Claasic Who recommendations for a newbie

[Turtletrekker]

For someone who prides himself on his nerd-cred, I have a horrifying confession to make-- until very recently, I never watched Dr. Who. I was aware of the concept and the basics (The Doctor is a time-travelling alien form planet Gallifrey who travels in a police box shaped time machine called the TARDIS with his companions), but was intimidated by the shows long history.

I started to rectify that oversight recently by digging into the modern version via Netflix. I got as far as "School Reunion", the re-introduction of Sarah Jane Smith, when I started thinking about Classic Who.

If I'm to get through this with nerd-cred intact, I thought, I will need to watch some Classic Who.

At least one arc from each Doctor. I watched "An Unearthly Child" last night by way of Hulu (How come Hulu and Netflix don't have access to the same episodes?). For the third Doctor, I was thinking of the first Sarah Jane story (I looked her up) and for the fourth Doctor, I was thinking of something witten by Douglas Adams (I'm a huge HGttG fan), but otherwise I am looking for suggestions from the initiated.

I was also thinking of watching all of the regeneration episodes, only to discover that the first regeneration episode (also the conclusion to the first Cybermen story which was also on my list) is one of the "lost" episodes. So much for that idea. Forgive this newbie question, but is there as healthy of a Who fan-film community out there as there is for Trek? I find it hard to believe that the 'lost' episodes haven't been recreated in some manner.

 

[Takeru]

I haven't seen that much of classic Who (I own all available DVDs and plan to watch them eventually but it's a lot content to work through) so maybe I missed the best of what each Doctor had to offer but these are episodes I enjoyed.

First Doctor: The Tenth Planet (the missing episode has been animated and is on the DVD)
Second Doctor: The Tomb of the Cybermen
Third Doctor: Inferno
Fourth Doctor: City of Death or The Pyramids of Mars (a Sarah Jane story)
Fifth Doctor: Enlightenment
Sixth Doctor: The Mark of the Rani
Seventh Doctor: The Curse of Fenric

Forgive this newbie question, but is there as healthy of a Who fan-film community out there as there is for Trek? I find it hard to believe that the 'lost' episodes haven't been recreated in some manner.

Several missing episodes have been animated and have been released with the surviving episodes as part of their serials and I know a 30 minute reconstruction of "Marco Polo" is on the "The Edge of Destruction" DVD, Galaxy 4 was reconatructed and included on "The Aztecs - Special Edition".

You can find reconstructions of all missing episodes online, they usually consist of the surviving audio (which exists for all episodes) with pgotographs and sometimes surviving clips.

 

[Turtletrekker]

Thanks! All added to my list.

Any others?

 

[Davros]

Enemy Of The World
Web Of Fear
War Games
Frontier In Space
Talons Of Weng Chiang
Horror At Fang Rock
Face Of Evil
Genesis Of The Daleks
The Ribos Operation
Caves Of Andozoni

 

[diankra]

As others had suggested, a lot of the missing episodes can be 'viewed' online if you search youtube, etc.
The soundtracks for all 97 currently missing episodes survive, as young fans recorded them at the time.
Of these, 9 have been 'officially' recreated as animations and released on DVD, including the final episode of the first Cyberman story.
Of the remaining 88, there are telesnaps (about 50 professionally taken off monitor pictures per episode) for maybe two thirds of them (58 I think), so these have been used as the basis for fan recreations, sometimes animated. For the others, the visual sources are a bit more limited.

Recommendations? Aside from what you say you've already watch or have in mind....
1) Try The Aztecs.
2) Mind Robber, Enemy of the World or Tomb of the Cybermen all work in very different ways. (Web of Fear is superb, but still one episode short of complete).
3) After Time Warrior, maybe try Spearhead from Space.
4) If you want a Douglas Adams story, go for City of Death - he wrote it, but was credited under a pseudonym. Otherwise, lots of options - Genesis of the Daleks, Pyrmaids of Maars, Robots of Death, talons of Weng-Chiang...
5) Caves of Androzani.
6) Revelation of the Daleks or Vengeance on Varos. Though Two Doctors gives you the second Doctor as well.
7) Survival is a favourite of mine, though others might suggest otherwise...

