The premiere of the new season of Doctor Who, featuring Jodie Whittaker as the first female Doctor, was an opportunity for folks unfamiliar with the franchise to start fresh. As someone who has never watched the series, I was always intimidated by the long-running show. When should I start, and with what Doctor? Do I need to go back 13 years to understand what’s going on? Who has that kind of time in this day and age where there is already too much good TV?
Luckily, our good friends at Screen Junkies are here with a new Honest Trailer for the modern Doctor Who series, and ooh it’s a good one. The team had already made an honest trailer for the classic series (which is well worth a watch) but the Doctor Who Modern trailer gives you a hilarious run-down of the series from 2005 to present day. Condensing 13 years of Doctor Who into a ten-minute comedy trailer? Truly the work of a Time Lord.
The trailer begins by calling the BBC “fancy PBS”, which is pretty accurate. It describes the show as a place where “anything can happen, and none of the continuity matters,” and explains that the series’ resurgence in the 2000s was thank to all the nerds who grew up on the classic series being old enough to reboot Who at the BBC. The modern Who is described as “an hour of quirky comedy, improved (?) special effects, and enough soap opera pulp to choke a telanovela.”
The trailer goes on to make fun of the series’ repeated use of the word “paradox”, and describes the Doctor as “a funny man with a time machine who takes ladies on adventures…who is also kind of a dick.” The trailer also pokes fun at the Doctor’s sonic screwdriver and psychic paper, calling them “two devices with the power to speed up the plot.”
Screen Junkies also calls out Doctor Who‘s repeated missions which are mostly confined to the U.K., unless the budget springs for an international location. It also calls out the Doctor’s companions as good looking women who usually end up with their lives ruined, aka “dating without the sex.” They also call David Tennant “the unquestioned master of staring sadly into the middle distance” which is probably one of the most apt descriptions of the most meme-worthy Doctor.
They describe Matt Smith as “combining the face of a handsome 12-year old with the wavy arms of an inflatable tube man” and Capaldi’s Doctor as “your uncle who never got married and moved to Vegas in his 40’s.” The trailer also reminds us that literally every British actor from Harry Potter and Game of Thrones have popped up in the sci-fi series. Sidebar: if a British actor appears in Potter, Thrones, and Doctor Who, do they automatically get knighted? Or at least get their own picturesque little village in the countryside?
What did you think of the Doctor Who Honest Trailer?
(image: Screen Junkies)
Want more stories like this? Become a subscriber and support the site!
—The Mary Sue has a strict comment policy that forbids, but is not limited to, personal insults toward anyone, hate speech, and trolling.—
