A Quick Guide to Classic Who- Season 01

Hagan is doing a guide to Classic Doctor Who. The whole thing! This is Season 1.

November 21, 2013
Categories: AQG2CW (A Quick Guide to Classic Who), TV Reviews, Twatty Who Reviews . Tags:AQG2CW, Doctor Who, Tv reviews . Author: Diamandahagan

16 Comments

Comment by CBob on November 21, 2013 12:58 am

Thanks for doing this. I’m pretty new to classic Who: I’ve seen most of New Who, and it’s what got me interested, so I’m exactly the sort of person you’re aiming at.

Only classic who I’ve seen before is a couple episodes of Colin Baker’s run, and a youtube reconstruction of “Fury from the Deep” (thanks directly to yours and SFDebris’s joint recommendation). I actually enjoyed that the 6th is kind of a dick. If I were to single out a single flaw of the New Who stuff, it’s the OTT fawning hero worship the writers/producers heap on the Doctor.

I keep getting the sense the New Who writers/producers think the universe is only the size of a galaxy. And IMO the Doctor’s adventures are always more engaging when he only seems like an only relatively sophisticated traveler in an almost infinite universe, rather than an almost-Jesus that everybody everywhere’s heard of and reveres on sight.

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Comment by creaturesh on November 21, 2013 1:00 am

Goddamn, I keep forgetting to leave a comment since I already tumbled about it.
I really enjoyed this, and I think that it’s a very good and comprehensive look at the early stages of the show. I also like how you don’t hold back on both the positive and the negative aspects.

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Comment by skzip888 on November 21, 2013 6:51 am

Between “Edge of Destruction” and “The Second Coming” we just can’t seem to agree on endings. Except for “Deep Space Nine”.

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Comment by Alan Stevens on November 21, 2013 3:12 pm

“The Voord is the first example of the show trying and failing to find another iconic alien race to put beside the Daleks. Men in wetsuits with things attached to their heads just wasn’t a good look. And they never took off.”

Hang on! Weren’t the Cybermen “men in wetsuits with things attached to their heads”? Just think, If they’d painted the Voord silver, they’d have had another smash hit on their hands.

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- Comment by Diamandahagan on November 21, 2013 3:13 pm
  
  Its the silver paint and headlights that makes the difference.
  
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  - Comment by Elizabeth Sterling on November 25, 2013 10:56 pm
    
    Funnily a rather infamous strip involving the 6th Doctor implied that the Voord evolved in to the Mondasian cybermen. This piece of continuity is ignored by the vast majority for making less sense than usual.
Comment by Alan Stevens on November 21, 2013 3:19 pm

“More importantly, how Terry Nation would try and remake the same story over and over again.”

Aside from ‘Planet of the Daleks,’ which, as a story from Doctor Who’s tenth anniversary season, is a conscious echoing back to the original Dalek story in 1963, what other Terry Nation script is a remake of ‘The Daleks’?

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- Comment by Elizabeth Sterling on November 25, 2013 11:01 pm
  
  Well depending on what you watch, read or listen to the Daleks have a bare minimum of three origin stories, the most popular of which is outlined in Genesis.
  
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  - Comment by Alan Stevens on November 29, 2013 10:02 am
    
    Firstly, only two of those Dalek origin stories come from Terry Nation, the other was created by David Whitaker, who wrote the TV Century 21 Dalek comic strips. Secondly, Diamanda was implying that Terry Nation, after writing “The Daleks,” had basically kept writing that same story over and over again for every subsequent Dalek adventure. However, this is confusing formula with laziness. The basic components of a Dalek story will include a quest, three groups and at least one traitor, which is a formula that applies to every single Doctor Who story ever written.
Comment by Laurissy on November 23, 2013 11:02 am

Nooooooooooooooo Keys of marinus worst story.I’m sorry keys of marinus awesome. It’s as silly as all hell. Barbara beating up giant brains, all the incompetent old guys and the doctor being a lawyer. I love this story I’ll concede it’s stupid but it’s enjoyably stupid. I personally think the sensorites is the worst story of series 1 in terms of enjoyment but if I was going to go from an objective standpoint it would probably be edge of destruction even the writer admitted it made no god damn sense and admitted the actors had a hell of a time acting so out of character. Also as someone who is a new series fan and decided to get into classic who by starting from an unearthly child. Thee thing you forgot to point out is and it’s something I find so fascinating is the Doctor in this season has an arc and I don’t think it will happen again until the 9th doctor. At the beginning he’s remote acerbic and willing to kill an innocent man to facilitate his escape at the end he has gained two friends who he actively goes out and saves, he is willingly helping people and slowly becomes the hero that I knew he had the potential to be.

PS: It seems a bit mean to imply RTD nicked the idea of the ood from the sensorites when really everything good about the ood is entirely down to the new series apart from their design which has been vastly improved. In fact the best thing about the sensorites is they paved the way for the ood who are better in every single way.

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- Comment by Alan Stevens on December 7, 2013 10:15 am
  
  I think the Ood are completely ridiculous. The fact that they walk around carrying their hind brains is daft enough, but the idea that they come from a planet of snow and ice raises the question of how the species could have developed at all, let alone survive. The Sensorites are better on almost every level, and I don’t even like the Sensorites.
  
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Comment by Ramses IJff on November 27, 2013 2:21 pm

Eh, have to disagree with you on the ending of “The Edge of Destruction”. Personally, I loved that, for once, the problem really was just a relatively minor technical issue, rather than the great and powerful alien empires, earth-shattering god-like creatures and whoopsies in the space-time continuum that are the norm in the genre.

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Comment by Eric Noble on November 28, 2013 8:34 pm

I actually enjoyed The Keys of Marinus (well, the middle part anyway). I do agree that The Aztecs is the best story of the season, with The Sensorites being a second, at least for me. I love the look of those guys, except the clodhopper feet. I could have done without those, but c’est la vie.

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Comment by James R on December 17, 2013 10:38 pm

The only thing I want to know is what the song Susan is listening to in the parody? It sounds fun >) and I don’t think I saw it in the credits.

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- Comment by Diamandahagan on December 18, 2013 3:06 am
  
  That’d be Lecher Bitch by The Genitorturers. Hagans unofficial theme song.
  
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  - Comment by James R on December 18, 2013 3:12 am
    
    Thanks!