Ongoing Dr. Who Thread of Doom...
- Thread starter Volpone
- Start date
Eggs Mayonnaise
All In With The Nuts
I applaud this. Someone else can watch them so I don't have to (except for the really good ones or the ones that are referenced in the modern show)
Volpone
Zombie Hunter
A bunch of clunky exposition for now: I post to a Dr. Who prop building BBS but their focus is very much on building props. You're not supposed to discuss episodes, storylines, likes, and dislikes--only the technical aspects of building props and costumes from the show. There is an "off topic" forum, but it wouldn't be appropriate for this.
I started watching Dr. Who as a little kid in the 1970s. At the time a lot of PBS stations across the US carried the show and hooked an entire generation on the 4th Doctor, Tom Baker. I went to college in a city that didn't show Dr. Who on PBS so I missed the final few seasons of the original run of the show, but I have fond memories of midnight Fridays within broadcast range of Minneapolis/St. Paul, where the PBS affiliate had bought the entire run of the classic series and showed them in "movies," with each serial edited together into a complete story. Flash forward to around 2016. Digital broadcast television meant that each TV station got a handful of extra channels they could use to show whatever they wanted. It was a little like the early years of cable television. One of these "stations" was called "RetroTV." I was channel-surfing, to look for background noise while eating lunch and saw a hauntingly familiar flash of black & white rising up from the bottom of the screen with an electronic background whistle. I froze and waited. The white pillar swayed and dissolved into a "howlaround" feedback pattern as the familiar theme music came out of the set: "The Keys of Marinus." Classic Dr. Who.
Now since the 1980s, the BBC has gotten a lot savvier--and greedier--and some of the most important serials weren't in the rotation for Retro. After a few years, with much ballyhoo, they announced some serials were going "back in the vault" to make way for other ones. As it happens, this sucked. They added a handful of mediocre stories, a couple really good and important ones--and cut out about half the previous lineup. The BBC is shooting itself in the foot with chopping up the catalog like they are, but it's their material. They can do with it what they like.
Which brings me to the actual catalog and what they did with it. Around the time I was first starting to watch, the BBC had decided their vaults were filling up with a dumb children's sci-fi show that had no value, so the started just blanking tapes of existing stories. Around 1/3 of the 1st Doctor stories are incomplete or completely lost. Around 2/3 of the 2nd Doctor stories are missing. They've managed to find a number of "lost" episodes in places like Kenya TV stations. Back in the 1980s, a lot of "lost" 3rd Doctor stories were only available in black & white because the color versions had been blanked and they had to use black and white versions from backwater TV locales. But they were able to use a fairly neat technology using reference points to recolor all but the 1st episode of "Invasion of the Dinosaurs."
I think that's about all for now. I started this thread because Retro was showing the handful of 2nd Doctor serials it has in rotation and they're very frustrating and annoying in many ways so I needed a place to bitch about them. Now we're on to the 3rd Doctor. His stories are annoying in a completely different way, but we'll get to that later.
I started watching Dr. Who as a little kid in the 1970s. At the time a lot of PBS stations across the US carried the show and hooked an entire generation on the 4th Doctor, Tom Baker. I went to college in a city that didn't show Dr. Who on PBS so I missed the final few seasons of the original run of the show, but I have fond memories of midnight Fridays within broadcast range of Minneapolis/St. Paul, where the PBS affiliate had bought the entire run of the classic series and showed them in "movies," with each serial edited together into a complete story. Flash forward to around 2016. Digital broadcast television meant that each TV station got a handful of extra channels they could use to show whatever they wanted. It was a little like the early years of cable television. One of these "stations" was called "RetroTV." I was channel-surfing, to look for background noise while eating lunch and saw a hauntingly familiar flash of black & white rising up from the bottom of the screen with an electronic background whistle. I froze and waited. The white pillar swayed and dissolved into a "howlaround" feedback pattern as the familiar theme music came out of the set: "The Keys of Marinus." Classic Dr. Who.
