Love and Liberty: Doctor Who Playlists – How Doctor Who and Self-Isolation Can Inspire Completely Sensible Plans (ish)

Do you want to watch some Doctor Who? Aliens from the past; wonders from the future; all of time and space. It’s the trip of a lifetime…

But where to start? Which Doctors? What style? Monsters, villains, scary horror? Wit, weirdness, wild ideas? Adventures in history, alien worlds, a bit of politics? Or sheer fun?

On the off-chance that to start at the beginning and watch all 296 stories in order is a little daunting, I’ve made a self-isolation playlist for you to dip in and out of different Doctors and experience the show’s variety much more quickly. Intrigued? Read on.

The Thirteenish Doctors – fourteen shown here (of many more)

I’m not going to explain who or what Doctor Who is this time – I’ve done that before (here’s my So Who is The Doctor Anyway? All You Need To Know About Doctor Who if you want that) and, besides, it’s all becoming more complicated. For now, the Doctor is a traveller in time and space who goes anywhere, from Earth’s past, present and future to alien worlds and stranger places still. The Doctor respects life rather than authority, obeys no-one else’s rules but has a clear moral sense, preferring to use intelligence rather than violence, and takes joy in taking friends to explore the wonders of the Universe.

If you’re stuck at home and want to watch some Doctor Who for a week or three, with more than half a century’s-worth – what you need is a playlist, a ‘box set’. Here’s one (and more) I prepared earlier to make it easy. Almost as importantly, one of the things that’s made Doctor Who last so long is variety – if you don’t like one story, something completely different will probably be along in a couple of weeks; if you don’t like one Doctor or creative team, something completely different will probably be along in a couple of years. I just speed that up a bit by suggesting a list that leaps all over the place. A binge-watching buffet! Here goes…

53 Doctor Who Stories For a Week or Three

1 Robot (Tom Baker, 1974-5)
2 An Unearthly Child (William Hartnell, 1963)
3 Rose (Christopher Eccleston, 2005)
4 Ghost Light (Sylvester McCoy, 1989)
5 Genesis of the Daleks (Tom Baker, 1975)
6 Last Christmas (Peter Capaldi, 2014)
7 The Rescue (William Hartnell, 1965)
8 The End of the World (Christopher Eccleston, 2005)
9 The War Games (Patrick Troughton, 1969)
10 Utopia / The Sound of Drums / Last of the Time Lords (David Tennant, 2007)
11 The Day of the Doctor (Matt Smith, David Tennant and John Hurt with…, 2013)
12 Carnival of Monsters (Jon Pertwee, 1973)
13 Vengeance on Varos (Colin Baker, 1985)
14 Paradise Towers (Sylvester McCoy, 1987)
15 Boom Town (Christopher Eccleston, 2005)
16 The Caves of Androzani (Peter Davison with…, 1984)
17 The Enemy of the World (Patrick Troughton, 1967-8)
18 Doctor Who and the Silurians (Jon Pertwee, 1970)
19 Kill the Moon (Peter Capaldi, 2014)
20 The Talons of Weng-Chiang (Tom Baker, 1977)
21 The Crimson Horror (Matt Smith, 2013)
22 Kinda (Peter Davison, 1982)
23 The Curse of Fenric (Sylvester McCoy, 1989)
24 The Dæmons (Jon Pertwee, 1971)
25 Pyramids of Mars (Tom Baker, 1975)
26 The Tomb of the Cybermen (Patrick Troughton, 1967)
27 The Daleks (William Hartnell, 1963-4)
28 Planet of Evil (Tom Baker, 1975)
29 The Trial of a Time Lord (Colin Baker with…, 1986)
30 Amy’s Choice (Matt Smith with…, 2010)
31 The Aztecs (William Hartnell, 1964)
32 The Fires of Pompeii (David Tennant, 2008)
33 Enlightenment (Peter Davison, 1983)
34 City of Death (Tom Baker, 1979)
35 The Zygon Invasion / The Zygon Inversion (Peter Capaldi, 2015)
36 The Happiness Patrol (Sylvester McCoy, 1988)
37 The Androids of Tara (Tom Baker, 1978)
38 Human Nature / The Family of Blood (David Tennant, 2007)
39 The Doctor’s Wife (Matt Smith, 2011)
40 Doctor Who (The TV Movie) (Paul McGann with Sylvester McCoy, 1996)
41 Dark Water / Death In Heaven (Peter Capaldi, 2014)
42 Logopolis (Tom Baker with…, 1981)
43 Revelation of the Daleks (Colin Baker, 1985)
44 Bad Wolf / The Parting of the Ways (Christopher Eccleston with…, 2005)
45 Earthshock (Peter Davison, 1982)
46 Remembrance of the Daleks (Sylvester McCoy, 1988)
47 The Dalek Invasion of Earth (William Hartnell, 1964)
48 Spearhead From Space (Jon Pertwee, 1970)
49 Love & Monsters (David Tennant, 2006)
50 The Mind Robber (Patrick Troughton, 1968)
51 Survival (Sylvester McCoy, 1989)
52 The Girl Who Died (Peter Capaldi, 2015)
53 The Deadly Assassin (Tom Baker, 1976)

