Returning To The Show As A Viewer

Mikey_Mikey_ Posts: 2,047
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Hi all,

I just have a quick question regarding what I suppose are referred to as "casual viewers."

I fell away from Doctor Who after David Tennant left and Matt Smith took over. I wasn't a massive fan of Smith and didn't really make a point of watching it over the following few years.

My question is: will it be necessary to watch the episodes I missed in order to understand where we are now in the show? I'm interested in seeing how Capaldi plays the role, but will I be left confused since I'm not familiar with Clara as the assistant? Or what has happened in recent series? Would I be left confused as to the major arcs?

Or will it be easy to fall right back in?

Comments

  • KapellmeisterKapellmeister Posts: 41,322
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    Mikey_ wrote: »
    Hi all,

    I just have a quick question regarding what I suppose are referred to as "casual viewers."

    I fell away from Doctor Who after David Tennant left and Matt Smith took over. I wasn't a massive fan of Smith and didn't really make a point of watching it over the following few years.

    My question is: will it be necessary to watch the episodes I missed in order to understand where we are now in the show? I'm interested in seeing how Capaldi plays the role, but will I be left confused since I'm not familiar with Clara as the assistant? Or what has happened in recent series? Would I be left confused as to the major arcs?

    Or will it be easy to fall right back in?

    I think you'll left confused whether you watch the episodes or not. Everyone else is.

    The only thing you might not get is the 'impossible girl' stuff but Smith's last series was so poor I honestly wouldn't recommend you watching it just to get up to speed on that.
  • CorwinCorwin Posts: 16,573
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    There's really only one major plotline that's carried over from the Smith years into this series and that may well be put onto the back burner for this series (just speculation).


    So I don't think you'll have to much of a problem.


    If you want to know what this plotline is all you'll need to watch are two episodes from last year (The Day of the Doctor and The Time of the Doctor).

    There's some recurring characters from the Smith years in Capaldi's first episode but it's not vital to know their past history with the Doctor.
  • smudges dadsmudges dad Posts: 36,989
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    I stopped watching from early Tom Baker and refused to watch the reboot at the time it was originally on. I watched them all when they were repeated and haven't missed one since. I don't think I lost out by missing a few doctors. Anyway, most episodes work as stand alones so it's no problem missing a few.
  • degsyhufcdegsyhufc Posts: 59,251
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    It depends on how much of a casual viewer you are. If you just want 45/60 minutes of scifi entertainment then what do you need to know.

    The Doctor is there. He has an assistant. The usual young good looking girl.
    The daleks with turn up and probably the cybermen.




    It's a shame you didn't ask a month or two back as BBC3 showed the last few epsiodes/specials from the Matt Smith era which would have put a few things into context but you could just as easily read the episode plots on wikipedia or Doctor Who wiki or deicated sites to brush up on things if you wanted to.
  • Joe_ZelJoe_Zel Posts: 20,832
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    I think you'll left confused whether you watch the episodes or not. Everyone else is.

    :D:D:D
  • TheSilentFezTheSilentFez Posts: 11,102
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    Mikey_ wrote: »
    Hi all,

    I just have a quick question regarding what I suppose are referred to as "casual viewers."

    I fell away from Doctor Who after David Tennant left and Matt Smith took over. I wasn't a massive fan of Smith and didn't really make a point of watching it over the following few years.

    My question is: will it be necessary to watch the episodes I missed in order to understand where we are now in the show? I'm interested in seeing how Capaldi plays the role, but will I be left confused since I'm not familiar with Clara as the assistant? Or what has happened in recent series? Would I be left confused as to the major arcs?

    Or will it be easy to fall right back in?

    All you need to know is that in one episode last year, some unspecified woman in as shop gave Clara the Doctor's phone number, and that's how they met. This series we may have an answer as to who that woman was.

    I don't find any of the episodes confusing and I don't understand the complaints that it's too confusing which some people seem to be making so I don't think you'll have any problems following the stories, personally.

    Sometimes Moffat makes references to past episodes which may confuse viewers, but if you ignore them the plot makes perfect sense. An example of this is last night when the episode kept referencing an episode from 2006. You didn't need to know anything about that episode to follow the plot, but the fact that the references were there might give you the impression that you did.

    The reference was only there because the clockwork enemies were relatives of clockwork enemies from a 2006 episode.
    I think you'll left confused whether you watch the episodes or not. Everyone else is.

