Watching OldWho - which ones to see first? Favorites?

[Broomstick]

Since broadcast TV is utter shit and I don't have cable or satellite I've been getting DVD's from the library for old TV shows. My county library has a huge trove of Doctor Who, Hartnell to Smith. NuWho I've seen, as that's been out and about most recently, but other than the Tom Baker run I never did get to see that much OldWho.

So, Whovians of SD.net, what are YOUR recommendations for viewing OldWho, Doctor by Doctor? (Of course, it helps if your recommendations are surviving episodes )

So far I've seen:

Hartnell: none* (well, excerpts of The Unearthly Child, but not the whole thing)
Troughten: none*
Pertwee: The Spearhead from Space and Inferno
T. Baker: pretty much all of them, but go ahead and recommend some it's only been 20-25 years since I last saw them, as I caught them on the US broadcast.
Davison: Castrovalva
C. Baker: None*
McCoy: The Greatest Show in the Galaxy
McGann: saw the movie.

* I have seen the Three Doctors, part of the Five Doctors, and the Two Doctors, so technically, I have seen all the Doctors but not all of them in their original runs.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Hartnell:

-The Daleks
-The Dalek Invasion of Earth
-The Tenth Planet - the origin of the Cybermen

Troughton:

-The Tomb of the Cybermen
-The Invasion
-The War Games - the Time Lords and Galifrey

Pertwee:

-Inferno is always good
-Planet of the Daleks

Baker, Tom:

-Genesis of the Daleks
-Robot
-Pyramid of Mars
-City of Death
-The Brain of Morbius

Davison:

-Earthshock

Baker, Colin:

-Vengeance on Varos was entertaining enough
-Revelation of the Daleks

McCoy:

-Remembrance of the Daleks
-Silver Nemesis
-Dragonfire
-Battlefield

All of those are available on BBS DVD, I know because I've got them all. You'll probably notice fromt hge list and my av that I love the Daleks, so YMMV with this list

[Hillary]

For Hartnell, I would definitely watch An Unearthly Child, if only to see quite what an inhuman bastard the first Doctor was. The Daleks also shows this, but it does rather go on a bit. The Dalek Invasion of Earth was a particular favourite of mine and much better than the original Dalek story.

Troughton - my favourite here is Tomb of the Cybermen, but I haven't seen too many of them to be honest.

Pertwee - watch any with the Master in; the interplay between them is the only thing I find watchable about Pertwee's Doctor.

Baker T - anything around the Seeds of Doom/Pyramids of Mars/Brain of Morbias era. Philip Hinchcliff's time was the best the old series got

Davidson. Terminus, perhaps. I started to lose the interest around this time and can't remember too many of his stories.

Baker C - The earlier the better. He had a real nasty edge to his early episodes which they blunted a bit as it progressed.

McCoy - Another Dalek one I'm afraid, Remembrance of the Daleks was the start of Ace's tenure - and I rather liked her. This was the first point at which we started to see hints that the Doctor was "far more than just a Time Lord" and the Daleks first time climbing stairs. Also notable are Battlefield (the Brigadier's final story) and Survival (the last old Who story).

[Ahriman238]

Not much to add, but I'd like to second Pyramids of Mars and Genesis of the Daleks.

Also, remember that the stories and format were very different back then. They regularly took six to eight episodes to tell a story, which left a lot of room for buildup, dramatic reversals etc.

[Broomstick]

True about the different format - the pacing was much slower. Fewer special effects and those that existed were pretty crude by today's standards, though I'm old enough to remember when those were cutting edge. Different sorts of dramatic development. And so on.

I'm aware of some of what went on in the early years, since any involvement in fandom results in you hearing about certain things (like Ace beating up a dalek with a bat) but seeing them in context can be quite enjoyable.

Well, I've some watching to do, but anyone else who wants to make a suggestion please do.

[Eternal_Freedom]

One thing about them which I always liked was the occasional slip-up by the actors, a slight misspeaking of lines, rather than it being perfect.

