Guide:Plot summary for New Who
If you're completely new to the show, and you really want a recap of the entire plot of the modern series up until the latest episodes, this is the place for you! It's probably not the optimal route to experience the franchise, as it's greatly simplifying a ton of context, and at times outright slightly misrepresenting what happens in a story because the actual plot is a little too complicated to explain in a few sentences. But if you don't have the time or inclination to watch the entire show, or would prefer to get your background knowledge through text, this can be a substitute. We also have a list of the plot relevant episodes for each season, so you can sort of speedrun your way through the new series if you would like. Or you can mix and match, watch some seasons if you vibe with them, and read about others if you don't. It's all up to you. Whatever you decide, we're really happy you're thinking about watching Doctor Who and joining the community.
Series 1
The new series begins with a girl from modern day London, 2005, Rose Tyler, played by Billie Piper, encountering a mysterious man who insists on calling himself the Doctor during strange events taking place around her work. This man, portrayed by Christopher Eccleston, at first refuses to talk to her, but she insists on becoming involved, and ends up being helpful. As such, he offers her the trip of a lifetime, all of time and space. His ship, the TARDIS is a blue police box that's larger on the inside than the outside, and takes them back to Victorian London and to the destruction of the Earth. As they travel, Rose finds out that the Doctor is a survivor of a massive war, the last of his race, the Time Lords. Eventually they come to confront a surviving remnant of the other party in the war - a lone Dalek, a race of xenocidal mutants in miniature tanks, imprisoned by a mad businessman in 2012. The Dalek manages to stir out of its complacency upon meeting its mortal foe once more, before ultimately self destructing, after becoming tainted by some of Rose's DNA. All of this is ultimately a prelude, however, to a reborn empire of Daleks that the pair stumble upon in the far future, manipulating the development of the human race. The Doctor, fearing for Rose, sends her and the TARDIS back to modern London as he rigs up a system to wipe out all life in the solar system. Rose refuses to accept this, and tries again and again to figure out a way back, before ultimately gazing deep into the inner workings of the TARDIS. Time energy flows through her, and she returns, disintegrating all of the Daleks with a thought. The Doctor, however, knows that she'll burn herself out, and draws the power out of her with a kiss. He says his goodbyes, energy flows from him, and in his place stands a new man, played by David Tennant, who identifies himself as the Doctor.
Rose and this new Doctor crash back on modern day Earth on Christmas, as an invasion happens. Rose wrestles with the idea that this is the Doctor, and as the Doctor is recuperating from the change, he isn't able to help her through the transition. Ultimately, however, he manages to come to in the brink of time, and challenges the leader of the aliens to single combat, ultimately winning, though getting his hand chopped off and regrowing it in the process.
Series 2
The Doctor and Rose fall back into a familiar pattern adventuring at first, but when Rose discovers that she's not the first companion that the Doctor has had, there begins to be some tension. The Doctor and Rose wind up in another universe at the advent of a technological menace - the Cybermen. But this universe happens to be one where Rose's father is still alive. Ultimately, however, she resolves to continue adventuring with the Doctor, and they return to their own universe. Not long after, they find themselves caught in the crossfire between two warring enemies. The Cybermen have followed them through the void between worlds, and a small group of Daleks hid themselves and a Dalek prison ship in that same void, opening cracks just enough for the Cybermen to get through. The Doctor and Rose, with help from the resistance movement from the other universe, devise a plan to force all of the combatants back to the void. But because Rose and the Doctor have traveled through it, they too are at risk, and need to be in a safe location. Ultimately, Rose slips, but is saved by her father from the other world before the opening between the two universes is closed permanently.
