Past Seasons: Classic Who

[SnideAsides]

Speaking of The Savages, I... did not. Hoping to finish Hartnell over the weekend.

[benteen]

I'm halfway through The Creature from the Pit with the 4th Doctor and Romana, which I hadn't seen before, and...well, we all know I have quite a high tolerance for the vagaries of the '60s and '70s, but...safe to say, this one is not going to go down as a favourite.

 

I loved the 1st Doctor adventure The Savages, though.

 

That's the one I'm planning to watch next...I hear that season (with the exception of the great City of Death) is a pretty rough one.  Douglas Adams was script editor that year.

 

Planet of Evil I liked a lot.

[Llywela]

That's the one I'm planning to watch next...I hear that season (with the exception of the great City of Death) is a pretty rough one.  Douglas Adams was script editor that year.

 

Planet of Evil I liked a lot.

I've seen the whole of season 17 now and...well, I watched it all out of order, which even in the '70s doesn't help to get a feel for the flow of a season, but my overall impression is that it is a pretty clunky season. Very enjoyable on a camp, frothy level, and stuffed with jokes and humour, but there's something inherently shambolic about that run of stories. I suppose I prefer it when the show takes itself slightly more seriously!

 

I tend to have mixed feelings about Planet of Evil. The Doctor and Sarah are cute as all heck throughout, the jungle sets are gorgeous, and Frederick Jaeger is always reliable as a strong guest star, but I've never much liked the actual plot, which makes very little sense - the novelisation does a much better job of explaining things. Also, the early 4th Doctor era is one I do tend to watch through in order, so I come to Planet of Evil just after Harry has left in Zygons and sit through the whole thing really missing him!

[SnideAsides]

Finished Hartnell! Long story short: The War Machines was pretty good (anyone know if the War Machine design influenced those cleaner robots in Paradise Towers though?), I wish The Smugglers wasn't missing, The Tenth Planet was incredible, and I feel dirty for thinking about all the things I would do with Ben. Because seriously: Dude is fucking gorgeous.

 

Current story ranking (best to worst, subject to change): The Tenth Planet, The Time Meddler, The Dalek Invasion of Earth, The Edge of Destruction, The Aztecs, The War Machines, The Crusade, The Daleks' Master Plan, The Reign of Terror, The Keys of Marinus, Planet of Giants, The Daleks, The Rescue, The Gunfighters, The Space Museum, The Chase, The Myth Makers, The Ark, The Web Planet, Marco Polo, Galaxy 4, 100,000 BC, The Sensorites, The Romans, The Smugglers, The Massacre of St. Bartholomew's Eve, The Savages, Mission to the Unknown, The Celestial Toymaker.

 

Current companion ranking (same thing): Barbara, Ben, Steven, Polly, Vicki, Sara, Dodo, Ian, Katarina, Susan.

[benteen]

The things you find on youtube.  Here's vintage commercials of Tom Baker and Lalla Ward plugging computers in character...

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJeu3LCo-6A

 

I wasn't crazy about The War Machines.  Maybe it was hard to take killing machines seriously when they fire poison gas.  Still, I liked the introduction to Ben and Polly and the location shooting.  This was the prototype of the Doctor working with UNIT stories in later season.

[Llywela]

I really like The War Machines. It's so different to any other Hartnell story - almost proto-UNIT, in a sense. It's the first time we see the Doctor having an adventure in a contemporary Earth setting (apart from Planet of Giants, which doesn't count because of the miniaturisation), the first time we see him working alongside contemporary Earth authorities and the army. There's loads of location filming to establish the setting, taking the characters out of their cramped little sets and giving the story a lovely fresh feel. Ben and Polly sparkle as the new companions, especially compared with poor Dodo. It's not the most original concept ever, but it works and is something new and different for Doctor Who.

[tv-talk]

I'd completely forgotten the Creature from the Pit was a gigantic green scrotum and penis. Haha, going to have to pass. Think I'm going to watch Power of Kroll which I dont remember that well. 

 

The things you find on youtube.  Here's vintage commercials of Tom Baker and Lalla Ward plugging computers in character...

https://www.youtube....h?v=iJeu3LCo-6A

 

 

Thanks for this! Ton of good clips here, every jelly baby scene!

