My apologies for doing a Capaldi-Capaldi and starting another thread today and to Codename for starting a similar thread, hope you don't mind, but as has been suggested I thought a discussion on Black and White Doctor Who in general rather than individual stories(that's for the other thread) in particular was an interesting one.

So yes, I want to broach this subject as Black and White stories has been the source of much discussion lately. Do you think they get underrated because they have no CGI, not in colour and one of the Doctors involved William Hartnell is not the most popular of Doctors?

I think some Black and White stories stand up very well against anything that came later in the show. If anything the lack of special effects and colour actually works in some stories favour. I would put forward The Crusade, as mentioned in the other thread, plus a lot of Season 5 stories like The Tomb Of The Cybermen, The Web Of Fear as an example of this.

Then there is William Hartnell. I've read several comments in the last few days that people don't like his Doctor, could this be another factor? Or even, *gasp* Patrick Troughton's Doctor is maybe unpopular with some?

I think the best Doctor Who stories are those told with minimal effects and Sixties Who had so many of these. It was a time when the stories had to be good because they couldn't afford to use such major effects. Sometimes if failed but a lot of time good storytelling saw the show through and I do generally believe Sixties Who can be proud of what it achieved and can still stand up to viewing today and stand alongside it's more modern counterparts with all it's CSO and CGI in telling a good story.

So what do you guys think about Black and White Doctor Who. Is it underrated?

Well, not by me, it isn't!

Personally, Doctor Who has never been about the SFX, it's been about it's imagination, intelligence, humour...all there in abundance from day one.

When doing my own Doctors 'list' (love a list) I always tend to put Hartnell and Troughton as a tie; Troughton might have had the edge as an actor, but Hartnell created the role and made it so much more than it could have been. They're therefore both in my top 5.

Storywise, I think the Hartnell era was slightly more varied and ambitious so would say it is probably more underrated than the Troughton era.

If people don't absolutely love it then yes, it's underrated!

Another factor seen as negative may be the occasional dialogue fluffs (the unintentional ones), but for me they're a plus because they emphasise that the show was done like a live stage performance in those days, which adds a level of... maybe you'd call it excitement or tension.

And there's something about black and white which can create a more serious mood than colour. Possibly it's something to do with the fact that we don't see colours in the dark so black and white invokes darkness.

I agree that the Hartnell era was a bit more ambitious and experimental. They were really testing the limits of what the show could be, and the risk of a spectacular failure balanced the chance of a spectacular success. You might argue they wouldn't take such extreme risks again until Love and Monsters.

If I want to put on some classic Who for pure enjoyment and appreciation, my thoughts are never far from Hartnell.

That is something that I agree with. People moan that Black and White isn't as good as colour but as I said in another thread recently, films like Psycho actually thrive of a Black and White atmosphere because it creates this eerie effect and it's pretty much like that with Sixties Who as well. I don't think stories like The Web Of Fear or even the very first episode, An Unearthly Child, would have worked in colour.

That whole junkyard scene before The Doctor arrives is well creepy and the whole darkness thing you describe, it really works in this episode's favour.

I have to agree with earlier comments - I find that TV shows/movies filmed in B/W can often be far more atmospheric and spooky than colour stories. Tomb of the Cybermen is a great example - I was really surprised just how good this story was, and how amazing it was just to look at. But then, I was seven before we got our first colour TV so maybe I'm more comfortable with B/W anyway.

I do think, also, that those stories captured on b/w film are better quality than the bright and shiny colour video used in 70s/80s.

Being 18, I'd think it would be easier to convince friends of the same age to flush their smartphones down the toilet than to convince them to watch black and white Doctor Who.

I personally like a lot of the Black and White stories (pity a load of them are missing), but my friends just laugh at Classic Who in general, brushing it off as a rubbish joke which eventually led to the modern series.

That's exactly how I feel about much b&w Who.

It might seem like an obvious thing to say but Black and White era television was made with the intention of being seen in monochrome. The set design, the lighting, the costumes were all carefully designed and planned to work on a small black and white tv set. This is why, for instance, the TARDIS console was actually a pale green colour - on camera it came over as white but didn't cause the flaring that genuine white paint would have caused under the studio lights. This careful and considered use of differing colours that worked on B&W tv is the main reason why colourising old tv shows would be a Very Bad Idea - these shows weren't meant to be seen in colour at all. Ever.

To get back to Who, the moodiness of the tunnels in Web Of Fear is definitely enhanced but the shadowy monochrome images; as daveyboy said the Totter's Lane junkyard is a very spooky place in the first episode, precisely because there's no colour.

Look at the sewer scenes in Attack Of The Cybermen. Whilst those sequences in Attack are actually very atmospheric (and probably the most restrained of the story) they still don't have the same eeriness that very similar, but black and white, sequences in The Invasion have.

It's inevitable that older, black and white tv (and films too) will get overlooked and probably under-rated too. The world of tv marches ever onwards. But new doesn't always equal better. In the field of music we have a whole generation who have grown up on nasty compressed MP3 files, people who are content to listen to really great music on tinny computer speakers - these people are only hearing a fraction of the actual recorded sound yet because it's convenient and quick it's assumed to be somehow better.

It's a similar situation with black and white v colour or even regular DVD v blu-ray. Just because things have moved on it doesn't automatically mean that older films or tv or music is any worse. It's just different, we simply need to sit back and enjoy a 1960s tv show in a different way to how we'd sit back enjoy a CGI heavy motion captured film.

