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Past Seasons: Classic Who

Lisin

By Lisin
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Llywela

Llywela

It took me a while for enjoy Pertwee's character as I found him more serious than other Doctors but I have been watching the era straight through recently (save for four stories I saw on Netflix last year) and have been really enjoying them.  His Doctor can really be an ass to the people around him but warms up as time goes on.  There isn't one story I haven't liked although be warned, the Pertwee era has a LOT of six-parters.

Oh, I know. I've actually seen most of his era now - all of it, in fact, I think. And I really enjoy it. I just find it more digestible in chunks, rather than as an intensive ongoing marathon. I like my Pertwee best broken up a bit with other stuff in between!

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Llywela
Llywela

I think this is a hurdle a lot of people face - I struggled at first myself when I went back to the classic show, despite having grown up on it. But just because it is dated doesn't mean it has nothin

benteen
benteen

As I recall, Marwyn Undead was supposed to feature William Russell returning as Ian. It didn't happen so The Brigadier was brought back, having become a math teacher at a boarding school. The Fifth Do

Llywela
Llywela

I love An Unearthly Child. The pacing isn't awful, it's appropriate for the style and the time and the length of the story. It feels odd to modern viewers because just about everything we watch today

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benteen

benteen

Speaking of the Troughton years, The Underwater Menace is going to get an official UK release on DVD on October 26th.  Hopefully a U.S. release won't be far behind.  Episode 2 of this serial was found in 2011 so it'll be the first time it's ever been released on DVD (Episode 3 was released several years ago on a Lost Episodes compilation).  Episode 1 and 4 will be recreated via photographs with the full audio and dialogue.  This marks the earliest existing Second Doctor and Jaime footage to be released and Ben and Polly are part of the TARDIS team with them.

Llywela

Llywela

Yup, yup, I've actually pre-ordered this one, which I've only done previously for a bare handful of releases - I now own all but I think three (available) Classic serials on DVD, and most have been acquired second hand or in sales. Barring further discoveries, this is the last unreleased episode to make it onto DVD (it was leaked onto the web a couple of years ago).

SnideAsides

SnideAsides

Agreed. I was just wondering if they might start to grate on me a bit if I watched their run in rapid succession as a marathon as SnidesAsides is doing. I don't think so, though - I've watched most of their stuff, even if not in order, and always find them great fun. I think I'd struggle more with Pertwee's era as a marathon - I'm fond of everyone in it, but find it quite dry and more digestible in smaller doses. Or McCoy's, which is so variable.

I think it's a combination of factors - basically having to sit through two entire 40-episode seasons of recons, the recurring villains making the stories feel even more unoriginal (seriously, I can't even enjoy being Dalek-free for two seasons because of all the Cybermen and Yeti and Ice Warriors), not particularly enjoying Two compared to the other Doctors I've seen, and Jamie just plain staying around for too damn long. I think I'd have liked him if he'd left, like, halfway through season five, but keeping him around for about a hundred episodes is far too long.

 

The Space Pirates has a weird Firefly vibe about it, and as much as I found that show particularly overrated, I think it kind of works here. It's still not a particularly great story though. (On the other hand, I'm completely done with recons now, so that's a plus.)

proserpina65

proserpina65

I wasn't a fan of The Krotons but the intellectual rivalry between The Doctor and Zoe in it is a lot of fun.

Plus, I love the computer announcing that Jamie isn't a "High Brain" - no arguments there.  He's the eye candy.

It took me a while for enjoy Pertwee's character as I found him more serious than other Doctors but I have been watching the era straight through recently (save for four stories I saw on Netflix last year) and have been really enjoying them.  His Doctor can really be an ass to the people around him but warms up as time goes on.  There isn't one story I haven't liked although be warned, the Pertwee era has a LOT of six-parters.

You're not lying there.  Some of them just go on forever.  I'd like his sojourn as the Doctor better if the stories weren't so bloody endless.  Some of the shorter ones I really like but I was somewhat traumatized by the loss of Two & Jamie, so it took me quite a long time to warm up to Three.