[SnideAsides]

You've actually just reminded me of the thing I wanted to bring up with The Smugglers: that basically every Doctor except McGann seems to have a story nobody ever brings up. It's not that they're bad stories, and a lot of them are in fact quite good, but when was the last time anyone ever discussed Timelash or The Idiot's Lantern or The Power of Kroll or The Dominators outside of the context of a binge watch? At least with The Smugglers it's a missing story. (It's probably too soon to guess what the forgotten stories for Smith and Capaldi will be, but I guess I'd go with Cold War and Time Heist right now?)

[Sandman87]

Since you mentioned it, I finally figured out what the Quarks from The Dominators remind me of; the Drone robots from the movie Silent Running. In light of the number of episodes that have beat me over the head with environmental messages, I wouldn't be surprised if the Quarks inspired the Drones.

I watched the end of The Power of Kroll last night, and the scene where they're going to be stretched to death is the first time (in episode chronology) where I can remember the Doctor ever admitting that he doesn't know something about science. He made up for it earlier by determining which planet he was on by gauging the wind speed.

[tv-talk]

That scene also had the Doctor shattering glass with his voice...has that happened before or since?

 

Speaking of "forgotten" episodes, I'm going to watch Androids of Tara next even though it precedes Power of Kroll. This is another episode I must not have seen in 20yrs, barely remember it. Re-watching these it's hitting me that I love Romana haha. The real Romana I mean, Key to Time arc. Seems I'm not able to call an episode with her and 4 a bad one, she must have been one of my first tv crushes and I'm happy to see that indeed I had good taste!

 

I do not see "The Armageddon Factor" on Hulu or Amazon despite them having rest of Key to Time arc. How ridiculous is that?? Must be a licensing issue, if anyone knows where 'Armageddon' is available for streaming do tell- thanks.

Edited March 6, 2015 by tv-talk

[benteen]

I think Prime doesn't carry Classic Who anymore.  I had just watched The Armageddon Factor there recently.  I have no idea why it's not on Hulu though.

I very much enjoyed The Androids of Tara.  The villain in that episode is a lot of fun.

[Ringthane]

That scene also had the Doctor shattering glass with his voice...has that happened before or since?

 

Not that I know of.  There's also the scene in "End of the World", where Nine can slow down time so he can walk through the fan blades or whatever those things were, which never happens again (think of all the times something like that would have come in handy).

[tv-talk]

Just watched Androids of Tara...good serial, pretty fun and none too serious (ie fate of universe not hanging in the balance). Kind of throwback to 3 as far as the extended dueling scene between Doctor and the Prince, that type of thing much more Pertwee than Baker. Loved Mary Tamm as always, good doses of K-9, all in all not great not bad. I would have thought that we'd get an alien behind the scenes manipulating for some reason or another give there were high tech androids about in a relatively low tech world. The Androids actually reminded me of similar vein in The Six Million Dollar Man which was filmed around same time.

 

Really annoyed I cant find Armageddon Factor anywhere! 

[Llywela]

I've taken a break from my 1st Doctor marathon and indulged in some '80s fluff with The Greatest Show in the Galaxy, which comes from my childhood era but which I had no memory of - guess we missed most or all of this one. Got to be honest, I thought it was awful - ranks up there with The Celestial Toymaker, The Happiness Patrol and Death in Heaven as my least favourite Doctor Who ever. It's very...abstract. There's almost no attempt at worldbuilding whatsoever, you just get a random circus in the middle of nowhere, random people randomly drawn to the circus for no reason and coming from nowhere, with a single random 'native' to remind us that the circus doesn't actually belong here and she's every bit as weird as the circus-folk she condemns. Nothing is grounded in anything even approaching a sense of reality. There's almost no meaningful characterisation, either, not even of the regulars. I've heard fans touting Mags as a celebrated companion-that-wasn't, but she's given almost no personality whatsoever. She looks good, but she spends the first half of the story as a 'sexy lamp', in effect, barely even allowed to speak, and then she's a plot device for the second half of the story, with no actual sense of who she is as an individual. McCoy fails to convincingly pull off the Doctor's switch from playing the fool to claiming he knew everything all along. Aldred does her best as Ace, but the material is woeful. No, this one is a fail for me.

