Past Seasons: Classic Who

[benteen]

RIP Willian Russell. He was great on Who and a guy who carried the physical action of Doctor Who during the first two seasons. Was very happy when he popped up again in Jodie Whittaker's final episode. 

[libgirl2]

9 minutes ago, benteen said:

RIP Willian Russell. He was great on Who and a guy who carried the physical action of Doctor Who during the first two seasons. Was very happy when he popped up again in Jodie Whittaker's final episode. 

It was wonderful to see him that last time. 

[tv-talk]

So I finally watched Shada....what a treat! I'd kind of been saving it for years and it was the perfect antidote to the crying, kissing Doctor we have now. I'd assumed the back and forth from live action to animation would be tough to deal with but it was really well done. Romana was great, the 2 extra companions were very good too, and it's always nice to have another Time Lord on the scene. Sariyavan was such the British '70s character and I dont recall him being mentioned or turning up again at any later point?

The best though was the Classic Who absurdities as far the "monsters" and threats went. That all powerful bubble chasing Tom Baker on bike and the ridiculous electro monsters or whatever they were.  Pure Who right there and from a bygone era. Highly recommend to any who havent seen it and will be rewatching at some point.

[tessaray]

Shada was great. I should rewatch it myself. Though at one point some years back I remember being irritated that Shada was being treated like a little cottage industry - they re-released the books and video several times in just a couple of years.

Edited June 9 by tessaray

[tessaray]

The Brain of Morbius was on my local public tv channel last night. Most of it was still silly but I always enjoy seeing the Sisterhood of Karn. 

[tv-talk]

When they knock on the castle in the driving rain and the Doctor says "Could you spare a glass of water?"....one of my all-time favorite Who lines, that is a great episode for sure.

[Llywela]

16 hours ago, tessaray said:

Shada was great. I should rewatch it myself. Though at one point some years back I remember being irritated that Shada was being treated like a little cottage industry - they re-released the books and video several times in just a couple of years.

Plus, of course, it gave us Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency*, which is itself now a whole thing, what with the Netflix 'adaptation'.

*Knowing that it started out as a Doctor Who script explains so much about that book.

[Affogato]

2 hours ago, Llywela said:

Plus, of course, it gave us Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency*, which is itself now a whole thing, what with the Netflix 'adaptation'.

*Knowing that it started out as a Doctor Who script explains so much about that book.

I did not know that!

[Llywela]

1 hour ago, Affogato said:

I did not know that!

Not gonna lie, I insert that little factoid into every conversation I have about Shada, just in case the other person might not know. 😁 Yes, having written the entire script and produced a huge chunk of the serial only to have the whole thing pulled out from under his feet thanks to the strike, Douglas Adams did not want to let it go to waste, so he re-worked the script into a non-Doctor Who novel and thereby created Dirk Gently!

And like I said, knowing that explains so, so much about the story! And once you know, you can watch/read Shada and read Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency and have yourself a fun little drinking game, spotting all the clues that the one was adapted from the other by the same writer.

Edited June 10 by Llywela

[tv-talk]

I had no idea! Definitely have to pull out my dog-eared copy of Dirk.

[tv-talk]

And speaking of Brain of Morbius....have the Rani made an appearance at any point in NuWho? 

[DanaK]

Given it's Summer and I don't watch much broadcast or cable shows during this time and since I now have Britbox US via Amazon, I decided to start watching Classic Who. Other than a couple of animations that were done to replace some missing episodes that were broadcast by BBC America, I have never watched Classic Who. I've only seen occasional excerpts, usually making fun of the shaky sets and monsters. I watched the "Pyramids of Mars" series with the 4th Doctor right before the recent finale, but now I'm starting at the beginning with Season 1 with William Hartnell. I'm up to the second serial, the one that introduced the Daleks and that has definitely perked up my interest. The "An Unearthly Child" serial was ok but a little slow with not entirely interesting foes. The Daleks are a little different than what they are today, but aside from shooting Ian with an itsy bitsy laser that only temporarily paralyzes his legs, they seem at least a bit formidable in their casings

It's interesting to see the Doctor a bit amoral and uncaring and old and kind of daft at times, while Ian seems to be the moral center (along with Barbara) and the bravest one of the group. Susan seems to be pretty capable for now, including being able to help fly the Tardis and only a little screamy at times (too bad she reportedly becomes all screamy later). Barbara too seems a little screamy at times, but at times quite capable.

