Doctor Who on Twitch: can a 500-episode marathon turn gamers into fans?

Over 200 hours of the Doctor's original 1963-1989 episodes are being streamed on the website, complete with hashtags and Time Lord emojis

In more than five decades of adventuring through time and space, Doctor Who has appeared not only on TV, but on film, radio, and across a vast range of books, CDs and LPs. Last week the show started exploring another dimension, with 500 classic episodes live-streamed in a viewing marathon on Twitch.

For the uninitiated, Twitch, is a video platform mostly devoted to gaming. When you sign up, you are asked to pick out some favourite video games and that choice shapes the channels and streams that are recommended to you. It's an inherently interactive space: gamers are able to stream themselves playing to potentially huge worldwide audiences, with comments running in real time alongside their videos. And it is an intriguing place to suddenly start broadcasting black-and-white 1960s TV.