Dr. Who

[Overly Serious]

@Anonitolia I'm going to disagree with some of the advice here. Unless you are a particular fan of old style television and Sci-Fi for its own sake then going through all the old episodes would be a slog; and I believe I said something like that myself. But going to the opposite extreme and skipping several of the first Doctors is also a mistake imo.

Firstly, all of the early Doctors are good and enjoyable. Secondly you do miss out on some background by skipping them. For your situation I would suggest picking out one, maybe two, highlight stories for each Doctor so that you at least have seen them. If you do want to start with Five, I'll try to give a couple of nominations you should watch from the previous four.

For the First Doctor: The Aztecs has the most critical acclaim. The Dalek Invasion of Earth is a classic because of the iconic villains. And I personally have a soft spot for The War Machines though apparently that's not highly regarded. You also couldn't go wrong with watching An Unearthly Child. It's only the first episode and you should probably watch it as much just because of that, even if you don't watch any further First Doctor stories.

For the Second Doctor, for me it has to be Tomb of the Cybermen. The special effects will seem very hokey to you but it gives you a good feel for the Second Doctor. I'd also pick out The Abomniable Snowmen.

For the Third Doctor, he's not my favourite and I struggle to pick out anything specifically above the others. Spearhead from Space is probably the most acclaimed. For me though, The Sea Devils or The Curse of Peladon.

For the Fourth, even if you're disregarding the general idea of watching some of each Doctor, I'd really recommend you watch at least a couple of essentials from the Fourth era. These have to include Genesis of the Daleks. And I personally have a soft-spot for Talons of Wang-Chiang. The interaction between Leela and polite Victorian society is entertaining. And Androids of Tara I always thought was pretty good. Horror of Fang Rock is in some ways my favourite of the Fourth Doctor stories.

Finally, though this is kind of a 50/50, City of Death. On the one hand it kind of doesn't fully fit with Doctor Who, on the other hand it's very good. Barring a long and very self-indulgent sequence where they walk about Paris which I think exists solely to justify the cast and crew having a little jaunt abroad. It also gives us Tom Baker's impeccable delivery of the line: "You're a beautiful woman, probably" which always makes me laugh.

You said you were thinking of starting with the Fifth Doctor so I'll stop my essentials list there.

I would skip the Seventh Doctor entirely. Sylvester McCoy is good, almost everything else about the show is bad. It was also the height of Progressivism in the show and gave us the immortal: "White kids did it and ran away."

Reading more into 3 he really does seem to be going for more of a weird Bond-esque figure than the kind of stuff I'm looking for in this immediate moment.

Well, James Bond is arguably a Time Lord, too. Multiple incarnations, a propensity for gadgets and an almost absurd ability for escaping from near impossible situations. All we're really missing are the regeneration scenes between Connory and Moore, etc. James Bond is clearly a renegade Time Lord who got stranded on Earth sometime in the Sixties.

View attachment 7544996

Hear me out.

"I'm the last of my kind. My entire planet is gone."
"That is most bogus, my Timey-Wimey friend."
"And that is why you need Eddie Van Halen as one of your companions."
"I'm sorry... what?"

 

[Kofi Drinka]

It's always a real question to me of do you really "kill" someone in a time war? (like if it gets really crazy and you're going back and offing ancestors such that people don't exist... but then you're prevented from doing that so then the person comes back to life...)

I can understand the Doctor having a view of "I was responsible" but to me, what he really did was "time lock" it - essentially seal off the Time Lords and Daleks in their own special quarantine zone. Yeah from a perspective of the universe they were "killed" because they were all for intents and purposes "not there" but to me that just meant the Daleks and TLs just went about killing each other over and over again - it was on them to stop their little secluded war, it wasn't really the Doctor wiping them out.

