Last Classic Who Story you watched

[John Clark]

I've got episode 4 of The Moonbase on at the moment.

The next one I plan on watching is Web of Fear. I didn't see either of them at the time of airing, but do remember the books.

 

[Mr. Adventure]

I just watched Tomb of the Cybermen. I liked the 2nd Doctor in The Three Doctors and The Five Doctors, so I decided to check out one of his stories (and this was the earliest complete one, and seems generally well received). I liked it, even if it had one or two problems. It was a bit annoying that they ended up giving the evil humans the upper hand twice by randomly putting weapons down next to the bad guy's "unconscious" bodies. Still, The Doctor and his companions are interesting, and I definitely want to check more of his stuff out. Next I'm planning to watch the 4th Doctor's Seeds of Doom, then I might try the 2nd Doctor's The Abominable Snowmen to see if stories that are mostly reconstructions are something that I'd find watchable.

The Moonbase (The Cyberman Serial prior to Tomb of the Cybermen) has 2 complete episodes, and someone on Youtube took the Telesnaps for the two missing episodes and animated them, so, it's very watchable, IMHO, and better than just a Reconstruction.

Episode 1 (Talking Animated)
Episode 3 (Talking Animated)

I think that's my favorite reconstruction technique.

 

[DWF]

Watched The Sun Makers and Battlefield this weekend. The Baker ep was superior but Lethbridge-Stewart's return was pretty excellent, too. It just bugged me that they made such a big deal about that revolver when we clearly saw him using an automatic pistol in so many Pertwee shows.
Leela still looks great. She must hold the record for "companion with the highest body count". It's amazing how nonchalant the Doc is about all the folks she puts that knife through. Makes me think of Davros' accusation that the Doc uses his companions to do the dirty work for him.

When the Doctor first meets Leela he tells her in uncertain terms that she's to stop killing people and forbides her to even carry her knife, But over time she's pretty hard to control. Tom Baker didn't like Leela and went out of his way to make Louise Jameson feel uncomfortable, but after flubbing a scene in The Horror Of Fang Rock he apologized to her, he really hate the violence that surrounded her character.

 

[DWF]

Yeah I tried watching Mandragora last night, but after two episodes I'm not sure I really care to see the rest. Although it WAS pretty surprising to see Tom Baker running around and fighting people as much as he did in the story. I've seen a fair number of his episodes (although by no means all), and don't remember ever seeing him as... energetic.

Tom Baker at the time was the youngest Doctor ever and had plenty of energy onscreen, he wasn't the martial artist that Perwtee was but he did his share of running and at times fighting.

 

[Sindatur]

Just Popped in Mind of Evil.

I've always loved this story, and to have it back in Color is awesome. I always wished it wasn't B/W (Though, I wished that for all the B/W Pertwee Episodes before they were restored). This is only the second time I've seen it in Color

 

[Count Zero]

I've never seen it in colour even though it's one of my favourite Pertwee stories. I should really get the DVD one of these days.

 

[Timewalker]

Inspired by the thread about new Who going darker I watched some of the Tom Baker gothic-ish episodes I'm not as familiar with.

Watched Planet of Evil and that did indeed have quite an impressive body count. It was interesting that the Doctor was able to make some kind of deal with the planet(?) over the removal of the anti-matter. The alien jungle set was nicely done as were a couple of throwaway shots of that aerial recon drone. Too bad they didn't do more with that thing. I didn't like that Sorenson was let off the hook for all the mayhem he caused by his not returning the antimatter.

After the Jekyll and Hyde of Planet of Evil I watched the Frankenstein of Brain of Morbius. I thought this was pretty entertaining in execution despite a lack of really clever plotting. I was a bit shocked when Solon shot a bloody hole in his assistant's gut. The brain in a jar with lurid colors helped to "Hammer" home the atmosphere. Sarah Jane has a right smart looking outfit in this one and does a pretty good job with a blindness subplot. The details and some decent acting carry this one. Now when do we get to see those previous incarnations of the Doctor?

Those are not previous Doctors.

You want to see previous Doctors? Then watch The Three Doctors, The Five Doctors, and The Two Doctors. Or the 50th anniversary special.

Yeah I tried watching Mandragora last night, but after two episodes I'm not sure I really care to see the rest. Although it WAS pretty surprising to see Tom Baker running around and fighting people as much as he did in the story. I've seen a fair number of his episodes (although by no means all), and don't remember ever seeing him as... energetic.

