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The What, Where, And Why of Doctor Who (By A Person Who Has Never Seen It)

By Joe Starr | Lists | February 1, 2016 |

By Joe Starr | Lists | February 1, 2016 |


Well folks, it’s official: Doctor Who has a brand new showrunner. So, this might be the best possible time to jump on board the franchise — a fresh start so that you don’t have to binge from 1945, when the series started.

As such, Pajiba felt it would be super helpful to put together a sort of roadmap to give new and future Whovians a bit of a roadmap to their new favorite nerdy pleasure. The problem is that everyone is super busy writing other stuff, this assignment fell to me.

I have never seen Doctor Who. But I promise to do my best in informing you about the ins and outs of the show, it’s legacy, and it’s fandom based on things I have observed or overheard about it. Here we go.

WHAT IS THIS SHOW

Doctor Who is a modestly budgeted British sci fi show that has been on the air since the First World War. It’s campy, like the Adam West Batman series, but also makes people cry like Firefly. Unlike both of these shows, it is still on the air. If you have friends that watch this show and you ever want to talk to them ever again you probably need to watch it, too.

WHO WATCHES DOCTOR WHO

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Lots of people watch Doctor Who, and I’ve noticed that LOTS of ladies love this franchise. And that’s awesome. More nerdy stuff should be super lady friendly. It would be cool if the show really was lady friendly, too. Like, wouldn’t it be neat if some more ladies got to write it, or direct it?

WHAT IS A DOCTOR WHO

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Doctor Who is about a time traveling alien that is not a medical doctor, nor is his name Who. He is a member of a race called The Timelords and is referred to simply as ‘the Doctor.’ He helps keep the timeline safe and can regenerate into new people, which is a legitimately brilliant way to keep a franchise going. Sometimes he is a crazy old man in a scarf and sometimes he is an adorable human walking stick that makes Tumblr cum its shorts. Lately he is a gruff older man that also makes people cum, but the thing that connects all of the Doctors is that they are always white and always male and this is never allowed to change.

WHAT IS A TARDIS

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The TARDIS is a blue phonebooth that the Doctor uses to travel through time, like a whimsically British Bill and Ted. The TARDIS also transforms into a giant Whocave when you go inside it, and turns into a lady dressed as a TARDIS sometimes.

WHAT IS A COMPANION

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The Companion is the cool girl that helps the Doctor. They are best friends and soulmates and should totally be hooking up but they are just friends, you know? Just two close friends. It is a male friend zone fantasy where the guy has all the power on a show that women rarely get to write. Yay! The most famous companion is Karen Gillan, and I guess we have Who to thank for making her famous enough to get the show Selfie, which was a fantastically perfect show that should not have been canceled.

WHAT IS A SONIC SCREWDRIVER

It’s like a cool magic wand that the Doctor uses. If my dad ever watched this show he would roll his eyes and say ‘yeah but can it check his tire pressure? Joe, you really need to stay on top of tire pressure. It’s 70 percent of car maintenance. When was the last time you had the tires on the Accord rotated?’

WHO ARE THE BAD GUYS

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There are a lot of bad guys on Doctor Who. The ones everyone told me were the coolest are angels that cry. They are angel statues that only move if you don’t look at them. So any time you blink, an angel statue someone bought from the Home Depot garden department gets nudged closer to you by a PA.

There are also THE DALEKS. Back in the old days of Doctor Who, they looked like Plinko machines designed by Nikola Tesla. They are the Doctor’s second biggest nemesis.

The main villain in Doctor Who is Christmas. Every Christmas, some terrible major thing happens to Doctor Who during the Doctor Who Christmas special. Christmas hates time traveling white male aliens, which is weird because, you know, Jesus is one.

WHAT EPISODES SHOULD I WATCH

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Like with any show, Doctor Who has its classics that are must sees for any Who fan. Here are sentences about the ones I recall my friends talking about. Hopefully you can Google these phrases and find the episodes.

The Picaso one: The Doctor visits Pablo Picasso in this one, and makes everyone cry every time they watch it. Also it might not be Picasso. I think it might be Van Gogh. There might be episodes where he visits both of them. So, which ever one of those makes you cry is the correct one.

The one where snow men try to kill him: This is a Christmas one, so it’s like the Wrestlemania Superbowl of Doctor Who. Some snow men try and kill the Doctor, like in Calvin and Hobbes and the doctor turns into a different white male.

The one with all the doctors in it: There’s another cool one with all of the Doctors showing up at once, like a Saved By The Bell reunion or those cool Power Ranger episodes where the originals show up to help the Dino Thunder Ronin Rangers. This one has all of the doctors in it, even though all the doctors are the same doctor, so all of them are himself I guess. How is he not himself?

And there you have it. You now know everything you know to maybe at least survive a conversation about Doctor Who. Next in this series, ‘a helpful survival guide for people who only really remember 6 episodes of The Simpsons.’

Are there Doctor Who things I missed? Did I get any of this right? Let me know in the comments!

Joe Starr is a writer and comedian with an album called Heroic Effort on Bandcamp and a funny book about pro wrestling called Leg Drop at Devastator. He is also writes Honest Trailers. Follow him on Twitter.