Last Classic Who Story you watched

[Christopher]

The Tardis was totally unsteerable until about the King's Demons. After that she only tends to land off course if dragged off course.

Oh, the Doctor had some control of it much earlier than that, it just wasn't reliable. In "Planet of the Spiders" he was able to make his way to Metebelis III and back, though not easily. In "State of Decay," I think it was, he'd improved his control enough to be able to make a short, controlled hop from one location on a planet to another.

 

[Turtletrekker]

The third Doctor usually managed to successfully navigate the TARDIS safely and accurately back to his office at UNIT.

 

[diankra]

Oh, the Doctor had some control of it much earlier than that, it just wasn't reliable. In "Planet of the Spiders" he was able to make his way to Metebelis III and back, though not easily. In "State of Decay," I think it was, he'd improved his control enough to be able to make a short, controlled hop from one location on a planet to another.

Yes, not totally unsteerable, but I think season 20 is the last time she lands off course without being dragged off course.

 

[Christopher]

Yes, not totally unsteerable, but I think season 20 is the last time she lands off course without being dragged off course.

But you literally did say it was "totally unsteerable," and it was the "totally" I disagreed with. "Not totally steerable" would've worked. It's a weird vagary of English that "not totally X" and "totally not X" mean two drastically different things.

 

[diankra]

Yes, I overstated. In Spiders, though possibly just in the book it's said that Metebelis 3 is the one place the Doctor can be sure of reaching, due to hard wiring the co-ordinates into the console.

 

[Emperor-Tiberius]

The Tardis was totally unsteerable until about the King's Demons. After that she only tends to land off course if dragged off course.

Not really. The Third and Fourth Doctor had good control over it, until the latter installed the Randomiser in order to evade the Black Guardian after the Key to Time season.

 

[Christopher]

Not really. The Third and Fourth Doctor had good control over it, until the latter installed the Randomiser in order to evade the Black Guardian after the Key to Time season.

Hardly good control, just partial and erratic control. There were many cases where the Doctor was trying to get Jo or Sarah back to Earth in the 1980s and ended up decades earlier or galaxies away. He could set a course, but there was no guarantee the TARDIS would end up where he aimed it.

Of course, it was story-dependent. He was able to arrive where he wanted to go when the plot required it. But he was often pleasantly surprised when it actually worked.

 

[Saul]

Something I wanted to ask after watching 'The Tenth Planet'.
In the third part the Doctor collapses and as they rush to him i'm pretty sure someone says "Doctor Who!". Were earlier Doctor's sometimes referred to as Dr. Who? Hartnell is credited as Doctor Who also which is interesting since David Tennant asked to be credited as 'The Doctor' instead of Doctor Who.

 

[Redfern]

The lead actor was always listed as "Doctor Who" in the closing credits for the first 17 series (seasons) of the show, at least until John Nathan Turner took over as producer. With "The Leisure Hive" onwards, it was changed to "The Doctor".

Uh, I think.

(I'm on the company network and as such many sites are firewall blocked, so I can't verify. Sorry.)

 

[Christopher]

It does sound somewhat like the guy is saying "Doctor Who," but it's hard to tell. If so, it was presumably a flub, something the actor blurted out in the heat of the moment.

The more definite example is two serials earlier in "The War Machines," where the WOTAN computer explicitly says "Doctor Who is required" as the cliffhanger to episode 1, and in episode 2 both WOTAN and Brett refer to him as Doctor Who. But that was a script error. The series title was meant to be a question, an expression of the mystery surrounding the character, not his actual name. However he was credited in the scripts, he was never meant to be named that in-universe.

 

[diankra]

There is also The Highlanders, where the Doctor names himself as a germanic version of Doctor Who, and Underwater Menace where he signs a note Doctor W. All in a short period where it seems the new production team may have thought Who was actually his name.

 

[Christopher]

Then there was the John Nathan-Turner era where several consecutive Doctors all wore clothes with question-mark patterns. In a late one -- I think it was "Remembrance of the Daleks" -- the Doctor gave someone his business card and it had a stylized question-mark shape on it, implying that that was how his name was written.

 

[Marc]

The lead actor was always listed as "Doctor Who" in the closing credits for the first 17 series (seasons) of the show, at least until John Nathan Turner took over as producer. With "The Leisure Hive" onwards, it was changed to "The Doctor".

Uh, I think.

(I'm on the company network and as such many sites are firewall blocked, so I can't verify. Sorry.)

think you're pretty much on the money there.

 

[The Four Doctor]

An Unearthly Child to Logopolis.

Actually, the media, the general public, casual viewers etc. usually refer to him as Doctor Who. Fandom only got uptight about this in the JNT era. Even in the original novelisations from the sixties, he's referred to as Doctor Who (and the Tardis is much more just a spaceship and much less anthromorphised).

 

[Christopher]

Actually, the media, the general public, casual viewers etc. usually refer to him as Doctor Who.

Which is a separate question from how he's referred to within the actual stories. "The War Machines" was the only one to treat "Doctor Who" as his name.

It's not unprecedented for there to be a difference between what someone/something is called within the story and what they're called outside the story. For instance, the island where the seven castaways were stranded was not actually named Gilligan's Island. And until Star Trek: Discovery, the Mirror Universe was never actually called that in stories -- it was "a parallel universe" in "Mirror, Mirror" and "the alternate universe" in Deep Space Nine. I'm sure there are examples of characters, monsters, etc. known to audiences by a name that's never spoken onscreen, but all I can think of are superhero movies where they never use the superhero name in dialogue, like Wonder Woman or Captain Marvel.

 

[Haggis and tatties]

Right.......time for War Games.....wish me luck, see you all next year. lol

 

[diankra]

Right.......time for War Games.....wish me luck, see you all next year. lol

Thing about the War Games is that once you start you'll keep on watching one more episode until you fall asleep. So probably two days for the lot...

 

[Christopher]

Thing about the War Games is that once you start you'll keep on watching one more episode until you fall asleep. So probably two days for the lot...

Imagine what it was like for me watching on PBS back in the '80s, when they'd show whole serials as movie-length cuts starting at 10 PM, which was usually my bedtime. I stayed up very late on Saturday nights sometimes. Although I think they split "The War Games" over two weeks.

The cool thing about "The War Games" is that despite its length, it manages to avoid being too repetitive, because every few episodes, the story moves into a new phase with new situations and new antagonists. So it doesn't drag the way some of the other long ones (6 or 7 parts) sometimes do.

 

[Emperor-Tiberius]

I actually watched the entirety of War Games during a lovely evening. Got very late, but it was that gripping, that exciting. They really saved Pat's best for his last. Loved it, and still really appreciate it splendidly.

 

[Haggis and tatties]

^^Everyone was right, i watched about 3 episodes a go, cracking story this one, now i think it The Seeds of Doom.

Been a while since i touched the restorations DVDs and i had not got round to watching them on this 4k TV that i bought a few years ago, but they look very good indeed.