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I’ve introduced a number of people to Doctor Who, but more often than not this process has been complicated by the fact that older episodes tend to be shown out of order, or in isolated clumps that make no sense if you’ve seen previous episodes.

Key: an exclamation mark indicates an episode that, regardless of its quality, adds important information to the overall story arc of the series in general. Each episode is marked W (Watch), S (Skip), or A (Avoid.)

Quickest Way In (New!)

If you want to jump in and be up-to-date for the newest episodes with the minimum amount of effort, you should watch:

1. Blink (series 3)
2. Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead (series 4)
3. The Waters of Mars (2009 specials)
4. All episodes marked with a W (watch) in series 5
5. All of series 6

The Russell T. Davies Era (2005—2010)

The original run of Doctor Who had been cancelled in 1989 following declining viewing figures, a general dislike amongst high-level BBC executives, and the fact that many of the stories and production aspects were suffering from a lack of imagination and a strained budget.

The show continued to enjoy a degree of cachet amongst cult television followers, and a surprisingly good 1996 British/American TV movie had been intended as a back-door pilot for a new series. The story, however, proved impenetrable to many viewers unfamiliar with the series’ past, and this combined with lacklustre marketing from Fox led to no additional stories being commissioned.

Attempts to make further films got in the way of attempts by BBC1 controller Peter Salmon to set the ball rolling on creating a new series, tentatively titled Doctor Who 2000, with Queer as Folk creator Russell T. Davies. Eventually, by 2003, Salmon’s successor as controller of BBC1, Lorraine Heggessey, had convinced BBC Worldwide that a new TV series would be a better success than another Doctor Who movie.

Doctor Who under Russell T. Davies as head writer and de facto “showrunner” premièred in March 2005 with Rose, introducing former kiddie-pop star Billie Piper as the titular companion, and Christopher Eccleston as the Ninth Doctor. Due to creative differences between Eccleston and the executive producers, he left the programme at the end of the first series, by which time it had already achieved a massive degree of popularity amongst young and old viewers alike.

With David Tennant of Casanova appointed as Eccleston’s replacement, Doctor Who went from strength to strength, re-igniting public interest in the franchise and even making a dent on the American sci-fi market (albeit not achieving the mainstream popularity it enjoys in the UK.) Tennant and Davies eventually left together after the season of extended “specials” in 2009, which marked the transition to a new production team and the first time Doctor Who was filmed in HD.

The Russell T. Davies (RTD or Rusty) era was marked by unashamedly large-scale plots, often with the fate of an entire planet, race or the whole Universe in the Doctor’s hands. Davies’s stories were also unashamedly character-driven, sometimes arguably at the expense of a plot that made sense. On the plus side, the stories were highly populist, and the production design, aided by advances in computer-generated imagery, showered the audience with an orgy of realistic worlds, warm colours and distinctly less laughable monsters. Davies’s era also introduced Murray Gold as the composer who would provide incidental music and the arrangement of the Doctor Who theme for the titles, and this is a position Gold holds to this day.

The Steven Moffat Era (2010—date)

Steven Moffat took over the role of head writer from Russell T Davies with the first episode of Series 5, The Eleventh Hour. Moffat’s era has, so far, been dominated by a heavy reliance on “puzzle-box” style stories. The storytelling style has evolved from Davies’s loose story arcs to a tightly-woven “master plan” with critical details being spread over multiple episodes: a style that has, to all intents and purposes, succeeded thanks to the availability of the iPlayer, making it easier for casual viewers to catch up on missed episodes.

Matt Smith’s quixotic, bewitching Doctor is joined by Amy Pond, and her boyfriend (later husband) Rory Williams. The mysterious River Song, who first appeared in Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead, becomes a recurring character.