Watching Doctor Who from the 1963 pilot onward

Cafe Society
1

Well, we’re watching all the discs available from Netflix at least. We recently found out that nuWho wasn’t a reboot so much as a continuation - that much of the Doctor’s history as referenced in the new series is shown in the old episodes. So we decided to start from the beginning and watch all the way through Matt Smith.

First, a warning to anyone who wants to try this (and I would love to get a discussion going if people are interested!). For some reason Netflix put the pilot (An Unearthly Child) on Disc 3, so we wound up watching the second adventure first, the third adventure second, and the first adventure third. Also, a lot of the shows just aren’t available - evidently many were destroyed or misplaced. But what there is, we’re watching it!

It’s . . . pretty terrible. But in an interesting way, at least. You expect the crappy sets and silly costumes, but there are many instances where they can’t even operate the cameras properly - they’ll cut in close and suddenly lose focus, making adjustments on the fly. The sound is similarly bad. In “Dalek” it sounds like the cast is wearing tap shoes, their footsteps are so distractingly loud! Perhaps worst of all, actors frequently flub lines. Were there not multiple takes in the day? But I find it all kind of fascinating when compared to the modern series and its polish.

Perhaps the most intriguing thing is the sexism. Of course I was expecting some, but it’s still jarring. TV today may objectify women, but at least they’re allowed some brains and capability. The chicks in these shows are regularly overcome by hysterics, assumed not to be able to do elementary tasks, and offer “intuitive” reads on situations that the male characters always immediately dismiss.

Oh, and the hairdos are epically bad. :smiley:

I’m looking forward to seeing how it develops from something that never should have been picked up for a full season into a sci-fi powerhouse.

2

There’s audio of every missing episode out there, if you’re feeling particularly brave :wink:

But, yes, a lot of the early stuff is one-take, just battering through it as quickly as possible. (Edit: I think some of it was filmed the day before broadcast, if I’m remembering right). Different times, and they did do a lot of episodes compared to nowadays.

3

I’ve seen most of the available episodes of the original series. A lot of them were released on VHS back in the 90’s. I have 4 grocery bags full of old Dr. Who episodes on VHS from 1963 through 1989. I was such a huge fan (almost no one else I knew was, though) and of course no such thing as Netflix back then.

I think it’s really cool to watch the old ones. They are so different, but they do change with the times. As you progress into the 70’s and 80’s you’ll see lots of changes.

4

Fair play to you–the thought that I’d have to catch up on 50 years of backstory was part of what kept me away from Who for a while. At least you’ll have an answer to the question, “What should we watch tonight?” for a very long time. :slight_smile:

5

The early Who shows were like movie serials. The dramatic ending each week kept the kids excited to see what happened the next week.

Some fans recreate that excitement by waiting a day or two before watching the next episode. Others watch it all at once. DVD’s make it easy to customize viewing however you want.

6

Actually, as I remember it, as far as sexism goes, Barbara Wright, one of the very first companions was level-headed and capable, if a bit stodgy and humorless.

Susan, though, (the Doctor’s granddaughter) was a real screaming twerp. She was supposed to be highly intelligent, but you’d never know it. She spent most of the time sobbing and whimpering. And falling down and twisting her ankle while running. In fact, in “The Five Doctors” twentieth anniversary special, her returning character falls and hurts her ankle as a sort of “tribute” to a dated meme. Fun.

7

The early seasons were also fantastically long, 40-odd episodes over almost a full year in season 1 for example. So I can forgive them for not going back and re-filming the odd mistake.

8

Same here. But I found that you can essentially divide the Dr Who canon into two large groups: the “old shows” which ran from 1963 to 1989 and the “new shows” which ran from 2005 to the present. After a sixteen year gap*, the BBC realized continuity had been broken and they made sure you could watch the new shows as if they were a new series without having to bring over knowledge from the old shows.

*Technically, there was some stuff between 1989 and 2005, including a movie in 1996. But you don’t need to watch this to follow the series.

9

BBCA recently aired as part of a special a story pitting the 2nd Doc against the Cybermen, and wow, those Cybermen were certainly weird compared to ones in nuWho that I’m familiar with.

Particularly telling for the time and state of effects, at one point someone is being lifted up and you can quite clearly see the harness and wires on him, and at another point one of the characters tosses a Cyberman and they clearly cut to a shot of a dummy flying across the room. It’s so low rent, so cheesy, so wonderful.

I really wish they’d just air these on some channel regularly.

10

I tried something similar a couple years ago. After managing to get through all the Hartnell serials (including listening to the audio for the ones missing the video), I decided to take a break before continuing on with the next Doctor. That never happened.