Edited March 13, 2015 by Llywela

[benteen]

Just watched Androids of Tara...good serial, pretty fun and none too serious (ie fate of universe not hanging in the balance). Kind of throwback to 3 as far as the extended dueling scene between Doctor and the Prince, that type of thing much more Pertwee than Baker. Loved Mary Tamm as always, good doses of K-9, all in all not great not bad. I would have thought that we'd get an alien behind the scenes manipulating for some reason or another give there were high tech androids about in a relatively low tech world. The Androids actually reminded me of similar vein in The Six Million Dollar Man which was filmed around same time.

 

Really annoyed I cant find Armageddon Factor anywhere! 

 

The Prince was a very fun villain in that.

[tv-talk]

Are there any McCoy serials worth a look? That's when I "gave up" on the Doctor, really enjoyed 4-6 as a kid but by time 7 came around either I'd gotten into other things or serials were just terrible and I lost interest. Is there a highpoint of that era I should catch?

[benteen]

Remembrance of the Daleks is a must-see.

[Llywela]

Remembrance of the Daleks is a must-see.

Yes, and The Curse of Fenric. Plus Battlefield is all kinds of fun (The Brig! Winifred and Ancelyn! Awesomesauce), and I have a sneaking fondness for Silver Nemesis, too, in spite of its being a weaker version of much the same plot as Remembrance. And, of course, there's Ghost Light, which sits alongside Remembrance as the story I have the clearest memory of watching as a child. Ace made a big impression on 10-year-old me.

 

The McCoy era is a weird mixture, for me, of these marvellous highs that left an indelible mark on little-me and absolutely dire lows that are almost painful to watch. There's not much in the middle!

[John Potts]

Ringthane There's also the scene in "End of the World", where Nine can slow down time so he can walk through the fan blades or whatever those things were, which never happens again

 

 

That's not entirely true. JP's "DW & the Dinosaurs" features a scene where there's some sort of slow time field that the Doctor can move normally through "because [he]'s a Time Lord". Of course, one time in fifty years is not exactly a clear precedent, but it's not the only time the Doctor he's pulled an ability he rarely shows (which of course doesn't negate the fact that he really ought to use it more often if it's something he is supposedly able to do!).

 

 

Edited March 14, 2015 by John Potts

[benteen]

Yes, and The Curse of Fenric. Plus Battlefield is all kinds of fun (The Brig! Winifred and Ancelyn! Awesomesauce), and I have a sneaking fondness for Silver Nemesis, too, in spite of its being a weaker version of much the same plot as Remembrance. And, of course, there's Ghost Light, which sits alongside Remembrance as the story I have the clearest memory of watching as a child. Ace made a big impression on 10-year-old me.

 

The McCoy era is a weird mixture, for me, of these marvellous highs that left an indelible mark on little-me and absolutely dire lows that are almost painful to watch. There's not much in the middle!

 

Yes!  My apologies for not bringing these up.  Love Battlefield and The Curse of Fenric, as well as Survival.

[tv-talk]

I remember watching Remembrance of the Daleks way back when it was on tv and the scene where Ace busts up the Dalek with a baseball bat actually caused me to turn off the tv and give up on the Doctor right then and there haha. I couldnt believe my beloved Doctor Who had slummed down that badly, to where a teen with a bat could take out a Dalek.

 

Pretty funny to now learn that somehow I'd missed the whole bit about the bat being imbibed with special powers! No internet or rewind back then, guess I wast paying attention. I will check out at least one of those others, should give McCoy another chance. In the meantime tho, started Planet of Evil last night.

[Sandman87]

I couldnt believe my beloved Doctor Who had slummed down that badly, to where a teen with a bat could take out a Dalek.

So I guess you don't remember the time that the first Doctor took out a Dalek by leaving a jacket on the floor...

Watched The Creature From the Pit tonight. A thin aluminum (excuse me, "al-lu-min-ee-um") shell will negate the gravity of a neutron star? Really? Newton is spinning in his grave.

[proserpina65]

Are there any McCoy serials worth a look? That's when I "gave up" on the Doctor, really enjoyed 4-6 as a kid but by time 7 came around either I'd gotten into other things or serials were just terrible and I lost interest. Is there a highpoint of that era I should catch?

My suggestion would be The Curse of Fenric, which scared me so much the first time I saw it that I actually couldn't sleep all night afterwards, followed by Remembrance of the Daleks (where they finally learned to climb stairs!) and Battlefields, which contains the Brigadier's last big scenes.  There are some other McCoy ones I like - I'll confess to having a fondness for Greatest Show in the Galaxy for some reason (okay, Christopher Guard was cute) - but those are definitely his best ones.