The time war wasn't as simple as using time travel to erase each other from history because all sides were using sleeper agents and pocket dimensions to make that impossible. There are factions of the Time lords wearing the bones of high ranking Time lords as their military uniforms. They took them from a failed timeline where the highest ranking died and it's an open secret they're doing it but there's biggest concerns. They were renegades willing to do whatever it took to win and being pompous Time Lords wearing their peer's skeletons was an open challenge to any one wanting to reign them in.

They didn't weaponize only physical things but ethereal things as well. The placebo effect could be turned into a deadly bio weapon that made it's victims extremely sick. You couldn't see why it happened or what caused you to get sick, but those strange parts of life got weaponized. If you're paranoid there's a monster under your bed the time war could create it and it would kill you in your sleep. Think of all the weird Doctor Who monsters over the years and how many unexplained events happen and weaponize them all. It's like Umbrella from Resident Evil with access to a full multiverse of paranormal events to pull from.

The Doctor didn't stop the Time war, he took away the two biggest hubs of activity. There are still countless horror roaming the multiverse and fighting it. The Time Lords and Daleks made multiverses of armies, lost control of them and have no idea where they are now. The war will continue as long as the multiverse exists and a lot of it's worst horrors are being played out in such subtle levels of reality even The Doctor wouldn't be able to comprehend them.

 

[Milkshake Sniffer]

City of Death. On the one hand it kind of doesn't fully fit with Doctor Who, on the other hand it's very good. Barring a long and very self-indulgent sequence where they walk about Paris which I think exists solely to justify the cast and crew having a little jaunt abroad

Strange how subjective it can all be (and that's a good thing!). I love City of Death and would happily watch Lalla Ward wearing that hat skipping around on a video loop for days. Adding that to a story revolving around a proper sci fi concept and a villain that both has a rational and, from his perspective, empathetic motive while hamming it up not merely to ten but to twelve or thirteen and it's a winner. Also has Duggan; the man for whom the punch is the solution to any problem! And that's all despite not remembering the line you quoted at all.

Horror of Fang Rock on the other hand is one I'd have no hesitation in agreeing is great but is one I regarded as "not really a Dr Who story" but a little self contained gothic horror tale. It also gave an unusual bit of background exposition on a race we don't hear much about. Added bonus points for also linking to the Paul McGann/Sheridan Smith audio story "The Horror of Glam Rock" which itself has the bonus of not only Bernard Cribbens but Una Stubbs as well. What's not to like!

 

[Anonitolia]

Tenant married Davidson's daughter and she played Tenant's daughter in an episode and now they're married and they're transing the kid.

I know lol, that was partly how I came about to finding info on Davison. I was thinking about the poor kid because June was ending today, and wanted to see if he'd gone back on his phase or was still being paraded around as a miracle or something for pride month. Turns out David never had social media, so I had to go through the mum, and she posted birthday pictures of him with a trans ribbon so I guess that answers my question.
The upside is that he's only twelve and isn't getting his face plastered everywhere, so there's every chance he can just grow out of it and get a better life soon. Plus, if his mom's phrasing means anything, he's probably going the "non-binary" route instead of full-on MTF territory so he's very much within the realm of recovery. The worst he seems to be doing right now is wearing his hair braided and maybe wearing skirts (absolutely stretching here because that could just be part of the costume and other pics of him don't show below the waist), but the latter can be passed off as a fondness for kilts later in life and the former is really just bordering on androgyny.
Honestly, I'm just glad that his parents don't seem to be full-on puberty blockers + HRTing him and parading him around, face and all. The bar is really fucking low, I know, but even seeing the tiniest bit of opsec on famous children is a relief given cases like Elon's "daughter" or the media circus around the royal family.

If you do want to start with Five

Not the case unfortunately; was just looking up info on him for an unrelated thing. I do want to watch him eventually, though, so the advice is appreciated!

couldn't go wrong with watching An Unearthly Child.