Unfortunately, it looks like Britbox ends up skipping 2 series in the first season and several in subsequent seasons for the First and Second Doctors due to missing episodes, so I will be ending up watching the Third Doctor sooner rather than later

 

 

[Affogato]

On 7/7/2024 at 12:45 PM, DanaK said:

Given it's Summer and I don't watch much broadcast or cable shows during this time and since I now have Britbox US via Amazon, I decided to start watching Classic Who. Other than a couple of animations that were done to replace some missing episodes that were broadcast by BBC America, I have never watched Classic Who. I've only seen occasional excerpts, usually making fun of the shaky sets and monsters. I watched the "Pyramids of Mars" series with the 4th Doctor right before the recent finale, but now I'm starting at the beginning with Season 1 with William Hartnell. I'm up to the second serial, the one that introduced the Daleks and that has definitely perked up my interest. The "An Unearthly Child" serial was ok but a little slow with not entirely interesting foes. The Daleks are a little different than what they are today, but aside from shooting Ian with an itsy bitsy laser that only temporarily paralyzes his legs, they seem at least a bit formidable in their casings

It's interesting to see the Doctor a bit amoral and uncaring and old and kind of daft at times, while Ian seems to be the moral center (along with Barbara) and the bravest one of the group. Susan seems to be pretty capable for now, including being able to help fly the Tardis and only a little screamy at times (too bad she reportedly becomes all screamy later). Barbara too seems a little screamy at times, but at times quite capable.

Unfortunately, it looks like Britbox ends up skipping 2 series in the first season and several in subsequent seasons for the First and Second Doctors due to missing episodes, so I will be ending up watching the Third Doctor sooner rather than later

 

 

I also have Britbox through Amazon, it is currently 99 cents a month for two months for Prime members (until July 17). The only doctor I’ve seen is 3 and a disorganized smattering of 4. It should be interesting!

[Llywela]

On 7/7/2024 at 5:45 PM, DanaK said:

Unfortunately, it looks like Britbox ends up skipping 2 series in the first season and several in subsequent seasons for the First and Second Doctors due to missing episodes, so I will be ending up watching the Third Doctor sooner rather than later

Yeah, Britbox would have to skips the serials that are missing, I guess. The recons are too amateur and they may not have the distribution rights for the animations that have been released on DVD.

For those who don't know, there are 97 episodes of 1960s Who that are officially classed as missing, as they are no longer known to exist other than as audio recordings (made by avid fans), telesnap still images, and a handful of clips that, ironically, survived because they were censored - i.e. physically cut out of the reel. Two has more missing episodes than One, but both were hit. All of the missing episodes are available to experience as reconstructions, though, available in various places online. Some are better than others. Marco Polo was my favourite, I was so sucked in I almost forgot there were no moving images! The Daleks' Master Plan is really good, too, despite being so long.

I hope you enjoy your Classic viewing experience! It is a bit of an adjustment, but absolutely fascinating to go back to the beginning and watch the show build itself from the ground up. It is also a bit like watching the development of TV itself, in many ways. The special effects, especially, you get to watch the technology develop and grow over the years. The First Doctor era always feels really fresh and exciting to me, despite also being so primitive. There was no baggage at all, so every episode was new and experimental. Have fun with it!

Edited July 20 by Llywela

[SVNBob]

14 hours ago, Llywela said:

For those who don't know, there are 97 episodes of 1960s Who that are officially classed as missing, as they are no longer known to exist other than as audio recordings (made by avid fans), telesnap still images, and a handful of clips that, ironically, survived because they were censored - i.e. physically cut out of the reel.

There's one other weird element to the list of missing episodes, yet preserved clips; and it's one of the biggest missing episodes and weirdest "preservations."

The story "The Tenth Planet" is missing the final episode.  Not the biggest deal, except for the fact that that was Hartnell's final story.  So the missing episode contains the very first regeneration sequence!  That's why it's the Holy Grail of the missing Doctor Who episodes.

Luckily the regeneration sequence itself did get preserved...thanks to another BBC show, Blue Peter.  In 1973, that show did a special about Doctor Who and included the regeneration from Hartnell to Troughton as part of the special.  Where they got the clip from, no one is truly sure.  (There's a myth that they'd borrowed the only copy of the episode from the Beeb's archives for the special, then lost it.  But that's unsubstantiated.  They did borrow and never return a copy of "The Daleks' Master Plan" Episode 4 though.)  But the version of the first regeneration that now exists in the BBC archive is technically from an episode of Blue Peter and not Doctor Who.

