Doctor Who Season 1

Doctor Who

SPOILERS TOTAL. You've been warned.

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001: An Unearthly Child

• An Unearthly Child 1963 November 23
• The Cave of Skulls 1963 November 30
• The Forest of Fear 1963 December 7
• The Firemaker 1963 December 14

(First watched 2007-01-05, -06, -07, -08) As an introduction to the concept it does its job, especially the first episode.  However, the caveman struggles that dominate the last three are a bit blah.  The Doctor sure was a much more grumpy and truly inhuman man here than the character he's evolved into by 2006.  Knowing quite little detail about the early days of the series, I was a bit surprised to see the two school teachers dragged into the whole mess; I guess I'm most used to the "Doctor + female companion" group.  As a casting note, it seemed pretty obvious that the "15 year old" really wasn't.  By IMDB's reckoning she was 23 at the time.

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002: The Daleks

• The Dead Planet 1963 December 21
• The Survivors 1963 December 28
• The Escape 1964 January 4
• The Ambush 1964 January 11
• The Expedition 1964 January 18
• The Ordeal 1964 January 25
• The Rescue 1964 February 2

(First watched 2007-01-10, -11, -12, -13, -15, -15, -16) In a way, the early part of this series reminds me of Sliders.  They got lost on their first trip, and then without the proper information and equipment bungle on to the next stop, solving problems so they can survive along the way.  The Doctor really is quite a selfish grump.  It's interesting to see how he's really a bit of an adversary to the teachers, though they're forced to rely on each other for continued survival and transportation.  With the benefit of... foresight of the 2005 version of the Daleks which made them seem formidable even if goofy-looking, the original 60s goofy-looking ones gain a retroactive feel of danger.

The Daleks are clearly not as much of a threat in this serial as they grow to be 40 years later.  It should be interesting to see how this technology gap changes in the meantime.  Certainly they have a long way to go from being floor-powered and shooting paralyzing goo to the flying, disintegration-ray-shooting, Time Lord enemies I know they become.

It's hard to call it music, but the combination of low note and following weird sound effect used to convey weirdness of the Dalek city was somehow really effective.

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003: The Edge of Destruction

• The Edge of Destruction 1964 February 8
• The Brink of Disaster 1964 February 15

(First watched 2007-02-04, -05)  The first part had promise.  A mysterious problem.  The people inside the TARDIS being confused, controlled, and knocked out?  Quite a setup.  However, the conclusion didn't do much for me.  So it was the TARDIS itself causing these weird problems to get their attention, because it didn't have a better way to communicate?  What did this have to do with making Susan try to stab people with scissors?  And the problem turns out to be a stuck spring on the control panel?  I realize this was made 43 years ago, but that seems the craziest thing to go wrong on your futuristic space-time machine.

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004: Marco Polo

• The Roof of the World 1964 February 22
• The Singing Sands 1964 February 29
• Five Hundred Eyes 1964 March 7
• The Wall of Lies 1964 March 14
• Rider from Shang-Tu 1964 March 21
• Mighty Kublai Khan 1964 March 28
• Assassin at Peking 1964 April 4

Reconstruction (First watched 2007-02-22, -23, -28, 03-02, -04, -06, -08)  First, watching a reconstruction is very different.  It reminds me of some old Richard Scarry and Masters of the Universe VHS tapes we had as youngsters that were more like narrated storybooks.  It was amusing to see the same picture used in different situations, or a single image of a person used with different backgrounds.  Much harder to keep one's attention when there's literally no action to follow.

Honestly the actual goings-on didn't seem the most captivating in this serial, though it did have quite a scale.  It seems like with the previous adventures put together, the series had taken place throughout the space of about a week.  This serial frequently had jumps of several days; they were traveling in a caravan through pre-China for weeks.  Most of that was a repetition of "Oh, let's try to escape!"  "Oh, we're foiled!"  "Oh, Tegana is against us!"  I did quite enjoy in the last two parts how the Doctor and Kublai Khan seemed to get along so well, sharing the experience of being old men with failing bodies.

I also must admit, watching episodes of a show from over 40 years ago makes me feel a bit like a time traveler myself.  If I wonder what the actors went on to next... I can find out.  The young actress who played Ping-Cho is now over 60 and has had an extensive acting career.

