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Classic Doctor Who :: [Season 4] 

I actually really liked The Evil of the Daleks, even though it's mostly missing.

I've updated my guide to have a review for this, and also to downgrade The Highlanders to a "maybe" – not because it's bad, but because it's not as good relative to the other episodes I gave a "watch" rating to in this season.

I'm somewhat worried that I've become a little gentler and forgiving on the episodes than I was in the last season, but maybe this season is just better.

Classic Doctor Who :: [Season 4] 

and that's the end of season 4!

time to make a new promo post

☄ 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 the first 4 seasons! That's 169 episodes!

Classic Doctor Who 

I think I figured out the reason why most of the early stories start with "The"

It's because, internally, all the scripts were named "Doctor Who and <story name>"

So even though "Tomb of the Cybermen" is a perfectly good title, it would look weird to have a script called "Doctor who and Tomb of the Cybermen", so they put a "The" at the start.

Classic Doctor Who :: [Season 5] 

In The Tomb of the Cybermen, the Doctor claims to be 450 years old

Classic Doctor Who :: [Season 5] 

I've uploaded my rating for Tomb of the Cyberman

it's the first Highly Recommended story in quite a while, and it.... really is very good

Classic Doctor Who :: [Season 5] 

The Abominable Snowmen was set in the Himalayas, and so was scheduled to be filmed on the Welsh mountain of Snowdon during a snowy period.

But the week before (and the week of) shooting, it didn't snow - it rained. So the outdoor shops are not as snowy as was desired, and the ground was muddy which made filming difficult

Classic Doctor Who, racism, question 

So far in my guide, I've used "blackface" and "yellowface" when actors have been dressed in those - but I'm considering replacing them with a term that's more generic.

Maybe "racial makeup"?

Classic Doctor Who, racism, question 

better idea: less generic, but more specific. Instead of

"This story contains an actor in yellowface", I can write
"This story contains a white actor in makeup to make them appear Asian"

Classic Doctor Who, slight annoyance, fanfiction 

I'd love to write fanfiction for classic doctor who.... except, I'd have to use the same companions.

For modern Doctors, there are periods of time where they are offscreen and have no companions (for example, after Rose slips into an alternate universe, the Tenth Doctor travels alone for an unspecified amount of time before finally meeting Martha).

[cont]

Classic Doctor Who, slight annoyance, fanfiction 

The official novels/audio plays/comics often introduce their own characters, who go on adventures with the Doctor in these in-between times. It means the authors can write their own unique companions and have their own adventures. Fanfiction does this too, of course.

But in the classic series, the companions are always continuous

[cont]

Classic Doctor Who, slight annoyance, fanfiction 

For the Second Doctor:
* Ben and Polly are companions from before
* Then, Jamie is introduced
* Then, Ben and Polly leave
* Then Victoria joins
* Then Victoria leaves
* Then Zoe joins

There's no space there for the Doctor to have a writer's own companions, because Jamie is always there!

The only time the 2nd doctor doesn't have Jamie as a companion is in the one story when Ben and Polly are the only companions

Classic Doctor Who, slight annoyance, fanfiction 

anyway I want to write fanfiction with The Doctor and my own companions, but there's no way for that to fit into cannon

Classic Doctor Who, slight annoyance, fanfiction 

heck, I just looked at this timeline:
cabletv.com/blog/doctor-who-ti

Aside from the revived series doctors, only the 4th doctor has a gap that you could theoretically use to put your own companions in

Classic Doctor Who :: [Season 5 → The Abominable Snowmen] 

I am not enjoying The Abominable Snowmen very much, tbh

Classic Doctor Who (meta) 

One thing I worry about with my guide is that my ratings are different to other people's.

Doctor Who fans generally want me to put more things into the "watch" category, whereas people who haven't experienced much Doctor Who generally want me to put less...

(Although, there has been one instance where I put a story into "watch" originally, because of nostalgia, but a fan was like "uhh.... no? That's one of the worst stories" and they were right)

Classic Doctor Who :: [Season 5 → The Abominable Snowmen] 

This.… doesn't make sense?