You’re right, most of it is pretty terrible. The real sin was the show’s pacing and blatant filler episodes, though. Most of the longer serials could easily have been cut by a third.

11

Tomb of the Cybermen - a famous “lost” serial and a pretty good one at that.

People - it was the 60s! Cut it some slack please!

12

Effectively, no, there weren’t. The only means they had of editing video at the time was to physically cut and splice the tape – not ideal, as I dare say you can imagine.

This is still in the period when prime-time drama was routinely broadcast live. Doctor Who never was, but it was recorded “as live”: each episode was performed in real time in the studio, with multiple cameras, and all the editing, lighting, mixing and effects done on the spot as it was happening. If you look for it, you can tell where the script’s been structured to allow actors to get from one side of the studio floor to the other for the next scene.

13

I suspect it’s more the Atlantic budgetary divide than the time period. The beginnings of Doctor Who and Star Trek aren’t that far apart; there’s only about a year gap between the filming of the first Who episodes and the filming of the Trek pilot, but there’s an obvious difference in terms of production values.

Hartnell was also worse than most in terms of blowing lines (something wiki attributes to his health), which probably made the show seem worse in some respects that it normally would have.

14

I see, it really was a different universe from today’s TV! Knowing that they’re trying to shoot “as-if” live gives me new respect for them. And I don’t mean to sound like I hate it - more like “this is fascinating - like watching the first baby steps of someone who became an Olympic runner.”

And yes, Barbara has changed a lot since the first two story arcs. She notices and understands things the others don’t, acts decisively, and seems to be respected by the men now. They must have realized they only needed one Hysterical Woman.

Also, Ian just totally Vulcan neck-pinched an Aztec dude - 3 years before Star Trek!

15

And on that song cue…

Be My Doctor Who Girl

16

You should see the first appearence of the Cybermen in the William Hartnell’s first Doctor story ‘The 10th Planet’ Those were so much fun - I’m sure we can do better now for Halloween costumes.

17

Yes to what so many have said.

WotNot is exactly right. They were still writing and creating plays on TV at this time, even though they had about a decade of experience at TV by this time. This forced structure and conditions on them that you won’t see later. Again, writing a scene so that two stay behind while two get to the next set and scene. And, again, LITERAL cutting and pasting (taping together) of tape for editing shows! I don’t think they did a non set shot until the end of season one and even then it was just William Hartnell walking on a country road. That was considered a big deal for them!

(In fact, if you combine this with my knowledge of Monty Python and what MP were doing at this time and why they did MP, as well as the state of TV at the time in general in Britain as I understand it, British TV seems to have still been finding itself as late as 1970!)

Further, they were also treating it as live with one take as much as possible. That’s why in the Dalek episode, the blasts effected the whole screen because they switched lenses to give the negative effect! It also meant nearly a complete reset, of at least a scene, if a take wasn’t accepted and so they would keep going as much as they could. I think by second season, you will see a very big improvement in some of these points.

The bigger problem, and I LOVE the show and can watch any episode, is also how SciFi changed. SciFi TV was very much in its infancy. There are episodes as late as the 80s that use common tropes that make no sense to us but that’s what SciFi was. For example, costumes. Costumes make no sense in early SciFi. They look SciFi but they aren’t practical, usually not having pockets! (Star Trek did this as well, actually.) So, when you see some episodes, the actor is having to carry all of their props because they don’t have anyplace to put them and no one thought about doing it any differently!

(I liked that ST:Enterprise went against that convention to have them wear things like the astronauts wear, again with pockets, even if it contradicted what was worn in TOS.)

cckerberos: (Office boss voice.) Yeah, I’m going to have to disagree here. Star Trek started three years later and was a very different setup, again because they weren’t trying to do a play but a TV show, with different sets and editing. But that’s me.

I recently rewatched some fourth doctor and what struck me was that if you can look past the F/X, which can sometimes be hard, the stories are usually good for the time. In a long running show, you will have ups and downs, but there are some good ones. I liked a lot of season two, which included the Romans, Dalek Invasion of Earth, and the Time Meddler.

But this is my second all time favorite show, so I’m completely biased! :smiley:

vislor

18

I’m not trying to be an ass, but since the three nuWho Doctors are widely known as the Ninth, Tenth, and Eleventh Doctors, where did you ever pick up the notion that it was a reboot?

19

Just FYI anyone wishing to know the terminology, this is known as “live to tape” in television production.

20

Everywhere, especially on this site. It’s quite common to talk of NuWho as an ersatz reboot since you mostly don’t need to know anything about OldWho to follow the plot. It adds to it because you’ll catch references, but it’s not necessary. Self-contained would probably be a better descriptor but oh well.