Series 3
As the Doctor mourns the loss of his companion Rose, a random bride appears in his TARDIS. She's not at all sure why, and demands to be returned to her wedding. In the end, however, it ends up that her husband to be was intending her to be food for an alien. The issue ends up resolved, and the two part ways. The Doctor then finds himself in a hospital as it's transported to the moon by a group of alien rhino policemen looking for a fugitive. While in this situation he finds himself impressed by the quick thinking of a young Doctor, Martha Jones, played by Freema Agyeman, and as thanks invites her on a single trip in his TARDIS. The single trip balloons into more, and eventually he accepts her continuing along on his journeys, even going so far as to trust her to watch over him as he wiped his memories and scrambled his DNA, hiding as a human to flee from an adversary. The pair come to find themselves in the far future, near the end of the universe, as all the stars are dying, and humankind is trying to figure out the last refuges they can turn to. There they find a brilliant scientist working on the problem, but ultimately, through his interactions with the Doctor, his memories return. He too is a Time Lord, the Master, and an old foe of the Doctor's. The Master steals The TARDIS and travels back to Earth, though the Doctor and Martha manage to cobble together a way to follow him, though they arrive months later. In this time, the Master has placed himself in power as Prime Minster by a worldwide wireless network establishing low level hypnosis over the entire human race. Now in power, he welcomes in a hoard of invading aliens called the Toclafane, captures the Doctor, and establishes himself as ruler of Earth. Over the next year, Martha travels the world, telling stories about the Doctor, as the Master's grip tightens, the Toclafane, who are revealed to be the remnants of humanity from the end of the universe, able to be sustained through an invention of the Master's to compensate for the paradoxes, preparing for war with the rest of the universe. Martha ultimately allows herself to be captured, and returns to the Master and the Doctor, with everyone around the world hoping for the Doctor at a pre-specified time. The Doctor frees himself using this psychic energy, and manages to destroy the machine, erasing the entire past year. the Master is shot by one of the few bystanders who remembers, and refuses to stay alive, to regenerate, leaving the Doctor alone. Martha ultimately decides to leave, realizing that their relationship isn't healthy, and that being with her family will be better for her.
Series 4
The Doctor is alone yet again, and finds himself somewhat lonely. In a series of coincidences, he bumps into the bride from before, Donna Noble, played by Catherine Tate. He invites her to come with him, to see the stars. She readily accepts, having only temporary jobs and her marriage falling through. One notable adventure places the two of them in a library spanning an entire planet, where the Doctor meets a mysterious woman, River Song, who seems to know him in great detail, even though he's never met her before. Ultimately, she sacrifices herself in order to save his life, and the life of everyone else on the planet. Not too long after, the pair return to where Earth should be, but find that it has vanished, along with 26 other planets. They attempt to track it down, but are unable to do so. Meanwhile, on Earth, many of the people that have been impacted by the Doctor, including Martha and Rose, who has managed to find her way back from the other universe, are organizing to resist the Daleks, who are the ones who have abducted the Earth. Ultimately they manage to get a signal out to the Doctor and he manages to land on Earth. When he arrives, he sees Rose, and due to his distraction a Dalek shoots him. He begins to regenerate, but he forces the regeneration energy into his hand that was cut off years ago, halting the process. The Daleks abduct the TARDIS with the Doctor and his friends inside, taking them to a space station where they're monitoring everything. the Doctor and company, sans Donna, leave the TARDIS, and learn that the plan is to use these planets to power a machine to wipe out all of reality. The Daleks shunt off the TARDIS to be destroyed, and Donna manages to trigger the latent regeneration energy in the hand, causing a human version of the Doctor to grow from it. The pair escape from destruction, and manage to return to the space station. The Daleks manage to stop this new Doctor as well, but don't account for the fact that Donna has gained some of the Doctor's memories as well, and she manages to halt the detonation, sending all the planets back to their proper place. However, the human Doctor causes all of the Daleks to self destruct, disappointing the Doctor, and causing him to place both his human clone and Rose back in the parallel universe. Donna's brain, ultimately, buckles under the strain from having part of the Doctor's mind imprinted on it, and the Doctor decides to wipe her memory, leaving him alone yet again. Not long after he will sacrifice himself to save Donna's grandfather from dying from radiation poisoning.
