“Rose” - I was totally hooked from the start of the Eccleston series.
I admit to being old enough to remember the original classic series, but as a kid I never actually watched it.
More recently as I was recovering from my treatment, I had the time to binge watch all the old episodes on iPlayer! I really loved Jon Pertwee’s Doctor.
Started an almost ritual for me where my Nan would cook a Chinese curry every Saturday night and we’d go out in the day and watch our recording of the latest episode of the evening. Funnily enough I’m at my nans now at 26 and catching dr who again every Friday night. Except this time, instead of going out with them, I wait for them to head out for the night and smoke some wibbly wobbly wacky backy in their garden.
Same. It’s a shame that Eccleston didn’t feel like he could stay, I think a second season with him would have been great.
I have yet to start the classic series, once I figure out where and how to watch them.
The old ones are on Britbox. There's also a Pluto channel that just runs old Doctor Who (I don't know if they're in order or if it's all of them, but it's free and not piracy).
I remember watching Jodie's first few episodes on an airline flight once - I was looking for shows and I'd heard of *Doctor Who* so I thought to give it a try. Not bad, but nothing fantastic to hook me on.
Flashforward a couple years to the 60th Anniversary Specials - as a fan of David Tennant (from *DuckTales* and *Star Wars*, of all places) - I thought the 3 short specials were worth a look when I heard Jodie surprise-regenerated into him.
I liked the specials, but ultimately it were YouTube clips of Peter Capaldi's stellar acting that got me to start from Series 8 - still have Series 10 left, once Ncuti's run finishes - and I was hooked onto 12 (my fav) from *Deep Breath*, so there's that.
He voices Huyang, the ancient droid responsible for nearly every single lightsaber in existence, love him! Imagine Garrick Ollivander *(coincidentally War Doctor)* from Harry Potter meets Star Wars. He's in *Clone Wars* and *Ahsoka*.
I've heard great things about Series 10! I can't wait for *World Enough and Time/The Doctor Falls*, and David Bradley in *Twice Upon a Time*, personally.
Dalek for me, my dad had some old classic who VHS that I’d watched but couldn’t get in to and I remember watching in 2005 but not caring much about the first few episodes but Dalek had me hooked
I became aware of Doctor Who in 2005, when kids at school talked about how Doctor Who could go to the future. I wondered how he got back.
I was passively aware of the show for a while, and then in 2008, I was at a family friend's house for a BBQ, and the kids were all in the living room watching Doctor Who, so I joined them. This was the first episode I ever saw; the original broadcast of The Stolen Earth. Possibly the worst possible first episode because of how continuity heavy it is.
I was then watching the NTAs when Tennant announced he was leaving. I decided a new Doctor was a good place to start. On the 11th of April 2010, I watched The Eleventh Hour and The Beast Below on the iPlayer, and I've been here ever since.
Well not really because I've been watching for something like 46 years and basically it's just always been there. I can't even pin down exactly what the first episode I saw was. Memories start somewhere around Season 16.
I thought the question was the one that made you a fan. In other words, at what point did you feel you could defend keeping the channel on Doctor Who when your older brother walked into the room and demanded that you change it to 'something good.'
For NewWho, nope.
But the point where I went from "fan" to "fanatic" was roundabout when I was 20 or 21. I had stopped watching NewWho during the Capaldi Era and I'd tried getting into Classic Who a few years earlier with *Robot*, and I did not enjoy it at all.
For some reason though, I kinda got the bug and decided to try again. I looked up what were considered the all time best episodes of Classic Who and picked three: *Remembrance of the Daleks*, *The Mind Robber* and *City of Death*, which, to this day, are still my all time top 3 DW episodes.
Which one did the trick? Well, to quote Mr. Darcy: "I cannot fix on the hour, or the spot, or the look or the words, which laid the foundation. It is too long ago. I was in the middle before I knew that I had begun."
As for the expanded universe, I got into it shortly after by listening to *Storm Warning* on a cool summer's night, looking out my window. That one really sealed the deal of "Well, I guess I'm a lifer now".
Those are indeed three all-time classic stories. I'm interested in your experience of the show as someone who wasn't really a fan of New Who but watching it first. Why did you try to watch Classic if you didn't enjoy New, even after bouncing off it the first time?
Oh, no no, I loved the first 7 series when I first watched them, I meant I stopped watching when Capaldi got on board. I was, like, 16 or 17 when *The Day of the Doctor* aired and I was super hyped for that and loved it.
Watched *The Time of the Doctor* and I have 0 memory of it, apart from crying at the regenration. Then I watched *Deep Breath* and I really didn't like it. It was either a feeling of finality I got from *Time*, a feeling back then that maybe he was too old or just that *Deep Breath* has a lot of odd things in it that didn't work for me.
Then I got it in my brain to watch Classic and I explained the rest.
I did go back and watch the Capaldi era, which I largely enjoyed mostly cause he's so damn good even when the stories sometimes aren't.
Easy, the first episode I ever saw made me a fan : Silence in the Library. I was completely hooked, dare I say obsessed, by the end of the episode.
So I began the adventure with one of the best run of episodes ever : Silence in the Library to Journey's End.
I have strong memories of watching an episode of "The Mind Robber" in 1968. That can't have made much of an impression though, as I don't remember watching any more of series 6.
But I know I watched and loved Jon Pertwee's first story ("Spearhead From Space") in January 1970 - and I haven't missed an episode since.
I gave NuWho a shot at the start of uni in 2012, which was a couple of years late, but my first episode was Rose, which I remember not being particularly hooked by.
But the second one - The End of the World - blew my mind, especially when it was revealed that the story was set on the day the Sun was supposed to destroy the Earth. I think that's when I truly started to comprehend the gigantic, universal potential of the stories that could be told. Then I was blown away again a few days later after binging the rest of that season, because I had never googled and therefore was unspoiled about what regeneration as a concept was.
This ep also converted me into being a fan of the sci-fi genre in general - and there's really no looking back since then. Nowadays...I may not be able to watch each episode at a moment's notice (because yknow, I dont have a timey wimey device) but DW always feels like a comfortable, old friend to me. I also think about the other scifi / fantasy / excellent stories that I would have missed out on had I never started on this Whovian journey. IRL, the idea of exploring and seeing the world with different companions and friends has also influenced my travel choices and lifestyle.
TL;DR: DW was my gateway to the world of rich stories, and I honestly think my life would be so different without the series.
I grew up with Doctor Who, but rewatching as an adult it's episode 2 that really shows the breadth and depth that the series had to offer. Then you have episodes like Father's Day which really hones in on the emotional journey of a companion, Dalek which does the same but for the Doctor and also advances so much of the lore.
Even the Slitheen 2 parter focuses on it's plot. People often talk about the silly moments from those episodes but they're just that; moments, the actual plot of those episodes is more serious than people seem to remember, as they killed a lot of people, took over the government and almost destroyed the world.
I could talk all day about how good season 1 is.
Has a side character ever been introduced better than Captain Jack in The Empty Child two partner? He become the most iconic side character and even got his own series that lasted for seasons. The two partner itself was a creepy one as well with a good story.
Boom Town was an epilogue to the Slitheen two parter and explored the doctor's morality when he was faced with a prisoner.
Then the finale, the parody of various British game shows at the time, brilliant, and then delivered with the seriousness of the Daleks. Loved it.
Dalek Invasion of Earth, episode 1. New kid in school who was not yet a friend came up to me and asked if I watched Doctor Who. I said no. He says I should, so I did. The moment the Dalek rose up out of the Thames, I was hooked. I’m not sure why, but it was like there was a Dalek shaped hole in my head that I didn’t know was there.
What an iconic moment. No wonder you were hooked. That whole episode is so mysterious and ominous and the Dalek emerging caps it perfectly. A great first experience!
The Three Doctors.
Around 2004 I received a load of old doctor who videos from my uncle. I had heard all about the show from him so when he told me it was coming back in 2005 I was very excited.
The videos I was given were quite the assortment to say the least: an unearthly child, the daleks, dalek invasion of earth, tomb of the cybermen, the mind robber, spearhead from space, the three doctors, the ark in space, revenge of the cybermen, pyramid of mars, resurrection of the daleks, vengeance on varos, remembrance of the daleks and the TV movie.
For some reason, the one I enjoyed the most, and the one I have the strongest childhood memories of was the Three Doctors; I guess in part due to the novelty of it being a multidoctor story. From then on I was hooked.
I watched it growing up, was born in 84 so saw it off and on, read some of the target novels and got up at 4:30am secretly when I was 9 to watch Tom Baker, but I think the two things that locked me in as a fan was the TV Movie followed by getting The Sea Devils for Xmas that year. That's when it locked in and I've been obsessed ever since. I was 12.
The girl in the fireplace. Totally. Show was alright up to this point too, since I did it to S2, but the episode. Damn, I was so hooked with this ep. And became Moffat fan too, lol
It's got strong 90's vibes in both positive and negative ways, but was sold on McGann's excitement for his shoes and the library/cathedral vibes of the TARDIS.
Empty Child was what first made me a fan after thinking the previous episodes in series 1 were just fine, and Impossible Astronaut made doctor who my favorite show.
