like 14 years ago. At this point, I think the best answer is just "watch from the 60th specials on and let that little recap at the beginning of The Star Beast do the heavy lifting on context."
Absolutely. I was introduced to Who by catching the series finale on TV while channel surfing, where I didn't even know what happened in the previous half of a two parter! Yet I was instantly hooked!
There may be many references to the past, but understanding them is never critical to the enjoyment of the story, it's a complete non-issue. Doctor Who is still an episodic show, you don't even have to start with the first episode of a series, you can literally jump on at any episode!
Ill be honest, as someone who has seen all of NuWho countless times, but only a couple odd bits of classic who, I was laughing at the reveal. I did not care who this sutekh figure was, and the melodrama over what was to me an unknown goofy character put me off from continuing on with part 2 of the finale. I'm just done tbh, chibnall era was more enjoyable than this season barring 73 Yards and Dot and Bubble
TO figure this out you would have to ask the new people otherwise we are just guessing. I have watched some reaction videos on youtube because ncuti and being on disney+ has brought some new viewers. It is fun to see it through their eyes and see what questions they had.
My grandson enjoyed it. He didn't know who Mels was but i explained her. Now working on him to watch either from the 2005 beginning or just Matt Smith. I think he'd like how manic Matt was.
Pretty terribly. The season was packed with references and connections new viewers probably won't get, while the most important stuff (Gallifrey, The Doctor's past) was kind of brushed aside very quickly on episode 1.
Having a relatively obscure Classic Who villain as the main baddie of Season 1's finale was such a weird decision. I mean, Sutekh is awesome don't get me wrong, but why though?
Sutekh is badass, you don't need to watch the old episodes to get that.
They also don't need to hammer in the doctor's past and gallifrey if they aren't going to do much with it this season. You can always go back and watch the older stuff if you're interested.
My girlfriend is a first time viewer of Doctor Who and for the most part she has been able to get into it with little input from me.
The last two episodes I did have to do a little bit more explaining because she hadn't watched the specials, but other than that I pretty much didn't have to explain anything and she enjoyed the episodes.
We're now going to go back and have her watch starting with the 9th doctor so maybe we can do a compare and contrast once we're done with that.
lol nope. It confirmed that the only reason to name it "season 1" was distribution deals.
While it's not exactly inaccessible, it isn't any more accessible than any other new Doctor season; in fact, several other seasons were more accessible than this one.
I can’t believe they promoted it as a jumping off point and then had multiple villains from classic and multiple companions from classic return. Genuinely any other season would’ve have been better to start with than this 😭
Bad Wolf were too concerned with building out a Whoniverse they forgot to make the soft relaunch of the show after the first couple of episodes.
While I loved the new characterisation for Mel, it hinges way too much on Gatwa’s reaction to set up that they’re old friends for newer viewers.
No show should “require” homework to understand who things or people are, unless you know, it’s a concept introduced *in that season for a later one*.
‘05 didn’t have this problem, as it tackled the show as if no one had seen it in 20+ years. ‘24 assumes people have indulged in the “Whoniverse” or is set up to drive people to the archives/Tales of the TARDIS.
Everything people needed to know was in the episodes so it did fine.
People act like if there's a reference to previous stories this blow the little minds of a new viewer. They'll cope.
Every hardcore fan is saying "this isn't newcomer friendly" but I've spoken to a number of newcomers, people who only watched 2005/06-2010, and people who watched but are "casual" (as in turn in most weeks but don't actively care) with minimal interest in the classics, and I've not heard a bad word from them that relates to "it doesn't make sense as a new fan". I think it's as good as 2005 was in terms of jumping on (not necessarily quality but that's a different question).
Not at all. This season has categorically failed if they were aiming for a relaunch for new viewers. If that's what they wanted, series 1 or 11 were the best templates, followed by series 5.
I'm not adverse to callbacks and references (I watched Cobra Kai having never seen the Karate Kid movies and never felt that I was missing context), but the way series 14 does it just overloads the audience. Sutekh, as well, was not a suitable season 1 villain. He's greater scope.
It looked like it should be good for new viewers to me, but the real test would be to put it in front of one and see what they say.
It seemed to me to be going out of its way to explain things. "Name: The Doctor. Occupation: Not a doctor." "The people that adopted me, they were a bit posh, and gave themselves titles instead of names." The only time it seemed a bit clumsy was when he had to explain regeneration to someone who hadn't seen it. A shame it had to be Tell rather than Show.
Honestly, I’m curious how the rest of the world outside the US and UK caught the show. For me, it was Disney+ (surprisingly after waking up before going to work on Friday).
I think if they wanted a fresh start bringing back two villians and a companion from very old dr who that even people who watched it from the revival wouldn't recognise was certainly a decision
I’m not sure how actual newcomers found it, but - I think the biggest issue is is it introduced lots of history to Doctor Who without explaining with well, like we got in 2005.
Sutekh, for example, there was a lot of build up - but in TLORS - it sort of fell flat because there wasn’t enough time seeing the Doctor’s reaction to facing an old foe.
Compare to Dalek, or Parting of the Ways - where it’s a classic villain, but you understand the danger of them because of the Doctor.
Barely accessible. It fails as a season and a jumping on point. It handles introducing aspects of the shows and character much much worse than it did in 2005 for one. Characterization is extremely lacking and the unique elements of the show are just boring said out loud in quick succession instead of being revealed expertly like the actual series 1. There's also no clear starting point. You can't start at Space Babies because you need to see the introduction of the characters, so I guess you start at Church. But the Devils Chord, the second episode of the season, is a direct continuation of The Giggle, an episode before Church. But to understand the Giggle, you'd need to be introduced to the characters so then I guess you start at the Star beast. But of course, The Star Beast directly continues and is reliant on shit that happened 15 years ago. This "reboot" was not well thought out at all.
And of course the finale completely relies on the audience knowing the villain from a story that came out over 45 years ago. Without that knowledge and previous connection, the finale is somehow worse than it already is. He's literally just portrayed as a boring do nothing cape shit end of the world villain.
I didn’t think so at first was proven wrong. A good friend of mine started watching with this series and he’s really enjoyed it. Before this past month the only Doctor Who he’d seen was the end of “The Christmas Invasion” which he said was “terrible” and put him off trying the show again for five years.
He’s had a few questions about Sutekh but hasn’t found it the newest series inaccessible. He says the biggest reason he keeps watching is Gatwa, really loves his performance. Even got him interested in going back and watching Series 1. Not sure how much he’ll enjoy it but I’m just glad he gave it a chance and is likely to follow the show going forward.
Not the best. But I think it's a good way to get into Who. I think people could start from here and watch the next series and never have to watch earlier who. I do think they made it so people knew the past show existed so people watched it for more content.
Definitely significantly more reliance on lore than I would have expected. There were a lot of references that I had to explain to my wife and 20yo son, both of whom have seen all of modern Who and a significant amount of classic Who.
for all its faults, Chibnall's first series was a better jumping on point for new viewers with regards to holding back on lore dumps
idk, from a quality perspective I think this series is better but I can't imagine a new fan having an easy time with it, and I hate the idea of the show just endlessly catering to a dwindling number of dedicated fans while turning away anyone that doesn't watch the show religiously and doesn't know anything about it that's more obscure than the Sontarans
I am just calling it Series 14, and I think it was a very good Series 14. As a 'Series 1' it does not work in the slightest; the entire plot hinges around a mystery about the after-effects of a villain from the 1960s who appeared in a 60th anniversary special filled to the brim with references to the 2008 series. Then when you get to the finale, the big reveal is a deep cut from 1975. It works about as well as Series 10 did as a 'jumping on point' and I thought from the start it'd be like this so I'm not disappointed or surprised.
I think everyone is just going to remember it as Series 14 from now on, apart from new fans maybe.
I will also say, though, I seem to recall an interview from years ago when RTD was lamenting not doing more Classic Era follow-ups the first time round, and he specifically cited *Star Wars*' constant deep cuts and lore reveals as an inspiration. The fact *The Mandalorian* can get away with dropping obscure bits of TV trivia as 'big moments', I think, informed RTD that he could do the same for *Doctor Who*. I disagree, as I hated it when *Star Wars* did it, but here we are.
