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

hmm....

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

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

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

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

https://averylychee.neocities.org/doctor-who/

(I also rewrote the introduction a bit)

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: https://averylychee.neocities.org/doctor-who/

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

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.

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

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"

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

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

Despite many mediocre stories, the first doctor is still one of my favourites. His charm, his wit, his lovely laugh (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NPlI1WpAwpU)... 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.

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)

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.

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: https://averylychee.neocities.org/doctor-who/#doctor2

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

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

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.

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.

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?

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

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

The Underwater Menace: finished

(see the site for a review: https://averylychee.neocities.org/doctor-who/ )

next up: The Moonbase

which is the second story about the Cybermen

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

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

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!

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?

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

aaAAAAAAA

holy heck that was a good twist

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.

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?

https://averylychee.neocities.org/doctor-who

Watching The Macra Terror

oooo, new titles!

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!

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...

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

gosh!!

The Faceless Ones is really creepy so far...

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

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...