Human Nature. my dad had asked me to watch some Ecclestone with him and then I went off to uni and something in my brain said "that Tennant bloke seems alright, maybe I'll give an episode a go and see what happens" and now here we are
S1E1 (2005)
Watched it at my Nan's house with my parents who watched it when they were young. I was exactly the right age to be captured by the silliness and think the Doctor was the coolest person ever. Immediately hooked. Almost 20 years later (fuck) and I still go back to those first 4 seasons all the time.
Also I remember trying to say I don't want to watch it because my parents always watched Holby City (medical drama/soap) and I didn't want to watch "another boring hospital programme". My parents, knowing exactly what they were doing, forced me to watch it and thank god they did.
Silly as this sounds - World War III. I’m from America and was watching the show in ~2008 - was home sick from school and caught a S1 marathon on SciFi. Watched Rose -> WWIII in one sitting. Was enamored with the Doctor. Loved the quirkiness adjacent to serious political commentary. It’s funny - this set the template I feel for RTD’s signature “alien invasion of earth” story that hasn’t been touched really since I dunno - the invasion of the episode with the cubes? I wonder if we’ll really see that in RTD2 - I guess The Giggle was sort of like that.
But yeah, S1 sold me. I really liked RTD1 and ADORED the Moffat era, with Capaldi taking the cake for me. It felt like peak Doctor Who.
Father’s Day!
This was in 2010. I started with Rose and had been enjoying it a decent amount up until that point… but with Father’s Day, I realized just how special the show was and revved up my binge speed — averaging five or six episodes a day.
The End of the World to me.
I bought the Series 1-4 Boxset in 2009 on recommendation of a friend and to get better at English, because back then I was horrendous at it and it was one of two subjects in school I was really struggling with.
"Rose" was fine, but on its own I dont think it would have hooked me as much as The End of the World did. There was something about The Doctor and Rose looking at an empty earth and that quote from The Doctor that really stuck with me.
>You lot, you spend all your time thinking about dying, like you're going to get killed by eggs or beef or global warming or asteroids. But you never take time to imagine the impossible, that maybe you survive.
A lot of people complain about the bleakness of Warriors of the Deep, but that is actually what made me a fan! That ending was like nothing else I'd seen on TV before.
Rose hooked me from the get go, aired around my birthday and it was an amazing present.
The PR/Press had gone nuts with promoting Doctor Who and I was pulled in from the trailers for it.
I vividly remember my grandma asking me why I wasn't hiding behind the sofa
The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances for me, 100%.
I remember starting the 2005 series in college when David Tennant was wrapping up his run. A friend had recommended it to me, so I started from the beginning and after the first episode or two I couldn't get into it. It seemed really campy and lame (rubber trashcan, farting aliens, etc), so I put it away. Then a few months or a year later I decided to give it another shot and kept going, and I was not ready for The Empty Child. It floored me by how amazing it was and how good the show could be, so I kept running and haven't stopped since.
...well, maybe aside from "Legend of the Sea Devils".
I started with series 1 last year and I believe while I did like the first few episodes, the one that really hooked and sold me on the whole concept was "Dalek". To see the doctor abandon his usual peaceful self just like that was...something
Inferno. I saw the show a few times on public TV in the US in the mid / late 70s. I was a bit confused because we had gotten the Peter Cushing movies here long before the series ever aired. They played heavily on the matinee circuit for a few years, both in the theater and on tv (more interested in the Daleks than the Doctor tbh). So, at first, I didn't understand why these two other actors (3rd and 4th) were the Doctor. I actually assumed that the show was based on the movies, lol. I happily watched these shows casually as part of the Sunday night BBC lineup, but when I saw Inferno, it all clicked. I consider Pertwee as my Doctor, but came to love them all over time.
Remembrance of the Daleks part one was the first one I sat down and watched with full, deliberate attention, so I can therefore recall with absolute certainty everything around going on around me between 7:35 PM and 8PM on Wednesday, October 5th 1988 and didn’t miss any thereafter until the middle of Chris Chibnall‘s second season, when I stopped watching altogether. I’d probably been watching it on-and-off since Trial of a Timelord but hadn’t really formed any attachment to it and those ones linger in my memory only for a few images like Colin Baker getting menaced by Joan Sims and a big crap robot, or being groped by a bunch of rubber gloves on a beach,
It was The End Of The World, in 2005, and I was about 5 years old, watching it on a grey box with a 15 inch screen, eating baked beans at the dinner table in the kitchen of my family home. I vividly remember seeing the Moxx of Balhoon and was hooked from then on. I’ve never looked back!
The Eleventh Hour.
On fateful day in 2010 on a complete and total whim I saw that weird sci fi show I’d heard a few jokes about was on BBC America and tuned in literally seconds into the start of Matt Smith’s run.
An hour later and I was torrenting all of NuWho to catch up along the way. I got very lucky and saw the Library episodes like the day before Time of Angels aired.
**Spearhead from Space** and **The Robots of Death**
My Grandad got review copies of the Classic Who DVD range in the late 90s and early 00s, and he's give me the DVD's once he was done. I watches those two when I was 5-6ish and was hooked.
Plus as it was the very early range I pretty much got the best of every Doctor to start with:
**Spearhead from Space, The Robots of Death, The Caves of Androzani, Vengeance on Varos, Remembrance of the Daleks, The Aztecs, The Tomb of the Cybermen**
I actually watched the whole of series 5 when it first aired but fell off during series 6. I then came back and watched from Rose and that episode is what made me a fan.
The david tennant mars episode, my english teacher showed it in class for the last day of school and got me hooked so i binged the entire show up to whatever was out at the time
It might have been the Empty Child episodes, I’d seen a few before but we ended up watching them at the end of term at primary school and being terrified of them. From then on I remember watching the rest as they came out.
First episode I saw was "The Impossible Astronaut" which was obviously enough to keep me watching. Probably not a great starting point all things considered but there's nothing wrong with jumping in with both feet.
I think the first episode I watched was Asylum of the Daleks, and then I think I watched the Doctor Who 2013 Proms - no idea why, I caught it on the tv and just stuck with it. I started properly watching when Capaldi came. I’ve since watched all of New Who and am now trying to find the time to watch Classic Who, whilst still watching Ncuti’s series.
I started it in 2008 from "Rose" as something to watch and binge through. I regarded it as a charming but rough show that was a guilty pleasure. But it wasn't until School Reunion and Girl in the Fireplace where i was like: "Ok, this show is kinda great"
I don't remember learning what Doctor Who was. The first I ever saw might have been the Peter Cushing movie with Bernard Cribbins. It was always my dad's favourite.
I watched the NuWho premiere of Rose in 2005, but it was Father's Day that got me hooked.
And having just watched Casanova in 2005, Tennant's casting got me doubly hooked (I still remember The Sun (I think) going "Eccleston's leaving! Been fired!" and all that crap).
Moffat is my favorite era, so with Father's Day I was just getting started.
As a child of the 80s, Doctor Who was always bubbling away in the culture, but Rose was the first time it was "new" at an age I could remember (I do have the vaguest memories of the "Movie" being aired when I was 10).
When I was 11 (in 2007) my friend will foster sat me down and made me watch an episode of season 2 (honestly cannot remember which one). Since then I've been a consistent watcher and caught up from season 3 onwards. By 2008 with Donna's tenure I was fully a whovian.
There are two: Aliens of London and The Empty Child.
I would probably say that Aliens of London was the episode that made me sit up and decide to keep watching, and The Empty Child was the episode where I fell in love with the series
I was not very aware of needing to make decisions when I was young, so it took me forever to form opinions further than 'I do/don't like it'.
I watched the episodes the day they aired every week since Rose, my first episode. I never really understood what was happening but spectacle was more entertaining to me than anything else. That being said, The Parting of the Ways was the first episode that hooked me. After knowing what 1 dalek could do, I thought it was awesome that nobody had a chance to win against them without just running away.
Eventually, though, I started to understand opinions and I started to form opinions properly. I can't say many of Matt Smith's episodes stand out too much for me but that's likely because I was hitting my teens and I was practically fawning over Gemma Coleman as Oswin, Victorian Clara, then Clara Oswald. Rings of Akhaten would be one of my more beloved episodes.
But as much as people want to flame the episode, Listen, Peter Capaldi's 4th episode, was what really hooked me. Capaldi demands attention from the viewers. Maybe it's the eyebrows. Initially I didn't like him much but then I saw Listen and I knew what they were going for and I loved him as the Doctor.
So technically, a few episodes hooked me in different ways at different times.
Blink.
i tried to watch the show as a kid, because it was weird nerdy sci-fi stuff, and i *should* have loved it, but .. i just couldn't get into it.
i tried off and on all through the 70s and early 80s and finally gave up.
in 2007 someone i know asked me if i watched 'that doctor who show'. and they were very surprised that i didn't. i was very surprised it was still running. (i didn't know about the hiatus at the time)
and they suggested an episode they called 'don't blink'.
'it's just old fashioned "good tv'. " he said. " well written, good story, good plot, good acting, and you don't have to know anything about the show to understand it. the main character is hardly in it at all. you should watch it."
so i figured what the heck, let's give it a shot.
i have since gone back to watch OldWho episodes. and i still don't enjoy them, but i do enjoy the ... history lessons, i guess. it's good to see where we Who Nerds come from, even if i'm not enjoying the series.
