The Classic Doctor Who Thread (1963 to 1989/1996)

[By Jove its holmes]

Fact of the Day: Tom Baker was the first DW series lead who wasn’t a veteran of the Second World War. He had the mercy of a late birth.

Topic

[Dave]

If my goal was to recreate the experience of watching Classic Who on its initial broadcast as closely as possible, no way would I be watching it via a restored DVD/Blu-ray on a 4K widescreen TV hooked up to a sound bar. Era authentic CRTs and VHS tapes all the way!

I hope you would also only watch one episode per week, on a Thursday night.

[Doomitron]

That’s another thing entirely, the team behind the updated effects on the Collection sets put a lot of love and effort into them and I hate when people slag them off. With the colour edits, the colourisations themselves are fantastic, but anything else is Benjamin Cook’s abysmal editing or Russell’s indulgence. 

The ones on the DVDs and blu-rays are optional and they’ve always been listed as special features on the discs, they’re not replacing the original and they were never intended to. I adore a lot of the original effects, because they were very ambitious, and equally I love a lot of the new effects, because they genuinely do improve on the original production while still honouring the original intent. For example, I think the Myrka had a great design with a poorly constructed costume that moved like a pantomime horse. In the special edition, the Myrka looks like the same creature, but actually moves more like a real creature yet still retaining just enough of the goofiness and the practical look of it. And they even manage to retain the campness of Dr Solow’s death scene while simultaneously making it far more gruesome.

The episodes they choose to enhance with new CGI are questionable to me at times, I don’t know the process they use to decide what episodes get it. I was figuring Vengeance on Varos would get the treatment so the mirages in the corridors would be spruced up, but iirc for S22 only Timelash got it and Revelation I think? I can hardly remember what special effects even happen in that story beyond the human Dalek hybrid and some explosions.

[Flap Jack]

I remember when the UNIT Files DVD set came out, folks were baffled that the dinosaur from Invasion of the Dinosaurs – one of the most infamously bad special effects in all of Classic Who – was not given the “updated special effects” treatment. Presumably it’s just because box sets had a worse budget per story than individual releases, and they’d already spent so much money trying to restore the colour to Episode 1, but maybe they’ll do it for the Season 11 Collection.

[Professor Flibble]

The episodes they choose to enhance with new CGI are questionable to me at times, I don’t know the process they use to decide what episodes get it. I was figuring Vengeance on Varos would get the treatment so the mirages in the corridors would be spruced up, but iirc for S22 only Timelash got it and Revelation I think? I can hardly remember what special effects even happen in that story beyond the human Dalek hybrid and some explosions.

Oh, Revelation of the Daleks’ updated effects were from the 2005 DVD and ported over to the box set. Tbf I can absolutely see why they picked Timelash for the Season 22 set, but one thing I’ve always wanted watching Vengeance on Varos is to actually have some visual indication of where Arak and Etta live, because I always thought they just looked like they were in the punishment dome, not enough contrast in the set design.

I remember when the UNIT Files DVD set came out, folks were baffled that the dinosaur from Invasion of the Dinosaurs – one of the most infamously bad special effects in all of Classic Who – was not given the “updated special effects” treatment. Presumably it’s just because box sets had a worse budget per story than individual releases, and they’d already spent so much money trying to restore the colour to Episode 1, but maybe they’ll do it for the Season 11 Collection.

Yeah I don’t think the budget was there by 2012, even the recolourisation was botched, they couldn’t get any blue values, had to manually do them, and it was so bad they relegated it to an optional special feature, with the black and white Part One being technically the main version. 

[paintings]

they relegated it to an optional special feature, with the black and white Part One being technically the main version.

Actually I quite liked Part 1 being in black-and-white: it enhanced the “reality out of kilter” feeling of the first 15 minutes.

[Professor Flibble]

Oh yeah, black and white is very flattering to Classic Who, but the word is Part One’s already had a new colourisation worked on for the Season 11 box set and I’m looking forward to that. 

