I am not enjoying The Abominable Snowmen very much, tbh

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)

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

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???

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?

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.

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

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.

(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

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

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)

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"

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

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: https://averylychee.neocities.org/doctor-who/#season-5

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::

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

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)

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???

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

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...

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.

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.

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

nooooooo

D::

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

Fury from the Deep

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

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

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

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.

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"

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

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

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!

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

Now with updated recommendations for the first 5 seasons! That's 209 episodes!

"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).

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

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:

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

"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"

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.