It's worth noting we didn't see the Doctor or his companions after the TARDIS disappeared, making this the first serial that didn't actually end with the beginning of the next.

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005: The Keys of Marinus

• The Sea of Death 1964 April 11
• The Velvet Web 1964 April 18
• The Screaming Jungle 1964 April 25
• The Snows of Terror 1964 May 2
• Sentence of Death 1964 May 9
• The Keys of Marinus 1964 May 16

(First watched 2007-03-12, -13, -14, -15, -17, -20)

(After two episodes) Wow, so far this is my favorite serial yet.  The Daleks was cool, but here there seems to be much more travel and variety.  The first episode has them learning about a sea of acid, getting into trouble investigating a big building, and being sent on a planetwide hunt for several keys.  The second episode has weird jarred brains turning people into slaves, but that's resolved by the end of the episode as Barbara smashes them (!!) and the group gains some guest characters before splitting up to their new destinations.  It does seem odd that the first person to travel to a new place seems to be there a lot longer, though.  Barbara went to the brain-slave place less than a minute before the others, but she was in another room with knowledge of the place and changed clothes by the time they met again.  At the end of the second episode it seemed like they'd be immediately following Susan, but she must've been there at least 15 seconds freaking out about the noises before the episode ended.

(After third episode) Di... did I just watch an episode of Doctor Who that didn't have the Doctor in it at all?  Still, another episode that told a small complete story then moved on.  This time a booby-trapped location with some sort of accelerated growth jungle.

(After fourth) Another Doctorless episode.  Boy, those dead/frozen ice guys couldn't hold themselves very still, though none of the characters seemed to notice.

(After fifth) It's a good thing the Doctor showed back up; I was about to suggest changing the name of the show to Mister Chesterton.  The Doctor as a defense attorney looked like Manfred von Karma gone good.

(After sixth) Conclusion was... disappointing, but understandably so.  After all that work to get the various keys, it's mostly effort wasted as the baddies end up blowing up the thing with a fake key anyway.  On the other hand it did seem weird that their ultimate goal was working to return a sort of planetary mind control device to working order.  Altos needs pants.

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006: The Aztecs

• The Temple of Evil 1964 May 23
• The Warriors of Death 1964 May 30
• The Bride of Sacrifice 1964 June 6
• The Day of Darkness 1964 June 13

(First watched 2007-03-31, -04-05, -07, -08)

Something for everybody!  Barbara, finally a strong role as a false god!  Ian, practitioner of the Vulcan nerve pinch!  The Doctor, engaged to be married!  Susan... well, OK, something for almost everybody.

The beginning struck me as rather silly.  Susan and Barbara leave the TARDIS first, start playing around with a bunch of artifacts in a tomb, and then they all get stuck on the wrong side of a door?  I realize they had to write another excuse to keep them away from the TARDIS, but that just made them look sillily careless.

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007: The Sensorites

• Strangers In Space 1964 June 20
• The Unwilling Warriors 1964 June 27
• Hidden Danger 1964 July 11
• A Race Against Death 1964 July 18
• Kidnap 1964 July 25
• A Desperate Venture 1964 August 1

(First watched 2007-04-18, -22, -24, -30, 05-30, 06-04)

Man, that bit about the eyes being the opposite of a cat's... that's just bad biology.  A species having eyes that allow light in in brightness, but let less light in in darkness... doesn't make much sense.  Even were evolution to cause this, it hardly seems an obvious conclusion to jump to without much data.

The ending felt rushed.  I knew it was supposed to be the last episode, but until the last 3 minutes or so it felt like they were reaching the point where, things having taken a turn for the worse, the credits kick in.  But no, it was easy to trick the crazy cave guys, and convincing the First Elder of the plotters was like nothing.

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008: The Reign of Terror

• A Land of Fear 1964 August 8
• Guests of Madame Guillotine 1964 August 15
• A Change of Identity 1964 August 22
• The Tyrant of France 1964 August 29
• A Bargain of Necessity 1964 September 5
• Prisoners of Conciergerie 1964 September 12

(First watched 2007-06-26, -30, 07-09, -10, -14, -15)

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Doctor Who Season 2