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Doctor Who [Season 3] 

The problem with reconstructions: they require a lot more attention, otherwise you lose track of what's going on.

But they're also harder to pay attention to, because there's no motion, it's just telesnaps and sound

Doctor Who [Season 3] 

ah yes, the loose cannon opening sequences.... where they use literally every animated slideshow transition they can

Doctor Who [Season 3] 

todo tomorrow: figure out a more clear way of marking the reconstructions in my guide

Doctor Who [Season 3] 

The Myth Makers was a weird one - the story is a farce, the way they depict the trojans is a farce, the way they make Vicki fall in love with a random dude and run off with him is also a farce.

And yet it very clearly wasn't intended to be that. It's just garbage.

The third story to get a "Don't Watch" recommendation.

Doctor Who [Season 3] 

The Dalek's Master Plan

This one is sooooo looonnnnnggggg

it's 12 episodes....

Doctor Who [Season 3] 

also 9 of them are missing, so we've only got reconstructions

Doctor Who [Season 3] 

something that New Who does better than Classic Who: Cold Opens.

Classic episodes don't have them, and it feels.... wrong

Doctor Who [Season 3] 

oh no, the daleks are burning down the forest~

how will the Doctor escape thie one~

Doctor Who [Season 3] 

the answer: run into the dalek city, which is right next to the forest

Doctor Who [Season 3] 

so this story had a teaser episode earlier in the season - they cut away from the doctor and companions for a bit to show the daleks organising a meeting between a bunch of villans from across the universe.

Except between the teaser/cutaway and the actual episode, the actors for several of the villains in-explicably changed, so it's very confusing

Doctor Who [Season 3] 

one of the villains is a bunch of vines in a robe

Doctor Who [Season 3] 

I'm almost up to Katarina's death scene.

Not only is this the first time a companion of the doctor's dies, but it's also the first scene the actor recorded - the character was written and cast, but then they realised that they couldn't actually make her an interesting long term character, so they killed her off in her second story

Doctor Who [Season 3] 

holy frick that was way more intense than I expected it to be

Doctor Who :: [ Season 3 (1965-1966) ] 

The author of this story (Terry Nation) is one of the good authors.

But they also don't seem to know what the solar system is... they put a bunch of extra planets into it???

Doctor Who :: [ Season 3 (1965-1966) ] 

ah, we're up to the part where the author switched, because this story was so long they needed to get Dennis Spooner to write the second half

Doctor Who :: [ Season 3 (1965-1966) ] 

oh, I thought so!

one of the actors in the first part came back a few years later to play Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, one of the most famous characters from the classic series

Classic Doctor Who :: [Season 3] 

I'm watching the christmas episode now...

what utter garbage

Classic Doctor Who :: [Season 3] 

so much yelling...

Classic Doctor Who :: [Season 3] 

hmm.... assuming the rest of The Dalek's Master Plan is good, I'm going to have to do a partial recommendation for this one..

Classic Doctor Who :: [Season 3] 

as an aside: someone suggested that editing down the episodes would make people more likely to watch them. I'm sure that's true, but it's also a lot of work...

Classic Doctor Who :: [Season 3] 

I'm starting to regret saying "maybe" for The Time Meddler - it's not a very exciting story, but it is very memorable.

Classic Doctor Who :: [Season 3], racism 

*realises that the villain in this story is wearing dark makeup and some fake folds to make him look south east asian*

hmm....

Classic Doctor Who :: [Season 3], racism 

looks like I really do need to add a content warnings section

Classic Doctor Who :: [Season 3] 

episode 11 of The Dalek's Master Plan is interesting - the doctor goes missing right at the start, and isn't seen for the rest of the episode

Classic Doctor Who :: [Season 3] 

I've updated the site to have a bunch of extra navigation buttons, which aren't super useful right now, but will be very useful when there are 38 seasons on the page

Classic Doctor Who :: [Season 3] 

here's the link again, in case you want to see:

averylychee.neocities.org/doct

(I also rewrote the introduction a bit)

Classic Doctor Who :: [Season 3] 

The War Machines is even better than I remembered it being.

(Although it is a bit weird that they write out Dodo, one of the Doctors companions, by hypnotising her and then just saying "she went to the country")

✨ Classic Doctor Who ✨
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Want to watch Classic Doctor Who, but don't want to slog through the boring episodes?

