>watching Season 7 (1970) in its entirety>it's fucking kinoHow did they do it?
>>220479317It's really too bad that most of the episodes outside of the four from "Spearhead" only exist in shit quality
>>220479317Because it is the BBC basically doing Doctor Who as if it was made by ITC Entertainment. Just look at the kino ITC made>the 1960s and 1970s, such as The Saint, Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased), Danger Man, The Baron, Gideon's Way, The Champions, The Prisoner, Thunderbirds, Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons, Stingray, Joe 90, Interpol Calling, Man in a Suitcase, Strange Report, Department S, The Persuaders!, Jason King, The Adventurer, The Protectors, Space 1999, UFO and Return of the Saint.
>>220479317Somewhat of a limitation is the mother of innovation. The limitation being being forced to make it Earth-bound for budget reasons.
>>220479396I was surprised by how dark and edgy S7 was>lots of shots of people dying from the Silurian plague with giant lesions on their faces>the long shootout in Ambassadors of Death>the unapologetic fascist parallel universe in InfernoI feel like S8 on they really tone it back down to being a "kids' show"
>How did they do it?Because not only is the 3rd doctor very cool but his supporting cast are extremely entertaining as well
>>220479373that's because they shot Spearhead on higher grade film, and that was the only time they did that.
Is the 3rd doctor a better starting point for classic who than the 4th?
>>220479514doesn't really matter.The 4th Doctor era does pick up with Sarah Jane as an already established character though.
>>220479505not even just thatbut the other three stories fell victim to the same wiping that decimated the 60s, and they only mostly existed as black & white videotape copies that they had to recolor
>>220479514I would say yes in the sense that both S7 and S8 of Third are jumping on points. With Fourth I do really agree when people say start from the beginning of Fourth since so much of Fourth's first season is really still in the Third type era. I am also not really convinced S12 is all that strong. I like Robot well enough, but it is not a great. Personally I never got all the hype for The Ark in Space, though maybe that is just me. The Sontaran Experiment is to some extent filler for budgetary reasons, and from what I remember I did not dislike it though unless you saw The Time Warrior from Third I do not see what the particular fund is going to be. Genesis of the Daleks, again maybe another controversial take, but I do not buy into all the hype - though to be clear I am not saying it is bad per se. Then S12 ends on Revenge of the Cybermen that has the bad reception it has. If someone is to jump onto Fourth then S13 works way better. If the option is just watching whatever random serials then it probably does not make all that much difference which someone checks first between the two.
>>220479514If you already like James Bond or The Avengers (not the capeshit) then the 3rd Doctor is a great starting point
If you're willing to put the time in, and are starting classic for the first time, I'd suggest watching at least a bit of Hartnell and Troughton, just to experience them, fill in some background details on the Daleks, UNIT, etc.But the Third Doctor is a perfectly fine place to start. It was pretty much a light reboot.
>>220479617Personally, I like Leela era 4th Doctor the most.The Sarah Jane era is maybe a little too rooted in the tone of the 3rd Doctor still. And yeah, I'm not wild about Robot, Revenge of the Cybermen, etc. On the other hand Genesis of the Daleks and the Brain of Morbius are really good.
>>2204796433rd is the last major crystallisation of the general template of what the Doctor is. 3rd represents the Doctor absorbing the functions, both more man of action and morality of a classical hero, of Ian and the other male companions that followed him in the 60s era of the show.
3rd Doctor doesn't suffer from the same flanderization/self-parody that would affect the 4th Doctor.
>>220479514No, because you're throwing someone into seven parters almost immediately. Most people going back to Classic Who are coming from the revival. It'll scare them away when they try to binge it all.
>>220479771OP here, I didn't actually mind the 7-parters. The only one that really felt padded out was Ambassadors.
