To complete or not to complete

[Asbo Zaprudder]

I've been collecting the available classic DW discs over the past few years and I still have gaps for the generally unloved episodes such as The Gunfighters, Time-flight, The Twin Dilemma, Timelash, Paradise Towers and Delta and the Bannermen. I feel weirdly uncomfortable not having a complete set but, as a truly complete set is impossible anyway and likely to remain so, my wallet will probably thank me for suppressing my completist tendencies. Has anyone else experienced such a feeling with DW or other series and can anyone offer advice on how to resolve this extremely silly psychological drive. Nothing in the universe will be resolved by my owning a few DVDs that I will likely never feel like watching. Where does this urge for completion originate?

 

[Timewalker]

I've been collecting the available classic DW discs over the past few years and I still have gaps for the generally unloved episodes such as The Gunfighters, Time-flight, The Twin Dilemma, Timelash, Paradise Towers and Delta and the Bannermen. I feel weirdly uncomfortable not having a complete set but, as a truly complete set is impossible anyway and likely to remain so, my wallet will probably thank me for suppressing my completist tendencies. Has anyone else experienced such a feeling with DW or other series and can anyone offer advice on how to resolve this extremely silly psychological drive. Nothing in the universe will be resolved by my owning a few DVDs that I will likely never feel like watching. Where does this urge for completion originate?

Even the worst of the Classic Who series has something worth watching in them... for instance, even if The Power of Kroll is crap, I like Romana's costume in it - and it is part of the Key to Time story arc.

I've got most of the Classic DVDs and intend to get as many as possible. I couldn't care less about nuWho - the only post-2005 DVD I have is the 50th anniversary show. I don't care about the rest.

BTW, I liked Time-Flight and Paradise Towers. They're perfect examples of bad stories with a couple of good elements.

 

[kirk55555]

One good thing about Classic Who DVDs is the special features (assuming they have them, and most do). The making of documentaries and especially audio commentaries tend to make even mediocre or bad stories worth getting in DVD form.

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

Good points about the special features and commentaries and also the occasional redeeming element. For The Gunfighters I can have a laugh at some of the outrageous American accents, although Lynda Baron's singing will probably grate on my nerves just as much as when I watched the episode back in the 60s. Why does it survive when Marco Polo, The Crusade and The Dalek's Master Plan got wiped? (Rhetorical question - just plain bad luck, of course.) I struggle to have much interest in acquiring quite a few of the McCoy episodes though. When they originally aired, I got so exasperated that I switched off the TV and went down the pub instead.

 

[Timewalker]

Good points about the special features and commentaries and also the occasional redeeming element. For The Gunfighters I can have a laugh at some of the outrageous American accents, although Lynda Baron's singing will probably grate on my nerves just as much as when I watched the episode back in the 60s. Why does it survive when Marco Polo, The Crusade and The Dalek's Master Plan got wiped? (Rhetorical question - just plain bad luck, of course.) I struggle to have much interest in acquiring quite a few of the McCoy episodes though. When they originally aired, I got so exasperated that I switched off the TV and went down the pub instead.

That singing... yikes. If they hadn't kept repeating it over and over, it might not have been so bad.

And to my ears, it sounded like William Hartnell kept pronouncing "Earp" as "Wurp".


Colin Baker and Sylvester McCoy were saddled with the worst companions in the entire Classic era. That, and the generally bad quality of the McCoy stories is why I've got a few favorites and the rest can disappear, for all I care.

There's a hotel in Calgary, Alberta that has a swimming pool on the top floor. There used to be a science fiction convention held there every summer (occasionally at a different hotel, but this one was used fairly often), and my roommates and I were all Doctor Who fans to some degree. So the running joke was that we were staying at Paradise Towers, and a couple of my friends usually spent some part of the weekend "in the Great Pool in the Sky."

As an added element to this pretend-Who stuff... the elevator at that place had a mind of its own. It would stop on the 5th floor whether there was anyone on it or not, whether anyone had called it or not, and no matter which buttons the passengers pushed. And on the ground floor you had to jump in and out really fast... the doors on that thing were impatient.

