Rememberence of the Daleks was a very good 7th Doctor story. Very good indeed. Ghost Light had a certain charm, as well.
Curse of Fenric would have been okay as well, had the series actually had a halfway decent script editor to tighten it up, instead of that nitwit Andrew Cartmel.
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I forgot “The Daemons”: classic Pertwee. A plot cheerfully stolen from “Quatermass and the Pit”, devil worship, the Master impersonating a vicar {Reverend Magister} in order to summon an ancient race of alien demons, and the best Doctor Who line ever, courtesy of the Brigadier: “Sergeant - chap with the wings. Five rounds, rapid fire.” Brilliance.
Generally avoid any Colin Baker, who played the Doctor as a fat obnoxious git, and had the second-most irritating assistant ever: he pretty much killed off the series due to his suckitude. Sylvester McCoy - who I quite liked - made a valiant attempt to bring back the quirk {“Remembrance of the Daleks” is excellent}, but the damage had been done.
The early Doctors {Hartnell and Troughton} have dated quite a bit; in order of greatness Tom Baker is ne plus ultra in his sheer bohemian weirdness {although he appeared increasingly bored as his tenure went on: purists do not rate the Douglas Adams stories highly}.
Jon Pertwee had a flamboyant swashbuckling charm, as well as the Master as an antagonist and the mighty Brigadier as an offsider. Peter Davison was too clean-cut and charming for my tastes, and he had too many useless assistants. Colin Baker was unspeakably awful {previous Doctors had aways been cheerfully arrogant; he took it into realms of sheer gittishness}, and Sylvester McCoy was an oddball college lecturer with an unexpected hard edge and a useful assistant.
I’m not going to go against the Tom Baker Love, because I think his early seasons were the best writing that Doctor Who ever had to offer. Start with him and you won’t go wrong.
That said, I love what little of the second Doctor I’ve been able to see. If you like a little whimsy, try *The Mind Robber. *
On a side note, my roommate and I watched Survival for the first time this weekend. I really like the 7th Doctor and his dynamics with Ace, but were the writers and producers even trying at that point?
Yes, Tom Baker is the guy I was thinking of. I have sent The Talons of Weng-Chiang to the top of my Netflix list. It’s not that I can’t get around bad special effects, but the writing has to be good enough to ignore. Even the new Doctor Who isn’t perfect with special effects. I love the retro stuff like the Daleks and K-9. Good for them for sticking with the original designs. Shame on Star Trek.
You’ll also note that the origin story is basically ripped off by the new Cybermen from the Alternate universe. But the best thing about the episode is that I believe it is the first shot in the Time war. The Time Lords sent the Doctor to destroy the Daleks at their inception.
I loved the original Davros especially when he played frail to those around him he wished to deceive. They thought nothing of it due to his condition.
Peter Davison was my favorite Doctor Who, until Christopher Eccleston came along. Though I enjoyed the Tom Baker era too, of course, I would still recommend Davison’s run to a newcomer to the Who universe.
I thought it was potentially an interesting interpretation of the character. Unfortunately, every single one of the stories he appeared in was awful. Blame the writers for that, not the actor. I think he could have been great with a decent script to follow.
But that said, they are all horrible, and should be avoided.
When I was young, Patrick Troughton was the Doctor, so I still have a soft spot for him. His last episode showcases an important part of early Dr. Who canon. Namely that he was regarded by the Time Lords as a criminal for breaking their laws against interfering in History. His second regeneration was forced as a sentence of Court, and he was placed on Earth in the early '70s with a Tardis minus a part he could not make or do without for the first part of the Pertwee reign..
But ask me what story I found most memorable? The Brain of Morbius (a Tom Baker one).
That was the first time that we learned that he was a Timelord, that there was a whole planet of his kind, and that he was a renegade and fugitive. A completely inspired piece of retconning, since the writers simply made up his entire backstory out of whole cloth and it became canon.
kingpengvin, I loved how the original Davros was actually very subtle about implementing his plans, and simply manipulated everyone around him. And Nyder, his henchman, was bloody chilling.
The Daemons is one of my very favorite episodes.
Peter Davison is the reason I started watching Dr. Who. My family and I had watched All Creatures Great and Small on PBS which had Davison as the younger brother to Robert Hardy’s character.
My dad and I were flipping channels one day and I said, Hey that looks like they guy who plays Tristan!" so we stopped and watched it. We liked it. That was in 1981. My dad and I have been Dr. Who fans ever since. We even attended a Dr. Who convention in 1985 where Peter Davison was speaking.
I think the writing for his series wasn’t the best, but he will always be my favorite Doctor because he was my first.
Not exactly. We knew from episode 1 that he was a fugitive, though we didn’t know what he was running from. And *The Time Meddler *shows that there are others like him on his home planet.
Colin Baker would be the one I say looks like Gene Wilder. I also hated most of those, because of him and the character Perry.
The most watchable are from Doctor 4 onward. The 6 key of time episodes start the 4th Doctor’s best adventures.
The stint in n-space was a good series of episodes.
Full Circle
State of Decay
Warriors’ Gate
The Two Doctors also has a moment when the Doctor condescendingly pats Peri on the head, and she clearly mouths the word “Asshole!” at his back before going on with her next line.