[Ringthane]

"Happiness Patrol" is also worth a watch, if only to see how masterfully Sylvester McCoy plays the gun scene. 

 

Basically, anything from season 25 and 26 is a good watch - that's when the Cartmel Masterplan went into effect and McCoy really showed what he could do.  Season 24 isn't that bad, but there's definitely a lightness and silliness in it that is thankfully gone by the time season 25 rolls around (I always wish they would have done one of those Missing Episodes novels back in the 90s about what happened between seasons to change the tone so much).

[benteen]

After delving extensively into the Fourth Doctor era, I decided to go back to the black-and-white days of Doctor Who.  I watched the various "orphan" Second Doctor episodes before I finally returned to the First Doctor era and watched the three serials from the first season that I had yet to watch.  The Keys of Marinus, The Sensorites, and The Reign of Terror.  While flawed with some dull moments, I have to say I very much enjoyed all three stories.

 

I liked Hartnell's first Doctor a lot and that hasn't changed, even if he flubbed lines like crazy.  Ian was very likeable and handled the action scenes well.  Barbara I was impressed with too during these stretch of episodes.  She screams and cries in An Unearthly Child but those kinds of hysterics fade away as the first season goes on and she is an active participant in the groups adventures.  Though the poor woman tends to attract various unsavory types to her.  Susan though was really given the short stick.  She is reduced to screaming and crying a lot in Keys and Reign.  It's at its worse in Reign of Terror, where her hysterics pretty much prevent Barbara from doing anything useful when they're together.  I can see why Carol Anne Ford was the first to go.  She always made Susan likeable but was consistently let down by the writers, who took her interesting character from the first episode of An Unearthly Child and often reduced her to hysterics.

 

Though Susan fairs very well in The Sensorites.  She's an active participant in the events going on and starts to develop telepathy, reminding viewers that she is actually an alien.  She even gives the first description of what Gallifrey looks like (though the Time Lords home wouldn't receive a name until almost a decade later).  There's also tension between her and the Doctor.  It's a shame the shows writers didn't chose to develop this Susan.

Edited March 23, 2015 by benteen

[Sandman87]

Watched a couple of episodes from The Leisure Hive tonight:

• The opening shot of the episode seems to go on forever. Just a slow pan across a mostly empty beach for a full minute. Get on with it!
• I had completely forgotten about the Doctor's hideous burgundy outfit (it's been a few decades), so when they showed him for the first time I immediately thought of Alucard from Hellsing.
• The conversation where various other leisure planets are mentioned startled me because one of them was Abydos, which was a really important planet in the Stargate franchise. That's potential crossover fanfiction material right there.

Edited March 24, 2015 by Sandman87

[Notwisconsin]

TCM is showing Dr. Who and the Daleks next week. Starring Peter Cushing as #1.5.

[miles2go]

I rather enjoyed those movies -- not really Doctor Who, but with Peter Cushing in the main role, I didn't care.

[Sandman87]

More impressions:

Been watching Retro's episodes with Doctor #5, and they're...something. I knew things were going to be odd when he regenerated dressed like a music-hall performer (yes, I realize that it's supposed to be an old cricketer's outfit). Then there were several episodes of "let my companions do the heavy lifting for a while." Then it turned out the he's frequently an outright jerk, and managed to acquire the most irritating companion duo so far; Tegan and Turlough. Oh, and can't forget the amazing vanishing companion Chameleon, who joined up and then vanished without a trace or a mention for several serials, until the time came to dump him. Nice.

The "dark and gritty" shift in the writing went too far, and the writing became overly convoluted, so that it frequently took the better part of an entire episode before the Doctor even arrived at whatever place the plot was going to happen in.

I find Tegan's parting comment to be wonderfully meta: "It's not fun any more." I'll keep watching anyway, since I've never seen any of the old series Doctors after #5.

TCM is showing Dr. Who and the Daleks next week. Starring Peter Cushing as #1.5.

I'm interested. When is it on? Edited May 23, 2015 by Sandman87

[Ringthane]

More impressions:

Been watching Retro's episodes with Doctor #5, and they're...something. I knew things were going to be odd when he regenerated dressed like a music-hall performer (yes, I realize that it's supposed to be an old cricketer's outfit). Then there were several episodes of "let my companions do the heavy lifting for a while." Then it turned out the he's frequently an outright jerk, and managed to acquire the most irritating companion duo so far; Tegan and Turlough. Oh, and can't forget the amazing vanishing companion Chameleon, who joined up and then vanished without a trace or a mention for several serials, until the time came to dump him. Nice.

