You could watch them on Internet TV (well some of them, you would save yourself some money).



Still sounds like fun


I wonder too



I think Rose isn't as good as it could be, but to some extent it's better than I thought it would be. It's definitely not a patch on RTD's earlier work, but it had a very difficult job (e.g. introduce a new generation of kids to Doctor Who, introduce a new Doctor, a new companion and somehow keep the old fans happy as well). Altogether it seemed to achieve that. I wonder if there is a difference between fans of the series prior to the eighties (like you; Tom Baker) and fans like myself (eighties fan; Sylvester McCoy).

Try writing a note then throw it on the fire. As it wafts up the chimney, your dream may come true.


In my experience, there are differences between fans of any era! I can't imagine not watching the Hinchcliffe years as a child - any other era does not compute and I genuinely feel lucky to have those memories. That's why I'm so glad to share the series - in thirty years' time, adults will be looking back to those sunny Saturdays they spent with the Doctor and, say, Martha in the same way as I was thrilled by those dark, spooky times with the Doctor and Sarah. I do have nostalgic memories of the Seventh Doctor but I also had letters published in DWB - a notoriously anti-JNT fanzine...

I wonder if this will work for becomming a millionaire too.


I completely agree with you here, and it's the one thing we should definitely be grateful about (regardless of whether we like the current doctor/companion team or writer).

The difference for me is that people who startede with, for instance Sylvester McCoy and the stories of that time, probably didn't have the same expectations than those who had already seen other Doctors and other stories. When I watched the seventh Doctor, I was just thrilled about this strange man, and the aliens, and the feisty companion (I'm more of a Ace girl). I didn't necessarily know that there had been better stories or even better Doctors. Having watched many of the earlier episodes and series, I can see that people might have been disappointed with what Doctor Who had become during the 80's .

When Doctor Who returned with Rose, I didn't have really high expectations either, so that's why I really liked it (if that makes sense).

When the Who team constructed a London Underground set for The Web of Fear, they received a letter of complaint from London Underground because they believed the BBC had filmed down there without permission. I'd say that was amusing, yes, but not in the way you meant. Some of that stuff was amazing!

Also, Tony, as you probably know, someone thought the BBC really did blow up a church at the end of The Daemons, they wrote a letter in to complain about it!!!!

Yep-that was one very convincing model. For another set that looks absolutely perfect, look at the lighthouse in Horror of Fang Rock. And while others might disagree, I still think the Nerva Beacon set (particularly that curved walkway with the viewing portals looking onto space) is pretty good. More often than not, classic Who really made you believe in it.

You're right, the Fang Rock effect is passable, and I like the Nerva Beacon set as well. When I first ever watched The Ark In Space, it really did feel as if I was there. The only time it sort of went pear shaped in that manner was in Revenge Of The Cybermen when they were apparently travelling over the top of Voga, but it was just a spinny thing going round and round!!!

I think the low production standards Ireally stem from the 60's stories, mainly Hartnell's Era as I mentioned in a previous post. There's no doubt things improved as time went on but there's still the odd cringeworthy moment such as the big snake at the end of Kinda.

That comes in for some criticism from Hinchcliffe on the DVD. 'Too small' is the general concensus, I believe. I agree.
See, I don't see the sixties stories as having low production values at all-just very limited resources, which is not quite the same thing. Same with the seventies stuff. Hinchcliffe also mentions that on the Revenge DVD, the fact that people look back at this stuff now and sometimes see shoddy workmanship or lack of care because it doesnt look like what you'd get now, where, in fact, a huge effort was put in but they simply didn't have the resources or technology to do it any differently. He gets quite annoyed about it, I think. As he said, effects had to be done in real time as they were making the episode, more often than not-they had no post production. Yes, the rubber snake is an embarrassment, but given the problems they had to deal with (filming with the Myrka while the paint on it was still wet, for instance, as it was almost not completed in time due to problems), I think most of the time they did an amazing job. Could the modern day BBC with millions of pounds worth of sound technology have made the TARDIS dematerialization effect sound any better than Ron Grainer did by scraping his keys along some piano strings? I doubt it...

Yes, people do need to remember the time the show was made in and the as you say, the limited technology at their disposal. I've always said that most stories survive the years and can still be viewed today despite all that. Some like The Web Planet are more challenging, but on the whole, a lot of them stand up to viewing today quite well.

Off course, if Doctor Who goes on another fify years, people could look back at New Who now and have a chuckle about some of the effects we have now. Unlikely, but it's possible!!!

Hmm, let's see....dodgy CGI monster in The Lazarus Experiment, dodgy CGI monster in Vincent & the Doctor, CGI werewolf that looked like a refugee from one of the later Scooby Doo episodes in Tooth & Claw....

not that unlikely, i feel. Give me a decent model shot over ropey CGI any day.

I think your right...I do remember something like that too...I am sure Tony complained something about that we don't do that with classic series so why the new one...and I remember going off on a little experiment trying to abbrevaite Classic Who titles....that was fun!!!!


lol....



Indeed I love it...in fact I love that occasionaly about the new series too...wobbly sets are traditional!!!!


