The Five Doctors

Using forbidden technology, previous incarnations of the Doctor (along with some of their favorite companions) are kidnapped and dropped off in the Death Zone on Gallifrey. At the center of the Death Zone stands a dark tower containing the Tomb of Rassilon, the final resting place of one of the most powerful Time Lords to have ever lived. The path to the dark tower would be treacherous on a good day, but the same technology used to transport the Doctors has also brought some of their most dangerous enemies to the Death Zone. The Five Doctors was a feature length special commemorating the twentieth anniversary of Doctor Who, much like how the The Three Doctors celebrated the show’s tenth anniversary. Though William Hartnell is seen in an archival clip at the beginning of the special, the role of the First Doctor was played in the rest of the special by Richard Hurndall. Hartnell had passed away a couple of years after appearing in The Three Doctors. Also of note is the fact that Tom Baker declined to participate in the special, though he and Romana are still seen via footage from the at-the-time unreleased and incomplete story Shada. The returning Doctors are all paired up with some of their more notable companions including the Doctor’s granddaughter Susan, the Brigadier and Sarah Jane Smith. There are even cameos from K-9, Mike Yates, Liz Shaw, Jamie McCrimmon and Zoe. The Five Doctors is fairly well made and entertaining. It’s clearly motivated by nostalgia and fan service but it’s never cloying or obsequious.

Rating: A man is the sum of his memories%

The Three Doctors

Fans had been suggesting for years that the Doctor should encounter a previous version of himself. And, for just as long, the show's writers and producers had been telling the fans that it was a terrible idea. But, when it came time to commemorate the show's tenth anniversary, it suddenly wasn't such a terrible idea anymore. The timing seemed right and the previous Doctors all seemed eager to participate. And so, we got The Three Doctors. The trouble was, William Hartnell (The First Doctor) was too ill to properly join in on the adventure. His scenes were shot separately and he mostly appears on a monitor screen. So, in that sense, the serial doesn't quite live up to its title. A problem that it will eventually share with the twentieth anniversary special, The Five Doctors, but I digress. The rest of the serial is entertaining enough, with the other two Doctors running around confusing and confounding the Brigadier. Apparently, Pertwee and Troughton (The Second Doctor) didn't get along at first, which seems terribly appropriate given their onscreen friction. At the end of the serial, all is right in the universe again and the dashing Doctor of the 1970s says goodbye to his predecessors. As an added bonus, the Time Lords provide the Doctor with the necessary parts and knowledge to repair his TARDIS, effectively ending his exile on Earth.

Rating: Pass me a silicon rod%

The Tenth Planet

The Tenth Planet is an important serial for multiple reasons. First and foremost, it's important because it's the final serial in the First Doctor era. Some say that William Hartnell's contract had not been renewed over concerns about his failing health. While some others suggest that Hartnell's clashing with the production staff had finally reached a tipping point. It could easily be an either/or situation or a combination of both factors. Christopher Eccleston (the Ninth Doctor) has suggested in interviews that he left Doctor Who after one series because of his own conflicts with the show's producers. And Hartnell's health and memory problems had been a concern for a while before this point. In either case, it was the concept of regeneration and the choice of the Hartnell's successor that allowed the show to continue on for decades after this serial.

The Tenth Planet is also important because it features the debut of the Cybermen, Doctor Who's most popular reoccurring enemies after the Daleks. This first batch of Cybermen is a bit different from the ones that would pop up later on down the line. Their hands are still human and some of their facial features are still visible behind their masks. Their voices have not become entirely mechanical yet either, giving them a strange speech pattern. They make a great impression in this serial too. Their planet, Mondas, arrives in Earth's solar system, causing all sorts of problems for the Doctor, his companions and the folks at the secret military base at the South Pole. The Cybermen are smart and coldly calculating but not above killing people with their bare hands. And though their features would continually change with each new appearance, it's clear to see why they've resonated with the show's writers and fans.

Rating: Keep warm%

(Image from beyondmediaonline.com)

The Smugglers

The First Doctor's penultimate adventure finds him in Cornwall in the seventeenth century. The TARDIS arrives on a beach outside a small village that is seemingly populated exclusively by scoundrels. Seriously, every person that the Doctor and his companions meet in the first episode is connected to smuggling in some way. It's not until late in the second episode that they meet someone who isn't trying to capture or kill them. Though they were introduced in the previous serial, this is Ben and Polly's first real adventure as companions to the Doctor. Before they stepped into the TARDIS, these new companions really had no way of knowing what they were getting themselves into. And since there are no experienced companions aboard the TARDIS, it's clear that the writers had to cut a few corners in order to get the new companions up to speed. The Doctor is often quite curt with Ben and Polly and they're left on their own for most of the adventure. This serial is particularly violent, containing quite a few murders. Ironically, the only clips of these episode that have survived are from scenes that were cut by overseas censors for being too violent.