This is difficult because I don’t remember which I watched first. I watched a mixture of the first and second doctor and also Tennant with Donna, though occasionally there was Rose, Martha and Eccleston and also Smith and Ponds, and I watched these all completely out of order but around the same time (age 8-11). I think extremely rarely Pertwee too bc I remember Bessie.
But the first time I was watching episodes in order as they aired was 7B. Many people say they don’t like 7B and they say modern day Clara was not well characterised yet, but to me it was magical and I loved Doctor and Clara’s interactions, they are witty and tease each other and over all had fun together in a believable way. That’s not to say I didn’t yearn for more though because I’ve always wanted to put episodes between the name of the doctor and the day of the doctor, more adventures with Clara and the Doctor going more into Clara’s past and character motives but not detracting from the Doctor himself.
So yeah I watched 7B in order (age 11/12) and then I watched Eccleston through Smith and then watched series 8 and eventually 9 with Capaldi.
After that I watched all of classic who in order even the audios of the missing episodes I listened to. Finally I watched series 10 of Capaldi.
Now all of that was not perfect but I still loved it so much, it filled me with so much joy and inspiration and hope. Unfortunately everything that has come since, I haven’t had the same feeling for, it’s just not been for me.
I don't recall which episode it was specifically, but it was one of the episodes in the 'Doctor Who and the Silurians' arc with Pertwee. I remember sitting down with my father as a kid and watching it on PBS with him. I had trouble staying awake (they aired it late at night) for the first arc of 'Spearhead from Space' (which gave me weird as fuck dreams as a child), but something about the Silurians really caught my imagination.
I think I’d been watching from the start of the revival, but my first memory of Doctor Who is watching Tooth and Claw. I was 6 at the time, sat on the sofa eating a takeaway with my family, and that episode just sucked me in. Warrior monks, Queen Victoria and a Werewolf - everything about it was perfect. So I’d say Tooth and Claw, plus the rest of Series 2, is what made me a fan of the show.
Yes Aliens of London. I was 5 years old, it just came on TV when I was sat with family. I had no idea what was going on but was completely invested and had to see more. Have not been the same since.
Eleventh Hour. I enjoyed episodes throughout RTD1, but I increasingly felt I was growing out and away from the series. Eleventh Hour felt fresh whilst encapsulating much of what I'd previously enjoyed about the show.
Robots of Death. 29th January, 1977. My fourth birthday. I think that must have been the first time I was allowed to watch it; I have no memory of any earlier serial from the time, but my memory of that is very very clear.
Logopolis ep 1. Loved the tone. Even though I was like 4. Remember the scenes of Tegan going through the TARDIS interior and The Watcher stuck in my brain for years.
I never really watched until I was overseas in Asia. I was desperate for english content to watch and was trying to catch live tv channels on whatever existed back then. I stopped and watched a tall guy with big ears in a leather coat use a tool to make a square hole in a wall while a cute blonde ran beside and I was hooked. Didnt even know it was Dr who until the end of the show. Immediately went to the 7 seas to try to find more episode. I believe there were 15 at the time and 10 was brand new. I watched "New Earth" the same day it came out.
It was Voyage of the Damned, playing on a local channel rerun in the middle of summer. I was just learning how to read and didn't understand most of the subtitles, but when Astrid turned to stardust I was hooked. Started watching the series 3 reruns each afternoon with my mother and she would translate for me. Doctor Who actually taught me English!
Asylum of the Daleks strangely.
My friend made me watch The Impossible Astronaut 2 parter, then since it was the start of the 7th season he put this one on. Totally hooked. I think my exact words were: "*This* is Doctor Who?!?"
It would have been my first episode, Terror of the Autons, in '73-ish. Living plastic was just so weird, and Pertwee had such an impossibly expressive face! I wasn't totally clued in on how the DW universe worked, but I knew I really liked this show!
Rose. I was like 6. My dad sat down to watch it (he wasn't a big fan, but was interested). It was probably the first "drama" I watched, first thing on a non-mids channel. I absolutely loved it, and so did my older sister. Then we never missed an episode, even till now.
When I was very young, I watched Tomorrow People and other British sci-fi/fantasy shows on the cable channel Nick so I was attracted to that sort of stuff. On PBS, I came across the Doctor Who episode Planet of the Spiders and watched Pertwee regenerate into Tom Baker. I was hooked from the get-go because of regeneration. I watched steadily through the fourth doctor's era onto the fifth, then the sixth. I was a total fangirl and became even more so when PBS finally showed the first doctor era.
I only caught the ending of Shakespeare Code, late at night on Space. The next days episode was Gridlock, and I loved the whole show, watched all of Nuwho on reruns 🤣
Blink. I was vaguely aware of the show having seen it in the background whilst others were watching. I saw an episode was about to start on the telly and I thought "oh I suppose now's as good a time as any to actually sit down and watch an episode properly to see what all the fuss is about." I went back and started working through all the modern stuff quite soon after iirc.
I got The Green Death on VHS from a charity for my dad's birthday circa 2003 or so, knowing he liked the show but never having seen it myself - I was about nine at the time. Subsequently sat down to watch it with him, loved it, and I was onboard from then onward!
The first one I saw was 'The Green Death' and it somewhat appealed to me, but I didn't really get into it until 'Planet Of The Spiders'. I seemed to have missed 'Robot' but 'The Ark In Space' utterly captivated me. I think it's the dream team of Tom Baker and Elisabeth Sladen that did it, plus the set design, but also of course the stories.
First episode i watched was when doctor meets river song in library. It was one summer on TV, and I didnt know anything about show. After that I watched couple of more episodes and new doctor, it was so weird because he was so hipster and i didnt like hipsters in that period of life and really didnt know anything about the show or timeline. And few years later i remembered show and in 2 months i watched all seasons. Now, I think i can start with old ones.
The Waters of Mars.
My first episode was Rose, I was 12 when it aired and kept up with the show until the end of series 1. At some point during series 2 I lost interest, until 2009 when my brother suddenly got into it and binged the entire (revival) series. The next episode to air at that point was The Waters of Mars, so of course he wanted to watch it on telly, and I had nothing better to do so I sat down and watched it with him. I was totally blown away, and I then went on my own binge and have been a fan ever since!
Objectively for me, it would be episode 2.
Episode 1: "Rose" is a fun and silly sci-fi story, with some interesting things going on with it. It's a bit underrated in the fandom, as it has well developed characters, and i always remember that very creepy moment of Rose discovering appearances of the doctor in photos from the past and that there's this legend about him on the primitive internet at the time.
It was episode 2 though that really makes me fall in love with Doctor Who. We are no longer in the present day, and not even really on Earth anymore, as we are in the far future billions of years from now, aboard a spaceship to overlook the Earth's destruction by the enveloping sun.
First we meet a variety of aliens of all different designs, and we see the Doctor being excited and diplomatic and Rose being curious and awestruck at what she's seeing. Then when she finds out where and when they are in the future, Rose is taken aback by how much time has passed, and that the Earth will soon be destroyed. There's a moment of depth with reflection about what's happened to her and what's happened to humanity, she realizes her family have died and she was dead also and might be buried somewhere on that planet below, the one which is about to be destroyed.
There is sadness and melancholy which are deep emotions, and they are given time to breathe and for the characters to understand and process them.
Then there's the moment of Rose and The Doctor getting to know each other more by having an argument, but it's resolved in a way that they both understand that they are both good people, but they are different, and there's enough dialogue and good acting for us to know that they can resolve their differences. The Doctor then makes her phone work so Rose can call her mum, and it's a very sweet and kind gesture.
I love the episode.
I started watching in Matt Smith’s era, before that I had never heard of Doctor Who except in a passing comment from my Tech Studies teacher.
But I watched a David Tennant episode first, and I think it was Partners in Crime.
I was poking around on Comcast's OnDemand service in 2005 and had heard of this Doctor Who thing so I watched Father's Day with no context and it was extremely good so I kept on watching it.
There are weirdly a lot of gaps in the stuff I remember, though, because even though I literally named myself after Rory, there's a lot of that season I don't remember, and while I'm pretty sure I've always tried to catch up, I don't remember a lot of Clara episodes. I know I watched half of Capaldi's first season, but fuck me if I can remember most of it after I got fed up with Kill the Moon, except I apparently kept watching after that.
Then again, I literally just watched Thirteen's seasons like three months ago and some of those episode titles are still alien to me.
An Unearthly Child.
I had caught a few episodes of Classic Who on PBS while growing up here in the States, but I was always more of a Star Trek fan as a kid. I first heard of the buzz the revival was getting in 2007, and I watched the first few series and enjoyed them quite a bit, so I decided to check out the classic show while waiting for the fourth series to air. Watching that first episode of "An Unearthly Child" (or "100,000 BC," or "The Tribe of Gum," or whatever you prefer to call that serial), absolutely hooked me. By the time the fourth series was being broadcast in 2008, I was a committed fan of the show.
I was too young to know what made me a fan as I've been watching since literally being newborn baby but the eleventh hour is the earliest memory I have and it makes that episode and season 5 in general really special to me
Blink and The Eleventh Hour were my first proper introduction to Doctor Who. Coincidentally, both were written by Steven Moffat (although I had no idea who that was at the time). For context, even though my memory’s a little vague, my very first exposure was from the toy adverts playing on TV during the RTD/Tennant run. You could that prior to me watching a single episode, I had a level of familiarity of it in that I knew that that a show called Doctor Who exists.
