Last Classic Who Story you watched

[davejames]

One thing that I can't help but notice while watching the classic episodes, is how little affection the show has for the TARDIS box itself-- especially compared to the new series where it's nearly always shot in the most loving way possible (usually from a low angle), and with the best lighting possible.

It's presence on the old series was so matter of fact that they often don't even bother to show the whole thing in the frame, or you see it at the start of the story and never again until the very end. It was basically treated as just another prop, and nothing more.

Even for the time, that still just seems odd to me.

 

[kirk55555]

Yeah, I've noticed that too.I like the way the new Dr. Who treats the TARDIS more than how classic Who does, although it doesn't ruin my enjoyment of classic Who I've been watching. Still, the TARDIS most times really feels like an essential part of the show in the modern stuff (and not just in episodes like The Doctor's Wife, which was very good) while its just a thing The Doctor uses in classic Who.

 

[DWF]

One thing that I can't help but notice while watching the classic episodes, is how little affection the show has for the TARDIS box itself-- especially compared to the new series where it's nearly always shot in the most loving way possible (usually from a low angle), and with the best lighting possible.

It's presence on the old series was so matter of fact that they often don't even bother to show the whole thing in the frame, or you see it at the start of the story and never again until the very end. It was basically treated as just another prop, and nothing more.

Even for the time, that still just seems odd to me.

That depends on the story, there's times when the Doctor had scolded people for their comments about the TARDIS and there's times it's just there to get them from point "A" to point "B". They spend more time in hte TARDIS now though and it's a standing set on the old series it wasn't a standing set.

 

[Lance]

Yeah, I've noticed that too.I like the way the new Dr. Who treats the TARDIS more than how classic Who does, although it doesn't ruin my enjoyment of classic Who I've been watching. Still, the TARDIS most times really feels like an essential part of the show in the modern stuff (and not just in episodes like The Doctor's Wife, which was very good) while its just a thing The Doctor uses in classic Who.

Well, that's pretty much all it really is in classic Who. It's the "magic door" through which the Doctor steps to get to his adventures.

As time went on, it became a familiar 'home base' for both the Doctor and the viewers, but the hero himself more or less consistently treated her like a car. She was just an elaborate vehicular transport to get him from one adventure to the next.

The new series romanticizes (or should I say 'fetishizes'?) the TARDIS a whole lot more. It isn't *just* transport to the Doctor in the new series, it's also the only link he has left back to Gallifrey. He's probably gotten a little more sentimental about it. It really is "home".

 

[kirk55555]

I just finished The Two Doctors, and it was ok. It was a lot weaker than The Three Doctors or The Five Doctors, mostly because its overall story just wasn't that good. It also didn't have nearly enough of the 2nd and 6th Doctor's together. The Doctor's, Jamie and Perie all did good jobs and were entertaining, it was just the stuff around them that wasn't great. It wasn't bad by any means, but the villains were pretty lame and it wasn't as interesting as the other 2 Doctor crossovers.

I actually liked the 6th Doctor. He was arrogant and a jerk at times, but he was still interesting. I don't think I'll be watching his stuff anytime soon, not with all the other classic Who I have left to watch, but I wouldn't be against watching more with him.

 

[davejames]

Well, that's pretty much all it really is in classic Who. It's the "magic door" through which the Doctor steps to get to his adventures.

As time went on, it became a familiar 'home base' for both the Doctor and the viewers, but the hero himself more or less consistently treated her like a car. She was just an elaborate vehicular transport to get him from one adventure to the next.

The new series romanticizes (or should I say 'fetishizes'?) the TARDIS a whole lot more. It isn't *just* transport to the Doctor in the new series, it's also the only link he has left back to Gallifrey. He's probably gotten a little more sentimental about it. It really is "home".

Yeah that makes some sense, although I think ultimately the change was because RTD and Moffat (being diehard fans) simply regard the TARDIS as a much more magical and iconic device than it ever was on the classic show.

Which probably also explains why the TARDIS is so much cleaner and nicer looking now as well (personally I'd love to see it be a bit more weathered and beat up again, but somehow I doubt that's ever going to happen).