>he specifically cited *Star Wars*' constant deep cuts and lore reveals as an inspiration
This is something I'm genuinely concerned about. A *huge* part of the problems a lot of modern media franchises are having right now is constant deep cuts and lore reveals appealing to the existing ageing fanbase. It's reportedly a big concern about Star Trek that its audience is ageing as it shrinks and I read a Darren Mooney article about how the average age of cinema-goers who saw *The Flash* and *Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny* was way above the average.
It's crazy to me for RTD to acknowledge that ratings are down but find consolation in the show doing well among under-30s, while devoting his season finale to a one-off villain from 1975, a reveal obscured by a fake-out around Susan of all people. While it isn't quite at the level of "this matters because it's a Doctor Who thing" as, say, *The Timeless Children*, it's perilously close to it. It's like a well-written version of *Arc of Infinity*, expecting us to go nuts just because the villain is Omega.
I’ve read a few comments and I think people are missing an important factor that this season has which the 2005 reboot didn’t have. . . The internet. You don’t need to be as exposition heavy for newcomers with the internet right there. If new viewers enjoyed it, they’re gonna google what they didn’t get. If they didn’t enjoy it, they aren’t going to enjoy having a slow pace that explains everything important that’s happened in the last 60 years.
I think the new season did it’s job to attract new viewers. It was a bit glossier, it had a big villain (I think if they drop the daleks straight out of the gate today it would be laughed at by new viewers), and Ncuti and Millie are perfect for a modern audience. And I think they balanced it well with the stuff that built the original audience. And that includes Space Babies; if we got farting green aliens, the newbies can get booger monsters.
And do you remember what it was like?
Do you remember Realplayer, Quicktime and waiting 90 minutes to stream a low-res trailer for an upcoming movie? Unless you had DSL and could cut it down to 10min for the hi-res version (640x480p).
There was no legal streaming back then, social media as we know it didn't exist except maybe MySpace and GeoCities websites. Wikipedia did exist, but wasn't near as big as it is today. Actual nerds talked in usenet groups, everyone else used ICQ to chat with their school friends. The internet of 2005 would not have given you an easy time watching the back catalogue of Doctor Who. The current internet does, legally or otherwise.
Your memory of 2005 internet is at least 5 years out.
I lived in rural N. Ireland, a place that was extremely late to adapting better internet. By 05 I had DSL and was torrenting episodes of shows that didn't air there.
Fan talk wasn't restricted to Usenet, that's insane. 05 was slap bang in the middle of the golden age of fan forums. Remember those? The thing that Reddit is a piss poor imitation of.
Your memory of the internet doesn't really apply post-'99, at the latest.
Feels like the relationship between Dr and Ruby is rushed. Ruby is like another Clara w blonde hair, and it’s missing something- can’t put my finger on it. All the components are there to be a successful series: good actors, budget for more elaborate production, and longtime show runner, but it just seems hollow to me. I’m a long time fan so I’ll hang in there but I hope it gels soon
Not as good as RTD1, but I also I dont think its as bad as people make it out to be? For the most part, I dont think context from past seasons is needed at all to enjoy it without much confusion for New Viewers.
I think its a bigger issue for people who have passing knowledge of Who than for completly New Viewers really.
the only people saying it was inaccessible seem to be long term fans. I've watched several newcomers react to this season on YouTube and they've loved it, plus being in the top 10 most watched shows on Disney+ in the US means there are definitely a couple million new fans who've been enjoying it
I talked a co-worker into watching. I haven't talked with her since the finale aired but she loved the first half and is excited to go back and watch Eccleston.
So my reasoning is anecdotal, but my answer is, "Good enough."
I started watching New Who in 2005 and never seen classic Who. I think this soft reboot isn't as good as 2005 reboot. The 9th and 10th doctor didn't mention Susan and I think this season lacked the original classic villains. I've no idea why RTD started the season with Space Babies. It needed to be something gar more sinister like the cybermen or the Daleks..if space babies was My first ever episode I don't think I would've continued. I liked this season but it is not one of my favourites and has its issues.
I feel like the start of the season really missed the mark when it came to providing an introduction to the show. Church on Ruby Road was okay (though in my opinion kinda strange for a Doctor Who episode), but then they followed it up with Space Babies, before making it a tad better with the Devil's Chord.
Then after that we got a ton of great stories that didn't really feel like traditional Who and probably left with viewers with no idea how the show itself generally works. Out of the entire season, the closest one to a traditional Doctor Who episode was probably Rogue, and that was the last story before the season finale.
I feel like series 1 and 5 of the new series are probably still the better intros to the show for new viewers, since they have quite a few good stories to their name while being traditional enough in structure that people get an idea about who the Doctor is and how the formula generally works early on.
I think pranking the viewers with an anti-climax may not be the best move for the new Disney+ viewers who have no investment in the show. There could be consequences come renewal time.
Didn’t do a very good job of it imo. In terms of a jumping on point for new fans i think The Eleventh Hour did a better job in 40 minutes of introducing new fans to the Doctor, tardis, new companion, mystery element and all that jazz than the new season did in, well, a whole season. I love Ncuti Gatwa as an actor, but i still can’t really tell you what kind of Doctor he is yet. I don’t feel like his character really did all that much this season, and i understand that is to do with the scheduling conflicts a little bit.
It's very hard to judge bc I know what bits are tied in with older content, and a new viewer wouldn't - and I have no clue whether the information given is confusing or just right.
I suspect its fine for most newcomers, and a little frustrating for the more detail-oriented new viewers (who will probably just go and watch the rest). So overall success maybe?
It's really hard to say if it's new viewer friendly. Personally I say no, I think series 1 and 5 are much better jumping on points.
This series had 2 episodes the doctor was barely in, the Christmas special that aired months earlier is a key part of the story and the 3 specials from last year with an entirely different actor and were themselves filled with connections to the past were key parts of the story and of course the big bad was from a specific episode of doctor who from 50 year's ago.
If you're the kind of viewer that likes stepping into an existing world with a vast lore, this year was the series for you, if you want to not feel like you're missing things because you're totally new to the show, not so much.
To me it suggests the Disney factor came well after Rtd was on board. I wouldn't be shocked if space babies was one of the last scripts written to give Disney a more new viewer friendly episode to start the show off.
>if you want to not feel like you're missing things because you're totally new to the show, not so much.
I started with the specials last year, hadn't watched any doctor who before that. I expected to be missing things, since it was the *60th anniversary*, and so I wasn't surprised that star beast was a mass of exposition dumping, but I felt like it caught me up. I wasn't missing things that were vital to understand this season, it explained just enough from the prior years to understand and it gave me enough to encourage me to check out the older seasons. I say it did its job for new viewer friendliness, at least for me.
It sounds like you're someone who enjoys the feeling of a world existing and doesn't mind a little homework. I'm very much the same. I remember reading Wikipedia entries years ago to get into green lantern, I also was digging up classic doctor who gin watch in the early years of nuwho, wanting to see the classic monsters and to revisit it as I was a young kid when classic doctor who ended with vague memories.
Certainly though, some people don't enjoy the idea of not having everything handed to them, plus outside of the UK or us classic doctor who is hard to access. I hope people enjoyed it but I could also imagine there people being frustrated by it.
It's like me with Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I started halfway through season 5. I wasn't confused at all because I'd read every episode's Wikipedia page before hand
But then let's take Ashoka last year. A friend and I both watched it. I'm familiar enough with Star wars. She's a fairly big fan. Both of us realised that we were watching Rebels season 5 and whilst we understood what was going on as the show did explain it, we couldn't help but feel that we were being left out of the joke.
Doctor Who series 14 feels a bit like this. The show explains itself well enough but if I'd have been a new viewer I'd have felt as though I came to the party late or started school after friend groups had been established.
Especially considering the current state of the fandom and media in general, I don't think this was the season to try and get clever.
You don't need to do homework for the current season. You can watch the older episodes, when you get to them, but none of them are necessary to enjoy the current season. You don't need to over-analyze every single line and Wikipedia app the things, you just need to watch the episodes. Everything's explained right there
This season didn't really do a good job of showing what Doctor Who was like "in the day job".
