Dr Who Catch all

I watched "The Brain of Morbius" for the first time since I was a kid last night and really enjoyed it. It's the Doctor Who version of a Hammer Frankenstein film. And say what you want about all of the new Doctors, but Tom Baker is still the king in my book.

Tom Baker was great but he also had the benefit of the greatest pool of writers the show ever had. When you've got Douglas Adams as showrunner it's pretty hard to fuck up. Love the design of Morbius too, for all of the shit classic Who gets about wonky sets that's a really well designed and realised beastie.

I feel like Mike Mignola must have seen 'Morbius' as a kid. There's a lot of Hellboy aesthetics in that creature.

I have currently seen "The Sea Devils", "The Five Doctors" and "Genesis of the Daleks", and am currently making my way through "The Dalek Invasion of Earth". Oh, and "Tomb of the Cybermen" just came in from Netflix. So it's safe to say I'm on a Classic Who binge lately (hell, Who in general).

Anyway, "Devils" was great fun (Pertwee is like your wartime grandpa mixed with James Bond, and Delgado remains THE Master), as was "The Five Doctors", but "Genesis" was just amazing. Davros is such a great villain, played to the hilt by Michael Wisher, and his "To hold it in my hand" speech is a defining Who moment. Tom Baker is wonderfully odd and alien, and his own "Do I have the right?" speech is also great. The production design (with the exception of the caves with the charmingly goofy giant clam) is grim and devastated, the Daleks themselves remain my favorite Who monsters, and the ending is dark but nonetheless optimistic.

What's great about that 'hold it in my hand' speech is the fact that when he reappears in New Who and starts ranting there's this great little moment where he sort of pinches his fingers together like he's imaging that capsule from their discussion.

Fucking A. Robert Holmes is one of the best Science Fiction writers for television, ever, Period. His blending of gothic horror and science fiction was/is a huge influence over the show's future (and me!) and his dialogue was just amazing. Pyramids of Mars, The Talons of Weng Chiang, The Deadly Assassin and the aforementioned Brain Of Morbius were some of the best Sci-fi on TV ever, ever,ever.
Brain of Morbius was deemed to scary for kids back in the day so they showed it at a late time, around 11pm I think. First thing I ever snuck out of my room at night to watch in my life. Good times!.

I'll always be a child of Tom Baker's Doctor. Genesis of the Daleks sealed the deal, a long time ago.

It's a real shame how many of Patrick Troughton's episodes are lost. When revisiting the classic period, it's clear that he's one of the strongest performers. Just too little remains though.

Years ago I started watching this show from the beginning. I got through all of Hartnell's years, and I loved it alot. I love him as the doctor, so grumpy. But then came the second doctor, and the majority of his eps are missing. I watched fan recreations some, but I got really bogged down and it frustrated me to the point where I gave up. I tried skipped forward, but there were new companions I didn't recognize.

It's stupid to say for a show that plays fast and loose with its continuity, but I could never continue with the third doctor having missed so much of the second.

That's a terrible notion. Pertwee's run is where the show really found it's footing for my money. You can find a lot of Troughton's stuff on shmootube if you look for it, enough to give you a sense of it at any rate, and lead you into the rest of it.

I love pertwee's stuff, i skipped a Troughton (meaning to go back to it) because I'm a bit of a completist. The 3rd doctor starts pretty much from scratch, there's hardly any reference to the previous doctors really and it's so damn good.

Our local PBS station used to run the Pertwee Who's on Saturday mornings when I was a kid, so he was my first Doctor. Barely remember any of it save one of the gargoyles from The Daemons serial. Later when I was in junior high, the same station ran the Baker Who's and what was great was that they'd take an entire Saturday afternoon and run an entire serial. So you'd get to see Genesis of the Daleks in one fell swoop. They'd also trot out The Five Doctors during pledge time.

I'm most familiar with the Peter Davidson run as he is the only series I saw in its entirety. I saw a fair amount of the Tom Baker/Sarah Jane Smith episodes as a wee lad and suffered through about half of Colin Baker's run before giving up.

