I am interested in how you thought the series had progressed back in the original days. It is taken as read that SMc era was largely pants. So, for example did any of you think at maybe, 3rd/4th doctor that this is all pretty rubbish now/not what it used to be etc?

Hope this makes sense!

Some of the worst episodes in past 40plus years I have watched were written by RTD , while some of the best were written by Moffatt- just so you don't think I hate all new stuff.
The strength of Dr Who has been stories and the imagination, that is same today as it was back in 63 good idea well written good episode poor story or poorly written bad episode.

It's rather difficult to make a consistent assessment of something that you started watching at the age of six and continue to watch into your fifties.

For one thing, when I was six it seemed that time travel would be something that we would be able to develop quite soon. After all, in the previous 30 years we'd seen the invention of radar, jet engines, satellites, space travel, sonar, electronic computers and transistors so this wasn't too far fetched, especially to the young.

I continued to watch until the SMcC versions and it seemed to maintain a consistent story quality although the technical quality obviously improved.

The resurrection is clearly a much more highly budgeted affair.

I think the main difference is that todays audiences are so used to seeing big flashy space operas both on TV and at the cinema. back when Dr Who was first broadcast there really was nothing like it on television. Sure we had the Quatermass serials but they were pretty low key affairs, although well written. It wasn't untill Dr Who came along that there was suddenly something totally different being shown. Having watched the show through all incarnations of Doctors, it is fair to say that each has had his fair share of poor stories. Some of the long early Hartnell stories were padded out for far too many episodes, same goes for some Troughton ones as well. Moving into colour it was over ambitious effects that let one or two Pertwee stories down, who can forget the awfull dinosaurs from Invasion of the dinosaurs ? T Bakers era was fairly consistent although most fans would agree that he perhaps stayed a year or two too long. For me the clunkers in Davisons time were Four to Doomsday and Warriors from the deep both fairly awfull stories with poor effects. poor old C Baker wasnt with us for very long but of his worst stories Timelash and Trial of a Timelord stand out. I never really took to S McCoy as the Doctor, I just couldnt get away with his accent ( I know I know thats no excuse for not liking him) of the stories I did watch I though Dragonfire was just stupid but quite liked one or two of his later stories. His Dalek one was brilliant. Of the RTD era I must admit I enjoyed most of those stories with perhaps one or two exceptions Love & Monsters, Fear Her for example. Its too soon for me to pass judgment on the Moffatt era and I fail to see the point in comparing the two men (RTD & SM) as they have a different style of writting, what I will never forget is that if it hadn't been for RTD then Dr Who would probably never returned.

I think the main differences are the episode length, speed of plot development and special effects. Episodes were 25-30 minutes and a story developed over several episodes with a cliffhanger once or twice an episode. Plot lines were generally simpler but it allowed more character development for minor characters. By modern standards the special effects are risable, but when watched on a low quality small screen, probably b&w they were passable.

I recently watched some episodes from the 60's and 70's that I loved as a kid - and they were terrible. What I don't understand is why the BBC changed them - they must have cos they were good when I first saw them and they're not now.

Seriously, give me a Tardis and let me show my younger self episodes from every era of Doctor Who side by side and each for the first time and I'll give you an honest answer. Without that, the best I can say is that Doctor Who was great when I was a kid and it's great now. If that's because the way it's written and made has changed - I'm all for it.

I think you were in the perfect age group. At the age of twelve, you were nearing the end of JPs era and also at the age where most 12/13 year olds would be thinking that the programme just isn't cool anymore (or whatever the term was back in the days of yore ( sorry couldn;t resist!). Was there a time when you thought, that this isn't good anymore. I ask this because for my age group (early 40s) that particular time was when we started out and thought the programme was the best.

Just curious

By the way, this isn't a Classic v Nu Who thread. I'm really just wondering if anyone considered giving up Who back in the 60s or 70s.

I'll add my point of view, I'm in my late 30s. I watched pretty much every epi of DW that aired in the States back in the 70s and 80s (reruns, of course). At the time, it was my elder sister who was the fan, and I watched cause she did. Oh, and cause we only had 3 channels and no cable lol. Eventually, I got interested as well, but never quite as much as she did.