I see I must be the only one here who loved Masque of Mandragora...

 

[Caligula]

Currently halfway through "The Power of Kroll."

 

[DWF]

I see I must be the only one here who loved Masque of Mandragora...

No, I think it's very well done story I loved the new console room set, Norman Jones was very effective and the story had a young Tim Pigott-Smith in it as well. And of course it's the first time we learn how Sarah can understand all the different languages.

 

[Snick27]

Just watched The Daleks for the first time ever. Sneaking the 1st doctor was. Already hate Susan, what a whiny little brat.

Have the last 2 episodes to go. Love to watch old Doctor Who and just get a feel for that time period.

 

[Timewalker]

Currently halfway through "The Power of Kroll."

If that had been the first story I ever watched (instead of The Pirate Planet, which was bad enough), I might never have watched another one!

 

[Mr. Adventure]

Inspired by the thread about new Who going darker I watched some of the Tom Baker gothic-ish episodes I'm not as familiar with.

Watched Planet of Evil and that did indeed have quite an impressive body count. It was interesting that the Doctor was able to make some kind of deal with the planet(?) over the removal of the anti-matter. The alien jungle set was nicely done as were a couple of throwaway shots of that aerial recon drone. Too bad they didn't do more with that thing. I didn't like that Sorenson was let off the hook for all the mayhem he caused by his not returning the antimatter.

After the Jekyll and Hyde of Planet of Evil I watched the Frankenstein of Brain of Morbius. I thought this was pretty entertaining in execution despite a lack of really clever plotting. I was a bit shocked when Solon shot a bloody hole in his assistant's gut. The brain in a jar with lurid colors helped to "Hammer" home the atmosphere. Sarah Jane has a right smart looking outfit in this one and does a pretty good job with a blindness subplot. The details and some decent acting carry this one. Now when do we get to see those previous incarnations of the Doctor?

Those are not previous Doctors.

You want to see previous Doctors? Then watch The Three Doctors, The Five Doctors, and The Two Doctors. Or the 50th anniversary special.

Well, that's what the wink is for though I'm not so sure it wasn't the intention at the time. With Morbius being a time lord though it can be easily reconciled that we were seeing incarnations of Morbius as part of the mind-bending.

 

[Lance]

^ The reality is though they *were* intended to be pre-Hartnell Doctors. There's documented proof of it. And while the fandom has definitely spent the best part of 30 years trying to reconcile them as simply being incarnations of Morbius, the fact that we've just been introduced to the Hurt Doctor, and then told that the new guy is going to be Number One of a new 13 body life cycle, means that the idea of the Doctor having pre-Hartnell incarnations should be a HECK of a lot easier for us to accept these days.

Realistically, if Hinchcliffe and co expected us to accept them as 'older Doctors', then we should. Now more than ever. That was the intention of the script, which was written by the series' own Script Editor at the time lest we forget, and that's what was depicted (although never stated directly) on-screen by the way the battle between the two actually goes down. So in my view, it's a simple matter to say those guys are from a different life cycle, and that the Hartnell incarnation (like Capaldi) was the first Doctor of a new life cycle, after those guys.

 

[DWF]

^ The reality is though they *were* intended to be pre-Hartnell Doctors. There's documented proof of it. And while the fandom has definitely spent the best part of 30 years trying to reconcile them as simply being incarnations of Morbius, the fact that we've just been introduced to the Hurt Doctor, and then told that the new guy is going to be Number One of a new 13 body life cycle, means that the idea of the Doctor having pre-Hartnell incarnations should be a HECK of a lot easier for us to accept these days.

Realistically, if Hinchcliffe and co expected us to accept them as 'older Doctors', then we should. Now more than ever. That was the intention of the script, which was written by the series' own Script Editor at the time lest we forget, and that's what was depicted (although never stated directly) on-screen by the way the battle between the two actually goes down. So in my view, it's a simple matter to say those guys are from a different life cycle, and that the Hartnell incarnation (like Capaldi) was the first Doctor of a new life cycle, after those guys.

True behind the scenes they were meant to be the Doctor's past lives, but that was never stated onscreen. And yes Robert Holmes rewrote the story but Terrance Dicks was the original writer and his intentions were unknown.

 

[Lance]

True behind the scenes they were meant to be the Doctor's past lives, but that was never stated onscreen. And yes Robert Holmes rewrote the story but Terrance Dicks was the original writer and his intentions were unknown.