 

[kirk55555]

For the Sixth doctor, I'd add Attack of the Cybermen

1st Doctor: The Dalek Invasion of earth
2nd Doctor: The Mind Robber
3rd Doctor: Terror of the Autons (introduces The Master)
4th Doctor: Terror of the Zygons
5th Doctor: The Five Doctors
6th Doctor: Attack of the Cybermen or The Two Doctors
7th Doctor: Battlefield

 

[MacLeod]

4th Doctor: Genesis of the Daleks
5th Doctor: Caves of Androzani (which was voted a few years back in DW Magazine the top episode ever)

 

[Turtletrekker]

Wow. Thanks for all of the suggestions. It occurs to me that even after I'm caught up with NuWho, I'll still have a lot of catching up to do.

In the meantime, please keep 'em coming.

 

[OmahaStar]

If I'm to get through this with nerd-cred intact, I thought, I will need to watch some Classic Who.

At least one arc from each Doctor. I watched "An Unearthly Child" last night

First up, I'm sorry about that. If you're talking about all four parts, that's painful. The pilot itself (first episode, that is), is pretty amazing, but it is followed by three episodes that are just stinkers. But, it is the beginning.

My recommendations, for someone who is wanting to get just a taste of each Doctor, would be ...

First Doctor
6 - The Aztecs - Pure historical, with meaty rolls for all of our heroes to play.
10 - The Dalek Invasion of Earth - One of the best of the Dalek stories, with visuals that still hold up today.

Second Doctor
37 - Tomb of the Cybermen - The Cybs appear in possibly their most popular adventure.
40 - Enemy of the World - (returned to the world only last year, all 6 episodes exist!) the Second Doctor meets his evil human duplicate, a despot trying to take over the world.

Third Doctor
51 - Spearhead from Space - Three's intro, shows us the Doctor going to work for UNIT and introduces us to the Autons (you saw them in "Rose").
70 - The Time Warrior - Sarah Jane's intro, as well as the Sontarans, guest appearance by Jeremy "Boba Fett" Bulloch.

Fourth Doctor
78 - Genesis of the Daleks - Introduces Davros, creator of the Daleks, six episodes long but seems to fly by.
82 - Pyramids of Mars - The Doctor vs. the Gods.
91 - Talons of Weng-Chiang - The less you know going in, the better. Possibly the best story from classic Who.
105 - City of Death - The Doctor takes a holiday, in Paris, written by Douglas Adams.

Fifth Doctor
120 Black Orchid - It's only 2 episodes, pure historical, and has Five finally playing cricket in his cricket costume.
129 The Five Doctors. Don't try to understand the thin plot, just watch it to see all the Doctors and their companions interacting with each other in various combinations.
135 The Caves of Androzani - Five finally does something with that celery on his jacket.

Sixth Doctor
138 Vengeance on Varos - It's fun, and a very early version of what reality tv is headed for.
139 Mark of the Rani - We meet another Time Lord who is every bit as brilliant as the Doctor, but with no moral compass whatsoever. She will do whatever it takes to get results, including killing anyone she sees, without a second thought. She is what the Doctor could be, if he chose to turn right instead of left

Seventh Doctor
148 Remembrance of the Daleks - The Daleks can climb stairs. Finally.
152 Battlefield - The final appearance (in the classic series) of the Brigadier, and we discover the identity of a future regeneration of the Doctor. It's someone you know.

 

[Green Lantern]

