Memories of Dr Who on television (US)

[davejames]

I know I watched quite a few of them with my dad on Saturday nights, but the only scene I actually remember anymore is of McCoy's Doctor and Ace running around in some abandoned building and through a rock quarry (still not sure what episode that is, but I think there might have been Daleks or Cybermen involved).

To be honest, I wasn't all that terribly impressed by the show back then, and thought it dragged terribly (even by 80s standards). It just seemed like this strange little British curiosity more than anything, and I only watched because there wasn't much else on at the time.

Believe it or not, it was only with the flashier and more action-packed TV movie in 1996 that I started to get truly excited at the idea of the character. And then of coure after the 2005 revival I went back to the much older (and better) episodes and fell in love with the whole thing.

 

[Cyke101]

WTTW Chicago had it from the mid 70's, supposedly starting with Pertwee. I only remember Tom Baker from whenever I started watching (late 70's?) till whenever they got back around to some Pertwee.

I saw many many iterations of the Tom Baker era, then Davison, then finally some Pertwee, more Baker and so on.

Probably why Baker is my Doctor and it was so cool to see him as the Cura(doc)tor.

I watched it on WTTW as a wee little kid in the late 80s with my dad. Being completely new to the show and not understanding concepts like regeneration or reruns, I honestly thought that Baker and Pertwee were the same actor, and that Pertwee was older because of the ravages of time travel! So whenever the Doctor went into the past, he'd be Baker, but when he went to the future, he'd turn into Pertwee. Also, I thought this meant that the actor (Bakwee? Pertker?) had just been in the role for msot of his adult life.

I was a funny, confused kid, yep.

 

[Ar-Pharazon]

WTTW Chicago had it from the mid 70's, supposedly starting with Pertwee. I only remember Tom Baker from whenever I started watching (late 70's?) till whenever they got back around to some Pertwee.

I saw many many iterations of the Tom Baker era, then Davison, then finally some Pertwee, more Baker and so on.

Probably why Baker is my Doctor and it was so cool to see him as the Cura(doc)tor.

I watched it on WTTW as a wee little kid in the late 80s with my dad. Being completely new to the show and not understanding concepts like regeneration or reruns, I honestly thought that Baker and Pertwee were the same actor, and that Pertwee was older because of the ravages of time travel! So whenever the Doctor went into the past, he'd be Baker, but when he went to the future, he'd turn into Pertwee. Also, I thought this meant that the actor (Bakwee? Pertker?) had just been in the role for msot of his adult life.

I was a funny, confused kid, yep.

We were more casual fans then, we didn't realize it would become an obsession.

Outside of Starlog and possibly Doctor Who Monthly, we didn't have much reference material. It would be years before Al Gore would invent the internet.

 

[Mr Awe]

WTTW Chicago had it from the mid 70's, supposedly starting with Pertwee. I only remember Tom Baker from whenever I started watching (late 70's?) till whenever they got back around to some Pertwee.

I saw many many iterations of the Tom Baker era, then Davison, then finally some Pertwee, more Baker and so on.

Probably why Baker is my Doctor and it was so cool to see him as the Cura(doc)tor.

I watched it on WTTW as a wee little kid in the late 80s with my dad. Being completely new to the show and not understanding concepts like regeneration or reruns, I honestly thought that Baker and Pertwee were the same actor, and that Pertwee was older because of the ravages of time travel! So whenever the Doctor went into the past, he'd be Baker, but when he went to the future, he'd turn into Pertwee. Also, I thought this meant that the actor (Bakwee? Pertker?) had just been in the role for msot of his adult life.

I was a funny, confused kid, yep.

When Baker regenerated into Davison I was totally shocked because I didn't know about regeneration. When the PBS people said that the show had been on for like 18 years
at that point I was shocked. Man, Tom must've done the role for half his life!!

Then I was more shocked when I learned that Tom wasn't the first Doctor!