 

[Pindar]

I bought them all because I couldn't stand the gaps. As already said the commentaries make them all worth while having for me.

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

I seem to be able to tolerate companions that others find annoying such as Mel and Tegan. It does mirror the real world IMO, where many people are annoying. Bad stories are just bad stories though.

The available stories currently not in my collection are (rank numbered from better to worse out of 200 stories by a DWM poll from a few years ago):

119 The Greatest Show in the Galaxy (McCoy)
146 Battlefield (McCoy)
163 Planet of Giants (Hartnell)
170 The Happiness Patrol (McCoy)
175 The Gunfighters (Hartnell)
177 Arc of Infinity (Davison)
180 Delta and the Bannermen (McCoy)
186 Dragonfire (McCoy)
193 Paradise Towers (McCoy)
196 Time-Flight (Davison)
198 Time and the Rani (McCoy)
199 Timelash (C Baker)
200 The Twin Dilemma (C Baker)

The ranking seems about right to me - the power of the market, I guess. Thirteen episodes - which one should I buy first to reduce the number to a round dozen? I'm tempted to buy Planet of Giants to see the special effects done on a very tight budget and to judge whether the production design perhaps influenced Irwin Allen's Land of the Giants from a few years later.

Amazon UK have a 3 DVDs for £20 offer until the end of March on many of these stories so I might go for a few more of them while I'm at it. Timeflight and Arc of Infinity are in a £12 set so they're even cheaper.

ETA: As for stories that are missing or incomplete, I don't have the following soundtrack versions:

18 The Evil of the Daleks (Troughton)
41 Fury from the Deep (Troughton)
59 The Abominable Snowmen (Troughton)
100 The Crusade (Hartnell)
122 The Faceless Ones (Troughton)
137 The Macra Terror (Troughton)
151 The Celestial Toymaker (Hartnell)
156 The Wheel in Space (Troughton)
159 The Smugglers (Hartnell)
162 The Savages (Hartnell)
172 Galaxy 4 (Hartnell)
194 The Underwater Menace (Troughton)
195 The Space Pirates (Troughton)

Thirteen again - the first eight of these (The Evil of the Daleks through The Wheel in Space) seem like worthwhile enough purchases that I can obtain gradually through Audible UK by using their 3 credits for £18 deal. I also have the Lost in Time DVD with a good selection of what still exists on video and the BBC website has telesnaps for many of the stories. The remaining five stories can wait for a while...

 

[VDCNI]

Have you actually seen all of them and know you don't like them? Some of them aren't actually that bad - Planet Of Giants and The Gunfighters for example and the latter in particular has a lot of fans and a much better reputation than it used to have.

As mentioned the special features help make things worth it. Arc Of Infinity is worth it just for the commentary - Peter Davison, Colin Baker, Janet Fielding & Sarah Sutton together is a real treat. Timeflight & The Twin Dilemma also have excellent commentaries, generally Davison and Colin Baker stories usually do.

For the audios I would say the ones to leave until last are The Celestial Toymaker, Galaxy 4, Underwater Menace and the Space Pirates, the rest are all very strong stories.

I have them all even the ones I don't really like as I think classic Who always has something of interest about it but for other programmes I don't have a problem skipping seasons I don't like.

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

I believe I've seen all of classic DW, even the now missing episodes, apart from a number of the early McCoy ones I just couldn't bear to sit through. I perceived the series' general lack of quality during the Colin Baker years and into the McCoy era, although the rot had probably set in earlier during Davison's tenure. The final season (26) in 1989 was an improvement over 24 and 25 but it couldn't save the series from cancellation.

I watched a lot of the earlier Hartnell and Troughton stories with the sensibilities of a young child (which I was back then) and my memory of them is quite hazy now. My tastes have moved on and I usually enjoy the historicals more than the purer SF stories. The unedited errors and snafus of the 60s broadcasts also adds a certain charm given the limited video technology that was available at the time.

I'll probably collect a copy of everything eventually but I'm only willing to pay a bargain price for some stories.