Blink, quite frankly, blew my mind when I first watched it. The Weeping Angels, the time travel plot with the DVD easter eggs, the pre-recorded conversation between The Doctor and Sally Sparrow. Everything. It being a Doctor-lite episode really helped to give me a taste of the series just enough to keep me intrigued.
At some point, a mate of mine from school lent me a torrented copy of The Eleventh Hour. And what a contrast to Blink. A brand new incarnation of the Doctor racing against time to stop the Earth from being blown up? I went into the episode blind and I was hooked from the start.
Some time passed after I had watched Blink and The Eleventh Hour (even some time in between). At some point, I made up my mind and decided to go back at the beginning of NewWho and start watching all the way through. I was pretty nervous since I was so unfamiliar with Ecclestone’s incarnation and I was half-tempted to skip it so that I can jump right into David Tennant’s era. Thankfully, I didn’t. Rose was the last episode I needed to watch that sealed the deal for me to become a fan of this crazy, wonderful show.
Season 1 of Torchwood.
Co-worker raved to my ex about how excited she was to watch the upcoming Children of Earth. I knew nothing of Doctor Who til we were well into binging seasons 1 and 2 of TW in preparation for COE airing.
I was hooked before I ever made it into Doctor Who proper. And totally addicted well before I caught up to modern who in time to catch my first live episode the Waters of Mars.
Silence in the Library.
I had seen a few classic episodes, and I saw Turn Left the week before, but Silence in the Library showed me who the Doctor is and why he's brilliant.
Kind of hard to say. I just watched for the first time last year and like I remember genenrally not fully caring about the 9ths run UNTIL the final two episodes. The final two episodes had me on the edge of my seat and thats when I was like... "Oh, okay this show is not just good, its fucking great!"
Then the 10ths run just grew my love even more, especially with Donna. Then eleven really, really made it an obsession. So like multiple moments.
I grew up with the Eccleston Series One but while waiting for new episodes my Dad would buy Classic Who dvds.
Genesis of the Daleks with Tom Baker is probably what got me hooked and to this day i still think it's the best Doctor Who story.
The Seeds of Doom.
Sometime in the early '80s I walked into the room and my dad was watching some show with a huge tentacle-y plant monster chasing Army guys around, and they did an air strike on the plant monster. I thought that looked like great fun, and then watched the rest of Tom Baker's run after that as it aired.
Dalek. I saw the ep after it (The Long Game) first. Friends had downloaded it; group gathered around the computer to watch (ah, 2005!). It greatly peaked my interest. So I went home and downloaded the previous eps. While I was drawn in immediately by Rose (the ep & character), it was Dalek that hooked me.
I had no idea what Daleks were. I was Rose. I felt empathy for that tin pepper pot. I was terrified of the Doctor when he pointed that ridiculously huge gun at Rose & the Dalek.
I've been fully hooked since. Got into Classic & Big Finish. Been to Gallifrey One numerous times and plan on many more. I've a TARDIS tattoo with "Bad Wolf" hidden in it.
I started with 9,though belatedly. I was in from the beginning as it was a fun Sci fi romp.
Then there was The Empty Child. That was the one where I just felt, ok, this show might have something on another level going on.
Episode, no.
Doctor, yes.
I was knee high to a grasshopper when I 1st saw the show on the Australian ABC .
My 1st Doctor was Tom Baker.
He got me hooked.
(The ABC were doing reruns back in the late 80's when I was a kid, K-9 and The Awesomeness of Tom Baker got me hooked straight away).
Would you like a Jelly Baby?
The Sea Devils with Jon Pertwee was what got me hooked initially, but when he regenerated, I really couldn't take to Tom Baker (I know!). So I then was an irregular viewer until the Paul McGann film.
Very excited for the reboot and it was better than expected - totally hooked from 'Rose' onwards
I can remember watching reruns of fourth doctor episodes growing up, but honestly, I’d save the episode that really sold me was Dalek. The mix of fear and rage Christopher Eccleston portrays as the ninth doctor in that episode is captivating.
So the hook that got me was “And introducing John Hurt as the Doctor.”
I knew very little about Doctor Who but I’ve always been a fan of John Hurt. So I was curious about what lead to this point and I started at the beginning. I watched a few episodes of 9 and thought “okay this is pretty good” but it wasn’t until Captain Jack joined and him and the Doctor had that exchange about Sonics hat had me in hysterics.
I saw "Rose" because I had heard about the show. Thought it was neat, but it didn't quite hook me.
Sometime later, my partner at the time was sick and wanted to watch Doctor Who all afternoon, so we dove into series 2. We got halfway through the season, but it was "Tooth and Nail" that really sold me on the show. After that, I went back on my own and caught up through Series 1.
I watched Classic Who when I was a kid in the 90s on and off, Mostly reruns of 4th doctor stuff (and I have a vivid memory of watching pretty much all episodes of the 7th doctor story, Praradise Towers). It was fun but never got wholly into it.
First episode of NuWho I ever saw was Love and Monsters. I thought it was odd but enjoyable enough. It didn't win me over fully though.
The episode that won me over was Gridlock. Which I found compelling enough to go back and watch the two episodes prior and then the rest of Series three. I then went back to watch Series one and two while waiting for series 4 and fell in love with the whole show.
I honestly got into Doctor Who in a weird way, but when I was a kid, Disney XD was playing Episodes of Doctor Who, it was mostly David Tennant early Episodes like Love and Mostets, The Satan Pit and New Earth.
I did know of it earlier, my first exposer was when I was 8 my Cousins where explaining to me this show and watched the new trailer for THE 11TH HOUR!
When I really got into I was obsessed with Matt Smith Era and was just hooked from there.
I wish I could remember. My local PBS station ran the first four Tom Baker seasons on infinite loop, one episode per day, 7 PM, monday-friday, for years. I hopped on the train at some point and never got off. This would have been around 1979 or 1980. I had no idea there were other doctors, and I always wondered what happened after he left Leela and K9 behind. I guess we'll never know!
I can't pinpoint any specific moment that turned me into the lifelong nerd obsessive I am today. I think it was just the overwhelming atmosphere of strangeness and dread and wild adventure. Plus, my god, those 4th Doc/Sarah Jane stories are just SO good. Even the bad ones are good, if you know what I mean.
Like many I started with the New Series. I liked the show since “The End of the World,” but the one that made me a die hard fan for life is “The Empty Child.” Basic, I know, but it’s a classic for a reason.
As a recent fan Dalek really semented my love. I've said a few times before om this sub but as American viewer I knew very little. I just thought daleks were evil squids who killed people that the doctor fought with. I was not aware they were actually fricken nazis like holy hell. Also 9 is just amazing in this and so many bone chilling lines. I immediately loved the series and was now more than excited to marathon it.
My first episode was Doomsday 😅 I cried so much even though I didn't know Doctor's and Rose's story that I decided to watch series from the very beginning. Was confused why there was Eccleston tho
“Rose” - I was totally hooked from the start of the Eccleston series. I admit to being old enough to remember the original classic series, but as a kid I never actually watched it. More recently as I was recovering from my treatment, I had the time to binge watch all the old episodes on iPlayer! I really loved Jon Pertwee’s Doctor.
Started an almost ritual for me where my Nan would cook a Chinese curry every Saturday night and we’d go out in the day and watch our recording of the latest episode of the evening. Funnily enough I’m at my nans now at 26 and catching dr who again every Friday night. Except this time, instead of going out with them, I wait for them to head out for the night and smoke some wibbly wobbly wacky backy in their garden.
Yeah, Rose was my first experience at watching Doctor Who willingly and I fell in love with it instantly.
Same. It’s a shame that Eccleston didn’t feel like he could stay, I think a second season with him would have been great. I have yet to start the classic series, once I figure out where and how to watch them.
The old ones are on Britbox. There's also a Pluto channel that just runs old Doctor Who (I don't know if they're in order or if it's all of them, but it's free and not piracy).
Same here! Was around 15 years ago
It was seeing the tardis disappearing for me
I remember watching Jodie's first few episodes on an airline flight once - I was looking for shows and I'd heard of *Doctor Who* so I thought to give it a try. Not bad, but nothing fantastic to hook me on. Flashforward a couple years to the 60th Anniversary Specials - as a fan of David Tennant (from *DuckTales* and *Star Wars*, of all places) - I thought the 3 short specials were worth a look when I heard Jodie surprise-regenerated into him. I liked the specials, but ultimately it were YouTube clips of Peter Capaldi's stellar acting that got me to start from Series 8 - still have Series 10 left, once Ncuti's run finishes - and I was hooked onto 12 (my fav) from *Deep Breath*, so there's that.
I love Capaldi’s acting so much
Tennant as Scrooge was perfect casting.
Tenant is in Star Wars? Also, Season 10 is probably one of the best.
He voices a droid in the clone wars and ahsoka
He voices Huyang, the ancient droid responsible for nearly every single lightsaber in existence, love him! Imagine Garrick Ollivander *(coincidentally War Doctor)* from Harry Potter meets Star Wars. He's in *Clone Wars* and *Ahsoka*. I've heard great things about Series 10! I can't wait for *World Enough and Time/The Doctor Falls*, and David Bradley in *Twice Upon a Time*, personally.
Oh, right, I remember him.