To that end, I've recently re-watched many of the early episodes. And the poster above was very correct...you simply cannot compare what was "cool" at the age of 7 or 10 to what's "cool" now. At the time, I really didn't notice the (lack of) special effects. I mean, it was par for the course back then, wasn't it? Now, they're cringe-worthy.

But the biggest difference (IMO) is the pace of the stories. The early ones were very slow-paced. Very. Whereas today the stories move along so quickly you almost need to watch more than once to catch everything. (I lived in the UK for 10 years, so it's not an accent issue, although it is for some of my friends.) I imagine that says a lot about our society, and the changes it has undergone in the last 30-40 years. Life was slower-paced then, and people didn't expect "instant gratification" as they do now.

That being said, at the time (and for their time) they were ground-breaking. But I much prefer the newer series. Don't hate me.

I think my OP has been misunderstood. I'm not looking to compare Classic with Nu Who, thats been done to death on here. See second to last post above.

Watched them all (from 1st episode), loved them all - only missed a few from necessity (work, etc, no recording devices in those days).

Only episodes I remember saying at the time I didn't like were the Trial of a Timelord ones.

I liked the Seventh Doctor as much as any other.

I loved the Eighth Doctor in the movie.

Wasn't keen on some of series 1 of New Who, fell in love with the Tenth Doctor, wasn't so happy with series 5, am loving series 6 so far. Think Matt is amazingly good.

I've not watched from the beginning - more from the late 70s and remember it being compulsive viewing every Saturday night. At the age of 6 I loved the stories and the elements of fantasy and being just a bit scared of the Daleks and Cybermen to name a few (well more than a bit scared to be honest!).

Tom Baker was my doctor and I loved him - begged my mum to knit me a scarf THAT long but she never would! Carried on watching through Peter Davidson and Colin Baker but then my dad lost interest and I suppose I did at the time too.

I don't really remember much about the story content and whether it was good or bad - guess it must have been good because I do have fond memories but not of specific episodes, although I do have favourite characters with Sarah-Jane and K9 being the best. I so wanted to be Sarah-Jane Smith - well either her or Wonder Woman!!

Like other posters have said at the time they were great episodes but looking back at them now the special effects and sets seem somewhat cringe worthy but as a 6 year old they were amazing!

I have loved the return of Dr Who and loved David Tennant and am slowly warming to Matt Smith. I have no favourites between RTD and SM thinking that they have both done great episodes and avaerage episodes. I loved Blink; the little boy in the gas mask (don't know what the episode was called) and many others.

All in all I loved Dr Who in the 70s and some of the 80s and am now loving it again in the 2000s - once again its compulsive Saturday night viewing and again in the week watching with the children on Sky+ providing of course its not TOO scary

You seem to forget there were only 3 channels then, and not everyone could get BBC2, so you couldn't really "give up" on it as there wasn't an alternative (maybe wrestling on ITV). You couldn't even go out and play football in the street because all the other kids were watching dr Who.

Remembrance of the Daleks
The Greatest Show in the Galaxy
Ghost Light
The Curse of Fenric
Survival

Says who?

Thats true

Time and the Rani
Happiness Patrol
Paradise Towers
Dragonfire
Delta and the Bannermen

Says many!

Edit: Forgot Silver Nemesis

Not then, never. The only time I gave up was when I was working shifts including some Saturdays but not all, which meant missing two out of three or something, coinciding with C Baker and McCoy, and then they moved it to week nights when I was working. No VCRS then ( at least not for me) and it sort of tailed off. I regret missing the ones I did miss but that was life, you either saw it, you didn't, or you hoped you would if they repeated it one day.


Not only watching it but playing Daleks in the street of the playground! The impact they made was amazing.

