Yeah, when I watched (and read) The Daleks' Masterplan later (I'm watching the old show in airing order) I remember thinking that they were recycling themselves a bit. On the other hand, Masterplan had enough differing story features that it didn't matter to me. It's a shame so much of it is lost and unlikely to be recovered as it's a great story.
Yeah I've heard that. Kind of a shame they never got to make it, because a big budget, color version of The Chase probably would have been awesome to see. It certainly would have had more potential for fun than the two dreary Dalek movies they did make (even though I'm sure they still would have found a way to over-simplify and dumb things down).
I just finished watching "The Spearhead From Space" and was pleasantly surprised at how good the introduction to The Third Doctor was.
I just watched The Brain of Morbius. It was pretty good, and it was interesting to see the Sisterhood of Karn, which I first saw in the Night of the Doctor minisode. The Morbius body was goofy, but it didn't ruin the episode. I knew about the faces in the screen thing before hand, and whatever the intention of the people making the episode at the time, it makes more sense to me for those faces to be Morbius's older forms. Overall, I liked this serial. Next is The Seeds of Doom.
Seeds of Doom was my first Serial, where I paid active attention. Prior to that, I made fun of brother for watching it, and I only watched it out of the corner of my eye, no more than 15% of the time the episodes were on a TV I was near. With Seeds of Doom, I had finally elected to give it a real daily commitment chance as each episode aired. It was often pretty campy, but, I enjoyed and accepted each Serial after more and more. Seeds of Doom, is a great Serial (Once you accept the premise) because it has alot of stuff happening, and the plot advances to different places over the 6 episodes, it doesn't just run up and down corridors and escape and be captured every episode, the plot and location changes and advances throughout
I just watched Tomb of the Cybermen. I liked the 2nd Doctor in The Three Doctors and The Five Doctors, so I decided to check out one of his stories (and this was the earliest complete one, and seems generally well received). I liked it, even if it had one or two problems. It was a bit annoying that they ended up giving the evil humans the upper hand twice by randomly putting weapons down next to the bad guy's "unconscious" bodies. Still, The Doctor and his companions are interesting, and I definitely want to check more of his stuff out. Next I'm planning to watch the 4th Doctor's Seeds of Doom, then I might try the 2nd Doctor's The Abominable Snowmen to see if stories that are mostly reconstructions are something that I'd find watchable.
The Moonbase (The Cyberman Serial prior to Tomb of the Cybermen) has 2 complete episodes, and someone on Youtube took the Telesnaps for the two missing episodes and animated them, so, it's very watchable, IMHO, and better than just a Reconstruction. Episode 1 (Talking Animated) Episode 3 (Talking Animated)
Power of The Daleks (All 6 episodes still lost) has Episode 1 and 2 done in the same style complete, and the first 10 minutes of Episode 3, so, it's almost like almost half of it has been restored
That looks interesting, although I don't want to watch another 2nd Doctor Cybermen story so soon after Tomb of the Cybermen. I watched The Seeds of Doom today. I liked it. It was a pretty good story, the moster(s) looked ok, and the antarctica parts were cool. I think it could have been trimmed down a bit and worked slightly better (maybe just 2 episodes in the ice and 2 in England) but it was still an enjoyable story. So, I've finished the first two seasons of the 4th Doctor, and I've liked both of them. There haven't been any outright bad stories, although The Android Invasion felt very average. Next up is The Masque of Mandragora for the 4th Doctor, and the mostly reconstruction The Abominable Snowmen for the 2nd Doctor.
It's been quite a while but my return to classic Who was a good one - The Ice Warriors. Not overly fond of the animation for eps 2 and 3 but the story itself was pretty decent and Troughton is always eminently watchable.
Ok, so The Masque of Mandragora is officially the first 4th Doctor story I outright dislike. I can't think of any redeeming features, outside of The Doctor and Sarah Jane being as good as they usually are. The story premise was pretty weak (a part of a sentient energy thing tries to take over the earth through possessing some 15th century idiots) and it didn't hold my attention at all. I watched the episodes, and I can barely remember what happened only a few hours later. Its not anywhere close to being the worst Doctor Who story, but I didn't like it. I watched the first episode of The Hand of Fear, and it was much better. I didn't look at a summary of the story, but I know its Sarah Jane Smith's last story. It looks like it will be pretty good, and it will be interesting to see who the new companion will be, whenever they turn up.
Inspired by the thread about new Who going darker I watched some of the Tom Baker gothic-ish episodes I'm not as familiar with. Watched Planet of Evil and that did indeed have quite an impressive body count. It was interesting that the Doctor was able to make some kind of deal with the planet(?) over the removal of the anti-matter. The alien jungle set was nicely done as were a couple of throwaway shots of that aerial recon drone. Too bad they didn't do more with that thing. I didn't like that Sorenson was let off the hook for all the mayhem he caused by his not returning the antimatter. After the Jekyll and Hyde of Planet of Evil I watched the Frankenstein of Brain of Morbius. I thought this was pretty entertaining in execution despite a lack of really clever plotting. I was a bit shocked when Solon shot a bloody hole in his assistant's gut. The brain in a jar with lurid colors helped to "Hammer" home the atmosphere. Sarah Jane has a right smart looking outfit in this one and does a pretty good job with a blindness subplot. The details and some decent acting carry this one. Now when do we get to see those previous incarnations of the Doctor?
Yeah I tried watching Mandragora last night, but after two episodes I'm not sure I really care to see the rest. Although it WAS pretty surprising to see Tom Baker running around and fighting people as much as he did in the story. I've seen a fair number of his episodes (although by no means all), and don't remember ever seeing him as... energetic.
Watched The Sun Makers and Battlefield this weekend. The Baker ep was superior but Lethbridge-Stewart's return was pretty excellent, too. It just bugged me that they made such a big deal about that revolver when we clearly saw him using an automatic pistol in so many Pertwee shows. Leela still looks great. She must hold the record for "companion with the highest body count". It's amazing how nonchalant the Doc is about all the folks she puts that knife through. Makes me think of Davros' accusation that the Doc uses his companions to do the dirty work for him.