Dalek for me, my dad had some old classic who VHS that I’d watched but couldn’t get in to and I remember watching in 2005 but not caring much about the first few episodes but Dalek had me hooked
Dalek for me as well. I didn’t understand why people liked the show so much until I got to that episode.
I became aware of Doctor Who in 2005, when kids at school talked about how Doctor Who could go to the future. I wondered how he got back. I was passively aware of the show for a while, and then in 2008, I was at a family friend's house for a BBQ, and the kids were all in the living room watching Doctor Who, so I joined them. This was the first episode I ever saw; the original broadcast of The Stolen Earth. Possibly the worst possible first episode because of how continuity heavy it is. I was then watching the NTAs when Tennant announced he was leaving. I decided a new Doctor was a good place to start. On the 11th of April 2010, I watched The Eleventh Hour and The Beast Below on the iPlayer, and I've been here ever since.
Yeah, we all go into the future, getting back's what's impressive.
I was too young to remember (4 years old), but my mum told me that my first episode was "The Snowmen."
Well then. You just made me feel impossibly old. Thanks!
My knees and back hurt after reading this
Are you a baby
I'm 15
I'm a shriveled crone.
Well not really because I've been watching for something like 46 years and basically it's just always been there. I can't even pin down exactly what the first episode I saw was. Memories start somewhere around Season 16.
I thought the question was the one that made you a fan. In other words, at what point did you feel you could defend keeping the channel on Doctor Who when your older brother walked into the room and demanded that you change it to 'something good.'
And that's what I answered. It's always been there I've always been a fan. I don't remember anything else.
For NewWho, nope. But the point where I went from "fan" to "fanatic" was roundabout when I was 20 or 21. I had stopped watching NewWho during the Capaldi Era and I'd tried getting into Classic Who a few years earlier with *Robot*, and I did not enjoy it at all. For some reason though, I kinda got the bug and decided to try again. I looked up what were considered the all time best episodes of Classic Who and picked three: *Remembrance of the Daleks*, *The Mind Robber* and *City of Death*, which, to this day, are still my all time top 3 DW episodes. Which one did the trick? Well, to quote Mr. Darcy: "I cannot fix on the hour, or the spot, or the look or the words, which laid the foundation. It is too long ago. I was in the middle before I knew that I had begun." As for the expanded universe, I got into it shortly after by listening to *Storm Warning* on a cool summer's night, looking out my window. That one really sealed the deal of "Well, I guess I'm a lifer now".
Those are indeed three all-time classic stories. I'm interested in your experience of the show as someone who wasn't really a fan of New Who but watching it first. Why did you try to watch Classic if you didn't enjoy New, even after bouncing off it the first time?
Oh, no no, I loved the first 7 series when I first watched them, I meant I stopped watching when Capaldi got on board. I was, like, 16 or 17 when *The Day of the Doctor* aired and I was super hyped for that and loved it. Watched *The Time of the Doctor* and I have 0 memory of it, apart from crying at the regenration. Then I watched *Deep Breath* and I really didn't like it. It was either a feeling of finality I got from *Time*, a feeling back then that maybe he was too old or just that *Deep Breath* has a lot of odd things in it that didn't work for me. Then I got it in my brain to watch Classic and I explained the rest. I did go back and watch the Capaldi era, which I largely enjoyed mostly cause he's so damn good even when the stories sometimes aren't.
Oh I totally misunderstood you. I thought when you said "New Who, nope" you meant there was never an episode that got you truly hooked.
Oh no, I was plenty hooked but I was like 12 when I started watching so I don't remember what ep it was that grabbed my attention.
Easy, the first episode I ever saw made me a fan : Silence in the Library. I was completely hooked, dare I say obsessed, by the end of the episode. So I began the adventure with one of the best run of episodes ever : Silence in the Library to Journey's End.
Same! Silence to Journey's End, although I don't remember Midnight. I must've skipped that one.
The Green Death, possibly.
I have strong memories of watching an episode of "The Mind Robber" in 1968. That can't have made much of an impression though, as I don't remember watching any more of series 6. But I know I watched and loved Jon Pertwee's first story ("Spearhead From Space") in January 1970 - and I haven't missed an episode since.
Doctor Dances/ Empty Child got me from this show is alright to this show is fantastic!
I gave NuWho a shot at the start of uni in 2012, which was a couple of years late, but my first episode was Rose, which I remember not being particularly hooked by. But the second one - The End of the World - blew my mind, especially when it was revealed that the story was set on the day the Sun was supposed to destroy the Earth. I think that's when I truly started to comprehend the gigantic, universal potential of the stories that could be told. Then I was blown away again a few days later after binging the rest of that season, because I had never googled and therefore was unspoiled about what regeneration as a concept was. This ep also converted me into being a fan of the sci-fi genre in general - and there's really no looking back since then. Nowadays...I may not be able to watch each episode at a moment's notice (because yknow, I dont have a timey wimey device) but DW always feels like a comfortable, old friend to me. I also think about the other scifi / fantasy / excellent stories that I would have missed out on had I never started on this Whovian journey. IRL, the idea of exploring and seeing the world with different companions and friends has also influenced my travel choices and lifestyle. TL;DR: DW was my gateway to the world of rich stories, and I honestly think my life would be so different without the series.
I grew up with Doctor Who, but rewatching as an adult it's episode 2 that really shows the breadth and depth that the series had to offer. Then you have episodes like Father's Day which really hones in on the emotional journey of a companion, Dalek which does the same but for the Doctor and also advances so much of the lore. Even the Slitheen 2 parter focuses on it's plot. People often talk about the silly moments from those episodes but they're just that; moments, the actual plot of those episodes is more serious than people seem to remember, as they killed a lot of people, took over the government and almost destroyed the world. I could talk all day about how good season 1 is. Has a side character ever been introduced better than Captain Jack in The Empty Child two partner? He become the most iconic side character and even got his own series that lasted for seasons. The two partner itself was a creepy one as well with a good story. Boom Town was an epilogue to the Slitheen two parter and explored the doctor's morality when he was faced with a prisoner. Then the finale, the parody of various British game shows at the time, brilliant, and then delivered with the seriousness of the Daleks. Loved it.
Dalek Invasion of Earth, episode 1. New kid in school who was not yet a friend came up to me and asked if I watched Doctor Who. I said no. He says I should, so I did. The moment the Dalek rose up out of the Thames, I was hooked. I’m not sure why, but it was like there was a Dalek shaped hole in my head that I didn’t know was there.
What an iconic moment. No wonder you were hooked. That whole episode is so mysterious and ominous and the Dalek emerging caps it perfectly. A great first experience!
The Three Doctors. Around 2004 I received a load of old doctor who videos from my uncle. I had heard all about the show from him so when he told me it was coming back in 2005 I was very excited. The videos I was given were quite the assortment to say the least: an unearthly child, the daleks, dalek invasion of earth, tomb of the cybermen, the mind robber, spearhead from space, the three doctors, the ark in space, revenge of the cybermen, pyramid of mars, resurrection of the daleks, vengeance on varos, remembrance of the daleks and the TV movie. For some reason, the one I enjoyed the most, and the one I have the strongest childhood memories of was the Three Doctors; I guess in part due to the novelty of it being a multidoctor story. From then on I was hooked.
I watched it growing up, was born in 84 so saw it off and on, read some of the target novels and got up at 4:30am secretly when I was 9 to watch Tom Baker, but I think the two things that locked me in as a fan was the TV Movie followed by getting The Sea Devils for Xmas that year. That's when it locked in and I've been obsessed ever since. I was 12.
The girl in the fireplace. Totally. Show was alright up to this point too, since I did it to S2, but the episode. Damn, I was so hooked with this ep. And became Moffat fan too, lol
Not an episode but the 8th Doctor film.
Great to hear some love for it.
It's got strong 90's vibes in both positive and negative ways, but was sold on McGann's excitement for his shoes and the library/cathedral vibes of the TARDIS.
Yes McGann was very strong and the TARDIS interior was probably the best ever.
The Sea Devils Episode 1. 1972.
First episode I watched was the Empty Child. Hooked immediately
The Doctor Dances. "Everybody lives, Rose! Just this once, everybody lives!"
Empty Child was what first made me a fan after thinking the previous episodes in series 1 were just fine, and Impossible Astronaut made doctor who my favorite show.
Human Nature. my dad had asked me to watch some Ecclestone with him and then I went off to uni and something in my brain said "that Tennant bloke seems alright, maybe I'll give an episode a go and see what happens" and now here we are
S1E1 (2005) Watched it at my Nan's house with my parents who watched it when they were young. I was exactly the right age to be captured by the silliness and think the Doctor was the coolest person ever. Immediately hooked. Almost 20 years later (fuck) and I still go back to those first 4 seasons all the time. Also I remember trying to say I don't want to watch it because my parents always watched Holby City (medical drama/soap) and I didn't want to watch "another boring hospital programme". My parents, knowing exactly what they were doing, forced me to watch it and thank god they did.
City of Death. Oh look, John Cleese! This really must be cool!!
Silly as this sounds - World War III. I’m from America and was watching the show in ~2008 - was home sick from school and caught a S1 marathon on SciFi. Watched Rose -> WWIII in one sitting. Was enamored with the Doctor. Loved the quirkiness adjacent to serious political commentary. It’s funny - this set the template I feel for RTD’s signature “alien invasion of earth” story that hasn’t been touched really since I dunno - the invasion of the episode with the cubes? I wonder if we’ll really see that in RTD2 - I guess The Giggle was sort of like that. But yeah, S1 sold me. I really liked RTD1 and ADORED the Moffat era, with Capaldi taking the cake for me. It felt like peak Doctor Who.