The TARDIS flies through the time vortex

I’ve identified each story by the actor playing the Doctor because names are easier to read than a blizzard of numbers (even for media where the actor wasn’t directly involved). And because numbers get increasingly complicated…

Why 53 Stories?

Well, it’s a lot more manageable than nearly 300 so far, isn’t it? If you have to self-isolate for a month, you can probably manage a couple a day.

The original idea was inspired by Doctor Who’s 52nd anniversary (November 23rd, 2015). It’s an important and popular fact that there are 52 weeks in a year, which seemingly leads to 52 stories. I picked one Doctor Who story for every week – then, if you start with a story at the beginning of your first week and finish with one at the end of your last week, you’ll watch 53 stories in a year. There’s another reason, too, which will make you groan. So keep reading!

Why This Sequence?

Variety. And the odd pattern. The main thing you’ll notice as you watch is that I’ve grouped stories thematically – so the first three, for example, are introductions to the series, then three for Christmas (ish. Enjoy the Nativity). I’ll leave the rest for you to work out, and to see if you can guess how each story links in turn to the next, because some of them even I can’t quite remember.

Many other fans have picked their own essential to-watch choices. Most such Doctor Who playlists I’ve seen select stories in chronological order; others in order of preference. I wanted a list that offered a lot more of a mix than that. So I jump around as many Doctors as possible (with a few for each) and choose different types of adventure to keep you interested. I’m not writing a history of Doctor Who, but trying to tempt and divert you with a constantly changing assortment. They’re not my own ‘top 53’, either – almost all the list are stories I like, but to stick to only my own preferences might have been too narrow. Besides, you wouldn’t believe how agonisingly long it took me to cut it down from well over a hundred. I love a lot of Doctor Who.

You can watch anything at any time, but just to give you an idea, my original ‘year’ of weekly Doctor Who didn’t begin in January. If you were to start watching as I’d initially planned on Doctor Who’s birthday of November 23rd and, at one a week, finish on November 20th, that would be the anniversary of the final episode of The Deadly Assassin. But that’s not the real reason it closes the box set – it’s because it’s my favourite story, so I made it the climax. And also because, if I’d kept to my original plan and blogged one story a week, readers would’ve expected it to stop at 52 and then been surprised. The Deadly Assassin has the line “A mere 53 storeys high”.

I told you you’d groan.

Why No Jodie Whittaker?

Only time. I constructed this list in 2015. The antepenultimate story in the sequence is Survival, which was the last story broadcast in Doctor Who’s original 26-year run, then the penultimate story was chosen to be from the latest Doctor Who: it fitted at the time that The Girl Who Died was both part of the most recent season and that, like Survival, it pointedly says, ‘So, is this the end…? No! The story continues.’

First time round, it took me weeks of putting stories in and taking them out to settle on the original list. When I opened the file again this week, I found that even between starting publishing weekly choices and tailing off I’d definitely, probably, decided that I had to include The Curse of Peladon (1972) and The Robots of Death (1977) too. But I’d been completely unable to decide which two stories to cut out (try watching Peladon as about 7b and Robots about 28b if you feel like it). So the thought of weeks of indecision as I tried to rejig the whole thing and cut out half a dozen stories so as to include the current Doctor filled me with horror. It would never get done.