The yeti are being controlled by The Great Intelligence, which has this really complicated plan:

1. Have the 5 items required to complete the plan.
2. Give one of them to the monestary for safekeeping
3. Set everything else up over centuries, until finally ready for the item from the monestary.

ok, makes sense so far? And they have someone at the monestary who is following their commands, so it should be easy

Classic Doctor Who :: [Season 5 → The Abominable Snowmen] 

4. Intentionally send a yeti towards the monestary for no reason, causing you to lose one of the required items.
5. Send more yetis later to get it back
6. THEN send the person at the monestary with the final item.

What???

Classic Doctor Who :: [Season 5 → The Abominable Snowmen] 

wait hold on, I just remembered that there were 2 spheres:

the one that the great intelligence lost in step 4, and one that Jamie stole (unintentinally) at some point.

But the one that was stolen was left in the monastery, why not just get the monk who follows orders to bring it back too?

Classic Doctor Who :: [Season 5 → The Abominable Snowmen] 

I finished The Abominable Snowmen. Surprising no-one, my recommendation is "Don't Watch"

Next is The Ice Warriors.

Petty complaint: "Ice Warriors" and "Abominable Snowmen" are concepts that are too close together, mentally, and I keep having to take a moment to figure out which one I'm watching.

Classic Doctor Who :: [Season 5 → The Ice Warriors] 

There are quite a few early Doctor Who stories that are anti-computer, and I'm not entirely sure where that sentiment comes from

Classic Doctor Who :: [Season 5 → The Ice Warriors] 

ok, this is getting really obnoxious.

I'm all for not blindly trusting computers, but at one point the Doctor does some maths on some pieces of paper, and is offended that they would double-check his results with a computer.

That's exactly the situation the doctor SHOULD be ok with – because if there's a descrepancy, then we know that either the original maths was wrong, or the computer was wrong, and from there we can fix things.

Classic Doctor Who :: [Season 5 → The Ice Warriors] 

(Spoilers below)

Episode 3 cliffhanger:
The Ice Warriors are aiming a gun at Victoria
Ice Warrior 1: we are ready to fire

Episode 4 begins:
Ice Warrior 1: we are ready to fire
Ice Warrior 2: ... not yet.

Wow. What a great cliffhanger. Thanks. /sarcasm

Classic Doctor Who :: [an aside (Season 1)] 

hmm, thinking about The Reign of Terror again.... maybe I should downgrade it from "Watch" to "Maybe"

It wasn't bad, I'm just not sure that people would enjoy it enough to keep watching through it

Classic Doctor Who :: [an aside (re-rankings)] 

I went back through the first 4 seasons, and choosing to re-rank a few of them:

The Reign of Terror :: Yes → Maybe
It's really not that good, and I'm unsure why I ranked it so highly in the first place

The Crusade :: Yes → Maybe
As I was scrolling through the list, I realised that I had forgotten this story even existed - any story that forgettable is not worth a "Yes" (even if it does have one of the best acted scenes from the early show)

Classic Doctor Who :: [an aside (re-rankings)] 

The Gunfighters :: Yes → Maybe
I ranked this higher because I had fond memories, but they didn'thold up to reality

The Savages :: Yes → Maybe
While it was an entertaining watch, it also positioned the Doctor as inherently more "moral"

Classic Doctor Who :: [an aside (re-rankings)] 

I'm still thinking about The Keys of Marinus.

Because in the context of "all stories told"? It's kinda bad. Like.... quite bad.

But it's also the best example of the stories being told in Season 1, so if you said "I can only watch one story from this season", I'd say "The Keys of Marinus", regardless of its many flaws

Classic Doctor Who :: [Season 5 → The Ice Warriors] 

It's been a week since I watched any Doctor Who, and tbh taking a break was a good idea, if unintentional.

I both love and hate The Ice Warriors. I love it because it's well done, but I hate it because it's constant moralising is grating.

