2021 science fiction comedy, 10 episodes. The Cerritos continues to do all of Starfleet's trivial and boring jobs (and they continue to be surprisingly dangerous).
2020 science fiction comedy, 10 episodes. On the USS Cerritos, the bridge crew think they're the stars of the show, but we follow the ensigns as they go about their daily grind (plus adventure).
2017 science fiction, 10 episodes. Kirsten Clark continues to have her consciousness inserted into the minds of the recently-dead.
2019 thriller, 12 episodes. An antiquities expert and an art thief work together to catch a terrorist who funds his activities through the sale of ancient artefacts.
2017 science fiction, 10 episodes. The space bounty hunters rapidly shift into preparations for all-out war.
2019 science fantasy, 8 episodes, Star Wars tie-in. After the fall of the Empire, there's still work for bounty hunters.
2018-2019 fantasy comedy, 13 episodes. The afterlife's experiments with ethics and moral philosophy continue.
2019 action comedy drama, 13 episodes. A motley group of rough men (and women) run around saving the world while trying to get in touch with their feelings.
2017 post-apocalyptic science fiction, ten episodes. The virus that nearly wiped out humanity has mutated into a crop-destroying plague.
2018 mystery show, 10 episodes. Frankie Drake and Trudy Clarke continue to be private detectives in 1920s Toronto.
The revived show continues, with a shorter six-episode season.
2017 SF, 10 episodes. The civilisation-ending plague was just part of the bigger plot, and nobody's loyalties are clear even before time travel comes into the picture.
2016 science fiction, 13 episodes. The motley crew of the Raza continues to try to stay alive, and maybe even do something worthwhile.
2017 superhero-related, 8 episodes. David Haller is schizophrenic, or so everybody tells him; but maybe that's what having world-shaking superpowers does for you.
Chibnall continues to do far more than his share of the writing, but manages a thing that hasn't happened for a while: an end-of-year special with an actual story, rather than a sequence of scenes showing off how cool the protagonists are.
The season ends not with a bang but with a "to be continued". And that's not a bad thing.
Doctor Who presents: Nightmare in Norway.
You can't go wrong with a good witch hunt.
This episode would like you to know: Amazon is Scary.
What a difference a new writer makes! Yes, this episode's not perfect, but it mostly gives the cast something to do, it uses the setting for more than mere background prettiness, and it has an alien menace that's resolved by talking rather than fighting.
Chibnall writes one more time. And he writes an awfully generic "something nasty on the spaceship" story, which I suppose is another way of saving your creative energy for something you find more interesting while still getting paid for the job you're half-arsing.
Chibnall writes yet again. He's sole scriptwriter on four of the first five episodes (and of course the season finale), and co-writer on the fifth. And he's supposedly controlling the overall direction of the show. It's too much for one person to do well on a TV production schedule.
Chibnall writes again (though this time with a co-author), but with a very different emphasis.
Last week's opening episode was distinctly better than I'd expected, though very far from perfect. Can Chibnall (writing again) keep up the quality in a "regular" series episode?
I gave up on watching Doctor Who around series 6 of the new iteration, in exasperation at Steven Moffat going on and on and on doing the same old things. Now he's finally left, so I gave it another try.
2017-2018 mystery show, 11 episodes. In 1920s Toronto, Frankie Drake, former Signals rider, and her partner Trudy Clarke, are the city's first female private detectives.
2018 motoring show, 6 episodes. The inevitable plunge into comedy starts here.
The Grand Tour: 2017-2018, 11 episodes. Clarkson, May and Hammond continue to pretend to make a motoring programme.
2017-2018 science fiction, 15 episodes. Ten years before original Star Trek, the USS Discovery has a unique advantage in the war with the Klingons.
2017-2018 science fiction comedy, 12 episodes. Captain Ed Mercer of the Planetary Union hit a rough career patch after his divorce, but now has command of an exploratory ship. But his ex-wife will be his new first officer.