Yet she is the Doctor, she’s brilliant and I don’t want to leave her out, so here, for a start, are half a dozen particularly interesting stories you might watch for the current and Thirteenth* (*you wonder why I didn’t number them) Doctor:

Spyfall Part One / Spyfall Part Two
Rosa
Fugitive of the Judoon
Demons of the Punjab
The Woman Who Fell To Earth
The Haunting of Villa Diodati / Ascension of the Cybermen / The Timeless Children

Jodie Whittaker’s Doctor legs it from the TARDIS

Then I spent a couple of days making a different list to do Jodie justice after all, which you’ll find if you scroll down.

I also recommend Gatecrashers, Joy Wilkinson’s Thirteenth Doctor short story which opens last year’s anthology Doctor Who – The Target Storybook (and which is probably my favourite in there). I love Doctor Who in other media, too…

Half A Dozen Stories I Actually Published Reasons To Watch (plus another five. WTF?)

Ten Reasons to Watch Robot

Five Reasons to Read Doctor Who and the Cybermen

Ten Reasons to Watch An Unearthly Child

Five Reasons to Read Doctor Who In An Exciting Adventure With the Daleks

Five Reasons to Watch The Trip of a Lifetime Trailer

Ten Reasons to Watch Rose

Five Reasons to Read Doctor Who and the Auton Invasion

Ten Reasons to Watch Ghost Light

Five Reasons to Listen To Home Truths

Ten Reasons to Watch Last Christmas

Ten Reasons to Watch The Rescue

If you just read one, try the Ten Reasons… for Rose. That’s one of my better (and more heartfelt) pieces of writing.

Anyway… My original idea was to write about one Doctor Who story every week, giving ten reasons to watch each in turn. What could possibly go wrong? Several mental and physical health catastrophes played a fairly major part in bringing my writing to a grinding halt, but I also have an unerring ability to overcomplicate things.

I’d deliberately chosen 53 stories that were broadcast on TV and which still exist – the most accessible form of Doctor Who. But why not, I thought, make it up to a full hundred by also fitting in and around them many other forms of Doctor Who that I love just as much? Novelisations, novels, audio dramas, comic strips, even a trailer (by far the shortest choice in here). And a few are even brilliant Doctor Who stories the BBC transmitted in the 1960s and then burnt (yes, I know), all of which survive as soundtracks recorded at home, some of which have some surviving episodes, and others which have since been animated to give them a new lease of life.

Obviously adding this extra layer of work was a brilliant ploy to make absolutely sure my schedule would come crashing down.

But if Doctor Who on television alone isn’t enough for you, either – and why should it be? – then here is the expanded list on the same themes.

53 Doctor Who TV Stories plus 47 More Complicated Choices To Experience

1 Robot (Tom Baker, 1974-5)
A Doctor Who and the Cybermen (book, Patrick Troughton, 1975)
2 An Unearthly Child (William Hartnell, 1963)
B Doctor Who in an Exciting Adventure With the Daleks (book, William Hartnell, 1964)
C Doctor Who – Series One Trailer: The Trip of a Lifetime (TV, Christopher Eccleston, 2005)
3 Rose (Christopher Eccleston, 2005)
D Doctor Who and the Auton Invasion (book, Jon Pertwee, 1974)
4 Ghost Light (Sylvester McCoy, 1989)
E Doctor Who – Home Truths (audio, William Hartnell, 2008)
5 Genesis of the Daleks (Tom Baker, 1975)
6 Last Christmas (Peter Capaldi, 2014)
F Doctor Who – Tales of Trenzalore (book, Matt Smith, 2014)
7 The Rescue (William Hartnell, 1965)
8 The End of the World (Christopher Eccleston, 2005)
G Doctor Who – Alien Bodies (book, Paul McGann, 1997)
9 The War Games (Patrick Troughton, 1969)
H Doctor Who and the Two Doctors (book, Colin Baker with Patrick Troughton, 1985)
10 Utopia / The Sound of Drums / Last of the Time Lords (David Tennant, 2007)
J The Night of the Doctor (TV, Paul McGann with…, 2013)
K Faction Paradox – The Book of the War (book, Time War…?, 2002)
11 The Day of the Doctor (Matt Smith, David Tennant and John Hurt with…, 2013)
L Doctor Who – The War Doctor 2: Infernal Devices (audio, John Hurt, 2016)
12 Carnival of Monsters (Jon Pertwee, 1973)
13 Vengeance on Varos (Colin Baker, 1985)
14 Paradise Towers (Sylvester McCoy, 1987)
M Doctor Who and the Creature From the Pit (book, Tom Baker, 1981)
15 Boom Town (Christopher Eccleston, 2005)
16 The Caves of Androzani (Peter Davison with…, 1984)
17 The Enemy of the World (Patrick Troughton, 1967-8)
N Daleks – Invasion Earth 2150AD (Film, Peter Cushing, 1966)
18 Doctor Who and the Silurians (Jon Pertwee, 1970)
19 Kill the Moon (Peter Capaldi, 2014)
P Doctor Who: The New Adventures – Damaged Goods (book, Sylvester McCoy, 1996)
Q Doctor Who and the Ark In Space (book, Tom Baker, 1977)
20 The Talons of Weng-Chiang (Tom Baker, 1977)
R Jago & Litefoot Series 1 (audio, Christopher Benjamin & Trevor Baxter, 2010)

