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What's the most underrated story in Doctor Who?
codename_47
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I was in 2 minds creating this thread.
I almost titled it, "What's your Who 'guilty pleasure'" but I saw there was an "overrated" thread and decided to cash in on it a bit.
So, here we are, the sequel, what stories in Dr Who history do you enjoy but perhaps fandom doesn't quite agree?
This was in my head because Really (the channel
have started showing series 3 of Who and I was reminded how much I really like the Dalek 2 parter.
I know it's not the most popular pair of episodes, and I'll admit the Dalek human doesn't look that convincing (still a great makeup creation though) but there's lots of great character stuff dotted throughout this.
Lazlo and Tullulah's relationship is quite sweet (he still visits her after he's altered by the Daleks, even though he thinks she's never accept him as a pig. He's proved wrong)
The Doctor is disheartened to learn the Daleks are still alive even though he sacrificed everything to end them a few times over by now.
Martha finally gets to see a Dalek after being explained about what happened in the time war in the previous episode.
And in a way it would've been better if the entire episode was about the struggles of hooverville in the shadow of the Empire State building than having a detour to all the music hall stuff.
There was a lot of interesting social commentary there, at least for me.
Then there's some of the outright comedy moments like the Doctor picking up the brains and the 2 remaining Daleks having a little gossipy session in the sewers (complete with both of them rotating to check no-one is listening behind them, which always makes me really laugh, for some reason.)
I wouldn't say this is Who's finest hour by a long stretch, but the setting really worked for me and it did feel quite a lot like a movie by the end of it, particularly if you watch it all in one go.
And minor point, I was actually quite shocked when the slaved destroyed the Daleks at the end as the show had painted them as almost invincible to this point.
So yeah, it is a flawed episode, no doubt. But enjoyably so, so I'm willing to overlook the flaws and just enjoy it.
And now: you, what other flawed eps do you think have enough charm for you to enjoy, despite the general consensus?
I almost titled it, "What's your Who 'guilty pleasure'" but I saw there was an "overrated" thread and decided to cash in on it a bit.
So, here we are, the sequel, what stories in Dr Who history do you enjoy but perhaps fandom doesn't quite agree?
This was in my head because Really (the channel
have started showing series 3 of Who and I was reminded how much I really like the Dalek 2 parter.I know it's not the most popular pair of episodes, and I'll admit the Dalek human doesn't look that convincing (still a great makeup creation though) but there's lots of great character stuff dotted throughout this.
Lazlo and Tullulah's relationship is quite sweet (he still visits her after he's altered by the Daleks, even though he thinks she's never accept him as a pig. He's proved wrong)
The Doctor is disheartened to learn the Daleks are still alive even though he sacrificed everything to end them a few times over by now.
Martha finally gets to see a Dalek after being explained about what happened in the time war in the previous episode.
And in a way it would've been better if the entire episode was about the struggles of hooverville in the shadow of the Empire State building than having a detour to all the music hall stuff.
There was a lot of interesting social commentary there, at least for me.
Then there's some of the outright comedy moments like the Doctor picking up the brains and the 2 remaining Daleks having a little gossipy session in the sewers (complete with both of them rotating to check no-one is listening behind them, which always makes me really laugh, for some reason.)
I wouldn't say this is Who's finest hour by a long stretch, but the setting really worked for me and it did feel quite a lot like a movie by the end of it, particularly if you watch it all in one go.
And minor point, I was actually quite shocked when the slaved destroyed the Daleks at the end as the show had painted them as almost invincible to this point.
So yeah, it is a flawed episode, no doubt. But enjoyably so, so I'm willing to overlook the flaws and just enjoy it.
And now: you, what other flawed eps do you think have enough charm for you to enjoy, despite the general consensus?
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I can see you've not taken any notice of the advice you were given the other night. You really need to start endearing yourself to people on this forum and so far in the last 24 hours you've not only started yet another thread but you're still making comments like this. People will post when they want to post and not because you demand it.
How about making a case for why you think The Sensorites is so underrated? You see how the OP has quite eloquently stated their case about the story they have chosen, how about participating in some discussion for once instead of winding people up all the time????