Terrance Dicks wrote a completely different story. There was no 'mind battle' in Dicks' version, that was a concotion thought up by Robert Holmes when he did what was basically a top down re-write, *only* keeping the vague Frankenstein allusions from Dicks' script but basically starting again with a brand new story that had no relation to anything Dicks had written. In fact, according to Dicks himself, it actually created friction between him and Bob Holmes, because Dicks on this occasion vocally objected to the story he wrote being thrown in the trash and replaced with an almost entirely different story done by Holmes.

 

[CmdrAJD]

I watching "Inside the Spaceship," which is the first First Doctor story I've seen in its entirety (I've seen "An Unearthly Child" and the first two episodes of "The Daleks). While it was obviously a budget saver and felt more like a stage play than anything else, I still enjoyed it. It made me want to go back and give "The Daleks" another chance. After the second episode of it, which mostly consisted of half an hour of the main cast moaning and groaning as they suffered from radiation poisoning, I didn't think I could make it through 5 more episodes.

I also enjoyed the Doctor Who: Origins special feature on the "Inside the Spaceship" DVD. I wondered if Mark Gatiss watched it as he was writing "An Adventure in Space and Time." I'm sure the people interviewed have talked about the events many times, but it was fun to hear Verity Lambert and Waris Hussein decribe the exact scene in the Chinese restaurant that happens in the movie.

 

[davejames]

Just watched Planet of Giants for the first time, and I have to say I was rather impressed by the large-scale props they came up with for that, especially for 1964 on a TV budget. The fly in particular was surprisingly creepy and realistic.

The story did seem to skip around a bit (not sure how much of that is due to the cutting of the fourth episode or not), but overall I still thought it worked rather well.

Definitely a lot more blood and dead body than I'm used to seeing on DW though, that's for sure.

 

[diankra]

True behind the scenes they were meant to be the Doctor's past lives, but that was never stated onscreen. And yes Robert Holmes rewrote the story but Terrance Dicks was the original writer and his intentions were unknown.

Terrance Dicks wrote a completely different story. There was no 'mind battle' in Dicks' version, that was a concotion thought up by Robert Holmes when he did what was basically a top down re-write, *only* keeping the vague Frankenstein allusions from Dicks' script but basically starting again with a brand new story that had no relation to anything Dicks had written. In fact, according to Dicks himself, it actually created friction between him and Bob Holmes, because Dicks on this occasion vocally objected to the story he wrote being thrown in the trash and replaced with an almost entirely different story done by Holmes.

Exactly. Dicks angrily told Holmes to never speak to him again and 'put it out under some bland pseudonym.'.
Then he saw it go out as 'by Robin Bland', and called Holmes to make up once he'd stopped laughing.
It's noteable that in the book Dicks makes it 'a blur of faces, gone too fast for Sarah to really see them' (very rough quote) to fudge the issue, as Deadly Assassin had gone out by then (and as its book was the next but one he did, four months later, he probably had the scripts by then).

 

[Turbo]

Just watched The Moonbase. What a great release! Nice to see a release that I never though would happen given Lost in Time, so the fact that it's a bonus release makes it that much better.

This one's always been one of my favorite stories. Episode 1 draaaaaaaaaags on, but has a good cliffhanger and the rest of the story is excellent. Yes, it's similar to The Tenth Planet, but it feels like it's much better executed. And the Cyberman costumes are a definite improvement.

The restoration is excellent, as always. Episodes 2 and 4 look even better than they did on Lost in Time. The animation...well, Episode 1's felt very stilted. The characters are definitely "on model" but very few of Troughton's facial expressions and tics came through. On the flip side, Episode 3's animation was much better, especially in the action sequences.

The DVD cover for this one is one of the best in the range. Strangely, the back of the DVD case is kind of funny - two of the three screencaps are photos from Episode 1!

I haven't gotten to the extras yet aside from the trailer for The Underwater Menace - this gives me a chuckle every time I watch it.

 

[kirk55555]

I finished The Hand of fear. It was a decent adventure, and the end of Sarah Jane's time with the Doctor. I think they were probably a little naive when it came to the villain, but they managed to stop him pretty easily.

Next up, while I still intend to get back to the second Doctor (and of course continue with the 4th with The Deadly assassin) I'm going to watch The Two Doctors next. It will be my first time seeing the 6th Doctor, which should be...interesting. I only know him by reputation, but it's not exactly a good one. Still, the 2nd Doctor makes it worth a watch by himself.