Mr Awe

 

[Hypaspist]

The charm of the old series isn't the same as the new Dr Who that's on. I'm sure it has some good episodes, I just haven't gotten around to any of them yet. Still, nothing beats the 70's/80's cheese. I think it was because so much of it went over my head that I didn't mind it moving slow. I liked the way the show would build up. The only thing that really irritated me was Davros, just because I could never figure out how he was supposed to be like the others and he didn't seem like much of a mastermind...not at all like The Master. I loved The Master. "easy as pie"

 

[Sparky]

Living in Calgary we got the PBS station from Spokane (KSPS). My dad watched the show when he was young, and he stumbled upon it again one day in 1983. He got really excited and introduced my brother and I to it at the ripe age of 7. We loved it from the start. At the time it was the 1/2 hour serials airing at 6pm. Eventually they moved to a movie style format that edited all of the 1/2 hour episodes into a feature length show. They started showing those on Saturday nights at 10pm so that night became our guaranteed stay up late night. My favourite nights were the pledge drives, because they showed 3 or 4 stories in a single night, and one of them was always guaranteed to be "The Five Doctors" Eventually they started airing Red Dwarf right before Doctor Who, so Saturday nights were always epic. We had a tradition of my brother and I getting to drink a big glass of Coke out of these big plastic cups, and some 99 cent bag of popcorn from the 7-11. Some of my favourite memories revolve around those Saturday night Doctor Who airings. Dad passed away a couple of years ago, and 7-11 has not sold that popcorn in decades....but I'll be damned if I didn't watch the Robot of Sherwood while eating a bowl of popcorn while enjoying a glass of coke from a very special plastic cup........

 

[Hypaspist]

That sounds so kickass! I was born in the 80's, so I was watching these episodes a bit later than some of you are describing. I have been looking but I wasn't able to find out what that other British sci fi show was.
I do wish they had had Red Dwarf on as well. I think it would have been something we really liked. I don't pretend to know anything about it, but I've watched a few episodes and it is pretty funny. I usually hate British humor too.

 

[Cyke101]

Ooh, I've a memory from "Let's Kill Hitler," but it triggered memories back to the 80s, again when I was a small little kid.

I've an aunt who has more than a passing awareness of the show because her daughters are fans. We were watching the episode when my aunt commented, "Every time I sit down to watch the show, he's always dying." Which he was, to be fair, because of River's poison lipstick.

But when she said that, I flashed back to the 80s, completely frightened when the Fourth Doctor was covered in plant warts, or the Third Doctor suffered from radiation poisoning. The Doctor just seemed to find some sort of horrific pain quite often, close to death so much. And then my big takeaway was, "The more things change..."

 

[Redfern]

I started a similar thread December last year. So I'll just link it rather than retyping what i posted months ago.

http://www.trekbbs.com/showthread.php?t=233248

If anyone has any comments or questions, I suspect the mods would rather this current thread be used instead of the old one.

Sincerely,

Bill

 

[Hypaspist]

Watching the show as a really little kid, I always remembered things weird. I thought it was a super dramatic moment when the doctor died, and then I saw the episode again where he died (Planet of the Daleks) and I kept asking what was going on. The funny thing is that sitcoms, westerns, and war movies were all predictable but you just sort of accepted bizarre things happening in science fiction.

 

[C.E. Evans]

KETC (Channel 9) in St. Louis showed Doctor Who every Sunday night or over a decade. All stories were shown in their entirety with episodes edited together in 90-minute to 2-hour "movies." Although they started off with Tom Baker's run, they eventually obtained every available story and cycled through all of them from Hartnell to McCoy twice. In fact, the only time they interrupted the cycle was to show the first story of a new Doctor (namely, the Sixth and the Seventh) not long after its initial BBC broadcast.

At one point, thee was a weekend British sci-fi block on KETC, with Blake's 7 and various other imported shows (like Space Precinct) on Saturday night and Red Dwarf and Doctor Who on Sunday night.

The only thing I hated about Doctor Who being on late Sunday nights was that I had to get up early to go to school on Monday mornings. So naturally I was half dead on Mondays...