It always made it seem far more real, strange as that sounds.

[Johonebesus]

I'd avoid all of C. Baker's stories. The intention was to have something of a story arc with his starting out selfish and being restored to a more heroic but still dark personality, but it was fouled up from the start. He just seems mentally damaged and annoying, and the writing got worse through his tenure until he was fired for the producers' and executives' decisions.

I didn't like McCoy's "more than a Timelord" business, and the introduction of magic in the last couple of seasons really turned me off. Plus, somehow the primitive CGI was much more disturbing than the low budget sets and costumes of old.

With Davison, the second season had a bit of an arc with the Black Guardian's plot and reappearances of old enemies in each story, so it might be nice to watch them all in order.

With Troughton, most of the stories are incomplete, so you might as well just watch all the ones that are all there. The Tenth Planet is also incomplete, so I guess it's up to you if you want to watch random parts of stories without getting the whole thing.

[Stark]

Underworld.

Horns of Nimon.

Planet of the Daleks.

ALL QUALITY STUFF.

[weemadando]

NO ONE HAS SAID PARADISE TOWERS YET.

This is a travesty.

[NecronLord]

7th Doctor. Curse of Fenric.

[Stark]

NO ONE HAS SAID PARADISE TOWERS YET.

This is a travesty.

What about Delta and the Bannermen?

[Bedlam]

1st Doctor

The Unearthly Child - Not one of the greatest stories ever buy you have to see the first story that sets up everything, interesting initial characterisation of the doctor he kidnaps Ian and Barbera and also brains a cave man to save time.
The Daleks - Far longer than it needs to be but like the unearthly child a large piece of the series mythology, never has a plunger been so scary.
The Aztecs - More or less the only spotlite on Barbera and a great 'you cant change time' plot, done like a shakespearian play.
The Romans - One of the few Doctor who stories done solely as a comedy, Hartnel has a great job dealing with an assasin and nero poisoning one of his slaves is halarious.

2nd Doctor

Not many to choose from, the tomb of the cybermen, the seeds of doom and the invasion are all solid action movie style stories.

3rd Doctor

The whole first series from The spearhead from space to inferno are good and done a lot more seriously than some later stories, they also set the core of the UNIT stories. Inferno particularly for the evil versions of the UNIT family.

4th Doctor

Genesis of the Daleks - A truely scary performance of Davros, him musing on what he would do with an incuranle disease is one of the best scenes ever.
Pyramids of Mars - Another great villan, all the more scary for ever moving.
The Robots of death - A nice murder mystery, the titual robots look and act great.
The Talons of Weing-chiang - Quite racest by modern terms but a nice period piece, just zoom past the giant rat.
The Androids of Tara - Wonderful scenery chewing
City of Death - Written by Douglas Adams

5th Doctor

Kinda - A very layered story with a great performance of a slide into madness
Earthshock - Roapy in places but generally a good action film.
The caves of Androzani - Non stop action one of the best deaths of the doctor in a very grim setting.

6th Doctor

The mark of the Rani - A nice romp in an otherwise fairly poor era.
The Two Doctors - See above, plus it has Patrick Trouton.

7th Doctor

Remembrance of the Daleks - One of the best Dalek stories ever, an interesting look at racism.
Battlefield - Not quite as good as remeberance but an interesting romp, the destroyer looks great. Like remembrance the novilisation is even better.
The final three, Ghost light, curse of fenric and survival are all rounded mature stories about ace growing up which is ok if you like the character but not so great if you dont.

8th Doctor

The movie - Only thing to go with, not great not terrible.

Others

The Curse of Fatal Death - Find it, see it, laugh

[Patrick Degan]

Oh, where to start...

I'd also recommend many of the Hartnell episodes already mentioned but also add in "The Time Meddler" —the first time the Doctor encounters another of his then-mysterious people who is attempting to alter Earth history by preventing the Norman conquest of England.