Now since the 1980s, the BBC has gotten a lot savvier--and greedier--and some of the most important serials weren't in the rotation for Retro. After a few years, with much ballyhoo, they announced some serials were going "back in the vault" to make way for other ones. As it happens, this sucked. They added a handful of mediocre stories, a couple really good and important ones--and cut out about half the previous lineup. The BBC is shooting itself in the foot with chopping up the catalog like they are, but it's their material. They can do with it what they like.
Which brings me to the actual catalog and what they did with it. Around the time I was first starting to watch, the BBC had decided their vaults were filling up with a dumb children's sci-fi show that had no value, so the started just blanking tapes of existing stories. Around 1/3 of the 1st Doctor stories are incomplete or completely lost. Around 2/3 of the 2nd Doctor stories are missing. They've managed to find a number of "lost" episodes in places like Kenya TV stations. Back in the 1980s, a lot of "lost" 3rd Doctor stories were only available in black & white because the color versions had been blanked and they had to use black and white versions from backwater TV locales. But they were able to use a fairly neat technology using reference points to recolor all but the 1st episode of "Invasion of the Dinosaurs."
I think that's about all for now. I started this thread because Retro was showing the handful of 2nd Doctor serials it has in rotation and they're very frustrating and annoying in many ways so I needed a place to bitch about them. Now we're on to the 3rd Doctor. His stories are annoying in a completely different way, but we'll get to that later.
Loktar
Pinata Whacker
I started watching Doctor Who with the 8th Doctor. 9 and 10 are my favorite Doctors. Never got into the older Doctor Who which is a shame because Sylvester McCoy(6th Doctor?) will be at Terrificon in August in Connecticut. On the plus side I will instead be meeting Quark, Garak, Kira Nerys, and Chekov.
Volpone
Zombie Hunter
Oh, there is so much to say. The JNT era, the 1996 TV movie... But for now I'll just say if I were going to try to turn someone on to the classic series, I'd start where I started--the first half of the 4th Doctor Tom Baker era. The FX are laughable a lot of the time but the stories are really solid. Watch from "Robot" up to "The Image of the Fendahl," skipping "The Invisible Enemy." Basically, if the Doctor is wearing a long scarf and doesn't have a pet robot dog, it's a good story. Maybe watch the very first episode: "An Unearthly Child." The actual serial is nothing special--the crew get captured by cavemen who have lost the secret of fire--but the first episode, where two teachers at Coal Hill School take interest in a very strange student of there's and decide to investigate her home life--finding a police box in the middle of a junkyard as her listed home address--a police box with a mysterious electronic hum no less--and then a mysterious little old man tries to shoo them off...that's a fun episode.
Volpone
Zombie Hunter
OK. Quick thumbnail sketches of the Doctors.
#1 Cantankerous old man. Suspicious, secretive, unpleasant. Over the years he becomes more lovable and heroic, but at the start of the series he isn't a very nice person.
#2 A bit of a clown. But is he just playing the fool to get people offguard? Who knows? There are so few serials from his era that I've been able to watch that it's challenging to form a solid opinion.
#3 Pompous, arrogant. Foppish. A bit eccentric. This Doctor is exiled to 20th Century Earth by his race (who we only learn the name of at the end of #2's last serial. )
#4 A bit of all the above. Plays the clown but has a layer of complexity beneath the surface. Longest running Doctor and during the 70s, so by the end there is a painful tendency for camp. This is where they start to flesh out the Time Lords and Gallifrey.
#5 Youngest actor. Starts promisingly enough but winds up kind of a pussy. By this point the producer running the show made some Bermagaesque choices on the production and (IMO) ultimately led to its cancellation.
#6 Ugh. Good actor. Decent person. Saddled with a rodeo clown costume, terrible scripts, and a series in danger of cancellation. Got the shortest end of the stick of any actor in any long-running series, IMO.
#7 Interesting. Didn't get to see any of his stories until around 2016. Costume isn't terrible. Stories are. IMO, #7 stories start out very promising (OK, some of them don't, some--OK, a lot--start out complete ass--and only go downhill from there but I digress) *some* of his stories start out very promising--and then in the 3rd act they just shit the bed and the writers just pull some garbage out of their asses that ruins everything up to that point.