One thing I hope for the Season 11 box set is they get the title sequence right. On the DVD releases, they use an early version where the light at the end of the diamond tunnel doesn’t fade to black (like they do in the Baker titles) when that’s how they looked on original broadcast.

Broadcast/VHS:

DVD:

[Dave]

[Technopeasant]

Those are great if you like everything to be really smooth and borderline textureless and to look more like a straight-to-DVD FMV game than a 1960s science fiction production.

Quite honestly it’s more that since the model sequences weren’t restored the basic film qualify difference is a bit too distracting. This isn’t usually as much an issue with classic Who. That and the original Enterprise model itself was rather smooth and textureless to begin with. For a few of the more adventurous sequences, such as shuttles leaving the docking bay, we’d swap back to the OG footage out of sheer curiosity of how they attempted it in the ’60s.

[Professor Flibble]

Oh, also, there’s that spanner effect in Pirate Planet Part 4, everything’s pointing to Season 16 being the next one out, so it’d be great if they could include the original version of the effect.

[Ben Saunders]

Directors cuts specifically is something else because then at least it’s (supposedly) the vision of the person/people who originally made the thing, and oftentimes include extra material that was actually made for the original production etc, so it’s more authentic than some blokes on computers digitising stuff 40 years later. Fan edits, I don’t really care for but mostly because they have to work with what they’ve got and are generally only ever removing stuff rather than substantially adding anything to the experience. I would rather watch Back in the Red than BitR but with a couple jokes you personally don’t like awkwardly cut out. But they can do whatever they want, I would never tell them to stop, and they aren’t replacing the episodes on iPlayer with them and forcing me to watch them so it’s none of my business. But me being forced to witness the special edition of Day of the Daleks with those crappy digital Nick Briggs voices is something I want to see real punishment for.

And yes I do watch DVDs of SD stuff on CRT if I can, I watched Peep Show that way last year and was amazed by how much better it looks in that format. And there are a couple little niggles I have with the restoration of Classic Who but for the most part they do an excellent job of just tidying things up for a seamless experience… pre-AI, anyway.

[Ben Saunders]

Oh, regarding title sequences, I do think the title sequences on the Season17 Blu-Ray are too clean and obviously digital, and I’d rather they didn’t remake them entirely and just cleaned up the original ones, but I can see there are some logistical reasons as to why they might do it the way they do it. I was fascinated by the recovered Daleks Master Plan episodes having the original titles and not remade ones, and would be interested in having it like that for every release. But it’s not a big deal.

[Professor Flibble]

Oh, regarding title sequences, I do think the title sequences on the Season17 Blu-Ray are too clean and obviously digital, and I’d rather they didn’t remake them entirely and just cleaned up the original ones, but I can see there are some logistical reasons as to why they might do it the way they do it. I was fascinated by the recovered Daleks Master Plan episodes having the original titles and not remade ones, and would be interested in having it like that for every release. But it’s not a big deal.

I think they changed their approach since the DVD releases of the Baker serials, the Collection sets they try to colour grade them to match how they looked on broadcast, but on the DVD releases the opening titles on each story were generally left in their default state. As someone who likes the little differences, I do appreciate that. 

[Ben Saunders]

Quite honestly it’s more that since the model sequences weren’t restored the basic film qualify difference is a bit too distracting.

I can’t remember the exact details but I know the TOS stuff is a unique situation where it might just not be possible to remaster some of that material to a degree that “modern audiences would approve of”, I say in quotes because it really doesn’t bother me at all. I seem to recall somebody saying the original model effects simply don’t pass QC for broadcast anymore and so they had to do it, but I could be regurgitating false information. Gene Roddenberry used to just give people (or sell to them) original film elements from Star Trek so maybe some of it is gone forever.

[Doomitron]

Oh, Revelation of the Daleks’ updated effects were from the 2005 DVD and ported over to the box set. Tbf I can absolutely see why they picked Timelash for the Season 22 set, but one thing I’ve always wanted watching Vengeance on Varos is to actually have some visual indication of where Arak and Etta live, because I always thought they just looked like they were in the punishment dome, not enough contrast in the set design.