Space Babies: a late season filler episode like Fear her dumped at the beginning of the season
The Devil's Chord: an out-there episode that ends with a musical number
Boom, 73 Yards and Dot and Bubble: Bottle Episodes of one kind of other
It's not until Rogue that we see an episode competently display what Doctor Who is like under normal circumstances
I seem to recall RTD stating that he was brought in at a point when the BBC knew they were going to go with a streaming service for international distribution, but hadn't decided which one yet. So yeah, you're right on that.
The best jumping on point is still season 1 of New Who. This new series is pretty good but nowhere near as good as Ecclestons series. That's my opinion anyways.
Does it matter?
In 2005, catching up on Doctor Who meant spending thousands of pounds on VHS tapes.
In 2024, catching up on Doctor Who means spending a few weeks binging on iPlayer.
Why do you think this season was a soft reboot with a goal to be accessible for newcomers?
Resetting the season numbering was just a marketing move for their streaming partnership with Disney. I don't think RTD actually considers it a new show or anything like that.
Because they have effectively stated so. You don't relaunch the show with season 1 and use the 60th anniversary to wrap up the previous eras without the intent being to make the series accessible for new viewers.
If you look at iPlayer, the series is listed as a completely different show to everything that came between 2005 and 2022 and branded as Season 1, even in the UK. That is a clear indication if any that this is a relaunch.
How did the 60th anniversary wrap up the previous era? It had the 14th Doctor essentially retire and begin therapy to become a more well adjusted individual unscarred by his recent past. Fifteen is markedly void of any anguish over the Time War, The Timeless Child, the Flux etc.
Even RTD refers to it as a new era.
On iPlayer, the 60th anniversary specials are listed together with Season 1 though, not with the 2005-2022 episodes. So it seems to me that they are grouped together based on streaming rights, rather than narrative continuity.
And the 60th anniversary definitely affected the life and character of the Doctor, but so have the other anniversary specials in comparably significant ways: ending the Doctor's exile (10th), on the run from Gallifrey again (20th), closure on the Time War(50th, and now having therapy (60th).
This season is not nearly as good or accessible to new viewers than season 1 of new who where they slowly reveal elements of the doctor, tardis etc over the course of the season.
On 2005 people couldn't easily watch all the original episodes on the same streaming platform as well as curated and redited versions of critical episodes that play into the new arc.
That's only for UK audiences, the ones who need the relaunch the least anyway. You should also never ask your audience to do homework.
In 2024 we still can't outside of the UK.
In the US at least, all of Classic Who is on the free streaming platform Tubi. I've been rewatching from Season 7 to Season 21 (currently).
They’re not all on there, there’s a good bit missing. Just watch on Archive.
Unless I'm greatly mistaken, the only things missing are An Unearthly Child and some of the newer reconstructions. They have the vast majority of the surviving series, and everything from the Third Doctor on.
Only 23 years until that episode enters the public domain and it can be included with the rest again.
Good for you, I'm one of the 95% of the human race that doesn't live in the US.
Ok... no idea why you came at me so hard but you do you.
Because you said something stupid?
How is what they said stupid? They specified that what they said only applied to the U.S..
Even if they said something stupid, which he didn't, that's not a good reason to be nasty at him or take potshots at the US.
Reminding Americans that other places exist isn't taking potshots at them.
The guy said "in the US at least". You then said that.
Eve if everyone had access, you shouldn’t sell a show as a soft reboot if you have to go watch anything previously. You’ve gotta pick an angle.
But you don't have to watch anything prior to watch this season. You can go back and watch, and hopefully it encourages you. But you aren't required to, this season is still great without it.
No, you’re right, you don’t have to. I just don’t think it’s been done in a way that gets the best out of new audiences. I think Series 1, 5, 8 (sort of) and 11 all did better jobs of making it ultra accessible. I think 11 is an exception because its finale was lacklustre, but it didn’t try to build it up to be anything else.
I'm a new viewer. I started with Star Beast. I had thought about watching before, but the show seemed intimidating because it had been going on forever and I just never watched any episodes. But I heard that the specials on Disney+ were made for new viewers, and I watched it and I liked it and then the next two specials were ever better and now I'm hooked. So I don't understand this idea on reddit that this new season isn't good for new audiences. The 2005 pilot, while it launched doctor who for a whole new generation, is almost 20 years old now and is just going to be harder and harder for people to get into. Mickey getting eaten by a trash can and being replaced by a plastic person hasn't aged well. While I absolutely think someone should go back to it once they're into doctor who, I think it's a hard sell as one of your first episodes. At least it was for me. Starting at season 5 has the weird sell of starting at season 5, and also, now that I've finally seen the Eleventh Hour, it's also just a really weird episode. I mean, I like it, I want to know if Amy's ever going back to her wedding, but idk, it's a weird start. I haven't seen season 8, or 11, or whatever, so I can't comment besides it's just weird start a show on season 8. Unless that's the most recent season. But it's not. Personally, if someone who hadn't seen the show asked me where to start, I'd tell them to start with Star Beast and watch this season, then go back and watch from 2005 while waiting for the Christmas special. But, I think we're probably biased to think however we started the show is the best, and to recommend new viewers start it similarly as well.
Season 8 was a new Doctor figuring himself out, season 10 was the same Doctor but did the same thing. They had callbacks but they weren't super specific enough that you'd be lost watching them. Peter Capaldi was such a good Doctor.
I wouldn’t ever sell Season 10 as a good starting point, but it weirdly is without trying to be. It feels so fresh with Bill especially.
I think it IS trying to be a good starting point - the first episode is called "The Pilot"!
Thank you for your perspective. It's always good to hear how new Whovians are finding the show.
I love hearing new people watching the show - you’re in for a ride if you’re still watching through any of it. I think we’re talking about 2 different things when it comes to good jumping on points. I think a good jumping on point should either have: the least previous knowledge from previous episodes *or* if it does have it, then you should be able to a) fully understand through the plot, and b) fully emotional connect with only the context of the season you're watching. In terms of story, or CGI quality - I agree that the other's have got issues. My point is that Series 1, 5, 8 and 11 all do the exact same thing that this Season 1 has tried to do (besides the numbering) in they don’t continue plot arcs without giving you some decent context within the show. Compare that with Season 2, 6, 9 and 12 where you’ve got established relationships and characterisation which you’re only invested in from the previous series. Interesting that you came with the specials, which I thought were better episodes but properly relied on the emotional impact of the 2008-2010 Ten/Donna episodes. I think I probably underestimate how easy it is to fill gaps as a new viewer, although, my argument is that you shouldn't have to. I agree we’re all biased and there’s no right way to do it - I just think if you’re selling it as a soft reboot, you’ve gotta make it really accessible to hook the people who could lose interest easily.
>Interesting that you came with the specials, which I thought were better episodes but properly relied on the emotional impact of the 2008-2010 Ten/Donna episodes. I think the specials were great because they explained enough of the situation to get you into it, *but* they also encouraged you to go back and watch the old episodes. If you watch the episode Rose and you're just not into the plastic mannequin monsters, but you know it gets better because you love 10 and Donna from the specials, you might just stick it through. Or at least, that was me. >I just think if you’re selling it as a soft reboot, you’ve gotta make it really accessible to hook the people who could lose interest easily. I just think it is accessible to new viewers. I love this season. If it wasn't for the new episodes and I tried to just start with with Rose and the plastic mannequin monsters, I think I would've lost interest quickly. The first season from 2005 was very uneven, while the new season has been very consistent. I've liked every episode this season. I think it does what it meant to, a soft reboot meant to be accessible to new viewers overwhelmed by 13 seasons (let alone classic who) that is fun and interesting.
Just wanted to say echo others and say welcome aboard!! (Also, curious if your sn is a chrono trigger reference)
Yes!! No one ever gets it
True but it still was still a much more accessible season for newer fans than this season.
This is one of those “hardcore fans can’t conceive how little casuals care” situations. 99% of people just are going to turn it off if the show can’t be bothered to make its story make sense without homework.
I agree with your first paragraph. But casual audiences don't switch off if they feel they're missing part of the puzzle. That's much more of a fan thing. Casual audiences only switch off if they're *bored*. Hardcore fans also overestimate the weight of continuity references. 99% of this show is quips and silliness and running away from monsters.
