Graeme Burk - Whos 50: the 50 Doctor Who Stories to Watch Before You Die

For Dennis and Christine Turner. The best of nerds. And the best of friends.

GB

For Jaymie Maley. Not a nerd, but the best of friends nonetheless.

RS?

Introduction

So what Classic Series Doctor Who should I watch if Ive never seen it before?

What stories would you recommend to people who have never seen Doctor Who?

What Doctor Who stories would you suggest I get on DVD?

These three questions dominated the discussions during launch events, convention panels and in general conversation around the release of our last book, Who Is The Doctor: The Unofficial Guide to Doctor Who The New Series.

Theres good reason for that. With the 50th anniversary of Doctor Who in November 2013, there is interest from Doctor Who fans and a broader group of TV fans in the entirety of the series, not just the very popular post-2005 version.

And why not? Doctor Whos versatile format encompasses horror, science fiction, comedy, action and historical adventure, and the series is loved by millions worldwide for its British wit and clever scripting. With 50 years worth of stories, some of them penned by legendary writers such as Douglas Adams and Neil Gaiman, Doctor Who has a rich heritage worth celebrating.

This book is designed to give an enthusiastic guided tour through the wonderful, incredible, bizarre and radical television experience that is Doctor Who. Its a tour were really excited to give you. As we said in our last book, were here because Doctor Who is the greatest show on television.

We still mean this, by the way. Were still not exaggerating.

Who We Are

This book is a co-authored affair, written by two people with very different experiences. We thought wed give you a quick introduction to each author.

Graeme Burk (GB)

• What do you do? Im a freelance writer and a communications professional. I have a screenplay in development. I love Doctor Who.
• When did you first watch Doctor Who? I remember seeing episode two of The Three Doctors when it first aired in Canada in 1976. I was six. I thought it was strange and the title sequence was super-spooky. But I didnt become a fan until I saw episode two of Pyramids of Mars in 1984 on PBS. A month later, I was trying to watch every episode; three months later, I knew the title, writer and director of every episode. And that was the beginning of the rest of my life...
• Who is your favourite Doctor? Tom Baker. On the days Bakers busy, David Tennant. When Tennants away, Peter Davison. Really, all of them.
• What object of the Doctors would you most like to have? The TARDIS, not just because I could travel anywhere in time and space, but because the police box is awfully cool-looking.
• Tell us something about your co-author.Its more than a question mark at the end of his name. Its a manifesto.
• Describe Doctor Who in five words. Fun. Imaginative. Bold. Adventurous. Secular.

Robert Smith? (RS?)

• What do you do? Im a professor of disease modelling at the University of Ottawa. Im also the worlds leading academic expert on the spread of Bieber Fever. Okay, so Im the only academic expert on the spread of Bieber Fever. I also inadvertently created the academic subdiscipline that is mathematical modelling of zombies. One day, I really should get around to modelling a Dalek invasion...
• When did you first watch Doctor Who? I was five years old and I got hooked by the final episode of The Green Death. I never looked back.
• Who is your favourite Doctor? To paraphrase Boromir from Lord of the Rings: One does not simply have a favourite Doctor. Its like picking a favourite sibling. Really, dont make me choose!
• What object of the Doctors would you most like to have? His sonic screwdriver. Nothing impresses the ladies like being able to repair pretty much anything. No wonder they leap into a tiny cupboard with him at the first opportunity.
• Tell us something about your co-author. He once described himself as the John Lennon to my Paul McCartney. At the time, I thought this was a metaphor. I was wrong.
• Describe Doctor Who in five words. Woo. Eee. Woo. Diddly Dum.

About the Book

In this book, weve picked 50 stories from the 50-year history of Doctor Who that we feel you should watch before you die. All of these stories are readily available on DVD.

Note we said these are stories you should watch. These arent necessarily the best Doctor Who stories of all time, though many weve selected are just that. But other choices are much more idiosyncratic: theyre stories you should watch because they have some curiosity value, or they show something unique about Doctor Who. There are some stories in here that one or the other of us disagrees about their very inclusion. But we think you should watch them, nonetheless.

Why did we take this approach? Because we think the best kind of tour is not one where youre shown only the best and most beautiful things, but one where you wander into odd places and see things that are eclectic and strange and beautiful in their own right. In its 50 years of televised adventures in time and space, Doctor Who has always been an unconventional show; we thought wed do a book that reflected on its history and was just as eccentric as its titular character.

While presenting these 50 stories, we also give you a sense of the history of Doctor Who behind the scenes and the history of British television. Doctor Whos enduring popularity is the result of a lot of talented people, and their stories are often as interesting and intriguing as whats shown on television.

Like Who Is The Doctor, this book is designed both for the newbie who has never seen a pre-2005 story (or indeed any Doctor Who) and for the long-time fan. We hope this book will give the newbie the interest to Netflix a story from an era long ago, and we hope it will give the long-time fan insight into a story they havent thought about for decades.

The Guide

We picked 50 stories (of the nearly 250 that have aired from 1963 to 2013). Like Who Is The Doctor, each of these has a guide entry, which includes the following categories:

The Big Idea A short plot synopsis.

Roots and References These are the sources that either influenced a story or are directly cited in a particular episode, whether literary, film, TV, music or pop-culture references. We track them here.

Time And Relative Dimensions In Space We set the stage, explaining the context for how this particular story came to be made.

Adventures in Time and Space Connections to past episodes of Doctor Who.

Who is the Doctor? New information about the Doctor, including insight into his character.

Companion Chronicles Information about the different companions who appear in these stories.

Monster of the Week Time to wave a tentacle out to the crowd.

Stand Up and Cheer The great moment in this story...