Anyway, as smudges dad said, early on there were only the three channels, it was black & white for a long time - I only got colour TV in 1972 - and because there were no repeats you had to concentrate far more than now when you know you can see them as often as you like. Watching some of them on video for the first time after 30 or 40 years it's amazing how much you can remember. Some stories were not that good, others were fantastic, quite a few were pretty standard, it was the Doctor and the companions who made it for me, and how they handled the 'crisis of the week'.The sets and special effects may have been crap by today's standards but you used your imagination and suspended disbelief. I've rarely seen anything more unsettling than the Autons in the shop windows or the Yeti in the Underground even though we all knew the Yeti were blokes in furry suits. The Apollo and Soyuz flights and the moon landings were going on as well, space was 'real' and there was a huge amount of interest in it, and the Doctor was a kind of extension of that.

I've forgotten the original question...

As has already been said; loved the early ones, love the ones now. However, I did fall out of love with the show in between. I didn't watch all of Tom Baker's and then very few after him until Dr Who came back again.
I put it down to 3 things:
1. My age - girls were more fun on a Saturday night than a Cyberman. Why has that changed back again?
2. The quality of the Doctor himself went down the nick.
3. Production values were shot to pieces. Wobbly scenery, fine aged 5, became a distraction aged 16. And at that point TV was trying to compete in terms of special effects with the like of Star Wars and Close Encounters. It was a losing struggle.

I am the same age as Lis Sladen, she and I have never aged

I have never considered giving up watching the programme

I still watch with closed eyes momentarily sometimes - just like when watching The Hand of Fear on BBC4 - but not from behind the sofa or behind the door nowadays

All the eras have their bad stories.

I agree, but without going off topic, I was simply responding to previous post

I love most eras of Dr Who. I seem to remember The Sea Devils as being my introduction. I caught up on the episodes I missed via the available vids etc and love Patrick Troughton's Dr

I felt let down by the SMc era, I felt the stories were weak and the supporting cast poor in most of the episodes. It did have its good points (as mentioned in this thread) but I did feel that it was going in a direction that I wasn't interested in, mind you I was 21 when he took over, so I have felt that it was being aimed at a younger audience .....does that make sense?

For me (and my opinion ONLY!):

Hartnell : Great stories, but over-padded
Troughton : Great stories, good actors.
Pertwee : Great stories but over-ambitious in parts, great Doctor.
Baker : Some cracking stories, and the poor ones were well covered-up by Tom's performance (though he stayed too long)
Davidson : Some good stories, but overall letdown by a very bland actor.
Baker : Whole era for me was poor, Baker did what he could, but let down by the powers within the BBC
McCoy : Dreadful. Despite SMc's genuine best efforts his era was just the nail in the coffin.

How very dare you

I think that the person who made the point that there had been nothing quite like it in 1963 hit the nail on the head. I was a month short of my 14th birthday when the first episode went out and I was hooked from the outset. It was groundbreaking stuff, even if it does look rather naff by modern standards. Don't forget that we have had Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter etc etc. since then and have become quite used to seeing fantastic special effects on multi-million dollar budgets.

I thought the series gradually improved during the Hartnell / Troughton era, but went a little bit backwards under Jon Pertwee. That long stretch where he was stranded on earth looked very tired and in need of a shot in the arm. That came with the arrival of Tom Baker and his tenure was comfortably the best of the so-called 'Classic Who' period.

That brought its own problem, however. How do you follow an icon like Tom Baker? Peter Davison did his best, but his Doctor never commanded the same sort of authority. Things went progressively downhill after that. I just remember Colin Baker as being very grumpy all the time and, by the time that Sylvester McCoy took up the reins, it was on its last legs. I stopped watching before the end.

I was surprised when the Beeb revived it and expected yet more of the same - but how wrong was I? Now that it has the sort of budget that it really needs (for the first time in its entire history) and Auntie can afford decent special effects, it has to go down as the greatest reboot in television history. Russell T. Davies has taken a fair amount of stick in these forums for his writing, but he is the man who revived it and turned it into the success it is now. I think, however, that his greatest achievement was bringing in Steven Moffatt as a writer. I wouldn't like to choose between the three Doctors we have had so far. I like them all, although Christopher Eccleston is, perhaps, disadvantaged by doing only one series. Ditto the companions. The only one who didn't really cut the mustard for me was Martha, and she was okay.

Suffice it to say that I keep a slot of every Saturday evening clear to watch it.