Anyway, apologies to the OP for digressing but getting back on topic, the story I'd choose that is underrated is The Crusade, yes, that old chestnut I've mention several times before on here!
For me, there's four reasons why it's underrated:
1)It has William Hartnell as The Doctor
2)It's in Black and White
3)It's a Historical
4)It's has two episodes missing.
For me it's a combination of any of the above factors that people maybe haven't given this story a try and then they would realise just what a well written and acted story this actually is. The dialogue is just fantastic and even the incidental music adds to the drama. Plus the scene between Richard and Joanna in Part 3 is just awesome, probably the best acted scene I think I've ever seen in the show. In some ways, it could almost be one of those Sunday Afternoon drama's they used to have on the BBC in the old days, it almost feels too grown up for the show, even back then.
It really is the ultimate proof that you don't need special effects or to be shown in Black and White to make a good story.
And if I'm being really pernickety, I'd say most of the Hartnell Era is underrated, due to Hartnell's Doctor not being as 'cool' as some of his successors and people's reluctance to watch him.
But you're spot on about the Crusade. Superb, grown up acting, and a superb plot the like of which Doctor Who rarely featured.
I'd like to put forward Planet Of Evil as an under-rated story.
For my money it was one of the scariest and most effective stories of the early Tom Baker era. Yet in overviews of that period it's frequently overlooked. Yes there were better stories, but PoE is an extremely claustrophobic and psychological chiller which contains some intense performances from the leads, the best jungle set ever seen on the show (in fact one of the best jungles ever created in a tv studio, period) a genuinely thought provoking plot and some neat homages (or rip offs if you prefer) from one of the best sci-fi movies ever, Forbidden Planet.
On the downside it does seem like they blew the budget on the jungle as the spaceship set is spectacularly dull, and why on earth did the wooden Prentis Hancock keep getting work? Did he have some compromising pics of TV execs or something? But otherwise this story is pretty much faultless and gets overlooked mainly, I think, because it's sandwiched between Zygons and Mummies.
Well worth a reappraisal.
I think I may just do that......;-)
It celebrates almost everything distinctive about the Pertwee era with UNIT, hovercraft chase scenes, human villains as well as alien villains, an Earth setting and an alien colony setting, and New Age crystal-rubbing mysticism.
Whilst it's not the most original story, as a last Hurrah for the Third Doctor, it is magnificent. The only thing missing is the Master.
I definitely think Planet of the Spiders deserves to be more popular than it is.
I think the mods might have been in while we weren't looking...
Also I think The Visitation is a mighty fine story and Image of the Fendahl is great too.
A mystery within a mystery, intriguing backstory between the humans and the draconians (which I'm sure JMS borrowed for the way the earth-minbari war started in Babylon 5 tbh) and one of the greatest cliffhangers in the Original series run (The Daleks and the Master working together? Whaaaaat??? Who will betray the other first?? )
Sadly because it seems to go no-where in the next ep it all builds up to nothing seemingly, but that's more Planet of the Daleks problem really, as it stands FOS is a great, to me.
Sure, a few of the characters were somewhat throwaway (and they would have definitely been doing it in that pod) but it would be impossible to have everything that's already going on as well as a completely developed crew.
So yeah, my case for 42
Have to agree on all of this. Love Planet Of The Spiders.
One other story I'd like to nominate is The Awakening. I think because Season 21 is focused on how awful Warriors Of The Deep/The Twin Dilemma is and has two great stories in Resurrection Of The Daleks and The Caves Of Androzani in it, this little gem of a 2-Parter slips under the radar a bit.
It reminds me a lot of The Daemons and though it perhaps doesn't capture that Quaint English Feeling in the same way, it is still there. It also has an unusual Monsters in the Malus, I always think it was good The Doctor faced something a bit different in this story. And the Malus certainly was different, being unable to speak and sometimes that can be quite scarier than those that can. Dennis Lill is also brilliant as Sir George, sometimes these sort of manic unapproachable Villains are the best and he conveyed that really well.
The other thing I like about this Tegan. Not just because she looks good as the May Queen but because she had by this stage really mellowed and it was great to see her meeting more relatives. She was quite unusual in that we saw a lot of family. Her Aunt Vanessa in Logopolis, her cousin Colin in Arc Of Infinity and now her Grandfather in this. She was almost a forerunner of the RTD companions in a certain way.