I have a weakness for the Fifth Doctor, and join in recommending “Castrovalva” and “The Caves of Androzani” (which has one of the best regeneration scenes of the whole series, and one of the most famous bloopers when Peri falls onto a Spectrox nest and bounces). I also liked “Terminus”, which isn’t on DVD yet.
Just a warning to those who have only seen New Who: the older version didn’t wrap up a story in a single one hour episode {or even two-parters}. A story would comprise four or six half-hour weekly episodes, which taken at a single DVD sitting, can show up the weakneses in the extended format. Every episode except the last will end on a cliff-hanger, and there’s a lot of running to and fro down cardboard corridors.
Typically the Doctor and Sarah will land on a mining colony {read Essex quarry}, Sarah will blithely ignore a warning to “stay here” and wander off to be captured by a tribe of mutants {cue first cliff-hanger}, while the Doctor will be captured by the miners, who naturally suspect him {probably in collusion with the mutants, with whom they are at war} for a serious of mysterious sabotages.
Naturally he will win their grudging trust mid-way through the second episode, and uncover a Greater Hidden Evil threatening both miners and mutants and immediately imperilling Sarah, whom he will set down a paper-mache tunnel to rescue, and will himself be captured by the Greater Evil by the end of the second part {cue second cliff-hanger}.
Sarah meanwhile will have gained the mutants’ trust and set off in search of the Doctor, only to be captured again by the miners {who spend little or no time actually mining except to uncover artifacts of ancient power and menace}. The Doctor and Sarah will be reunited at the beginning of the third episode, after which they will convince both miners and mutants to put aside their differences and work against the common foe, against whom he has devised a cunning plan involving the menacing artifact {which looks like part of an old roller skate painted gold} and probably a retraipse down the cardboard corridor: episode three will end with the Greater Evil {played by a guy in a rubber suit with horns against some dodgy back-projection} manifesting itself to threaten both the Doctor and Sarah in the third cliff-hanger.
After that it’s just a canter to the finish in episode four, with the rubber suited Greater Evil tricked into seizing the Old Gold Roller Skate Of Doom and thus destroying both himself and his underground fortress, which perishes in a welter of special effects consisting of a couple of Roman candles and a cardboard box spray-painted silver: miners and mutants, only most have whom have perished during the fray, are established as the best of friends as ever were, and it’s off in the Tardis again.
God, Doctor Who was great when you were a kid in the '70’s.
Scissorjack - thanks for the lovely summary of so many of the storylines, and can I quote from another cult TV show … “Aaaand loving it!”
Some time ago I found a really good place to start. Try the Doctor Who ratings guide.
I’ve also found that every single episode is uploaded to You Tube. Search using the episode title.
Have fun.
I think that’s why “The Impossible Planet” and “The Satan Pit” was such a good two-parter: for all its bigger budget and better effects, it was pure old school Doctor Who, right down to the episode titles.
“Chap with wings, there - five rounds rapid!!” Best line ever…
Pat Troughton and Jon Pertwee were my Doctors. Troughton was mysterious and made you want to follwo him, made you want for him to reveal his plans and motives - and for a 6 year old, some of his stories, particularly the Cyberman stores, were terrifying… of course, most of them are lost and that is very sad.
Pertwee’s stories are really under-rated - the entirity of his first season is wonderful - the dramatic, thrilling, iconic and shocking “Spearhead from Space”, the grand adventure of “The Silurians”, the Kubrick Influenced “Ambassadors of Death” and the epic, exciting and criminally under-rated “Inferno”.
After that, the Terrance Dicks/Barry Letts axis really starts to solidify and the adventures start to take on a broader tone while hiding real intricacies in the details - the wickedly subversive “Terror of the Autons”, the Clockwork Orange-esque “Mind of Evil”, the parables on greed, desire and fear that were “Claws of Axos” and “Colony in Space” and the wonderful “Daemons”.
After that, Pertwee’s stories “lighened up” a little - still overwhelmingly entertaining (Carnival of Monsters) occasionally pointed and thought-provoking (The Mutants - why does Who fandom rate this so lowly?) now and then silly and insubstantial (Time Monster), sometimes wonderful and epic (Curse of Peladon, the magnificent Green Death) - down to an under done final season for him - some lukewarm stories, Pertwee’s energy was waning, Lis Sladen was uncertain of her character - up to the nice-in-concept but overblown in execution finale “Planet of the Spiders”, which perhaps should have been five parts instead of 6.
Phillip Hinchcliffe and Robert Holmes did some great work in the next couple of seasons with Tom Baker, but for me the Golden Years of Dr Who were 1970-1973.
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Real Daleks don’t climb stairs - they level the building! 
Ah, yes: alternate universe fascist bastard Evil Brigadier, complete with eyepatch. Nicholas Courtney was hugely talented as an actor: it can’t be easy to play straight man to such giant presences as Jon Pertwee and Tom Baker, but he was never overshadowed. His slightly droll stiff upper lip as he faced both the Doctors’ antics and whatever alien menace was assailing Surrey that week, armed only with a Browning 9mm, a twitch of his moustache and a ruefully half-cocked eyebrow, was the perfect counterpoint to the Doctors’ flamboyance.