Last Classic Who Story you watched

[Christopher]

The Ambassadors of Death (Pertwee) and Survival (McCoy). The Pertwee ep was significantly better than the McCoy show and leaves little doubt that the franchise was ready for a rest by '89.

Not the franchise, just John Nathan-Turner. My recollection of the opinion expressed in fanzines and such at the time (which I agreed with) was that JNT, the show's longest-running producer by a wide margin, had stayed in the chair too long and it was time to let someone else come in and bring a fresh voice and approach to the show, just like each new Doctor brought a new energy and personality to the show.

People like to use "franchise fatigue" as an excuse for a series losing viewers, but it's nonsense. People were saying in 2005 that Star Trek was so "fatigued" that it would need to take a couple of decades off before the audience was "ready" for it to return. And I think I heard people say in 2014 that the Spider-Man movies were fatigued and needed to take a decade or so off. "Franchise fatigue" is just code for "The recent stuff just isn't that good but we want to blame its failure on the audience instead." All it takes is a fresh new approach and any "fatigue" vanishes and the audience returns -- or else a whole new audience is drawn in and takes the place of the old one.

 

[Mr Awe]

Not the franchise, just John Nathan-Turner. My recollection of the opinion expressed in fanzines and such at the time (which I agreed with) was that JNT, the show's longest-running producer by a wide margin, had stayed in the chair too long and it was time to let someone else come in and bring a fresh voice and approach to the show, just like each new Doctor brought a new energy and personality to the show.

The problem is that no one qualified in the BBC wanted to produce the show. It wasn't worth the headaches involved. So, when JNT left, no one was available to take over and the show was rested. It wasn't canceled.

I'd agree that JNT stayed too long and the show suffered. Although, the later McCoy series were finding some new legs. But, had JNT left earlier, the show would've just ended sooner.

 

[arch101]

Now I've rewatched The Green Death and The Time Warrior. Survival just wasn't very good in comparison. Even taking into account that Green Death is a bit too padded for 6 parts. It's a shame the classic series was committed to specific numbers of eps per story- many of those shows would have benefitted greatly if they were 3-5 parts and edited more slickly. Perhaps someday some enterprising fans will do some fan edits and sharpen up some of these classic stories.

 

[Haggis and tatties]

^^They no doubt feel more padded today when you can bingo watch a entire story rather than when you only saw one 25 mins episode once a week back in the day.

 

[Christopher]

^^They no doubt feel more padded today when you can bingo watch a entire story rather than when you only saw one 25 mins episode once a week back in the day.

To an extent, yes, but I think some of the stories felt padded and repetitive even to viewers back then. Also, long before the modern binge-watch era (I think your spell checker doesn't know the word "binge"), the episodes were syndicated in the US in "movie" edits, an entire serial cut together into a single block running 2-3 hours or more, with only the really huge "The War Games" getting cut into two parts. And my PBS station back in the '80s showed them at 10 PM Saturday nights, so I sometimes stayed up way into the wee hours, counting my blessings that it wasn't a school night. I'm sure there were times I wished they were shorter. And between then and now, there were the home video releases too. It's been a very long time since the primary way to experience Doctor Who was one episode per week.

Although part of what's so great about "The War Games" is how well it avoids feeling padded, because it isn't just one situation dragging out repetitively episode after episode. Every couple of episodes, a new layer of the scenario is peeled back and the dynamic changes, so it stays fresh throughout.

 

[Haggis and tatties]

Possibly to adults back then, but as a kid in the 70s 25 mins of Who on a Saturday evening was just never enough, it had just begun and before you knew it Pertwee was gurning as the cliff hanger end outro screamed at you. Lol

 

[worf1965]

On my complete run through I just finished the Sarah Jane Smith era. I know she is revered as the classic doctor's best companion, but I have to say that I prefer Jamie and Leela (whom I'm just getting to). I have to say Sarah was still very good and I like how she interacted with both Jon Pertwee and Tom Baker, but they seemed to alternate making her smarter than the Doctor and then dimwitted. Anyway, her last episode The Hand of Fear wasn't bad, though I still find the moving hand of stone ridiculous to watch. I liked how when they returned to Eldad's planet the civilization was long gone, but I think it would have been better to keep Eldrad alive to suffer more and perhaps return in the future. It would really improve the NuWho to bring back more of these other villains instead of the same old ones over and over.

 

[dupersuper]

Colony in Space episodes 1 and 2

 

[The Four Doctor]

The end to the Roger Delgado era is handled much better in the end of Doctor Who and the Space War than it is in Frontier in Space. Would @Allyn Gibson agree?

 

[Allyn Gibson]

The end to the Roger Delgado era is handled much better in the end of Doctor Who and the Space War than it is in Frontier in Space. Would @Allyn Gibson agree?