Speaking of the Troughton years, The Underwater Menace is going to get an official UK release on DVD on October 26th.  Hopefully a U.S. release won't be far behind.  Episode 2 of this serial was found in 2011 so it'll be the first time it's ever been released on DVD (Episode 3 was released several years ago on a Lost Episodes compilation).  Episode 1 and 4 will be recreated via photographs with the full audio and dialogue.  This marks the earliest existing Second Doctor and Jaime footage to be released and Ben and Polly are part of the TARDIS team with them.

Woo Hoo!!!!!

not particularly enjoying Two compared to the other Doctors I've seen,

 

That's kind of how I feel about Three.  Well, with the exception of Six - I definitely prefer Three to Six.  Not Colin Baker's fault, though; I blame the writers and the BBC for sabotaging his run.

Llywela

Llywela

As a kid I watched Baker, Davison, C.Baker, and then it was Mccoy's silly Doctor that turned me off from the show though from what I've read he changed a lot in following season and I should probably watch them. As mean as Colin Baker's Doctor was I never had any real issue with him as the Doctor.

I don't think Colin Baker's Doctor is anywhere near as mean as his reputation suggests - it's only really in that first adventure that his behaviour is extreme, and it is meant to be, he's unstable after a difficult regeneration. After that, he's brusque and impatient, but I wouldn't call him mean. And most Doctors can be brusque and impatient!

 

McCoy's era is one of extreme highs and lows - more ups and downs than a rollercoaster!

SnideAsides

SnideAsides

So I was totally expecting The War Games to be completely and utterly overrated, but... it really is that good, you guys. There's a couple of Bad Acting Moments and the set design is pretty blatantly "the war scenes cost us a shitload to make, so let's all pretend these sheets of cellophane with decals painted on them are walls" cheap, but that's kind of delightful. I've put the current rankings under spoiler bars because of the length, but it really is telling that the two best stories so far are Two's final story and One's final story. It's almost like they put in extra effort to ensure each Doctor goes out with a bang (um... Six's big bang is more literal, but still.)

 

Current story ranking (best to worst, subject to change):

The War Games, The Tenth Planet, The Time Meddler, The Dalek Invasion of Earth, The Edge of Destruction, The Power of the Daleks, The Aztecs, The Mind Robber, The Enemy of the World, The War Machines, The Crusade, The Daleks' Master Plan, The Abominable Snowmen, The Ice Warriors, The Faceless Ones, The Reign of Terror, The Moonbase, The Underwater Menace, The Keys of Marinus, Planet of Giants, The Seeds of Death, The Daleks, The Rescue, The Gunfighters, The Space Museum, The Evil of the Daleks, The Tomb of the Cybermen, The Chase, The Myth Makers, The Ark, The Dominators, The Invasion, The Web Planet, Marco Polo, The Macra Terror, The Web of Fear, Galaxy 4, The Wheel in Space, The Space Pirates, 100,000 BC, The Sensorites, The Romans, The Krotons, The Highlanders, The Smugglers, The Massacre of St. Bartholomew's Eve, The Savages, Mission to the Unknown, Fury from the Deep, The Celestial Toymaker.

 

Current companion ranking (same thing):

Barbara, Ben, Steven, Zoe, Polly, Jamie, Vicki, Sara, Dodo, Ian, Katarina, Susan, Victoria.

Llywela

Llywela

So I was totally expecting The War Games to be completely and utterly overrated, but... it really is that good, you guys.

I know, right. You'd think ten episodes would be stretching it - especially knowing it was all written on the fly, rather than planned out at that length - but it really is an excellent story, keeps you engaged and engrossed throughout.

proserpina65

proserpina65

I know, right. You'd think ten episodes would be stretching it - especially knowing it was all written on the fly, rather than planned out at that length - but it really is an excellent story, keeps you engaged and engrossed throughout.

I like The War Games, but I do think it's too long.  There are definitely scenes which seem repetitive to me.  The ending is killer though.