Check out my guide: averylychee.neocities.org/doct

Now with:
✨ updated recommendations for all of Seasons 1-3
✨ a much better introduction
✨ useful navigation buttons
✨ indicators of major plot changes

Classic Doctor Who :: [Season 4] 

The first story of season 4 is so awful that it took me a week to build up the energy to watch it.

It's hard to even explain how it's bad, it's just... boring and predictable and nothing happens, and it has the same problem that almost all of the historical stories do: there's no energy. No-one seems to care all that much.

And it's made even worse by being a reconstruction, so you've only got stills of the actor's faces.

Classic Doctor Who :: [Season 4] 

I'm so proud of myself for adding the navigation buttons to the webpage, tbh... it makes it a lot nicer, and I did a surprisingly good job designing them

Classic Doctor Who :: [Season 4] 

Most of the titles of these stories start with "The"

In the first 4 seasons, there are 36 stories. Only 4 of them don't start with "The"

Classic Doctor Who :: [Season 4] 

I'm watching "The Tenth Planet" (the last story starring the first doctor), and the doctor just... collapses unconcious for no reason at the start of episode 3

Classic Doctor Who :: [Season 4] 

that was.... a much more intense regeneration scene than I was expecting

Classic Doctor Who :: Retrospective on the First Doctor 

Despite many mediocre stories, the first doctor is still one of my favourites. His charm, his wit, his lovely laugh (youtube.com/watch?v=NPlI1WpAwp)... and his indescribable anger at human suffering.

He's a grandfather, who cares deeply about the world and those around him. None of the other doctors have that grandfather-ness to them, and it's part of what made the first doctor so special.

Classic Doctor Who :: [Season 4] 

I knew something felt weird when watching Victory of the Daleks (an 11th Doctor story) - it's a story that's already been told, in the first 2nd Doctor Story (The Power of the Daleks)

Classic Doctor Who :: [Season 4] 

I really wish the footage for Power of the Daleks still existed... the reconstruction is really hard to watch.

I was planning on watching the animated version of this story afterwards, but I think I'm going to be too drained to watch this same story over again, so maybe I'll try watching it after a long break.

Classic Doctor Who :: [Season 4] 

nearly 2 weeks after starting, I finally got through The Power of the Daleks.

It's not a bad story, but it's just.... hard to watch something that's missing so much footage.

In my guide I gave it a maybe: averylychee.neocities.org/doct

because (while I haven't watched all of it) the animated version would be a really good watch

Classic Doctor Who :: [Season 4] 

I'm noticing that, in general, the stories that are completely missing are usually not worth watching at all

Classic Doctor Who :: [Season 4] 

And now: The Highlanders, which is also completely missing.

Fun Trivia: The Highlanders is the last* of the "historical" stories – the show was originally conceived as having a mixture of historical stories (to teach kids history) and sci fi stories. But the historical stories were hated by the production team, and rarely were as engaging as the sci-fi stories, so they were abandoned - all subsequent stories set in the past also contained a sci-fi element.

Follow

Classic Doctor Who :: [Season 4] 

footnote: while not intended to be an educational story, one of the 5th doctor stories was set in the past and contained no sci-fi element.

Classic Doctor Who :: [Season 4], question about possible transphobia 

So there's a section in this story where the doctor dresses up as an old woman to get passed some guards. Should I make a note of this in my reccomendation, or should I just ignore it?

Classic Doctor Who :: [Season 4] 

The highlanders was pretty good!

It's definitely one of the stories that I wish hadn't been destroyed, because even though it's a historical story, it's quite entertaining.

Next: The Underwater Menace.

It took me a while to track down a copy of Episode 2, which was thought to be destroyed until 2011.

Unfortunately, my source for all the other episodes seems to come from the mid 2000s, so it didn't include this episode

Classic Doctor Who :: [Season 4] 

"They're going to carry out the fish operation on her!"

Classic Doctor Who :: [Season 4] 

The Underwater Menace: finished

(see the site for a review: averylychee.neocities.org/doct )

next up: The Moonbase

which is the second story about the Cybermen

Classic Doctor Who :: [Season 4] 

I decided not to watch it today, and instead do something else for a bit

Classic Doctor Who 

I watched some clips of "Inferno", a 3rd doctor story, and.... hmm.