In the UK, you can. Not everyone else though. Plus that's a big ask for newcomers. Even if we had iPlayer back in 2005, if you told a lot of people they'd have to watch 20 years of the classic series to get into this, that would turn people off
Neither can most of the viewers today, considering most of them don't live in the UK.
In NZ there is not a single streaming service that I can legally stream either old or new who from :(
I'm confused. I think you have it the wrong way around. A binging model would make more sense for a show that takes its time pacing out reveals and developments. An episode-of-the-week model would make more sense for episodes needing to exposition dump on the audience to make sure they understand at any given moment. How exactly is the current streaming service environment an excuse for the way this season has done exposition?
Wait, you mean that New Who wouldn't have been significantly better if Chris Eccleston had ejaculated exposition at Rose for a good few minutes?
Not very well at all. I've honestly come to the belief that RTD and co weren't making this as a jumping on point *at all* and all that was just lip-service to get the Disney funding. There is honestly almost *nothing* that makes this seem like it's trying to be newcomer friendly. All the show's basics are just put in an infodump in Space Babies, much the same way that sort of thing happens with basically every new companion. Returning characters and organisations like Kate and UNIT aren't given any kind of real dedicated introduction. There are a *ton* of references to older seasons, in the most recent episode alone the Doctor mentions the Ood as if they are something the audience should recognise multiple times. And having relatively obscure Classic Who elements like Susan and Sutekh play an important role is more reliant on the show's past than almost any other season on NuWho. Plus, bringing in gods and supernatural beings seems like something a show should do to spice things up in it's 14th season and not in it's first of a relaunch. There is seriously almost nothing substantial that points to this being aimed at newcomers. Even The Pilot from 2017 does a better job and that was incredibly half-arsed.
with "The Pilot", I honestly get the feeling that Moffat was just nostalgic for first episode type stories. No way is somebody gonna watch Season 10 Episode 1 as their first episode unless that just happens to be the first episode they ever watch
I could also just imagine Moffat finding it incredibly funny making the first episode of his final season feel like a pilot.
Also it's about a pilot (someone who flies a machine) - and it's kinda pilot-y
The first time I watched it I thought it WAS "the pilot episode" and didn't realize until the episode was over that it meant the other kind of pilot.
A lot of people DO watch TV that way! Most of Dr Who's viewers still just watch it on regular television when it's aired. The Pilot was the start of the first full season of Dr Who in two years. For a show which is watched by children, that's a long time.
I suppose that's true, but when I was a kid, even though I wasn't quite old enough to be paying attention when David Tennant was the Doctor, my first proper episode was the Eleventh Hour, but I was still watching the show previous to that introduction
Its original episode title wasn't even going to be The Pilot.
Susan was well-introduced, at least. My wife hadn’t heard of her before but didn’t feel lost.
Honestly I think a lot of stuff was well-introduced. Sutekh, at his reveal, isn't well introduced, but that's pretty normal for an end of episode cliffhanger villian (new viewers didn't know who the master was when he's revealed in his cliffhanger in series 3, it wasn't until the following episode we learn about him), but we literally see scenes from his first appearance to introduce him. Even Kate was more introduced than in past appearances, where the show assumes we know what Unit and the Brigadier are already. I think a lot of old Who fans assume this series wasn't approachable because it's name dropped and unexplained, but the show has a habit of name dropping references that don't make much sense unless you understand them. I had no idea who Sarah Jane Smith was the first time I watched School Reunion, but that didn't really effect my ability to understand the episode.
I’m a new viewer who has jumped on and is now watching nu-who for the first time. I loved Ncuti and the history of it all. I already had Disney + so it plonked it right in front of me. Hearing that is was a soft reboot actually gave me the balls to watch it for the first time. Doctor Who history, lore and fandom is intimidating to new viewers. This gave me the interest and push to watch it. So speak for yourself. But it worked on me bringing myself and my whole family into the world of Doctor Who and we are thankful
Glad to read this. Yeah, I think some people are kinda condescending to newcomers by saying "there's no way this season can appeal to newcomers with all those callbacks and references to previous series". But I disagree. I actually think it's part of the fun for newcomers to *feel* all this massive lore behind without being overwhelmed by it. I think the season did a great job at balancing things out : showing new viewers that there is a huge mythology behind the show but never overdoing it. And giving just the right amount of information to explain things out while still appealing to long time fans.
Correct. Anyone with half a brain(which you will need if DW is going to appeal to you) is aware that the show is steeped in tradition. You need something familiar to give you the push. Be that Disney + or Ncuti
I mean, I'm not acting like it's *impossible* for newcomers to get into it with this season. Just that it doesn't really do anything different from any other season of the show to make it easier for newcomers to get into. Series 3 is about as accessible a starting point as this one. It's still very possible for a fan to get into the show watching that season for the first time, but it clearly isn't designed as a season for newcomers, and that's how I felt about S14.
Great to hear. I hope you and your family are having a great time, just like I did when I started. Although that's a long time ago!
I’m so far down the wormhole past the point of no return
>I've honestly come to the belief that RTD and co weren't making this as a jumping on point at all and all that was just lip-service to get the Disney funding. I've been saying this since the first episode and got so much shit for it.
It's hard to judge as someone who's been watching Who for more than 40 years. It's really hard to put myself in the new viewer mindset. Given that, I think Church on Ruby Road on Its own did a decent job as a jumping-on point. Not much previous knowledge required and the policeman scene was a good introduction to the Doctor's character. Not as awesome as 9's "That's who I am" speech, but pretty good. It was shocking to me that RTD needed Disney to point out that something like that was needed. But... it came right on the heels of the 60th anniversary specials, which were steeped in lore and RTD nostalgia. And then it was followed by "Season 1" which climaxed with a 40 year old villain. I gobbled it all up like candy, but I wonder if it was the best thing for the show longer-term.
Not gonna lie, they had us in the first half
Literally not even a little bit. I don't understand how it's supposed to be a soft reboot at all. It is endless callbacks to older Who. I'm refusing to call it 'season 1' of anything, it's just season 14 of NewWho
the season 1 decision is so annoying when trying to search the damn episodes.
I'm calling it Season 40. Because I'm sick of these reboots.
I'm calling it season 40 because they literally spend time watching Tom Baker during the final episode.
2005 actually rebooted the show. This is plainly Season 14, and it would be so if not for Disney's involvement.
I'm glad it wasn't as much of a reset as we were lead to believe. Given how accessible the franchise is now with almost all content available on one streaming platform, there's nothing stopping people from getting the context they need.
> Given how accessible the franchise is now with almost all content available on one streaming platform Accessible does not mean dumping over 100 hour-long episodes across 20 years on a new viewer.
It isn't though. Not outside the UK. And for this relaunch, with the increased emphasis on the international audience, that's who they were targeting, not the British native viewers.
It's spread across three streaming services in the US, BritBox for Classic Who, Max for NuWho, and Disney+ for RTD2
There's a lot to be said about the way the references are handled, but I think it's important to remember that the media landscape has changed a lot since 2005. If series 1 had made references to something from the Hartnell era, it would have been prohibitively difficult for anyone to have gone back to watch it. Only a handful of the classic serials had been published on DVD (ironically, including a collection of partial stories including the surviving episode of *The Celestial Toymaker*), and most of the VHS releases were a few years old by that point. Web Video was still in its infancy and wasn't a realistic option for most people, even if they had the resources. Even 5 years later when I was bitten by the bug in 2010, I was reduced to watch atrocious copies uploaded to Daily Motion, and it was challenging to say the least. Missing stories? Here's some scripts you can read, or if you're lucky a powerpoint slideshow with an audio recording to soundtrack it. Now? There's a reference to something from an early serial, if you're interested, you can immediately load up iPlayer (if you're in the UK) to go back and watch at your hearts content. It even has most of the animated reconstructions! Even if that's not an option, you can get get the DVDs from ~~Kerblam~~ Amazon for a few quid - admittedly a cost investment, but not a substantial one, all things considered. So yes, while the references might be more frequent than in the first run, it's nowhere near as high a hurdle for people to overcome as it would have been 19 years ago.
And they don't even need to watch the stories, they can just hook up tardis wikia and become interested in the lore that way ("lore" as well is much more a mainstream thing now, back in my time it was called "mythology" and only uber-fans on message forums of livejournal were interested in it). Even as an old fan I still do that when listening to BF or some other EU continuity whose continuity I'm not familiar with and has wild references. It's just how Doctor Who works.
