Spiridon: "Ah I see you've been infected with that deadly fungus... let me drizzle this on you"
Jo: "What is it?"
Spiridon: "Hot sauce... I do love having mushrooms for dinner"

Thinking back over Season 9, and I'm probably going to downgrade The Time Monster to a "maybe", because thinking back on it in retrospect I'm realising that it was a confused mess and lots of things didn't make much sense or were boring.

Like the Master summoning someone from atlantis to help him control Kronos, and then immediately revealing that he can already control Kronos....

Or the Doctor creating a time interference device from some cutlery and a wine bottle...

I finished Planet of the Daleks (after taking a couple of weeks off, I guess?)

I'm probably going to just give this a Maybe. It's fine, but I'm just kind of sick of 6 episode long dalek stories where the middle episodes feel like padding. This story definitely could have been told in 4 episodes, and it would have been much better.

Plus, they wouldn't have abandoned a few plotpoints partway through.

ah, what a lovely vacation to Metebelis III

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OIV90EzxzfQ

ah gosh.... that scene where the Doctor says goodbye to Jo... I'm crying...

And that's the end of Season 10.

This season had THREE highly recommended stories. That's a lot!

Jo is almost definitely one of my favourite companions of the Doctor (and I actually have Katy Manning's signature, somewhere)

I'm excited for next season, though, as it introduces Sarah Jane Smith, a companion who I haven't seen any episodes of for years...

💫 Classic Doctor Who 💫
====================

Want to watch Classic Doctor Who, but only the best stuff?

Check out my guide!

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

Now with recommendations for 10 entire seasons!

It's been 255 days since I started rewatching the classic series.

In that time I've watched 355 episodes.

I am now 41.76% of the way through the entire series.

Of what I've seen so far, 185 episodes (52.11%) are recommended for watching.

I have now watched 69 stories (nice).

if I continue at the same rate, I'll finish watching the whole thing at around this time next year.

(have I really made no comments about this season yet??? well, in short: the introduction to the Sontarans in The Time Warrior was great)

"The peruvian pyramids are one of the great mysteries of Earth – that no primitive man could have built such a structure. Well now we've solved it! [It was aliens]"

wow....

maybe.... if the Peruvian Pyramids couldn't have been built by primitive man.... the most obvious explanation is that the Peruvians weren't "primitive"

I really don't like this story.

The Daleks don't feel threatening, and that feeling is amplified by the fact that lighthearted (and borderline comical) music plays every time they enter a scene.

On top of that, none of this story feels new or fresh. I don't know exactly what's going to happen, but I haven't been surprised by anything.

(except by what happenned to trap the Doctor and Sarah on the planet Exxilon in the first place)

Something that Terry Nation always does in Dalek stories is make the environment a threat, and I feel like that makes the Daleks feel weaker.

To prove this, lets look at every Dalek episode up to this one:

The Daleks, by Terry Nation
— features a very dangerous swamp full of monsters
The Dalek Invasion of Earth, by Terry Nation
— features crocodiles in sewers, zombies on the streets, and a man-eating creature at the mines

The Chase, by Terry Nation
— centred around all the dangers the characters face while trying to escape the daleks
The Dalek's Master Plan, by Terry Nation and Dennis Spooner
— dangerous plants, dangerous people on Earth under Mavic Chen's employ.
The Power of the Daleks, by ✨David Whitaker✨
— this story has no dangerous flora or fauna, and it's tense and terrifying.

The Evil of the Daleks, by ✨David Whitaker✨
­— as above
Day of the Daleks, by ✨Louis Marks✨
— the daleks are kind of masterminding things, so this does feature a bunch of non-dalek enemies
Planet of the Daleks, by Terry Nation
— Nation returns and writes a story with.... dangerous flora and fauna on a planet.
Death to the Daleks, by Terry Nation
— once again, the aliens on the planet are really dangerous

I've given this story a "Don't Watch" rating, the first "Don't Watch" for the entirety of the Third Doctor's era.

Because unlike the other mediocre stories in this era, this one is not merely boring. It's also a rehash of previous stories, and has undertones (and overtones) of racism. There's absolutely no reason to watch it.