Funnily enough, when I was a stupid kid and decided on watching the entirety of Old Who years and years ago (for an idea of how long ago this was: I was 12 years old and had just discovered the franchise, thought it was the coolest shit ever), I actually started with this one and managed to get about four episodes in before putting it down because my dumb ass couldn't find sources for the rest of season 1 lmao. The episode really stuck with me for some reason, to the point where I can probably recite its plot back 50% intact if asked, so I'm not sure if rewatching it would do much more than make me feel kinda warm and fuzzy

Tomb of the Cybermen.

I hear about this one a lot, to the point where I'm curious if Troughton's other good stories were just completely lost or overshadowed by something else. I'm definitely curious, even though it is shocking how often the Cybermen seem to be done poorly (at least imo; I'm much more into the existential horror of their origins than more standard evil robot portrayals, I think NuWho only did this once or twice and both times were footnotes to "evil zombie invasion but the zombies are actually robots oooh so scary" plots), so I'm planning on giving it a shot for sure.

Spearhead from Space is probably the most acclaimed.

Definitely, but isn't that also his regeneration story lol? I hope not, it'd be a shame if he peaked exactly at the beginning/end of his run.
I wonder how much similarity I'll be able to find to Capaldi in there. I know the latter was heavily inspired by Pertwee, but I've heard their runs are very different regardless. Will be curious.

Genesis of the Daleks.

Another one I hear about nonstop, definitely watching

Leela and polite Victorian society

This sounds awesome; definitely another one to look out for. Correct me if I'm wrong: Leela is essentially a space-cavewoman, right? That really does sound interesting if so.
I do have to admit, though, that the episode seems slightly daunting after seeing the sheer amount of Jago and Litefoot stuff that came from it. Fourteen series in a decade, holy shit.

I would skip the Seventh Doctor entirely. Sylvester McCoy is good, almost everything else about the show is bad. It was also the height of Progressivism in the show and gave us the immortal: "White kids did it and ran away."

I'm surprised you suggested this after I praised Capaldi in my initial post
I can honestly stand a little preaching if there's a stand-out actor in the role. I've heard of the infamous Happiness Patrol, and I'm almost looking forward to it just due to how stupid it sounds, but even if the rest of the seasons with him are that bad I think I might be able to sit through it. Regardless, I'm thinking of trying out a few episodes and dropping it if it's really just nothing but nonstop reeeing. Ace seems hilariously prototypical of the strong independent woman archetype, but her backstory seems somewhat compelling enough for me to sit through that. Dunno. All this's from scant side material and general vibes.
Besides, from what I know of it, I'm somewhat partial to Cartmel's master plan so it might be curious to see how it starts lol.

James Bond is clearly a renegade Time Lord who got stranded on Earth sometime in the Sixties.

lol, two renegade Time Lords stranded in one decade? What are the odds? Both in Britain, too. Maybe there was some kind of weirdness field attracting aliens specifically to the Isles back then...

"The Horror of Glam Rock"

I can't tell whether this is a joke title or completely genuine but it sounds absolutely amazing either way. Fuck, man, if I had the time and money I'd get started on those audio serials right away. I've heard really great things about them before covid lol. Too bad there's probably an entire lifetime worth of content from the last decade alone, and I am still unable to torrent. rip!

 

[Overly Serious]

The time war wasn't as simple as using time travel to erase each other from history because all sides were using sleeper agents and pocket dimensions to make that impossible. There are factions of the Time lords wearing the bones of high ranking Time lords as their military uniforms. They took them from a failed timeline where the highest ranking died and it's an open secret they're doing it but there's biggest concerns. They were renegades willing to do whatever it took to win and being pompous Time Lords wearing their peer's skeletons was an open challenge to any one wanting to reign them in.

Lawrence Miles fan's hands typed this post. He of the clever Time War ideas and strangely sexy TARDISes.

Oddly enough, my favourite thing he ever wrote was not The Book of the War or his novels. It was a tweet reply to someone who in reference to a certain British reality TV show said: "I can't think of a single legitimate question to which the answer is 'The Only Way is Essex'".

To which Mr. Miles replied: "The ebola virus has made landfall on the South Coast of England and wishes to make its way to London without harming any intelligent life. How should it proceed?"