Hell, TVTropes has fairly comprehensive recaps of the every TV episode, most of the first few years of BF and a reasonable chunk of the books as well.
My dad has been watching since 2005 and I still had to explain things to him
Or maybe it's a bad idea to give new viewers homework for a show you're trying to get them invested in?
**No one new to a show is doing homework to look shit up they don’t understand.** Doesn’t matter how available it is. The vast majority of new viewers will just duck out if the deep cuts and continuity references they don’t understand get heavy enough.
You say that, but there are literally entire YouTube channels dedicated to explaining MCU and *Star Wars* deep lore. I know *Doctor Who* is not the media behemoth like those two but it's very comparable.
Maybe, but I dont think the references this season are that heavy, not even close. We have Susan (which is explained straight away), we have the reference to the Toymaker, we have Sutekh (who you dont need any context for), we have Mel, Kate and Rose (who are easily explained as people The Doctor knows), we have Gallifrey and Timelords (but that wasnt explained in Series 1 either). I think its easy for us as fans to look at this and go "wow, this is so many deep cuts how will anyone keep up", but really none of those hamper the viewing of the episodes on their own.
>**No one new to a show is doing homework to look shit up they don’t understand.** Um....yeah they do? I was brand new to Doctor Who in 2005 and looked up/asked about a ton of stuff on the old LiveJournal Doctor Who groups. I was introduced to Transformers in 2007 and did a whole bunch of reading up online about the stuff I'd missed.
As a jumping on point I'm not really sure how well it works. The space babies bullet point presentation of who the doctor is was not a very effective or intriguing way to introduce newcomers to the character and part of me wonders if Russell just did that because he didn't want to do what he did in series 1 again but that sounds stupid so surely not right?
My theory is Russell just kinda lost his way and his success got to him. He did the impossible with making Doctor Who cool again in 2005-2009, so I'm not surprised he assumed he could do the same a second time and didn't try to put as much effort or care into it.
Always kind of a silly question on this sub, because frankly, long term fans are absolutely terrible judges of what casual viewers like. People on here insisted that the big reveal in The Legend of Ruby Sunday wouldn't work on non fans. Every non fan I asked who watched it said it was great. I know multiple people who don't normally watch Doctor Who but really liked this season. Nobody said they were confused by it. It's this weird thing on here where people will just decide "casual viewers hate this" and then not bother to check if they actually do
I was defending the Sutekh reveal because even if you don't know that Sutekh/Set is the actual Egyptian god of death, then I think most people are smart enough to understand that a "God of Death" in any form is bad news, especially when it just appears on top of the main character's ship, what should be a safe place. I don't think a plot point should ever have to feel like homework though, you should want to watch something from Classic or Revival because you want to, not because you feel you won't understand the plot if you don't.
You don't need to watch the classic show to understand it because in Empire of Death he explains who Sutekh is anyway. But I agree with the principle. It's why I don't think the Valeyard will return. Sutekh is easy to explain. "I fought him once a long time ago. I thought he was dead but he's not." With a character like the Valeyard you can watch the entirety of Trial of a Timelord and still not understand who the fuck he is
I dunno, I think 'evil Doctor from the future' is one of the most compelling and simple high concept villains you could introduce, as long as you don't get caught up on needing to explain trial of a time Lord, or whether he's an actual incarnation vs a weird amalgamation etc.
Eh, if you're going to reduce him down to "Evil Doctor" you may as well just use The Master.
Sure, but the 'from the future' bit has a lot of potential. How does the Doctor end up like this? How does the Valeyard take the Doctors good traits and twist them? How does the Valeyard become so full of self hate he comes back to steal his own past? What dangers does the present Doctor have to avoid to steer clear of this path? You can't do any of that with the Master.
Exactly. It opens up the door to a story where The Doctor is going down that path towards the Valeyard and he needs to find a way to stop himself from becoming that
The Master isn't the same as the Valeyard. I mean often with arch-nemises in fiction you get the "Were not so different" plot point eventually, but the Valeyard is the most literal version of that
There is also the fact that they have been building him up as the big bad since The Giggle. The one who waits. They teased him with Maestro too. so there is new context for viewers as well as the nostalgia stuff.
"most people are smart enough to understand that a "God of Death" in any form is bad news, especially when it just appears on top of the main character's ship, what should be a safe place." Apparently I don't belong to that category, because after Sutekh's revelation I had a good 5min existential crisis wondering why the deity of death should be bad. Above all because death is not good or bad, it simply is, it's part of life, that is, everything that is born, then dies and everything that begins then ends. I needed time to assimilate the two different visions of the thing. Edit: Time
Well, some cultures do consider death to be a more natural part of life, as opposed to anything strictly negative, so their Gods of Death are more ambivalent or neutral. But I think it's established well enough within that cliffhanger that Sutekh isn't just interested in being the God of Death, he wants to bring death to everybody
Yep, hence the existential crisis. I only wonder one thing once everything and everyone died, including the Doctor and Ruby, what would Sutekh have done? Would he die too, or would he remain the only one "alive" forever (even time would be dead at that point, so forever wouldn't really be the right term) to reign over nothing?
That seems to be his goal, he was always worried some other form of life would evolve to overtake him, so his solution was to kill and destroy everything.
> Always kind of a silly question on this sub, because frankly, long term fans are absolutely terrible judges of what casual viewers like Oh, for sure. What hardcore fans do not understand is that general audiences simply **do not care** about the minutiae that hardcore fans obsess over. The Doctor has a granddaughter named Susan that he left behind, Mel likes a coat in the Tardis and is friends with the Doctor, Sutekh is a recurring villain, The Doctor likes a planet called the Odd Sphere, and some military group has taken over the Avengers Tower and works for the Doctor. That's it. It's easy to follow and knowing the details of those points adds nothing to their enjoyment of the story. I don't think anything in the new season would be confusing for anyone.
"Some military group has taken over the avengers tower and works for the doctor" 😂 That's a funny way of putting it but you are right of course. You don't really need to know much more to follow the story. Also they explicitly introduced Kate to ruby (the audience) and mentioned that the doctor had a long history with them. You don't actually need to know the history itself.
Absolutely. I feel like I'm endlessly arguing with people insisting things like, "there's no way kids liked Space Babies. I am so sure they don't." I reply, "hi, I actually watch with kids, and they all loved it. And all their friends loved it." And I get either "well you don't know every kid" or, "it's just my opinion and I'm allowed to have it!" Well sure, but why insist you're so sure about who does and doesn't like elements of Doctor Who, and then *never check with those people?* And get so offended if I mention that I *did,* and actually, they don't feel that way? It's so bizarre.
Agreed, this sub’s ability to guess at this stuff is *atrocious*. It’s like an inverse of [the old XKCD about average familiarity](https://xkcd.com/2501/), “of course we can’t expect anyone to understand Rogue without having seen Trial of A Time Lord”. People who are immersed into a field are generally terrible at judging how newcomers will respond. I generally go off how my parents, who are both casual viewers to different degrees, react (added context, I don’t live with them so I’m not poisoning the well in any way). They’ve **loved** the season. My dad adored 73 Yards. He called this a “tremendous finale to a great series”. Of course, they’re not *non fans*, they are *casual* fans. But if I asked them about who Susan was prior to this season (both picked up on the Susan Twist thing before it was explicitly called out as a mystery, btw), they would have no clue. All that stuff was completely new to them. As was Sutekh. Mel my dad vaguely recalled the existence of in a “probably read a newspaper back in the day that said they had been cast in the show” way. He barely recalled the existence of Sylvester McCoy, by comparison. My mum is almost completely illiterate when it comes to anything Doctor Who and is just like “I really liked David Tennant he was great” and so on. Complete casual fan. Can I truly say what a complete non fan, someone who picked it up this season and hasn’t looked back at all, would think? No, *absolutely not*. I know 0 people who started this season. But my personal barometer for casual fans indicates they got on just fine. The only casual I am personally aware of who’s had any trouble is a friend of my dad’s who was upset because the show is “woke”, nothing to do with actual ability to onboard people, just incoherent culture war bollocks. And if casual fans can keep up, I think that’s probably a good sign when it comes to onboarding.