Rating: ___% (Rating Missing)

(Image from themindreels.com)

The War Machines

Whenever the TARDIS touches down in London, it's always in what would have been then contemporary London. So when the TARDIS arrives in London for The War Machines, it's the swinging London of 1966. While the Doctor finds himself drawn to a newly constructed communications tower, Dodo just wants to hit up the hottest night club she can find. There's a lot that could be said about the poor treatment that the Doctor's female companions have so far received on the show, but that's probably better left to someone much smarter than myself. But basically, after the Doctor cons his way into seeing WOTAN, the most technologically advanced computer in existence (like a sixties Skynet), Dodo is hypnotized. After the Doctor figures out that she's under WOTAN's influence, he hypnotizes her again causing her to pass out. Dodo is then sent to the countryside to recuperate and she's only heard from again at the end of the serial when the Doctor's new companions tell him that Dodo has decided to stay behind in London. And, just like that, Dodo's short, unfortunate run on the show comes to an end. The rest of the serial is fairly decent, with the Doctor and his new friends fending off WOTAN's hypnotized underlings and some boxy robots. There was one thing did irk me in particular though, WOTAN repeatedly refers to the Doctor as "Doctor Who," the first and so far only time anyone has explicitly called the Doctor "Doctor Who."

Rating: Fab gear%

The Savages

In the final moments of each serial, we're typically treated to a brief teaser for the following story. At the end of The Gunfighters we see a man dressed in animal pelts emerging from the underbrush carrying a large club in a menacing fashion. This didn't leave me with much hope for The Savages. I thought it would probably be a serial along the lines of An Unearthly Child, where the Doctor and his companions find themselves mixed up in the power struggles of a barbaric society. Thankfully, this wasn't the case. The Savages is about a technologically advanced race who are literally draining the life force out of another race on their planet. The Doctor and his companions quickly suss out that something is wrong. It doesn't hurt that the advanced race raise a lot of red flags. Saying shit like: "You're totally free here. Just don't ask too many questions and don't go into that room over there. It's forbidden." And whenever the Doctor asks about the secret of their longevity, they can't wait to change the subject. "What's your secret?" "Hey, don't worry about it." In the end, the Doctor and his friends clean house and Steven decides to stay behind to help broker the peace between the two races.

Rating: ___% (Rating Missing)

(Image from doctorwhomindrobber.com)

The Gunfighters

When I saw The Ark, I was impressed that the production staff of Doctor Who would bother putting together an episode that required multiple live animals in an indoor setting. Doctor Who was famously made on the cheap in some of the BBC's smaller television studios. So you can imagine the headaches that filming with live animals would have caused. I was similarly impressed by the use of live horses in The Gunfighters. They probably could have gotten away without using the horses but they're a nice touch here. And even though the serial is clearly being filmed in a studio, the sets used in the production are quite good. There's an odd musical cue that reoccurs throughout the four episodes that is pretty unnecessary. Also, this serial features one of my favorite things: British actors using bad American accents. I usually find it difficult to spot a Brit doing an American accent, but there are a few actors here who don't come anywhere near the mark.

Rating: People keep giving me guns and I do wish they wouldn't%

The Celestial Toymaker

At this point in the series, Doctor Who was desperately looking for a way to get rid of Doctor Who. William Hartnell, the First Doctor, struggled with his lines throughout his entire tenure as the Doctor. And by 1966, he was also butting heads with the show's production staff. The Celestial Toymaker was initially written as a way of getting rid of Hartnell. During the serial the Doctor is rendered mute and almost entirely invisible, the plan was for the Doctor to change form when he was made visible again. Instead, behind the scenes, Hartnell's contract was extended for another five serials. He probably didn't know it at the time, but those would end up being his last five serials as the show's lead.

Rating: This is some form of attack%

The Ark

I'm glad that copies of The Ark still exist. It's an ambitious, albeit goofy, serial. It's probably most famous for the Monoids, a race of one eyed aliens that look like one of Dr. Seuss' rejected character designs. The serial has some decent special effects for the era and a fantastic cliffhanger at the end of the second episode. But it also has multiple instances of characters trying to deliver the words "security kitchen" with ominous conviction. And it cannot be overstated how ridiculous the Monoids are, from their bizarre appearance to their maniacal lust for power. I would recommend The Ark for anyone wanting to see an example of high-reaching sci-fi on a budget.

Rating: I couldn't send you home even if I wanted to%

P.S. If you click on the picture in this review, you'll see the Doctor, Steven and Dodo casually petting an elephant. I chose this image over a picture of the Monoids simply because I couldn't believe there was a moment in the Doctor Who canon where the Doctor got to walk up to and interact with a live elephant.

