What got me hooked on Doctor Who?
Hidden for long windedness.
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No episode really got me into Doctor Who.
My friends hounded me for years to watch the show (starting in like 2007) because, according to them, it would be something I loved.
I watched the first episode and found it ungodly cheesy. I didn't watch any farther than that. Jump ahead 5 years later (January 2012) and I'm still being hounded to watch this damn show. Finally, just to shut my friends up (because apparently 1 episode of this show isn't good enough to judge it) I sit down over went break and start marathoning the series.
The whole time I'm thinking, dear god this is so cheesy and bad, maybe I'll just wiki everything so my friends think I watched it all.
Then something wonderful happened. Moffat happened. I got to the Empty Child and for the first time was hooked. The kid was unnervingly creepy, Jack was an interesting character. and the story was quite intriguing. Things got even better in the second part of that episode. The Doctor Dances really is what convinced me to watch the series all the way through (that in tandem with googling Moffat to learn that he wrote several more episodes in each of the seasons before taking over in 5, so I was pleased with that.)
I finished out season 1, still largely unimpressed except for the two episodes I mentioned, and I kind of rolled my eyes at the ending (though little did I know that that was not the worst season finale, but I'll get to that in a second.)
So, still not really hooked on the show, I started in on season 2. The Girl in the Fireplace was good, but is probably my least favorite of the Moffat episodes from the RTD era.
Everything was just chugging along. Though I wasn't as bored by this season, simply because Tennant was much more charismatic than Eccleston, and I loved his entrance in Christmas Invasion.
There was a point in season 2, where I started to become hooked, and that was in Satan Pit. More specifically, it was the bit of the Doctors monologue as he's hanging in the pit. This bit " I… believe. I believe I haven't seen everything, I don't know. It's funny, isn't it? The things you make up—the rules. If that thing had said it came from beyond the universe I'd believe it, but before the universe... that's impossible. It doesn't fit in my rules. Still, that's why I keep travelling. To be proved wrong."
I loved it and kept watching. And though nothing outside of that quote and Girl in the Fireplace really impressed me in season 2, I was more interested.
Then season 3 happened and I almost quit the show. In the pretty good Christmas special we get introduced to Donna, who's awesome, and then we get Martha. My least favorite companion, simply because the writers had no freaking idea what to do with her. Also, there were only 2 episodes I liked and actually enjoy watching again in the entirety of the season: Blink and Utopia.
Man, utopia got me so excited because of how fantastic it was, The Sound of Drums wasn't terrible, but it also wasn't notably good, imo, but Last of the Time Lords was horrendous. That ending…oh that ending made me want to hate everything about the show.
So at this point, I still wasn't hooked. There were some good episodes, yeah, but they were few and far between. And I really wish Tennant had gotten better writing, because I loved him as the Doctor.
So still, basically forcing myself to watch, I started season 4. Voyage of the damned was...ugh...
And then something magical happened: Donna. I loved Donna, and I think that's primarily because she was the first companion I saw who wasn't fawning over the Doctor. She was spunky and she was fun. I enjoyed the first few episodes with her, up through Planet of the Ood. Then it kinda hit a lull when Martha came back.
Then we got the Agatha Christie episode, which was pretty solid.
Then, came the moment I got hooked. Silence in the Library/ Forest of the Dead were absolutely brilliant, and I owe it to Moffat and the genius idea that was River Song. I loved her so much, and I love how he made us feel for her, so that her death was sad, yet happy, considering she would live on in some way, and the ending, with River talking about the Doctor -- chills every time.
That's when I got hooked. The promise of seeing more River made me want to watch the show.
Then those two great episodes were followed by the equally great, yet nearly impossible to watch Midnight.
Seriously, that is the only episode that I can't watch over again, despite how much I love it, simply because of how raw it is. One of the best bottle episodes ever.
Then the season ended weakly, and infuriatingly (Donna :[ )
We got some terrible episodes.
Then The Eleventh Hour happened, and I went from being hooked to in love with the show.
Seasons 5 and 6 I watch again and again, and I love almost all the episodes, and I love the overarching story that's now carrying into season 7.
Silence in the Library is when I got hooked, The Eleventh Hour is when I fell in love. Seriously, Matt Smith is my favorite Doctor, but I think the only big differences between him and Tennant are the quality of the writing (Smith's is leagues ahead of Tennants) and Smith's ability to capture the dark side of the Doctor. (His showdown with House: "Fear me, I've killed them all)
So while I'm not too found of watching most of the episodes before season 4, I do really love the show, and in subsequent viewings, there are a lot of earlier episodes that I do like now.
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Sorry for being so long winded, but I love talking about the things I love.
tl;dr: I didn't get hooked, but was forced to watch it. Disliked pretty much most of seasons 1-3 except for a few episodes (the moffat ones mainly) got "hooked" by Silence in the Library, and fell in love at The Eleventh Hour.