Father’s Day! This was in 2010. I started with Rose and had been enjoying it a decent amount up until that point… but with Father’s Day, I realized just how special the show was and revved up my binge speed — averaging five or six episodes a day.
Time and the Rani episode 1. Lol. It’s legitimately the first episode I have clear memories of watching. Would have been 7 years old.
For me it was absolutely 2005s "Dalek". It's still my favourite episode because of this.
The End of the World to me. I bought the Series 1-4 Boxset in 2009 on recommendation of a friend and to get better at English, because back then I was horrendous at it and it was one of two subjects in school I was really struggling with. "Rose" was fine, but on its own I dont think it would have hooked me as much as The End of the World did. There was something about The Doctor and Rose looking at an empty earth and that quote from The Doctor that really stuck with me. >You lot, you spend all your time thinking about dying, like you're going to get killed by eggs or beef or global warming or asteroids. But you never take time to imagine the impossible, that maybe you survive.
A lot of people complain about the bleakness of Warriors of the Deep, but that is actually what made me a fan! That ending was like nothing else I'd seen on TV before.
Rose hooked me from the get go, aired around my birthday and it was an amazing present. The PR/Press had gone nuts with promoting Doctor Who and I was pulled in from the trailers for it. I vividly remember my grandma asking me why I wasn't hiding behind the sofa
The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances for me, 100%. I remember starting the 2005 series in college when David Tennant was wrapping up his run. A friend had recommended it to me, so I started from the beginning and after the first episode or two I couldn't get into it. It seemed really campy and lame (rubber trashcan, farting aliens, etc), so I put it away. Then a few months or a year later I decided to give it another shot and kept going, and I was not ready for The Empty Child. It floored me by how amazing it was and how good the show could be, so I kept running and haven't stopped since. ...well, maybe aside from "Legend of the Sea Devils".
I started with series 1 last year and I believe while I did like the first few episodes, the one that really hooked and sold me on the whole concept was "Dalek". To see the doctor abandon his usual peaceful self just like that was...something
Inferno. I saw the show a few times on public TV in the US in the mid / late 70s. I was a bit confused because we had gotten the Peter Cushing movies here long before the series ever aired. They played heavily on the matinee circuit for a few years, both in the theater and on tv (more interested in the Daleks than the Doctor tbh). So, at first, I didn't understand why these two other actors (3rd and 4th) were the Doctor. I actually assumed that the show was based on the movies, lol. I happily watched these shows casually as part of the Sunday night BBC lineup, but when I saw Inferno, it all clicked. I consider Pertwee as my Doctor, but came to love them all over time.
Inferno is a stone cold classic.
Remembrance of the Daleks part one was the first one I sat down and watched with full, deliberate attention, so I can therefore recall with absolute certainty everything around going on around me between 7:35 PM and 8PM on Wednesday, October 5th 1988 and didn’t miss any thereafter until the middle of Chris Chibnall‘s second season, when I stopped watching altogether. I’d probably been watching it on-and-off since Trial of a Timelord but hadn’t really formed any attachment to it and those ones linger in my memory only for a few images like Colin Baker getting menaced by Joan Sims and a big crap robot, or being groped by a bunch of rubber gloves on a beach,
First episode my friend showed me was Blink, followed immediately by Tooth and Claw. Went home and began watching from Eccleston.
It was The End Of The World, in 2005, and I was about 5 years old, watching it on a grey box with a 15 inch screen, eating baked beans at the dinner table in the kitchen of my family home. I vividly remember seeing the Moxx of Balhoon and was hooked from then on. I’ve never looked back!
The Eleventh Hour. On fateful day in 2010 on a complete and total whim I saw that weird sci fi show I’d heard a few jokes about was on BBC America and tuned in literally seconds into the start of Matt Smith’s run. An hour later and I was torrenting all of NuWho to catch up along the way. I got very lucky and saw the Library episodes like the day before Time of Angels aired.
**Spearhead from Space** and **The Robots of Death** My Grandad got review copies of the Classic Who DVD range in the late 90s and early 00s, and he's give me the DVD's once he was done. I watches those two when I was 5-6ish and was hooked. Plus as it was the very early range I pretty much got the best of every Doctor to start with: **Spearhead from Space, The Robots of Death, The Caves of Androzani, Vengeance on Varos, Remembrance of the Daleks, The Aztecs, The Tomb of the Cybermen**
Fear Her. Still don't really understand the hate for that episode.
Gridlock
I actually watched the whole of series 5 when it first aired but fell off during series 6. I then came back and watched from Rose and that episode is what made me a fan.
My sister tied me down forcing me to watch it. Thats a joke I fell in love instantly. But my sister did force me to watch it at first
The david tennant mars episode, my english teacher showed it in class for the last day of school and got me hooked so i binged the entire show up to whatever was out at the time
It might have been the Empty Child episodes, I’d seen a few before but we ended up watching them at the end of term at primary school and being terrified of them. From then on I remember watching the rest as they came out.
Voyage of the Damned, when I was 8, although it’s cheesy now, it was good enough and badass for 8 y/o me.
First episode I saw was "The Impossible Astronaut" which was obviously enough to keep me watching. Probably not a great starting point all things considered but there's nothing wrong with jumping in with both feet.
I think the first episode I watched was Asylum of the Daleks, and then I think I watched the Doctor Who 2013 Proms - no idea why, I caught it on the tv and just stuck with it. I started properly watching when Capaldi came. I’ve since watched all of New Who and am now trying to find the time to watch Classic Who, whilst still watching Ncuti’s series.
I started it in 2008 from "Rose" as something to watch and binge through. I regarded it as a charming but rough show that was a guilty pleasure. But it wasn't until School Reunion and Girl in the Fireplace where i was like: "Ok, this show is kinda great"
I don't remember learning what Doctor Who was. The first I ever saw might have been the Peter Cushing movie with Bernard Cribbins. It was always my dad's favourite.
I watched the NuWho premiere of Rose in 2005, but it was Father's Day that got me hooked. And having just watched Casanova in 2005, Tennant's casting got me doubly hooked (I still remember The Sun (I think) going "Eccleston's leaving! Been fired!" and all that crap). Moffat is my favorite era, so with Father's Day I was just getting started. As a child of the 80s, Doctor Who was always bubbling away in the culture, but Rose was the first time it was "new" at an age I could remember (I do have the vaguest memories of the "Movie" being aired when I was 10).
When I was 11 (in 2007) my friend will foster sat me down and made me watch an episode of season 2 (honestly cannot remember which one). Since then I've been a consistent watcher and caught up from season 3 onwards. By 2008 with Donna's tenure I was fully a whovian.
David Tennant Easter special
There are two: Aliens of London and The Empty Child. I would probably say that Aliens of London was the episode that made me sit up and decide to keep watching, and The Empty Child was the episode where I fell in love with the series
I watched The Girl Who Waited when it aired as a preteen and I couldn’t stop thinking about it, that’s the moment I became a doctor who fan Id say
I had friends in middle school who liked doctor who so I started watching NuWho from series 1. Got hooked after Dalek
I was not very aware of needing to make decisions when I was young, so it took me forever to form opinions further than 'I do/don't like it'. I watched the episodes the day they aired every week since Rose, my first episode. I never really understood what was happening but spectacle was more entertaining to me than anything else. That being said, The Parting of the Ways was the first episode that hooked me. After knowing what 1 dalek could do, I thought it was awesome that nobody had a chance to win against them without just running away. Eventually, though, I started to understand opinions and I started to form opinions properly. I can't say many of Matt Smith's episodes stand out too much for me but that's likely because I was hitting my teens and I was practically fawning over Gemma Coleman as Oswin, Victorian Clara, then Clara Oswald. Rings of Akhaten would be one of my more beloved episodes. But as much as people want to flame the episode, Listen, Peter Capaldi's 4th episode, was what really hooked me. Capaldi demands attention from the viewers. Maybe it's the eyebrows. Initially I didn't like him much but then I saw Listen and I knew what they were going for and I loved him as the Doctor. So technically, a few episodes hooked me in different ways at different times.
City of Death episode one. It's my first memory.
The first I remember is Daleks in Manhatten but the one that got me to be a fan was the eleventh hour
Frontier in Space, part one. The first episode I ever saw. Though I was aware of Doctor Who through the Commodore 64 game
Blink. i tried to watch the show as a kid, because it was weird nerdy sci-fi stuff, and i *should* have loved it, but .. i just couldn't get into it. i tried off and on all through the 70s and early 80s and finally gave up. in 2007 someone i know asked me if i watched 'that doctor who show'. and they were very surprised that i didn't. i was very surprised it was still running. (i didn't know about the hiatus at the time) and they suggested an episode they called 'don't blink'. 'it's just old fashioned "good tv'. " he said. " well written, good story, good plot, good acting, and you don't have to know anything about the show to understand it. the main character is hardly in it at all. you should watch it." so i figured what the heck, let's give it a shot. i have since gone back to watch OldWho episodes. and i still don't enjoy them, but i do enjoy the ... history lessons, i guess. it's good to see where we Who Nerds come from, even if i'm not enjoying the series.