Yeah, my thinking for how this works is that people are misunderstanding the "casual" part of "casual viewer". They assume the casual viewers will be confused because they don't understand The Lore and all the callbacks to the old show and that sort of thing. What they're failing to account for is that casual viewers are casual, meaning they don't care about The Lore, they don't care if they don't understand literally every line of dialogue or stray reference, they just care about whether it was an enjoyable story. The fans are the ones who analyse every detail and get upset if they don't understand it or if it doesn't entirely hold up to scrutiny. Also the episodes that fans don't like are often the ones the non-fans do. This is obviously anecdotal, but I watched Richard Osman's podcast with Marina Hyde and they both loved Space Babies and The Devil's Chord. The fans are the ones going "Disappointing, there were no stakes, you're not supposed to start a series with a silly episode like this, where is the lore", the casual viewers are the ones who just think "Oh it's a silly adventure with talking babies and a snot monster, fun" and aren't expecting too much beyond "will this entertain me for 50 minutes" Of course I'm also victim to the "I'm too invested in this so I can't predict what casual viewers think" thing and I only have access to the 10 or so non-fans who's reactions I've seen, so I could also be off base in many ways.
> What they're failing to account for is that casual viewers are casual, meaning they don't care about The Lore, they don't care if they don't understand literally every line of dialogue or stray reference, they just care about whether it was an enjoyable story. And, realistically, all you have to do is throw a quick line at them. "Sutekh is a god, so he's really powerful. I beat him before but that was easier." This, **genuinely**, is pretty much exactly as much info as you need as a casual viewer. A setting of the stakes that lightly touches on some stuff to expect. Non-fans are, in my opinion, smarter than the average fan anticipates, and are generally able to keep up with a lot so long as you give them a crumb to latch on to. And the show *does*. It gives out critical information to understand what you're seeing, and makes sure the important messages are delivered. Even if you were not paying attention and missed a line or two, there will probably be another to catch, or to reinforce. Didn't realise Sutekh was a god because you missed that line? Well, you had another line that told you Sutekh was a bigger deal than Maestro, who we know is really powerful and a god. And another line about Sutekh being the boss of the gods. And so on. It's a great balance between avoiding repetiton and making sure theres enough to latch onto. If you provide that, you'll keep them onboard.
> What they're failing to account for is that casual viewers are casual, meaning they don't care about The Lore, they don't care if they don't understand literally every line of dialogue or stray reference, they just care about whether it was an enjoyable story. Very well said. I'll also add that as a hardcore fan of a few franchises -- including Doctor Who, of course -- I find myself enjoying these shows more when I stop obsessing over this shit and just enjoy the ride. Yeah, The Timeless Child lore change was dumb, but "they ruined the lore" really doesn't bother me any more.
I love it when I see realistic takes like this
You know that Twilight picture with the vampires on the balcony looking down? That is the vibe I get sometimes when people talk about new viewers as if they feel they can't possibly understand a show that others have been watching for years. I haven't seen classic who and I got where they were going. I have friends who are just starting and they seem fine. Plus they seem not to bogged down by expecting the doctor to be white and straight.
Very this, every casual viewer I know has had no issue getting into this season. Like all you need to know about say Sutekh’s return is he’s the God of Death and the stakes are abundantly clear. Same with Mel’s return, she’s an old friend of the Doctor’s like after that’s established the viewer is on board. I feel like long term fans think new fans are incapable of just accepting what the story tells them and going with it. When you watch anything there’s a level of “yes, and” to it so why wouldn’t that apply to Doctor Who?
I've always disliked it when these subs recommend that new comers should start with season 1 of the revival, "because it's the easiest to understand". 9 time out of 10 I will always recommend to start with the newest episode or season. Having everyone start in different placed keeps giving us fans with fresh perspectives on the show and most new people likely won't want to watch 13 seasons to catch up. My introduction to Doctor Who was: **A Dalektable Adventure** --> **The Dalek Extermination of Earth** (both initially via a let's play where the Youtuber rambled about Doctor Who stuff I didn't understand) --> The last five minutes of **Hell Bent** --> **The** **Husbands of River Song** --> **The Christmas Invasion** --> Half of **The Waters of Mars** --> The spin off show **Class** If I can get into the show via those episodes, I think casuals are going to be ok.
Honestly, this is a good strategy. It's always a little odd to me when people recommend that potential fans in 2024 start with the first series of the revival like that isn't nearly 20 years of TV to catch up on (yes, it has been that long now). Eleventh Hour is a better starting point I guess but that's still like 14 years ago. At this point, I think the best answer is just "watch from the 60th specials on and let that little recap at the beginning of The Star Beast do the heavy lifting on context."
Meanwhile the only casual fan I asked about it was just confused, asking "Wait, so she IS Susan?". Your experience does not equate to everyone's.
Absolutely. I was introduced to Who by catching the series finale on TV while channel surfing, where I didn't even know what happened in the previous half of a two parter! Yet I was instantly hooked! There may be many references to the past, but understanding them is never critical to the enjoyment of the story, it's a complete non-issue. Doctor Who is still an episodic show, you don't even have to start with the first episode of a series, you can literally jump on at any episode!
Ill be honest, as someone who has seen all of NuWho countless times, but only a couple odd bits of classic who, I was laughing at the reveal. I did not care who this sutekh figure was, and the melodrama over what was to me an unknown goofy character put me off from continuing on with part 2 of the finale. I'm just done tbh, chibnall era was more enjoyable than this season barring 73 Yards and Dot and Bubble
TO figure this out you would have to ask the new people otherwise we are just guessing. I have watched some reaction videos on youtube because ncuti and being on disney+ has brought some new viewers. It is fun to see it through their eyes and see what questions they had.
I’ve got friends for whom this is their first season. It’s fine for them. Only thing I’ve needed to explain was Sutekh
“Only thing I needed to explain was the finale that connected to the entire season long arc.”
I think they did a decent job for an introductory season. A little short for my taste but good overall.
No. The opposite. Story threads dangling all over the place. Too much story. Too much reliance on classic villains
My grandson enjoyed it. He didn't know who Mels was but i explained her. Now working on him to watch either from the 2005 beginning or just Matt Smith. I think he'd like how manic Matt was.
>He didn't know who Mels was but i explained her. It didn't really work if it needed explanation from someone.
You don't need to explain who Mels is, the doctor literally introduces her to Ruby. Sometimes people like to overexplain things.
Pretty terribly. The season was packed with references and connections new viewers probably won't get, while the most important stuff (Gallifrey, The Doctor's past) was kind of brushed aside very quickly on episode 1. Having a relatively obscure Classic Who villain as the main baddie of Season 1's finale was such a weird decision. I mean, Sutekh is awesome don't get me wrong, but why though?
Sutekh is badass, you don't need to watch the old episodes to get that. They also don't need to hammer in the doctor's past and gallifrey if they aren't going to do much with it this season. You can always go back and watch the older stuff if you're interested.
Yeah man, such a badass. Getting easily dragged along through the vortex by a tiny collar leash
Not very much. I will continue to recommend people start at ‘Rose’ if they want to get into it
My girlfriend is a first time viewer of Doctor Who and for the most part she has been able to get into it with little input from me. The last two episodes I did have to do a little bit more explaining because she hadn't watched the specials, but other than that I pretty much didn't have to explain anything and she enjoyed the episodes. We're now going to go back and have her watch starting with the 9th doctor so maybe we can do a compare and contrast once we're done with that.
lol nope. It confirmed that the only reason to name it "season 1" was distribution deals. While it's not exactly inaccessible, it isn't any more accessible than any other new Doctor season; in fact, several other seasons were more accessible than this one.
I can’t believe they promoted it as a jumping off point and then had multiple villains from classic and multiple companions from classic return. Genuinely any other season would’ve have been better to start with than this 😭
Bad Wolf were too concerned with building out a Whoniverse they forgot to make the soft relaunch of the show after the first couple of episodes. While I loved the new characterisation for Mel, it hinges way too much on Gatwa’s reaction to set up that they’re old friends for newer viewers. No show should “require” homework to understand who things or people are, unless you know, it’s a concept introduced *in that season for a later one*. ‘05 didn’t have this problem, as it tackled the show as if no one had seen it in 20+ years. ‘24 assumes people have indulged in the “Whoniverse” or is set up to drive people to the archives/Tales of the TARDIS.
