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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

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 ] 

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.

Classic Doctor Who :: [ Season 6 ] 

I'm not enjoying this season as much as I hoped I would...

If I had skipped the reconstructions, I probably would be enjoying it more, but now? It's starting to feel formulaic.

Interestingly, this matches opinion of the time – none of this season is particulary bad, it's just starting to feel same-y

Classic Doctor Who :: [ Season 6 ] 

I'm watching The Space Pirates.

It's the only story of Season 6 that's mostly a reconstruction, and gods... I had forgotten how miserable it is to watch these.

Classic Doctor Who :: [ Season 6 ] 

The Space Pirates is one of the worst combinations:

* a relatively slow paced story
* full of clichés
* that is mostly missing, so you have to watch it as still images

Classic Doctor Who :: [ Season 6 ] 

The last episode was better than the others, but still... not worth watching.

On to the last story of the 6th season (and of the 2nd Doctor): The War Games

💫 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 recommendations for all the first and second doctor stories!

Doctor Who | Season 7 

I'm 3 stories in to season 7, and while I really like Petwee's Doctor, and the Brigadier, and liz shaw, and the concepts behind the stories...

they're really way too long and slow paced.

Spearhead from Space was great, but both The Silurians and The Ambassadors of Death are 7 episode stories that really should only be 4 episodes.

It took until Season 12 for them to realise that 4 episode stories worked much better

Doctor Who | Season 7 

Also: I don't understand why the stories are 7 episodes instead of 6.

A 6 episode format would aleviate at least some of the pacing problems

Doctor Who | Season 7 

a 4 episode story is 1.5 hours total, which is a reasonable amount.

A 6 episode story is 2 hours and 24 minutes, so it's already longer than a feature film.

A 7 episode story is nearly 3 hours long.

Doctor Who | Season 7 

@lizardsquid
Maybe I like these seasons so much because I spent so much effing time with the characters :p

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Doctor Who | Season 7 

@DialMforMara As far as I remember, I like the seasons after this one!

But this season just drags on way too much.

(Also, wouldn't we be spending basically the same amount of time with the characters if we had five 4-episode stories instead of three 7-episode stories?)

Doctor Who | Season 7 

@lizardsquid I dunno, but out of all the Doctors, years after I watched any of the show, I’m most attached to Two and Three, and they had most of the 6-parters

(Also to Eight, but that’s more because he’s the handsomest of the old guard)

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