#8 Only got one story (initially). I got the biggest boner in the Cub Foods checkout, seeing the TARDIS on the cover of TV Guide and learning Dr. Who would be relaunching on Fox. A flawed story--but not terrible. Just not good enough to merit getting picked up for a series.
I've seen a couple #9 stories, more #10 stories than I need to see, not enough #11 stories, and none after that, so we'll stick to the stories from the 20th century for now.
#1 Cantankerous old man. Suspicious, secretive, unpleasant. Over the years he becomes more lovable and heroic, but at the start of the series he isn't a very nice person.
#2 A bit of a clown. But is he just playing the fool to get people offguard? Who knows? There are so few serials from his era that I've been able to watch that it's challenging to form a solid opinion.
#3 Pompous, arrogant. Foppish. A bit eccentric. This Doctor is exiled to 20th Century Earth by his race (who we only learn the name of at the end of #2's last serial. )
#4 A bit of all the above. Plays the clown but has a layer of complexity beneath the surface. Longest running Doctor and during the 70s, so by the end there is a painful tendency for camp. This is where they start to flesh out the Time Lords and Gallifrey.
#5 Youngest actor. Starts promisingly enough but winds up kind of a pussy. By this point the producer running the show made some Bermagaesque choices on the production and (IMO) ultimately led to its cancellation.
#6 Ugh. Good actor. Decent person. Saddled with a rodeo clown costume, terrible scripts, and a series in danger of cancellation. Got the shortest end of the stick of any actor in any long-running series, IMO.
#7 Interesting. Didn't get to see any of his stories until around 2016. Costume isn't terrible. Stories are. IMO, #7 stories start out very promising (OK, some of them don't, some--OK, a lot--start out complete ass--and only go downhill from there but I digress) *some* of his stories start out very promising--and then in the 3rd act they just shit the bed and the writers just pull some garbage out of their asses that ruins everything up to that point.
#8 Only got one story (initially). I got the biggest boner in the Cub Foods checkout, seeing the TARDIS on the cover of TV Guide and learning Dr. Who would be relaunching on Fox. A flawed story--but not terrible. Just not good enough to merit getting picked up for a series.
I've seen a couple #9 stories, more #10 stories than I need to see, not enough #11 stories, and none after that, so we'll stick to the stories from the 20th century for now.
Volpone
Zombie Hunter
Oh, I should mention one more thing: Format. The classic series was a serial format, originally airing one half hour episode a week. The episodes would usually end with a cliffhanger. Then the next episode would start with the cliffhanger, show its resolution, and move on with the story. Almost to the very end of the 1st Doctor, each episode had its own title and there was often a cliffhanger that led into the new story. Starting with "The War Machines," the serials got a title and the episodes got a number: "The Tenth Planet: Part Two," etc. In America the most common way the episodes are aired is on a daily basis. PBS used to show one episode a day (or sometimes airing them weekly, edited together as "movies"). Weekdays, Retro does two episodes a day, back to back. On the weekends they'll do like, a 2 or 4 hour block with the weekday, Saturday, and Sunday runs each having their own rotation so you don't have to watch 7 days a week for hours and hours to stay in the rotation. At this point there are enough episodes left out of the Retro package that it is very chopped up anyway. This isn't horrible except you'll expect a cool story like "Terror of the Zygons" and instead get the fairly meh "Planet of Evil." Some serials were as short as 2 episodes while some ran 10 or 12 parts. Generally they were about 4 episodes long--a 2 hour story.
