Doctor Who

The time has come for the Timelord to return ... Doctor Who's back, and The Optimist could not be more excited! With Peter Capaldi taking control of the TARDIS, now's a great time for those not acquainted with the 50 year-old institution to get involved. You've only got 800 episodes to catch up on - that's twenty-five days of back to back, uninterrupted Who - sounds like the dream to me! If your boss is refusing to give you the time off work though, you could just take a look through The Optimist's edited highlights; 50 years of TV history condensed into five carefully selected episodes that you need to watch RIGHT NOW!

Ok, let me start by giving you a bit of background info. Aside from a couple of overly flamboyant fashion choices, the Doctor looks like your average human bloke. You might already know this, if you don't, spoiler alert - he's actually an alien. He belongs to an ancient race known as the Timelords, they can feel the turn of the universe and see the whole of time. They've also got two hearts and when they get injured, they can repair and change every cell in their body to cheat death. It's called regeneration and from a practical point of view, it just means that they can bring in a new actor to take over the lead role every couple of years.

You might've seen the Doctor popping in and out of a little blue box, yeah, it's a time machine. The TARDIS - stands for Time And Relative Dimension In Space. It's mega. It's bigger on the inside and it can disguise itself as anything, which means it blends into its surroundings without garnering unwanted attention. Problem is, it's not all that reliable - it disguised itself as a police call box at some point in the 1960s and it's been stuck that way ever since. Bet the props department were glad.

Now, for all intents and purposes, the Doctor's a hero, he's got a bit of a God-complex, he likes to save the day, but when the series was rebooted in 2005, The Doctor was going through a bit of a hard time. He'd ended a war between his people and a race known as the Daleks by killing them all and destroying his home planet, Gallifrey. Pfft, who hasn't?! He's the only one of his kind, with nothing to do but wander the universe and right the wrongs he feels he's made ... Good innit?

Now you're fully equipped to deal with its brilliance, here are 5 episodes of Doctor Who you should watch right now - all currently available on Netflix UK:

The Empty Child/ The Doctor Dances

The first episode to be written by Sherlock co-creator and all round TV messiah Stephen Moffat, this unfathomably creepy two-parter was a bit of a game-changer for Doctor Who. No longer just content to make kids hide behind the sofa, this story's enough to give grown-ups nightmares too. It also marks the first appearance of Captain Jack Harkness and features the best 'man-turning-into-monster' sequence before or since (and yes, that includes the one where a man sneezes his own brain into his hand)

What you need to know before you watch it: This episode takes places during the short but sweet reign of the ninth Doctor, Christopher Ecclestone as he travels with (BEST COMPANION EVER) Rose Tyler.

Blink

Widely regarded as the best Doctor Who episode of all time, Blink - written again by Ste-Mo - stars a pre Oscar-nom Carey Mulligan and one of the creepiest Doctor Who foes ever conceived. "Don't blink. Don't even blink. Blink and you're dead." Oh my gosh, I just got goosebumps.

What you need to know before you watch it: Not a whole lot. For budget and scheduling reasons, there was one Doctor-lite episode every series for the first three years after Who was brought back. In 2007, this Episode was Blink. It takes place during the reign of Doctor number 10, David Tennant  - but he doesn't get much screen time. At this point he was travelling with Martha Jones, who also only briefly appears.

The Waters of Mars

An hour long special, this was a classic 'Doctor-gets-involved-in-major-historical-incident' story, but uniquely, the episode takes place in the future. Legendary showrunner Russell T. Davies and co-writer Phil Ford play with the laws of time and The Doctor's own conscience in what turned out to be a heartbreaking and highly surprising episode.

What you need to know before you watch it: This is a tricky one to explain. The Waters of Mars is one of the four specials that aired in 2010/11 in the run up to the demise of the tenth Doctor - Davey T. After a prophecy revealed he was soon to meet his end, he went on a kind of farewell tour - sightseeing on Mars in the mid 21st century in this ep. The prophecy said "he will knock four times" but the Doctor doesn't know when or how he will die. That's all you really need to know, but if you'll permit me to waffle: Up to this point, the writers had ignored a serious plot hole. The Doctor's a hero - he saves people's lives. He's also a time traveller, and he knows that changing time has major consequences. Rose once tried to save her dad's life and the universe almost imploded, yet the Doctor saves people from certain death all the time and everything's hunky dory. The Waters of Mars turned the series on its head and slapped it on the bottom. Maybe the Doctor's not always such a hero...

Vincent and The Doctor

Somewhat predictably, since it was written by Richard Curtis, this episode is a bit of a tear-jerker. The Doctor takes Amy to visit Vincent Van Gogh whose demons, it turns out, are not just confined to his mind. Proving that Doctor Who isn't always about saving the world, this episode deals with mental illness in the most sensitive and beautiful way. If you don't cry at the scene in the museum, you're a Cyberman (who, evidently, can cry. Watch Doomsday)

What you need to know before you watch it: Not much. The eleventh Doctor, played by Matt Smith is travelling with Amy Pond who in the previous episode, suffered a terrible loss - but thanks to a crack in the fabric of reality, it has been erased from her memory. Standard really.

The Doctor's Wife

Another episode from a guest writer, this time Neil Gaiman - you might need a packet of tissues for this one too. An episode that revolves around the TARDIS might seem like an obvious idea but it had never been done before. We're taken deep into the depths of the Doctor's time-machine where a love story unfolds and there's a gorgeous little throwback to a bygone era of the show.

What you need to know before you watch it: The Doctor is now travelling with Amy and her husband Rory. There are references in this episode to the Timelords and to the fact that the TARDIS was stolen by the Doctor. It might also be useful to know that (what's the plural of TARDIS? TARDI? TARDISES?) TARDISes were grown, not built and that the first time the eleventh Doctor saw the inside of his regenerated TARDIS he said "Hello sexy!" NOTE: You should probably watch the other four episodes before you watch this one.

Now watch all the others ... bye!