 

[Steve Roby]

I saw a few bits and pieces of the show over the years, but started buying the videos and getting really into it in 2001. I knew certain eras were considered better than others, and likewise for Doctors and companions, but since we didn't have a store in town with a huge collection, I often bought videos just because they were the ones that were available. It was a pretty random selection for a couple of years.

But. Maybe it was the excitement of being drawn into a new obsession, and maybe it was encountering stories and Doctors almost randomly, but I generally managed to find something to enjoy in pretty much any story. Some bad stories have good performances from casts going all out to rise above the material. Some less favourite Doctors benefit from being in the mix rather than being watched consecutively. And then, of course, fannish conventional wisdom doesn't always match my own reactions to stories. As for rewatching, sometimes stories I didn't care for much the first time around seem better the second time. So I'm happy to have pretty much all of it, some special editions aside.

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

Timelash probably doesn't deserve to be rated near the very bottom of all the stories. It does have Paul Darrow hamming it up magnificently. The modern era story Fear Her is much worse IMO.

ETA: I've ordered Timelash, Time-Flight, Arc of Infinity, Planet of Giants, and Battlefield while the Amazon offer is still on. I think these stories have some redeeming features and the comentaries and extras make the purchase worthwhile.

I'm still debating with myself over the remaining eight stories. I might go after Time and the Rani and The Twin Dilemma if I can find them cheap on eBay. As for The Gunfighters and remaining McCoy stories - meh, I guess my apathy for those overrides any completist compulsion.

 

[Andrew_Kearley]

generally unloved episodes such as The Gunfighters

What madness is this? Who doesn't love The Gunfighters?

 

[Haggis and tatties]

I am in the same boat in that i have a few left to buy to compete the collection, but for me it is just a case of when i take the notion to grab the last few dvds.

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

I am in the same boat in that i have a few left to buy to compete the collection, but for me it is just a case of when i take the notion to grab the last few dvds.

I've put off attempting completion for a few years. Now that Amazon are doing their 3 for £20 offer, I hope to get the whole set of stories that are available. Some stories have been reissued as special editions but I'm not going to double dip unless a story is highly regarded. I've bought a couple of discs of the lowest rated stories second-hand on eBay.

What madness is this? Who doesn't love The Gunfighters?

In the 60s, I recall a few of my schoolmates thinking the story was disappointing. Perhaps our sensibilities weren't sufficiently honed to appreciate the story's humour. We certainly wouldn't have noticed the bad accents.

ETA: Audible UK has some of the soundtracks for the early stories that are missing video on sale for £5.20 and £6.24.

 

[Qonundrum]

I seem to be able to tolerate companions that others find annoying such as Mel and Tegan. It does mirror the real world IMO, where many people are annoying. Bad stories are just bad stories though.

^^this

Tegan isn't bad, and in her two Mara stories she steals the show.

Mel was great in her first story but the turmoil for her next story followed by the regeneration and nobody knowing what to do with her were the problems. Bonnie Langford did a great job with some awkward material.

The available stories currently not in my collection are (rank numbered from better to worse out of 200 stories by a DWM poll from a few years ago):

DWM - I'm happy for their list. Popularity votes are useful for some things, but not for others. Even for things like this, what if I didn't try watching and missed out on even one or two great scenes in an otherwise mediocre or bad story that, to me, might elevate the story above "better" stories that are actually quite banal?

119 The Greatest Show in the Galaxy (McCoy)

Definitely worth a visit. It hooked me when I first saw it in 1989. It's a little heavyhanded in comparing characters (Whizzkid = fan, Ragnarok gods = BBC, ringmaster = JNT?, chief clown = Michael Grade?, etc, etc.)

146 Battlefield (McCoy)

Doctor = Merlin. Some wooden acting and a few duff scenes don't ruin the story either.

163 Planet of Giants (Hartnell)

Dated, slowly paced, but much attention to detail for the props and sets alone make it worth one watch and I do wonder about the missing material as parts 3 and 4 were combined to give more time to the Dalek story...

170 The Happiness Patrol (McCoy)

Love it or hate it, it's a thinly veiled attack on Thatcher if not an exercise in Libertarianism that some people can like without the more direct political stuff.