 

 

The reason Kamelion didn't appear beyond his first and last stories was that the man who invented the robot and did all the programming died after Kamelion's first appearance, and nobody else knew how to work the thing.  Kamelion was supposed to make an appearance in the first part of "The Awakening", but they cut the scene.

 

I found this on Wikipedia:

 

 

Behind the scenes

 

When Kamelion changed shape, it was played by the actor whose character's form it took. However, when in its default form, it was a true computer-controlled robot prop. The reason why the Kamelion robot was used fully only in two serials was that it was very difficult for the Doctor Who production team to control. It malfunctioned frequently, and things were only made worse when its inventor, Mike Power, died in a boating accident without leaving behind the knowledge of the complex codes that controlled it. A third appearance by the character in the serial The Awakening, designed to bridge the gap between its appearances and to remind viewers of its existence and the fact that it had been 'hiding' all this time somewhere in the TARDIS, was cut for timing reasons and was never broadcast. Thought lost forever, this scene was eventually recovered on a video copy of an early edit of The Awakening episode one, in the personal archive of the late Doctor Who producer John Nathan-Turner. Presented to the Doctor Who Restoration Team, it was included in the documentary Kamelion: Metal Man featured on the DVD release of The King's Demons.

 

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kamelion

 

Of course, with today's CGI, anything's possible.

[Sandman87]

I didn't know when I was well off. No sooner did I post to complain about #5 than they killed him off and gave us #6; Bi-polar violent paranoid/pretentious, overbearing twit Doctor that looks like he's dressed to be a court jester. I guess the fragmented costume is supposed to reflect his state of mind, or some such.

[Llywela]

I didn't know when I was well off. No sooner did I post to complain about #5 than they killed him off and gave us #6; Bi-polar violent paranoid/pretentious, overbearing twit Doctor that looks like he's dressed to be a court jester. I guess the fragmented costume is supposed to reflect his state of mind, or some such.

It's even sadder when you know that Colin Baker asked for a costume akin to what Chris Eccleston ended up wearing, but got saddled with that instead.

 

I've done kind of a complete 180 on the 6th Doctor. When he was originally on, my Mum, who'd been a fan of the show since the first episode, when she was 12, sat through his first serial in horror and then stopped watching the show, having brought us all up on it till that point. We didn't watch again regularly until well into the McCoy era, so I grew up with all this inherited prejudice against poor old Sixie - which, in fairness, is at least partly deserved. He suffered from some truly appalling writing, as well as the full garishness of the cheap and nasty '80s. And yet. Now that I've got to know him, as an adult, I think he's great. He has very few well-written stories, unfortunately - at least until Big Finish came along, he's got some great stuff there. But underneath all that dross is a lovely Doctor, once his personality settles down post-regeneration. He's brash and overbearing and fond of big words, but is actually a great big pussycat beneath the surface. I like him better than McCoy's Doctor, despite McCoy being the Doctor of my childhood, the one I remember best, the one I struggle to view objectively because his stuff just evokes my inner 10-year-old and vanishes beneath the rosy glow of nostalgia. Some of it, anyway - some of his stuff is almost unwatchable, despite the rosy glow of nostalgia!

[elle]

Movie Alert!  -On TCM tonight (or really early morning) as part of their time travel movie block they will  Doctor Who and the Daleks with Peter Cushing as The Doctor.  The synopsis is:The doctor's (Peter Cushing) TARDIS time machine takes him, his granddaughters and a friend (Roy Castle) to war-ravaged planet Skaro. in other words - Susan *and* Barbara as the Doctor's granddaughters!  Ian as Barbara's "friend"!  What other continuity gems will be found?

 

 

I've done kind of a complete 180 on the 6th Doctor. When he was originally on, my Mum, who'd been a fan of the show since the first episode, when she was 12, sat through his first serial in horror and then stopped watching the show, having brought us all up on it till that point. We didn't watch again regularly until well into the McCoy era, so I grew up with all this inherited prejudice against poor old Sixie - which, in fairness, is at least partly deserved. He suffered from some truly appalling writing, as well as the full garishness of the cheap and nasty '80s. 