I think it will...people often do now....the SFX on Who still pales in coparison with American TV shows, and movies.... so yeah it will be a element of fun poking in the future too...

I do make the odd good point in the sea of nonsense and innuendo i create

Oh come on Tony, the CGI isn't that bad and compared to the spinny Voga thing on Revenge Of The Cybermen, there's no competition!!!





Well the way I see it, if you can enjoy the story and overlook the dodgy effects it is a good story. Sometimes that's not always possible. I refer back to The Chase again that it makes you really hard at points during the story to pass over what you see, esepcially with a Dalek in the cellar before a Dalek actually appears and a robot 'double' that is anything but!!!!

I love The Chase. It's a great little story, six episodes of enormous fun.

I do like it, but as I said, there's parts of the story that really me make cringe. That episode in the House Of Horror Museum is the worst one, not only because of the faults listed above but the screaming lady and the weird Frankenstein...

Want to guess which is my absolute favourite episode of the story? I'll give you a clue: there might just be a spooky old house in it...

Let me guess.....erm...*thinking*.....the one in the House Of Horrors?!!!!

Day 7 of my Doctor Who pilgrimage and I'm about to endure, "The Long Game".

I really don't understand the hate for "The Long Game"

It has a great "always question your sources" moral and Simon Pegg is excellent as The Editor, its a shame they killed him off, he would've made a fantastic returning nemesis...

The Coronation Street guy's sub plot isn't the best, though it was nice to see not everyone the Doctor bumps into is cut out for TARDIS travel, for once.
And it gave us another comedy refugee in Tamsen Greig and some more fun with what the people of the future get up to with their technology!

It didn't set the series on fire with its awesomness or anything, but I enjoyed it, and looking back there's enough groundwork laid for the season finale to stand repeated viewing

^^ This. I myself find The Long Game to be one of the weaker episodes of the first series, but only because the standard was set very high. The Editor did make a good villain, and could have been good enough for a one-off return. The episode stood well on its own, whilst also linking nicely with the finale. I think it was outshone by 'Dalek' before it, and that is where most of the unnecessary hatred comes from.

The episode links in well with the finale story arc but for me it's just one of those fillers. I don't think anyone would miss it if it was gone. There are other such episodes I enjoy more than this. Fear Her, the Idiot's Lantern but there's just something wrong about this one that I don't like.

I thought Chris's season was very good ,He was a moody sod but did a good turn also the victorian one was ace too, Rose at first was like Amy Pond but turned a right bore in series 2 ,4 ax

I think the show hit the ground running, and as I've said in other posts, I believe it had to as so many people were ready to snipe at it. It really had to be a good opener, and Rose was definitely that. In the longer picture, it's not an absolute classic, but it was so important in the context of the series, as I don't think NuWho was ever going to be given the chance to be a slow-burner.

There are some lovely moments in Rose, yes, the whole Auton / Nestene story was rather glossed over, but in a way that wasn't important - the story was almost incidental to the introduction of characters, and especially introducing who the Doctor was. But there are great setpieces, some great humour, and of course Chris and Billie acted their socks off from their first scenes.

EOTW would have been a fairly unmemorable story if the script had been made as classic Who, as I don't think the budget would have done it justice; here, it was a chance to show exactly what could be achieved, setting out the show's stall as the best-looking TV programme on British TV.

Unquiet Dead was very old-Who in feel, and definitely the best Mark Gatiss story so far.

The show stalled a little with the Slitheen 2-parter, which had some great moments (and obviously the iconic Big Ben destruction), but the 2nd part was, I thought, badly paced and anti-climactic, but then Dalek came along and the show was back on course.

So, to sum up, I think the show started on a high which then continued, so sorry to disagree with the OP, but that's my opinion

Have to say, that lighthouse was not IMO one of the model effects that stands out, the shot of it with the Rutan crawling up it is failry typical of the time - ie, yes, they did their best with budget and technology they had, but the finished product was not great. I think it's hard to justify the comment that in general the show made you believe. I could always suspend my disbelief because I was a kid, we hadn't seen the sort of effects we're used to now, and the scripts and creativity kind of pulled you through, but really, more often than not, especially viewed now, the effects are not that great.

There are exceptions of course, the Jagaroth spaceship in City of Death being one, the Daemons climax being another, Matt irvine and ian Scoones were undoubtedly masters of their art and must have been often infuriated by the lack of resources. However (and this kind of goes hand-in-hand with my comments about hartnell's acting in an earlier thread), it's all very well to make excuses, valid as they are, and look at the era they were being made in, however, in general the model effects in Dr Who were not great (monster design - now that's something different, the masks of John Friedlander being in general my favourite aliens of all time), and the worst effects in NuWho have not been worse than the average effects in classic who.

And to any comment about the monster in Vincent (which I thought worked perfectly well), just one word - MYRKA!!!!

Maybe then it's because I don't really like Dalek that I never had any issue with The Long Game. The only thing I'd say against it is that the ending seems a bit ropey, but then that was a set-up for Bad Wolf/Parting of the Ways.