Last Classic Who Story you watched

I'm still annoyed that they didn't bring Courtney onto Doctor when he was well enough. Inexplicably bad decision-making.

 

The Sunmakers- reliving my late ‘70s pbs childhood on Prime.

 

Featuring a pre Blake's 7 Michael Keating plus Adrienne Burgess and John Lesson who both guest stared on B7.

 

The Leisure Hive - bland with excruciatingly long episode recaps but is still oddly highly enjoyable for all its little concepts peppered in
Meglos - still superficial but is no less fun, with Tom Baker and Jacqueline Hill simply stealing the show. And with electronic music that has dated well.

Season 18 did start rough around the edges, but both these stories are still incredibly refreshing. And the best is yet to come as Bidmead et al had their mojo in full effect from "Full Circle" onward

 

The Time Warrior. Second Pertwee story in 2 weeks. I forgot how much his Doctor loved wine!

 

I figured I'd post about this here because its related:

I just found out that a bunch of Classic Doctor Who DVDs were rereleased in the US from late last year to early this year. A bunch of stories that were so out of print they were going for $100+. While Britbox is a nice and cheap way to watch Classic Doctor Who, I like having my favorites on DVD (especially since the special features are usually excellent). I can finally get stories like The Two Doctors and The Mark of the Rani for an affordable price, which I legitimately didn't think I'd ever be able to do (without getting an all region DVD player and importing I guess, but I wasn't going to do that).

 

Terror of the Zygons- Tom Baker in a Pertwee-esque UNIT story.

 

Watched `Power of the Daleks'. Wow! I think this is my favorite of the classic era. Second Doctor episodes are incredibly strong compared to the first Doctor when I compare the Dalek and Cybermen episodes. Power of the Daleks was Atmospheric, scary, dark, foreboding. The Daleks were more than mindless soldiers with one goal, they were down right devious and cunning. Highly recommend it.

 

The Android Invasion- poor Liz Sladen! They had Sarah Jane fall down in all 4 eps, I think. What a klutz the director made her look like.

 

And what an underwhelming "exit" for Ian Marter as Harry Sullivan, trussed up like a pair of old boots in his final scene. At least in "Terror of the Zygons" he had a scathing zinger about preferring to walk rather than risk riding in the TARDIS again.

I've learned that some of the serials were not recorded in the same order as they were aired. For example, "The Sontaran Experiment" were Tom Baker's first days "on set", well, "location". So the question is this, Was "The Android Invasion" recorded before or after "...Zygons"?

 

After. "Zygons" was meant to be the end of season 12 but was held back to the start of season 13, which is why "Revenge of the Cybermen" leads directly into it. Also why the Brig is in "Zygons" but not "Android."

 

Thus why Zygons is season 12's finale, for me.

 

In that season, Pyramids and Planet of Evil were recorded out of order. Originally, Pyramids was to open season 13, but when Zygons was held back they wanted to avoid opening with two Earth-set stories in a row.

In season 12, Sarah changes clothes during Genesis because Revenge had already been shot with Lis in a different outfit.

 

At my new place, I don't have cable or Wi-Fi yet and my HDMI cable seems to have gone AWOL. My only source of entertainment until I can do something about it tomorrow are... Video tapes. I replaced most of my video tapes with with disks a long time ago. Among my very small collection of remaining videotapes is... The War Games, the final appearance of Patrick Troughton's Second Doctor.

So, yeah, uh, The War Games.

 

Music for Meglos is an interesting mix; Paddy Kingsland did episode one because Peter Howell was over-worked, then Howell did the rest in the style Kingsland had used in episode one (which was Kingsland trying to be Howell, iiswim).

 

I forgot to mention I saw Enemy Within again, the TV Movie. I saw it after I had partaken a loooong Seventh Doctor audio/TV marathon, and it thus didn't stick out like a sore thumb for the first time. Indeed, while its still flawed (robbing of Seven a proper regeneration story in the end) nevertheless it felt like I was watching the next part of that marathon. Since then I have followed up on an Eighth Doctor marathon, btw.

Its a lot prettier than I remembered. Its well-shot and directed, it feels like a step-up from season 26 production-wise and the TARDIS set is gorgeous. It is criminal we never saw it again. Paul McGann is also so much fun, and having listened to the Ravenous box-set last year, his exuberance here seems like a long road back. And Eric Roberts didn't seem as off-putting as usual, except in every one of his scenes in the Doctor's TARDIS. Overall, I'm at the end kinda glad we didn't get more because that would probably have meant a more Americanized DW, and I wouldn't want that. But on the other hand, its still really sad we didn't get more McGann and that TARDIS console room. Alas...

 

Director being Barry Letts, who as producer had cast her in the first place. But the falling over was probably in Terry Nation's scripts.

 

I remember the first time I saw that serial on PBS in late 1982 or early '83. (At the time WFSU aired individual episodes weekdays around 6 PM.) When we got our first glimpse of the alien menace, a tight closeup of a pair of eyes peering through a small opening, I thought the Sontarans had returned. Of course, the next day revealed the aliens to be the Kraal, a species of rhino inspired beings wearing clothing vaguely resembling Samurai armor.

I wonder how many productions of the mid 70s had leaped upon the "WestWorld" bandwagon, depicting androids with easily dislodged face plates? "The Six Million Dollar Man", "The Bionic Woman", "Doctor Who"... Can anybody cite other examples?

 

The title character of the Kolchak: The Night Stalker episode "Mr. R.I.N.G."

 

Just watched The Faceless Ones on bluray last night. It was a good story but felt it would have worked better as four episodes rather than six. Poor Ben and Polly were written out very quickly.