Doctor Who: Why It’s OK to Skip Nine

There have been three words I’ve seen repeated a lot around the Whovian fandom, particularly around fans of the New Series. These words are mainly being aimed at fans who started watching from Tennant, Smith or Capaldi. Those words are of course: “Don’t skip Nine!”

And it’s really starting to bother me.

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Not the words themselves, but, from some corners of the fandom, at least, the attitude that all too often seems to go along with it. Most of the time, it’s just a nice, healthy reminder of how important Christopher Eccleston was to the series, (as this article illustrates,) and that’s brilliant, but there have been times when it’s been taken too far, when it’s been suggested that somehow, fans who started off with or have exclusively watched a later Doctor aren’t fans at all, which is just absurd.

One thing people need to keep in mind is that even in the past 10 years, the show has changed so much that, for better or for worse, it’s a very different show already. In fact, change is the very nature of the show and a key reason why I love watching it so much. But as a result of this, different parts of the show are going to appeal to different people, and many people have widely different perspectives on different eras. So while some may view Series One of the New Series as one of its best series, others can see it as the show still finding its feet. Just as the Classic Series won’t be for all New Series fans, a particular Doctor or his era won’t appeal to all Whovians, either.

But perhaps the most important point of all is something I can’t begin to stress enough: Eccleston’s series is 10 years old. Some of us (including yours truly) were still teenagers back then. But for many, many other fans, there are teenagers now who watched it as infants, and there are even fans of the show who watch it now who weren’t even born 10 years ago. The show is always gaining new fans, with children watching it on TV one Saturday and becoming completely drawn in by it. They don’t worry about the history or the continuity of it (at least, not yet), they just love the show for what it is now. And isn’t that a good thing?

When I first started watching the Classic Series, I watched the stories and Doctors in absolutely any order. Did it make me less of a fan of it that I had initially ‘skipped’ One while watching stories of the Third, Seventh and Fourth Doctors? Of course not, as not only did I eventually watch Hartnell’s stories, but I really enjoyed every story I watched. The same can apply for the New Series – there are plenty of stories that people can enjoy in any order, and you shouldn’t have to worry about more than fifty or even ten years of history to enjoy it.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying Eccleston wasn’t important to the show or didn’t do a brilliant job. In fact, I think he had the toughest job since Troughton took over from Hartnell: both men, for different reasons, had to prove that there was still life in the show, and if they had failed, they more than likely wouldn’t have got the series another season.

But even with that legacy, we shouldn’t condemn fans for jumping in the middle. On the contrary, we should embrace them, let them know just how much more of the show they have to enjoy and, if we’re lucky, let them catch up on the history of the show in their own time. The more we let fans enjoy the show on their own terms and the less elitist we act, the more enjoyable fandom can be for all of us.

Next: Doctor Who Monsters Know the Future of the Doctor

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