Series 5
After changing once more, regenerating into The Eleventh Doctor, played by Matt Smith, our Time Lord protagonist meets his newest companion, Amy Pond, during her childhood and helps her solve a problem, a crack in her house, a tear in time and space. He tries a short hop into the future - but finds himself flung years further than he thought, and reunites with Amy, played by Karen Gillan. The two travel on a few minor adventures, encountering River Song yet again, as more of these cracks in the universe menace them - even erasing a horde of Weeping Angels from ever existing. Amy's fiancé Rory Williams, played by Arthur Darvill, joins the group, before eventually becoming erased by a crack - Amy forgetting all about him. As the Doctor attempts to prevent the opening of a prison spoken in legend, the Pandorica, it becomes clear that the setup is a trap, the opening was timed to lure the Doctor so that he could be imprisoned. While he's in the Pandorica, his TARDIS explodes, creating the cracks in time, wiping out most of the universe. The Doctor escapes from the Pandorica, and uses the fragments of information stored within it to reboot the entire universe, using his exploding TARDIS as a power source, before showing up in this newly rebooted universe on Amy and Rory's wedding day.
Series 6
Not too long later, Amy and Rory, after celebrating their honeymoon in space, settle into married life and receive vague letters with a time and location. Upon arriving in Utah on that date, they find both River and the Doctor present, reminiscing about their shared adventures. Not too long after, as the group has a picnic by a lake, an astronaut rises from water and strikes the Doctor dead. The other three head to a nearby diner where they find the Doctor earlier in his own timeline. The group travels to 1969, not long before the moon landing, and encounter a young girl in an astronaut suit, manipulated by menacing figures in suits who leave the memory when not being seen. These figures are forced to leave Earth by the group, and they continue to have adventures. Throughout these, Amy is unsure as to whether or not she is pregnant. She thinks she is at first, but then doesn't, and the TARDIS scanner cycles back and forth on the issue. This is explained when it's shown that Amy was kidnapped by those figures in suits some time before, replacing her with a duplicate. They're part of the same organisation that blew up his TARDIS and wish to use her baby as a weapon. the Doctor assembles a coalition of allies and storms their base, attempting to rescue the two. He does so, but the baby was once again a duplicate, and has been spirited away to be raised by this organisation. Not long after the Doctor finds Amy and Rory's child, fully grown as an assassin trained to kill him, River Song. Upon meeting him for the first time she has a change of heart, and defects. Nevertheless, that same organisation kidnaps her once more, and forces her into a mechanized astronaut suit, forcing her to kill the Doctor. the Doctor, however, prepared for this, and used the entire situation as a way to fake his own death due to his ever expanding reputation.
Series 7
The Doctor, Amy and Rory continue to adventure for some time before Amy and Rory become separated from him, trapped in a particular time. The Doctor is only shaken out of his grief by a mystery - a woman has been constantly appearing in his life, in different times and places, living completely different lives but intersecting with his each time, and he's only just realized it. Upon bumping into this woman once more in the 21st century, Clara Oswald, played by Jenna Coleman, he decides to take her with him, but chooses locations specifically to covertly investigate her - attempting to figure out what this phenomenon means. In the end, an old enemy of the Doctor's, the Great Intelligence, finds the Doctor's grave, containing inside it the Doctor's unravelled timeline. He manages to walk inside, and begins to subvert all of the Doctor's successes, unravelling them. In order to counteract this, Clara enters it as well, saving the Doctor throughout all of his life. And right before she leaves his timeline she finds one of the Doctor's greatest secrets, an incarnation of himself that he's tried to repress. A warrior who fought in the trenches of the Last Great Time War.
This proves to be an omen of things to come, as echoes of the Time War begin to come back to the Doctor. He finds himself interacting with other versions of himself, and ends up traveling back into the Time War. However, with years of hindsight, and the help of past incarnations, he makes a different choice. Gallifrey is trapped in a single instant of time, appearing to be destroyed, but is saved instead. It later tries to re-emerge through one final crack in time, broadcasting a signal that lets others know it's there. With the Time War about to break out again, the Doctor stands guard over the crack for hundreds of years. At the end of his life, with no more regenerations left, Clara comes and sees that he's on the brink of death. She goes to the crack and begs Gallifrey to save him. The crack closes, regeneration energy flows to him, and he regenerates again, to the Twelfth Doctor, played by Peter Capaldi.
Series 8
After his regeneration into a starker, slightly more alien incarnation, Clara finds herself questioning her continued journeys with the Doctor. The problem is compounded as she finds it difficult to keep a healthy balance between her travels and her personal life, a new boyfriend. These issues come to a head when her boyfriend dies, and she begins to unravel. At the same time, the Master returns, in a female incarnation, Missy, and tries to convert all of the world's dead into Cybermen as a way to hold the earth hostage and force the Doctor to conquer the universe. Ultimately the crisis is averted by those same Cybermen, some of which didn't fully shut off their emotions.
