Should I watch "The War Games" without having seen much Troughton?

[FallOfFingolfin]

I've seen a decent amount of Hartnell and I've seen "The Tomb of the Cybermen." For some reason, Netflix randomly decided to send me a DVD that was not anywhere near the top of my queue, and so I have the first disc of "The War Games" on my lap right now. I had decided to put Netflixing Classic Who on the backburner for a little bit as I try to dive into Mad Men, but now I'm thinking that maybe I should go ahead and watch The War Games. I had planned on watching The Mind Robber and The Invasion first, to get some more Troughton under my belt in order to "earn" watching what is by all accounts an epic finale for his Doctor.

Should I just go ahead and watch anyhow?

 

[Professor Zoom]

Fate is saying yes.

 

[The Nth Doctor]

Absolutely. The War Games was my second Troughton story after Tomb of the Cybermen (although I had already seen him in all three of Multiple Doctors serials) and I loved it. The serial remains one of my favorite Doctor Who serials to date.

 

[Joel_Kirk]

'The Krotons' is my favorite Troughton story....

...but that may be because of Zoe and her outfit.

 

[starsuperion]

watch the Mind robber online in the netflix video section.. you should have either an unlimited or limited online viewing depending on your netflix account..

watch the mindrobber 1st, it is on instant que..

then watch your disc, the War games..the Invasion is on disc, not on instant..

But I recommend the Mind Robber, it is a fun and cool episode..

Though if it were in colour the Karkus Would probably look like he was wearing a blue skin tight shirt, instead of looking like he was nude..

hahahaha I had to..

 

[Ubik]

The quick answer is, it makes no difference whatsoever what order you watch them in. War Games is fantastic, and you can always catch up with Mind Robber, etc, afterwards.

 

[Bones2]

I'd say it's worth getting The Mind Robber in first. Really fun story (if a little daft).

 

[C.E. Evans]

Actually, the first time I ever saw the Second Doctor was in The Five Doctors, and that gave me everything I needed to know about him. It wasn't until a few years later that my local PBS station ran every single Doctor Who story available at the time and I got to see "The War Games." It remains my favorite Troughton story simply for the fact that the Second Doctor had finally run out of options, and was forced to...well, that would be telling, I guess.

 

[starsuperion]

I wasn't too fond of the bombings and guns intro.. too loud and garish.

 

[diankra]

Just watch the War Games.
There's so little Troughton left that you don't really lose anything by seeing them out of order - you can't see them in context anyway.

 

[Kelso]

Really fun story (if a little daft).

Well, that describes most of Doctor Who.

 

[starsuperion]

Just watch the War Games.
There's so little Troughton left that you don't really lose anything by seeing them out of order - you can't see them in context anyway.

stupid stupid and stupid.. three dept.s of the BBC will forever be despised

 

[Haggis and tatties]

Any chance you get to watch Troughton as Dr Who take it and run.

 

[Anji]

Right on, Haggis! Pop it in the DVD and go!

 

[The Borgified Corpse]

I had planned on watching The Mind Robber and The Invasion first, to get some more Troughton under my belt in order to "earn" watching what is by all accounts an epic finale for his Doctor.

I don't know that it's "epic" so much as just long! Not a whole lot happens in most of the middle episodes. This story would have been a great, breakneck 6-parter but 10-parts is OVER overkill.

 

[The Squire of Gothos]

Just by grabbing whatever was cheap and available on Ebay, I ended up with three Troughton stories, Tomb of the Cybermen, Seeds of Death and The War Games.

I finished the first two and would gladly rewatch them (well, if I could find where I left Seeds of Death...) I'm halfway through The War Games and it's getting on a bit. Ten episodes, where an awful lot could be cut out.

There's padding here that takes two VHS cassettes to tell a story that would be just as good on one. If it had been kept as short as the other two stories, you wouldn't miss out on anything. Pretty decent, but not one I intend to rewatch for some time.

On the plus side, I'd forgotten what a great Doctor Troughton was until I picked up those tapes

 

[FallOfFingolfin]

I didn't notice much padding in The War Games, honestly.

 

[C.E. Evans]

My local PBS station always ran each classic story edited together as pretty much a movie every Sunday night, so I saw The War Games in one sitting from beginning to end. I actually can't remember how long it was, but I don't think I actually moved an inch until it was over very early Monday morning.

 

[The Borgified Corpse]

I ended up with three Troughton stories, Tomb of the Cybermen, Seeds of Death and The War Games.

Of those 3, I'd say "The Seeds of Death" is by far my favorite. There's just something about the pacing of the story and the overall tone of it. It's got a lot of great guest actors. Even the monotone computer voice has an indefinable extra zip to it. Plus, it puts the Doctor in some genuine peril that even he doesn't seem to think he'll be able to get out of. And anytime you've got Jamie & Zoe, it's alright by me!

Actually, it's funny. Considering how many useless screamers the Doctor has been paired up with over the years, it's nice to see Zoe as an integral member of the team. Meanwhile, it's Jamie that ends up feeling a bit useless because he knows nothing about rocket travel.

"The Tomb of the Cybermen" is a creepy story but I think it's never quite sure what to do with itself beyond the set-up. It might have worked better as a 2-parter.

"The War Games" is great for the last couple episodes but parts 1-8 drag things out far beyond the breaking point.

And if you're in the mood for Patrick Troughton, I highly recommend "The Invasion." Get it on DVD with the new animated episodes replacing the missing parts 1 & 4. Even though it's an 8-parter, I think it makes very good use of all its parts. Tobias Vaughn is the best human villain in the history of Doctor Who. Plus, you've got UNIT & the 1st surviving appearance of the Brigadier.

 

[Candlelight]

I had planned on watching The Mind Robber and The Invasion first, to get some more Troughton under my belt in order to "earn" watching what is by all accounts an epic finale for his Doctor.

I don't know that it's "epic" so much as just long! Not a whole lot happens in most of the middle episodes. This story would have been a great, breakneck 6-parter but 10-parts is OVER overkill.

Considering the production problems they had during season six, I'd say it's great that Troughton got what he got.

The final two stories would've been a six-part story called "The Impersonators" and a four-part finale. When the Impersonators started to prove unusable, they decided to make it a mammoth 10-part story.

http://www.shannonsullivan.com/drwho/serials/zz.html