Is there a definitive site for viewing old episodes, or is it basically the entire Internet frontier?

There's no definitive site for all your who needs that I know of (god knows there should be), i used to love UK Gold in the early days of satellite because they would do the same thing, run a whole serial on a single run. The only thing that bugged me was the 40 second recap cliff hanger at the start of each episode/ segment.

They are all on shmootube. In bits, but they are all there.

I've been picking up some of the Who DVDs. The Deadly Assassin and Invasion of Time are classic, awesome Baker episodes.

Most recently I got The War Games, a 10 (TEN!) part serial that was the last for Patrick Troughton. Highly recommended. A real shame more of his episodes didn't survive.

One bit of trivia that came out of that DVD: there is an extra short film about all the regenerations up to David Tennant. One of the talking heads in the short (maybe one of the writers?!) said that when Colin Baker's Doctor regenerates into Sylvester McCoy, the regeneration was interrupted by The Rani, who in effect made the Doctor retarded!

Which I think was supposed to explain why McCoy's Doctor was so "dark". Didn't explain why the writing got so bad though.

Didn't McCoy not start off dark? I thought he was more comical at first and only got darker later as the show tried to change directions.

Watching Brain of Morbius since I am on the late shift this week. Thank you all.

When McCoy regenerated he was a bit addled (but baker had been before too - not that he EVER admitted it), i wouldn't say he played it dark at all, more dork than dark. The Rani played him for a bit by pretending to be Mel - but he put it all together by the end of the first story. On the whole it was just McCoy looking puzzled and using spoonerisms / malapropisms / eggcorns to appear eccentric and kooky.

Later in the run some of the shows got a bit edgier I suppose (ghostlight had it's moments) but having Ace around stopped anyone from actually giving a shit.

I fail to see how Ace was a problem. She's awesome.

No, no she wasn't. Granted, I always felt that McCoy's doctor got shafted in terms of being able to really shine.

Still cracks me up that he talked a Dalek into committing suicide.

Ace was shit. I was watching the show when it aired because I refused to give up on Who even though it had clearly given up on me, but Ace and Mel count as Worse Assistants Ever, surely? The whole McCoy run was just awful...Delta and the Bannermen? The fuck? The Dalek story in his run had the feel and timbre of a proper old School episode but they just kept fucking it up at every turn. Ghostlight gets props but I found the thing to be more liked a filmed fan fic novel or something. Hideous stuff which is a real shame...McCoy seemed to really have something there but the script writers let him down...big time.
He held the world record for having the most amount of ferrets stuffed down one's trousers at once...truth.

Wait, are you saying she wasn't good or wasn't a problem? Honestly, I like Ace, and you have to give her props for killing a Dalek with an (admittedly powered-up) baseball bat.

I think my distaste for Ace was that she wasn't hot...sadly. Such a shallow teen.

Okay, favourite stories for each Doctor anyone? I'm excluding Hartnell and Troughton from my list because whilst I'm familiar with their work I never saw enough of them to make a proper conclusion.

Pertwee: The Daemons/The Sea Devils
T. Baker: Pyramids of Mars/The Deadly Assassin
Davidson: Earthshock/Caves of Androzani
C. Baker: Vengeance of Varos (I guess)
McCoy: Curse of Fenric/Remembrance of the Daleks
Eccleston: The Unquiet Dead/The Doctor Dances
Tennat: The Girl in the Fireplace/Human Nature

Rather conservative list I'm afraid.

Ace was annoying in how Mary Sue she became (she's a bit like a forerunner of the current companions, only the old writers could never characterise as well as RTD could)

That's a pretty good list, though I haven't seen, like, half of it. Sea Devils is quit an excellent Pertwee story though, and it showed me why everyone falls over themselves when praising Roger Delgado's Master. Ainley's fine, I actually kind of like Roberts' Master (don't hurt me!), Jacobi's great for his few minutes, and Simm is wonderfully entertaining, but Delgado's still the best. To Eccleston and Tennant's list, I would also add "Dalek", "The Unquiet Dead", "Blink" and "School Reunion". And you forgot Genesis of the Daleks for Baker!