Since we just started the 3rd Dr. run (Jon Pertwee), I'll get caught up on that to pick up commentary, but first a quick comment on regeneration, to get us up to speed: #1, William Hartnell, was 55 when the series started. In 1963 in England, 55 was actually fairly old. He was in the role for something like 4 years and by the end his health had deteriorated to the point that he couldn't keep up with the production schedule (a lot of the Doctor's mannerisms--forgetting names, etc--were to accommodate the actor's failing memory). Since the character was an alien with a mysterious past (early on, we know nothing about Time Lords except that they have some telepathic ability, possess time travel, and The Doctor apparently is an exile of some sort) and the show was still popular, they decided to recast the lead. The Doctor announced that he needed a "renewal" (or words to that effect, that is from a lost episode), he collapsed and with a flash of light his face transformed to Patrick Troughton. They kept the costume somewhat similar, only #2's look was more shabby and ill-fitting than the prim and proper Edwardian attire of #1. When Troughton decided to step down from the role, they had him wind up captured by the Time Lords. As punishment for his behavior, they changed his appearance and exiled him to 20th century Earth, blocking his memory of how to operate the TARDIS. He fairly quickly unites with an old ally and helps fight an alien invasion. But that's for another time.
Since we just started the 3rd Dr. run (Jon Pertwee), I'll get caught up on that to pick up commentary, but first a quick comment on regeneration, to get us up to speed: #1, William Hartnell, was 55 when the series started. In 1963 in England, 55 was actually fairly old. He was in the role for something like 4 years and by the end his health had deteriorated to the point that he couldn't keep up with the production schedule (a lot of the Doctor's mannerisms--forgetting names, etc--were to accommodate the actor's failing memory). Since the character was an alien with a mysterious past (early on, we know nothing about Time Lords except that they have some telepathic ability, possess time travel, and The Doctor apparently is an exile of some sort) and the show was still popular, they decided to recast the lead. The Doctor announced that he needed a "renewal" (or words to that effect, that is from a lost episode), he collapsed and with a flash of light his face transformed to Patrick Troughton. They kept the costume somewhat similar, only #2's look was more shabby and ill-fitting than the prim and proper Edwardian attire of #1. When Troughton decided to step down from the role, they had him wind up captured by the Time Lords. As punishment for his behavior, they changed his appearance and exiled him to 20th century Earth, blocking his memory of how to operate the TARDIS. He fairly quickly unites with an old ally and helps fight an alien invasion. But that's for another time.
Lanzman
No-one of consequence
My story is similar. Late 70s, local PBS station started running Dr Who "movies" as you describe. I started with "Robot," the first ep for Tom Baker. Effects were Lost In Space level bad, but the story and characters hooked me right in. Best part of Baker's run was when he had Leela as his companion, IMHO. Anyhoo, I have since dipped in and out of Dr Who. Thought Capaldi was the best Doctor since Baker, felt bad for Jodi as she was victimized by some truly atrocious writing, and haven't seen any of the latest guy.
Volpone
Zombie Hunter
So Jon Pertwee's run as The Doctor also marks the conversion of the show from black & white to color. The Doctor being exiled on earth was partly a way to explain the Doctor's change of appearance--punishment by the Time Lords--but I suspect it was also practical from a production standpoint. The show had been on for something like 7 years* at that point, so the TARDIS prop was getting pretty beat-up--both the exterior and the interior. And the interior set had never been designed to be shot in color so I suspect stranding the Doctor on earth was a cost effective way to avoid having to build a new set.
Anyhow, it's quite an impressive story. Haven't seen it in awhile and I quite enjoy it. Shot on film and has some very nice production values. We start out with a RADAR observer tracking some "meteors" approaching earth. There's something funny about the meteors. They seem to be in a kind of formation. And they don't burn up in the atmosphere. UNIT sends out teams to search for them.
Meanwhile the TARDIS materializes in a meadow and The Doctor falls out the door, collapsing in the grass.
Then a soldier escorts a woman through security to an office. The woman is Doctor Elizabeth Shaw from Oxford and she's quite annoyed at being shanghaied by Brigadier Alistair Gordon Lethbridge Stuart, the head of UNIT. He tells her about the meteors and explains he needs her scientific brilliance. The Brigadier explains that UNIT was created to deal with strange happenings and confides that the earth has faced alien invasion twice in the past--but they had help. (The invasions were by the Daleks and the Cybermen and the help was The Doctor.) Ms. Shaw is skeptical. During their meeting, the Brigadier is informed that the meteor searchers have found a police box in the middle of a field with an unconscious man. The Brig has a guard put on the police box and heads off to the hospital to see the stranger.