I thought Inferno was terrible when I last watched it, but these clips are exciting, and interesting - quite a bit more than some of the 2nd doctor eps I've recommended.

I see 3 options:

* inferno is not as bad as I thought, and I was just unncessarily harsh to it
* inferno is bad, and I need to be harsher on the older episodes
* inferno is bad, but the badness is not reflected in the clips

Classic Doctor Who :: [Season 4] 

I was watching an episode, and I thought I found a plot hole, but then I realised that I had just gotten confused.

It's very strange that there are 2 cybermen stories in the same season, though!

Classic Doctor Who :: [Season 4] 

Episode 1: "The hurricane is in the atlantic ocean"
Episode 2: "We've got to keep the hurricane in the pacific!"

h-how did they make this error?

Classic Doctor Who :: [Season 4] 

this is a very interesting premise: there's a moonbase with a device for a gravitron. They use it to control Earth's weather - make it rain over crops, keep it clear over beaches.

But something is going wrong, and if they don't fix the fault, then the Earth's weather will become disastrously chaotic

Classic Doctor Who :: [Season 4] 

aaAAAAAAA

holy heck that was a good twist

Classic Doctor Who :: [Season 4] 

The Moonbase: rather good!

And the reconstructions don't harm it much – I'm thinking that I'm going to need my guide to make a distinction between a partial reconstruction and a full reconstruction - full reconstructions are very difficult to watch, and require a lot of dedication.

Classic Doctor Who :: (small) feedback request 

ok, I've added the different indicators for partial reconstructions (as opposed to full reconstructions) - if you've got a spare minute, could you go take a look and give me some feedback?

averylychee.neocities.org/doct

Classic Doctor Who :: [Season 4] 

Watching The Macra Terror

oooo, new titles!

Classic Doctor Who :: [Season 4] 

oh yeah, I finished The Macra Terror. It was alright, but I wish the episodes still existed, instead of the reconstruction.

There's only 2 more stories left in Season 4, so I'm getting through this faster than I expected to!

Classic Doctor Who :: [Season 4] 

The Faceless Ones includes new opening music, to go with the new opening titles.

Gosh, it's weird for these to change after 166 episodes of them being the same...

Classic Doctor Who :: [Season 4] 

also, I just realised I'm 20% of the way through!

gosh!!

Classic Doctor Who :: [Season 4] 

The Faceless Ones is really creepy so far...

Classic Doctor Who :: [Season 4] 

oh jeez it's getting even creepier.... this is so good...

Classic Doctor Who :: [Season 4] 

choosing a rating for The Faceless Ones is so difficult...

I really really want to give it a "Highly Recommended" rating, but it's partially a reconstruction. It's still incredibly tense and incredibly creepy, and really really really good, but it still.... isn't as good as it would have been.

Some of the missing stories I don't mind being missing - The Myth Makers, for example, is not very good.

But The Faceless Ones is such a good story and so so creepy...

Show newer

Classic Doctor Who :: [Season 4], question about possible transphobia 

@lizardsquid I'd make a note of it. I don't know that it's "transphobia" specifically, but it's definitely a "look cross-dressing is funny haha especially when a ~man~ is wearing a ~dress~ lol" moment, which is worth TWing for, I think. :/

re: Classic Doctor Who :: [Season 4], question about possible transphobia 

@lizardsquid
I would note it, and note that Ben (I think) teases him about it. It's definitely "man crossdresses for laughs," and that's a problem, but there's a larger discussion to be had here about this trope in British comedy, and in that context it's fairly tame because iirc the Doctor is genuinely trying to pass for disguise purposes.

Classic Doctor Who 

@lizardsquid or: you don't need to judge a show recorded decades before we were born lol

Classic Doctor Who 

@Efi ::(

I've been putting a lot of effort into this...

Classic Doctor Who 

@lizardsquid I'm just saying you should have fun, not be mean :* <3

re: Classic Doctor Who :: [Season 4] 

@lizardsquid
It doesn't get less creepy

Classic Doctor Who :: (small) feedback request 

@lizardsquid It's good. I like it. Clear and easy to follow.
I've though about watching some classic Doctor Who with the family...

Classic Doctor Who :: (small) feedback request 

@Angnor I'd be super happy if you decided to use my guide for that!

Classic Doctor Who :: (small) feedback request 

@lizardsquid Do you have a service you've been watching them or recommend using?

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