 

While fact-checking for this post, I learned about another controversy regarding the lost episode.  In 1992, a man claimed to have a copy of the missing episode and would sell the tape to the BBC for 500 pounds (around $1640 US currently).  But it was a hoax.  The hoaxer's name?  Roger K. Barrett.  Better known as Syd Barrett from Pink Floyd.

[tv-talk]

The Roku channel seems to be playing Classic Who chronologically on "live tv." Kind of nice to just turn it on and watch whatever ep is showing rather than my standard deciding to view a specific episode streaming.

Just saw the last ep of Robots of Death. Forgot how much I liked that serial! The notion of some humans having "robophobia" due to robots having no non-verbal cues and such was good, had forgotten that. Leela is fun too.

What struck me though, and something I loved about Classic Who, is Leela and the Doctor's exit from the scene. The 2 crew people left were injured but all the robots had been destroyed so Mission Accomplished. The Doctor was all "Ok let's roll out Leela" and she said "Shouldnt we wait and make sure the crew members are ok?" and his response was "Nah there are medical ships on the way, we're out." Close the Tardis door and cue the theme music as the Tardis groans and fades away. Love it! 

The Doctor as an oddball who may or may not actually care about the situation in the way you assumed. Did he really care about that whole crew or was the whole thing more about fascination with the Robots? Sure there was a dastardly plan that "needed" to be stopped but the Doctor was not just a human savior who happened to not technically be human. He was very much different from humans.

[ABay]

David Collings is in that one. I'm always happy when he pops up.  He was Silver in Sapphire and Steele, Deva in the final episode of Blake's 7 , and according to IMDB Bob Cratchit in the utterly weird Scrooge. It's been a long time since I watched that and I'd forgotten he was in it. The songs were entertaining and I played the clip of "Thank you very much" on YT the day my student loans were forgiven.

[tv-talk]

Horror of Fang Rock on last night- had forgotten all about the Rutans and their classic "blob of goo" '70s special effects. The Doctor basically got the lighthouse guy killed, led him right into the Rutan and then had kind of an "oh well" reaction to the guy dying.

Leela to mortally wounded Rutan- I hope you enjoy dying as much as I enjoyed killing you.

Damn Leela! Brutal. 

While the special effects may be cheesy, Classic Who was little rougher around the edges than today's version.

[tessaray]

On 7/24/2024 at 7:41 AM, ABay said:

David Collings is in that one. I'm always happy when he pops up.  He was Silver in Sapphire and Steele, Deva in the final episode of Blake's 7 , and according to IMDB Bob Cratchit in the utterly weird Scrooge. It's been a long time since I watched that and I'd forgotten he was in it. The songs were entertaining and I played the clip of "Thank you very much" on YT the day my student loans were forgiven.

I also liked seeing David Collings pop up in things. Blake and Deva - one of my favorites.

8 hours ago, tv-talk said:

Leela to mortally wounded Rutan- I hope you enjoy dying as much as I enjoyed killing you.

Another favorite. 🙂 I just watched this a few weeks ago. I'm not a cosplayer but I wouldn't mind having Leela's outfit there.

[tv-talk]

On 7/25/2024 at 6:56 PM, tessaray said:

Another favorite. 🙂 I just watched this a few weeks ago. I'm not a cosplayer but I wouldn't mind having Leela's outfit there.

Kudos to you if you can pull that outfit off! Leela was showing more skin than anything in NuWho. I know the word is NuWho is for kids but I am pretty sure Leela brought in some middle-school boy viewership lol.

 

[tessaray]

2 hours ago, tv-talk said:

Kudos to you if you can pull that outfit off! Leela was showing more skin than anything in NuWho. I know the word is NuWho is for kids but I am pretty sure Leela brought in some middle-school boy viewership lol.

 

Oh, I wasn't talking Leela's normal costume. 🙂  In Horror of Fang Rock she wears a worker's turtleneck and pants with some great boots. You would then need to duplicate her necklace and the dagger in her boot.

P.s. her grumpy expression aside, the outfit suited her better than the Victorian/Edwardian dress she was wearing when they landed. 

Edited July 29 by tessaray

[SVNBob]

On 7/29/2024 at 3:46 PM, tv-talk said:

I know the word is NuWho is for kids but I am pretty sure Leela brought in some middle-school boy viewership lol.