Meanwhile, strange things are afoot at a plastics plant. An inventor is back from America and wants to know why the project he's been working on has suddenly been cancelled. The secretary is strangely quiet and expressionless and has a slight sheen to her skin. The rest of the factory appears to be mostly automated and his old office now has a "OFF LIMITS SECURITY AREA" sign on the door. After a fight with the plant foreman, the man leaves, lingering at the door to his old office for a moment. Another man with a slightly shiny face and blank expression comes in. He seems to have a hypnotic hold on the foreman.
Back at the hospital, the attending physician is confounded by his patient. The lab is apparently playing a joke on him because the X-ray shows 2 hearts. He heads off to get to the bottom of this when he is called by the blood lab, asking why he's playing a joke on *them*, sending them blood that clearly isn't human. A janitor overhears the exchange and tips off the press.
The Brigadier shows up and is disappointed because he assumed the unconscious man would be The Doctor, but he doesn't recognize the patient--who promptly wakes up long enough to greet the Brigadier by name. When the Brig doesn't recognize him, he borrows a mirror and marvels at his new appearance before passing out again.
While all this is happening, a poacher finds one of the meteorites and hides it in a trunk in his shed. His wife is suspicious. And nosy.
Speaking of nosy, the toy developer breaks into the factory and finds his old office full of mannequins in blue jumpsuits and other strange apparatus. While he is looking around, one of the dummies steps down and advances on him. His hand drops open, revealing a kind of gun. The man manages to escape and, hysterical, finds his way to UNIT.
While Ms. Shaw is investigating the shell of one of the meteors that UNIT managed to recover, The Doctor escapes from the hospital. The strange man from the plastic factory attempts to abduct him but he gets away and makes his way to the TARDIS, where he gets shot by UNIT troops.
Luckily it is just a slight wound, but The Doctor is back in his coma. The doctor suspects it is self-induced.
Eventually The Doctor regains consciousness, steals some clothes and an old fashioned car and makes his way to UNIT headquarters (his watch has a TARDIS homing device). He proceeds to help Liz get to the bottom of the Auton invasion (yep, it's Autons if you haven't guessed). At one point he gets Liz to get him the TARDIS key (which the Brigadier has gained but can't use) because he "needs some equipment" and tries to escape, but can't get the TARDIS TO WORK. Next they find out about the poacher and his meteor. So do the Autons. They get there shortly after the poacher's wife finds the meteor and then gives an Auton both barrels of a shotgun--to no effect but the Brig and his men manage to drive it off. Unfortunately on its way back to the factory it manages to kill the toy developer.
The Brig decides he needs support from the regular Army--but the general he's talking to has a meeting to go to. A plastic factory is creating replicas of important people for an exhibit at Madame Tussaud's. By the time the Brigadier has enough evidence to act, the general has been replaced with his Auton copy, store mannequins across the city come alive and start slaughtering people wholesale, and the last "meteor" has found its way to the factory so the Nestene consciousness can create its new form to take over earth.
Without support from the Army, the Brig has to head to the factory with the troops he has. Luckily The Doctor and Liz have managed to build a machine that should "kill" Autons. The Auton general shows up with troops and tries to arrest the Brigadier but The Doctor and Liz "kill" it, with its face turning to a plastic blank when it "dies." The Doctor and Liz head off to fight the Big Boss while the Brig and the troops do battle with the Autons. The Doctor is almost killed when the machine malfunctions but Liz gets it running again and the earth is saved.
In the wrap-up, The Doctor agrees to work for UNIT in exchange for facilities to work on the TARDIS. He begs the Brigadier to let him keep the car he's stolen but can't so he asks for something similar. The Brigadier says he'll see what he can do and we're off to the races.
***
One of the things I enjoy about this story is that the Brigadier is actually a smart complex character. He know's what's going on and is resourceful. He's taking the best steps he can in the face of a potential alien invasion. As the series goes on he becomes more cardboard and boring. He exists to shoot at things ineffectively and have The Doctor explain things to him. But in the early stories he's a formidable character.