For Patrick Troughton, if you had to pick only one, I'd go with "The Mind Robber", one of the more surreal adventures of his era; in which the Doctor, Jamie and Zoe are trapped in an extradimensional realm known as The Land of Fiction after the apparent destruction of the TARDIS. Not very many surviving Troughton serials, sadly. Watch all of them. Even "The Krotons".

Best of Pertwee: "Spearhead From Space" and definitely "Inferno": in which the Doctor becomes trapped on a parallel Earth, in an England ruled by a fascist dictatorship and encountering fascist versions of his UNIT colleagues and is unable to prevent the destruction of that world from a project which is rapidly headed for a similarly disastrous conclusion on his own Earth. "Terror Of The Autons", which introduces the inestimable Roger Delgado as the Master. "The Claws Of Axos", while a bit bog-standard, does a great turn when Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart is forced to enlist the aid of the Master to prevent the Axons from blowing up the nuclear power station and linear accelerator facility testing Axonite and the Master gets the Brigadier over a barrel when confronting him with the choice of either letting Axos destroy the world or destroying Axos, and the Doctor and Jo Grant, their prisoners, along with them.

"Day Of The Daleks": a nice time-paradox plot which exploits the Daleks as surrogate-Nazis and is as much about the Quisling administration of collaborators doing the Daleks' dirty work against their fellow enslaved humans as about the effort to unravel the paradox and put history back on its proper course.

"The Curse Of Peladon" is a lovely mix of space opera and royalist court intrigue: sent on a mission by the Time Lords, the Doctor and Jo find themselves having to impersonate the Earth delegation to a Federation conference on the primitive planet of Peladon, which is nonetheless up for Federation membership to protect its people from being exploited solely for the rich deposits of Trisillicate, a metal vital for warp travel. Opposing them is the High Priest of the Cult of Aggedor, a man who genuinely believes that Federation membership will destroy Peladon and fears it more than any threat to his own life.

"The Carnival Of Monsters": wonderfully witty Robert Holmes script in which the TARDIS lands on the S.S. Bernice, a cruise ship lost in the Indian Ocean in 1926, only the ship is menaced by an alien creature known as a Drashig and the same day keeps looping back on itself. And who are the alien carnival barkers who are showing off their danger for the entertainment of the crowds on a planet making its first efforts to reemerge from centuries of isolation?

"The Green Death": a somewhat preachy environmentalist tale involving corporate greed and pollution driven by a mad supercomputer but also featuring the departure of Jo Grant from the Doctor's life.

"The Time Warrior": what else can be said? The episode that introduced the world to Sarah-Jane Smith.

Episodes of the Tom Baker era: um, pretty much all of them.

Episodes of the Peter Davison era: most of them —though you could probably skip "Timeflight" and "The Arc Of Infinity", which are a bit naff. In fact, between "Earthshock" and "Snakedance", you really wouldn't miss a thing.

Episodes of the Colin Baker era: just go right past The Nitwit Dilemma and start with "Attack Of The Cybermen". You can probably skip "Timelash" too unless you really need a Paul Darrow fix for some reason. Can't really either recommend or pan "The Trial Of A Time Lord".

Episodes of the Sylvester McCoy era: jettison season one up to "Dragonfire", which introduces Ace. The less Bonnie Langford you need to inflict upon yourself, the better. Go with season two, though sitting through "Silver Nemesis" will be a bit of a trial but a couple of details in it bear on the best episode of season three (and possibly of the classic series), "The Curse Of Fenric". BTW, definitely sit down and enjoy season three, as it features the very interesting development of the Doctor as a rather dark little schemer and the coming of age of Ace. Good dynamic across that last regular year of the old programme.

[mr friendly guy]

Hartnell

The Daleks
The Dalek invasion of Earth

Which reminds me, I need to get hold of the Daleks as I don't have that.

Troughton

Tomb of the Cybermen - one of the episodes that was initially lost, then rediscovered.
Seeds of Death

Controversial, but I like War Games, the last Troughton story. Its 10 episodes long though.