Years later, that still makes me chuckle.

Strange how subjective it can all be (and that's a good thing!). I love City of Death and would happily watch Lalla Ward wearing that hat skipping around on a video loop for days. Adding that to a story revolving around a proper sci fi concept and a villain that both has a rational and, from his perspective, empathetic motive while hamming it up not merely to ten but to twelve or thirteen and it's a winner. Also has Duggan; the man for whom the punch is the solution to any problem! And that's all despite not remembering the line you quoted at all.

Horror of Fang Rock on the other hand is one I'd have no hesitation in agreeing is great but is one I regarded as "not really a Dr Who story" but a little self contained gothic horror tale. It also gave an unusual bit of background exposition on a race we don't hear much about. Added bonus points for also linking to the Paul McGann/Sheridan Smith audio story "The Horror of Glam Rock" which itself has the bonus of not only Bernard Cribbens but Una Stubbs as well. What's not to like!

Can I first say how delighted I am that the two people I am replying to are named "Kofi Drinker" and "Milkshake Sniffer". I don't know what is going on here but it pleases me.

Yes, it's very funny how our takes are the opposite of each other. And at the same time I can also absolutely see why. City of Death is a weird one. It's very much a Sci-Fi time travel story. More legitimately so than most Who which these days just goes "wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey". But tonally Douglas Adam's writing style is so distinct that for me it's unmistakably different to the rest of Tom's run. And Amen to Lala Ward in that story. I've never forgiven Richard Dawkins for marrying her.

Horror of Fang Rock not being Who-ish? It's certainly much more constrained that most Doctor Who stories. Especially for Tom Baker era. I can see that. But I feel all the elements are still in place. It's a delightful mini horror-lite. I'm kind of inclined to go and watch both of them now.

EDIT: Also, case in point about Douglas Adam's writing: The scene where they leave the TARDIS in the Louvre.

 

[12345]

lol, two renegade Time Lords stranded in one decade? What are the odds? Both in Britain, too. Maybe there was some kind of weirdness field attracting aliens specifically to the Isles back then...

Yeah, that's Cardiff!

 

[Overly Serious]

Double-posting because I wrote my last post at the same time as the other poster did and I don't want to add a huge load more as an edit to my last post.

I hear about this one a lot, to the point where I'm curious if Troughton's other good stories were just completely lost or overshadowed by something else

Unfortunately a bunch of episodes were wiped. Some have been partially reconstructed with animation where the audio still survived. I can certainly point at others. I remember enjoying The Krotons. Despite sounding like something you put in your soup. And be fair to me I did also mention The Abominable Snowmen. I also enjoyed the Web of Fear and The Ice Warriors. But I was trying to give a sampler menu to someone who I thought wanted to start with Five. So don't ding me for not listing every bloody episode. Two is my favourite Doctor alongside Eleven, btw.

I'm definitely curious, even though it is shocking how often the Cybermen seem to be done poorly (at least imo; I'm much more into the existential horror of their origins than more standard evil robot portrayals, I think NuWho only did this once or twice and both times were footnotes to "evil zombie invasion but they're robots oooh so scary" plots), so I'm planning on giving it a shot for sure.

You want to check out one of the Big Finish audios called "Spare Parts". It was later partially turned into a Twelfth Doctor episode and has a lot of the horror you talk about.

A lot of the Big Finish Doctor Who audios are now on Spotify it seems, btw.

Definitely, but isn't that also his regeneration story lol? I hope not, it'd be a shame if he peaked exactly at the beginning/end of his run.

Again, I'm just singling out some of the best to watch. I honestly enjoy some of his other stories more but if you were going to watch one episode from each Doctor that's considered one of the more defining ones for Third.

This sounds awesome though, definitely another one to look out for. Correct me if I'm wrong: Leela is essentially a space-cavewoman, right? That really does sound interesting if so.

Without spoilers, yes. But savage doesn't mean unintelligent. She's many people's favourite companion.