Remembrance is pretty great, though it's the only McCoy story I've seen so far, with the aforementioned death-by-baseball-bat as well as Ace dispatching another Dalek with a rocket launcher earlier, which prompted this great exchange:
"You killed it!" "I aimed for the eyepiece." It also restores some threat and menace to the Daleks, although the stair-hovering moment isn't nearly as cool as the one in "Dalek".

I was never that much of a fan of Genesis of the Daleks. But that's because Davros' subsequent appearances sort of diminished him as a character. The end speech is aces.

I'm going through New Who again on DVD, I'm currently halfway through Season 2 and I gotta say that I hate the shit out of School Reunion. If it wasn't for Anthony Head's awesome stand off in the swimming pool I'd write the whole thing off, but I never liked Sarah Jane as a companion. I always preferred Leela and Turlough as assistants because they both brought an interesting dynamic to their respective Doctors. Leela was great because she was a great counterpoint to the increasingly passive/intellectual Doctor that Baker played whilst Turlough had an edge to him that Davison lacked.

McCoy is an odd one. Initially he is a lighter Doctor after Baker's manic stroppiness, but then Cartmell who was the head writer at the time came up with this grand idea and so they sort of rebooted his character halfway through his run. So he went from comedy buffoon to this all powerful, all knowing, vaguely erudite player of games. I never liked the darkness of later McCoy although it was an interesting dimension to the character. His relationship with Ace was fascinating with him testing her and forcing her to confront her own fears for some unknowable reason. Essentially his Doctor became a bit of a bastard.

Hate to say this, Spike, but disliking Genesis because Davros' later appearances (according to you, anyway) diminish his character is baffling. A character's later suckage doesn't diminish his earlier awesomeness at all, if you ask me. And Genesis has more going for it than just the two famous speeches: the bleak atmosphere, the gloriously unsubtle Nazi parallels, and Davros in general. I mean, he's a glorious manipulator, and so elegant too.

And hating School Reunion? Really? Damn, I didn't think that was possible. Of course, I'm coming to Who from a different perspective than you are, so that might be part of it. I currently find Sarah Jane delightful, and it helps that Sladen is a damn good actress.

Get thee to Daily Motion. Click around, find the Who fans. You'll be surprised how much is there.

Recommended stories:

Troughton: The Invasion, The War Games
Pertwee: Inferno*, The Sea Devils, The Green Death
Tom Baker: Genesis Of The Daleks, The Seeds Of Doom, The Talons Of Weng-Chiang*

*My top two fave classic stories. Doesn't get much better.

The early to mid 70s were when the classic show was at its best. A great deal of Pertwee's run is spectacular, a fun-filled combo of Quatermass, James Bond, and The Avengers. Tom Baker's run lost much of it's appeal once Robert Holmes stopped writing and Hinchcliffe left as producer. I haven't bothered with much of the 80s show.

Watching from Eccleston on for the very first time, since I'm new to Who, and I have to ask: am I alone in thinking that Rose is an irritating little moron? I pretty much detest her.

Testify miss Quinn. Fucking testify. I hate her with a passion, unfortunately such a position may prove unpopular around here. To be fair though i hated Billie Piper's fucking guts before Dr. Who. Because I want to. Because i want to.

Bizarrely I love her mum, but I'm a fan of Camille Coduri from the 80s.

I also really liked Martha and thought the blow-off at the end of her series was a disgrace and thus we lost an intelligent and independent companion for a bellowing half-wit.

Phibes: kudos on the inferno tip, such a strange one, but so well done. Brigade leader in an eyepatch and weird fascist fetishes but in a 70s way...

Genesis is probably the best of the dalek episodes and it's so beautifully executed With Baker's change of heart.

God, if you dislike Rose during Eccleston’s run wait until she’s travelling with Tennant. I really liked her initially, but that second season had me baying for her blood. She goes from being flawed but generally good hearted to a vainglorious Mary-Sue.

