Doctor Who Recommendations

[S.C.B]

Specifically, Old Who (or is that Classic Who, I'm never sure). Since I only really jumped on the Who bandwagon in the middle of series three, I've always felt that I was missing out on quite a large part of the fandom. However, deciding which stories to see is a (putting it lightly) daunting task, so I thought I'd throw it out here: what stories from the pre-RTD universe would you recommend I see? I'd prefer to get a wide berth of Doctors, but if one incarnation simply has a higher quantity of entertaining stories, I'm up for that.

And please feel free to discuss what makes them great; I don't want this to turn into a list thread.

[James]

Difficult one, as there is no definitive list as the show is so diverse, what tickles is largely subjective. Here's a list of my favs from each Doctor - a top top two each. I've also based this on what's available for purchase in region one and two (as most people have regionless players)

First Doctor:
The Dead Planet:
The Daleks first appearance. A great story full of great characterisation that is much about an initially very selfish Doctor being forced into becoming the kinder and more caring Doctor we know today. Can be bought in the US on The Beginning box-set.

Daleks Invasion of Earth:
The second Dalek story that is both epic and again full of interesting characters. Again, available on DVD (at least in region 2).

Second Doctor:
The Invasion:
A great cyberman story that has had missing episodes animated to complete the tale to the audio track. First proper UNIT story - so may interest you solely on that basis.

Seeds of Death:
A personal favourite with the Ice Warriors. Full of danger, claustrophobic settings and a great portrayal by the late Patrick Troughton.

Third Doctor:
Spearhead from Space:
How Rose should have been done. Autons. Actually quite scary and the first tale of Pertwee trapped on Earth.

Inferno:
How "Rise of the Cybermen" should have been done! A parallel world with some nasty variants on UNIT. A big fan favourite. I'm not a big Pertwee fan, but he does a fine performance here.

Forth Doctor:

Genesis of the Daleks:
The reboot genesis of the Doctor's enemy that begins the Time War. Worth watching to get an idea quite how the Time War was meant to have been initiated.. by the Time Lords themselves!

Talons of Weng Chiang:
A beautiful tale of Victorian murder and diabolical plotting. Wonderfully rendered and paced - a must.

Logopolis:
Three for Baker as he did such a long tenure. Intelligent, abstract and with great final performance from Tom and a wonderful start to the third Master. Again, worth watching as part of the New Beginnings DVD that contains this and the two stories the begin and end this trilogy.

Fifth Doctor:
Black Orchid:
Short two parter, no longer than an episode of the new show, but again charming historical piece with lots of atmosphere and really is perfect for the fifth Doctor.

Five Doctors:
Well, it has Daleks, Cybermen, Sarah Jane, K-9, Time Lords, The Master that probably makes this a fun, if silly romp that carries connections to the new series.

Caves of Androzani:
A great final story for Peter Davison. Intelligent, well written and directed by Graham Harper who directs so many of the new show!

Sixth Doctor:

The Two Doctors:
Troughton and Baker sitting in a tree. Violent, tense and full of Sontarans. So again, new series connections.

Revelation of the Daleks:
Nasty, violent and very Dalek focused.

Seventh Doctor:

Remembrance of the Daleks - a fantastic Dalek tale full of action, intelligent drama and a darker, more manipulative Doctor than ever before. Set the tone for McCoy after a very mixed first year and helped set the stage for the changes in Who as officially continued in book form before going into McGann's movie.

Curse of Fenric: A fantastically intelligent and deep tale that is probably one of the first of the classic series to start the narrative trends that would create the new series format. Here the companion plays as strong a role as the Doctor. We also see the Doctor as a manipulative, controlling character who uses his companions - again close parallels with the new series.

Ghost Light: Okay, I said just two, but McCoy is a favourite and if you are used to contemporary Who you might find McCoy quite accessible as the character and format carries some parallels. This is a dark and confusing tale that works around the theme of change and evolution in a mysterious victorian household. McCoys are a little more challenging than the more action romp of 70s and 80s Who, so this probably will get a little more mileage on a re-watch.

