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.

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!

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

Now with updated recommendations for the first 4 seasons! That's 169 episodes!

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.

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

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

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

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"?

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"

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]

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]

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

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

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

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

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