Pertwee

Spearhead from space - first appearance of the 3rd doctor.

Terror of the Autons - first appearance of the Master (note the above 2 has recently come together in a boxed set, so your library might have them together).

The Peladon stories - Curse of Peladon and the Monster of Peladon (both of these come in a box set). Look for David Troughton, son of Patrick starring in the Curse of Peladon. Plus Alpha Centuri is the most under rated alien on Who.

The Mutants - the anti-colonial message is pretty strong here.

The Time warrior - first appearance of Liz Sladen as Sarah Jane Smith. The initial meeting between Sarah and the Doctor is awesome.

I am not a big fan of planet of the spiders, the last Pertwee story but I have it because it was still enjoyable, just not as much as the others.


Note Patrick recommended Day of the Daleks, which only recently has become available on DVD (I know because I just purchased it). So it might not be available in your library yet. It certainly should be available on VHS.

Tom Baker

Its tempting to say everything, except near the end when Baker lost enthusiasm for the role, but I will try and reduce it.

With Sarah Jane Smith - I enjoyed, the Ark in Space, the Sontaran experiment, Genesis of the Daleks, Android invasion (won't be available on DVD until 2012, but on VHS), Terror of the Zygons (again not available on DVD just yet), Seeds of Doom (this scared the beejeesus out of me as a kid ).

With Leela - Face of Evil (not available on DVD, but on VHS), Robots of Death, Horror of Fang rock (these remain some of my favourites).

With Romana (Mary Tamm) - watch the entire key to time sextant. It comes in their own box set, but consists of The Ribos Operation, the Pirate Planet, the Stones of Blood, The Androids of Tara, the Power of Kroll and the Armageddon factor.

With Romana (Lalla Ward) - generally they were decent stories, but nothing that really struck me as "must see".


Peter Davison

Earthshock - not because Spoiler

Adric dies

, but because it is genuine suspenseful and good on its own merits.

King's demons - only a 2 parter (I think the DVD comes with another story).

Caves of Androzani - the last Davison story

Colin Baker

Colin Baker generally had shit writing accompanying his reign. Some of the novelisation sounds better than the actual serials when you watch it. However I am going to go with.... drum roll here.... Timelash. Yes it has its flaws. Peri does nothing but be the stereotypical quintessential DW companion. But the Doctor is shown to be ridiculous smart, building his own device which does what Star Trek would call "phase cloak", plus his own device to detect that etc. After all the show is called Doctor Who, not, the Doctor loves Rose or <insert companion here> which the new series seems to have taken.

As long as you don't take Timelash too seriously, its quite entertaining. Plus it has a nice homage (cheeky one at that) to H.G. Wells, the "father of science fiction" who arguably his story the time machine inspired Doctor Who. If you watch Timelash you will know why its a cheeky homage to Wells. Spoiler

It implies that it was the Doctor who first inspired HG Wells to write about a time machine rather than the other way round.

Sylvester McCoy

Again one difficult for me to pick. It struck me that as McCoy's tenure progressed, it became more surreal and somewhat more thematic rather than plot based, and seem to rely heavily on DEM. I think his later ones are better. However...

Rememberance of the Daleks - the theme of racism is quite prevalent, and they do it so well here. Granted the plot reveals more questions than answers but, this is McCoy, so thematic wins the day.

Battlefield - watch for the appearance of Jean Marsh, ex wife of Jon Pertwee who also played the ill fated companion Sarah Kingdom from the Dalek's Masterplan. Also starring Nicholas Courtney as the Brigadier, who also appeared in the Dalek Masterplan as agent Brett Vyon.

Curse of Fenric

Perhaps a controversial one, the Happiness Patrol. If you are looking for plot this most probably isn't for you. However the episode struck me as very surreal (on rewatching it as an adult a few years ago), with the satire of totalitarian governments. Even the title hints at that.

[Hillary]

Underworld.

Horns of Nimon.

Planet of the Daleks.