*I should note I'm winging all this, so don't take any of it as gospel fact. I may be misremembering some things.
Anyhow, it's quite an impressive story. Haven't seen it in awhile and I quite enjoy it. Shot on film and has some very nice production values. We start out with a RADAR observer tracking some "meteors" approaching earth. There's something funny about the meteors. They seem to be in a kind of formation. And they don't burn up in the atmosphere. UNIT sends out teams to search for them.
Meanwhile the TARDIS materializes in a meadow and The Doctor falls out the door, collapsing in the grass.
Then a soldier escorts a woman through security to an office. The woman is Doctor Elizabeth Shaw from Oxford and she's quite annoyed at being shanghaied by Brigadier Alistair Gordon Lethbridge Stuart, the head of UNIT. He tells her about the meteors and explains he needs her scientific brilliance. The Brigadier explains that UNIT was created to deal with strange happenings and confides that the earth has faced alien invasion twice in the past--but they had help. (The invasions were by the Daleks and the Cybermen and the help was The Doctor.) Ms. Shaw is skeptical. During their meeting, the Brigadier is informed that the meteor searchers have found a police box in the middle of a field with an unconscious man. The Brig has a guard put on the police box and heads off to the hospital to see the stranger.
Meanwhile, strange things are afoot at a plastics plant. An inventor is back from America and wants to know why the project he's been working on has suddenly been cancelled. The secretary is strangely quiet and expressionless and has a slight sheen to her skin. The rest of the factory appears to be mostly automated and his old office now has a "OFF LIMITS SECURITY AREA" sign on the door. After a fight with the plant foreman, the man leaves, lingering at the door to his old office for a moment. Another man with a slightly shiny face and blank expression comes in. He seems to have a hypnotic hold on the foreman.
Back at the hospital, the attending physician is confounded by his patient. The lab is apparently playing a joke on him because the X-ray shows 2 hearts. He heads off to get to the bottom of this when he is called by the blood lab, asking why he's playing a joke on *them*, sending them blood that clearly isn't human. A janitor overhears the exchange and tips off the press.
The Brigadier shows up and is disappointed because he assumed the unconscious man would be The Doctor, but he doesn't recognize the patient--who promptly wakes up long enough to greet the Brigadier by name. When the Brig doesn't recognize him, he borrows a mirror and marvels at his new appearance before passing out again.
While all this is happening, a poacher finds one of the meteorites and hides it in a trunk in his shed. His wife is suspicious. And nosy.
Speaking of nosy, the toy developer breaks into the factory and finds his old office full of mannequins in blue jumpsuits and other strange apparatus. While he is looking around, one of the dummies steps down and advances on him. His hand drops open, revealing a kind of gun. The man manages to escape and, hysterical, finds his way to UNIT.
While Ms. Shaw is investigating the shell of one of the meteors that UNIT managed to recover, The Doctor escapes from the hospital. The strange man from the plastic factory attempts to abduct him but he gets away and makes his way to the TARDIS, where he gets shot by UNIT troops.
Luckily it is just a slight wound, but The Doctor is back in his coma. The doctor suspects it is self-induced.
Eventually The Doctor regains consciousness, steals some clothes and an old fashioned car and makes his way to UNIT headquarters (his watch has a TARDIS homing device). He proceeds to help Liz get to the bottom of the Auton invasion (yep, it's Autons if you haven't guessed). At one point he gets Liz to get him the TARDIS key (which the Brigadier has gained but can't use) because he "needs some equipment" and tries to escape, but can't get the TARDIS TO WORK. Next they find out about the poacher and his meteor. So do the Autons. They get there shortly after the poacher's wife finds the meteor and then gives an Auton both barrels of a shotgun--to no effect but the Brig and his men manage to drive it off. Unfortunately on its way back to the factory it manages to kill the toy developer.
The Brig decides he needs support from the regular Army--but the general he's talking to has a meeting to go to. A plastic factory is creating replicas of important people for an exhibit at Madame Tussaud's. By the time the Brigadier has enough evidence to act, the general has been replaced with his Auton copy, store mannequins across the city come alive and start slaughtering people wholesale, and the last "meteor" has found its way to the factory so the Nestene consciousness can create its new form to take over earth.