175 The Gunfighters (Hartnell)

Iffy, but the direction is ahead of its time.

177 Arc of Infinity (Davison)

Watch it for Omega if nothing else. Colin Baker steals the show, too.

180 Delta and the Bannermen (McCoy)

Yeah, um, er, uh... avoid it until the very very VERY end.

186 Dragonfire (McCoy)

A very stock story. At least "Delta" has better themes and better potential. Shame it dropped the ball so badly.

193 Paradise Towers (McCoy)

Grating, but the novelization makes up for it.

196 Time-Flight (Davison)

Zero budget and being rewritten from a Tom Baker adventure and later to include the Master... it's a mess, but I enjoyed it despite its flaws in 1982.

198 Time and the Rani (McCoy)

Completely camptacular, watch it if you're looking for a fun few minutes. McCoy's era radically improves, but as a one-off this one isn't too bad. Just wish the director chose a forest region instead of a quarry instead and half the dialogue then makes sense.

199 Timelash (C Baker)

Paul Darrow steals the show. Probably the best commentary track in the whole DVD range, too.

200 The Twin Dilemma (C Baker)

Another great commentary, the story improves big-time in later episodes but - wow - it is the mutha of all messes. Colin Baker, Maurice Denham, Kevin McNally, etc, pull in great performances and make watchable (most of the time) a story that should not have been given solely to anybody new to the field of writing television. Oh, you'll wish Hugo becomes a companion, the interplay between him, Peri and the Doctor is great.

The ranking seems about right to me - the power of the market, I guess. Thirteen episodes - which one should I buy first to reduce the number to a round dozen? I'm tempted to buy Planet of Giants to see the special effects done on a very tight budget and to judge whether the production design perhaps influenced Irwin Allen's Land of the Giants from a few years later.

Oh, what rubbish. They also rate "The Talons of Weng-Chiang" and "The Android Invasion" very highly and I'd rather re-watch "Delta and the Bannermen", if not watching mold destroy a windowsill in slow motion.

Amazon UK have a 3 DVDs for £20 offer until the end of March on many of these stories so I might go for a few more of them while I'm at it. Timeflight and Arc of Infinity are in a £12 set so they're even cheaper.

ETA: As for stories that are missing or incomplete, I don't have the following soundtrack versions:

18 The Evil of the Daleks (Troughton)
41 Fury from the Deep (Troughton)
59 The Abominable Snowmen (Troughton)
100 The Crusade (Hartnell)
122 The Faceless Ones (Troughton)
137 The Macra Terror (Troughton)
151 The Celestial Toymaker (Hartnell)
156 The Wheel in Space (Troughton)
159 The Smugglers (Hartnell)
162 The Savages (Hartnell)
172 Galaxy 4 (Hartnell)
194 The Underwater Menace (Troughton)
195 The Space Pirates (Troughton)

All have moments of merit, but I'd buy in order:

100,122, 18, 194, 162, then the rest.

Thirteen again - the first eight of these (The Evil of the Daleks through The Wheel in Space) seem like worthwhile enough purchases that I can obtain gradually through Audible UK by using their 3 credits for £18 deal. I also have the Lost in Time DVD with a good selection of what still exists on video and the BBC website has telesnaps for many of the stories. The remaining five stories can wait for a while...

I hear ya. And "Fury" is still best in a visual format, the censor clips do more than what the novelization and audios could begin to convey.

 

[Mr Soak]

Dated, slowly paced, but much attention to detail for the props and sets alone make it worth one watch and I do wonder about the missing material as parts 3 and 4 were combined to give more time to the Dalek story...

Not quite. The story as shot was deemed too slow to start off the new broadcast season. Consideration was given to swapping PoG with DIoE, but decided against that due to Susan leaving at the end of DIoE. The only remaining option was cutting some material and airing the story as a three-parter.

Producer Verity Lambert successfully argued that the show was due an extra episode due the the cutting of an episode’s worth of material, so Mission to the Unknown was created to fill that slot, being a prologue/preview of the coming Daleks’ Master Plan.

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

^^this

Tegan isn't bad, and in her two Mara stories she steals the show.