I hear a lot from those among the "not-we" that they grew up with Tom, didn't take to Peter because he replaced "their " Doctor, didn't mind Colin (because he was a change from the "not-Tom" Peter) and they really didn't like Sylv or had stopped watching by then.
I just don't get that at all with the 5th and 6th Doctors .... It seems to me to be the knock on effect of Tom's overly long tenure, that some 4th Doctor fans weren't prepared to accept whoever was Tom's immediate replacement and thus were going to find the 6th Doctor more acceptable than the 5th on principal because he didn't replace the 4th.
So anyway yeah, I think some 4th Doctor fans refused to give themselves the opportunity to like Davison, forced themselves to like Colin and then lost interest by the 7th Doctor's tenure (also that crappy logo and music really did not help at all, nor did carrying over Bonnie Langford from Season 22 or Ace's "Professor.."(sic) ).
I also think the preference of the 6th Doctor over the 7th is, for the most-part, a "not-we" phenomenon that doesn't often rear it's head among actual "fans".
Whatever the reason, I don't think viewers really gave McCoy the chance he deserved and my personal opinion is that Tom being the Doctor for so long meant that there were a generation who couldn't accept regeneration more than once and this triggered a chain reaction that led to the erroneous perception among part-time fans and the tabloid media that the quality of show began to decline rapidly during Davison's tenure when I really don't see that as being the case.
(I think the best way to avoid this scenario occurring again is to consider that it is good for theoverall longevity of the show for the younger audience to see 2 regenerations, and therefore 3 Doctors during their primary school years(5-11)and so I think 4 years should be the upper limit for any Doctor's tenure)
Thinking about it, as far as under-rated 7th Doctor stories go, I'd have to go for "Dragonfire" because it may have had it's cheesey moments, but it was a quality story, it was nice to see Glitz again, and even nicer to see the back of Mel
*Season 23
A friend of mine underrates it for a different reason: he didn't see the series when it came out, and grew up knowing it from the novelisation. When he finally got to see the two surviving episodes, he couldn't get past how studio-bound it was, compared with the sweeping settings he had imagined. Which is a pity.
[I've just bought the 1960 BBC Bardathon [I]An Age of Kings[/I] on DVD (it came out last year), and have so far watched the Richard II episodes: they are equally obviously constrained by the limits of the studio, but wonderful nonetheless. I mention this because it sounds as if you might enjoy it, if you're not aware of it already.]
I can see a case for regarding The Sensorites as an underrated story. It concerns itself intelligently with issues of trust, of caring for others, and the recognition that races are not morally homogeneous. This is not standard fare for Doctor Who, then or later, but comes as a welcome relief from the stunted sensibilities of Terry Nation. There are, however, people who prefer the latter and perhaps have always made up the bulk of the show's audience.
We may also have lost a sense of historical context. The DVD extras are good at underlining the parallels between the situation of Maitland's spaceship and that of H.M.S. Amethyst, which would have been better known at the time of transmission, not least through the 1957 film Yangtse Incident (in which William Hartnell played a substantial role).
I think it is generally true that black-and-white episodes are (foolishly) discounted by those who are used to colour, and the pace of The Sensorites is slow, even for 1964, but neither of these should be allowed to impair our enjoyment of an ultimately rewarding story.
I just wish Peter Glaze had turned in a more subdued performance...
As DW had been put on the 'back burner' for 18 months, the production team had to scrap their original ideas for the 1986 season and quickly re-think what to do.
Putting the Doctor on trial was their answer.
Also, I think The Edge of Destruction is most underrated as it only features the four lead actors of the Doctor, Susan, Ian and Barbara.
What I think lets the story down, is the fact that it's been totally filmed on the Tardis set and there is only two episodes.
Some people think that the picture doesn't look right when it's in b&w, deciding not to watch any of it.
When I was small, around 5 years old, I saw something on TV in b&w. A film or something, and said to my Mother, something along the lines of "Mum, is the world really that colour?" Indicating that because I saw it in b&w on TV, everything was b&w.
How silly! I was only a child, though.
Sorry but I have to disagree with a lot of this.