First Doctor: You've pretty much covered that since you've seen An Unearthly Child, but if you want another one, add Tenth Planet (though I myself have not seen it).
Second Doctor: Tomb of the Cybermen.
Third Doctor: I'd probably say The Three Doctors. Planet of the Spiders is also heavily underrated. Oh and Green Death is great.
Fourth Doctor: Ooh, this is tough. Can I confess I'm not a Tom Baker fan. I'm not a fan of the style his era used. Off the top of my head though, The Hand of Fear (Sarah Jane's final story) isn't bad. Deadly Assassin is popular (though I've not seen it yet, got the DVD for Xmas though), then of course there's the classic, Genesis of the Daleks, but of a bum number but if you like that sort of thing then it's okay.
Fifth Doctor: I'm gonna go with the heavy hitters here, Earthshock, The Five Doctors and Caves of Androzani.
Sixth Doctor: He's actually had some great stories, it's just his costume and a few terrible episodes which give his era a bad name. If you like new who like me you'll hopefully like him. Revelation of the Daleks is certainly similar to a degree to the Eccleston Dalek stories, it's very dark and I'd even go so far to say it's darker than most modern who. Vengeance on Varos is something you can't go wrong with, if you like the Caves of Androzani then you'll like this. And the Two Doctors is also a jolly good romp. Why people keep suggesting Mark of the Rani I don't know, it's probably my least favourite C.Baker story ever. Attack of the Cybermen also sucks so don't bother with that.
Seventh Doctor: Remembrance of the Daleks and Survival.

 

[Turtletrekker]

My recommendations, for someone who is wanting to get just a taste of each Doctor ...

Just a taste at first of course. I certainly plan to go back and revisit my favorite eras, whatever they turn out to be.

 

[Davros]

Check out some of the Big Finnish audio adventures of the classic Doctors some are quite good.

 

[Turtletrekker]

^I will!

Is the Paul McGann/8th Doctor movie worth checking out?

 

[Green Lantern]

It certainly is, the McGann movie is great.

 

[The Mirrorball Man]

Is the Paul McGann/8th Doctor movie worth checking out?

McGann himself is fantastic but apart from his performance the TV movie is mediocre at best.

 

[Kelso]

You should definitely watch City of Death.

 

[Turtletrekker]

I just finished "The Three Doctors" and quite enjoyed it. I was disappointed that William Hartnell had such a small role, but as he obviously wasn't in the best of health, I'm just glad he was able to do it at all. I loved his jab about his successors as being "A dandy and a clown"

I like the second Doctor's use of music to help him think. I think I will enjoy digging in to what I can of his adventures. Of course, I will want to watch "solo" outings for two and three before I move on, but I think I'm going to enjoy further "multiple doctor" adventures in the future.

 

[OmahaStar]

Is the Paul McGann/8th Doctor movie worth checking out?

As a curiosity, yes.

At the time, Doctor Who had been off the air for seven years. This was an American production, with a largely North American cast, a slightly bigger budget. It was a pilot for a proposed American updating of the tv series, but Fox passed after it aired.

When it aired, fans were hungry for any new Who, and lapped it up. Looking back on it now, it's pretty bad. The writers and director tried to throw in as many references to the earlier series as they could, without quite understanding the series to begin with.

McGann is brilliant. It's a regeneration story, so he has the typical post-regeneration stuff going on, but we can see where he's going with it, and he's damned good in the part. It's a role he is still playing today, thanks to Big Finish audios. He has ... gosh, around 80 stories, I think, by now.

The movie is a sort of bridge from the classic to the modern series, mixing the sensibilities of both. You'll see what I mean after you've watched it.

 

[Doctorwhovian]

The TV movie from what I've read did well ratings-wise in Britain, but the ratings for FOX were really low, due in part to an important Roseanne episode it was running against.

Like what's been said, it is kind of transitional. We get a larger console room set (Although the NuWho sets are more minimalist), a more camp master, the kissing/romance etc. and more emphasis on pace and action.


Regarding the Three Doctors, I think Hartnell actually died the following year. There's actually a nice TV movie that came out last year around the time of the anniversary that's mostly about Hartnell and his era (Although I don't think it covers any Three Doctors stuff) called An Adventure In Time And Space.

Thing about the recorder/flute, I think like the large hat featured in Power Of The Daleks it's actually not something that's seen in most of the Second Doctor stories, but is still somewhat associated with the character despite that.

The First Doctor does show up in The Five Doctors, although he is played by a different actor (Although Hartnell appears via a Dalek Invasion Of Earth clip at the beginning).


If you're interesting in the villain Omega, he returns in The Arc Of Infinity the first story of Peter Davison's season 20 and his legacy is very important in the story Rememberance of The Daleks.

 

[pteal1979]

I personally would recommend;

Rememberance of the Daleks
Curse of Fenric

I remember watching these when they were first aired, and prefer these to a lot of the new who stuff.