 

[Mr. Adventure]

Watched The Android Invasion which has its moments but isn't one of the best. The plot didn't make a lot of sense by the end, all these doubles and fake villages and the baddies are just going to unleash an extinction event. Why not just do that from the start?

The Doctor deflects close range guns three times, the most entertaining of which involved him jumping head first through a window(!) to escape. There are some cool 70s androids and the cast does some really good freezing in place at one point.

Benton and Harry felt like a wasted opportunity to do some better with those characters. Though the ersatz Brigadier stand-in was worth a laugh.

Some nice outdoor shooting and unsettling atmosphere was let down by some unintended funny moments. Sarah's fall down the hill, the way in which Sarah gets throttled by the android in the photon torpedo, the eyepatch revelation, Sarah's high-G face and so on. Poor Lis was in a bunch of those but she at least had a great cliffhanger moment. At least it all moved at a pretty good clip.

Which probably also explains why the TARDIS is so much cleaner and nicer looking now as well (personally I'd love to see it be a bit more weathered and beat up again, but somehow I doubt that's ever going to happen).

It's funny how beat up the old prop is in the classic serials I've been watching. I know Who didn't have the best budget but isn't it basically wood and blue paint?

 

[Lance]

I actually liked the 6th Doctor. He was arrogant and a jerk at times, but he was still interesting. I don't think I'll be watching his stuff anytime soon, not with all the other classic Who I have left to watch, but I wouldn't be against watching more with him.

In my humble opinion, he's got a personality that definitely grows on you.

There are times where he appears brash, arrogant and unpleasant, but other times it is clear that he's simply "alien", with an utterly alien perspective.

I'd recommend giving both The Mysterious Planet and Terror of the Vervoids a try, as they each show the sixth Doctor as a much more avuncular, friendly individual than he normally was. Particularly in The Mysterious Planet, which is one of the few occasions when he and his companion Peri seem to have a 'best buds' kind of relationship, instead of kvetching and moaning at each other all of the time.

 

[Pindar]

Casting through my DVD's I went back to the Three Doctors for a bit of fun.

Watching Hartnell's last appearance after seeing An Adventure in Space in Time was a little more poignant this time round.

 

[Starkers]

I can imagine

 

[kirk55555]

Just watched Spearhead from Space (my classic who watching is really jumping around Doctor's recently). It was very good, one of the best classic Who stories I've seen so far. I've seen a bit of the 3rd Doctor before in The Three Doctors and The Five Doctors, but this is his first solo story I've seen (and it was also his first story). Even though I know he's going to be stuck on Earth for awhile, the story definitely made me want to watch more 3rd Doctor stuff. That's the biggest problem with classic Who for me, there is just so much stuff I want to watch

 

[Captaindemotion]

Yes, I watched SFS a few months ago and thought it was really good. Pertwee totally nailed the role from the outset, IMHO.

 

[Lance]

I watched Spearhead for the first time in about a decade around the time the Blu Ray came out. Took it around to a former-projectionist friends place where he has got a home theater system hooked up with a digital projector and big screen (it looked gorgeous). He'd never watched it before, but he sat enthralled, wanting to keep going with every cliffhanger, and he was disappointed when it was all over.

Spearhead is perhaps one of the best entrees in to classic Who. It sets the viewer up with all the fundamentals they need to know, without expecting them to know them all already. It's almost like a second pilot episode in a lot of ways...

 

[Mr. Adventure]

I've been getting hooked on this recent watch of Season 13. I watched the Seeds of Doom this time and it's another entertaining story.

This one stands out as the script by Robert Banks Stewart has lots of great Doctor lines and moments. The Doctor is full of snark, trying to enlist aid he mentions how the threat could be "the end of everything even your pension" and picks up a ringing phone says "he's busy" and hangs up. "What do you do for an encore?" "I win." Indeed.

In addition to the wordplay I'm really surprised how much a man of action The doctor is in this one. The Doctor jumps through a skylight to save Sarah, physically beats up a few including giving one a nasty twist of the neck and is all over the place. I'd say Tom Baker this season puts in a physical performance equal or better to any before or after.