Series 9
The Doctor and Clara continue on their adventures, with Clara stepping up and taking a more active role, and the Doctor becoming more protective of her. This culminates when Clara dies, and the Doctor becomes trapped in a time loop for billions of years, killing himself over and over again to find a way out. When he does so, he finds himself on Gallifrey, freed from the bubble universe where they were trapped, and uses the technology present to extract Clara from right before her death. The two steal another TARDIS and fly away. But during their flight it becomes clear that Clara's death isn't being reversed, and the Doctor decides that to prevent the Time Lords from tracking her through their memories he'll erase hers. Clara refuses, insisting that her past is her own, and instead randomizes the device that the Doctor would use to do this. The Doctor instead erases his own memory, and Clara flies away in the new TARDIS, leaving him on Earth.
Series 10
Years later, the Doctor finds himself lecturing at St Luke's University, and notices a young woman who audits a class of his without being enrolled, Bill Potts, played by Pearl Mackie. He offers to tutor her, and she finds herself drawn into his world slowly but surely. The Doctor, for his part, has been guarding a vault with Nardole, played by Matt Lucas, and uses trips with Bill as an excuse to travel discretely off world, shirking his duty. In the end it's revealed that the vault contains Missy, and the Doctor has sworn to guard her for one hundred years, slowly trying to reform her, little by little. She finally accompanies Bill, Nardole, and the Doctor on a test run - an adventure on a colony ship, and everything goes wrong. Another incarnation of the Master is present, as are Cybermen, and while Bill ultimately manages to make it off the ship the group is on, Missy and her earlier self wound each other lethally, and the Doctor forces himself to the brink of regeneration saving the colonists. He insists, however, back inside his TARDIS, that he won't change again. He's done becoming someone else, and just wants it to end. His TARDIS takes him back to meet his first incarnation who's wrestling with much the same dilemma. Eventually, they both decide to take one step more. And the Doctor regenerates into the Thirteenth Doctor, played by Jodie Whittaker.
Series 11
Starting this new era of Doctor Who, this new Doctor falls out of her TARDIS, as it has been destroyed by regenerative energy, and lands on a train in Sheffield, where she meets Yasmin Khan, a police officer, played by Mandip Gill, Ryan Sinclair, played by Tosin Cole, Grace O'Brien, Ryan's grandmother, played by Sharon D Clarke, and Graham O'Brien, Grace's husband and Ryan's step-granddad. Together, they form an alliance, and fight Tzim-Sha of the Stenza, a mighty warrior race whose sole purpose is to hunt human beings. Together, they manage to save the planet, but tragically Grace dies in the process, leaving Graham a widow. The Doctor then attempts to return to the TARDIS, but accidentally takes her new companions with her, and they begin to travel alongside her. After many exciting adventures, they once more face Tzim-Sha, and end up by locking him in his temple, ending the character arcs of Graham and Ryan that began with the death of Grace.
Series 12
They continue with their travels, fighting a new incarnation of the Master, robotic postmen and Judoon. The Master reveals to the Doctor that he has destroyed Gallifrey once more, and the Doctor discovers that this is true. Heartbroken, the Doctor nonetheless continues on her travels, and she meets an earlier incarnation of herself, one she has no memory of, and one who has no memory of her. This mysterious incarnation, known retroactively as the Fugitive Doctor, works for shadowy organisation Division, but has run away and become a human on Earth. The Thirteenth Doctor helps her escape from Division, and carries on her way across the universe. Later, she comes across a lone Cyberman by the name of Ashad. She manages to temporarily defeat him, but must now face of hundreds of Cybermen in an epic battle. Alone with the last of humanity, she must battle the Cybermen and the Master, who had allied himself with the Cybermen. The Master takes her aside to Gallifrey and reveals (in a retcon which proved controversial with fans) that she is, in fact, no Time Lord, and that everything that she has ever been told about the Time Lords is a lie. Her current identity was born when the Division erased the memories of their agent the Doctor, who had once been the "Timeless Child", a mysterious foundling discovered by a wormhole by the early Time Lords. It was from the Child's biology they discovered the secret to regeneration. This was the reason that there Master has destroyed Gallifrey. This was the explanation for the mysterious earlier incarnation of herself. The Doctor manages to save her companions and the rest of the universe from the Cybermen, but is captured by the Judoon and trapped in prison.