I gave it a "maybe" in my recommendations: averylychee.neocities.org/doct

Classic Doctor Who :: [Season 5 → The Enemy of the World] 

Next up is The Enemy of the World.

I'm somewhat excited to see if this is any good, because this is a story that was found in 2013, *after* the last time I watched Doctor Who.

Also, it's set in 2018
o::

Classic Doctor Who :: [Season 5 → The Enemy of the World] 

Patrick Troughton is an incredible actor... Not only is he convincingly playing 2 different characters, he's also playing those characters imitating each other

Classic Doctor Who :: [Season 5 → The Enemy of the World] 

These episodes have some very weirdly timed cuts.... but they also have much better editing than usual for doctor who (there's almost no dead air)

Classic Doctor Who :: [Season 5 → The Enemy of the World] 

holy gosh that was actually really good.

I was expecting to hate it, because I heard someone else say they were disappointed with it and didn't think it was that great.

But....??? I don't know why they thought that???

Classic Doctor Who :: [Season 5 → The Enemy of the World] 

I watched that final scene several times over. It's.... so good...

Classic Doctor Who :: [Season 5 → The Web of Fear] 

They brought the yeti back for this story, which at first I was dubious about, but I'm liking it so far.

It's set in the London Underground, after the yeti menace has forced london to be evacutated. I love apocalyptic stuff that's centred around a train network – Metro 2033, Ghost Lines...

Classic Doctor Who :: [Season 5 → The Web of Fear] 

The cliffhanger at the end of episode 1 could have been better, if they just cut the episode 3 seconds earlier:

The doctor is nearing some explosives, when someone presses the button to detonate.
They could have cut here, but they didn't – they cut after the explosives fail to go off properly and the Doctor is mearly knocked aside.

Classic Doctor Who :: [Season 5 → The Web of Fear] 

The Web of Fear is only missing one episode.

And it just happens to be the first episode to feature Colonel Lethbridge-Stewart (later Brigadier), one of the most beloved characters from the classic series.

Classic Doctor Who :: [Season 5 → The Web of Fear] 

they're using one of the cyberman themes for the yeti

nooooooo

D::

Classic Doctor Who :: [Season 5 → The Web of Fear] 

the web of fear turned out to be pretty good!

next up: ...

wait, I don't actually know what's next, that's a first

Classic Doctor Who :: [Season 5 → Fury from the Deep] 

Fury from the Deep

I don't know anything about this one!
I do appreciate that it doesn't start with "the", though

Follow

Classic Doctor Who :: [missing episodes musing] 

Something I've noticed is this: when a doctor who story is missing all but 1 episode, the surviving episode is often the most boring one.

The evil of the Daleks only has episode 2 remaining, which is mostly faffing about with a side character, and only features the Daleks in the last few seconds.

Until 2013, only one episode of The enemy of the world survived, and that was the episode with a bunch of unnecessary filler

Classic Doctor Who :: [missing episodes musing] 

This is technically true of the celestial toymaker as well, but that entire story is boring garbage so it's not really a surprise that the surviving episode is also boring

I guess Galaxy 4's surviving episode is ok? It's not really exciting, though

Classic Doctor Who :: [Season 5 → Fury from the Deep] 

Gosh, it's been 11 days since I last watched any doctor who.

Mostly because Fury from the Deep is missing all of its episodes, so from experience I'm 99% sure it's not going to be worth watching.

Classic Doctor Who :: [Season 5 → Fury from the Deep] 

I'm only just starting the third episode and I can tell you that this one sucks and really isn't worth watching.

I'd skip it, but I know I'd look back in a few months when I've finished watching through and be like "why did I skip those 4 episodes... I can't say I've watched every episode for the guide if I skip 4"

Classic Doctor Who :: [Season 5 → Fury from the Deep] 

"This seaweed is not the sort you'd normally find on the beach! This seaweed happens to be dangerously alive!"