Yeah don’t get me wrong, Timelash definitely needed it and it’s certainly an improvement, I was just baffled it was the only episode to get the treatment at all. I never had that issue with the Greek chorus part of the story I felt it fit the dystopian setting that their home looked as awful as the torture domes did.

[Doomitron]

Also as an offside for anyone who bought the S21 Collection did The Twin Dilemma get its film elements remastered or was it a similar situation to S22 where they couldn’t find any of it and just tried tidying the DVDs up? I haven’t seen any clips of it online so I’m curious although I won’t be bothering to pick it up anyway since they mutilated everything else with their upscaling.

[Professor Flibble]

Yeah don’t get me wrong, Timelash definitely needed it and it’s certainly an improvement, I was just baffled it was the only episode to get the treatment at all. I never had that issue with the Greek chorus part of the story I felt it fit the dystopian setting that their home looked as awful as the torture domes did.

Oh yeah, just to have an establishing shot though to show what their environment on the planet looks like, because the vibe I get is always that they’re in a room in the dome itself when they’re somewhere else entirely watching it. I love additions like that because one thing a few Classic stories do suffer from is lacking a real sense of place. So I’d love to see what the outside of Arak and Etta’s home looks like. Like Helen A’s palace, it suddenly turns into an actual building in a city, rather than a set of a room next to those sets of the streets. 

I’ve always had the same issue with The Space Museum, the Xerons’ base I always assumed was just another room in the museum (I know they say in dialogue about it but still).

The thing with most of the box sets is I think it’s only been more recently they’ve had the budget to do multiple effects, so previously they’ve had to pick and choose. I wish Underworld had updated caves because the CSO is one of the things that hold the story back for a lot of people. It doesn’t for me, but I’d love to see it given a polish.

[Professor Flibble]

Also as an offside for anyone who bought the S21 Collection did The Twin Dilemma get its film elements remastered or was it a similar situation to S22 where they couldn’t find any of it and just tried tidying the DVDs up? I haven’t seen any clips of it online so I’m curious although I won’t be bothering to pick it up anyway since they mutilated everything else with their upscaling.

I…*think* Twin Dilemma’s film elements survived? I know there were mute film trims included as a special feature on the 2009 DVD (and the box set). Still, the AI remastering is absolutely abhorrent. It’s not enough to put me off buying the releases personally, because there’s so much else that’s great about them, but they’re a major flaw.

[Professor Flibble]

But me being forced to witness the special edition of Day of the Daleks with those crappy digital Nick Briggs voices is something I want to see real punishment for. 

I don’t like the special edition of Day of the Daleks being the default on iPlayer, that feels wrong. I’ve been getting my mate from uni into the show from the beginning, he’s on Daleks’ Master Plan Episode 9 and he’s even enjoying the reconstructions. I show him the original versions of the stories every time, because its the most authentic version. So when we get to Day of the Daleks, yeah I’m gonna have to stick on the DVD or the blu-ray. 

The special edition itself, I love that they expanded the Dalek army and shot new footage on film which blended in seamlessly. But though I usually like seeing cities actually represented on screen in these updates, I’ve always felt the future city in that special edition never fit with the location footage and it jarred.

[Ben Saunders]

I’ve always felt the future city in that special edition never fit with the location footage and it jarred.

Yeah that stuff felt particularly egregious to me. And I do not hate Nick Briggs’ Dalek voices, but something about the performance/modulation on that special edition is really naff. I am impressed by the new footage they shot for the climactic battle, though. 

[Doomitron]

I…*think* Twin Dilemma’s film elements survived? I know there were mute film trims included as a special feature on the 2009 DVD (and the box set). Still, the AI remastering is absolutely abhorrent. It’s not enough to put me off buying the releases personally, because there’s so much else that’s great about them, but they’re a major flaw.

It was a shame with S22 that they couldn’t get any film elements at all to rescan as far as I’m aware considering its the second to last time Doctor Who had their exterior shots shot on film (think the TV movie was the last time), The Two Doctors apparently had surviving elements and whoever owned them wouldn’t loan them out frustratingly, which is maddening especially when the exterior shots even without that look really good presumably due to the lighting in Spain making everything pop so well.