Series 13
The Doctor and Yaz have been travelling alone for some time, but the Doctor is still determined to find answers about the Division, which eventually puts the two on the trail of a former Division operative, the dog-like alien Karvanista, whose species the Lupari seem to be heading for Earth. When they find him, however, he reveals that the Lupari are actually trying to save humanity from the Flux, a devastating wave of antimatter which is in the process of destroying the entire universe. All across time and space, various species and faction try to take advantage of this destruction, including the Sontarans, exiled space dictator the Grand Serpent, and most worryingly Swarm and Azure, god-like crystal people from the dawn of time hell-bent on destroying the entire universe and unraveling the Web of Time. The Doctor and Yaz are joined on their travels through this chaotic universe by Dan Lewis, an impoverished but ever-optimistic man from Liverpool, who was the human Karvanista had been assigned to protect. Together they foil the Sontarans' attempted timey-wimey invasion of Earth, and are then ured to the mysterious Temple of Atropos.
The Temple is where, through Division, the Time Lords first gained control of Time itself, and it has been damaged by the Flux, causing temporal anomalies throughout the universe as the Time Lords' posthumous hold on History weakens. At the Temple, the Doctor and her friends meet Vinder, a space adventurer with a grudge against the Grand Serpent. All four are catapulted into a time storm by Swarm and Azure, allowing the Doctor to discover that her forgotten counterpart the Fugitive Doctor was the one who originally defeated the villainous duo. After being reunited, they are drawn to a remote English village whose people are being preyed upon by Weeping Angels, and meet the paranormal expert Eustacius Jericho. They discover that the Weeping Angels are actually an "Extraction Squad" summoned by the Division, trying to collect a rogue Angel who has been hiding inside psychic Claire Brown's mind. Wanting to save itself, the Rogue Angel instead allows the Extraction Squad to capture the Doctor herself, while her companions are left stranded in the early 20th century. Taken to a space station built into the Void Between Worlds, the Doctor meets the leader of Division, who is none other than a new incarnation of Tecteun, the scientist who adopted and abused the Timeless Child, then wiped their memory, creating the Doctor as we know them. Tecteun believes that the Doctor's meddling has irreparably corrupted the Universe, which she views as her "experiment"; she released the Flux, as well as Swarm and Azure, to destroy the Universe, intending to move into another reality and start over. The Doctor refuses to forgive and join her, and Tecteun is abruptly murdered by Swarm and Azure, who take control of the ship and thereby the Flux itself, intent on using it to destroy the Temple of Atropos and free the malicious godlike embodiment of Time, whom they worship. Thanks to the Lupari, Earth is protected against the Flux, and, learning that it will be the final available refuge, the Sontarans (allied with the Grand Serpent, who infiltrated UNIT to weaken Earth's defences) invade the Earth again, destroying the Dalek and Cyberman fleets by tricking them into the path of the Flux. Having been temporarily split into three due to an interdimensional phenomenon, the Doctor guides her scattered friends, who manage to simultaneously foil the Sontarans and Serpent's plans (at the cost of Professor Jericho's life) and safely funnel the Flux into a portable pocket dimension. Angered at its servants' failure, the embodiment of Time destroys Swarm and Azure, and leaves the Doctor with an ominous prophecy: her time is coming to an end, and the Master is amassing forces to move against her.