Survival:
Not McCoy's best, but it is the last Doctor Who of old, including the wonderful Ainley as the Master. Again, worth a watch if you like the format of new Who as there are a lot of familar devices here. The costumes are naff and the acting is a little wooden, but still a good piece of drama to finish the show's run.

8th Doctor:
Only one, and it ain't too good. Format is predictable, the use of time travel is dull and awkward and it lacks the variation in stage setting to make use of its potential. Still, it is the only one and does start introducing the romantic undertones that made the new show.

Bottomline:
If I was to recommend a batch from the list (in their UK retail format):
Genesis of the Daleks,
New Beginnings Box Set
The Beginning Box Set
Curse of Fenric
Remembrance of the Daleks
The Invasion

But that's me! Again, all I've recommended are available on DVD.

[Angilasman]

An Unearthly Child-The very first story from 1963. Two teachers follow a strange student back to her home, only to find her living with her grandfather, the Doctor, in a police box that is (gasp!) bigger on the inside then on the outside. Naturally they end up in prehistoric times and run afowl of cavemen. Also, the Doctor is less nice here than he would become. He's a bit mean.

Tomb of the Cybermen- Doctor #2 and his companions end up in... well, the Cybermen's tomb, run into an expedition sent there and end up waking up the Cybermen.

The Invasion- 2nd Doctor again. The Cybermen invade Earth and the Doc teams up with the newly formed UNIT.

Inferno- 3rd Doctor, first season of the show in color. While the Doctor is stuck on Earth and working for UNIT (His renegade ways caused the Time Lords to banish him there in the last black and white episode) he investigates a project that is drilling to the center of the Earth. While trying to repair the Tardis the Doctor is transported to a fascist alternate dimension where the Inferno project is a few hours ahead of schedule and we see the horrible consequences.

Genesis of the Daleks- 4th Doctor. The Time Lords send The Doctor and his companions to Skaro to prevent the creation of the Daleks. First appearance of Davros, and a really great story all around.

The Deadly Assassin- The Doctor goes back to his home planet, is framed for the murder of the Time Lord president, and matches wits with the Master (who is unable to regenerate anymore and has been reduced to something like a walking corpse). This is my personal favorite episode.

Robots of Death- 4th Doctor. The Doctor arrives on a mining ship on a desert planet and is quickly suspected of murder, but it soon becomes obvious that the deaths are the result of the the legions of robotic servents who man the ship and whom everyone is told could never, ever possibly malfunction or be made to harm a human.

The Talons of Weng-Chiang - The 4th Doctor's (dressed as Sherlock Holmes no less) trip to dark and spooky Victorian England is interrupted by a magician, an evil ventriloquist dummy, and a supposed Chinese god. Great story but some may dislike the racist aspect; the Chinese magician is played by a white guy and is based on those evil Chinese supervillians from the old pulp novels (like Fu Manchu).

City of Death- The 4th Doctor and his Time Lady companion Romona go to Paris (for the museums) and discover someone's been mucking about with time. This episode was written by Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy author Douglas Adams and is really funny.

The Caves of Androzani- The last story featuring the young 5th Doctor (who met up with David Tennant's Doctor in last year's mini episode). The Doctor and his companion Peri are poisoned and it's a race against time to save themselves, add that to the fact that they're in the middle of a war and you've got a tricky situation. This is a really good story.

The Curse of Fenric- 7th Doctor. The Doctor and his companion Ace end up in a military base during WW2 and amid the warmongering, vampires, and general chaos it becomes apparent that The Doctor knows far more about the evil force behind it all then he's letting on. Best cliffhanger ever on episode 3.

Survival- 7th Doctor, last episode of the original show. The Doctor returns Ace to her hometown; i.e. the suburbs, and the somewhat boring surroundings soon become ominous when it turns out that The Cheetah people (who can teleport people back to the home planet to hunt) are on the prowl, and things become doubley ominous when it turns out that The Master is trapped on the Cheetah planet and is going a bit mad.