There's some good modelwork with the arctic base and I really liked the sequence with the tendril emerging from the seed. The mutated creature works pretty well especially given that it operates without benefit of shadow or dark lighting. Even the oversized tendril writhing through the window works well.

Every story I've seen this season seemed to have been inspired by some other source, in this case it would seem to be The Thing From Another World. I think starting with the base but then moving back to England helped break up the longer serial so it moved better. Basically there were two episodes in the arctic, two episodes with the pod and then two episodes with the oversized plant and each section had its own feel which worked well.

The unhinged villain made for an interesting change of pace. In the end seeing him in meditation pose spacily going on about the plants and trees was something else. Similarly the amoral yet not unreasonable Scorby had shades of gray that were unexpected. While not villainous, the irascible older painter Ducat was entertaining in her support role as well.

Oh and those beards were fake, right? I think it may have been the hair but Lis Sladen reminded me of the Romulan commander that Kirk stole the cloaking device from.

I skipped Terror of the Zygons because I figured it was probably not one of the more Gothic-y/horrorish episodes which I was looking for. I may check it out next though as I see it has the same writer.

 

[davejames]

I actually liked the 6th Doctor. He was arrogant and a jerk at times, but he was still interesting. I don't think I'll be watching his stuff anytime soon, not with all the other classic Who I have left to watch, but I wouldn't be against watching more with him.

In my humble opinion, he's got a personality that definitely grows on you.

There are times where he appears brash, arrogant and unpleasant, but other times it is clear that he's simply "alien", with an utterly alien perspective.

I'd recommend giving both The Mysterious Planet and Terror of the Vervoids a try, as they each show the sixth Doctor as a much more avuncular, friendly individual than he normally was. Particularly in The Mysterious Planet, which is one of the few occasions when he and his companion Peri seem to have a 'best buds' kind of relationship, instead of kvetching and moaning at each other all of the time.

When it comes to abrasive and difficult personalities, I definitely prefer the 6th Doctor's to the 3rds. Unfortunately Colin just got stuck with such lackluster stories that I have a hard time sitting through them (even the so-called good ones). And then of course there's that horrid costume...

 

[DWF]

I've been getting hooked on this recent watch of Season 13. I watched the Seeds of Doom this time and it's another entertaining story.

This one stands out as the script by Robert Banks Stewart has lots of great Doctor lines and moments. The Doctor is full of snark, trying to enlist aid he mentions how the threat could be "the end of everything even your pension" and picks up a ringing phone says "he's busy" and hangs up. "What do you do for an encore?" "I win." Indeed.

In addition to the wordplay I'm really surprised how much a man of action The doctor is in this one. The Doctor jumps through a skylight to save Sarah, physically beats up a few including giving one a nasty twist of the neck and is all over the place. I'd say Tom Baker this season puts in a physical performance equal or better to any before or after.

There's some good modelwork with the arctic base and I really liked the sequence with the tendril emerging from the seed. The mutated creature works pretty well especially given that it operates without benefit of shadow or dark lighting. Even the oversized tendril writhing through the window works well.

Every story I've seen this season seemed to have been inspired by some other source, in this case it would seem to be The Thing From Another World. I think starting with the base but then moving back to England helped break up the longer serial so it moved better. Basically there were two episodes in the arctic, two episodes with the pod and then two episodes with the oversized plant and each section had its own feel which worked well.

The unhinged villain made for an interesting change of pace. In the end seeing him in meditation pose spacily going on about the plants and trees was something else. Similarly the amoral yet not unreasonable Scorby had shades of gray that were unexpected. While not villainous, the irascible older painter Ducat was entertaining in her support role as well.

Oh and those beards were fake, right? I think it may have been the hair but Lis Sladen reminded me of the Romulan commander that Kirk stole the cloaking device from.

I skipped Terror of the Zygons because I figured it was probably not one of the more Gothic-y/horrorish episodes which I was looking for. I may check it out next though as I see it has the same writer.

Terror Of The Zygons was a great one and yes the same creative team worked it as well. Harrison Chase came across to me as a James Bond styled villain complete with a great henchman in Scorby. Robert Banks Stewart was going to write the season finale for the 14th season as well but he got recruited by Thames and it was up to Robert Holmes to write it.