Just 2 more stories until the end of the 3rd Doctor's era.

I love Jon Pertwee's Doctor. But I am glad the era's ending and we're shifting on to someone else – I think I'd get completely sick of the 3rd Doctor if there was another entire season of him. Not because he's bad, but because I like change. I like having new companions frequently, I like having new doctors, I like having new enemies.

Which makes me worry about Tom Baker's upcoming 7-seasons-long era…

I finished The Monster of Peladon.

It was well made, but felt... insincere?

They were trying to make The Curse of Peladon again, but with a slightly different twist.

I gave it a "Maybe", because it wasn't a chore to watch.

it's also annoying that they undid something cool:The Curse of Peladon makes a point of making the ice warriors seem to be villains, but turn out to be protagonists – a shock to an audience who had only ever seen them as villains.

But The Monster of Peladon just makes them villains again, and it's... boring.

Time to watch the final 3rd Doctor story, Planet of the Spiders.

I'm both excited and nervous

I'm excited because I've heard good things, but nervous because the previous 2 stories in this season weren't very good at all...

oh gods, another white actor doing a horribly racist accent, nooooo

I do like that psychic powers are an actual thing in the Doctor Who universe:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=67O1OcCSaq

2 episodes in and I'm really loving this one

these spiders are really great as villains.

Not only are they spiders, but they can also speak.

And they're psychic

I'm not crying, you're crying

And thus, Pertwee's tenure as the Doctor is at a close...

I can never quite recall if the first Doctor Who story I saw was a first doctor story or a third doctor one, but in any case: Jon Pertwee's Doctor is one of my favourites.

Trying to decide if I should start watching the next season, or if I should take a break...

💫 Classic Doctor Who 💫
====================

Want to watch Classic Doctor Who, but only the best stuff?

Check out my guide!

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

Now with recommendations for every episode from the first 3 Doctors!

----------------

Stories Watched: 74 (25.87%)
Episodes Watched: 381 (44.82%)

----------------

Story Recommendations:
15 are "Highly Recommended"
25 are "Watch"
21 are "Maybe watch"
3 are "Partial watch"
10 are "Avoid"

----------------

Total Episodes Recommended: 201 (52.75%)

can't?? can't?! There's no such word as "can't"!

"yes, of course I'll talk to him, I'll talk to anybody"

Two more wonderful stories.

Tom Baker has said that he enjoyed working on The Ark in Space more than any other story, and it's easy to see why – several good actors to play against, grand sci-fi concepts, action, mystery...

It's basically the best subset of classic Doctor Who.

The Sontaran Experiment is fun and interesting, and it left me wanting more – I'm very glad they decided to make a 2 episode story this season.

It's been a while since I watched anything.

Genesis of the Daleks is a fan favourite, and it's easy to see why – it's got the most popular doctor, it's got davros, it's more and more exciting as it goes along...

But, while i do like it, I don't love it *that* much. It's fun, it's got interesting characters, it's got moral quandaries, but like many 6 part stories I wish it was shorter.

I wish this story was better. It's the only time that the 4th Doctor encounters the cybermen, and it's a somewhat dull one.

And now I've finished Season 12!

It was really good — I think Ark in Space is up there as one of the best stories in Classic Doctor Who, and Genesis of the Daleks is one of the most important.

I've now seen 401 episodes (47.17%), and recommend 217 of them (54.11%)

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

I haven't been posting recently, sorry!

I enjoyed Terror of the Zygons. It was a good wrap up for the plotlines of Season 12 (despite actually being the first story of Season 13, due to scheduling issues), and also a good final story for the Brigadier.

Apparently, Nicholas Courtney (the actor who portrayed the Brigadier) wanted him to go out in a blaze of glory, but I'm glad he didn't.

I really like that Zygons also subtly gives justification for the Doctor not coming back to UNIT, without actually saying "The Doctor won't be coming back to UNIT".

At some point, the Doctor just gets annoyed with the Brigadier for calling him in on such a seemingly unimportant matter, and several parts of the story demonstrate the UNIT people doing their jobs admirably, and more independently to the Doctor.