(Cheat and start with Doctor Who – The Mahogany Murderers)

S Doctor Who: The New Adventures – All-Consuming Fire (book, Sylvester McCoy, 1994)
21 The Crimson Horror (Matt Smith, 2013)
T Doctor Who – The Tides of Time (graphic novel, Peter Davison, 1982 / 2005)
T/A TV21 – The Dalek Chronicles (comic strip, the Daleks, 1965-7 / collected 1994)
U The Sarah Jane Adventures – The Mad Woman in the Attic (TV, Elisabeth Sladen, 2009)
22 Kinda (Peter Davison, 1982)
V The Daleks’ Master Plan (TV [3 episodes + 9 soundtrack], William Hartnell, 1965-66)
23 The Curse of Fenric (Sylvester McCoy, 1989)
24 The Dæmons (Jon Pertwee, 1971)
W Doctor Who – The Shadows of Avalon (book, Paul McGann, 2000)
X Doctor Who – The Holy Terror (audio, Colin Baker, 2000)
25 Pyramids of Mars (Tom Baker, 1975)
Y Doctor Who – Fallen Gods (book, Paul McGann, 2003)
Z Doctor Who: The Novel Adaptations – Love and War (audio, Sylvester McCoy, 2012)
26 The Tomb of the Cybermen (Patrick Troughton, 1967)
AA Doctor Who – The Eye of Torment (graphic novel, Peter Capaldi, 2015)
27 The Daleks (William Hartnell, 1963-4)
BB Doctor Who: The New Adventures – The Also People (book, Sylvester McCoy, 1995)
CC Doctor Who: The Missing Adventures – Venusian Lullaby (book, William Hartnell, 1994)
28 Planet of Evil (Tom Baker, 1975)
DD The Tenth Planet (TV [3 episodes + 1 animated], William Hartnell, 1966)
29 The Trial of a Time Lord (Colin Baker with…, 1986)
30 Amy’s Choice (Matt Smith with…, 2010)
31 The Aztecs (William Hartnell, 1964)
EE Doctor Who: The New Adventures – Lucifer Rising (book, Sylvester McCoy, 1993)
32 The Fires of Pompeii (David Tennant, 2008)
FF Doctor Who – The Iron Legion (graphic novel, Tom Baker, 1979-1980 / 2004)
GG Doctor Who – The Pirate Loop (book, David Tennant, 2007)
33 Enlightenment (Peter Davison, 1983)
HH Doctor Who – The Stones of Venice (audio, Paul McGann, 2001)
34 City of Death (Tom Baker, 1979)
35 The Zygon Invasion / The Zygon Inversion (Peter Capaldi, 2015)
JJ The Macra Terror (TV [4 animated], Patrick Troughton, 1967)
36 The Happiness Patrol (Sylvester McCoy, 1988)
KK Doctor Who and the Cave-Monsters (book, Jon Pertwee, 1974)
37 The Androids of Tara (Tom Baker, 1978)
LL The Evil of the Daleks (TV [1 episode + 6 soundtrack], Patrick Troughton, 1967)
38 Human Nature / The Family of Blood (David Tennant, 2007)
MM Doctor Who and the Time Warrior (book, Jon Pertwee, 1978)
39 The Doctor’s Wife (Matt Smith, 2011)
NN Doctor Who: The New Adventures – Lungbarrow (book, Sylvester McCoy with…, 1997)
40 Doctor Who (The TV Movie) (Paul McGann with Sylvester McCoy, 1996)
41 Dark Water / Death In Heaven (Peter Capaldi, 2014)
OO Doctor Who and the Doomsday Weapon (book, Jon Pertwee, 1974)
42 Logopolis (Tom Baker with…, 1981)
PP Doctor Who – Castrovalva (book, Peter Davison, 1983)
QQ The Sarah Jane Adventures – Death of the Doctor (TV, Elisabeth Sladen with Matt Smith, 2010)
43 Revelation of the Daleks (Colin Baker, 1985)
RR Torchwood – They Keep Killing Suzie (TV, John Barrowman, 2006)
SS Doctor Who – The Stealers of Dreams (book, Christopher Eccleston, 2005)
44 Bad Wolf / The Parting of the Ways (Christopher Eccleston with…, 2005)
TT Doctor Who – Jubilee (audio, Colin Baker, 2003)
45 Earthshock (Peter Davison, 1982)
46 Remembrance of the Daleks (Sylvester McCoy, 1988)
UU Doctor Who – Remembrance of the Daleks (book, Sylvester McCoy, 1990)
47 The Dalek Invasion of Earth (William Hartnell, 1964)
48 Spearhead From Space (Jon Pertwee, 1970)
VV The Invasion (TV [6 episodes + 2 animated], Patrick Troughton, 1968)
49 Love & Monsters (David Tennant, 2006)
WW Doctor Who: The New Adventures – Happy Endings (book, Sylvester McCoy, 1996)
50 The Mind Robber (Patrick Troughton, 1968)
51 Survival (Sylvester McCoy, 1989)
52 The Girl Who Died (Peter Capaldi, 2015)
53 The Deadly Assassin (Tom Baker, 1976)