I was a kid of the 70's and so although, I can just remember Pertwee's reign, yes Tom's Doctor was the one I grew up with and stuck with me as "The Doctor". Having said that, when I was a kid I recall being less interested on the stories that followed The Horror of Fang Rock. At the time I didn't really understand why but just thought for some reason they didn't seem as good stories after that (in general -yes there were the exceptions) or as scary with more cheesy sets & acting. I didn't take on board they had a new producer (yes I know Fang Rock was under him but it was a very Hinchcliffe type story), some reigning in of the spending or demands they tone down the horror elements -a key reason why Hinchcliffe was asked to work on another show.
So I was turned away (watched less) before Davison came on board. This can be shown in the viewing numbers too.
The last season of Baker brought in JNT as producer. He suffered a lot of criticism, and still does, and yes, often I'm one of them. But he did breathe new life into a series that was looking tired and in need of a new Doctor (note what I say above as Baker being The Doctor I grew up with). That season, season 18, had some really interesting (and somewhat underrated) stories. Nothing here that was out right brilliant (I can hear the objections now), but it was very consistent and looked like it had an injection of ideas and money. The fact that Barry Letts agreed to come back to assist JNT out must have helped too.
As for Davison's fifth Doctor, I generally liked it and again this is shown in viewership numbers for his first season that were highest since the middle of Baker's reign -season 15. Again, carried on from JNT's first season & Baker's last, there was some good, interesting stories there. Kinda through to Earthshock -great stories. The next season dipped a little, but Davison's last was again very good.
It all went wrong with the introduction of Colin Baker and I agree with others this was to do more with the stories and the violence & somewhat unappealing elements that was introduced for whatever reason I don't know, rather than Colin himself.
As for McCoy's Doctor, don't get me started. I think if you've read other posts by me you will see I'm not a fan. I think you could write a book on why it went wrong with Who & why it was axed. I'm not going to start here, although maybe I already have
It's an interesting point you make about the The Crusade Novel. I had a similar thing with The Reign Of Terror. I believe Ian 'Harry' Marter wrote this and in it I remember it was always threatening a Thunderstorm which sort of worked in conjunction with the threat on the ground and the French Revolution. I think it even chucked it down at the end but this didn't happen in the story as shown on screen....I think. But anyway, I understand where your friend is coming from on that one and understand it completely. Often a Novel has more scope to do what they couldn't onscreen so it makes sense.
And I may check out that DVD when I have time.
As for the Sensorites, the one thing that sets it aside for me from other stories is that it's humans attacking aliens which is against the norm in the show. For that I can see why it could be viewed as overrated but I like a lot of your points as well. (Capaldi_Capaldi, that is how you put your point forward.;-))
-Frontier in Space (it was overlong though like a lot of Pertwee's 6 parters)
-Planet of Evil
-The Visitation
-The Awakening (biggest criticism here is it was too short!)
But I will add "State of Decay". A good old fashioned gothic horror story with a vampire race/ planet. What more do you want?
I enjoyed Full Circle from that season too.
State of Decay is great and definitely seems rather overlooked. Full Circle is very strong too. My personal favourite Season 18 story is probably Warriors Gate. Fascinating script, brilliantly directed, very well acted, a lovely musical score and just generally utterly enchanting.
I think it's pretty fantastic, with great characters, some memorable 'monsters' and a solid but quirky plot (especially the trip into hyperspace that takes you by surprise).
I'd probably put it in my top 5 fave Dr Who stories. While it gets some praise it seems to get lost within the Key To Time season and latter 4th Doctor seasons.
yep, that was a goodie too, really looking forward to watching these again, I'm currently on The Sun-Makers, and at watching 2 shows a week, some time yet to go to get there
I thought the alien worlds were really well realised around this time (season 18), and in fact, maybe not been equalled since
I'd argue that David Whitaker's novelisation, The Crusaders, is the best of all the Target books. It does indeed have a sense of scale that Lime Grove really couldn't deliver. And his prose style is superb. A genuinely grown up book too, it doesn't shy away from the nastier side of life.
I have read it, but not for a long time. I think David Whitaker is a fine writer, that's why I like his two Dalek stories so much.
I'll second that. One of Tom's best even if it was in his last season and Adric was in it.