I do have to admit, though, that the episode seems slightly daunting after seeing the sheer amount of Jago and Litefoot stuff that came from it. Fourteen series in a decade, holy shit.

Eh, you don't have to follow all the spin-offs. Your life isn't long enough for that. They're a nice pair in the show, though.

I'm surprised you suggested this after I praised Capaldi in my initial post
I can honestly stand a little preaching if there's a stand-out actor in the role. I've heard of the infamous Happy Patrol, and I'm almost looking forward to it just due to how stupid it sounds, but even if the rest of the seasons with him are that bad I think I might be able to sit through it. Regardless, I'm thinking of trying out a few episodes and dropping it if it's really just nothing but nonstop reeeing. Ace seems hilariously prototypical of the strong independent woman archetype, but her backstory seems somewhat compelling enough for me to sit through that. Dunno. All this's from scant side material and general vibes.

Ace isn't some Woke figure. Not just because Sophie Aldred plays her very likeably. But because Woke isn't about a woman being capable. That's fine. Woke is about women shouldn't need men / be better than men. Etc.

Anyway, if you want to watch The Happiness Patrol... have fun.

 

[Anonitolia]

don't ding me for not listing every bloody episode.

I didn't mean to come off as aggressive, sorry if it seemed that way. I was just curious because it's the only story other people talk about with him too.
I remember hearing that a lot got lost, but I thought "a lot" was like 20% of his run or something. Seems like it might have been more than that...

check out one of the Big Finish audios called "Spare Parts".

Okay, so so far, from what I've gathered from you and this thread, when I start with Big Finish I'll want to listen to:

• Spare Parts
• Jubilee
• that one Frobisher one I forget the name of, there was a big green guy on the front cover
• Eighth Doctor Adventures
• generally focus on 6-8 because their Doctors were "redeemed" or otherwise greatly expanded through audio

Have I got that right? I want to make sure the list is accurate for when I start digging into audio serials.

A lot of the Big Finish Doctor Who audios are now on Spotify it seems, btw.

Good to know. Maybe that'll get me to finally pay for a subscription or something, so long as I can download what I paid for to listen to later...

Without spoilers, yes. But savage doesn't mean unintelligent. She's many people's favourite companion.

Huh, good to know. I wasn't really thinking unintelligent, especially given the context. It's a very interesting premise for a companion, for sure. I've always preferred the weirder guys, which is a big part of why NuWho started really letting me down in its later seasons, so I'm looking forward to seeing some of her!

Woke isn't about a woman being capable. That's fine. Woke is about women shouldn't need men / be better than men. Etc.

I'm aware, I'm mostly just going off of fan descriptions and a wiki summary. She really does come off like the latter from her personality description, but I'm willing to give her the benefit of the doubt. I'm just being very cautious about it because I've seen so many characters with very similar personalities to hers that just turn out terribly. Given that this is 80s Who, though, I am more than willing to believe she'll be different.
God I wish some other term had gotten popular to describe this besides "woke," it makes so little sense. I know it comes from mocking the whole "wake up it's current year" thing leftists were doing over a decade ago now, but out of context it just sounds strange...

if you want to watch The Happiness Patrol... have fun.

I will! Much later on when I'm presumably going through 7's run!
Watch, I'll come back to this thread as a deflated pile of sadness and bemoan how the episode everyone said sucked donkey balls did, in fact, suck donkey balls instead of being funny-bad like I'd expected.

 

[Overly Serious]

I didn't mean to come off as aggressive, sorry if it seemed that way. I was just curious because it's the only story other people talk about with him too.

I am probably a bit frazzled. Been an annoying day for me! No worries.

Okay, so so far, from what I've gathered from you and this thread, when I start with Big Finish I'll want to listen to:

• Spare Parts
• Jubilee
• that one Frobisher one I forget the name of, there was a big green guy on the front cover
• Eighth Doctor Adventures
• generally focus on 6-8 because their Doctors were "redeemed" or otherwise greatly expanded through audio

I don't know about a big green guy but The Holy Terror has Frobisher in it and is a good one as I recall. Oh, I've had a look. It'll be The Maltese Penguin. I've not listened to that one. You can let me know if that one's any good.