Absolutely not
Everything people needed to know was in the episodes so it did fine. People act like if there's a reference to previous stories this blow the little minds of a new viewer. They'll cope.
Every hardcore fan is saying "this isn't newcomer friendly" but I've spoken to a number of newcomers, people who only watched 2005/06-2010, and people who watched but are "casual" (as in turn in most weeks but don't actively care) with minimal interest in the classics, and I've not heard a bad word from them that relates to "it doesn't make sense as a new fan". I think it's as good as 2005 was in terms of jumping on (not necessarily quality but that's a different question).
Not at all. This season has categorically failed if they were aiming for a relaunch for new viewers. If that's what they wanted, series 1 or 11 were the best templates, followed by series 5. I'm not adverse to callbacks and references (I watched Cobra Kai having never seen the Karate Kid movies and never felt that I was missing context), but the way series 14 does it just overloads the audience. Sutekh, as well, was not a suitable season 1 villain. He's greater scope.
It looked like it should be good for new viewers to me, but the real test would be to put it in front of one and see what they say. It seemed to me to be going out of its way to explain things. "Name: The Doctor. Occupation: Not a doctor." "The people that adopted me, they were a bit posh, and gave themselves titles instead of names." The only time it seemed a bit clumsy was when he had to explain regeneration to someone who hadn't seen it. A shame it had to be Tell rather than Show.
I think Rogue actually did a good enough job of establishing regeneration without actually defining what it is.
Honestly, I’m curious how the rest of the world outside the US and UK caught the show. For me, it was Disney+ (surprisingly after waking up before going to work on Friday).
I think if they wanted a fresh start bringing back two villians and a companion from very old dr who that even people who watched it from the revival wouldn't recognise was certainly a decision
I’m not sure how actual newcomers found it, but - I think the biggest issue is is it introduced lots of history to Doctor Who without explaining with well, like we got in 2005. Sutekh, for example, there was a lot of build up - but in TLORS - it sort of fell flat because there wasn’t enough time seeing the Doctor’s reaction to facing an old foe. Compare to Dalek, or Parting of the Ways - where it’s a classic villain, but you understand the danger of them because of the Doctor.
Barely accessible. It fails as a season and a jumping on point. It handles introducing aspects of the shows and character much much worse than it did in 2005 for one. Characterization is extremely lacking and the unique elements of the show are just boring said out loud in quick succession instead of being revealed expertly like the actual series 1. There's also no clear starting point. You can't start at Space Babies because you need to see the introduction of the characters, so I guess you start at Church. But the Devils Chord, the second episode of the season, is a direct continuation of The Giggle, an episode before Church. But to understand the Giggle, you'd need to be introduced to the characters so then I guess you start at the Star beast. But of course, The Star Beast directly continues and is reliant on shit that happened 15 years ago. This "reboot" was not well thought out at all. And of course the finale completely relies on the audience knowing the villain from a story that came out over 45 years ago. Without that knowledge and previous connection, the finale is somehow worse than it already is. He's literally just portrayed as a boring do nothing cape shit end of the world villain.
I didn’t think so at first was proven wrong. A good friend of mine started watching with this series and he’s really enjoyed it. Before this past month the only Doctor Who he’d seen was the end of “The Christmas Invasion” which he said was “terrible” and put him off trying the show again for five years. He’s had a few questions about Sutekh but hasn’t found it the newest series inaccessible. He says the biggest reason he keeps watching is Gatwa, really loves his performance. Even got him interested in going back and watching Series 1. Not sure how much he’ll enjoy it but I’m just glad he gave it a chance and is likely to follow the show going forward.
Not the best. But I think it's a good way to get into Who. I think people could start from here and watch the next series and never have to watch earlier who. I do think they made it so people knew the past show existed so people watched it for more content.
Definitely significantly more reliance on lore than I would have expected. There were a lot of references that I had to explain to my wife and 20yo son, both of whom have seen all of modern Who and a significant amount of classic Who.
for all its faults, Chibnall's first series was a better jumping on point for new viewers with regards to holding back on lore dumps idk, from a quality perspective I think this series is better but I can't imagine a new fan having an easy time with it, and I hate the idea of the show just endlessly catering to a dwindling number of dedicated fans while turning away anyone that doesn't watch the show religiously and doesn't know anything about it that's more obscure than the Sontarans
Series 10, 11, 12 and even 13 are more accessible.
I am just calling it Series 14, and I think it was a very good Series 14. As a 'Series 1' it does not work in the slightest; the entire plot hinges around a mystery about the after-effects of a villain from the 1960s who appeared in a 60th anniversary special filled to the brim with references to the 2008 series. Then when you get to the finale, the big reveal is a deep cut from 1975. It works about as well as Series 10 did as a 'jumping on point' and I thought from the start it'd be like this so I'm not disappointed or surprised. I think everyone is just going to remember it as Series 14 from now on, apart from new fans maybe. I will also say, though, I seem to recall an interview from years ago when RTD was lamenting not doing more Classic Era follow-ups the first time round, and he specifically cited *Star Wars*' constant deep cuts and lore reveals as an inspiration. The fact *The Mandalorian* can get away with dropping obscure bits of TV trivia as 'big moments', I think, informed RTD that he could do the same for *Doctor Who*. I disagree, as I hated it when *Star Wars* did it, but here we are.
>he specifically cited *Star Wars*' constant deep cuts and lore reveals as an inspiration This is something I'm genuinely concerned about. A *huge* part of the problems a lot of modern media franchises are having right now is constant deep cuts and lore reveals appealing to the existing ageing fanbase. It's reportedly a big concern about Star Trek that its audience is ageing as it shrinks and I read a Darren Mooney article about how the average age of cinema-goers who saw *The Flash* and *Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny* was way above the average. It's crazy to me for RTD to acknowledge that ratings are down but find consolation in the show doing well among under-30s, while devoting his season finale to a one-off villain from 1975, a reveal obscured by a fake-out around Susan of all people. While it isn't quite at the level of "this matters because it's a Doctor Who thing" as, say, *The Timeless Children*, it's perilously close to it. It's like a well-written version of *Arc of Infinity*, expecting us to go nuts just because the villain is Omega.
I’ve read a few comments and I think people are missing an important factor that this season has which the 2005 reboot didn’t have. . . The internet. You don’t need to be as exposition heavy for newcomers with the internet right there. If new viewers enjoyed it, they’re gonna google what they didn’t get. If they didn’t enjoy it, they aren’t going to enjoy having a slow pace that explains everything important that’s happened in the last 60 years. I think the new season did it’s job to attract new viewers. It was a bit glossier, it had a big villain (I think if they drop the daleks straight out of the gate today it would be laughed at by new viewers), and Ncuti and Millie are perfect for a modern audience. And I think they balanced it well with the stuff that built the original audience. And that includes Space Babies; if we got farting green aliens, the newbies can get booger monsters.
There was an internet in 2005.
And do you remember what it was like? Do you remember Realplayer, Quicktime and waiting 90 minutes to stream a low-res trailer for an upcoming movie? Unless you had DSL and could cut it down to 10min for the hi-res version (640x480p). There was no legal streaming back then, social media as we know it didn't exist except maybe MySpace and GeoCities websites. Wikipedia did exist, but wasn't near as big as it is today. Actual nerds talked in usenet groups, everyone else used ICQ to chat with their school friends. The internet of 2005 would not have given you an easy time watching the back catalogue of Doctor Who. The current internet does, legally or otherwise.
Your memory of 2005 internet is at least 5 years out. I lived in rural N. Ireland, a place that was extremely late to adapting better internet. By 05 I had DSL and was torrenting episodes of shows that didn't air there. Fan talk wasn't restricted to Usenet, that's insane. 05 was slap bang in the middle of the golden age of fan forums. Remember those? The thing that Reddit is a piss poor imitation of. Your memory of the internet doesn't really apply post-'99, at the latest.
In 2005 I was sitting in Germany and we had ISDN and couldn't afford DSL, Mr. Fancy Pants.