I've genuinely never read Doctor Who and the Space War, so I don't even have an opinion.

I will say -- nothing to do with the Master -- that the Draconians don't get the love in Doctor Who I think they should. The late Pertwee era does some Star Trek-esque space opera and it does it tolerably well -- or, at least it's interesting -- and then Doctor Who basically never does it again. The Draconians are interesting to me in that 1) they're a part of Doctor Who's brief detour into space opera and 2) they're alien characters rather than monsters. They feel like a road not taken to a more science-fictional, future history Doctor Who.

 

[Christopher]

I've genuinely never read Doctor Who and the Space War, so I don't even have an opinion.

I just checked my copy. It's definitely a better ending, if only because the ending to "Frontier in Space" is so cursory where the Master is concerned.

Spoiler: Space War ending

In the episode, there's a brief scuffle where the Master seems to have shot the Doctor and is then swept away by the Ogrons, an anticlimactic final scene for Delgado. In the novel, the Ogrons' panicked flight makes the Master drop his gun, and the Doctor retrieves it and holds him at bay. The Doctor says he should take the Master back to serve his prison sentence on Earth, but pursuing the Daleks is more urgent, so he lets the Master go. (I mean, it's not like he has a time machine or anything...) The Master says "Perhaps we shall meet again, Doctor." The Doctor says "Yes, perhaps we shall." He TARDISes off, and the Master starts to gather up his papers and says, "Oh, well... there's always tomorrow."

I will say -- nothing to do with the Master -- that the Draconians don't get the love in Doctor Who I think they should. The late Pertwee era does some Star Trek-esque space opera and it does it tolerably well -- or, at least it's interesting -- and then Doctor Who basically never does it again. The Draconians are interesting to me in that 1) they're a part of Doctor Who's brief detour into space opera and 2) they're alien characters rather than monsters. They feel like a road not taken to a more science-fictional, future history Doctor Who.

Yes! I've always wanted to see more done with the Draconians.

 

[Marc]

The Draconians are interesting to me in that 1) they're a part of Doctor Who's brief detour into space opera and 2) they're alien characters rather than monsters. They feel like a road not taken to a more science-fictional, future history Doctor Who.

Looked at the lastest Vortex from Big Finish and the Draconians are making a return in an upcoming 3rd Doctor Adventure but I guess they aren't memorable enough for to bring them back for a tv adventure. Then again I can't really see any of the more recent doctors being a good match for them in a character sense where as the 3rd Doctor seems just right.

 

[Emperor-Tiberius]

Love me Draconians. Its weird that they'd only come back on audio very few times also. Definitely one of the more memorable creations of the Pertwee era.

 

[Christopher]

I guess they aren't memorable enough for to bring them back for a tv adventure.

They brought back the Macra and Alpha Centauri. Anything's possible.

 

[Marc]

They brought back the Macra and Alpha Centauri. Anything's possible.

Alpha Centauri was little more than a cameo in the episode.

 

[Christopher]

Alpha Centauri was little more than a cameo in the episode.

"Possible" is broader than "identical."

 

[Redfern]

I don't see an "'Any' Last Doctor Who Story You Watched" or a "Last NuWho Story You Watched", so please forgive my placing this post in this thread. A moderator can move or delete it as they see fit.

Anyway, last week finally cracked open the budget collection of revival series DVDs I purchased early last year and today I watched "New Earth", David Tennant's first regular episode. I caught something I missed upon its first US airing. Somehow, I got it in my head that Novice Hame was innocent of the nefarious deeds of the elder Sisters, that she was ignorant of the patients in the secret research lab being used as guinea pigs. Thus, I really felt bad for her arrest and the subsequent imprisonment mentioned in "Gridlock".

But, seeing it again, I realized it was Hame herself who found the Doctor and Rose, dominated by Lady Cassandra's mind, in the facility and tried to convince them the patients were just mindless bags of flesh required for testing cures.

How did I miss something so obvious? Maybe I just wanted to believe she was ignorant of the dark practices because she seemed a bit kinder than the other two who just dripped with elitism and I somehow convinced myself it was one of the elder Sisters, the one with the rounder face.

Still, at least she was redeemed in her second appearance and Russell T. Davies gave her a tear jerking deathbed scene in one of the lockdown presentations with Anna Hope reprising her role. Never the less, oy, do I feel dumb for confusing the narrative and deluding myself.

 

[Chaos Descending]

Alpha Centauri was little more than a cameo in the episode.

And it was fantastic.

 

[Redfern]

And it was fantastic.

Made all the better because they hired the character's original voice performer who I understand was well into her 90s by that point.

 

[Chaos Descending]

Made all the better because they hired the character's original voice performer who I understand was well into her 90s by that point.

Exactly true. And she sounded almost exactly the same to my ears!