Jubilee is a good one but very distinct. Weird as Hell but ultimately makes a very real and interesting point. Sort of got turned into the episode Dalek with Nine and Rose. But quite different in tone and where it goes.

And honestly yes, Six in particular gets much better treatment on the audios. Even Mel is more likeable in them (poor Bonnie Langford, I'm sure she's a lovely person). Peri also gets to do a lot more as well. Peri and The Piscon Paradox is a very good later one. And for Fifth Doctor, an absolute essential is King Maker. In fact, it might just be my favourite. I don't usually do silly but this one blends the silly with the brilliant so well I can't dislike it. It also has Peri and Erimem (an audio-only companion).

Good to know. Maybe that'll get me to finally pay for a subscription or something, so long as I can download what I paid for to listen to later...

You can download and listen offline, sure. At least I think so.

Huh, good to know. I wasn't really thinking unintelligent, especially given the context. It's a very interesting premise for a companion, for sure. I've always preferred the weirder guys, which is a big part of why NuWho started really letting me down in its later seasons, so I'm looking forward to seeing some of her!

Leela is nice. A genuinely competent companion who is both charming and confident. Robots of Death gives her a chance to show off. Yes, you'll generally find more distinctive backgrounds on the companions in Classic Who. In NuWho the received wisdom for the writers was that the companion must be a stand-in for the viewer. Which reveals a lot about how BBC writers view their audience with Rose in her tenement block and even Clara who in all regards comes across as either Upper Middle Class or a little posh, gets shoved into a big block of flats. Such is how our Elites view us the Common Man.

Meanwhile in Classic Who you have Victoria from Victorian London, Jaimie the wild Scottish highlander, Nyssa from an alien world, Turlough a schooboy from another planet, Adric from well, the other end of the spectrum, Romana a fellow Time Lord (twice), and Teegan. The last worst of all: she's from Australia.

I'm aware, I'm mostly just going off of fan descriptions and a wiki summary. She really does come off like the latter from her personality description, but I'm willing to give her the benefit of the doubt. I'm just being very cautious about it because I've seen so many characters with very similar personalities to hers that just turn out terribly. Given that this is 80s Who, though, I am more than willing to believe she'll be different.

I mean I don't like any of the Seventh run. I'm just not placing the blame on Ace.

I will! Much later on when I'm presumably going through 7's run!
Watch, I'll come back to this thread as a deflated pile of sadness and bemoan how the episode everyone said sucked donkey balls did, in fact, suck donkey balls instead of being funny-bad like I'd expected.

It has the double blow of both being terrible AND being a political lecture about Thatcher. There are few things less entertaining than satire done badly. But good luck!

 

[AnOminous]

And I personally have a soft-spot for Talons of Wang-Chiang. The interaction between Leela and polite Victorian society is entertaining.

Too bad it's probably considered "problematic" now. I don't know where it ranks in the critical pantheon but I always liked Pyramids of Mars. And anything involving Daleks but that's pretty much duh, no shit.

 

[Flexo]

I hear about this one a lot, to the point where I'm curious if Troughton's other good stories were just completely lost or overshadowed by something else.

I remember hearing that a lot got lost, but I thought "a lot" was like 20% of his run or something. Seems like it might have been more than that...

Yeah... if you look into the history (unfortunately SF Debris' history essays are lost right now) it's more like 80% of the second doctor was lost. What made it different is that at least all the audio for all the lost episodes has been preserved (by fans recording it off TVs). Hence why if they can't find any footage, they are at least trying to animate footage now to go with the recovered audio.

A lot has been found. Like the entirety of "Enemy of the World" was discovered and it has been fully restored. And that's one I'd recommend checking out.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GnAek_pT-3E

The cook from that serial is the best character the show has ever done.