And to see Tom Baker at possibly his most active you should see The Deadly Assassin, the fourth Dcotor went though a really tough physical and mental guantlent in the surreal world of the Matrix.

 

[The Borgified Corpse]

Right now, I'm nearing the end of my Jon Pertwee DVDs. I just watched "Invasion of the Dinosaurs, Part 2" the other day. I don't know why everyone slags off on the dinosaurs all the time. The puppets aren't great but they're about on par with most special effects from the classic series. I'd certainly say that the dinosaurs looked far less rediculous than the Myrka from "Warriors of the Deep."

If anything, the silliest part of the Dinosaur effects is that sometimes the eyelines don't match up at all. There's one scene in particular at the beginning of Part 2 where one of the UNIT soldiers is clearly not shooting at the T-Rex at all. He seems to be shooting at something about 8 feet to the left of the T-Rex.

Which probably also explains why the TARDIS is so much cleaner and nicer looking now as well (personally I'd love to see it be a bit more weathered and beat up again, but somehow I doubt that's ever going to happen).

It's funny how beat up the old prop is in the classic serials I've been watching. I know Who didn't have the best budget but isn't it basically wood and blue paint?

I think so. And not even very good wood or blue paint at that.

Spearhead is perhaps one of the best entrees in to classic Who. It sets the viewer up with all the fundamentals they need to know, without expecting them to know them all already. It's almost like a second pilot episode in a lot of ways...

I'm not so sure about that. "Spearhead from Space" was the first Doctor Who story that I ever saw ever. It's decent enough. But I confess to feeling somewhat lost when I first saw it. It's an Earth-based UNIT story, which was not at all what I was expecting the show to be when I first watched it. And the story does kind of expect you to have some prior understanding of the relationship between the Doctor & the Brigadier. Being a post-regeneration story, it spends a lot of time just getting everyone else resettled into the new normal.

"The Invasion" would probably be a better intro to the UNIT stories. Or maybe one of the other Season 7 stories like "The Silurians" or "The Ambassadors of Death," after the new format has already been established a little bit.

 

[Mr. Adventure]

I thought Zygons was a little too on the nose for me. The Doctor seems to be lacking the flippant wit and off-kilter moments present in the other episodes of Season 13.

Despite the poor FX I did like the cheeky idea of the Zygons co-opting the Loch Ness Monster in their schemes. The organic technology was unusual and probably even moreso back when this would've aired.

Part of the problem might be I don't have any nostalgia for this one, I didn't see it when I was younger and I think as a kid this would've been a lot of fun with the rubber suits, space ships and dinosaurs. It's not bad per se, I just didn't find it connected with me as much as I expected.


Not going to say much about Pyramids of Mars as that is one of the more familiar stories both to the public at large and to myself but I did want to say that, with apologies to Matt Smith, Namin rocks that fez.

 

[Sindatur]

I think Zygons is OK, it's not a favorite, but, it's also not in the bottom of the Classic era for me (Though, there aren't that many Serials in that small pit at the bottom for me ).

For a story about an Alien with Organic Technology, The Jon Pertwee story Claws of Axos is better, IMHO.

ETA: Just finished Colony in Space. Why is this story called Colony in Space, anyways? They're on a freighter, then on Earth, then The Doctor is in a Moon Prison, then on Draconia, and then on The Dalek/Ogron Planet. There is no Colony in Space (Always mixes me up with Frontier in Space )

 

[CmdrAJD]

I finished An Unearthly Child/100000BC today. I'd actually seen the first episode of this serial before, but I had never watched the rest of it. Compared to later Who, it's amazing how little the Doctor actually does in the story. Beyond getting captured to start things off and tricking Kal into showing that he was actually the one to kill the old woman, the Doctor isn't much of a factor. Ian, Barbara, and Susan carry a lot of more of the story, but the guest cast seems to have more screen time than any of them.

I think The War Games is next in my queue, so I'm hopping back to the Second Doctor. This would have finished him up, but now I need to see The Enemy of the World and what they found of The Web of Fear. Has there been any word as to when these will be out on DVD?