Personally I love older films and TV as, for one thing, it allows me to relax more. I recently watched the latest Star Trek film on DVD with my daughter. We loved it, really great fun, but I was actually exhausted at the end of it as there was no respite from noise and action and swooping astonishing CGI. The next weekend we watched the recent DVD restoration of Metropolis and we both loved that too, but I wasn't worn out by it. The slower pacing and calmer camerawork beckoned the viewer in, whereas the frantic editing and death defying camerawork of Into Darkness makes it hard to get involved, or rather to be involved in the film you feel like you're running a marathon just to keep up.

I'm probably getting off topic now.

Anyway, the B&W Doctor Whos are,
a) usually pretty good, and they are
b) always well worth watching.

To be honest, I have watched at least one or more stories of all the doctor's from pertwee onward's, but none of the first two doctor's and it actually has nothing to do with the black and white or effect's, as these thing's don't make a difference to me, it's just that hartnell and troughton seem so miserable from clip's I've seen and their part in the five doctor's(and yes I know it wasn't actually hartnell in the five doctor's but hurndall was playing the first doctor nevertheless).

Well this is a first! The Second Doctor, miserable?!!!! Doh!

I don't see how you can judge any Doctor from a few clips, the same as you can't judge any story from it's trailer. You really need to watch a first and second Doctor story in full before making such judgements.

Hartnell, he wasn't always miserable, he could be quite funny. I'd suggest straight away you watch The Romans where he put in one of most hilarious performances of his entire Era though it was quite atypical.

As for Troughton, just watch any Second Doctor story and you'll realise he was actually a quite comical Doctor, certainly cheerier than Hartnell and then you'll see he isn't really a miserable Doctor at all!!!!

I'm quite jealous...when you watch their stories you'll see that Troughton is positively impish and Hartnell goes from anti-hero to utterly delightful within a year or so. Honestly, miserable they ain't.

(I apologise for the grammar and possibly sounding a bit patronising; I've been there. Didn't bother with the Hartnell era for a while after becoming a fan even when the stories were available to me. When I got around to them, I was a convert in no time. )

I know I should try to watch some of their stories, and I mean to, I was just trying to say what has put me off so far. When I get the chance to watch classic who it's like 'hmm, well I could try those doctor's I don't know if i'll like, or I could just watch another story of tom baker, or one of the other doctor's I already know I like'. No excuse I know and I will get around to it sometime just haven't done yet. My main point of my original post was that it isn't the lack of colour or effect's that put's me off, which could well be the case for others.

I knew that's what you were saying and I did point out at the top a resistance to the first two Doctors could have been a reason for people not to watch Sixties Who.

It just surprised me someone called Troughton's Doctor miserable. It's almost the same as calling Tennant Miserable or Colin Baker's Doctor as an easy going, happy go lucky chappy. It just seemed so incredulous to call him that!

I love watching the black and white episodes. Yes they may not be so fast paced as modern Who but they are extremely atmospheric. Just watched web of fear and it is brilliant. So dark and creepy and the character of the welsh soldier who is a driver is brilliant. So funny. He would have been a fantastic companion.

The first two Doctor's are absolutely brilliant and despite the lack of budget and occasional blooper the stories are still essentially just as good as the Pertwee and T.Baker era.

Personally I would LOVE to see full colourised episodes of the 60's Doctors, just to look at it from a different perspective. I love the colourised Laurel and Hardy movies, it just seems to give it such a different feel, as someone mentioned previously they were not MEANT to be seen in colour but it's still very interesting to see them like that.

Imagine The Web Of Fear in colour or - shudder - 3D. It wouldn't be half as effective. Some things are far better in black and white.

Yep, the remake of Psycho not that many years back, just not the same. Aside from the fact no-one could match Anthony Perkins as Norman Bates, it lost that creepy feel the black and white version gave it.


They are just as good as anything in the 80's and New Who as well. In a lot of cases, much, much better.

Indeed!

Would still love to see them coloursied though, purely for the novelty value. Some of the clips on YouTube of the attempts at this are VERY impressive.

Totally agree though that some of the atmosphere of the B&W feel would be lost.

Well, here are two videos of the TARDIS in my garden - one colour and one black-and-white. I must admit, I kind of favour the B/W clip.

Colour

Black-and-White

The 60s era of the show is by far my favourite. But then since I saw the series from Unearthly Child onwards it is perhaps not so surprising. Although I do enjoy a lot of modern TV I have to say that most of my favourite shows come from the 1960s. The programmes then were very atmospheric and interesting.

Maybe turn off the colour and watch a new who episode. I wonder how different it would feel. Might give that a go.

Sod 3D - it would be very cool if they did a 'film noir' episode in B/W. Maybe a planet where colour can't be seen!

As I say, the impression was mainly based on clips, so Im not really that informed. I have 'the mind robber' for troughton and 'the aztecs' for hartnell currently available to me to watch, are these stories which show these doctor's in a good light?

The strangest thing is how fresh and new the 60s episodes seem even though they are over 40 years old.
Some of the pertwee era seems a little more dated that some of the 60s tbh.

As I said to you before, any Troughton story will show him in a good light so The Mind Robber is okay.

As for Hartnell, yes, that's a good choice. There are some funny moments in that between The Doctor and Ian and it shows him in a softer light as well, especially in his scenes with Camecca.

Okay thanks, I shall endeavour to give them a try