Classic Doctor Who :: [Season 5 → Fury from the Deep] 

It took me 4 days, but I managed to get through Fury from the Deep. I'm glad I did (mostly because of the scenes about Victoria leaving the Tardis) but it still is absolutely NOT worth watching.

On a more positive note: I updated some subtle stylistic things on the page: averylychee.neocities.org/doct

The next story is: The Wheel in Space

I'm excited for this one, but 5 of the 6 episodes are missing so idk how enjoyable it will be

☄ 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 the first 5 seasons! That's 209 episodes!

Classic Doctor Who :: [ meta ] 

"How long did it take you to watch each season so far?"

Season 1 — 17 days
Season 2 — 18 days
Season 3 — 29 days
Season 4 — 39 days
Season 5 — 35 days

Seasons 3, 4, and 5 were hit the worst by the missing episodes, which is why they took so much longer to watch (the reconstructions truly are a slog, and I honestly can't recommend very many of them).

Classic Doctor Who :: [ meta ] 

In the next season, only 2 of the 7 stories are missing episodes, so I should get through it faster.

And the seasons after that?

Well, they stopped making ~43 episodes a season, and reduced it down to ~25

Additionally, from Season 7 onwards, there are no more missing episodes.

So these timings will most likely get shorter

Classic Doctor Who :: [ Season 6 ] 

Currently watching The Dominators, the first story of Season 6

I loved it as a child, but now I'm rewatching it and it's boring. The only good thing about it is the Quarks:

Classic Doctor Who :: [ Season 6 ] 

Gods, the people on this planet are so intolerable – their answer to everything is to wait.

They're intended as a parody of Hippies - they're peaceful, but completely useless.

And it just makes the entire story frustrating

Classic Doctor Who :: [ Season 6 ] 

"Not to worry, the planet is safe. There's just going to be a localised volcanic erruption on the island."

"Aye, maybe so, but we happen to be ON the island"

Classic Doctor Who :: [ Season 6 ] 

The Dominators gets a "maybe" from me – it's not awful, but also it's not great.

A tangent: The Dominators is better than The Keys of Marinus, which I gave a "Highly Recommended" rating. I consider "Highly Recommended" to answer the question "if you only watch 1 story from this season, which should you watch?", rather than say which story is the best.

Next up: The Mind Robber, which is a story I know I've seen but I remember nothing about it.

Classic Doctor Who :: [ Season 6 ] 

In the second episode of the Mind Robbers, they had to add a scene at the last minute – the actor for Jamie was ill, and so they replaced him with a different actor. But they needed to explain why his face changed between episodes.

Luckily, the story is already set in a weird hallucinatory reality, so it's relatively easy to explain.

Classic Doctor Who :: [ Season 6 ] 

"Only a man-like creature can write fiction!"

what. why would you make that a part of your story? why would you want to make non-humanoid aliens incapable of creativity???

Classic Doctor Who :: [ Season 6 ] 

I'm up to episode 5 of The Mind Robber, which is the shortest episode of Doctor Who ever

Classic Doctor Who :: [ Season 6 ] 

Aside: I've stopped putting the story name in the CW, because the Content Warning was getting too long. If this site was structured more like Tumblr, where the posts are rather wide, then I'd definitely make the post title the full thing, but this UI isn't wide enough

Classic Doctor Who :: [ Season 6 ] 

"yes, we saw 2 women walk into the building - one fair, one dark"

heck, you wouldn't hear that nowadays – people would think you're describing their skin colour!

Classic Doctor Who :: [ Season 6 ] 

The villain in The Invasion has a huge moving wall that hides a secret machine, and the wall takes several seconds to open or close. I'm surprised he hasn't been caught with it open

Classic Doctor Who :: [ Season 6 ] 

Did you know: they didn't copy the footage from the previous week's cliffhanger scene for the start of the next episode. They re-performed the scene, on a new tape.

Earlier on, this was very obvious, but it's been much less obvious with the last 2 seasons!

