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What classic Who should new fans avoid like the plague?

Cutter John

Rear Admiral
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We've had a lot of requests over the years from new fans asking what classic Who stories we'd recommend. Usually they get a hundred different answers and likely go away confused as hell. So as a public service, I thought it might be easier (and shorter) if we turned the question on its ear and made up a list of stories they should avoid at all costs.

Note: This thread is just a bit of fun. Please don't get bent out of shape if your favorite story gets mentioned.

Aaaaand.....GO!
 
Castrovalva was one of the first I ever saw and almost turned me off the whole lot of it.
 
- "The Gunfighters"
- "Ghost Light"
- "Planet of Fire"
- "Frontios"
- The two middle parts of the "Trial of a Time Lord" arc...

Mostly the above are all sleep inducing, but "The Gunfighters," and "Trial of a Time Lord, part II" also fall into the cringe-worthy category too...
 
- The two middle parts of the "Trial of a Time Lord" arc...

I honestly don't know why people bag Terror of the Vervoids so much. I enjoyed that serial over the other three. Plus the whole final scene of Part Four where the Valeyard turns the Doctor's "evidence" against him was excellent.
 
Timelash, Time and the Rani...
Actually, it's a good bet that anything with Time in the title should be avoided. There are a few exceptions to the rule, but it works as a general principle.
 
Timelash, Time and the Rani...
Actually, it's a good bet that anything with Time in the title should be avoided. There are a few exceptions to the rule, but it works as a general principle.

Can't believe nobody's mentioned The Twin Dilemma!

As for Timelash, there is the story that Paul Darrows OTT performance was a response to Colin Baker's appearnace in the B7 ep City On The Edge of Forever.
 
There are some shows that should be avoided at all costs, and some that you should avoid until you're secure in your fandom and can can accept the negatives.

So...

Avoid at all costs:
The Sensorites
The Twin Dilemma
Timelash
Time And The Rani
Delta And The Bannermen
The Happiness Patrol

Avoid until you've more established your fandom:

The Gunfighters (actually very well done for a third floor studio the size of a living room, and has a final shootout worthy of any Western of the era)
Paradise Towers (A good script killed stone dead by every aspect of the production)
Kinda (ditto)
Trial Of A Time Lord
Most of the Hartnell and Pertwee eras, actually...
 
The Keys of Marinus. This William Hartnell-era story is actually one of only a handful of classic Who that, even taken in the context of the time, low budgets, etc., I rate as below average-to-poor.

The Web Planet. This one mostly due to the silly giant moth costumes worn by the alien actors. According to the BBC online story guide this story was enough to make William Russell (Ian Chesterton) decide to quit the series after 2 years as a companion. And it was evidently the "A Night in Sickbay" of its time as the first episode was the highest-rated classic Who episode ever (something like 13 million!) but the ratings dive-bombed in the subsequent weeks.

The Horns of Nimon. Definitely one of the lesser Tom Baker stories. Still worth seeing because it's a Tom Baker story, and has Lalla Ward as Romana looking cute as ever, but it's not really a good one for new viewers.

Other than that, I'd actually recommend avoiding the Colin Baker and Sylvester McCoy eras altogether for new fans. That does not mean to imply that all of their stories were bad. Far from it - Remembrance of the Daleks, the 14-episode Trial of a Time Lord, and Vengeance on Varos rank in my top 20, easy, and there's also sentimental favorite The Two Doctors - but owing to the circumstances behind-the-scenes, plus the fact the show started to play with the character of the Doctor a bit, especially as the "Cartmel masterplan" kicked into gear, I don't really think these eras are particularly good for "inexperienced" Who viewers. They're better suited, I think, for viewers who have already watched a lot of earlier Who. For example, you can't really appreciate Ace until you've experienced characters like Jo Grant and Polly. Remembrance of the Daleks' best moments are meaningless if you haven't watched any other Daleks stories. And 'nuff said you need to have some Troughton under your belt, or at least The Five Doctors or The Three Doctors, to make any sense out of "The Two Doctors"...

In fact, although "franchise fatigue" was definitely a factor in Doctor Who's ratings collapsing and the show ending in 1989, along with a number of fairly poor or (in the case of Ghost Light definitely) incomprehensible episodes, the fact the final 5 years or so of Doctor Who offered very little in terms of "jumping on points" for new viewers was probably as big a factor in the show expiring as anything else.

Alex
 
I'm surprised Tom Baker's Underworld hasn't turned up yet. Which just goes to support the theory that its such a boring story that fans have blotted it out of their memories.

Timelash wins the prize for biggest dissapointment. When fans first heard about it, we were chuffed as hell. 'What? Paul Darrow, the coolest mo-fo in Brit sci-fi is gonna be on DW? This is gonna be epic!' Boy were we dissapointed.

I don't think The Gunfighters is anywhere as bad as people make it out to be. Certainly no worse than other Hartnell stories. Its actually a lot of fun. Only trouble is someone accidentally edited the audio of someone torturing cats onto the soundtrack during scene changes (if you've seen it, you'll get that). :)

The Web Planet tends to get too much grief as well. I thought it was a great story. The problems aren't anything a few million pounds worth of CGI couldn't fix. :)

Horns of Nimon What could have been epic monsters, let down by a god-awful story.

Delta and the Bannermen wins my prize for most wretched later Doctor story. To this day I still can't figure out wtf was going on.
 
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The problem with The Web Planet is that no sane script editor should ever have commissioned it, because the technology to make it just didn't fucking exist... And if it had, it would have cost ten times the season's budget to do right...
 
The problem with The Web Planet is that no sane script editor should ever have commissioned it, because the technology to make it just didn't fucking exist... And if it had, it would have cost ten times the season's budget to do right...
It's theater. There. Problem solved.
 
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