    Are they? :confused:
  • DiligentDanDiligentDan Posts: 320
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    I only dipped in and out of MS's last season without watching attentatively, and I started to watch Deep Breath on iPlayer last night, and my first immediate thought was:
    "Hold on a second. Victorian London, and there's a Sontaran and a Silurian in there, and nobody is batting an eyelid, as if that's supposed to be completely normal in Victorian London. I don't understand the basic setup here, right from the outset. Do I need to go and buy the DVDs of the last few seasons, and get up to speed with the whole background here?"
    Every now and then, in any long-running TV show (or comic, even) the producers will do a "relaunch" edition or episode, which is designed so that the casual buyer/viewer can start watching from that point, with little to no previous knowledge of any "story arc". With Dr Who, it would seem obvious that a regeneration would be the ideal moment to script a "relaunch" episode, yet "Deep Breath" left me feeling confused right from the opening scene, as if I had bought a book and started reading it from chapter 14. And because I couldn't understand why the Sontaran/Silurian were just "there" with no explanation required in the script, I couldn't follow...what followed. Strewth, there wasn't even a "Previously on Dr Who" recap, which might have put the thing into context.

    I skipped forward and looked at a few different scenes.... I just don't know, the BBC seems to have a very weird concept of "storytelling" these days, all very "right on" and all that. It seems to be more about giving the actors very "cool" one-liners than about actually telling a story.
    Example:
    The Dr: "I'm not your boyfriend"
    Clara: "I never thought you were"
    The Dr: "I didn't say it was your mistake"
    I mean, it sounds really cool and quotable, Oscar Wilde eat your heart out, but what does it even mean? How does it advance the plot, or tell us anything about the characters?
    To be fair, there was one piece of dialogue that I did really like:
    The Dr: "You have to realise that there are things that are more important than your egomania"
    Clara: "NOTHING is more important than my egomania!"
    That's a great one-liner by itself, but even so, you get the feeling that it was thrown into the script merely because it's a great one-liner, not because it advances the characterisation in any meaningful way.
  • SladenSladen Posts: 258
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    Come out! The war is over! (best Dave Allen voice)
  • Sufyaan_KaziSufyaan_Kazi Posts: 3,862
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    Ironically, Deep Breath has a strong connection to David Tennants era (The clockwork droids episode with Madame de Pompadour), so you will fit right in :) I doubt they will reference Matts era or any previous eras much now after the first episode apart from the usual small discreet nods to the past.

    Matt Smiths era was great though, and as mentioned earlier, shoud you be brave enough to dip your toe in (to understand Clara a bit more and why she was so close to Matt), watch, Name of the Doctor, Day of the Doctor and Matts last episode.
  • johnnysaucepnjohnnysaucepn Posts: 6,775
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    You don't need to have seen Girl in the Fireplace, you don't need to get the reference, in order to understand the story.

    You don't need to know why there are a Silurian detective and a Sontaran trooper running around in Victorian London. The opening scene makes it very clear that they are colleagues of the Doctor, that Vastra and Jenny are a married couple and that Strax is the comic relief.

    The woman in the phone shop is probably the only other carry-over that's likely to become relevant, and they pretty much explained everything we know within the episode, so you're not missing anything.
  • CorwinCorwin Posts: 16,573
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    I only dipped in and out of MS's last season without watching attentatively, and I started to watch Deep Breath on iPlayer last night, and my first immediate thought was:
    "Hold on a second. Victorian London, and there's a Sontaran and a Silurian in there, and nobody is batting an eyelid,

    Vastra (the Silurian) and Jenny were established as living in Victorian London back in Series 6 so if Matt's last series (Series 7) was the only one you missed you should still have met them before.

    Strax (the Sontaran) did only join them there in Series 7.
  • doctor blue boxdoctor blue box Posts: 7,203
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    For someone who hadn't seen any of Matt smith's era I would say watch the bell's of saint John just to see first hand the whole 'woman in the shop' comment and the doctors first meeting with the actual Clara he ends up travelling with.

    Other than that, as others have said, day/time of the doctor are good to watch for understanding of a background objective of the doctor and to see his transformation into Capaldi. Day of the doctor is just good to watch just because it's a good episode, especially if you want one last adventure with Tennant's doctor.

    Wouldn't worry about researching the impossible girl stuff, as you'd likely wish you hadn't and as someone else said, be more confused if you did watch that stuff than if you hadn't. Apart from using it as a nickname in episode 1 I think Moffat has realised it was all a bit of a mess and I doubt it will be used much again (here's hoping).Clara's shock at regeneration certainly seems like they are doing the right thing and just forgetting that impossible girl nonsense and actually playing her as a normal companion and hence actually allowing her to have a personality.
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