If I do purchase the S21 Collection it’ll probably be for the extras that I’ll rip to my Plex, although a big pet peeve I’ve had with them is the Behind the Sofas and the editing that’s made it so there aren’t real discussions being had just quick highlighted quips. Compare something like S19’s where I come away knowing exactly what Peter Davison and co. thought about an episode to S20 where I’m playing a guessing game because they kept cutting away before they’d expand on a point they just made.

[Technopeasant]

If my goal was to recreate the experience of watching Classic Who on its initial broadcast as closely as possible, no way would I be watching it via a restored DVD/Blu-ray on a 4K widescreen TV hooked up to a sound bar. Era authentic CRTs and VHS tapes all the way!

I mean, with some of the VHS releases they look worse than they did on broadcast.

although a big pet peeve I’ve had with them is the Behind the Sofas and the editing that’s made it so there aren’t real discussions being had just quick highlighted quips.

I find Behind the Sofa ghastly and never watch them anyway (especially when it isn’t even the cast of the episode). But then, I rarely listen to commentaries either.

For me the main boon of the Blu-rays is they make collecting approachable without needing hundreds of DVDs or VHS tapes.

The remastering debate is a bit like the subs versus dubs debate in anime. My policy there is the same but reversed. I’ll watch the dub first and then if adequately invested might watch the sub one day, but probably won’t ever actually bother.

[Professor Flibble]

I enjoy the commentaries, and I do find Peter and Janet funny but sometimes I do think “Oh come on now, you’re just being mean” 

[Professor Flibble]

Yeah that stuff felt particularly egregious to me. And I do not hate Nick Briggs’ Dalek voices, but something about the performance/modulation on that special edition is really naff. I am impressed by the new footage they shot for the climactic battle, though. 

Nick Briggs is obviously good at doing Dalek voices but I never got why he didn’t do Roy Skelton style voices for that special edition, they stuck out like a sore thumb, and just sounded like New Series Dalek voices put over Classic footage. In terms of doing updates for Classic stories, I don’t particularly care for the idea of making them more New Series-y. 

I’ve heard that a similar special edition for Death to the Daleks was planned for the 2012 DVD but Nick Briggs refused because he’s a diehard fan of that story. I never had an issue with Michael Wisher’s Dalek voices and I really like that story myself, it’s quintessential Classic Doctor Who. But I’d personally like to see an alternative version, even if it didn’t have updated effects, just to replace Carey Blyton’s score with Dudley’s Genesis score and change the Part 3 cliffhanger. Destiny had an optional soundtrack on the Season 17 box set with Tristram Cary’s music from The Daleks added to it, and it benefits because so much of Dudley’s score he composed for it had been cut. 

[Warbodog]

The remastering debate is a bit like the subs versus dubs debate in anime.

Dubs with kids, subs when solo.

I don’t need shows any better than 480p for a laptop screen, but I choose 720 when something’s only HD like Taskmaster.

[Ben Saunders]

Logopolis is a bit shit. It’s very impersonal. Tegan and especially Nyssa are going through probably the most traumatic moments of their lives and they merely pay lip service to it with a couple of lines of dialogue, then spend the rest of their time following around like ducklings. Nobody in this story acts like an actual person. It’s all very heady and self-important. The only thing lending even a semblance of emotion to the whole thing is the excellent performances of John Fraser as The Monitor, and Tom Baker. Everybody else is just kind of there, Ainley is a bit moustache twirling but hardly the conduit for much actual drama. The cliffhanger to part 3 is vaguely interesting but so drawn out. There’s none of the energy or excitement or intrigue the past few stories have made me feel. I was gripped by Warrior’s Gate and Traken. This one had me checking how long was left in the episode because I felt more of an impulse to wash my hands and clear away my dishes than continue watching.

[Ben Saunders]

The Two Doctors apparently had surviving elements and whoever owned them wouldn’t loan them out frustratingly, which is maddening especially when the exterior shots even without that look really good presumably due to the lighting in Spain making everything pop so well.