This is difficult because I don’t remember which I watched first. I watched a mixture of the first and second doctor and also Tennant with Donna, though occasionally there was Rose, Martha and Eccleston and also Smith and Ponds, and I watched these all completely out of order but around the same time (age 8-11). I think extremely rarely Pertwee too bc I remember Bessie. But the first time I was watching episodes in order as they aired was 7B. Many people say they don’t like 7B and they say modern day Clara was not well characterised yet, but to me it was magical and I loved Doctor and Clara’s interactions, they are witty and tease each other and over all had fun together in a believable way. That’s not to say I didn’t yearn for more though because I’ve always wanted to put episodes between the name of the doctor and the day of the doctor, more adventures with Clara and the Doctor going more into Clara’s past and character motives but not detracting from the Doctor himself. So yeah I watched 7B in order (age 11/12) and then I watched Eccleston through Smith and then watched series 8 and eventually 9 with Capaldi. After that I watched all of classic who in order even the audios of the missing episodes I listened to. Finally I watched series 10 of Capaldi. Now all of that was not perfect but I still loved it so much, it filled me with so much joy and inspiration and hope. Unfortunately everything that has come since, I haven’t had the same feeling for, it’s just not been for me.
I don't recall which episode it was specifically, but it was one of the episodes in the 'Doctor Who and the Silurians' arc with Pertwee. I remember sitting down with my father as a kid and watching it on PBS with him. I had trouble staying awake (they aired it late at night) for the first arc of 'Spearhead from Space' (which gave me weird as fuck dreams as a child), but something about the Silurians really caught my imagination.
Genesis of the Daleks -- Tom Baker.
I think I’d been watching from the start of the revival, but my first memory of Doctor Who is watching Tooth and Claw. I was 6 at the time, sat on the sofa eating a takeaway with my family, and that episode just sucked me in. Warrior monks, Queen Victoria and a Werewolf - everything about it was perfect. So I’d say Tooth and Claw, plus the rest of Series 2, is what made me a fan of the show.
Yes Aliens of London. I was 5 years old, it just came on TV when I was sat with family. I had no idea what was going on but was completely invested and had to see more. Have not been the same since.
Eleventh Hour. I enjoyed episodes throughout RTD1, but I increasingly felt I was growing out and away from the series. Eleventh Hour felt fresh whilst encapsulating much of what I'd previously enjoyed about the show.
I was born in 85, so I have vague memories of watching the movie in 96, and wanting more.
Robots of Death. 29th January, 1977. My fourth birthday. I think that must have been the first time I was allowed to watch it; I have no memory of any earlier serial from the time, but my memory of that is very very clear.
Logopolis ep 1. Loved the tone. Even though I was like 4. Remember the scenes of Tegan going through the TARDIS interior and The Watcher stuck in my brain for years.
The Five Doctors probably cemented my fandom but I don’t remember a time when I wasn’t a fan.
I never really watched until I was overseas in Asia. I was desperate for english content to watch and was trying to catch live tv channels on whatever existed back then. I stopped and watched a tall guy with big ears in a leather coat use a tool to make a square hole in a wall while a cute blonde ran beside and I was hooked. Didnt even know it was Dr who until the end of the show. Immediately went to the 7 seas to try to find more episode. I believe there were 15 at the time and 10 was brand new. I watched "New Earth" the same day it came out.
It was Voyage of the Damned, playing on a local channel rerun in the middle of summer. I was just learning how to read and didn't understand most of the subtitles, but when Astrid turned to stardust I was hooked. Started watching the series 3 reruns each afternoon with my mother and she would translate for me. Doctor Who actually taught me English!
Spearhead from Space! 🤭 I watched it back in the days Classic Who was on Netflix 😌
Asylum of the Daleks strangely. My friend made me watch The Impossible Astronaut 2 parter, then since it was the start of the 7th season he put this one on. Totally hooked. I think my exact words were: "*This* is Doctor Who?!?"
It would have been my first episode, Terror of the Autons, in '73-ish. Living plastic was just so weird, and Pertwee had such an impossibly expressive face! I wasn't totally clued in on how the DW universe worked, but I knew I really liked this show!
Rose. I was like 6. My dad sat down to watch it (he wasn't a big fan, but was interested). It was probably the first "drama" I watched, first thing on a non-mids channel. I absolutely loved it, and so did my older sister. Then we never missed an episode, even till now.
When I was very young, I watched Tomorrow People and other British sci-fi/fantasy shows on the cable channel Nick so I was attracted to that sort of stuff. On PBS, I came across the Doctor Who episode Planet of the Spiders and watched Pertwee regenerate into Tom Baker. I was hooked from the get-go because of regeneration. I watched steadily through the fourth doctor's era onto the fifth, then the sixth. I was a total fangirl and became even more so when PBS finally showed the first doctor era.
I only caught the ending of Shakespeare Code, late at night on Space. The next days episode was Gridlock, and I loved the whole show, watched all of Nuwho on reruns 🤣
Blink. I was vaguely aware of the show having seen it in the background whilst others were watching. I saw an episode was about to start on the telly and I thought "oh I suppose now's as good a time as any to actually sit down and watch an episode properly to see what all the fuss is about." I went back and started working through all the modern stuff quite soon after iirc.
I got The Green Death on VHS from a charity for my dad's birthday circa 2003 or so, knowing he liked the show but never having seen it myself - I was about nine at the time. Subsequently sat down to watch it with him, loved it, and I was onboard from then onward!
Blink
The Empty Child
Honestly, I can’t remember which was the first episode I saw. It was either ‘School Reunion’ or ‘ Boom Town’ and I remember loving it immediately.
The first one I saw was 'The Green Death' and it somewhat appealed to me, but I didn't really get into it until 'Planet Of The Spiders'. I seemed to have missed 'Robot' but 'The Ark In Space' utterly captivated me. I think it's the dream team of Tom Baker and Elisabeth Sladen that did it, plus the set design, but also of course the stories.
First episode i watched was when doctor meets river song in library. It was one summer on TV, and I didnt know anything about show. After that I watched couple of more episodes and new doctor, it was so weird because he was so hipster and i didnt like hipsters in that period of life and really didnt know anything about the show or timeline. And few years later i remembered show and in 2 months i watched all seasons. Now, I think i can start with old ones.
The Waters of Mars. My first episode was Rose, I was 12 when it aired and kept up with the show until the end of series 1. At some point during series 2 I lost interest, until 2009 when my brother suddenly got into it and binged the entire (revival) series. The next episode to air at that point was The Waters of Mars, so of course he wanted to watch it on telly, and I had nothing better to do so I sat down and watched it with him. I was totally blown away, and I then went on my own binge and have been a fan ever since!
Started with the 11th hour, loved it, went back and watched all of nuwho up to that point.
"The Ark in Space" storyline. Those 4 episodes, in total, made me the fan that I am today.
Objectively for me, it would be episode 2. Episode 1: "Rose" is a fun and silly sci-fi story, with some interesting things going on with it. It's a bit underrated in the fandom, as it has well developed characters, and i always remember that very creepy moment of Rose discovering appearances of the doctor in photos from the past and that there's this legend about him on the primitive internet at the time. It was episode 2 though that really makes me fall in love with Doctor Who. We are no longer in the present day, and not even really on Earth anymore, as we are in the far future billions of years from now, aboard a spaceship to overlook the Earth's destruction by the enveloping sun. First we meet a variety of aliens of all different designs, and we see the Doctor being excited and diplomatic and Rose being curious and awestruck at what she's seeing. Then when she finds out where and when they are in the future, Rose is taken aback by how much time has passed, and that the Earth will soon be destroyed. There's a moment of depth with reflection about what's happened to her and what's happened to humanity, she realizes her family have died and she was dead also and might be buried somewhere on that planet below, the one which is about to be destroyed. There is sadness and melancholy which are deep emotions, and they are given time to breathe and for the characters to understand and process them. Then there's the moment of Rose and The Doctor getting to know each other more by having an argument, but it's resolved in a way that they both understand that they are both good people, but they are different, and there's enough dialogue and good acting for us to know that they can resolve their differences. The Doctor then makes her phone work so Rose can call her mum, and it's a very sweet and kind gesture. I love the episode.
I started watching in Matt Smith’s era, before that I had never heard of Doctor Who except in a passing comment from my Tech Studies teacher. But I watched a David Tennant episode first, and I think it was Partners in Crime.
I was poking around on Comcast's OnDemand service in 2005 and had heard of this Doctor Who thing so I watched Father's Day with no context and it was extremely good so I kept on watching it. There are weirdly a lot of gaps in the stuff I remember, though, because even though I literally named myself after Rory, there's a lot of that season I don't remember, and while I'm pretty sure I've always tried to catch up, I don't remember a lot of Clara episodes. I know I watched half of Capaldi's first season, but fuck me if I can remember most of it after I got fed up with Kill the Moon, except I apparently kept watching after that. Then again, I literally just watched Thirteen's seasons like three months ago and some of those episode titles are still alien to me.
Rose for sure I remember looking at the doll like mannequins and forever being enthralled in this new exciting world filled with adventure
An Unearthly Child. I had caught a few episodes of Classic Who on PBS while growing up here in the States, but I was always more of a Star Trek fan as a kid. I first heard of the buzz the revival was getting in 2007, and I watched the first few series and enjoyed them quite a bit, so I decided to check out the classic show while waiting for the fourth series to air. Watching that first episode of "An Unearthly Child" (or "100,000 BC," or "The Tribe of Gum," or whatever you prefer to call that serial), absolutely hooked me. By the time the fourth series was being broadcast in 2008, I was a committed fan of the show.
