Doctor Who - Reboot

After 15 years, the BBC rebooted Doctor Who in March of 2005.  It started with the Ninth Doctor as played by Christopher Eccleston. While Eccleston only played the Doctor for one season, I think he was the perfect 1st New Doctor. He was funny, but serious and caring. His companion was Rose Tyler as played by Billie Piper. This season was also the introduction of Jack Harkness as played by John Barrowman. I feel it was an interesting season because in 2005 people knew about space, and aliens, and the possibility of space travel. So I think it created more of a sense of possibility, instead of pure fiction. We may not know Time Travel, but we know and understand space a bit better than they did in 1966. 

Mini Sidebar: While Harkness only appears in the last five episodes of this season, his character was a hit among the public, and eventually he got his own show named Torchwood. There are some fun and interesting crossovers between these two shows - characters who are in Doctor Who, end up being in Torchwood as well. And one of the future Doctors has a character in one of the Torchwood seasons (as well as a Doctor Who episode) before he played the Doctor himself. Torchwood only had two season with singular episodes, and then two more season length shows where the full season told the one story. I really enjoyed Torchwood, and if you like Doctor Who - you should give it a shot.

Back to the Doctor. The next two Doctors are probably the ones that are best known. Every one loves the 10th Doctor played by David Tennant. Rose is still his companion and they end up having a very nice and sweet friendship. The Doctor doesn't have relationships as it would be difficult and painful to see your partner grow old while you don't. That being written...there is a character named River Song who shows up and tells the Doctor that he is her husband. But I am getting ahead of myself. Again we are back to each episode being a self-contained story - for the most part. There are some two-part episodes scattered through out as the story needs. Tennant played the Doctor for three seasons, from December of 2005 (Christmas Special) through January of 2010. His first season was with Rose, his second with Martha Jones as played by Freema Agyeman (who also shows up in Torchwood, and future regenerations), and Donna Noble as played by Catherine Tate (who briefly shows up at the top of series three {which is Tennant's second season}). This is the time when they start airing a Christmas Special. Typically they seem to land in between companions which allows them to have special guest stars like Kylie Minogue and Russell Tovey. The end of the Tennant timeframe was shown in a two-part series named "The End of Time." They were aired Christmas Day 2009, and New Years Day 2010. This also lead the the regeneration which gave us...

The 11th Doctor as played by Matt Smith. He has a very quirky energy about him, and there is a part of me that really likes it, and another part where it bugs me. However he is a charming Doctor. Smith played the Doctor from April 2010 through three series ending in December 2013. Through this time his companions were Amy Pond played by Karen Gillan, her adorable and dorky fiancé Rory Williams played by Arthur Darvill and finally Clara Oswald played by Jenna Coleman. River Song (played by Alex Kingston) also makes frequent appearances through out Smith's time as the Doctor. In fact, most of series six has River Song in it. I have to say that I don't think there is a single weak episode in the Matt Smith series. There are some that may seem odd, but then there is character building that takes precedence over any action. This seems to continue with Clara and...

The 12th Doctor as played by Peter Capaldi. I will admit right now that Capaldi was not my favorite my first time watching his series. He was very serious which though some things were funny, the humorous tone didn't always come through. It is really interesting because Capaldi has been in a few Doctor Who episodes before playing the Doctor - and not just small bit parts either. I think that is pretty cool. Through out his three series, his main companion is Clara Oswald, though he also has Bill Potts played by Pearl Mackie, Nardole (an alien) played by Matt Lucas, as well as Missy played by Michelle Gomez. Missy isn't really a companion but she does have a major recurring role. Like some of the Doctors enemies (Cybermen, Daleks, Sontaran, etc), there is one other Time Lord who keeps causing issues - The Master. The Master wants to cause havoc and destroy the Doctor. Being a Time Lord, like The Doctor, The Master also regenerates. There is one iteration of him that I really don't like at all and that is when he appears with...

The 13th Doctor as played by Jodie Whitaker. This series, the 11th in the reboot timeframe, is quite different from previous series. Not only is it the first time there has been a female-bodied Doctor (which caused some uproar from both male and female fans), but there are three companions - Ryan Sinclair (Tosin Cole), Graham O'Brien (Bradley Walsh), and Yasmin Khan (Mandip Gill). Looking through all of this now I see that this could be a throwback to the start of the whole show back in 1966 where Hartnell had three companions. However what I felt was that it took away some of the intensity of the episodes, and you didn't really get to know the characters as there were too many to try to build. Eventually Ryan and Graham leave and we are introduced to Dan Lewis (John Bishop). I think the stories that have been told so far (as it is still ongoing) have been interesting and well done. Series 12 is where I have some major issues with the way The Master is portrayed. I think the writing and direction didn't take into account some of the growth and changes that previous masters went through so the character, in my opinion, went back to just wanting to destroy everything without really providing any context or reason. It seemed like a personal vendetta which just didn't make sense to me. The 13th series - he was gone and I thought it was a really interesting series.

Once the 13th Doctor started, the show runner was a different person from who had been doing it previously and so there are no Christmas specials. Instead there are New Years Day Specials. The most recently released DVD are two specials - the Jan 2022 New Years special, and an Easter special. I am all caught up and am looking forward to see what happens. 

Some of the information was taken from this amazing list.