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SnideAsides

SnideAsides

Spearhead from Space is... well, different. Even aside from changing from black and white to colour, and even ignoring the new Doctor (who doesn't do much, it must be said), it just feels like a completely different show than it did in The War Games. I'm not sure why it feels so different here when other changeover episodes don't have this issue - it's not even that there's no continuing companion (as opposed to The Eleventh Hour), because the Brigadier fills the role more than Liz does in this story. Weird.

benteen

benteen

It definitely takes getting used to the transition from black and white and the new Doctor is out of the action for much of the first episode plus but I really enjoyed it, particularly when I saw it the second time.  The story was the only Classic Who shot on film and looks great as a result.  Pertwee took a while for me to warm to but I liked him here.  Really liked Liz and her snarkiness with the Brigadier is great.  The Brigadier is fantastic and is the only member of the eventual "Unit family" present in this story.

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SnideAsides

SnideAsides

It does strike me as a story that would improve drastically upon rewatch. But instead I watched Doctor Who and the Silurians, and (aside from being thrown by the Silurians being a weird pinky-brown instead of green) I actually really enjoyed it. The Silurians are kind of in the same boat as the Ice Warriors, where I like them but I think what they represent is more interesting than what they actually are. I think the intention was that their designated moral evil was The Racism (a point handled with significantly less subtlety in the revival), but in actuality they seem more like the conservative-until-convinced-otherwise opposition to [insert civil rights change here], which: again, more fascinating to watch than the freaking Daleks.

proserpina65

proserpina65

I remember struggling with Spearhead from Space the first time I watched it, but then I tried again a while later and absolutely loved it. The Brig and Liz make the story for me - I love the dynamic between them here.

The rewatch when BBC America ran it did not improve it for me.  Yes, the dynamic between the Brig and Liz is terrific, and one of the few things I like about this story, but it just seemed interminable and there were so many repetitive scenes that it was a struggle for me to get through it.  Fortunately Three's tenure does include much better stories - "Inferno" anyone?

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benteen

benteen

I enjoyed Doctor Who and the Silurians a lot.  I enjoyed all the Pertwee seven-parters although I tend to think that seven parts is one part too long.  The Silurians actually has some nuance about them as opposed to previous Who villains.  Though after releasing that plague (a well-done group of scenes) I can understand why humanity wants no part of them.  We see a much more combative relationship between the Doctor and the Brigadier here as well.  Seeing how the Doctor is portrayed, it's amazing that him and the Brig remained friends after the resolution of this episode.  The modern Doctor would have been righteously furious at what happened, particularly Ten (see The Christmas Invasion).

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SnideAsides

SnideAsides

The Ambassadors of Death and Inferno are both odd little entities, aren't they? The Ambassadors of Death is a good story that's kind of ruined by how the tinkering with the intro to revisit the cliffhanger before the story title means they all come out of nowhere and feel entirely arbitrary (sidenote: no, we didn't need the "The Ambassadors... OF DEATH" music sting every episode), and Inferno is a pretty ho-hum Fascist Crapsack World plot like every other sci-fi show does (like, even freaking Misfits did it) that's saved mostly because the pacing is different than we've come to expect from a Doctor Who episode.

 

I am, however, really enjoying the Brigadier not putting up with anybody's bullshit. But now, it is time to meet the Master. Please pass the vodka.

Lantern7

Lantern7

I'm not fond of the seven-parters. Not even "Inferno," which could have been 4-5 episodes long if the Doctor hadn't basically said "Fuck this and fuck y'all" and tried to take off in the inoperative TARDIS.

 

Do any of you read Doctor Who Magazine? The latest issue I got had a "diary" kept by the Master, as he went over all his plans. and it had fits of LEOL (Laughing Evilly Out Loud). I liked how most of the entries started with "Unfortunately," followed by details on how his schemes failed. It's funny reading.

SnideAsides

SnideAsides

Terror of the Autons, on the other hand, was lovely. There's some really terrible acting (Pertwee with the phone cord, that guy who dies in the inflatable seat clearly pulling the thing down on top of him) and the Master really isn't anywhere near as batshit bonkers as I've come to expect, but... it kind of works in context? I'm going to be disappointed if this is what Delgado's like all season though.