I don’t mind Martha, I just think the idea of a smart and capable assistant was torpedoed somewhat by the fact that she is defined purely by the people she’s in love with.

Donna is fucking awesome though.

io9 ran a recent Doctor Who primer that advises against watching the first two Doctors first. Man, is that ever wrong. William Hartnell is greatness in a cloak.

The first serial is a rather weak, somewhat sexist caveman story with a good first episode, "An Unearthly Child". Be sure to watch that; it almost feels like a Narnia story in its whimsy. The next serial, which introduces the Daleks, switches to a fun combination of Flash Gordon and Jeff Smith (I shit you not--the Thals feel like they were lifted out of Bone). Ian and Barbara make great first companions. For one thing, they're actual adults, with their own agendas that often conflict with the Doctor's. Indeed, the two are often the real protagonists while Hartnell sneaks around like an old trickster.

In addition to the first episode, I recommend Marco Polo and The Aztecs, written by John Lucarotti. Just fun romps through researched time periods, along with some great character development for Barbara in the latter. The Rescue feels like a modern two-parter and features some cool atmosphere in the last few moments.

And The Dalek Invasion of Earth? It's worth watching just for the last few minutes alone. Hell, I'll link it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=81gFI...eature=related

Much of that stems from the show's genesis as an educational program. The idea was that the Doctor was merely the vessel to get Ian and Barbara to interesting times and places where, as school teachers, their POV would teach kids about science and history.

A lot of that plan flew out the window when the Daleks took off like they did, and the more history-flavored episodes got squeezed out in favor of more aliens.

?

Sorry, could you expand on this a little? She's defined as a smart and capable assistant.

Martha suffered because:

1. some of the writers had no idea what to do with her, or how to use her now that their easy source of exposition had gone.

2. Most of the scripts were written with Rose in mind and had some arbitrary re-writes to accomodate her which is why in some of the episodes the difference is barely noticeable (she married Rose's ex for god's sake).

re: Donna - while I salute the decision to have a platonic companion I can't help wonder if it's due to the fact she was the ugliest companion this side of bonnie langford. Bernard Cribbins (I know he's 80) would have been wonderful - he's got more comedy, talent and pathos in that face of his than a thousand ingenues - I also loved it when June Whitfield turned up - that would have been fantastic to have had earlier in the run... Also, if they had done the matey thing with Martha instead it would have been more in-keeping with her character.

Really want to see the hartnell and troughton runs but it'll have to wait until I'm done with 3,4 &5!

The first episode she's smart and capable. Then the next episode she gets rejected by the Doctor and that sort of becomes her character arc, she's in awe of the Doctor and he barely notices that she's there for the rest of Season 3. When she comes back in Season 4 her first appearance is essentially her having gotten over the Doctor and started a new life with another man, her appearance during the finale starts off alright but in Journey's End she doesn't actually interact with the Doctor at all. She's just there.

Then finally her closing scene is her partnered up with Mickey for no reason (obviously RTD felt it would be appropriate to pair up the two black characters). She's never well regarded by the Doctor, she's never particularly well regarded by the guest stars, she's all but ignored by Jack, her own family don't seem to give a shit about her, even the goddamn Master seems non-plussed at her escape. She just becomes scenery.

Yeah, that got kinda annoying considering I found her better than Rose, at least initially.

Going back to the favourite stories for each Doctor idea:

Hartnell: the War Machines. Horribly dated in some ways, but I've got a soft spot for the gigantic monsters

Troughton: Tomb of the Cybermen. Bit of an obvious choice, but most of the other evidently great Troughton stories (Evil of the Daleks, Web of Fear) only exist in part.

Pertwee: Spearhead from Space. Had one of the great iconic scenes of old Who, with the Autons smashing through shop windows.

T Baker: City of Death. Probably the best of the stories Douglas Adams worked on, and the location filming in Paris is a big step up from the normal studio sets/rock quarry.