BTW I went on a search and found records of SFDebris old blip vids. Here's his Dr Who 101.

https://archive.org/details/sfdebris_blip.tv_videos_202108/2011-05-05-Doctor+Who+101-5106133.mp4

Ah and I found his lost in time discussion.

https://archive.org/details/sfdebris_blip.tv_videos_202108/2011-03-08-Lost+In+Time+-+Wiped%2C+Junked%2C+But+Not+Forgotten+(Part+1+of+2)-4857583.mp4

https://archive.org/details/sfdebris_blip.tv_videos_202108/2011-03-08-Lost+In+Time+-+Wiped%2C+Junked%2C+But+Not+Forgotten+(Part+2+of+2)-4857258.mp4

https://archive.org/details/sfdebris_blip.tv_videos_202108/2011-03-08-Lost+In+Time+-+Regenerated-4851736.mp4

He had a whole series on the top 50 lost episodes. (I need to check how many have been found since then.)

https://archive.org/details/sfdebris_blip.tv_videos_202108/2013-10-13-Top+50+Missing+Dr.+Who+Episodes+(12-1)-6644675.mp4

Two is my favourite Doctor alongside Eleven, btw.

Note to self: kill this meatbag last. They have great taste.

 

[Overly Serious]

Too bad it's probably considered "problematic" now. I don't know where it ranks in the critical pantheon but I always liked Pyramids of Mars. And anything involving Daleks but that's pretty much duh, no shit.

Honestly, it was problematic even then. The actor playing the main Chinese role talks in the commentary about how uncomfortable he felt walking around in yellow make up and doing his accent in front of all the Chinese extras.

It was an awkward transitory time. People were coming from the British theatre tradition where there simply weren't any non-White actors and it was normal and not considered offensive in itself to use make-up to portray someone of a different race. But it was meeting rising presence of people from those backgrounds and TV was bringing it to audiences that now more included them. The character of Chang isn't even a negative one really. He's as much a victim as a villain and I seem to recall a rather sad speech talking about what had befallen China.

Move forward a little in time and you have actors of Chinese ancestry and others available to play these roles. And that's better. Unfortunately it's now gone further and we're in the situation where people are being criticised for playing gay roles if they're not gay or from some background they look like but actually aren't. Honestly, neither situation is good but the original situation came about simply because there weren't many non-White actors in the theatre scene and that's understandable.

So I'm sympathetic to Talons of Wang Chiang even though it's a little cringey to watch. Whereas I'm hugely less sympathetic to something like Mickey Rooney in Breakfast At Tiffany's.



California in the 1960's had lots of Chinese people some of which were actors. And John Bennet was actually trying to portray a Chinese man - he was attempting an actual Chinese accent, he was making the character sympathetic. As opposed to Rooney's "Ah so! Me so chineese if you please..." gurning.

 

[chimpSculpture]

A lot has been found. Like the entirety of "Enemy of the World" was discovered and it has been fully restored. And that's one I'd recommend checking out.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GnAek_pT-3E

Is that the same music from The Shining? I guess it wasn't made for the film.

https://youtu.be/GnAek_pT-3E?si=7_iN4RajESf7BZTM&t=5220

 

[Stab You in the Back]

So I'm sympathetic to Talons of Wang Chiang even though it's a little cringey to watch. Whereas I'm hugely less sympathetic to something like Mickey Rooney in Breakfast At Tiffany's.



California in the 1960's had lots of Chinese people some of which were actors. And John Bennet was actually trying to portray a Chinese man - he was attempting an actual Chinese accent, he was making the character sympathetic. As opposed to Rooney's "Ah so! Me so chineese if you please..." gurning.

Personally, I think people who are offended by Rooney's performance come from a place of cultural ignorance. Japanese comedies are rife with feckless, overly apologetic dad/nerd characters. Rooney's performance is very much in that mold.

