Gone through a fair bit of Classic Who in the last few weeks. Most of what I've chosen to watch lately are stories that will be referenced in various Big Finish audios, or various novels, coming up in my listening/reading rotation. Some of them I haven't seen since childhood, some I never had the chance to see at all until now.
Since posting about
Morbius and
Mawdryn, I first finished up the Black Guardian trilogy.
Terminus surprised me with how much I actually enjoyed it. Could've been a very bleak and boring story, but something about it landed just right. And seeing some of Nyssa's expressions in that serial finally answered one of the nagging questions of my childhood - who did Sarah Sutton remind me of? And that, I realized while watching her in the space station's control room, was a young Myrna Loy. It had been bugging me ever since I was five or six years old.
Enlightenment, on the other hand, had some great visuals, and a great premise, but the story felt way too drawn out and boring. Poorly paced, and ultimately, a major letdown, despite the terrific ideas and solid guest cast.
Oh, and after
Morbius, but before
Mawdryn, I watched
The Time Meddler. A simple story, but great fun, and Butterworth's performance as the Monk helps elevate what might otherwise be mundane at best. I wanted to make sure I at least saw that one before listening to Series 4 of Big Finish's
Eighth Doctor Adventures.
After the Davison trilogy, I skipped back to the Troughton era, and watched
The Web of Fear (purchased when it came out on DVD, but sitting on the shelf ever since). Great serial all around. Excellent to finally see the Doctor's first meeting with the Brig.
Web was really well-paced, I thought, and is easily one of the finest examples of the 60s Doctors. I was
very impressed with Anne Travers, and really wish things had worked out, and they could have brought the character back in future stories. She very much seemed like a proto-Liz Shaw, but even better, and she gives what has now become one of my favorite lines in 55 years of
Doctor Who:
Captain Knight: What's a girl like you doing in a job like this?
Anne Travers: Well, when I was a little girl I thought I'd like to be a scientist, so I became a scientist.
A simple line, so brilliantly delivered.
Went onto
The Mind Robber afterwards, as that was the next complete Second Doctor serial I could get my hands on. Despite so many people seeming to love it, I was
extremely bored by this one. Great ideas, and they did a lot with a meager budget, sure, but the writing and direction
really let me down. I imagine as a kid in the 60s, it would've been great fun, and somewhat scary in places, but I don't think it holds up as well as the best serials of the era do. The only parts I really found entertaining were Rapunzel's few appearances, and her amusingly blase attitude towards people using her hair as the most convenient ladder. This was also my first real experience with Zoe -- not counting her cameo in
The Five Doctors -- and it didn't really endear her to me, or my mum, who had been watching all of these with me.
Wanted to watch
The Invasion with mum next, but had to put it off after the first two episodes due to real life interference. I wasn't sure how she'd take the animated reconstruction, but it went over well. I don't think she'd be able to watch an entire serial done that way, like
Power of the Daleks,
While waiting for Mum to have time to watch again, I put on
The Claws of Axos for myself, because I'm almost up to sequel in my Big Finish listening. I'd heard a bunch of mixed things about it over the years, people seemed to either think it was amazing, or that it was pants, so I didn't know what to expect. Having seen it now, I really do think it's a solid story. Probably won't make the list of my favorite Third Doctor serials, but it's engaging, and Delgado is, as usual, fantastic as the Master. And despite the naff costumes and questionable prop claws, the biggest problem I had with the production was Bill Fyler's dodgy American accent. Good god, that was one of the worst I've heard. And I really I do wish Jo had been half as well-written back in the day as Sarah Jane would be immediately after her.
And now, tonight, over a week later, we finally had the chance to finish
The Invasion. Great serial, right up there with
Web, though probably not quite as good, if only because this one could be tightened up, and probably drop 2 episodes worth of fluff without losing anything, either plot-related, or fun character moments. That's not to say it feels bloated to me at all, not anything like
The Daleks or other serials that could easily be half as long and still tell the same story just as well, if not better.
And that's me caught up, for now. I'm waiting on the library to get in
Kinda, and then I'll have to track down
Snakedance, so I can hear Big Finish's
Cradle of the Snake. Until that arrives, I've either got
The Mind of Evil or
The Face of Evil to watch next.
