Hi, folks ๐ When I was deleting my account from the other place I found this post of mine. It seemed a shame to delete it entirely as I imagine a lot of folks will be starting up watches/rewatches in prep for the new series.
Jodie's Doctor is portrayed brilliantly but with some poor writing stopping her from ever truly shining in the role. That said, she does have some standout episodes. There are also some overarching plots too which we're currently unsure if they'll come over to what I'm going to take this opportunity to dub 'New new Who'.
Here is a spoiler-free list of episodes you should watch, and episodes you can skip over:
- The Woman Who Fell to Earth
- The Ghost Monument (An otherwise skippable episode but there is an important scene for the overarching narrative. Here it is on YouTube if you want to skip. You also get to see the new TARDIS interior for the first time too.
- "Spyfall Part 1 and 2 (Return of an important enemy)
- Fugitive of the Judoon
- Ascension of the Cybermen
- The Timeless Children
- Revolution of the Daleks (So so but important if you care about the companions)
- The mini series: The Halloween Apocalypse, War of the Sontarans, Once, Upon Time, Village of the Angels, Survivors of the Flux, The Vanquishers (They're all linked together and none of them are true stinkers. As a whole, they're alright, worth it for the introduction of new companion Dan who you'll see more of later) (You can cut a couple of these, but I'd recommend seeing the whole thing just to see the end of the story).
- The Power of the Doctor (the big pay off to the main narrative, and regeneration scene).
Honourable mentions: Jodie actually had some pretty great episodes outside of the overarching narrative.
- Rosa (A historical!)
- Demons of the Punjab (another one!)
- It Takes You Away
- Resolution (Daleks!)
- Can You Hear Me? (Some great companion story development)
- The Haunting of Villa Diodati (Doctor hangs with Mary Shelly as they are inspired to write Frankenstein. Leads into Ascension of the Cybermen. Episode itself is pretty fun)
- Eve of the Daleks (Many will say skip this one, but I'm a big fan of Time Loop stories. This isn't the best, but it is fun.)
My big problem with 13 is there is rarely a worthwhile payoff. Her last season was building up to this cool thing and then it fissled out like a 30 year old sparkler. As much as I don't blame Jodie I do think they messed up with a lot of her character decisions. From 9-12 you can see aspects of the others and many former doctors. Capaldi especially has a lot of inspiration from former regenerations but 13 rarely tried to tie them together with anything more than a single out of context line. The few tries to connect her to whovian lore always worked too her time with Captain Jack was great m. If they'd just stayed a little more true to Doctor lore and not mucked about with way too many companions and convoluted stories with no pay off it would have been much better. That said I would only ever suggest people watch 13 if they are big fans already. Such a shame since when she gets the chance she can shine as the doctor, they just rarely gave her one.
It's actually not bad to watch 13 if you're not already a fan in my experience. Series 11 was the first I ever watched, and it hooked me in with some of the better episodes (Rosa, Punjab, Takes you away) and Jodie's performance was really engaging for me. The overarching story (Tim Shaw) was not good though.
I since went back and watched all of new who, and 13 is still possibly my second favorite doctor performance after 11 (Ponds only... He got a bit weird in the Clara series).