The Boring Old Classics

[cosmichobo]

G'day,

As we know, Doctor Who started in 1963 in b&w, as a 1/2 hour weekly serial. Like most/all tv of that era, it was typically shot "as live", with as little editing as possible, and rather theatrical.

And to a modern audience, used to faster paced story-telling, in colour (and even HD now!), with quicker editing and more camera angles and... it's easy to understand why people would call the show boring...

Great compilation, cosmichobo. I recently watched the first year of the original Doctor Who. It wasn't awful, but it was sometimes quite boring, and only occasionally gripping. I'd like absorb the history of Doctor Who without watching 26 years of episodes. So, thanks again.

(I'm not trying to vilify you, Brother Freyr!)

Even when I started watching the b&w era on video in the 90s, they were very dated... And, I'll readily admit, I myself rarely pop a Hartnell on... And even the magical Trout has eps/stories I don't watch regularly...

So, for the sake of those who really do struggle but want to try... here's a list of eps from the first 3 Doctors that I think are worth watching, as well as being fairly watchable...

An Unearthly Child (part 1/first bit of part 2)
The Daleks (ok, or watch the Cushing version like my son does)
The Keys of Marinus (6 mini-sodes to sample)
The Romans (light and tangy)

Tomb of the Cybermen (just don't look at the strings)
The Mind Robber (arguably the best of its entire era)
The War Games (but, watch it 1-2 eps per week...)

Terror of the Autons
Day of the Daleks
The Three Doctors
The Time Warrior

By Tom's era, I think most stories are modern enough to enjoy without rose colored glasses... Though there's a few best left alone...

Any others, anyone?

Cheers
cosmic

[The Flyattractor]

yes. To this new world of Sugar Hyped ADD riddled mindset of tv nowadays. Those old take your time story telling techniques don't carry over very well.

[richardf]

So for those of you who have seen lots of the classic stories as well as the modern ones, are there any of the old stories you would like to see remade, either with a future regen or with the original regen recast? I feel that there must be stories that were too drawn out in the classic format and would have been better suited to the modern format.

Then there's the production values, are there any classic stories you would love to see remade with modern production techniques like a modern episode.?

Conversely I wonder if there are any 'modern' stories that might have been better presented under the classic format, or even with classic era production values/techniques?

Any thoughts?

[The Flyattractor]

William Hartnell. The Celestial Toymaker.
Patrick Troughton. The Underwater Menace
Jon Pertwee. The Curse of Peladon
Tom Baker. The Sunmakers
Peter Davidson. The Visitation
Colin Baker. Timelash
Sylvester McCoy. The Happiness Patrol.

[cosmichobo]

Like many, I often feel that the new era stories are too rushed... So having more 2 parters would be great - except that the 2 parters we have had often feel very poorly concluded anyway...

As for remaking a Classic story - no way. Revisiting it however, I'd be happy with. Just as Pertwee revisited Peladon (Curse, then Monster), but it was a generation later... with basically a familiar setting yet new players... would be an interesting approach. Frankly, Cold War would have been great if it was set around the time of the original Ice Warriors, and the Ice Warrior was identified as being another of the original crew that had become seperated... We could have got a cross-over that some of us were keen on seeing... Would have been much more enjoyable than the flashes of old Who in Name of...

When you talk of production values... my mind went to Caves of Androzani. Letting that story down, was a really bad monster, a few bluescreen/matte shots, and... little else. Some of the matte shots were corrected for the DVD release (the horizon in the opening shots of Androzani Minor originally wobbled), though we still had a pretty bad bluescreen of the President falling down a lift shaft, and the dodgy Magma Beast... Frankly I think both could easily be redone, just like they recreated the Mara for Snakedance's DVD, rather than trying to remake one of WHO's best ever stories.

Oh ok - if we hadn't already had The Hungry Earth - Warriors of the Deep could be remade. It was crap, because of bad acting, bad CGI (early CGI... ye-ouch), really bad monsters (all of them - Sea Devils, Silurians, and the Makra), and a poorly written script. All that aside - it could have been a great base-under-seige story, with some espionage thriller added on the side.

