You just made me remember actually about Planet Of The Spiders. As you say, there was some seriously hammy acting in The Web Planet and Bonnie Langford's character was awful at times, but nothing, and I mean, nothing, compares to the most awful acting performance in Doctor Who over it's 45- odd year history, beating even the Twins from The Twin Dilemma- and that's Neska, Araks' Mother (Gareth Hunt). It has to go down as the most wooden performance I've ever seen!

I think the car chase sequence was necessary, it was a tribute to Jon Pertwee's time in the show but as you say, even highly thought off stories have bad moments. Aside from said performance, there's those unconvincing Spider props as well plus a very lengthy cliffhanger reprisal in episode six but overall I rather enjoy it as a story!!!!!!

Because it wasn't funny.


They didn't just drop Zoe off and no gap is needed-you're obviously not familiar with the timeline for season 6B. It occurs after The War Games part 10 but before Spearhead, and after several solo stories, the Time Lords timescoop Jamie in order to reunite him with the Doctor again.

Yes. Talons of Weng Chiang does that too. Both excellent six parters. They are among the exceptions that prove the rule: six parters are generally toss.



I rather like The Two Doctors. Again a six parter (3 x double eps), it has the first ep on the space station then the next two in Spain. Shockeye the baddie is quite scarya nd very funny. Spain looks nice. Jacqueline Pearce can do no wrong. Troughton's sweet. There are far worse stories than this. There are far worse six parters than this.

The car chase in Planet of the Spiders is mentioned above. Blatant padding. Very watchable and fun, but totally unnecessary. Compare that with the faffing around in tunnels in the Armageddon Factor, all those capture/escapes in Col**y in Sp**e ... absolute rubbish, and BORING rubbish, too. Doctor Who should never be boring. Doctor Who may sometimes be bad, but if it's boring it's inexcusable.

Obviously our senses of humour, like so many other things, differ. I am not familiar with the timeline for Season 6B since no such season ever existed. Robert Holmes would not have been aware of a mythical Season 6B when he wrote The Two Doctors. He just blatantly ignored established continuity for the sake of producing a not very good story.

In chronological order...

The Web Planet
The Underwater Menace
The Krotons (hard to believe this is Robert Holmes)
Underworld
The Creature From The Pit
The Horns Of Nimon
Four To Doomsday
Arc Of Infinity
Mawdryn Undead
The Twin Dilemma

Special badge of merit awarded to K9 & Company.

Top 10s are by definition personal. I chose the above because I find them mostly boring -- although occasionally they are saved by unintentional humour (Creature From The Pit scores highly in this respect).

Of thosem, I'd only try to defend Horns and (especially) Creature, because both are hilarious. (Actually Creature has an excellent story and brilliant performances from Myra Frances and Eileen Way, but it's killed stone dead by some overacting and the design).

K9 and Company is a lovely little thing. I feel seven years old when I see it.

Mawdryn Undead? Surely "indifference" is the most anyone could bring themselves to feel for that one?!

Meglos
Silver Nemesis
Destiny of the Daleks
The Highlanders
The Space Museum Episodes 2-4
Twin Dilemma
Warriors of the Deep
Terminus
Time and the Rani
The Dominators

The Highlanders! People love it cos (a) they've never seen it, (b) it's Jamie's first story, and (c) it's the last historical. What is overlooked is that (d) the soundtrack CD suggests it's crap.

The Dominators
Colony Of Space
The Time Monster
The Daemons
Planet Of The Daleks
Timelash
Invasion Of Time
The Twin Dilemma
Paradise Towers
Destiny Of The Daleks

Yep, well I did single out Creature for it's unintentional humour. And I would agree with Nimon. Gotta dig minotaurs in bodystockings, flared trousers and platform shoes.

Mawdryn is the perfect cure for insomnia which, alone, merits its inclusion.

Picking up on some of those mentioned;

The Web Planet. I admit I haven't seen it in full, but I've seen clips. While I do realise that special effects were relatively primitive at the time and that the show was working on a low budget, I still feel you didn't have to see the actors' legs visible coming out of the ant outfits. That's just shoddy.

Time Flight. Someone made a point about the budget there, but that wasn't the problem. The story and acting were just SO bad.

The Two Doctors. It's slated a lot, but I must admit to a fondness for it. Shockeye is up there with the Captain from The Pirate Planet and Soldeed from Horns of Nimon as one of those bad guys who's so ludicrously OTT he goes beyond bad ham into great ham.

Do not blaspheme the Nimon !

Oh chuffnobbler! I only came into this thread to say that!

The problems with The Web Planet are not so much the costumes, but the pace is so s l o w, even by 1960's ephemeral art, supposed to be watched over 6 weeks standards. Also it is fairly clear in some places William Hartnell did not bother to learn the script, William Russell is clearly prompting him in some scenes.

In spite of this I quite like episode 1, and I wouldn't say the rest of it warrants being placed in the 10 worst stories ever.

Bumped because I watched Silver Nemesis again today on dvd.

It's worse than I remember.