Remembrance of the Daleks, last night with RevdKathy. We have the Paul McGann and Eccleston to watch, then we get Tennant and Smith in the special and we've watched a story from each Doctor in the last 2 weeks.
I've decided to mix some old Doctor who with my modern Doctor Who watching, so I'm back to the fourth Doctor. I just watched episode 1 of Revenge of the Cybermen. It was a good episode, although it was mostly build up to get to the Cybermen. I did learn something from it, though. Apparently, thousands of years in the future, space station/beacons will keep space communication logs on reel to reel style recorders, and traitors will communicate with aliens by space telegraph It doesn't effect my enjoyment of shows to see things like this, Its just funny to see some of the goofy tech in the future being outdated probably a decade after this episode came out.
You are right... the "classic" didn't register when I posted that. Well, last classic story in that case would be the first part of The Three Doctors then.
I also rewatched The Three Doctors recently in preparation for the special because it's the first multi-Doctor story and was also made to celebrate an anniversary (the 10th). It's a bit silly but I love the interaction between Two and Three, the eccentric supporting characters, the Brig being himself and the First Doctor's line about the Dandy and the Clown. I like the ending a lot, too. The Doctor finally gets his ability to time travel back but decides to stick around a bit with UNIT, anyway - a marked contrast to his first season where he tried to get away whenever the opportunity seemingly presented itself.
I have a question. Since tomorrow is the 50th anniversary, I feel like watching some stuff from the Doctor's I've never seen, so I'm wondering about something. Can I watch The Three Doctors and The Five Doctors, just by themselves? I know that they have ties to the seasons they are in, but I'm just wondering if they work as stand alone episodes by viewers who haven't watched their era's. I'm also planning to watch An Unearthly Child and the Doctor Who movie, but those obviously don't need prior episode viewing.
I'll probably watch them then. I'm too far behind in modern Doctor Who to watch the 50th Anniversary episode anytime soon, so I'm watching some of the old stuff, which should be good.
Yea, the only real connection either of them has to their respective place in episode order, is the Companions they are with, and in The Three Doctors and prior Pertwee's Doctor is stuck on Earth unable to come and go with his TARDIS (At the end of Troughton era, The Doctor is exiled to Earth, and his knowledge of how to Time Travel is taken from him). [Though, there is still a few TARDIS trips in early Pertwee stories before his Time Traveling knowledge is restored to him].
Yeah, I knew that the 3rd Doctor was basically unable to use the TARDIS (which sounds like the set up to a bad Doctor era honestly, although I haven't seen any of the 3rd Doctor's run so maybe being stuck on present day earth turned out ok). I've actually been getting a bit more interested in the first three Doctor's anyway, so I figured The Three Doctors would be worth a watch.
There's actually some very good "Earthbound" Pertwee stories especially with The introduction of The Master, and there is some TARDIS traveling and some other means of traveling, so, not all of the stories before him getting back a working TARDIS are Earthbound
I figured that the Third's Doctor's exile couldn't be as boring as it sounded. Honestly, of all the Doctor's, the 3rd is the one that is the lowest priority to me to watch. I don't know why but he's always seemed the least interesting to me. Right now I'm too busy watching modern Doctor Who, mixed with the 4th Doctor, to add another one, but if I were ever going to start going through all the classic Doctor's, he'd probably be the last I got to. Its hard to pinpoint why, since I know so little about him outside of his exile. Its just that when I see images of him or small clips, he just doesn't seem like a Doctor I'd want to spend much time watching on his own, especially with so much Doctor who I haven't seem.
Starting with the third Doctor you basically have a completely new show, with a new star, new supporting actors, a new tone and a new premise. Plus it's in color. In retrospect, I find it extremely daring, and I'd love it if Moffat tried something similar with Capaldi.
To me the third Doctor seems the odd man out of the whole bunch. He is very much a product of his time. He is more of a Secret Agent than a free adventurer like the rest of them (provided that I have seen very little of the classic doctors).