Doctor Who: The New Adventures covers montage

I hope that whets your appetite. Or makes you binge. One thing that especially delights me is that, since I made this list four and a half years ago, The Macra Terror has changed from being just a soundtrack with a few surviving pictures and film clips to a full animation, making one of my favourite stories very much easier to watch (and, on the Steelbook, you get the almost as marvellous Gridlock as a bonus). You might also realise that there are four there in dual formats, but they’re probably the best Target books and great television too (can you guess which one I think is even better on TV than on the page?).

This monster of strange diversity is my favourite list. Of course it is. It’s just a little bit too much, but I love Doctor Who more than a little too much. But if you want something less absurd, I have one more list of 53 to go. And it’s free!

This is the easiest to watch (at least, if you’re in the UK). I took the 21st Century TV stories I’d already chosen above and took the last two days adding more to make them up to a full 53 (well, mostly adding too many then cutting them back) and trying to make the order interesting – starting, again, with adventures that make the best introductions, and finishing, again, with the very latest and then my favourite. But what makes this the simplest to watch is that every single story is on BBC iPlayer, officially, for free, so all you need do is sit on your sofa and click.

Doctor Who – The iPlayer Menu

1 Rose (Christopher Eccleston, 2005)
2 The Woman Who Fell To Earth (Jodie Whittaker, 2018)
3 Smith and Jones (David Tennant, 2007)
4 The Eleventh Hour (Matt Smith, 2010)
5 Dalek (Christopher Eccleston, 2005)
6 The Christmas Invasion (David Tennant, 2005)
7 The Husbands of River Song (Peter Capaldi, 2015)
8 Last Christmas (Peter Capaldi, 2014)
9 The Unquiet Dead (Christopher Eccleston, 2005)
10 The Witchfinders (Jodie Whittaker, 2018)
11 The Crimson Horror (Matt Smith, 2013)
12 Nikola Tesla’s Night of Terror (Jodie Whittaker, 2020)
13 Thin Ice (Peter Capaldi, 2017)
14 Partners In Crime (David Tennant, 2008)
15 Time Heist (Peter Capaldi, 2014)
16 The End of the World (Christopher Eccleston, 2005)
17 Utopia / The Sound of Drums / Last of the Time Lords (David Tennant, 2007)
18 The Name of the Doctor (Matt Smith with…, 2013)
19 The Night of the Doctor (Paul McGann with…, 2013)
20 The Day of the Doctor (Matt Smith, David Tennant and John Hurt with…, 2013)
21 Spyfall Part One / Spyfall Part Two (Jodie Whittaker, 2020)
22 Fugitive of the Judoon (Jodie Whittaker with…, 2020)
23 Kill the Moon (Peter Capaldi, 2014)
24 Amy’s Choice (Matt Smith with…, 2010)
25 The Girl Who Died (Peter Capaldi, 2015)
26 Father’s Day (Christopher Eccleston, 2005)
27 Vincent and the Doctor (Matt Smith, 2010)
28 The Fires of Pompeii (David Tennant, 2008)
29 Rosa (Jodie Whittaker, 2018)
30 The Zygon Invasion / The Zygon Inversion (Peter Capaldi, 2015)