Mel was great in her first story but the turmoil for her next story followed by the regeneration and nobody knowing what to do with her were the problems. Bonnie Langford did a great job with some awkward material.



DWM - I'm happy for their list. Popularity votes are useful for some things, but not for others. Even for things like this, what if I didn't try watching and missed out on even one or two great scenes in an otherwise mediocre or bad story that, to me, might elevate the story above "better" stories that are actually quite banal?



Definitely worth a visit. It hooked me when I first saw it in 1989. It's a little heavyhanded in comparing characters (Whizzkid = fan, Ragnarok gods = BBC, ringmaster = JNT?, chief clown = Michael Grade?, etc, etc.)



Doctor = Merlin. Some wooden acting and a few duff scenes don't ruin the story either.



Dated, slowly paced, but much attention to detail for the props and sets alone make it worth one watch and I do wonder about the missing material as parts 3 and 4 were combined to give more time to the Dalek story...



Love it or hate it, it's a thinly veiled attack on Thatcher if not an exercise in Libertarianism that some people can like without the more direct political stuff.



Iffy, but the direction is ahead of its time.



Watch it for Omega if nothing else. Colin Baker steals the show, too.



Yeah, um, er, uh... avoid it until the very very VERY end.



A very stock story. At least "Delta" has better themes and better potential. Shame it dropped the ball so badly.



Grating, but the novelization makes up for it.



Zero budget and being rewritten from a Tom Baker adventure and later to include the Master... it's a mess, but I enjoyed it despite its flaws in 1982.



Completely camptacular, watch it if you're looking for a fun few minutes. McCoy's era radically improves, but as a one-off this one isn't too bad. Just wish the director chose a forest region instead of a quarry instead and half the dialogue then makes sense.



Paul Darrow steals the show. Probably the best commentary track in the whole DVD range, too.



Another great commentary, the story improves big-time in later episodes but - wow - it is the mutha of all messes. Colin Baker, Maurice Denham, Kevin McNally, etc, pull in great performances and make watchable (most of the time) a story that should not have been given solely to anybody new to the field of writing television. Oh, you'll wish Hugo becomes a companion, the interplay between him, Peri and the Doctor is great.



Oh, what rubbish. They also rate "The Talons of Weng-Chiang" and "The Android Invasion" very highly and I'd rather re-watch "Delta and the Bannermen", if not watching mold destroy a windowsill in slow motion.



All have moments of merit, but I'd buy in order:

100,122, 18, 194, 162, then the rest.



I hear ya. And "Fury" is still best in a visual format, the censor clips do more than what the novelization and audios could begin to convey.

Many good points there. Thanks!

I've decided not to omit any discs from my collection, seeing as they're now as cheap as they're peobably ever going to be. I'm also going to buy the soundtracks of the "missing" episodes while those are also on special offer. Then I'm done - unless I suddenly decide the Sarah Jane Adventures are worth collecting. However, I've never seen any of those nor have I seen K9 and Company. Torchwood is definitely not on my list.

On reflection some of the ranking of stories by DWM is perhaps a bit off, depending on how one judges an episode. Timelash is probably ranked too low because of the presence of Paul Darrow and also the commentary, as you mentioned.

 

[worf1965]

Be thankful you are buying in the UK. Many U.S. DVDs go for up to $100. I had to buy a multi-region DVD player and order many DVDs from the U.K. for a more reasonable price. I would buy in order, though I started simultaneously with William Hartnell and Tom Baker as Baker is the Doctor I grew up with and I also wanted to see the show from the beginning.

As others stated I would not omit any shows as they all have some merit. My least favorite is Hartnell's The Web Planet as the special effects AND acting is pretty woeful. Even so I still enjoyed parts of it.

 

[TREK_GOD_1]

Colin Baker and Sylvester McCoy were saddled with the worst companions in the entire Classic era.

McCoy's companions? Which one?

 

[Timewalker]

McCoy's companions? Which one?

Mel and Ace.

Mel was constantly screeching, and Ace wanted to blow stuff up and the stories became about her pre-Companion life... which was full of angst and bored me utterly.