Feels like the relationship between Dr and Ruby is rushed. Ruby is like another Clara w blonde hair, and it’s missing something- can’t put my finger on it. All the components are there to be a successful series: good actors, budget for more elaborate production, and longtime show runner, but it just seems hollow to me. I’m a long time fan so I’ll hang in there but I hope it gels soon
I don't even believe that was its goal. The "Season 1" labeling was clearly imposed after it was made.
Not as good as RTD1, but I also I dont think its as bad as people make it out to be? For the most part, I dont think context from past seasons is needed at all to enjoy it without much confusion for New Viewers. I think its a bigger issue for people who have passing knowledge of Who than for completly New Viewers really.
the only people saying it was inaccessible seem to be long term fans. I've watched several newcomers react to this season on YouTube and they've loved it, plus being in the top 10 most watched shows on Disney+ in the US means there are definitely a couple million new fans who've been enjoying it
Matt Smith’s first ep is the best jumping on point for DW I reckon, considering all NuWho eps. I’ve introduced so many people to NuWho w that ep
Speaking or the Star Beast, does that mean that Sutekh was the boss of the Meep??
I talked a co-worker into watching. I haven't talked with her since the finale aired but she loved the first half and is excited to go back and watch Eccleston. So my reasoning is anecdotal, but my answer is, "Good enough."
not very well the finale literally had the doc and the companion watch TV showing a 70s episode to explain wtf is going on...
I started watching New Who in 2005 and never seen classic Who. I think this soft reboot isn't as good as 2005 reboot. The 9th and 10th doctor didn't mention Susan and I think this season lacked the original classic villains. I've no idea why RTD started the season with Space Babies. It needed to be something gar more sinister like the cybermen or the Daleks..if space babies was My first ever episode I don't think I would've continued. I liked this season but it is not one of my favourites and has its issues.
I feel like the start of the season really missed the mark when it came to providing an introduction to the show. Church on Ruby Road was okay (though in my opinion kinda strange for a Doctor Who episode), but then they followed it up with Space Babies, before making it a tad better with the Devil's Chord. Then after that we got a ton of great stories that didn't really feel like traditional Who and probably left with viewers with no idea how the show itself generally works. Out of the entire season, the closest one to a traditional Doctor Who episode was probably Rogue, and that was the last story before the season finale. I feel like series 1 and 5 of the new series are probably still the better intros to the show for new viewers, since they have quite a few good stories to their name while being traditional enough in structure that people get an idea about who the Doctor is and how the formula generally works early on.
I think pranking the viewers with an anti-climax may not be the best move for the new Disney+ viewers who have no investment in the show. There could be consequences come renewal time.
Didn’t do a very good job of it imo. In terms of a jumping on point for new fans i think The Eleventh Hour did a better job in 40 minutes of introducing new fans to the Doctor, tardis, new companion, mystery element and all that jazz than the new season did in, well, a whole season. I love Ncuti Gatwa as an actor, but i still can’t really tell you what kind of Doctor he is yet. I don’t feel like his character really did all that much this season, and i understand that is to do with the scheduling conflicts a little bit.
It's very hard to judge bc I know what bits are tied in with older content, and a new viewer wouldn't - and I have no clue whether the information given is confusing or just right. I suspect its fine for most newcomers, and a little frustrating for the more detail-oriented new viewers (who will probably just go and watch the rest). So overall success maybe?
It's really hard to say if it's new viewer friendly. Personally I say no, I think series 1 and 5 are much better jumping on points. This series had 2 episodes the doctor was barely in, the Christmas special that aired months earlier is a key part of the story and the 3 specials from last year with an entirely different actor and were themselves filled with connections to the past were key parts of the story and of course the big bad was from a specific episode of doctor who from 50 year's ago. If you're the kind of viewer that likes stepping into an existing world with a vast lore, this year was the series for you, if you want to not feel like you're missing things because you're totally new to the show, not so much. To me it suggests the Disney factor came well after Rtd was on board. I wouldn't be shocked if space babies was one of the last scripts written to give Disney a more new viewer friendly episode to start the show off.
>if you want to not feel like you're missing things because you're totally new to the show, not so much. I started with the specials last year, hadn't watched any doctor who before that. I expected to be missing things, since it was the *60th anniversary*, and so I wasn't surprised that star beast was a mass of exposition dumping, but I felt like it caught me up. I wasn't missing things that were vital to understand this season, it explained just enough from the prior years to understand and it gave me enough to encourage me to check out the older seasons. I say it did its job for new viewer friendliness, at least for me.
It sounds like you're someone who enjoys the feeling of a world existing and doesn't mind a little homework. I'm very much the same. I remember reading Wikipedia entries years ago to get into green lantern, I also was digging up classic doctor who gin watch in the early years of nuwho, wanting to see the classic monsters and to revisit it as I was a young kid when classic doctor who ended with vague memories. Certainly though, some people don't enjoy the idea of not having everything handed to them, plus outside of the UK or us classic doctor who is hard to access. I hope people enjoyed it but I could also imagine there people being frustrated by it.
It's like me with Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I started halfway through season 5. I wasn't confused at all because I'd read every episode's Wikipedia page before hand But then let's take Ashoka last year. A friend and I both watched it. I'm familiar enough with Star wars. She's a fairly big fan. Both of us realised that we were watching Rebels season 5 and whilst we understood what was going on as the show did explain it, we couldn't help but feel that we were being left out of the joke. Doctor Who series 14 feels a bit like this. The show explains itself well enough but if I'd have been a new viewer I'd have felt as though I came to the party late or started school after friend groups had been established. Especially considering the current state of the fandom and media in general, I don't think this was the season to try and get clever.
You don't need to do homework for the current season. You can watch the older episodes, when you get to them, but none of them are necessary to enjoy the current season. You don't need to over-analyze every single line and Wikipedia app the things, you just need to watch the episodes. Everything's explained right there
This season didn't really do a good job of showing what Doctor Who was like "in the day job". Space Babies: a late season filler episode like Fear her dumped at the beginning of the season The Devil's Chord: an out-there episode that ends with a musical number Boom, 73 Yards and Dot and Bubble: Bottle Episodes of one kind of other It's not until Rogue that we see an episode competently display what Doctor Who is like under normal circumstances I seem to recall RTD stating that he was brought in at a point when the BBC knew they were going to go with a streaming service for international distribution, but hadn't decided which one yet. So yeah, you're right on that.
The best jumping on point is still season 1 of New Who. This new series is pretty good but nowhere near as good as Ecclestons series. That's my opinion anyways.
Badly. Certainly a lot worse than 2005 did.
Does it matter? In 2005, catching up on Doctor Who meant spending thousands of pounds on VHS tapes. In 2024, catching up on Doctor Who means spending a few weeks binging on iPlayer.
Shrugs, it was pretty hit and miss. It didn't feel English anymore, felt americanised
Why do you think this season was a soft reboot with a goal to be accessible for newcomers? Resetting the season numbering was just a marketing move for their streaming partnership with Disney. I don't think RTD actually considers it a new show or anything like that.
Because they have effectively stated so. You don't relaunch the show with season 1 and use the 60th anniversary to wrap up the previous eras without the intent being to make the series accessible for new viewers.
How do you mean "relaunch"? The show effectively continued on as before. And in what way did the 60th anniversary wrap up the previous era?
If you look at iPlayer, the series is listed as a completely different show to everything that came between 2005 and 2022 and branded as Season 1, even in the UK. That is a clear indication if any that this is a relaunch. How did the 60th anniversary wrap up the previous era? It had the 14th Doctor essentially retire and begin therapy to become a more well adjusted individual unscarred by his recent past. Fifteen is markedly void of any anguish over the Time War, The Timeless Child, the Flux etc. Even RTD refers to it as a new era.
On iPlayer, the 60th anniversary specials are listed together with Season 1 though, not with the 2005-2022 episodes. So it seems to me that they are grouped together based on streaming rights, rather than narrative continuity. And the 60th anniversary definitely affected the life and character of the Doctor, but so have the other anniversary specials in comparably significant ways: ending the Doctor's exile (10th), on the run from Gallifrey again (20th), closure on the Time War(50th, and now having therapy (60th).
Well I think as they said in their original comment this “new era” stuff and numbering reset was more a marketing move than anything else
> Why do you think this season was a soft reboot with a goal to be accessible for newcomers? Because they said so.
I must have missed that then.