Llywela

Llywela

There's some really terrible acting (Pertwee with the phone cord, that guy who dies in the inflatable seat clearly pulling the thing down on top of him

Haha, but to be fair, I don't think either is really any worse than Eccleston and Piper with the Auton hand in Rose - there's only so much you can do when acting opposite an inanimate object that is meant to be attacking you! Even today, with CGI, they can only do so much to help.

 

If you want the original Master to be more like the modern Master, you are likely to be disappointed - for much the same reasons that those of us who knew the classic Masters first struggle with the over-the-top insanity of the modern ones. The character simply wasn't like that in his original incarnation. He's nuts, yes, but not in the hammy, scenery-chewing way we've seen in new Who. The Delgado Master is all suave charm and crazy plans, Moriarty to the Doctor's Holmes.

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Llywela

Llywela

(edited)

It's not even the scenery chewing, it's more that there's usually a level of comic absurdity in whatever intricately-planned horror the Master has cooked up that didn't seem like it was there in that story. Even compared to the Ainley Master, it felt like I wasn't watching the same character.

Yeah, the character changed a lot. I prefer the Delgado version, though (which probably explains why I dislike the Simm and Gomez Masters so much) - and he does get his fair share of absurdity over time, but never in quite the same way as later incarnations. This is the original vision of the character.

 

But hey, we expect for the Doctor to have a new personality with every regeneration. Why do we always expect the Master to be much the same?

Edited by Llywela
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proserpina65

proserpina65

Inferno is a pretty ho-hum Fascist Crapsack World plot like every other sci-fi show does (like, even freaking Misfits did it) that's saved mostly because the pacing is different than we've come to expect from a Doctor Who episode.

 

Awww . . . I love Inferno.  I think it's one of the very best stories of the Pertwee years.  I mean, Nicholas Courtney with a neat scar, really!  Not being a big fan of the Master (in any incarnation, really), I found Terror of the Autons to be something of a slog to get through, though it is better than Spearhead From Space, for the most part.

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SnideAsides

SnideAsides

But hey, we expect for the Doctor to have a new personality with every regeneration. Why do we always expect the Master to be much the same?

The Doctor's always essentially the same person beneath the superficial changes like the recorder and the decorative vegetable and the Tennant shouting. But the personality of the Delgado Master doesn't seem like it suits the character we've come to know.

 

Speaking of, I'm not a fan of The Mind of Evil, but I can't work out how much of it is just because the plot feels derivative and how much is the fact that it all feels unusually theatre-y, even by the standards of 1970s British television shows.

Llywela

Llywela

(edited)

The Doctor's always essentially the same person beneath the superficial changes like the recorder and the decorative vegetable and the Tennant shouting. But the personality of the Delgado Master doesn't seem like it suits the character we've come to know.

But that surely is the fault of the writing for the later versions of the character, not the original. He came first, after all. It is they who failed to conform to him, not him who failed to conform to them. ;) Because things change and develop. Doctor Who the show, as it is now, doesn't seem like it suits the show of the 1960s or 70s, but it is still the same show. It's just a show that's undergone many changes. So it is with the character of the Master. He's changed enormously over the years, through different writers and production visions, but that original version of him is nonetheless the Master. You might appreciate him more if you take him on his own terms, rather than projecting the later versions onto him.

Edited by Llywela
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elle

elle

So it is with the character of the Master. He's changed enormously over the years, through different writers and production visions, but that original version of him is nonetheless the Master. You might appreciate him more if you take him on his own terms, rather than projecting the later versions onto him.

As it was/is with the character of the Doctor and the companions!

 

One could attribute the change in the Master, within the story universe, that the changes to his character was a result of his experiences in the Time War.  As much as it has been referenced in things that the Doctor has done, it would work as well for the Master.