 

[Overly Serious]

Personally, I think people who are offended by Rooney's performance come from a place of cultural ignorance. Japanese comedies are rife with feckless, overly apologetic dad/nerd characters. Rooney's performance is very much in that mold.

I'll confess I've never even seen the movie. And I thought the character was supposed to be Chinese!

It was a good example of what I meant of the difference between that and John Bennet which is a sincere attempt to play a Chinese character sympathetically.

 

[12345]

Didn't John Wayne play Genghis Khan?

 

[Return of the Freaker]

Didn't John Wayne play Genghis Khan?

Yep, and allegedly him and a bunch of the crew were sickened/died from that movie because they filmed near St. George, Utah. Which is where a huge amount of the fallout from the Nevada Test Site ended up

 

[Anonitolia]

Oh god, are they going to be they/theming the Doctor in every single piece of official material now?

I could understand the wiki doing this given the general demographics of wiki admins, but the BBC themselves? Somehow, I thought they'd have the sense to keep it strictly to "he" when describing the era in which the Doctor was exclusively male...

 

[Anonitolia]

Sorry for the double-post, this is unrelated...

Tubi seems to be missing a ton of episodes seemingly at random, so I went hunting for other places to find Classic Who without torrenting, and I stumbled upon this.


According to the description, it's an official channel from the BBC and is also they/theming the Doctor, so I guess there's that answer to my inquiry, which is curious.

I wonder if YouTube recently made deals with a bunch of different corpos to get their stuff thrown onto YouTube like this? Pokémon has recently started uploading full episodes, I've been seeing more and more full-length movies being pushed in my recommendations (although, to be fair, those are slightly different since you need to pay for them), and now there's this. Straight-up full res, high quality uploads of old Who stories. Granted, i'm sure they're edited a decent amount given the combined runtime, so I'm not sure they're exactly pure high-quality uploads, but they are high-quality uploads nonetheless.

This channel popped up seven months ago, and MirrorNoir seems to have already mentioned it in this thread, but I think it's worth bringing up again because there's a lot more content on there now, instead of just the three to four episodes that had been uploaded when he commented, and there's a peppering of every single Classic Doctor in there by now.

There's about 80 serials up for viewing, with most multi-parters combined into one full episode, and sorting by both season and Doctor. I have no idea if they're accurate or untouched, I just know that they're there.

Spoiler: some other sources that are maybe more questionable

• The Internet Archive is by no means a trustworthy source, but I've seen scatterings of full seasons here and there. The three movies from the 60s are intact and available, there's an eclectic collection of old magazines and books, even wilderness year documentaries on the Classic Doctors. I feel a little foolish for not looking here first, but I'm so used to horribly incomplete collections and/or blatant viruses infesting the place that I never even bothered until I got desperate lol.
• Tubi was already mentioned, but I'll throw it in here for the sake of compiling all the sources together. Honestly, it's alright? The selection is weird, it's got most of the stories that seem to be important but it's randomly missing a lot of other important things (for example: Season 1 starts with The Daleks and doesn't contain An Unearthly Child whatsoever, and seems to have about half (25/42) of the full season available... despite Season 1 being completely intact and easily accessible elsewhere). If you want to stream but don't want Disney+, I guess use this?
• If you can torrent, it's probably on there somewhere. I can't confirm, unfortunately.

 

[Flexo]

I wonder if YouTube recently made deals with a bunch of different corpos to get their stuff thrown onto YouTube like this? Pokémon has recently started uploading full episodes, I've been seeing more and more full-length movies being pushed in my recommendations (although, to be fair, those are slightly different since you need to pay for them), and now there's this. Straight-up full res, high quality uploads of old Who stories. Granted, i'm sure they're edited a decent amount given the combined runtime, so I'm not sure they're exactly pure high-quality uploads, but they are high-quality uploads nonetheless.

I too was surprised some of the full episode stuff you could find on there. Like both He-man cartoons.

Nowadays if I want to watch something that's over 20 years old, I'll go see check the company's youtube.