That's considered to be a classic episode.
What, The Happiness Patrol?
Ick.
I really don't care for most of the Sylvester McCoy era. I met the actor in Spokane nearly 30 years ago when he was on a cross-USA tour of the PBS stations to promote the show. It was Labor Day weekend in September of 1987 and a friend phoned me and said, "Classes just started, I'm bored, let's go to Spokane this weekend and meet Sylvester McCoy." So we made the trip from Calgary to Spokane, met a quartet of Whovians from Edmonton (the station manager put it this way: "You gals are from Calgary? There's four fellas here from Edmonton; maybe y'all know each other!"), met Sylvester McCoy (I still have the photo he autographed for me), and toured the exhibits. We spent Saturday night at the same motel as the guys from Edmonton, watching Doctor Who (of course) over pizza and American Coke (tastes quite different from Canadian Coke). I don't recall off hand which story it was - I think they were running either the Fourth or Fifth Doctor stories on Saturday nights then.
Anyway, I'm not much of a Seventh Doctor afficionado. There are a few stories I like: Paradise Towers, Dragonfire, Battlefield, and Silver Nemesis. The others range from atrocious to 'meh'.
Nah, I wouldn’t go as far as that. I have plenty of other stuff I am also interested in. It’s more a case of despite everything, you still want to know what is going on. Keep updated with the newest developments. Even though I admit I have already forgotten most of the plotlines from the last seasons. Time has been rewritten so often that I don’t know what is real anymore.
Yeah, I got thoroughly disgusted when I realized it would take a flow chart to figure out wtf was going on in the Matt Smith era. And his constant "I lied. The Doctor always lies." was so annoying.
Sorry, no other Doctor I knew was like that. They wouldn't always tell everything, but at least they wouldn't lie about it. That was such a cop-out whenever TPTB realized they'd written themselves into a corner and had to retcon something.
Come to think of it, your take on Doctor Who is similar to my take on Dune (the SF series by Frank Herbert and later added to by Kevin J. Anderson and Brian Herbert (Frank Herbert's son). I really don't like the nuDune stuff by KJA/BH. It's poorly written garbage for the most part, but I've kept up with it because I kept hoping it would improve. It finally did... slightly. They finally created a character I really liked. And of course that's the one they killed off at the end of the book. So there are two more books I haven't read. Not sure I'll bother now, since they really haven't improved.
Actually, I have stopped watching once before. I’m one of the new fans that came in with Christopher Eccleston, and at first couldn’t quite get into David Tennant’s portrayal of the Doctor. So when German TV stopped airing it after season 2 due to bad ratings (what where they expecting, airing it at Saturday afternoons at 4 PM and cutting down all the violence because of the early hour) I probably would have watched on if it had stayed on TV but I did not feel interested enough in it to try to order British DVDs. I came only back to this world years later with “Torchwood” when someone told me that Jack had turned up in more Who episodes, so at first I only watched those. Then some more random ones here and there with a friend until I decided it was time to spring for the complete box set to catch up properly. Which was a weird time – around me everyone was crying after Ten’s departure and I still wasn’t enough of a fan to really understand those feelings. I had the exact same when everyone was mourning Leonard Nimoy’s passing and I only started to watch TOS months after that. I am a bit late with everything!
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I don’t – as in I haven’t seen it. It’s only recently that the show got more popular on German TV. Before that, they only aired some 7th and 6th Doctor stuff in the early Nineties but I was not aware of it at the time. My friend showed me some episodes of the first, fifth and seventh Doctor. With my newfound love for Sean Pertwee, I think I will explore a bit of the third next.
I remember Martha doing the same though. It was a good scene.
Ah, okay. You mentioned male Doctors, so I just assumed you meant all of them. Pertwee is the Whovian version of James Bond, in a way - dapper, adventurous, loves gadgets and odd vehicles. He's not a ladies' man like Bond, though. The Classic Doctors operated along the dictum of "there will be no hanky-panky in the TARDIS." About the closest thing to ever happen was in the 1996 movie in which the Seventh Doctor (Sylvester McCoy) regenerates into the Eighth Doctor (Paul McGann). McGann's Doctor could have been the first "romantic" one... if he'd had the chance for his own series. He should have had that chance, as McGann was absolutely perfect in the role.
The Pertwee era was fun, with some of the smartest companions in the entire run of the show. Liz Shaw, (a scientist), Jo Grant (okay, she wasn't much for science, but she did have mad escapology skillz and handled people well), and then came Sarah Jane Smith who pretty well tops nearly every list of the ___ top Doctor Who companions. She's better known for her time with the Fourth Doctor, but she started with the Third.
This is the era that introduced the Sontarans, the Master, and was the first time there was a special anniversary show when the Doctor met himself (The Three Doctors). U.N.I.T. was a major part of the early Pertwee era, and some fans still have fond memories of Sergeant Benson, Captain Yates, and of course the Brigadier. I think you'll enjoy it.
I had looked so much forward to Peter Capaldi and then was disappointed how harsh his Doctor was, how mean, how insulting, and how he kept saying things like “deal with it by yourself, it’s not my problem”. While he is my friend’s favorite as his personality reminds her of a classic one (have forgotten which). And here I was thinking the Doctor always was helping people because he loved them.
That harsh tone is like the Sixth Doctor (Colin Baker). He didn't have a lot of compassion or patience, and his arrogant attitude really put me off. I guess all the Doctors have some degree of arrogance, but the others tempered it with compassion, charm, a sense of fun, and they genuinely respected their companions.
It's a relief to find someone else who's not a Clara fan.
Yeah, basically. Although Reader's Digest is more reputable than a tabloid newspaper, the principle is the same.
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