Without support from the Army, the Brig has to head to the factory with the troops he has. Luckily The Doctor and Liz have managed to build a machine that should "kill" Autons. The Auton general shows up with troops and tries to arrest the Brigadier but The Doctor and Liz "kill" it, with its face turning to a plastic blank when it "dies." The Doctor and Liz head off to fight the Big Boss while the Brig and the troops do battle with the Autons. The Doctor is almost killed when the machine malfunctions but Liz gets it running again and the earth is saved.
In the wrap-up, The Doctor agrees to work for UNIT in exchange for facilities to work on the TARDIS. He begs the Brigadier to let him keep the car he's stolen but can't so he asks for something similar. The Brigadier says he'll see what he can do and we're off to the races.
***
One of the things I enjoy about this story is that the Brigadier is actually a smart complex character. He know's what's going on and is resourceful. He's taking the best steps he can in the face of a potential alien invasion. As the series goes on he becomes more cardboard and boring. He exists to shoot at things ineffectively and have The Doctor explain things to him. But in the early stories he's a formidable character.
*I should note I'm winging all this, so don't take any of it as gospel fact. I may be misremembering some things.
Volpone
Zombie Hunter
It was the first Auton story. Autons are nice because they're creepy but don't require a lot of FX. They did a nice job in this story of making the human impostor models have slightly shiny skin and the actors kept fairly blank expressions.
One thing that may be challenging on the old stories for contemporary viewers is the pace of the stories. They can drag a bit by today's standards. There's a lot of getting captured and escaping and capturing someone and them escaping and getting captured and escaping and capturing someone and them escaping and Sciencing a solution to the menace. On "The Silurians" right now and the Doctor is trying to find a cure for a disease. Instead of a quick montage, we see him waiting around for a scanning microscope to be delivered, then set up, and an assortment of drug being delivered for testing, blood samples being taken, slides being examined, notes being written down--while the epidemic rages in London. It can seem a bit slow and padded if you're not used to that pacing.
One thing that may be challenging on the old stories for contemporary viewers is the pace of the stories. They can drag a bit by today's standards. There's a lot of getting captured and escaping and capturing someone and them escaping and getting captured and escaping and capturing someone and them escaping and Sciencing a solution to the menace. On "The Silurians" right now and the Doctor is trying to find a cure for a disease. Instead of a quick montage, we see him waiting around for a scanning microscope to be delivered, then set up, and an assortment of drug being delivered for testing, blood samples being taken, slides being examined, notes being written down--while the epidemic rages in London. It can seem a bit slow and padded if you're not used to that pacing.
Volpone
Zombie Hunter
Yeah, this isn't going to a comprehensive episode guide--apparently just me bitching about the annoying aspects of it. I forgot how goddamn long and plodding the Pertwee (#3) stories are. Just wrapped up "Ambassadors of Death." It goes on and on and on and on. Astronauts, lost in space on the way back from Mars. Then the rescue astronaut they sent up loses communications with Earth--but does manage to make it back. While they're bringing the capsule to space command people in civilian clothes but with funky gas masks, a helicopter, and access to UNIT's radio communications steal it. But The Doctor employs a ruse to steal it back. Oh, by now a scientist at space command has pulled a gun on The Doctor and Liz because he was trying to decode an electronic burst from the spaceship while still in space. And some bureaucrat gives them the run-around. Eventually they cut open the capsule (the door is locked from the inside) and find it empty. And it turns out impostors dressed like UNIT troops had kicked everyone out of the hangar the capsule was in (apparently to steal the astronauts). Meanwhile, they find that the scientist who pulled the gun on them has sabotaged his own computer to keep them from decoding the signal. So they head back to the bureaucrat, who brings out some General who was an astronaut on the previous Mars Probe, who explains the astronauts have a new, contagious radiation and are in his care. The Doctor wants to see them, but mysterious hoods show up and steal them, killing the doctors watching them. Next... You know, I'm going to stop right there. I've left a lot out to speed this up but I don't think I'm much past the 2nd episode of a 7 part serial. Long story short, the "astronauts" are actually aliens that need radiation to live, are bulletproof and can kill people just by touching them. Th general went cuckoo in space and lured the aliens to earth so he could create hysteria and use that leverage to launch nuclear missiles in an attempt to kill off the rest of the aliens.