This is similar to how my daughter has been introduced to Dr. Who.  I watched the NuWho from the beginning.  She started to show interest in what I was watching during the 50th anniversary multiple airings.  Became even more interested when she found out some of her friends were Who-vians.  Alas, just like your mom, I have watched "Twelve" in horror and have stopped watching the show.  

 

I need to get her interested in the original Dr. Who.

Edited May 29, 2015 by elle

[Sandman87]

The synopsis is:The doctor's (Peter Cushing) TARDIS time machine takes him, his granddaughters and a friend (Roy Castle) to war-ravaged planet Skaro. in other words - Susan *and* Barbara as the Doctor's granddaughters! Ian as Barbara's "friend"! What other continuity gems will be found?

Sounds like it's an alternate version of the Doctor, rather than part of the normal continuity.

[miles2go]

Sounds like it's an alternate version of the Doctor, rather than part of the normal continuity.

It is -- also rather watered down Doctor Who.  But the movies are fun, anyway.  And there's Peter Cushing!

[Llywela]

Movie Alert!  -On TCM tonight (or really early morning) as part of their time travel movie block they will  Doctor Who and the Daleks with Peter Cushing as The Doctor.  The synopsis is:The doctor's (Peter Cushing) TARDIS time machine takes him, his granddaughters and a friend (Roy Castle) to war-ravaged planet Skaro. in other words - Susan *and* Barbara as the Doctor's granddaughters!  Ian as Barbara's "friend"!  What other continuity gems will be found?

 

This is similar to how my daughter has been introduced to Dr. Who.  I watched the NuWho from the beginning.  She started to show interest in what I was watching during the 50th anniversary multiple airings.  Became even more interested when she found out some of her friends were Who-vians.  Alas, just like your mom, I have watched "Twelve" in horror and have stopped watching the show.  

 

I need to get her interested in the original Dr. Who.

You do! How old is she?

 

I think we all know how much I also loathed this last season just gone. I don't think I can quite stop watching yet, though. We'll see.

 

The Cushing moves give me cognitive dissonance like whoa. On the one hand, they are great fun, very humorous, with a much bigger budget than the show and technicolour and all the rest of it. And little Susie is great, in a way poor Susan was rarely allowed to be. But on the other hand...because I know the TV serials they are based on, I just sit through them yelling furiously at the screen. They hit all the same plot beats, but because the characters are different people with different backgrounds, none of their motivations actually track, because the original script was tailored for the original characters. Also, no one except Dr Who is allowed to actually do or achieve anything heroic, so both Ian and Barbara have all their heroic moments taken away from them - talk about tearing one character down to prop up another, instead of allowing that other to stand on his own merits. Ian is turned into comic relief while Barbara is especially poorly served, the fabulous character from the show basically turned into a 'sexy lamp', who could be removed from the story with no impact on the plot. In the second film, Ian and Barbara are removed entirely and replaced by two different, equally useless characters (although Bernard Cribbins is fantastic, as usual). In short, the films have much better sets and effects, but completely lose all the atmosphere, drama and characterisation of the show.

 

And I know some folk don't realise just how strongly characterised those early adventures are, but if you view those two Dalek serials and their movie counterparts side by side, looking at the characters rather than the plot, you'll soon realise just how weak the film is compared with the show. And how progressive the show is compared with the film!

Sounds like it's an alternate version of the Doctor, rather than part of the normal continuity.

That's right. The Cushing films are absolutely not part of the show's continuity - Dr Who in the films is not an alien traveller through time and space, and he doesn't have a police box. He's an eccentric scientist who's managed to build a time machine in his shed! The films simply take two popular Dalek stories and re-tell them for a wider, movie-watching audience, with a different backstory - losing most of the atmosphere and characterisation along the way. Very much watered down!

Edited May 29, 2015 by Llywela

[Sandman87]

Agreement with everything Llywela said. The size of the movie sets really distracted me. Guess I've gotten used to the little BBC sets in the TV series. And using lava lamps as "high tech alien equipment" was hilarious, especially since I've got one of exactly the same size and shape. It wasn't all bad though. The "jumping the chasm" scene didn't drag on endlessly the way I remember it doing in the series, the sets were nice, and seeing the early Daleks in bright colors was fun.