2017, 12 episodes. Final season of this police procedural in the CSI mould: a team of forensic experts at the "Jeffersonian" consults for the FBI.
2017-2018, 14 episodes (12 broadcast at time of writing). A new team tests various myths, sayings and rumours, to see how they stack up against the real world.
2017 fantasy comedy, 13 episodes. Eleanor is still in the afterlife, but things have got much more complicated.
2013-2017 science fiction web series, 11 episodes; a fan production extends the original Star Trek.
2017 science fiction/investigation, 13 episodes; a tech billionaire, obsessed with finding the murderer of his daughter, builds a crowd-sourced crime-solving system.
2017 science fiction/investigation, 5 or 12 episodes; H. G. Wells pursues Jack the Ripper into the modern day.
2017, 9 episodes (on Geek & Sundry): teams of various minor celebrities try to solve puzzles to get of a room.
2016, 21 episodes: Wil Wheaton and other minor celebrities play boardgames.
2016-2017 science fiction, 16 episodes. A time machine has been invented, and stolen, by someone whose goals are unclear but probably bad; a team is assembled in haste to take the second machine to try to catch him.
After an eighteen-year gap, bad film is mocked once more.
2017 motoring show, 7 episodes. Much to everyone's surprise, it's actually trying to be a car show again.
2016-2017 modern fantasy, 10 episodes; the Librarians, who hunt down magical artefacts, take on a god and a government agency.
2016-2017, 13 episodes. Hayes Morrison, daughter of an ex-president and living with a party-girl reputation, runs a unit that reviews old cases.
2016 fantasy comedy, 14 episodes. Eleanor dies, and goes to the afterlife. Not Heaven, exactly, but… The Good Place. Only problem is, she's pretty sure she's not meant to be there, but admitting it would surely make things worse.
2016, 10 episodes. Horror comedy by Ryan Murphy, Brad Falchuk and Ian Brennan: the survivors of the Kappa Kappa Tau sorority house massacre are now running a hospital, but they haven't got away from masked killers.
2016 caper show, 10 episodes. Alice Vaughan, private investigator, discovers her fiancé was a con artist stealing from her firm. But in spite of all that, neither of them is quite ready to break things off.
2016-2017, 18 episodes: Murtaugh is a straight-arrow cop, Riggs is his ker-razy partner.
2016 science fiction, 10 episodes. At the Westworld holiday resort, the android "hosts" exist to be shot, slept with, and generally taken advantage of. But some of them are starting to remember.
2016 post-apocalyptic horror, 13 episodes. Vampires have always walked the earth, and after a Yellowstone-eruption-induced loss of sunlight they've taken over. Three years later, a descendant of Abraham van Helsing helps to fight against them.
2016 cyberpunk drama, 10 episodes. Ben Larson, corporate climber, is secretly a climate-change refugee under a false identity, trying to find and save the woman he grew up with and lost.
2016 popular science/history, 10 episodes. The team does practical investigation of various historical events and other claims.
2016-2017 detection, 13 episodes. Frank Sullivan the homicide detective was shot and killed in 1996; in 2016, his daughter Raimy, also a homicide detective, finds that she can talk to Frank of twenty years ago via an old ham radio.
2016 noir thriller, 10 episodes. A forensic neuropsychiatrist finds himself getting in way, way over his head.
2016 horror, 10 episodes. Suburban family's daughter is demonically possessed; two priests try to do something about it.
2016 political science fiction, 13 episodes. Alien insects are taking over American politicians. This causes surprisingly little disruption.
2016 science fiction, 13 episodes. As the world starts to rebuild after the megaplague, some people decide they prefer it the way it is.
2016, 13 episodes: the final season of odd-couple crimefighting from Detective Jane Rizzoli and medical examiner Maura Isles.
2016 urban fantasy/horror, 13 episodes. Wynonna Earp, distant descendant of Wyatt, comes back to her home town to learn that her job in life is to send back to hell the revenants of the men who died by Earp's gun "Peacemaker".
