I have just watched The War Machines and really enjoyed it. Although “my doctor” was TB, I am finding that I like the WH & PT stories the best. I make this comparison on the back of having all the Classic DVD’s that are available and not over all the classic stories.

It would be nice if they release the rest of the B&W stories that are complete ASAP.

I liked The War machines and also alot of the early Hartnell stuff - Daleks, The Aztecs. The Edge of Destruction two-parter was especially great imo - and strange that over 30 years on nothing like it has been tried again.

But some of the Hartnell stories after Barbara and ian left were not so good imo. I liked Ben and Polly but they were only in it a story.

Too much of Troughton's stuff got destroyed for me to have any real sense of his time, so I was never as engaged with his stories as I was with all the other Doctor's.

I love the black and white Hartnell and Troughton episodes, it's a shame they never carried on with the animation of missing episodes that they started with 'The Invasion', as I thought that worked really well.

Now that would be good

Don't they (the BBC) have the audio for all Doctor Who if so we could then have all DW ever made

It would be nice yes, but it takes a lot of work to restore these old episodes, just look at the work needed for War Machines in the extras, clips used from different sources with varying quality. Outstanding work from the restoration team. So it is forgivable that the old B+W episodes take that little extra time coming out.

As for The War Machines, very good until the final episodes when all grasp of reality goes out of the window, are there only 7 men in the English Army, no tanks, no bombs? A pretty awful conclusion.

But there were some wonderful moments in the previous episodes and some really nice pieces of direction, the start of episode two where the soldiers run behind the Doctor as he takes a few steps forward towards the robot, all with a lovely little move in from the camera.

But it also suffers from the 'classic' Who problem of a unbelievably flawed monster/robot designed to take over the world but in realty couldn't take over a slug.

But a nice little addition to the collection.

Wouldn't that be brilliant, having all the DVD's of every episode lined up on the shelf (have to be a VERY big shelf though!!)

We can but dream.....

It is the expense - The Invasion was more or less a freebe as Cosgrove Hall volunteered it as an experiment. Unfortuantely the rest need to be paid for and while Dr Who DVD's may sell, it is not enough to justify this sort of expense.

I have bought a Windows Home Server and just gone through the process of ripping my DW DVDs to that and it is great having folders by Doctor. To play a DVD, I just double click on the file and it automatically loads into the DVD playing software and I can watch it on the TV via my Media Centre PC.

It saves having to find the actual DVD although it does take up a lot of space on the hard disc.

A good point, but I bet that what ever the cost was then, it has now come down, and as all things techno in the film/tv world it will get cheaper and cheaper. There must come a time when it will be come cost effective.

And do you know what I say,

BRING IT ON

Ian Levine apparently went to them with a proposal to do Power of the Daleks, he claimed he could make the numbers work, but they rejected it.

He stated to do more episodes the same way as the invasion would cost £60k an episode which couldn't work, given the dvd sales.

Source: http://www.doctorwhoforum.com/showth...=192539&page=2

Bought my War Machines today. My favourite Hartnell story!

I am listening to Marco Polo soundtrack at the moment, and loving it. There's real excitment and awe in some of the Hartnell stuff. Such a shame it will never reach a wider audience.

chuffnobbler,

Never say never, WHO knows what may happen in the future.

Well, that's it - I'm going to buy the "War Machines" this weekend. I've a few of Hartnell's DVD's including the 'Beginning' box set. I reckon this one sounds worth watching. Strange, because although I was a wee lad in the sixties and watched them all - I cannot remember this one.

personally i think "the time meddler" is one of hartnells best stories, but i also do really love the aztecs. i also like the troughton ones but like somebody has already said, so many are missing it's hard to get an accurate portrayal

They don't make anymore animated episodes like stated due to cost, which is a shame, though i think, what with only 1 episode missing, and with it being *THE* story fans most want to see complete, surely animating the final episode of the final Hartnell story "The Tenth Planet" allowing for a dvd release at long last would more then recoup the cost of making it.

One problem you have now is, the bbc seem to be saying "yeah just release a trickle of dvds of the old show just to stop the fans moaning.... but don't really push advertising or anything, focus on the new shows

but frankly i feel the new shows are missing something that the older shows have... charm

With all the provisos above about the missing Troughtons, my favourite would have to be Tomb Of The Cyberman. THE classic Cyberman story IMHO. So simple, yet so effective. And creepy. And claustrophobic.

All good points but especially the "yeah just release a trickle of dvds of the old show just to stop the fans moaning". I appreciate the complexity/time consuming of getting whatever is left of the B&W stories out on DVD. A bit more effort would be nice for us fans.

As I have said before, the cost of animating episodes will surely come down in the future, hopefully the near and not the distant future.

What really gets me is how they never release any of the DVDs in chronological order. Granted, I'm not saying that they should have started with An Unearthly Child and ended with Survival, and I know they wanted to get some of the classics out of the door, but a few complete series would be nice. As someone relatively new to Classic Who it really irritates me that I can't watch it how it was meant to be viewed, as a series.

I know I'm going slightly off-topic (sorry OP) , but recently I did a run where I watched all of the stories between Robot and Genesis of the Daleks (yet they haven't released the last story ). I got so much more enjoyment out of watching it in this way than I did watching, say, Pyramids of Mars, out of context.

The same applies to the New Beginnings box set (to steer it slightly back on track). I loved watching from An Unearthly Child all the way through to the half-hour reconstruction of Marco Polo. It felt just like I was watching a series of New Who. It might be because the character development was so much better than anything else I've seen between then and 2005, but I actually enjoyed seeing the mechanic change throughout the 3 (and a bit) stories. I just wish I could do that kind of thing with, say, Pertwee or Davison's first series.

I watched the Marco Polo reconstruction last night. Lovely. A shame it leaves out the Cave of Five Hundred Eyes sequence, but there's a lot to squidge into thirty minutes. It gave a nice flavour of the story.

I also watched The Origins of DW documentary, on Edge of Destruction DVD. What an amazing piece of work! All those original documents, reflections from people who were there at the beginning ... fascinating ...

It's not a trivial task.

i quite liked the seeds of death, v good story

its a shame the ice warriors weren't used more than the 2 troughton stories and the 2 set on peladon

I love Tomb of the Cybermen and Invasion the best of the B/W's, followed by The Aztecs and The War Machines

seeds of death
tomb of the cybermen
invasion

in that order....

not that billy hartnell wasn't a brilliant doctor but pat troughton wass just magical and in these 3 stories you see all the reasons why.

Completely agree, you cant go far wrong with those three titles.

Although I am getting slightly giddy about the upcoming War Games release, that will be that weekend sorted when it arrives .

Although not a full story I recommend the Lost in Time set. 3 discs of brilliant eps from the B&W era.

I had a great time watching them late at night in uni and you really realise how great some of the lost stories must have been, especially the Troughton ones. As someone said, he is just magical.

One episode that stood out was from the enemy of the world. Looks very good.

I find it refreshing to see that some of the younger (I hope) fans. As well as the fans of the newer DW stories, taking the time to watch some of the older and BW episodes.

At the beginnig, all I saw was (most of) the fans of PM, CE, and DT do nothing but critisize the earlier DW stories.

I'll even admit that some of the earlier stories were chessy But even a lot of the FX that everyone is used to today were started on some of the early DW stories.