SnideAsides

SnideAsides

Four stories in, and I'm finally feeling the Delgado Master. And all it took was making him more of a character than just Dick Dastardly, Stage Hypnotist. Don't get me wrong, Colony in Space isn't a perfect story by any stretch of the imagination, but it's very good, and it's probably telling that the biggest issues I had with it were the repeated usage of words like "savages" and "primitive". Stupid colonialism.

tv-talk

tv-talk

I just never know if Tom Baker and Ainsley are by far my fav Doctor and Master simply because they're the ones I grew up on or if they were actually the cream of the crop. When trying to watch objectively I still see them as actually superb (and I do love the Missy Master btw), but you just never know if it's your 1st Doctor being your best Doctor!

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Llywela

Llywela

I just never know if Tom Baker and Ainsley are by far my fav Doctor and Master simply because they're the ones I grew up on or if they were actually the cream of the crop. When trying to watch objectively I still see them as actually superb (and I do love the Missy Master btw), but you just never know if it's your 1st Doctor being your best Doctor!

I've often thought about that conundrum - how much of my liking for various eras of the show is mixed up with childhood memories and how much has developed independent of those memories? Although I have memories of watching Tom Baker's last adventure, and vague memories of a few Davison and Colin Baker stories, Sylvester McCoy was 'my Doctor', the incumbent when I was old enough to really get into the show, the one I remember best from my childhood...yet although I get very nostalgic about some of his stuff, he's far from my favourite. But I do sometimes wonder if my fondness for the 4th Doctor, Sarah & Harry team is because they were so well represented in our VHS collection, despite being on air a good few years before I was born.

 

We had a huge collection of novelisations, so my childhood familiarity with the various Doctors and companions mostly came from those. And later from UK Gold repeats. And when I remember that, I realise that it really is impossible to separate my feelings for and knowledge of the show now from the deeply ingrained familiarity that comes of growing up steeped in it to that extent.

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tv-talk

tv-talk

Aside from the fact it means I'm actually older haha, I have come to think that the run from late Pertwee thru Colin Baker is Golden Era of the show tho I know Colin Baker isnt so popular and that I'm lucky to have that era been my hardcore Doctor Who foundation. I also think it's not just coincidence that Tom Baker is so highly esteemed, his Doctor coupled the vagabond, impish wanderer with the serious universe altering demi-god as well as any of them. Lots of the over-the-top emo scenes we see in NuWho are reminiscent of questions Baker faced but just came to terms with much more quickly and with less angst.

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Llywela

Llywela

On the other hand, Classic Who tended to overact, while New Who tends to underact. Not that I just watched the scenery-chewing smorgasbord that is The Daemons or anything.

Hey, New Who is capable of overacting just as much as Classic. Very much so. A different style of overacting, because acting styles have changed, but overacting is still very much a part of the show.

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Sharpie66

Sharpie66

I just saw this and I had to post it here--the 1995 fan film Downtime is being released on DVD for the first time. The Flick Filosopher has a review of it here. What makes this something that might be interesting to watch is that it has lots of big-name characters in it, even if they don't have any of the Doctors.

 

The Doctor doesn’t appear here — the producers couldn’t get a license to even mention him — but we do get the return of Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart (Nicholas Courtney) and Sarah Jane Smith (Elisabeth Sladen) in a story that is a sort of sequel to the Patrick Troughton-era serials “The Abominable Snowmen” and “The Web of Fear.” Downtime also features the Second Doctor’s companion Victoria Waterfield (Deborah Watling) — now living in late-20th-century London — and anthropologist Professor Edward Travers (Jack Watling, Deborah’s father, though their characters here are unrelated), who appeared in those 1960s episodes. Though director Christopher Barry, a veteran of the classic series, does manage some interesting visuals on a nonexistent budget, this is strictly for serious Doctor Who fans who won’t mind the ultra-cheap, shot-on-90s-video mood while they fill in some blanks between the 1960s appearances of the alien Great Intelligence and its reappearance in the 2013 Matt Smith story “The Bells of Saint John.” Fans of the current incarnation of the show may be most intrigued by the introduction of the Brigadier’s daughter, Kate (here played by Beverley Cressman) — which I guess makes this somewhat canonical — and in particular her conversation with her father about the disruption his military service caused his family. Fan-fiction-y tidbits like that are catnip to Whovians.