2016, 10 episodes. Space bounty hunters fight what looks at first like political oppression, but which turns out to have more behind it.
2016 police parody, 10 episodes. Detective Angie Tribeca solves crimes in the RHCU, the Really Heinous Crimes Unit.
2015-2016, 22 episodes. Police procedural in the CSI mould: a team of forensic experts at the "Jeffersonian" consults for the FBI.
2016 SF, 13 episodes. The plague that wiped out human civilisation is still a problem for the post-apocalyptic time travellers to solve, but other time travellers are a greater threat.
Top Gear: 2015, 6 episodes; The Grand Tour: 2015-2016, 13 episodes. In both cases, these are comedy shows lightly disguised as motoring programmes.
2016 science fiction, 10 episodes. Kirsten Clark continues to have her consciousness inserted into the minds of the recently-dead, while hunting for more information about her father.
2015-2016, 24 episodes. In modern New York, (a completely different) Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson continue to consult for the police.
2015-2016, 22 episodes. Brian Finch is an unemployed slacker, until he's introduced to a brain-boosting drug. Naturally he goes to work for the FBI to catch crooks.
2015-2016, 22 episodes. Famous writer Richard Castle continues to work with NYPD homicide detective (now Captain) Kate Beckett, in the final season of this police procedural.
2016 reality television, 7 episodes. The series follows recruits through the ten weeks of selection for the Royal Navy at HMS Raleigh.
2015-2016, 18 episodes. Detective Jane Rizzoli and medical examiner Maura Isles continue in their odd-couple crimefighting.
2015-2016 police procedural, 23 episodes. A woman is found in a bag in Times Square: she's alive, naked, totally amnesiac, and covered with tattoos. The FBI investigates.
2016, 10+2 episodes. If you're reading this you probably know what MythBusters was about, or you can go and find out.
2016, 6 episodes. FBI agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully continue to look into strange occurrences.
There aren't many interesting-looking new series coming up this year. Here are a few I've glanced at. (Reviews based on first episodes only.)
2015-2016 science fiction, 10 episodes. When the ice-hauler Canterbury gets destroyed, the Belters blame Mars, Mars blames Earth, and Earth blames the Belters.
2015 science fiction comedy, 10 episodes. In a corrupt neon future, the Moonbeam City Police Department tries to keep the peace. More or less.
2015-2016: Ichabod Crane, survivor from the American Revolutionary War, and Abbie Mills, FBI agent, continue to fight supernatural beasties in the present day. (Spoilers for all seasons.)
2016 science fiction crime drama, 11 episodes. Jimmy Pritchard is a 75-year-old, corrupt, disgraced, but unrepentant former sheriff. When he's murdered, secretive tech billionaire twins restore him to life, youth and extreme vitality (as a side effect of their own plans). Formerly known as Frankenstein, The Frankenstein Code and Lookinglass.
2016 science fiction drama, 10 episodes. Aliens have landed and conquered Earth, ruling through drones and human trusties. But there is, of course, a resistance.
2015-2016 superheroic fantasy, 10 episodes. In 1947, Peggy Carter, still working for a secret government agency, travels to Los Angeles to investigate strange goings-on there.
2015 comedy, 13 episodes; most of the same team of misfits continue to try to keep their community college going.
2015 fantasy, ten episodes. The grandson of Robert Jekyll fights monsters in 1930s London; some of them are human.
2015 SF mini-series, adapted by Matthew Graham and directed by Nick Hurran. In 2016, alien ships arrive on Earth, with the aliens saying they're come to bring utopia. But not everyone agrees that that's what they're offering.
2015 modern fantasy, 10 episodes; the scrappy team of magic-hunting Librarians fights against a resurrected Prospero who's planning to remake the world.
2015 science fiction, ten episodes, sequel of sorts to the 2002 film. After the PreCrime programme is shut down, the three precognitives try to live normal lives. Of course, one of them ends up Fighting Crime.