>>220479725My issue with Genesis is it really distorts what the Daleks were prior to that and in many ways detrimentally shapes them going forward. The whole Daleks are Nazis is way overstated for what they were: conniving imperialists with an interest in science. This claim of Nation being influenced by Nazis even by himself, well that just seems like either projection of that onto the Daleks pre-Genesis as some sort of mistake common knowledge. If Nation did intend that idea then there is no real exploration of it. The Dead Planet is rooted in similar things to the fears of nuclear war from that era. The Dalek Invasion of Earth may as well be an allegory for European imperialism - there is even part where Barbara says something like 'even India' regarding the Daleks occupation. All three of the Third Doctor Daleks serials are generic imperialism. Power of the Daleks and Evil of the Daleks are about the Daleks being conniving.
>>220479929Slightly related but I find all three of the Pertwee Dalek stories to be really lame, bland, boring, and so forth. Which is funny that even Jon himself said the Daleks were his least favorite monsters.
>>220479929yeah, if you go back to the earliest Dalek stories, the Daleks really are just tragic. They're a people who got fucked up in a war that happened generations ago, and can never move on from that.To reduce that to them being genetic experiments created by literally Hitler, who can only comprehend hated and genocide, really does cheapen them in a way.When you really analyze Doctor Who as an overall franchise, you get the sense a lot of the writers really hate complexity. They flee from complexity. They want the heroes to be absolutely good, and the villains to be absolutely bad. they want simple answers to complex problems like "just put down your guns, silly. JUST STOP FIGHTING", as if no one ever thought of that.It would be nice for some writers to get in and really shake that up some day. Not that I expect that to happen.
>>220479317why isn't he gay and black though?
>>220480113nah, he's Billie Piper now.
>>220479929>there is no real exploration of it.The problem with the Daleks being Nazis/fascists approach is it is inherently limited with what you can do with it. With the nature of the Daleks you cannot do say 'what is the Daleks policy on women and why did women support the Dalek rise to power?' as an exploration of that as a way to explore the role of women in supporting Nazism. The Daleks so generically fascist you cannot do say 'what is, if anything, the difference between Nazism and Italian fascism?' (and likewise compare it to other regimes like Nationalist Spain, Brazilian integralism, Kuomintang etc.). You can make a bunch of these points, and obviously some of them are just not the sort of thing that a show like Doctor Who should attempt to explore, but it illustrates how shallow the Daleks are as Nazi stands in. Even stuff that you could maybe explore, such how does Dalek propaganda work on the Daleks themselves, the approach of asserting the Daleks are Nazis just enters the common issue of Nazis as being considered so evil became a generic evil where the actual complexity behind their rise and maintenance of the regime cannot be explored; you cannot do an exploration of Dalek propaganda on the Daleks themselves as the Daleks have just been asserted to be evil hence no propaganda is required on them.
>>220480174it's rooted in a very mid-20th century British view of the Nazis as "the baddies who bombed our country, and gave scary speeches in stadiums", as opposed to anything deeper or more cerebral than that.There's a lot to be said about it, which will certainly never be approached by your average Doctor Who writer.Russel T Davies literally doesn't understand how politics works...
>>220480293What bugs me about it is, beyond just the more Doctor Who issue of the Daleks being Nazis is not interesting and not really founded prior to Genesis and even more so NuWho in many respects pushing it, is it undersells the evil and horror of the Nazis that people who like to use Nazis as evil example of stuff. It is such a weird situation to me of how there is a culture that is both Nazis are evil and gets into panic about so much stuff and people being like the Nazis, yet the actual rise and the nature of the Nazis there is very little willingness beyond specific academic stuff to try and to explore. Surely the actual horror of it is that it is just ordinary people that went down x path. Same with all these regimes, you can say the same about the Bolsheviks. In the case of Doctor Who I would not mind the Daleks just being generic Nazis or imperialists, but it is when people act like anything is being said about it that is meaningful when it becomes ridiculously. As I said, a lot of the stuff you could explore about Nazism just would not work or would not be appropriate for Doctor Who to try to explore with the Daleks, yet 'Daleks are Nazis and Nazis are evil!' is not clever writing or even a meaningful political statement.