I remember before I’d actually seen The Two Doctors (I was making my way through the show and was onto the Davison era I think), I caught a bit of that story on the kitchen TV while making lunch one afternoon. I saw the location footage and thought bloody hell, what is this? It looks gorgeous. Oh wait, those are Sontarans. This is Doctor Who?! I think the Sontarans look pretty great in that story actually, “oh but they’re supposed to be the same height” is like, whatever. Maybe they came from two different batches.

[Professor Flibble]

The Sontarans look at their best in Time Warrior, Two Doctors and War of the Sontarans. With the 2008 ones, I don’t like the blue armour and I find the prosthetics somewhat lacking. 

[Ben Saunders]

I don’t dislike the way they look in The Sontaran Experiment, even if it is an obvious downgrade from Time Warrior. I even like the way they look in The Invasion of Time. Derek Deadman (whose name I can simply remember without looking it up because it’s so killer) gives such a strange but electrifying performance, very alien. I love him. Even the accent.

[Ben Saunders]

Invasion of Time is probably my “guilty pleasure” story, though I don’t really believe in the term. Everybody else seems to think it’s crap, but it was one of the earlier ones I chose to watch on my own volition rather than catching it on TV, and I have always enjoyed it. The tone is great, very funny but they still take it seriously when they need to. Yes, the inside of the TARDIS looks suspiciously like a hospital.

[Professor Flibble]

Oh I like them enough and it’s great to have variety, but its the other two Classic ones that I visualise in my head when I think of the Sontarans. 

[Professor Flibble]

Invasion of Time is probably my “guilty pleasure” story, though I don’t really believe in the term. Everybody else seems to think it’s crap, but it was one of the earlier ones I chose to watch on my own volition rather than catching it on TV, and I have always enjoyed it. The tone is great, very funny but they still take it seriously when they need to. Yes, the inside of the TARDIS looks suspiciously like a hospital.

I quite like Invasion of Time. Its got one of the best Doctor Who cliffhangers ever and it feels quite weighty. I think if Tom’s era was as long as the other Doctors, Invasion of Time would’ve been a great final story for him. I do have a gripe with the abandoned hospital TARDIS corridors though, because I like the visual consistency of the rest of the TARDIS being more rooms with roundels in the 80s stories. 

[Technopeasant]

“oh but they’re supposed to be the same height” is like, whatever. Maybe they came from two different batches.

Or the other one was underfed as a youngun.

[Doomitron]

The Sontarans look at their best in Time Warrior, Two Doctors and War of the Sontarans. With the 2008 ones, I don’t like the blue armour and I find the prosthetics somewhat lacking. 

The Sontarans in Flux looked marvelous. The RTD1 Sontarans always repelled me, maybe that adds something though in a way. The artificial fake muscles they added to the suit just make me think of the Sontarans themselves with them and that’s quite the sickening thought, I did love Christopher Ryan in the role though that was inspired casting.

I enjoy the commentaries, and I do find Peter and Janet funny but sometimes I do think “Oh come on now, you’re just being mean”

They’re always my favorite to listen to, I love their snark.

[Ben Saunders]

Tom Baker was truly something else as the Doctor. Quite simply a league above anybody else to ever do it. To ever do anything. With time and with further viewings my appreciation of him only grows. Very mixed feelings on his actual regeneration. But he will be missed.

Odd how Peter Davison first appears post-regeneration with brown hair.

[Ben Saunders]

The “entire universe” on the scanner is so stupid. “I can’t see Earth!” Of course you can’t, dumbass, you’re looking at the entire universe.

[Flap Jack]

Tom Baker was truly something else as the Doctor. Quite simply a league above anybody else to ever do it. To ever do anything. With time and with further viewings my appreciation of him only grows.

Absolutely. As far as I’m concerned any Best Doctor ranking should leave #2 blank just to acknowledge how perfect Tom Baker is in the role.