ALL QUALITY STUFF.

Can you please reinstate your old avatar - my eyes nearly popped out of my head when I read that. Then I saw it was you.

Horns of Nimon indeed.

[Bedlam]

Boomstick, of the stories you've seen which did you like most and what other TV/films do you like? We've all said what we like but if we know what you like it might be easier to make suggestions.

[Broomstick]

Out of Doctor Who, I'd say as a general rule I've enjoyed every post-regeneration story I've seen, though I don't always list them as a favorite for a specific Doctor. I definitely liked both Spearhead from Space and Inferno, with Inferno ranking high for any Doctor episode. As I said, it's been over 20 years since I saw the Tom Baker ones, so I can't recall a specific favorite. Haven't seen enough of Davison, C. Baker, or McCoy to form an opinion. I generally liked the multi-Doctor episodes, with the most favorite being the Five Doctors, then Three, then Two Doctors.

From NuWho my favorite Nine was The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances; for Ten it was The Christmas Invasion, School Reunion, Smith and Jones, Midnight, and Planet of the Dead; for Eleven it's The Beast Below, The Lodger, and The Doctor's Wife.

For TV... let's see, Old Series Star Trek (the new series were OK, but never captured me quite like TOS), Babylon 5, New Battlestar Galactica, Farscape, Firefly, Red Dwarf, Fringe, Logan's Run (the series more than the movie), Alien Nation, Monsters, The Addams Family, some episodes of The Twilight Zone - um, you don't really want to hear ALL my beloved choices from 45 years of TV watching, do you? Outside of SF, it's nature specials, NOVA, Dirty Jobs, and selected medical shows like the early years of ER or the Nip/Tuck series.

Movies.... Let's see, old classics like Forbidden Planet, most of the recent Marvel movies (some of the X-men, Iron Man), the Terminator series, Demolition Man, Pitch Black (just the first one), the Mummy (the original and the remake, both), Star Wars 1977 version (before Lucas fucked it up), about half the Star Trek movies, Airplane (I'm on my second copy), Young Frankenstein, and, er, um.... Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (It's a flying car, dammit!) The Blues Brothers. Fiddler on the Roof.

If there's a group of themes here it's (more or less in order)
1) Science fiction/fantasy
2) Action/adventure
3) Comedy
4) Science/nature
5) History (real and/or fictionalized)

Well, I guess that explains why I enjoy a series about a whacky time traveling alien, doesn't it? Hits most of those in any given episode, sometimes even 4 out of 5 (don't recall much real science in Doctor Who)

And while I'm here - I've been thinking of doing a review thread for the OldWho as I watch it, have we done those before? I suppose if we have they'd been complete necros at this point. Since we're having a long hiatus until the next season of NuWho anyone care to join me in a discussion of OldWho as we walk down memory lane?

[mr friendly guy]

And while I'm here - I've been thinking of doing a review thread for the OldWho as I watch it, have we done those before? I suppose if we have they'd been complete necros at this point. Since we're having a long hiatus until the next season of NuWho anyone care to join me in a discussion of OldWho as we walk down memory lane?

If you do, I might be willing if time permits to chip in myself. I have a vast collection of classic Who on dvds. Some of the extra features are quite illuminating. For example in the Green Death a lot of background of the village was influenced by the miner's strike, plus in the Sunmakers the money grubbing controller was based on a British public figure at the time associated with economics.

[Broomstick]

Well, I just did my first one on The Five Doctors. It's not in the styles we've been reviewing the NuWho adventures. It's much more rambling, for one thing.

[Eternal_Freedom]

I'll chip in when you cover one I'm familiar with, I just commented on the Five Doctors thread. Mostly my OldWho exposure was Daleks, Cybermen, Sontarans and the occasional extra one that was going cheap in HMV or Tescos when I went shopping.

[Broomstick]

I'll probably be hopping at random all over the first 30 years of Who, since I'm borrowing these and don't have control over which are available when.

[inviz345]

The chase