[The Flyattractor]

Yeah. I agree. My picks were mainly for some horrible cheesey effects. Like how nice it would have been if the Beast of Peladon hand't been a guiy in a overzieds Alf costume... Or less embarasing fish creatures from the Underwater menace. Or stories like Sunmakers and Happiness getting better backgrounds that didn't look like cheap cardboard or bbc tv center back room corridors.

[Angela V]

Hmmm... interesting. My 13 year old son has watched some older DW with me since he's a huge fan of the new DW and asked me. He loves them just as much! Doesn't find them boring at all. He's like me though probably because I got him into stuff like classic Twilight Zone when he was little. So black and white and a different method of story telling doesn't scare him away at all.

[Girlbot]

I have begun collecting the old episodes of Dr Who. In them I sometimes notice the beginnings of things that I had thought were just created in today's Who eps. Example, the cybermats. Also the history of the Dr . Even though these are slower moving eps. The DVD's have commentaries and info about the various episodes. I find that fascinating.

[Billz]

Anyone that calls Classic Who boring when they are around me, soon gets a hard stare of disapproval from me...

That's all I'm going to say.

[Brother Freyr]

So, for the sake of those who really do struggle but want to try... here's a list of eps from the first 3 Doctors that I think are worth watching, as well as being fairly watchable...

I'll definintely return to this thread for guidance. Thanks. The last episode I watched, they were miniaturized amidst a murderous insecticide plot. Haha.

[The Flyattractor]

I just bought that one... It was a good ep.

[Greenee]

Thanks for the advice. I'm thinking about following your tips, though I have the ambition to watch the whole series from start to end. I wouldn't say classic who is boring in general. Well, some of them are. But there where some storys even from the Hartnell era, I'd ratehr enjoyed. But the missing, reconstructed episodes are realy hard to watch without losing attention. And somehow I got stuck (somewhere at the beginnig of the second Doctor). More than three weeks without Doctor Who... somethings worng with me

[cosmichobo]

Thanks for the advice. I'm thinking about following your tips, though I have the ambition to watch the whole series from start to end. I wouldn't say classic who is boring in general. Well, some of them are. But there where some storys even from the Hartnell era, I'd ratehr enjoyed. But the missing, reconstructed episodes are realy hard to watch without losing attention. And somehow I got stuck (somewhere at the beginnig of the second Doctor). More than three weeks without Doctor Who... somethings worng with me

There's nothing wrong with ambition.

If you're capable, certainly give a complete viewing a go. I think so long as you are taking your time, it's very do-able. Even the bad stories have good moments that are worth seeing.

To someone who struggles with b&w, or pre-modern tv, the recons would certainly be a struggle. Frankly there's only a few I've watched myself, and you really do need to be in the right frame of mind to get through them, I think. Also - if the recon you are watching is poor quality - track down a better version. There are plenty of good crisp recons available these days, often with the sound tracks from the read-along audios, which means you get an actor describing what's happening during the non-speaking bits, which I appreciate.

[Vetinari]

Forgot how awful The Sunmakers (Tom Baker) actually is - I made the mistake of rewatching it the other day, based purely upon the cast members thinking "Surely it can't have been that bad??"

...And blasphemy though this no doubt is, egads the first couple of Peter Davison serials really drag!

[bearfax]

Surely you cant forget DAEMONS Pertwee's best episode and probably in the top 5 of the old series. Then there's Dr Who and the Silurans and Planet of Spiders.

In my mind Dr Who reached its pinnacle with Tom Baker and Louise Jamison. Stories such as Face of Evil, Robots of Death, Horror at Fang Rock and the best Dr Who episode I've seen of all forms the Sherlock Holmes styled Talons of Weng Chiang. There were other great Tom Baker episodes and I dont think the series has ever been able to reach that level even in the modern form. Blink would be the exception