Stream Doctor Who With This Easy Timey-Wimey Guide

The Doctor is in! Or at least back on streaming.

BBC

After a hiatus from streaming earlier this year (causing immense withdrawal and confusion for many Whovians), Doctor Who is back on streaming! If you're an Amazon Prime member, you can catch The Doctor and several featurettes. But fair warning - it requires a little bit of work.

Apparently, in the U.S., our bingewatching habits have spoiled us to assume all content comes together. But Doctor Who has several "out of synch" episodes that Amazon has sorted as their own seasons. These include the David Tennant specials, the Christmas specials, and the 50th Anniversary specials. You can find these episodes on Amazon.com, links in IMDB, or within devices such as Roku. Here's a guide to help you binge on The Doctor without wasting too much wibbly, wobbly, timey-wimey stuff.

Pre-Doctor Viewing

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If you’re new to Doctor Who, then I’d recommend watching a couple of the featurettes from the 50th Anniversary to help give you some context. These are optional - you can jump right in. And for those of you already obsessed, these are like getting your own sonic screwdriver.

Search > “Doctor Who 50th Anniversary Collection”

Doctor Who Explained

This feature provides an overall introduction, including interviews with David Tennant, Matt Smith, Steven Moffat, and more. If you haven’t been introduced to many of the classic Doctors, you have a history of the evolution from the original 1963 premiere, with the first doctor played by William Hartnell. This also explains what TARDIS means, why we care about Daleks, and the role of some of our favorite companions.

Revisited: Christopher Eccleston, The Ninth Doctor

If you’re skipping the classic series and starting with what many of us know as the “new” Doctors, you’ll be watching the 2005 revival with Christopher Eccleston taking companion Rose Tyler on adventures across time and space. This short featurette gives a little history and context as to the Ninth Doctor’s place in the revival of the show.

The Ninth Doctor

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Search > “Doctor Who Season 1”

The first episode from this season gives us an introduction of The Doctor from Rose Tyler’s perspective (played by Billie Piper), a clever shop girl who suddenly meets a mad man with a box. This season also introduces the “Bad Wolf” name, something critical and revived throughout the rest of the seasons.

The Tenth Doctor

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Continue streaming or select “Season 201”

If you’ve heard “Ten is my Doctor”, David Tennant is Ten. He has regenerated and continues traveling with Rose. We’re introduced to Cybermen, play with Daleks, and start developing overly emotional attachments to companions.

Continue streaming Seasons 3 and 4

The David Tennant Specials

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Search > “David Tennant Specials”

These are a continuation of season 4 (as evidenced by Amazon’s use of the same description), but they were actually a set of episodes aired in 2009 during a transition year. They’re critically important episodes, though, because we’re reintroduced to The Master (John Simm), as well as a great guest appearance with Bond-man Timothy Dalton. These are also the last episodes before the introduction of the Eleventh Doctor.

The Eleventh Doctor

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Search > “Doctor Who Season 5”

Matt Smith plays the Raggedy Doctor with Amy Pond (Karen Gillan) and Rory Williams (Arthur Darvill). We also learn more about River Song (Alex Kingston), weeping angels, and a double meaning for the wedding saying, “Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue.”

Here’s where things get a bit dodgy, so you can click directly from links in IMDB if you follow the episode guides, or search using this order. The good thing with Rokus and other devices, it will keep the “Christmas Specials” in your Recently Viewed area so you can get back to them.

* After Season 5, go to “Doctor Who Christmas Specials - A Christmas Carol”

* View Season 6

* Then “Doctor Who Christmas Specials - The Doctor, the Widow and The Wardrobe”

* View Season 7 Part 1 (I know, right?)

* “Doctor Who Christmas Specials - The Snowmen”

* View Season 7 Part 2

By this point, we have Clara Oswald (Jenna Coleman) as our new companion, and we’ve been through a lot of trauma with the Silence, spacemen, the Great Intelligence, and more.

Doctor Who 50th Anniversary

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Search > “Doctor Who 50th Anniversary Collection - The Day of the Doctor ”

You’re returning to the Anniversary collection for this special episode. It brings together many favorites from across the series, as well as introduces new characters and villains. John Hurt plays the War Doctor, and David Tennant and Billie Piper return with Matt Smith. It’s a wonderful, epic, and heart-warming episode that really does the anniversary justice.

Before you can head to Season 8, you have to catch one more “Christmas Special - The Time of the Doctor”. This is located in Season 2 of the Christmas Specials, and it’s our farewell to Matt Smith.

The Twelfth Doctor

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Search > “Doctor Who Season 8”

Peter Capaldi (our current Doctor) is rugged, brash, and can pull off playing an electric guitar on a tank. He’s joined with Clara, and the Twelfth is a refreshing departure from Ten and Eleven, but still one of our Doctors. Additionally, we meet a new Master, Missy, played by Michelle Gomez and earning the first BAFTA TV Supporting Actress nomination for Doctor Who.

We have another special before moving to Season 9 - “Doctor Who Christmas Specials - Last Christmas”, featuring Nick Frost playing the man with the bag himself.

Season 9 brings us to current airing (and shows aren’t free anymore). You can find them On Demand, as well as pay on Amazon, iTunes, and more.

Doctor Who Extras

Hal Shinnie /BBC/BBC Worldwide / Via imdb.com

If you can’t get enough of The Doctor, go back through some of the seasons to find fun extras. They’re distributed across regular seasons, as well as the specials. One I would highly recommend is “Doctor Who 50th Anniversary Collection - An Adventure in Space and Time”. This dramatization provides a glimpse at what it took to get Doctor Who off the ground in 1963, right after Kennedy’s assassination. The First Doctor, William Hartnell, is portrayed by David Bradley (we know him as Filch from Harry Potter). It’s a delightful way to come full circle with The Doctor and his stories.

Happy viewing and ALLONS-Y!