Davison: agreeing with Spike on Earthshock, though I've also got a soft spot for Kinda.

C Baker: Vengeance on Varos. There really weren't a lot of good stories in this era, though bits of Trial of a Time Lord work by themselves.

McCoy: Rememberance of the Daleks, though Survival's worth a mention just to see the only good performance by Anthony Ainley. I suspect Greatest Show in the Galaxy would be here as well if it was remotely easy to come by.

McGann: The Chimes of Midnight. I'm cheating here.

Eccleston: Empty Child, though I'd also nominate Father's Day.

Tennant: Blink or Midnight.

Well, I've been catching up on NuWho after thinking the Eccleston run was pretty lousy (and having nothing beyond vague childhood memories of the original show). I have to admit, the show slowly improves. Season 2 (Tennant's first season) is still pretty lousy, but it's bizarrely watchable in that bad-movie way. They get the pacing right, somehow. Oddly, I don't mind Rose. She and Tennant aren't given much beyond their one note, but they're likeable performers.

Season 3 is a very, very mild improvement; Martha's good, even if the writers have no idea how to use her. The writers, as with seasons one and two, keep falling back on about three plots (I swear, every second goddamn episode in seasons 2 and 3 is about being posessed by or transformed into aliens). But by the end of the season there's a run of quality, including "Blink" (which is the first Moffatt episode that lived up to the hype, for me). Shame about the idiocy of the 3rd season finale (the Power of Happy Thoughts AND a gigantic reset button? Screw you, Davies.)

Oh, and the Christmas episodes are uniformly terrible.

However, three episodes in, the fourth season is legitimately good. As in, good without much qualification, unlike the "good" episodes of the first three seasons (aside from Blink). The writers actually seem to be aware of a lot of the problems with the show's mythology and are making attempts to deal with them (seriously, they finally laid out the ground rules for time travel and changing history in the FOURTH SEASON?!? I guess they were assuming people would know the rules from the old show, but still, Jesus).

As for the classic show, it's hard to find over here in North America, but I managed to catch "The Ark in Space" and was kind of amazed to see that it's ALIEN five years early. I mean, I know ALIEN was kind of a mash-up of SF cliches already, but this has the same set-up, same atmosphere, same pacing. Even the sets are similar, if cheaper.

Anyway, based on what I've seen this particular era of the classic show, at least, is certainly better than the new run.

They set up most of the time travel rules in New Who in the Eccleston episode FATHERS DAY. But it's primarily a family show, the rules have to be fast and loose otherwise you're going to lose the interest of the shows primary audience (which is six to fifteen year olds).

Season Four is very consistent but you'll loathe the finale. I actually like the concept of Season 3s ending, it's a neat use of stuff already set up and whilst the reset button is there to undone the large scale damage the emotional fallout on the main characters isn't reset. The Doctor, Jack and Martha are all changed by their experiences with the Master, even if the world doesn't remember the Toclafane.

...Y'know, there are some things I think people just don't "get". I'm not saying you don't "get" Dr. Who, Prankster, but you might be watching it for different reasons than we are. I watch Who, for example, for a little bit of everything: drama, laughs, scares and excitement. If an episode can provide a little bit of each of those, I'm satisfied. I honestly can't fathom how someone can find either the Eccleston run or most of Tennant's stuff "uniformly terrible".

I said the Christmas episodes are uniformly terrible. Because they are. I said the Eccleston run was pretty lousy, and I went into detail about the Tennant run.

It's true that I'm not a huge fan of camp, which is what this show is frequently going for, but starting with season two the general tone and energy is actually one of the things I like best about the show. Tennant and Piper are likable actors, Freema Agyeman even more so, and as I mentioned, I like how they're using Catherine Tate so far. I have no problem with cheap FX or production values if the story is good, and honestly, the general look of the show is decent enough. I just praised "The Ark in Space", which was obviously made on the cheap even by 1974 standards. And yes, there's some amusing dialogue.