I think of the era of the Third Doctor as something of a precursor to modern Who due to the Earth connection and the contemporary companions (or assistants as they were called then). There's also a darker undercurrent to the Doctor, a bitterness because of his exile. Just like Modern Who, it's basically a complete overhaul of the show. The visuals are very different from before, and not just because of the colour. The pacing is very fast compared to the preceding serials. Just watch Troughton's last story, The War Games and then Spearhead from Space and Doctor Who and the Silurians and you'll be amazed. The era also introduces the Master. The interactions between the two are just brilliant. In general, the character interactions are quite entertaining and make even the weaker stories worth a watch (well, to me, anyway). Plus, there are dinosaurs in modern-day London. Short clips and descriptions of Doctors can be misleading. I'm watching the old show in airing order. From what little I had seen of the Fourth Doctor, I was pretty convinced I wouldn't like him, especially as he was bound to follow my newly found second favourite Doctor. But he totally won me over within minutes of his debut story "Robot". So much awesome crazyness!
I'm not sure if this is usually included in the Classic Who category, but because its pre 2005 I figure this is the place to mention it. I just watched the Doctor who movie. I thought it was ok. It had some problems, but nothing that ruined the story for me. Sure, having the Master call the Doctor half human (and having the Doctor confirm it later) was idiotic, but as I understand it the show just ignores those stupid comments, so its best just to ignore them. I don't know how the Master usually acts (I knew about him, but this is the first time I've seen him) but he seemed a bit melodramatic and overacting. Maybe that's normal for him, but he was a bit hard to take seriously at the end, especially with that pretty ridiculous costume. If he'd been a bit less weird and more threatening I could have ignored the costume, but as it is it was just weird. Also, I do wonder when The Doctor became omnipotent. I don't recall the 4th, 9th or 10th Doctor's being able to tell the future and fates of every random person they come across, but I don't think he was doing it because he had met all of these people in their future. He was acting like he just knew this stuff The companions (I guess we could call them that) were ok I guess, The guy was a bit annoying. The Doctor seemed to grow attached to the woman somewhat quickly, they only knew each other for a few hours but he was acting really attached to her. Its a good think Rose met Sarah Jane and not this woman, they probably would have started attacking each other I also want to know, was it just me or did the 7th Doctor die because a human doctor was a moron? I can't imagine that any other Doctor got so lame a death. They usually seem to die while doing something to save someone/something else. The 7th Doctor died because he got non lethally shot then had a human doctor screw around with his anatomy. It was kind of a lackluster ending for an incarnation of the Doctor. Still, overall I thought it was a decent story. I thought the 8th Doctor himself did a good job with what he got, he would have been interesting to see more of. There is a lot of stuff that I don't know if it was BS or not (like the Eye of harmony) and people more familiar with Classic Who might see more to hate than me, but I just think the movie was a decent Doctor Who adventure, with admittedly some big flaws. Also, I finished Revenge of the Cybermen (which is the last story of Tom baker's first season). It was a pretty good story. It was interesting seeing classic Cybermen after watching the alternate Earth versions in the Series 2 episodes with the 10th Doctor. Next up for the fourth doctor will be Terror of the Zygons, although that will probably wait for a bit because of the other Doctor Who stuff I plan to watch tomorrow.
I watched two things today for the anniversary, the first Doctor Who story An Unearthly Child (all four episodes, not just the episode with that title) and The Three Doctors. I have mixed feelings about An Unearthly Child. It wasn't outright bad, but it had some annoyances. The female teacher spent most of episode 3 screaming and being literally worse than useless, and Susan spent a good chunk of the middle of the two middle episodes screaming, too. I'm also not a huge fan of cavemen, and they were a bit annoying in this. Still, it wasn't terrible, and The Doctor was interesting. I really enjoyed The Three Doctors. The main story was pretty good, and the interactions between the Second and Third Doctors were awesome. The second Doctor especially seems like a Doctor I want to see more of.