31 The Empty Child / The Doctor Dances (Christopher Eccleston, 2005)
32 Gridlock (David Tennant, 2007)
33 Praxeus (Jodie Whittaker, 2020)
34 The Doctor’s Wife (Matt Smith, 2011)
35 The Magician’s Apprentice / The Witch’s Familiar (Peter Capaldi, 2015)
36 Blink (David Tennant, 2007)
37 Midnight (David Tennant, 2008)
38 The Vampires of Venice (Matt Smith, 2010)
39 The Eaters of Light (Peter Capaldi, 2017)
40 Demons of the Punjab (Jodie Whittaker, 2018)
41 The Impossible Planet / The Satan Pit (David Tennant, 2006)
42 It Takes You Away (Jodie Whittaker, 2018)
43 Aliens of London / World War Three (Christopher Eccleston, 2005)
44 Boom Town (Christopher Eccleston, 2005)
45 Dark Water / Death In Heaven (Peter Capaldi, 2014)
46 World Enough and Time / The Doctor Falls (Peter Capaldi with…, 2017)
47 Army of Ghosts / Doomsday (David Tennant, 2006)
48 Bad Wolf / The Parting of the Ways (Christopher Eccleston with…, 2005)
49 Resolution (Jodie Whittaker, 2019)
50 Love & Monsters (David Tennant, 2006)
51 The Rebel Flesh / The Almost People (Matt Smith, 2011)
52 The Haunting of Villa Diodati / Ascension of the Cybermen / The Timeless Children (Jodie Whittaker with…, 2020)
53 Human Nature / The Family of Blood (David Tennant, 2007)

Daleks! Flying through a space battle blazing fire, huge Dalek saucers looming behind and the TARDIS whirling forward

Doctor Who – The Classic Buffet

Having spent two days working out a ‘new Who’ list I thought, well, why not do the same for ‘classic Who’? So I made a shortlist of the stories that weren’t on the original list but were absolutely necessary, counted them up, realised that 57 extra stories would be just a few too many to fit into the slots left by taking 17 from 53, hummed and hawed, tried making a shorter short list, and decided that the only way to cut the list short was to stop immediately or I would never, ever, finish and publish.

Sorry.

Oh, Go On, Then: The Extras

Half a dozen brilliant Doctor Who box sets on Blu-ray if you want to watch sequentially after all

Season Fourteen (Tom Baker, 1976-7, out shortly)
Season Twelve (Tom Baker, 1974-5)
Series One [Season Twenty-Seven] (Christopher Eccleston, 2005)
Season Twenty-Six (Sylvester McCoy, 1989)
Season Eighteen (Tom Baker, 1980-1)
Series Twelve [Season Thirty-Eight] (Jodie Whittaker, 2020)

Doctor Who 2020 highlights – Jodie Whittaker (the Doctor), Jo Martin (the Doctor), Sacha Dhawan (the Master), John Barrowman (Captain Jack)

I’ll make a confession. Had I written my Ten Reasons To Watch Logopolis as planned, then six of the reasons (well, five, at least) would have been the other stories in Season Eighteen, because it’s not just a superb collection of stories but Doctor Who’s most thematically consistent season, and I’d encourage you to watch them as well. Logopolis is at its best as the summation and explosion of those, the finale to the concept album. So now you can add some more stories to the lists above after all.