Classic Doctor Who :: [ Season 6 ] 

Interesting tidbit I just read about The Invasion (which I've nearly finished watching now) – this was the last story to feature the cybermen until 1975 (7 years later)

Classic Doctor Who :: [ Season 6 ] 

Both The Invasion and The Seeds of Death have women being proactive – it's interesting to see the progress between 1963 (where the women were mostly screaming and running away) and 1969.

Show newer

Classic Doctor Who :: [Season 5 → Fury from the Deep] 

@lizardsquid
You didn't choose this life. It chose you. Watch it.

Classic Doctor Who :: [Season 5 → Fury from the Deep] 

@lizardsquid "mostly because of the scenes about Victoria leaving the Tardis"

Because it's important for the plot or because you didn't like her? :P

Classic Doctor Who :: [Season 5 → Fury from the Deep] 

@BatElite (serious analysis for a joke question)

To be honest, looking back I didn't care that much for Victoria.

She has a character arc and some interesting emotional moments, but for the most part she's just yet another screaming girl

Classic Doctor Who :: [ Season 6 ] 

@lizardsquid
It's also among the best, because it's about fanfiction

Classic Doctor Who :: [ Season 6 ] 

@DialMforMara I liked the first and the last episode of The Mind Robber to be interesting, but the middle was so plodding and full of just random happennings...

Classic Doctor Who :: [ Season 6 ] 

@lizardsquid that's actually kind of cool! if I ever watch the classics, I'll keep an eye out for this XD

Classic Doctor Who :: [ Season 6 ] 

@lizardsquid
So in the years after that you get a lot of jokes about destroying the Cybermen for good--*again*.

Classic Doctor Who :: [ Season 6 ] 

@lizardsquid ...what are they describing then?

Classic Doctor Who :: [ Season 6 ] 

@BatElite their hair colour

(I was confused until I remembered my grandma describing someone that way)

Classic Doctor Who :: [ Season 6 ] 

@lizardsquid if the episode had been in color we could make protons and neutrons out of them

Classic Doctor Who :: [missing episodes musing] 

@lizardsquid it’s p sad that the old episodes are gone imo?
I watched the v old DW on tv and I kinda wish they’d rerun some of it :0

Hmm, perhaps it’s because the interesting ep was played more and wore out faster? I’ll admit I’m not familiar with the medium used to store v old tv shows

Classic Doctor Who :: [missing episodes musing] 

@Doggo the episodes are missing because they were intentionally destroyed, but a few of them have been recovered from behind bookshelves and from broadcasters outside the UK

Classic Doctor Who :: [missing episodes musing] 

@lizardsquid oooh, that’s like weird. Why were they distroyes if it’s ok to ask?

Like. The concept of destroying old videos like that is bizzar to me. Unless it’s just random vandalism not something purposefully tagated

Classic Doctor Who :: [missing episodes musing] 

@Doggo so the cameras at the time recorded onto tape, rather than film.

And tape is super expensive.... but you CAN erase a tape, and then record something else instead.

When Doctor Who started, pre-recorded TV was a really new idea – almost every single broadcast before then was done completely live, so the idea of re-runs didn't exist.

(continued...)

Classic Doctor Who :: [missing episodes] 

@Doggo Doctor Who tapes were only used twice:
1) for the BBC broadcast
2) to be transferred onto film for selling internationally.

After that, they were marked as "safe to erase", so they could use them for other shows.

So we still had film copies of the episodes… But the film storage areas had very very little space, and since archiving of programs was not yet a thing, a lot of film was destroyed to make space for newer (and more profitable) shows.

Classic Doctor Who :: [missing episodes] 

@Doggo so we ended up with 2 departments: the tape department, which didn't want to keep anything (for money reasons), and the film department, which didn't want to keep anything (for storage reasons)

And no obligation for archival existed at the BBC (until 1978)

Classic Doctor Who :: [missing episodes] 

@lizardsquid ahh! Thankyou for explaining, I really appreacte it and that was facinating to know abt how old shows were stored/recorded :D

I feel I should say more given how detailed you were on this subject but I’ve drawn a blank other then *projected vibes of thanks and interest*

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