2014-2015 urban fantasy, 16 episodes. The succubus Bo faces her biggest challenges yet, as her father tries to use her to take over the world.
2015 crime, series finale; in a double-length episode, most of the original cast of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation return for one last case. Someone is sending suicide bombers into Las Vegas; can that someone really be Lady Heather? No, of course not.
2015 science fiction, 13 episodes. The crew of the destroyer USS Nathan James works to distribute the cure for the plague that killed most of the world's population. But not everyone thinks that's a good idea.
2015, 14 episodes. If you're reading this you probably know what MythBusters is about, or you can go and find out.
2015, 13 episodes. A motley crew wakes up on a spaceship with skills but no memories. They try to find out who they were and what happened.
2015, 10 episodes. Space bounty hunters discover that being apolitical is really hard work if you have even the vestiges of a conscience.
2015 fantasy, 10 episodes. In a technomagical world, four heroes will hunt down the resurgent Prophet who was responsible for the last great war.
As always, spoilers abound.
2015 science fiction, 11 episodes. Kirsten Clark suffers from "temporal dysplasia" and can't feel the passage of time, but that makes her the ideal subject to be inserted into the memories of the recently dead.
2015, 13 episodes. Horror comedy by Ryan Murphy, Brad Falchuk and Ian Brennan: a masked killer is murdering members of the Kappa Kappa Tau sorority house.
As always, spoilers abound. See Wikipedia for production details
The Doctor - Sylvester McCoy Ace - Sophie Aldred
The show stayed on Wednesday evenings against Coronation Street, and the first episode of this series got the lowest ratings of any Who episode ever.
2015, 10 episodes. Elliot Anderson suffers from crippling depression, paranoia and social anxiety, but still manages to hold down a cybersecurity job. Except now he's being recruited by an activist cracking group.
2014-2015, 22 episodes. Police procedural in the CSI mould: a team of forensic experts at the "Jeffersonian" consults for the FBI.
2014-2015, 24 episodes. In modern New York, (a completely different) Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson consult for the police.
The Doctor - Sylvester McCoy Mel Bush - Bonnie Langford Ace - Sophie Aldred
2014-2015, 23 episodes. Famous writer Richard Castle continues to work with NYPD homicide detective Kate Beckett, though by this point it's fairly clear that he didn't come here for the hunting.
The Doctor - Colin Baker Peri Brown - Nicola Bryant Mel Bush - Bonnie Langford
2014-2015, 22 episodes: the immortal Henry Morgan works as a medical examiner in modern New York to fund his research on ending his own life. Wikipedia
The Doctor - Colin Baker Peri Brown - Nicola Bryant
2014-2015, 21 episodes: Wil Wheaton and other minor celebrities play boardgames.
I haven't given up!
The Doctor - Peter Davison The Doctor - Colin Baker Tegan Jovanka - Janet Fielding Vislor Turlough - Mark Strickson Kamelion - Gerald Flood and Dallas Adams Peri Brown - Nicola Bryant
2014-2015, 22 episodes: in the years before Batman, Gotham City is a cesspit of crime. But one cop is trying to make a difference.
2015 science fiction. On an island off the Washington coast, there's a disease outbreak, but a religious community living there doesn't seem to be worried about it. And it all has something to do with the immortals.
2015 SF, 13 episodes. In the future, humanity has been nearly wiped out by a plague. James Cole is sent back in time to 2015, just before it started, to try to prevent it.
2014-2015: John Constantine, broken magician, must protect the innocent from magical threats.
The Doctor - Peter Davison Nyssa - Sarah Sutton Tegan Jovanka - Janet Fielding Vislor Turlough - Mark Strickson Kamelion - Gerald Flood
2014-2015: the crew of the Las Vegas Crime Lab continue to use forensic science to solve crimes.
2014-2015: Ichabod Crane, survivor from the American Revolutionary War, continues to fight in the modern day against the imminent Apocalypse.
2014-2015 superheroic fantasy. In 1946, after the presumed death of Captain America, his girlfriend Peggy Carter works for a secret government agency.