My problems are more deep-seated. The biggest is the basic concept of the show not making any sense: the Doctor's a time traveller, yet he never treats things as if they "already happened" from his perspective. If someone's life is threatened, he leaps in to help, apparently with no concern that that person had to die as part of the historical record. They finally, finally engage with the ramifications of this in "The Fires of Pompeii", but even then it's kind of lazy--"I just know when I can change things". This isn't a minor plot hole, this is the freaking core of the show. Saying "it's for kids" is a limp excuse, given that we're all adults and we're watching it, and the show is clearly aiming at an adult sensibility a lot of the time (or adult enough to ask these questions, as I assume even a 12-year-old would).

Meanwhile, the Doctor's apparently obsessed with saving lives, and yet he never thinks to, I don't know, hop in his TIME MACHINE and prevent all the deaths that occurred in that episode? I know there's some half-baked dialogue about how he can't go back in someone's "personal timeline" at one point, but that's clearly contradicted by the reset button in the season 3 finale.

There's also the fact that they keep relying on three or four basic plot elements OVER and OVER again: alien possession, some aspect of modern life turning deadly, people being secretly experimented on or fed off of by aliens...which wouldn't be so bad, but then the plots themselves rely way too much on deus ex machina--for a while there practically every episode ended with the Doctor going "I know! We can reverse the polarity!" and then everything being magically fixed. I particularly like when the Doctor is amazed at "The Impossible Planet" perched on the edge of a black hole, with much made of how that shouldn't be, and then at the end of the two parter the Tardis just blasts out of the black hole like it was nothing.

Also, the soap opera love affair emo shit between Rose and the Doctor, and then Martha and the Doctor, got old REALLY fast. Does every SF show on TV have to rely on characters acting like lovesick teenagers?

And to top it all off, the worlds the Doctor visits are pretty unimaginative. When he's on Earth in the past, the historical detail is minimal and half-assed; meanwhile, the future is filled with people who act exactly like those from the 20th century. There's rarely any attempt to create a coherent future beyond "OK, they're in space."

There's just too much of this in the first three seasons for me to overlook it. It's still sort of fun in a trashy way, but that's all it is. Like I say, there's been a steady improvement, but I stand by my assessment.

Yeah maybe it's just not for you, dude.

Did you even read my post? I said it had been slowly improving and that I found it sorta fun in spite of everything. That doesn't mean I turn off my critical faculties and pretend it doesn't have some incredibly massive problems.

I did read your post. I can understand the space you are coming from that would render your critiques solid, on the money and relatively accurate. Hence my post.

This is covered by old series explanations, and, to some extent, Father's Day in the Eccleston season.
The Tardis has safely features to prevent it crossing its own timeline (Space Museum). If these are overridden, as seen in Father's Day, the consequences are fairly unpleasant.

As fro stuff having "already happened" from the Doctor's perspective, the old series used to claim that everything that happened was in Gallifrey's past. I think they changed that to Gallifrey itself being outside time or transcendent of time so that certain stories actually made sense, but the result's the same: there isn't really a past/future distinction in Doctor Who.
The broad sweep of events doesn't really change without a lot of effort, individual bits often can be. It's not that certain events can't be changed, more that to change them would take a lot of work and be a really bad idea when looking at the bigger picture.

If I remember correctly, Channel 54 (San Jose) used to edit the cliff-hangers out for a seamless presentation.

So. On the topic of sidekicks, where do you all come down on Jo Grant?

All of which is just a way to prevent "hey, it's okay, I've got a time machine" from killing what tension there is. The applied technospeakium ensures that the Doctor basically has just one chance to fix a problem.

All right, just got done with "The Tomb of the Cybermen". I can see why people love old-school Cybermen so much: THEY'RE FUCKING CREEPY. Especially that buzzing, droning voice: "You will be-come like ussssss." Anyway, good story, and Troughton is quickly becoming a favorite. I love the scene where he comforts Victoria, so warm and kind in assuring her that happy memories are better than sad ones. And the rest of the time, he's an eccentric, smarter-than-he-acts "midget hobo".