Even More Doctor Who from Big Finish

While the unfolding story of Doctor Who continues to expand on TV every year or two, Doctor Who on audio is growing at a far faster rate. Another confession: there’s so much of it, and I’m so often not up to enjoying things, that I’m way, way behind with Big Finish’s Doctor Who productions, but in the last couple of years I’ve made an effort to catch up with at least some of them. So I’ve listened to quite a lot of their Sylvester McCoy adventures, Lost Stories, other Doctors (and Masters) in the Time War, and a few of their series starring other characters such as Jago & Litefoot, the Counter-Measures team and River Song, many of all of which are terrific. If you get a taste for them, here are an extra half a dozen:

Doctor Who – The Trouble With Drax (Tom Baker)
Doctor Who: The Lost Stories – Paradise 5 (Colin Baker)
Doctor Who: The Lost Stories – The Elite (Peter Davison; good one for novices)
Doctor Who: The Novel Adaptations – Cold Fusion (Peter Davison and Sylvester McCoy)
Doctor Who: The Novel Adaptations – Damaged Goods (Sylvester McCoy)
Doctor Who: Ravenous 2 – Better Watch Out / Fairytale of Salzburg (Paul McGann for Christmas)

I love particularly two of their ongoing teams alongside Sylvester McCoy:
With Ace and Hex, starting with The Harvest (set in 2021, so almost now) and reaching a peak with A Death in the Family;
With a very different companion in Klein, for whom I’d recommend the trilogy of four A Thousand Tiny Wings, Klein’s Story, Survival of the Fittest and The Architects of History, as well as UNIT: Dominion, where Klein’s not the only character not to be who you expect.

It’s hard to choose just one of their Master stories, because so many of them are so good (well, not good, exactly, but…). I’d rush to listen to any Derek Jacobi, because he gets to do so much more on audio and is not just amazing in the part but delightful (and disturbing) in the added interviews. Or Michelle Gomez, for much the same reasons.
Perhaps the best choice is The Diary of River Song Volume Five – the stories are excellent, and you get four superb Masters to play with (despite no Alex Macqueen). Next year they unleash Masterful, or The Eight Masters (without Sacha Dhawan as yet, though as he’s done other roles for them and clearly adores being utterly fantastic in the part, surely he will before long).
The Diary of River Song Volume One – Signs is another favourite for Sam West (which reminds me: he’s fabulous as an entire family in Serpent in the Silver Mask).

Also on audio – and on the page, which is marvellous, but read by Tom Baker with charisma and ad-libs is more marvellous still:

Doctor Who – Scratchman

Terrance Dicks

Doctor Who’s most prolific novelist died last year. I noticed with a bit of a pang that, though I started my list with the TV story he wrote that got me into Doctor Who in the first place, in my determination for variety I’d only chosen two of his books for the expanded version. So here, as is now traditional, are an extra half a dozen. All are good reads, and the first has the greatest opening line in Doctor Who:

Doctor Who and the Dalek Invasion of Earth (William Hartnell)
Doctor Who and the Abominable Snowmen (Patrick Troughton)
Doctor Who and the Terror of the Autons (Jon Pertwee)
Doctor Who and the Pyramids of Mars (Tom Baker)
Doctor Who: The New Adventures – Timewyrm: Exodus (Sylvester McCoy)
Doctor Who – Made of Steel (David Tennant)

A Dalek on Westminster Bridge, aiming its gun-stick at us, the Houses of Parliament behind

I Hope You Enjoyed All That

Well, some of it, at least.

Did you find a list that was to your taste? If they were all too intimidating, just pick any story, from any list, and give it a go.

Very little me watched Robot quite by accident, forty-five years ago, and I had no idea what I was getting into. Thanks to that experience, I’m still into it.

Irritatingly, Blogger won’t upload any new photos from my PC right now. After ages of fiddling last night, I managed to upload some from my phone. This morning, it’s as if Blogger spotted the functionality and won’t let me do even that now. It’s really not helping me get back into blogging after so long away, however determined.

I also couldn’t find a way to space out the credits from the titles above, so they look rather cramped and a bit of a mess. But I took some screenshots from my draft and pasted them in from my phone at about 2am. That’s only one of the reasons I’m very knackered. As an experiment, the lists pasted as images below may be easier to read for some; if you’re partially sighted and are using some form of text reader, the lists above have identical content as the versions below.