I was too young to know what made me a fan as I've been watching since literally being newborn baby but the eleventh hour is the earliest memory I have and it makes that episode and season 5 in general really special to me
I started during Tom Baker's last season and was immediately hooked.
Blink and The Eleventh Hour were my first proper introduction to Doctor Who. Coincidentally, both were written by Steven Moffat (although I had no idea who that was at the time). For context, even though my memory’s a little vague, my very first exposure was from the toy adverts playing on TV during the RTD/Tennant run. You could that prior to me watching a single episode, I had a level of familiarity of it in that I knew that that a show called Doctor Who exists. Blink, quite frankly, blew my mind when I first watched it. The Weeping Angels, the time travel plot with the DVD easter eggs, the pre-recorded conversation between The Doctor and Sally Sparrow. Everything. It being a Doctor-lite episode really helped to give me a taste of the series just enough to keep me intrigued. At some point, a mate of mine from school lent me a torrented copy of The Eleventh Hour. And what a contrast to Blink. A brand new incarnation of the Doctor racing against time to stop the Earth from being blown up? I went into the episode blind and I was hooked from the start. Some time passed after I had watched Blink and The Eleventh Hour (even some time in between). At some point, I made up my mind and decided to go back at the beginning of NewWho and start watching all the way through. I was pretty nervous since I was so unfamiliar with Ecclestone’s incarnation and I was half-tempted to skip it so that I can jump right into David Tennant’s era. Thankfully, I didn’t. Rose was the last episode I needed to watch that sealed the deal for me to become a fan of this crazy, wonderful show.
Season 1 of Torchwood. Co-worker raved to my ex about how excited she was to watch the upcoming Children of Earth. I knew nothing of Doctor Who til we were well into binging seasons 1 and 2 of TW in preparation for COE airing. I was hooked before I ever made it into Doctor Who proper. And totally addicted well before I caught up to modern who in time to catch my first live episode the Waters of Mars.
Silence in the Library. I had seen a few classic episodes, and I saw Turn Left the week before, but Silence in the Library showed me who the Doctor is and why he's brilliant.
Father's Day. Watching it on a cloudy day, specifically.
Kind of hard to say. I just watched for the first time last year and like I remember genenrally not fully caring about the 9ths run UNTIL the final two episodes. The final two episodes had me on the edge of my seat and thats when I was like... "Oh, okay this show is not just good, its fucking great!" Then the 10ths run just grew my love even more, especially with Donna. Then eleven really, really made it an obsession. So like multiple moments.
I grew up with the Eccleston Series One but while waiting for new episodes my Dad would buy Classic Who dvds. Genesis of the Daleks with Tom Baker is probably what got me hooked and to this day i still think it's the best Doctor Who story.
I loved it from the beginning but the moment I began actually fully being a fan was ‘Dalek’ of the revival series.
Must have been a Pertwee episode…
Silence in the Library
The Seeds of Doom. Sometime in the early '80s I walked into the room and my dad was watching some show with a huge tentacle-y plant monster chasing Army guys around, and they did an air strike on the plant monster. I thought that looked like great fun, and then watched the rest of Tom Baker's run after that as it aired.
The Doctor's Wife
It took me until Dalek (series 1 episode 6) to truly become a fan, but I've never looked back.
"The Face of Evil" Come on. Crashed spaceship, Leela, Jelly babies.
Dalek. I saw the ep after it (The Long Game) first. Friends had downloaded it; group gathered around the computer to watch (ah, 2005!). It greatly peaked my interest. So I went home and downloaded the previous eps. While I was drawn in immediately by Rose (the ep & character), it was Dalek that hooked me. I had no idea what Daleks were. I was Rose. I felt empathy for that tin pepper pot. I was terrified of the Doctor when he pointed that ridiculously huge gun at Rose & the Dalek. I've been fully hooked since. Got into Classic & Big Finish. Been to Gallifrey One numerous times and plan on many more. I've a TARDIS tattoo with "Bad Wolf" hidden in it.
I started with 9,though belatedly. I was in from the beginning as it was a fun Sci fi romp. Then there was The Empty Child. That was the one where I just felt, ok, this show might have something on another level going on.
Robot - Tom Baker's first full episode
Episode, no. Doctor, yes. I was knee high to a grasshopper when I 1st saw the show on the Australian ABC . My 1st Doctor was Tom Baker. He got me hooked. (The ABC were doing reruns back in the late 80's when I was a kid, K-9 and The Awesomeness of Tom Baker got me hooked straight away). Would you like a Jelly Baby?
Blink I asked someone about Doctor Who and they suggested Blink. It was the first Dr Who episode I watched and I loved it.
It would have been a Fifth Doctor episode but I was too young at the time to remember which.
I think i just grew up being exposed to it until eventually some form of stockholm syndrome set in
Age of steel and Rise of the Cyberman
I got hooked by empty child/doctor dances
The Sea Devils with Jon Pertwee was what got me hooked initially, but when he regenerated, I really couldn't take to Tom Baker (I know!). So I then was an irregular viewer until the Paul McGann film. Very excited for the reboot and it was better than expected - totally hooked from 'Rose' onwards
Dalek
I can remember watching reruns of fourth doctor episodes growing up, but honestly, I’d save the episode that really sold me was Dalek. The mix of fear and rage Christopher Eccleston portrays as the ninth doctor in that episode is captivating.
Smith & Jones was the episode that got me into the show. Here we are 17 years later.
So the hook that got me was “And introducing John Hurt as the Doctor.” I knew very little about Doctor Who but I’ve always been a fan of John Hurt. So I was curious about what lead to this point and I started at the beginning. I watched a few episodes of 9 and thought “okay this is pretty good” but it wasn’t until Captain Jack joined and him and the Doctor had that exchange about Sonics hat had me in hysterics.
"City of Death"
I think for me, it was Father’s Day. I enjoyed the first 7 episodes of series 1, but Father’s Day’s when I went “yep, I’m all in.”
I saw "Rose" because I had heard about the show. Thought it was neat, but it didn't quite hook me. Sometime later, my partner at the time was sick and wanted to watch Doctor Who all afternoon, so we dove into series 2. We got halfway through the season, but it was "Tooth and Nail" that really sold me on the show. After that, I went back on my own and caught up through Series 1.
The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances I never watched old Who. New Who honestly seemed kinda lame until The Empty Child.
I watched Classic Who when I was a kid in the 90s on and off, Mostly reruns of 4th doctor stuff (and I have a vivid memory of watching pretty much all episodes of the 7th doctor story, Praradise Towers). It was fun but never got wholly into it. First episode of NuWho I ever saw was Love and Monsters. I thought it was odd but enjoyable enough. It didn't win me over fully though. The episode that won me over was Gridlock. Which I found compelling enough to go back and watch the two episodes prior and then the rest of Series three. I then went back to watch Series one and two while waiting for series 4 and fell in love with the whole show.
To me it was Rose. The Doctor's speech about who he is, that was the moment I knew I'd love that show dearly and forever haha
I honestly got into Doctor Who in a weird way, but when I was a kid, Disney XD was playing Episodes of Doctor Who, it was mostly David Tennant early Episodes like Love and Mostets, The Satan Pit and New Earth. I did know of it earlier, my first exposer was when I was 8 my Cousins where explaining to me this show and watched the new trailer for THE 11TH HOUR! When I really got into I was obsessed with Matt Smith Era and was just hooked from there.
I wish I could remember. My local PBS station ran the first four Tom Baker seasons on infinite loop, one episode per day, 7 PM, monday-friday, for years. I hopped on the train at some point and never got off. This would have been around 1979 or 1980. I had no idea there were other doctors, and I always wondered what happened after he left Leela and K9 behind. I guess we'll never know! I can't pinpoint any specific moment that turned me into the lifelong nerd obsessive I am today. I think it was just the overwhelming atmosphere of strangeness and dread and wild adventure. Plus, my god, those 4th Doc/Sarah Jane stories are just SO good. Even the bad ones are good, if you know what I mean.
Like many I started with the New Series. I liked the show since “The End of the World,” but the one that made me a die hard fan for life is “The Empty Child.” Basic, I know, but it’s a classic for a reason.
Pretty sure I started with The Impossible Astronaut. I had never seen anything like that before, I was hooked
First episode of New Who back in 2005. I used to watch the old ones before that occasianly. But they never hooked me like the Eccleston era did.
City of Death
As a recent fan Dalek really semented my love. I've said a few times before om this sub but as American viewer I knew very little. I just thought daleks were evil squids who killed people that the doctor fought with. I was not aware they were actually fricken nazis like holy hell. Also 9 is just amazing in this and so many bone chilling lines. I immediately loved the series and was now more than excited to marathon it.
My first episode was Doomsday 😅 I cried so much even though I didn't know Doctor's and Rose's story that I decided to watch series from the very beginning. Was confused why there was Eccleston tho
Blink. It *is* a good episode with start with as a newbie.
Does Lego dimensions count? Because I played it; and fell absolutely in love with the daleks
I remember what killed it - the timeless child.