>>220480293>Russel T Davies literally doesn't understand how politics works...>President-elect
I love how everyone turned on RTD after a decade of sucking him off and wishing nuWho was just him, 10, and Rose forever and ever
>>220480434I suspect it's comforting to people to believe that the Nazis were just uniquely, almost metaphysically evil, because when you have to account for what the Nazis actually were (for example, the fact that they were socialists. The fact that they were driven by a will to put their country back together after a period of depression and oppression. That they employed heavy use of propaganda, and were very into grand projects designed to reshape society. The fact that they employed scapegoating tactics to explain away problems), it suddenly invites comparisons to be made to other regimes or organisations. Ones that the writers are maybe a little closer to in their personal allegiances.
>>220480569Also saying a Prime Minister looks tired is apparently enough to end their political career. Having legitimate concerns about unelected authorities is unacceptable, because UNIT are handicapped accessible.
it would do DW a lot of good to get some Anarchist/Libertarian aligned writers, who are suspicious of all forms of government, is all I'm saying.
>>220480036Right, exactly. The message should be, "This could be us if we face an existential crisis and change our biological selves. Our morals could/would shift too!" Instead it's just, "this is what happens if you elect a fascist government". It removes the "human" or moral quandary entirely and frankly cheapens the sci-fi.
Doctor Who is a big piece of shit, and it's my favourite thing ever.
>>220482318Mark of a true fan.
>>220479317>Romana II wanted to get a portrait of her done by a computer (AI slop portrait)>Lalla Ward's second husband, Richard Dawkins, believes some chatbot is "sentient"I don't know if this is as worse as the Moffet-Tennant legacy of this show, or when Janet Fielding was about to marry an Isreali arms-dealer and close associate of Robert Maxwell.
>>220482923>when Janet Fielding was about to marryanon, she was married to him
>>220480626>2005 RTD: question the government, they're a bunch of farting aliens wearing skin suits!>2025 RTD: do not EVER question the government you fucking CHUD DO YOU HEAR ME!!???
>>220480853That was literally Classic Who particularly the Barry Letts era
>>220484148like I said, he doesn't get politics. Everything is feelings and vibes with RTD. He doesn't understand the concept of holding a principle (unless it's more gay stuff).UNIT are good actually, because they respect disabled people, so they can just do whatever they want, and shouldn't be held accountable to a population. If they want to hold secrets, spy on you, and sell your data to the Zygons, that's their business, because they're heroes, dammit! Muh Brigadier!
>>220484195Depends. There were also some full blown communists in there (namely Ben Aaronovich)
>>220484638Malcolm Hulke was an unironic communist and Terrence Dicks was staunchly conservative, yet they were best friends
>>220479317How do people see pic related and think it's the peak of Doctor Who when this was actually contributing to its demise?
>>220485400They do not know any better. To a lot of people all that Doctor Who is at the time and since then was just that. You have to think about how many people had no familiarity with Doctor Who before that, how many people never checked Classic after being introduced to the show with RTD, and how many people even dropped the show when RTD/Tennent left.
>>220485472Remember when their wish came true and RTD came back along with Tennant and the first thing he did was have the Doctor get shamed by a tranny?
Why didn't Ncuti bigenerate? Also, how does that work for the Doctor that splits off from the newly formed one? Would Tennant 2 eventually bigenerate and make a new Doctor? How did the Tennant 1 partial regeneration go with bigeneration in effect?
Realistically, how would you fix the series at this point?
>>220485857The beauty of Doctor Who's format is you don't need to actually fix anything. Just cast a new Doctor and tell good stories.
Will the next showrunner undo RTD's un-Davros-ing of Davros?
>>220486674If there is one anytime soon I doubt they will touch a bunch of stuff like that if they are trying to distance themselves from the last several years. Out of sight, out of mind will be the more likely approach. That assumes they do not just continue the same general course. That assumes there even will be a continuation of the show in any meaningful sense.
>>220486674If RTD thought it'd be in poor taste to have a wheelchair bound man be the villain in a Children in Need special, why have him in it at all?
"Trauma dumping" or using television writing as your therapist is usually more common with younger people, but RTD absolutely did it with the recent seasons of nuWho, raging at the world about how no one cares about the disabled
How come in the 70s they made it a point to make the female companions a bit stronger and competent, but in the 80s they revert to screaming damsels?
>>220485926Well the Timeless Child definitely needs to be written out. If the Doctor's mother can be retconned, so can that.