2022 specials
Trying to relax for New Year's Day after all these adventures, Doctor, Yaz and Dan soon encounter consequences of the Flux as the Daleks blame the Doctor for the destruction of their fleet by the Sontarans. They send a squad of Dalek Executioners to kill the Doctor and her companions, but after they all become trapped in a storage building with the building's owner, the TARDIS puts them all in a time loop until they figure out a way to stop the Daleks without dying. During this stressful looping event, Dan reveals to the Doctor that Yaz has fallen in love with her, something Yaz had not admitted even to herself. The Doctor is unwilling to reciprocate or even acknowledge these feelings, however, still mindful of her own impending death. The two finally talk about it during the course of another adventure involving the Sea Devils, underwater counterparts of the reptilian Silurians, tangling with Chinese pirates: though the Doctor admits that she would happily enter a relationship with Yaz if she were willing to consider romance at all, she is refusing to take that risk in the knowledge that "eventually, it'll hurt". The long-predicted crisis finally arrives when the Master returns, posing as Grigori Rasputin in a complex time-bending scheme where he has allied with the Daleks and Cybermen, shortly after Dan decides to leave the TARDIS. After capturing the Doctor, he uses the power of a starry entity to highjack her body and force it to regenerate into a copy of his own, asserting that he is "the Doctor" now. UNIT get involved, as do the Doctor's former companions Ace, Tegan, and Graham. With their help as well as that of a returning Vinder, plus a hologram duplicate of the Doctor, the Master's scheme is foiled and the artificial regeneration is reversed, temporarily restoring the Thirteenth Doctor. However, as she tries to free the powerful star-entity, the Doctor is fatally wounded by the Master, who is back in his own body but promptly dies — seemingly without regenerating — due to the strain the body-hopping put on his physical form. Yaz carries the unconscious Doctor back to the TARDIS before the planetoid they're all standing on explodes, but it's too late to prevent her regeneration. After holding it off for one melancholy ice cream date with Yaz, the Doctor admits that she would rather face her next rebirth "alone", and drops Yaz off on Earth again, where she is greeted by Dan and Graham, who introduce her to a support group full of other past companions. Kate Stewart of UNIT is also at the meeting, noting that she may soon recruit some of them for "some work". Meanwhile, the Doctor steps out onto a lonely cliff and, wishing the best to her successor, allows the regeneration to start, transforming into the Fourteenth Doctor. Feeling his face, the newly-regenerated Doctor is baffled to realise he looks (almost) exactly like the Tenth Doctor.
60th Anniversary Specials
The Doctor finds himself in London once more, marveling at his old face returning, and time and time again, despite his best efforts comes into contact with his old companion, Donna Noble, now married with a teenage daughter. A strange alien ship crash-lands nearby, its pilot the deceptively cute and secretly tyrannical Meep hiding with the Noble family, causing them to be pursued by galactic policemen. The Doctor shows up and defends the Noble family, but discovers the Meep's true genocidal intentions, causing the Meep to endanger the entire world. In order to prevent the destruction of the earth, Donna's memories are returned to her, foiling the Meep's plans but endangering her life, it only being saved through her daughter being used as a release valve.
Donna, excited to now have her memories back, insists on going on one small trip with the Doctor, but accidentally spills tea on the console of the TARDIS, sending the pair hurtling through time, to various places, such as the 17th century, where they cause Isaac Newton to name gravity "Mavity" instead, and to a ship on the far reaches of space where the TARDIS begins to heal itself. While there, the pair find themselves stalked by a pair of shapeshifters who reflect their surroundings, absorb and learn from those around them, and to slow their advance the Doctor invokes a superstition, drawing a line of salt between them that he insists the pair of not-things can't cross. The Doctor and Donna escape the ship just as the self-destruct sequence activates, eradicating the shapeshifters.
But as the pair reappear in modern day London they find that things have gone wrong, everyone believes that they're always right, all the time, and everyone else is unreasonable. In invoking a superstition at the edge of the universe, the Doctor has called to the Toymaker, who has decided to play a game with the human race. The Doctor insists that he must stop, and challenges him to a game, but loses. Recalling their previous encounter though, the Doctor points out that they're now tied, and that best-of-three should win. The Toymaker accepts, but as he played one game with a prior Doctor, one game with this Doctor, he'll play the next game with a new Doctor as well, and forces a regeneration. Or, rather, bi-generation, a myth of the timelords, where the body splits in two, one staying the same, and one being the Fifteenth Doctor, played by Ncuti Gatwa. The pair together defeat the toymaker, and the Fourteenth Doctor decides to spend time with the Noble family, to get some well needed rest, while the Fifteenth Doctor continues on his adventures.
