I was thinking about this the other night, and something @shauny said in another thread reminded me of it, so now I’m just curious. Every episode or audio or book or comic could potentially be a person’s first interaction with the Doctor Who franchise. But what would you say are the worst first stories to show someone who is just starting out?
Now, bear in mind that this isn’t necessarily to do with quality or entertainment value, although that can be part of the reasoning. I’m also thinking in terms of continuity, potential expectations it could create for how the show is normally (e.g. an experimental one-off), or just too confusing to follow in general. It can be a complete story, or just part of one.
TV-wise, I’d go with The Timeless Children because, even though I really like it, it’s also deeply entrenched in series lore and exists to shake up what fans are already familiar with. As for the audios, it’d have to be Zagreus, a story that seems to confuse even experienced fans, let alone newcomers.
Several EDAs books come immediately to mind, particularly The Blue Angel, in which the Doctor’s main role in the plot is to have a child from his leg (and that’s before we even start talking about the off-brand Star Trek)
Very much in agreement, but I really hope there’s someone out there who’s first introduction to Sylvester McCoy/the Seventh Doctor (more or less) was Uncle Winkie
Personally, I’ve always thought it was pretty weird to tell people looking to try Doctor Who to watch Blink. Sure, it’s considered one of the best episodes, but it’s so different to everything else on the show that I really don’t think it’s a good introduction for people looking to find out what Doctor Who is like. And if they do like it and decide to continue, it can give high expectations that might make the rest of the show worse by comparison.
Blink, I can understand to an extent, given that it’s a story about an outsider encountering the Doctor for the first time (possibly mirroring the experience of new viewers). But given the Doctor-lite format, I can also see that giving an off impression of the show as a whole, if they go on to assume that every episode is like that.
Mirroring the comment about Blink, people that suggest introducing a new viewer to Heaven Sent, absolutely sends me (to heaven). Like sure, I think it’s the best episode in the whole series, but that’s kinda like saying someone should be introduced to Breaking Bad by watching the final episode, absolutely insane .
I remember off-handedly mentioning at some point that Heaven Sent could be a good introductory episode because it’s just that damn good and really shows off the Doctor and the Twelfth Doctor specifically… but it’s also incredibly reliant on the awful episodes directly before and after it for the full impact. It could work, but I also wouldn’t be surprised if it wasn’t successful as an introduction.
I guess it a little depends on how much a person already knows about DW, how much they like SFF, if they’re new to audios as a medium, so on and so on. That said, it’s no good introducing someone on say Heaven Sent or Scherzo or Ghost Light because they’re too context reliant and too unusual for the format of the show.
You also don’t want to show them something like Sleep No More or any Nick Briggs 4DAs or Meglos [1] to not put them off forever
I find it really hard to say because people are so different and if someone is really curious about a story I would never discourage them from checking it out. Some people you can in fact just throw in the deep end with Lungbarrow directly.
I probably would say most new who season finales are a bad start though
I agree that most continuity-drenched stories are probably a bad move, but I think it depends on the person. We have at least one person on this website who’s reading the EDAs without having watched any televised Who and that’s just a fantastic a way to do it as any!
I don’t even the most obscure corners of Who are as opaque to newcomers as they appear. I could see myself handing The Blue Angel to someone if I think they’d love it!
I told a friend who’s seen the show but none of the EU about Scherzo and now he desperately wants to listen to it and so I had to tell him with a straight face he’d have to listen to a four hour Lewis Carroll inspired acid trip first.
I never understood this take. I’ve heard variations of it over the years, but I didn’t find the story all that confusing myself. It’s messy, and clearly the result of hasty rewrites, but the character work on Ace, the throwback to Fourth’s Gothic horror tones, and its multi-faceted look at the inevitability of change in the universe; the important stuff still came through, at least to me.
Or maybe this is just all chronic overthink on my part, but I like the story anyway.
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I’m about to throw hands /lh. But you’re right, it’s basically the middle episode of a three parter.