Those are some of my favorites and a good sampler platter. The thing about Doctor Who is that you don't need to watch them in order or anything, just the knowlege of the show's format (Doctor in Tardis with companion/s).

[S.C.B]

These are just what the doctor (bad pun, unintentional) ordered. I appreciate you digging up episodes that are available on DVD, James. Should help with my browsing. But are some of the titles only available in the US (I live in the UK)? I find it strange that the BBC would release Who DVDs abroad but not in the UK.

A lot of Tom Baker stories in your list, Angilasman. Is he a favourite of yours?

[Lord Dalek]

Most of the good ones have already been pointed to, so I guess I'll just either restate some or suggest others...

First Doctor -
The Dalek Invasion of Earth: Best 100% intact Dalek story of the sixties.

The Aztecs: The acting is a little hammy and stagey, but its got a stellar John Lucarroti script.

Second Doctor -

The Invasion: Great villain (Kevin Stoney's Tobias Vaughn), direction (by the master, Douglas Camfield), and music (roughly 20 minutes worth by Don Harper). It is a bit long in the tooth though at eight parts (two of which have been recreated in flash animation using off-air audio).

The War Games: The second longest Doctor Who story ever (at 10 parts) with some stellar performances and quite a bit of the Doctor's origins finally revealed. Currently not on DVD.

Third Doctor:

Series 7 (all of it): Series 7 may be the finest series Doctor Who has ever produced. There isn't a single clunker among the bunch and at least two stories ("Doctor Who and the Silurians" and "Inferno") are constant locks for best of all time lists. Even the weakest of the four ("Ambassadors of Death") is still fascinating.

The Mind of Evil: Easily the best Roger Delgado Master story ever. The fact that it currently only exists in a black and white kiniscope adds to the spookyness of the affair.

The Sea Devils: Easily the SECOND best Roger Delgado Master story ever (sorry "Daemons" fans). What may make or break it for you is the infamous musical score.

The Time Warrior: Sontarans + Sarah Jane Smith's debut = instant classic

Fourth Doctor:

Genesis of the Daleks: This seems to be the default show to introduce noobs to "Old Who". Michael Wisher's Davros is still the best, alhough Julian Bleach's version comes pretty damn close.

The Deadly Assassin: Gallifrey as we know it stems back to this episode as the Doctor finds himself at the mercy of a rather emaciated Master and Cardinal Borusa.

City of Death: Paris! It has a bouquet!... and bouilabaise! (yum yum)

Fifth Doctor:

Earthshock: The first GOOD Cyberman show since the Troughton years (and probably the last one).

The Five Doctors: Well... four actually (Tom Baker only appears in stock footage from an unfinished story). Entertaining mishmash of companions and old monsters.

Caves of Andronzani: Violence! Explosions! Graham Harper!

Sixth Doctor:

Vengeance on Varos: In many ways a commentary on the state of Who in general in 1984, this story is one of only two really good Colin Baker shows. The other...

Revelation of the Daleks: Dark, almost comedic, rewrite of Waugh's The Loved One with Davros creating a new race of Daleks out of a... funeral parlor?

Seventh Doctor:

The Curse of Fenric: The last truly great Doctor Who adventure of the classic series. A movie edit version with redone effects was created in 2003 and is the way to go.

[Angilasman]

A lot of Tom Baker stories in your list, Angilasman. Is he a favourite of yours?

The first half of his tenure is the most quality era of the show (City of Death is a later one, a stand-out in a kinda crappy season).

My favorite actor to play the Doctor is Pat Troughton, even though his stories aren't allways great. Tom is second place in my book.

[James]

These are just what the doctor (bad pun, unintentional) ordered. I appreciate you digging up episodes that are available on DVD, James. Should help with my browsing. But are some of the titles only available in the US (I live in the UK)? I find it strange that the BBC would release Who DVDs abroad but not in the UK.

They are all available in the UK. I started off presuming you were American (being I'm too old to get used to the idea that British people haven't watched much old Who before) and realised near the end just which side of the ocean you are from!