I have been a geek pretty much my entire life. I am a geek both at work and at home and am comfortable and, in fact, proud of it. Some examples:
- I have built my own PC
- Built a Linux installation from scratch
- Seen Star Wars, the original, in a theater, eight times
- I always worry about having the right cables available, just in case
- I have more screens in use or at-the-ready than I should at any given time
- I’ve been to Maker Faire
That last one is where this confession is related to.
I have one confession that I fear will lower my geek cred with all that know me:
I’ve never seen Doctor Who.
There, I said it. At Maker Faire, we watched a talk by Adam Savage from MythBusters and at the end, he was coaxed into performing an über-geeky, go-go dance to the Dr. Who theme with ArcAttack! It was a lot of fun but it reminded me of this significant lapse in my geek development.
I know that the show is where the Tardis, Daleks, and the Sonic Screwdriver comes from. I just don’t really know what they are. I’d like to rectify that. The question is how does one start? The original series? The new one? Please comment below and help straighten me out.
Starting with the new series (the Christopher Eccleston season) would be an excellent choice. The new series has been excellently done throughout, and is designed to be watchable without a great deal of history.
Other than that, Netflix has a huge selection of the other doctors, and prior to the new series they tended to be broken up into 3-5 episode self contained story arcs. There are some seasonal arcs, but they are harder to piece together from Netflix due to gaps and lack of chronology in the collection. The Tom Baker episodes are a common favorite, though I also remember enjoying Patrick Troughton.
But I would probably start with the new series, if I were just getting into it today.
HTH,
Devn
Devin-
That was exactly the advice I was hoping to receive. Thank you for helping me correct a most embarrassing error.
OMFGDAVIDTENNANT.
To do it “right,” I guess you need to start with the first season of this run, which is Christopher Eccleston as The Doctor.
Yeah, start there, because you get a good initiation into the world and workings of the show. When David Tennant shows up in the next season, it’s really amazing to watch an actor fill a character, believably, who has the ability to regenerate, but does so with a new body each time.
I think they give your geek credential back after you’ve streamed a season and a half or so. But don’t quote me on that.
Yes! Start with the new series as Gabe and Devin said. Then you can go back and watch some of the streaming stuff on Netflix. They’ve done a really good job with the new series. The old stuff is great to watch – it’s definitely a bit more campy at times and the special effects are cheesy but they didn’t have much of a budget :) When you go back to the old shows start with anything that has the Fourth Doctor (Tom Baker) and avoid the 6th doctor until you have to watch him :)