How does Davros keep going?

I think he's addicted to 5 Hour Energy drink. Helps him get through those loooong mornings and past those even loooooooooonger afternoons.

Maybe they should put his picture on the tin.

I would like to get into this show, but every time I try and start... the options seem to be unending. Can someone, please, point me in the right direction. There are so many years, casts, productions, on-line, and off - ok, we don't get it on TV here in Canackistan..
Where should one begin?

Start out with the first season of the current generation of the TV show, "Doctor Who" (2005). The one with Christopher Eccleston as the Doctor.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0436992/

The problem is that the BBC wiped a lot of the early stuff made in the 60s, because of the price of video tape. A lot of really good stuff was lost, not only Doctor Who, but some really good comedy as well. So if you wanted to watch from the beginning you couldn't.

A good place to start would be with the Christopher Ecclestone series as Doctor Who. He's the first modern doctor, the show was cancelled for a long time, and like Star Trek the Next Generation, it's quite easy to pick up even if you never watched the original series. If you want to, you can then dip in and out of the older episodes. The doctors are as follows

William Hartnell
Patrick Troughton (my own personal favourite, but it's probably got as much to do with me being a kid when they came out, as anything else)
Jon Pertwee

These three all have gaps, and it's worse with Hartnell than Troughton, and worse with Troughton than Pertwee.
Tom Baker
Peter Davison (I stopped watching at this point, I was at University)
Colin Baker
Sylvester McCoy

Show then cancelled for a long time, apart from a one off millennium special starring Paul McGann.

Christopher Ecclestone
David Tennant
Matt Smith (the current doctor)

Peter Cushing also played the doctor in the two Hammer movies.

We just crossed

Awesome, will do. Thanks guys. I'm sure I'll be a Dr. Who devotee in no time.

He doesn't want to give up on his fantastic pension plan, of course!

Since it dies when, and if, he were to die, he's decided he's not going!

Tom Baker was my first Doctor!

I just wish they made these earlier seasons more watchable in terms of DVD sets collected by season rather then individual story arcs.

A lot of it is to do with missing tapes, a friend of mine got a copy of one Patrick Troughton four parter which comprised of the script, one episode on video, and two other episodes that were audio only. He's a real Who freak though. I can just remember the last Hartnell series 10th planet, I must have been about 3 at the time, and I was hiding behind a wall, occasionally peeking out.

Well, apparently the Daleks are/were/will forever be the technological equals of the Time Lords. There's no telling what they can do.

I just hope they never get their hands, er..., manipulators on the Doctor's magic wand. (Scratch that... "Sonic Screwdriver")

I have seen the complete series twice from the very start to McCoy.

Then, everything since then, once.

Are you yourself a time lord Reyn?

Hmmm, nyet, but I have been known to be someone that time forgot, at least in the past.

I think the first episode was filmed live, straight after JFK was assassinated. That must have been difficult, acting under those conditions.

Well, possibly parts of it, but definitely not the whole episode.

What immediately comes to mind is the first time the TARDIS is showing to travel and the scenes afterwards. For those times, they were quite the special effects!

It's amazing in that it was just a stop gap, something to fill up airspace, it wasn't intended to run for very long at all. The Daleks changed everything.

Yeah, if I remember correctly, it was intended as a special, but the series took off... and all these years later...

Unfortunately, the show suffered from a lack of proper funding at times, which is why after McCoy, it was gone for quite a while.

Everyone has their favourite doctor, but each one brings their own special character to the series.

I never really saw any of the episodes with Davison/Colin Baker, as I was at Uni at the time, and had more things going on.

I understand that Colin Baker was the one that everyone blamed for it going downhill, though to be fair I never saw any of them so I can't comment. I did start watching again with Sylvester McCoy, but they made the grave error of casting Bonnie Langford as one of his assistants. She has to be one of the most annoying people of television, I can't watch her without grinding my teeth.