[MDKNIGHT]

Just started an entire classic Who rewatch.  Hit a snag when some of the episodes I didn't own on dvd turned out to be Out of Print in US dvd's.  Was pleasantly surprised to find out that region free dvd players had come down in price A LOT since 2003 when I'd previously looked into it.  And found that buying region 2 Dr Who dvds from England even with postage was reasonable.  Have realized there were a HECK of a lot of Pertwee eps I had never seen before.  The Master was in it a lot more than I had expected. I liked Terror of the Autons a lot and the Time Monster despite the weird bird-god thing was interesting.  Those two are among the ones I had never in my life seen before and so were kind of a surprise.

 

I'm glad that they've put out several of the previously lost episodes on dvd since finding some of them to make animating the still missing ones worth while but still morn that I'll never see a professionally produced Dalek Master plan or Celestial Toymaker.  I have seen the Loose Canon photo snap versions of those two but don't know if Loose Canon produced versions of ALL the lost episodes.  Are there any other ways of experiencing the still lost episodes than Loose Canon?  I was also bummed to find out they closed their websites years ago since I never got copies of some of the ones I know they did.  Are all the ones they did available elsewhere? 

 

When I rewatched the Dalek Invasion of Earth I had to freeze frame and call a fellow Whovian to express amazement that it actually happened...the mark of the really cheap budget of sci fi movies  of yester year...the pie plate on a string passed off as a spaceship.  I love Who but that was the one moment I had to point and laugh at it ; while I can normally forgive the questionable sets and special effects.  I haven't seen the Peter Cushing vesion in decades but sent away for it , but IIRC one of the minor pluses it has over the admittedly much smaller budgeted tv original version is that the Dalek saucers were not pie plates on a visible string.  Still I love the series to bits and the bigger budget does NOT make me love the movies more. 

Edited June 11, 2015 by MDKNIGHT

[Llywela]

Are there any other ways of experiencing the still lost episodes than Loose Canon?  I was also bummed to find out they closed their websites years ago since I never got copies of some of the ones I know they did.  Are all the ones they did available elsewhere?

There are Loose Cannon reconstructions of every lost episode - sometimes multiple versions, as they are constantly upgrading them. I acquired them all via torrent (which I might struggle to find again!) but if you search Daily Motion you should be able to find them to stream.

[Sandman87]

Retro is up to The Trial of A Time Lord now. An entire season devoted to my least favorite plot device; the protagonist on trial. At least they've been using it to show new material. Normally "trial" stories are used to frame a clip show.

It was fun seeing BRIAN BLESSED (that's how you have to type his name) in a story. His makeup made him look like Drogo from Game of Thrones, which was amusing. I was also amused by the "guns" in Terror of the Vervoids; small yellow cordless drills, which they held upside-down.

[MDKNIGHT]

Rewatched the BRIAN BLESSED (yes I know what you mean) episode of DW recently and a crazy thought went through my head...can you imagine what would happen if a mad scientist crossed BRIAN BLESSED with Tom Baker?  Scary thought ain't it? 

[Featherhat]

Rewatched the BRIAN BLESSED (yes I know what you mean) episode of DW recently and a crazy thought went through my head...can you imagine what would happen if a mad scientist crossed BRIAN BLESSED with Tom Baker?  Scary thought ain't it?

Have you seen the Backadder episode "Potato"? Tom Baker plays a very Brian Blessed inspired "Captain Rum" character. BB himself was obviously in the much maligned 1st series of Blackadder. I don't like Peri (only seen two serials and she's bottom three) but her fate is harsh. Either dead or carried off by Brian Blessed and Six doesn't seem to give a shit.

[Sandman87]

I don't know which annoyed me more about Perri; her constant shrieking or her "American" accent. Really, I didn't even know that she was supposed to be American until the Doctor mentioned it in passing.

 

Damn, just when I was getting used to #6 (and the way he sounds like John Cleese as Basil Fawlty whenever he gets worked up), up popped a new Doctor with a new set of annoying behaviors.

[Joe]

The level of quirkiness really rises in the JNT era. But Seven is all around better than Six.

[Lokiberry]

The level of quirkiness really rises in the JNT era. But Seven is all around better than Six.

Seven improved a lot when Ace got there. One of the many things that hampered Six was that he never had a decent companion. I think for a long time, JNT seemed to dismiss the companions as just pretty girls for the "dads" to look at; but, something changed about the time Ace showed up. Maybe he looked back and recognized some of the mistake he made; maybe he was afraid the show would get cancelled and he'd get the blame for it. All I know is that the last few seasons were better written, with better Doctor/Companion interaction, than anything since Five left.

