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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

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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 

The Ambassador's of Death is really a good example of why you shouldn't make a story that long – for example, there's a whole plotline where, after Liz is captured, she attempts an escape, only to be caught and re-captured just before she can get back to the Doctor.

And the story spends at least 5 minutes on these scenes, which do not progress the story at all – the situation at the end of the scenes is exactly the same as what it was at the start.

Doctor Who | Season 7 

I finished Season 7!

Inferno was much better than I remember it being, but still felt one episode too long.
I really enjoyed the parallel universe stuff this time around.

Thankfully: no stories after Inferno are this long (unless you count trial of a timelord as 1 story instead of 4)

We're now up to the danger zone: the last time I tried to watch through the classic series, this is where I stopped.

Doctor Who | Season 7 

(I won't make a big announcement post this time, since it only took me 2 weeks to get through this season)

Doctor Who | Erasure 

In the early seasons, the theme music (and much of the stock incidental music) was arranged by Delia Derbyshire.

But because Ron Grainer composed the main melody, she was not allowed to get co-writer credit "just" for coming up with the iconic sounds.

So she remained uncredited for her work on the theme until the 50th Anniversary episode.

Doctor Who | Season 8 

This season introduces The Master.

And heck, I had forgotten how sinister Roger Delgado's portrayal of him was...

Doctor Who | Season 8 

I've now watched a third of the episodes!

Doctor Who | Season 8 

There's so much more violence in the classic stories – in one scene from "The Mind of Evil", UNIT attacks a castle prison that's been taken over by convicted criminals.

There are 15 onscreen deaths from the firefight, and it's implied that there are more off screen.

You'd be hard pressed to find a scene in the modern series that contains more than 5 deaths*.

*that aren't like... something explodes and kills everyone

Doctor Who | Season 8 

The Brigadier: *just manages to save the doctor*
The Doctor: Thank you, Brigadier... but do you think for once in your life you could manage to arrive BEFORE the nick of time?!

Doctor Who | Season 8 

I'm now up to The Claws of Axos, which is the last classic doctor who serial I watched *before* doing this whole watch-through thing.

I remember it being very good!

Doctor Who | Season 8 

Speaking of memory: this is the extent of my recent memory.

With the exception of a few stories, I haven't seen any of the remaining classic episodes since 2004, so my memories go from being "remembers most of what happens" to "has vague recollections of a few frames"

Doctor Who | Season 8 

Both Terror of the Autons and The Claws of Axos have been given a Highly Recommended rating. It's been quite some time since there have been 2 Highly Recommended stories in one season

Doctor Who Guide 

I've decided to retroactively change the rating for The Dalek Invasion of Earth.

It was "Maybe", and now it's "Watch"

Mostly because: I still remember it strongly, several months later. So even though it's a bit too slow, it's worth watching

Doctor Who | Season 8 

I'm partway through episode 2 of The Colony in Space, and I'm worried this is going to end up being really racist...

Doctor Who | Season 8 

.... it starts getting super weird in episode 4

Doctor Who | Season 8 

I can't tell whether the Master being in this story makes it better or worse

Doctor Who | Season 8 

And sadly, The Colony in Space breaks Season 8's streak of recommended stories.

It's meandering and not that interesting, and would have been much better if they had removed the plotline about the Master and cut it down to 4 episodes (instead of 6)

Doctor Who | Season 8 

it feels weird that I'm simultaneously 20.27% of the way through and 35.05% of the way through the series

Classic Doctor Who, money 

gosh hecking darnit.

I saw the blu ray special edition of Season 12 available at a local store for $80, and thought that was a bit steep.

But now I find out that they're selling for over £250 in the UK, and my local store has just run out of stock ::<

Classic Doctor Who | Season 8 

I just finished watching The Daemons. It was good!

And that concludes Season 8!

Wooo!

💫 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 the first 8 seasons!

Classic Doctor Who | Season 9 

The copy of Day of the Daleks that I have advertises itself as having new special effects and new dalek voices.

I was initially very concerned about the replacement of the dalek voices, but then... I heard the original:
youtube.com/watch?v=2A4E8eI-6Y

Classic Doctor Who | Season 9 

And "Day of the Daleks" gets a Highly Recommended rating from me!

I had to remind myself that "Highly Recommended" doesn't mean "the best story of the season", it means "if you only watch one story in this season, this is the story to watch".

(Of course, now there are a couple of seasons with multiple highly recommended stories, so that idea kind of breaks down a bit... hmm)

Classic Doctor Who | Season 9 

So yeah... Day of the Daleks is not the most amazing story. But it is an enjoyable romp.

It's also incredibly difficult to come up with a synopsis for it

Classic Doctor Who | Season 9 

heck, I didn't realise it had been 8 days since I last watched any Doctor Who.

But today I'm watching The Curse of Peladon. This is the first story since Claws of Axos that I remember watching as a child.

I'm enjoying it!

Classic Doctor Who | Season 9 

I also am really glad the Master isn't here...

Classic Doctor Who | Season 9 

The Curse of Peladon is really, really good.

Except the first episode is a bit too slow, so I can't give it a Highly Recommended rating.

Classic Doctor Who | The way I'm thinking about things 

By default, every story gets a "Maybe" recommendation.

If it's not very good at all, then I downgrade it to "Don't watch".

If it exceeds my expectations, then it gets upgraded to "Watch".

If it exceeds my expectations AND the answer to the question "If I only watch one story from this season, should I watch this one?" is yes, then it gets upgraded to "Highly Recommended"

Classic Doctor Who | Season 9 

I'm really enjoying that the stories have gaps between them now.

They've moved away from what the early episodes did ("We have to show every moment!"), and are letting there be spaces of time that aren't shown, where the Doctor and companions could be doing all sorts of things

Classic Doctor Who | Season 9 

@lizardsquid this is where the fanfic really gets started

Or did, when the Classic Who fandom was big on tumblr

Follow

Classic Doctor Who | Season 9 

@DialMforMara I'm probably going to write some of my own fanfiction soon, tbh!

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