[Warbodog]

As a wilderness kid, my First Doctor is a jumble (a bit of McCoy when I was too young to comprehend the confusing story, Pertwee showing up on Noel’s House Party etc seemingly as the default face of that old show, the second Peter Cushing Dalek film as regular Sunday afternoon schedule filler, the failed McGann pilot), but when I actively checked out some serials after reading Douglas Adams, Tom Baker was a hit and I stuck with his era exclusively for a few years (early YouTube ‘Genesis of the Daleks – Part 1 of 18’ era) before I branched out and tried the others and the new series.

[Dave]

As a wilderness kid, my First Doctor is a jumble (a bit of McCoy when I was too young to comprehend the confusing story, Pertwee showing up on Noel’s House Party etc seemingly as the default face of that old show, the second Peter Cushing Dalek film as regular Sunday afternoon schedule filler, the failed McGann pilot)

I think we’re pretty much the same era. I was six years old when I watched Remembrance go out on first broadcast (it must be one of my earliest TV memories) and I watched the show from that point on, so for that reason I think of McCoy as “my” Doctor.

But Pertwee was weirdly quite high-profile in that era too (as well as stuff like Noel’s House Party I remember certain Pertwee stories like The Sea Devils getting some repeats in the 90s for some reason) and between that, the McGann movie and Dimensions In Time it was a time of many Doctors being simultaneously quite prominent.

[Warbodog]

Pertwee was weirdly quite high-profile in that era

I guess oldest living (for a bit) + Tom Baker’s disinterest + peak 70s nostalgia era.

[Professor Flibble]

Well my top five Doctors are

5: 8th Doctor

4: 11th Doctor

3: 4th Doctor

2: 2nd Doctor

1: 7th Doctor

So for me he’s quite high up too.

[Unrumble]

Wilderness kid

Pertwee was weirdly quite high-profile in that era too

Spearhead From Space was the first Who I saw, when I checked it out of the library as a 7 year old in the mid-90’s, possibly on a whim because I was intrigued by the video cover. 

As I recall, of available vids I was able to get hold of in the various nearby libraries, Pertwee stories seemed to be most prevalent, which led to him feeling like ‘my doctor’ in my formative fandom, until I got more exposure to others.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, I don’t remember there being any 60’s stuff knocking about apart from The Seeds of Doom. I saw no Hartnell until I spent some hard-earned pocket money on The Aztecs in the BBC shop on a trip to London. Hurndall would’ve been my original (you might say) First Doctor experience!

[Ben Saunders]

1) 4

2) 1

3) 2

4) 12

5) 11

(Or something like that, I just wanted to do a funny list)

[Warbodog]

My minimal exposure to Who growing up was also because my dad didn’t seem to have any nostalgia or appreciation for it, like he did with Gerry Anderson shows and other stuff he’d buy on video. I didn’t know about UNIT, but I knew about SHADO and BISHOP. Maybe they were an ITV household.

11 & 4 are the Doctors I like watching best.

[Technopeasant]

Well my top five Doctors are
5: 8th Doctor
4: 11th Doctor
3: 4th Doctor
2: 2nd Doctor
1: 7th Doctor
So for me he’s quite high up too.

Can’t argue with the top three…

[Dave]

I find it really hard to compare classic and modern-era Doctors as they feel like such different shows, but if your favourite nu-Who Doctor isn’t Eleven then I’m not sure we can be friends.

[Rushy]

5. 3rd Doctor

4. 5th Doctor

3. 2nd Doctor

2. 9th Doctor

1. 1st Doctor

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

I find it really hard to compare classic and modern-era Doctors as they feel like such different shows, but if your favourite nu-Who Doctor isn’t Eleven then I’m not sure we can be friends.

Eleven or latter day Twelve for me. 

[Doomitron]

1. Seven

2. Eight

3. Ten

4. Six

5. Second

[Flap Jack]

I find it really hard to compare classic and modern-era Doctors as they feel like such different shows, but if your favourite nu-Who Doctor isn’t Eleven then I’m not sure we can be friends.

Oh.

That’s OK… I didn’t want to be friends anyway.

[Doomitron]

I only started to warm to Eleven when Clara became his companion, never much cared for Amy and Rory and his dynamic with them.

[Author]

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