 

SnideAsides

SnideAsides

The Curse of Peladon was bloody wonderful. It's nice to finally get Three away from Earth for a bit, and it was especially nice to have a story with a bit of meat to it compared to many of the space travel stories One and Two had.

 

Unfortunately, The Sea Devils was not nearly as good. It did the best it could with the circumstances, but it was like they took everything bad about the last two seasons and dumped it into a single story. And we didn't even get the Brigadier! :(

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benteen

benteen

I enjoyed The Curse of Peladon too and I liked the setting of if.  Also, this was to be the story in which the Third Doctor finally mellows and really establishes his relationship with Jo.  The banter early on with "Princess Josephine" is one example.  Also, after he berates her in the cave and she gets upset with him, he acknowledges that Jo was only trying to help him and to me it's from that point on that we have the warm Doctor/Jo relationship that lasts till The Green Death.  I'm watching The Monster of Peladon at the moment, the second-to-last Pertween story.

 

I enjoyed The Sea Devils a lot with the return of The Master and the heavy naval setting.  I think the Brigadier was supposed to be in this episode originally but since they were working so heavily with the Royal Navy in this one, the characters were from there.  I do know that in order to be granted so much access to location and footage, the writers had to portray the members of the Royal Navy in a heroic light.

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MDKNIGHT

MDKNIGHT

I am doing a rewatch of all classic who in chronological order.  Years ago I got the vhs recons for many of the lost episodes BUT it never occurred to me that LooseCanon would die.  There are a few stories I didn't get at the time.  I've been able to see most of them in pieces on youtube but some like the Smugglers I haven't found enough parts to make sense of the story.  I mean I really have NO CLUE what the heck is going on.  Does anybody know of other outlets for recons of the lost episodes?  I have literally bought official BBC made copies of all NONE lost episodes and it bugs not to have a complete collection. 

 

Reg actually being discussed eps-Sea Devils I liked for the real Navy stuff and IF the tech had been there to make the Pertwee Sea Devils heads move I think it would have gone over better.  I usually just roll with the limitiations of tech and budget HOWEVER the two creatures I just could not forgive were the Nimon and whatever that dragony version of a pantomime horse was called that Peter Davidson's 5 fought that was a guard dog for the Sea Devils in HIS encounter with them.  The first one tried to sell a guy with a paper mache bull's head and PLATFORM SHOES as a monster and I laugh and laugh every time I see that on my screen.  The second one IIRC didn't have back legs.  The mind reals. 

Llywela

Llywela

I am doing a rewatch of all classic who in chronological order.  Years ago I got the vhs recons for many of the lost episodes BUT it never occurred to me that LooseCanon would die.  There are a few stories I didn't get at the time.  I've been able to see most of them in pieces on youtube but some like the Smugglers I haven't found enough parts to make sense of the story.  I mean I really have NO CLUE what the heck is going on.  Does anybody know of other outlets for recons of the lost episodes?  I have literally bought official BBC made copies of all NONE lost episodes and it bugs not to have a complete collection.

I've got copies of all the Loose Cannon recons, via a route I'm not sure we're supposed to publicly share and a source I may not be able to find again, so...I'd say PM me, but I'm not sure how much help I could be.

 

Daily Motion used to be the place to go for missing episode recons, but a lot of them got pulled last year in a big copyright clamp down.

 

The Curse of Peladon is great - the Monster of Peladon is a bit of a let-down, in comparison.

benteen

benteen

Yeah, I would agree about The Mutants.  One of the weaker entries of The Third Doctor era though I haven't found one story yet that I hated. 

 

Interesting fact about that story, the actor who played Ky also played Biggs in the original Star Wars.

 

Up next is The Time Monster, which is one of the only Third Doctor stories that I haven't seen yet.

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