Whew. So we're through that. What's tonight? "Inferno." Christ. That one's even longer. A mad scientist is running a project to drill through the earth's crust for unobtanium, a new power source, but instead he gets a green ooze that turns people into kind of blue werewolves that are too hot to touch--and infect anyone they touch. Meanwhile, The Doctor is using the project's nuclear reactor to run tests on the TARDIS' console and winds up sending himself to an alternate reality where the Nazis apparently have won WWII. There he fails to prevent the fascist alternate versions of everyone from stopping the project and the Earth is doomed. But! He manages to get back to our reality--which isn't as far along on the project yet--so he can try to stop the project before the world ends all over again. It's kind of a fun story, but god, it drags on.
Whew. So we're through that. What's tonight? "Inferno." Christ. That one's even longer. A mad scientist is running a project to drill through the earth's crust for unobtanium, a new power source, but instead he gets a green ooze that turns people into kind of blue werewolves that are too hot to touch--and infect anyone they touch. Meanwhile, The Doctor is using the project's nuclear reactor to run tests on the TARDIS' console and winds up sending himself to an alternate reality where the Nazis apparently have won WWII. There he fails to prevent the fascist alternate versions of everyone from stopping the project and the Earth is doomed. But! He manages to get back to our reality--which isn't as far along on the project yet--so he can try to stop the project before the world ends all over again. It's kind of a fun story, but god, it drags on.
Volpone
Zombie Hunter
A few more 1st season Pertwee observations: I like UNIT and the Brig best in the early episodes, but I hate their uniforms. For some reason instead of the standard British Army uniform, they went with some kind of tan polyester Action Man outfit that alternates between an Ike jacket and a V-neck vest and turtleneck combo. The other thing is how quickly they settled into Pertwee's character. In "Spearhead..." and "The Silurians," he's written (and to a degree, acted) a lot more like Troughton--eccentric, somewhat secretive, and self deprecating. By "Ambassadors of Death," he's become the arrogant bossy stubborn dick we all know and love, regularly calling the main authority figure for that serial a "nitwit" or announcing "the man's an idiot," to the Brig while "the man" is standing right there.
Oh, and one other thing: The Doctor's car. In "Spearhead..." he steals a quite fancy big old early 20th century style car. When he has to give it back, he gives having a car like it as a condition that he works for UNIT. He gets...Bessie, which looks like a canary yellow Model T convertible with no doors that is actually a "Siva" which was a kind of hobby/kit/repro car. In fact the wheels are actually conventional modern wheels with a wood spoke pattern "hubcap" over them (you can't 100% tell that from the episodes, but I learned it from the Dr. Who prop building BBS I hang out at). While it is strictly head canon, it amuses me to think a fairly young British Brigadier General in a small niche command that reports to Geneva Switzerland would have to find something as inexpensive as possible due to both budget constraints and having to justify why it was needed, so instead of a big powerful antique, The Doctor gets a cheap funny little jalopy.
Oh, and one other thing: The Doctor's car. In "Spearhead..." he steals a quite fancy big old early 20th century style car. When he has to give it back, he gives having a car like it as a condition that he works for UNIT. He gets...Bessie, which looks like a canary yellow Model T convertible with no doors that is actually a "Siva" which was a kind of hobby/kit/repro car. In fact the wheels are actually conventional modern wheels with a wood spoke pattern "hubcap" over them (you can't 100% tell that from the episodes, but I learned it from the Dr. Who prop building BBS I hang out at). While it is strictly head canon, it amuses me to think a fairly young British Brigadier General in a small niche command that reports to Geneva Switzerland would have to find something as inexpensive as possible due to both budget constraints and having to justify why it was needed, so instead of a big powerful antique, The Doctor gets a cheap funny little jalopy.