Previous Topics:
First

Now for the second edition: The Second Doctor. Same rules apply that were established in the first topic, what about the Second Doctor's era, from "The Power of the Daleks" to "The War Games" would you improve?

For them not to have wiped a bunch of the episodes.

Victoria could have been a little bit more interesting as opposed to "screaming whiny girl". Look at Zoe and her intelligence which she uses in her stories.

Now, this is an era that developed a clear dysfunctionality centred upon poor communication between the writers and the production team. Stories would keep getting sent back to the writers for revision after revision until it became evident that they were running out of time and/or the story just couldn't be done, and inferior stories would have to be substituted at the (erm) eleventh hour. This was particularly a problem in season 6.

The leadership should have worked more closely and collaboratively with the writers. That would have prevented disasters like The Space Pirates.

More of Zoe in that catsuit......

I think a lot of the issues needing correcting in this Era were mainly behind the scenes ones as CHJ has said.

Series 4 on Troughton's part of it didn't need too much changing. Maybe The Underwater Menace and The Macra Terror need a bit of beefing up and off course, I'd have loved Ben and Polly to have a better send off than they did and be a bigger part of The Faceless Ones. Samantha Briggs I'd love to have seen as a companion but Victoria is still good in her own right.

Season 5 is a great Season, one of the best ever, can't see anything need changing, just everything was superb about it. Perhaps Fury From The Deep needs a bit of a kick up the ass as the audio version and the telesnaps are a bit monotonous at times.

Season 6, where do you start?

The Dominators, too long. Would have been better as a four parter like it was and The Mind Robber, maybe it could have been a six parter, there's no doubt in my mind they could have written it a such with the time and the right budget.

The Invasion, that would be okay as it is. The Krotons. Definitely would replace the monsters as seen with something a bit more mobile. You feel a quick sprint would be enough to get you out of range. And stop Beta popping up in two places at once! That would have to be resolved as well!

The Seeds Of Death works fine but the end of the Season, how would I have liked it? The Space Pirates cut down to 4 episodes and the Doctor and co turning up within 5 minutes rather than 15 as in the first episodes at the mo. I'd inject more pace, and have The Doctor interact with Hermack and co a little more to give the story some variation.

Then there'd have to be another story between this to fill the gap before The War Games and that story itself cut down to Six episodes max, thus cutting out all the padding.

And best of all, I'd dump the friggin exile scenario and have the Second Doctor actually seen regenerating into the Third and then have him go on his merry way in the TARDIS. Then have him come down to do occasional missions for UNIT rather than having story after friggin story set there.

And yes, definitely more of Zoe in a catsuit. Should have been her one and only costume.....

The Troughton era had far more humour then the Hartnell era, which was good.

Said on t'other thread that I love Sixties Who, but as far as the Troughton era goes, I wouldn't have had quite so many 'base under siege' stories. Some of them worked well, of course, but by the time I get to The Wheel in Space it just feels very formulaic. Also think it's a shame that the historicals were phased out. It's why, although Troughton is of course fantastic, I prefer the Hartnell era. It just seems to have more range and scope and verve.

Sadly, as Deborah Watling is very nice (met her years ago; she's lovely. Tiny and lovely.) I really find Victoria hard work. Constantly on the verge of nervous collapse in a lot of her stories, which doesn't half get wearing.

Oh, and I would've rejected The Dominators straight away. One of the few Sixties stories I actively dislike.

This is, of course, the only possible way this era could be improved in my eyes. The Troughton era is the perfect Doctor Who era in every other respect

I too think of its time it could not be improved apart from the space pirates of course. Some towering classics in the era. Tomb, web, power, evil, macra, war games. Such a tragedy so many episodes are currently missing.

My favourite Classic Doctor.

Cannot fault it at all really. Plenty of good monsters, including long-standing favourites like the Daleks & Cybermen, introduced the Ice Warriors and the Yeti.
The Tardis was in a lot of stories (ie:the interior), and he had some good companions to boot!
Lots of humour, action and sometimes melodrama.
OK, some were tacky (The Dominators?) but all of Doctor Who has some little 'skeletons in the closet' !
My gripe would be that the BBC wiped most of Patrick's stories!

Having this era fresh in my memory, in general I can only really nit pick on some of the stories and some of the production values on others.

The companions:
Ben and Polly's send off could have been improved, well actually given one would be a start.
Victoria, she is okay in the main, but I was glad she was replaced by Zoe really. I would have written her better, they could have given her better roles in one or two of the stories and some better dialogue.
Zoe, nothing to complain about here at all, there is a lot of love of the catsuit already. But Zoe's outfit in The Krotons, very short skirt is worthy of my admiration also!
Jamie, I acknowledge him as my favourite Second Doctor era companion. Happy with him, but as a suggestion maybe we could have seen more of a development in his character, as a historical character seeing all these wonders in the universe and all the future advances. I think they may have been room to give him some development in this area, of him taking it on board a bit more. Still having said that I am more than happy with his time and journey alongside the Second Doctor.

The stories:
The Moonbase, nit picking here, but just a touch more humour in this serious story and I would upgrade it to almost as good as The Tomb of the Cybermen,
The Tomb of the Cybermen. Nothing plot wise, couple of production errors only.
The Ice Warriors, like it's later Ice Warriors cousin The Seeds of Death, two solid stories with good ideas and themes. Nothing really suggests itself, if anything some of the characters in The Seeds of Death are less memorable and engaging than in The Ice Warriors.
The Enemy of the World and The Web of Fear again nothing obvious. Just more of the Cook in Enemy and wish we had seen Tobias Vaughn in Doctor Who again, up against Jon Pertwee or Tom Baker.
The Dominators needs an episode taken off it and written more tightly, Quarks repaced or better realised surely.
The Mind Robber suffers in my eyes any way, of episode one being blindingly good and the rest is a bit flat. More variation in how the dangers of the realm they find themselves in are conquered by the TARDIS team.
The Invasion I wouldn't touch anything.
The Krotons has a base good idea of slavery, but I would dump everything else, especially those awful Krotons. Maybe a Dalek story instead, I could envisage two of three desperate Daleks manipulating a race like this for example.
The War Games, nit picking again but chop it down to at least eight parts and have a bit more of the Time Lords in the penultimate part, as I loved them in this.

Feel sorry for Victoria, she has this reputation but she does also have her good points not really built on, she shows signs of progression in the Tomb of the Cybermen then by The Ice Warriors they just write her as a screaming damsel in distress!


Well said. Agree 100%


Season 5 is in my top three. Marvellous season.

I'd have Zoe's costume in The Krotons as a nice backup as well


The Krotons and The Space Pirates apart, nice to see some love for Patrick Troughton's era.

He is in The Invasion of course! not The Web of Fear .

Decided to add my own opinions.

Ben and Polly needed a better farewell, especially since they were absent for most of their last story. Too many Base Under Siege stories during Season 5. And of course not burning almost every story since many of the stories don't hold up on audio alone, I often found it difficult to know what was really going on because it focused too much on action rather than talking.

I would have quite liked them to keep the historicals, if only once per season. But for all I know the production team were right about them being unpopular. In summary: I don't really presume to think I could improve Doctor Who :P