 

It's a shame that the show was cancelled just when JNT seemed to be getting things back on track. But, at the end of the day, I still blame him for it. I know there were some BBC bigwigs gunning for it, but it was the terrible writing, and casting that went on for years, even when he knew the show was in trouble, that drove the audience away, and gave the BBC the ammunition they needed to pull the plug.

[Ringthane]

Seven improved a lot when Ace got there. One of the many things that hampered Six was that he never had a decent companion. I think for a long time, JNT seemed to dismiss the companions as just pretty girls for the "dads" to look at; but, something changed about the time Ace showed up. Maybe he looked back and recognized some of the mistake he made; maybe he was afraid the show would get cancelled and he'd get the blame for it. All I know is that the last few seasons were better written, with better Doctor/Companion interaction, than anything since Five left.

 

It's a shame that the show was cancelled just when JNT seemed to be getting things back on track. But, at the end of the day, I still blame him for it. I know there were some BBC bigwigs gunning for it, but it was the terrible writing, and casting that went on for years, even when he knew the show was in trouble, that drove the audience away, and gave the BBC the ammunition they needed to pull the plug.

 

It didn't help that Eric Saward and JNT didn't get along toward the end of Colin Baker's run, or that the budget was about $40 a year.  Luckily, Andrew Cartmel came along with the Cartmel Masterplan.

[MDKNIGHT]

"the Cartmel Masterplan"

Some dedicated Whovian should make a fake DW episode with that title.

 

Yes I have seen Blackadder (except for the one set in WWI trenches) and saw Blessed's performance as the king but forgot Tom Baker played the crazy captain. 

 

I was kind of embarrassed for the show when they drew attention to Perri's "American" accent in the ep where they go chasing a radio broadcast on a strange planet (I think it was a Colin Baker Dalek ep) because the DJ sounded "American" to Peri and she thought it might be somebody from home. I was surprised that she was supposed to be from somewhere specific in the US and remember it was TOTALLY off for that especially.  (Can't remember now was she supposed to be from Baltimore Maryland? )

 

There is no power on earth that can convince me that the Web Planet was not the direct result of a DW script writer dropping acid in his backyard, tripping while looking at ants and bees and then writing it down because he had a deadline and had to hand in SOMETHING.  It WAS the 60's after all and really there can't be any other explanation.

[Featherhat]

The strange thing is it wouldn't have been difficult to have found a busty American actress willing to work at BBC prices or at least a British actress who could have faked a better one. They managed to find a real Australian after all.

I saw Peri's first episode for the first time a few months ago and I didn't think she was *that* bad compared to what I had heard about here and then I saw Twin Dilemma, which I thought was bad anyway and she was even worse, not that Six is much better. I always want to like Colin Baker more than I actually do because I don’t think a lot of the problems were his fault and some of the *ideas* for a more alien Six weren’t terrible, they just didn’t work in execution.

[MDKNIGHT]

I suggest listening to Colin Baker's Doctor on the Big Finish audios especially paired with a companion they invented for the audio called Evelyn Smythe.  I COMPLETELY agree with you about how he came across on tv but on the audios he grows to be loveable and very entertaining.  There are also no words for Colin in character singing" I Am the Very Model of a Gallifryan Buccaneer" in a parody of The Pirates of Penzanz.

 

Saw a documentary of classic who and thought it was interesting that Verity Lambert who was DWs first producer and kind of a trail blazer since women were not producers in 63 said that while Hartnell would always be best in her eyes since heck she cast him, that of all the other classic doctors she thought Tom Baker came the closest to Hartnel's eccentricity which she felt was an essential part of being the doctor.  She felt Peter Davidson was too young and nice.

[benteen]

After watching most of the First and Second Doctor serials that I skipped over during my initial viewing, I'm starting the Third Doctor years in earnest.  I've saw a few of them during my initial viewing but a lot of them I haven't. 

 

I rewatched Spearhead from Space and found myself enjoying it more the second time around.  It was the blu-ray version, which looks fantastic.  Shooting it on film and primarily on location really looked good on Classic Who.  I found myself enjoying Pertwee's performance more the second time around and I loved Liz Shaw's snark with the always great Brigidier.  I'm halfway through Doctor Who and the Siluarians now.

Edited June 23, 2015 by benteen