The common phrasing is "dads and lads."  As in "the Doctor for the lads, and Leela for the dads."

[tv-talk]

That is a great outfit!

I just read about no one being happy with Leela's exit from the show and how they just had some sort of redo, or follow-up where she became Capt of the Guard at Gallifrey...and coincidentally the last part of Invasion of Time was on hulu this morning. It was definitely strange that all of a sudden she just decided to stay with guard after being so devoted to the Doctor throughout. And the lengthy scene in the TARDIS with the Sontarans was certainly different, basically having it as a giant warehouse everyone got lost in- had definitely forgotten that.

Baker's exquisite weirdness was on full display, his interactions with Barusa were great and the final scene before cut to theme music where he took out the new K9 and laughed was very alien. Leela and original K9 had their heads hung in sadness and he was simply onto the next!

[ABay]

As you said, Leela's decision to stay with Andred (?) came out of nowhere. There's one scene where they look at each other and maybe touch hands? I think you can sort of see them talking in the background of another scene.

[tv-talk]

Apparently Louise Jameson had committed to another role, which seems strange in hindsight. Wasnt being a Companion on Doctor Who in 1975 top notch? Maybe she got sick of being 3/4 naked most of the time. I did read that no one including here was happy with the exit and that they even asked her to change it but she'd already committed to another project and couldnt re-film. I guess she ends up being Capt of the Guard on Gallifrey but of course only in the audio series which I've never heard.

 

Another interesting tidbit was that after Sarah Jane left and The Deadly Assassin did so well- apparently Baker didnt think the show needed a Companion and wanted to have the TARDIS to himself.

Edited August 5 by tv-talk

[Affogato]

Oh dear. Season 2 “in the land of giants’ is about forever chemicals…..

[libgirl2]

On 6/10/2024 at 4:13 AM, Llywela said:

Plus, of course, it gave us Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency*, which is itself now a whole thing, what with the Netflix 'adaptation'.

*Knowing that it started out as a Doctor Who script explains so much about that book.

We loved Dirk Gently, it was so unexpected and fun. I named my car Bart. And 

Spoiler

I wish it wasn't left hanging! Ken is a bad guy? Bart is locked up? 

 

[QuantumMechanic]

On 6/10/2024 at 5:13 AM, Llywela said:

Plus, of course, it gave us Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency*, which is itself now a whole thing, what with the Netflix 'adaptation'.

*Knowing that it started out as a Doctor Who script explains so much about that book.

I first read it (or maybe it was the sequel? Been a lonnnnng time) sometime after having seen "City of Death" and was actually kinda pissed off because here I went and spent allowance money buying the book and now I knew what a major plot point was and how it was gonna be resolved.

[sugarbaker design]

I just started a watch of the third Doctor.  I just finished the first two serials, Spearhead from Space and Dr Who and the Silurians.  I'm really enjoying the natural charm of Jon Pertwee and the adult companion Liz Shaw.  The stories seem geared to adults and not children.  I like the idea of a companion who is the Doctor's equal and not an apprentice.  So far the Doctor is confined to earth, but storywise, he's still saving the Earth!

Edited September 12 by sugarbaker design

[Llywela]

On 9/12/2024 at 8:51 PM, sugarbaker design said:

I just started a watch of the third Doctor.  I just finished the first two serials, Spearhead from Space and Dr Who and the Silurians.  I'm really enjoying the natural charm of Jon Pertwee and the adult companion Liz Shaw.  The stories seem geared to adults and not children.  I like the idea of a companion who is the Doctor's equal and not an apprentice.  So far the Doctor is confined to earth, but storywise, he's still saving the Earth!

I really love the Third Doctor era. 😊 Liz Shaw is the character I point at whenever the Doctor claims to have been UNIT's first ever scientific advisor. He was not! Liz was specifically recruited into the post before he arrived for his exile on Earth! She was the first. He just kind of tagged onto her role.

[tearknee]

[HauntedBathroom]

Well, The War Games was edited with a knife and fork, and we can work out where the producer stands on the whole 'The War Chief = The Master, Y/N?' question, but...I quite liked it! The re-colouring wasn't as garish as it was for The Daleks, and I liked the Troughton regeneration, and the cheeky re-assessment of Two's next form made me laugh.

Obviously not as good as the original, but...fun.