2014-2015; the Library is where all the magical artefacts in the world are stored to keep them (and the world) safe. After three TV movies, the story has been resurrected as a weekly series.
2014 SF mini-series. In the 1950s, a project was begun to build an interstellar generation spacecraft as a lifeboat for humanity should the Cold War turn hot. Now they're half-way through the mission and they've just had their first murder. Meanwhile, on Earth, someone's looking into long-buried secrets. Possible spoilers ahead.
22-minute comedy loosely based on the real lives of the folk-rock-parody duo of Kate Micucci and Riki Lindhome.
Some time in the future, two convicts working on the Moon discover something strange: a flower, blooming on the surface. Then things get weird.
The Doctor - Peter Davison Adric - Matthew Waterhouse Nyssa - Sarah Sutton Tegan Jovanka - Janet Fielding
The current American television season is in full swing, and while it's pretty lacklustre I've caught up with some new series that looked interesting.
While the destroyer USS Nathan James is on exercise in the Arctic, a plague has killed over 80% of the world's population. Now her captain must decide how to proceed.
Doctor Who - Tom Baker Doctor Who - Peter Davison (briefly) Romana - Lalla Ward K-9 (voice) - John Leeson Adric - Matthew Waterhouse Nyssa - Sarah Sutton Tegan Jovanka - Janet Fielding
Doctor Who - Tom Baker Romana - Lalla Ward K-9 (voice) - David Brierly
Doctor Who - Tom Baker Romana I - Mary Tamm K-9 (voice) - John Leeson
Doctor Who - Tom Baker Leela - Louise Jameson K-9 (voice) - John Leeson
Doctor Who - Tom Baker Sarah Jane Smith - Elisabeth Sladen Leela - Louise Jameson
Doctor Who - Tom Baker Sarah Jane Smith - Elisabeth Sladen
Doctor Who - Jon Pertwee Sarah Jane Smith - Elisabeth Sladen
Doctor Who - Jon Pertwee Jo Grant - Katy Manning
(First written in January 2014)
Doctor Who - Jon Pertwee Liz Shaw - Caroline John
(First written in December 2013)
Doctor Who - Patrick Troughton Jamie McCrimmon - Frazer Hines Zoe Heriot - Wendy Padbury
(First written in June 2013)
Doctor Who (sic) - Patrick Troughton Jamie McCrimmon - Frazer Hines Victoria Waterfield - Deborah Watling Zoe Heriot - Wendy Padbury
(First written in November 2012)
As before, spoilers abound. See Wikipedia for production details
Doctor Who (sic) - William Hartnell, Patrick Troughton Ben Jackson - Michael Craze Polly - Anneke Wills Jamie McCrimmon - Frazer Hines Victoria Waterfield - Deborah Watling
(First written in April 2012)
Doctor Who (sic) - William Hartnell Vicki - Maureen O'Brien Steven Taylor - Peter Purves Katarina - Adrienne Hill Sara Kingdom - Jean Marsh Dodo Chaplet - Jackie Lane Ben Jackson - Michael Craze Polly - Anneke Wills
(First written in February 2012)
Doctor Who (sic) - William Hartnell Susan Foreman - Carole Ann Ford Barbara Wright - Jacqueline Hill Ian Chesterton - William Russell Vicki - Maureen O'Brien
(First written in December 2011)
I've recently started watching Doctor Who from the beginning. I've seen occasional episodes and stories here and there (e.g. back when I had a television and the BBC would do anniversary specials), but my experience as a regular viewer starts towards the end of the Sarah Jane Smith era.
I'm not going to worry about listing alternative titles or any of that guff. See Wikipedia for that. I am interested primarily in the progress and development of the show as a show rather than in constructing complex fanwank explanations for why decisions that were made differently the second time they came up, or dodgy effects shots, aren't really mistakes.
So here are my thoughts on re-watching the first series... spoilers abound, obviously.