The Massacre of St Bartholomew’s Eve

The Massacre of St Bartholomew’s Eve is a fairly straightforward historical serial. It starts out plainly enough with Steven and the Doctor arriving in France in the days before an epic wave of religious violence. After hitting up the nearest tavern, they decide to split up. The Doctor goes off to find an apothecary and then promptly disappears for the majority of the story. Steven ends up being the primary focus of this serial. He's oblivious to the events going on all around him even though he keeps bumping into and butting heads with all the key players. There's a nice fake out when William Hartnell (the actor who plays the First Doctor) comes in to the story playing another character, the Abbot of Amboise. At first it seems as though the Doctor has become a player in the central plot by disguising himself as one of the conspirators. But then the Abbot is killed and the Doctor shows up. It was just a big coincidence that the Doctor and the Abbot looked and sounded identical. After they're reunited, Steven pleads with the Doctor to help his new friends and intervene in the events unfolding around them but the Doctor refuses, saying that history cannot be changed. This leads to a big blow out between the two of them back on the TARDIS. Steven decides that he can no longer accompany the Doctor and gets off the TARDIS when they re-materialize. Being alone for the first time in a while, the Doctor has a good long mope about his former companions. And then, because the door was left open, in walks Dorothea "Dodo" Chaplet. The Doctor tries to shoo her away and then in runs Steven with the Police close behind. Quickly, the Doctor shuts the doors and fires up the TARDIS, making Dodo their newest travelling companion.

Rating: ___% (Rating Missing)

(Image from Wikipedia)

The Daleks' Master Plan

The Daleks' Master Plan is a good serial. It's so good that I'm just going to breeze past all of the white actors playing various Asian and Egyptian characters, #DoctorWhoSoWhite. And watching it now, some 50+ years after it was made, it's interesting to take stock of all of things that make this particular serial so unique. At 12 episodes in length (13 if you count Mission to the Unknown), The Daleks' Master Plan is the longest serial in the "Classic" run of Doctor Who. It has the first Christmas episode. It's the first time we see actor Nicholas Courtney on the show, an actor who would end up making regular appearances throughout the entire Doctor Who series. And for the first time, one of the Doctor's companions dies. Yes, poor old Katarina, the young handmaiden from the ancient city of Troy, dies after being ejected from an air lock. There are actually quite a few deaths in this serial. So many, in fact, that they wouldn't show it in Australia because they deemed it "unsuitable for minors." This serial also has some great episode titles. They stopped naming the individual episodes later on in Season 3, which is a shame when we got titles like "The Nightmare Begins," "Golden Death," and "The Abandoned Planet." Dibs on calling my band Abandoned Planet, by the way. Oh yeah, and the Monk from The Time Meddler shows up for a few episodes. The first time a villain other the Daleks makes a return appearance. Only 3 episodes of The Daleks' Master Plan are known to exist today, which means you'll have to sit through reconstructions of the missing episodes if you want to check this one out. Honestly though, if you're interested in the First Doctor era, it's worth making the effort to see this serial.

Rating: Now will you shut up, sir? Hmm?%

The Myth Makers

It would seem that if you're one of the Doctor's female companions, an ankle injury is the equivalent of a death sentence. At the beginning of The Dalek Invasion of Earth Susan hurts her ankle, by the end of the story she is left behind by the Doctor. At the start of The Myth Makers Vicki is nursing an injured ankle (an injury sustained at the end of Galaxy 4) and by the end of the serial she is allowed to stay behind, ending her time as one of the Doctor's companions. Supposedly Maureen O'Brien (Vicki) had been growing unhappy with her role on the show which made the program's new producers keen to get rid of her. It sucks that Vicki's departure from the show so closely resembled that of Susan's departure, seeing as Vicki struggled to get out of Susan's shadow from the start. The Myth Makers is one of the show's fairly typical historical stories. Landing the TARDIS outside of the ancient city of Troy, our heroes find themselves mixed up in the war between the Greeks and the Trojans. Vicki and Steven end up in a dungeon, the Doctor convinces the Greeks to build a giant wooden horse, yadda yadda yadda. Vicki's seat in the TARDIS doesn't have a chance to get cold because it is immediately filled by Katarina, a Trojan handmaiden who thinks she has died and that the Doctor is taking her to the great beyond. I'm sure that will all work out.

Rating: ___% (Rating Missing)

(Image from Wikipedia)

Galaxy 4

Sometimes appearances can be deceiving. Like when you arrive on a new planet, it's possible that the bumbling robots with the stun guns aren't actually the bad guys. It's also possible that the warrior women who help you out might be planning on imprisoning and murdering you. And maybe this new planet might be on the verge of exploding. Life can be funny like that. It's a shame that most of Galaxy 4 is still missing. Not because it's a particularly noteworthy serial, mostly because there are some interesting creature designs that we don't get to see. There is a species of alien in this serial called the Rill. They breathe ammonia and control little robots that look like the Daleks, if the Daleks were made out of Dairy Queen soft serve ice cream. We only get a glimpse of the Rill in the surviving footage, but various reconstructions suggest they might have looked like a cross between Jabba the Hutt and the monster from It Conquered the World. Sadly, we may never get to see the Rill in all their original glory. (It's really not that sad.)

Rating: Not just nothing, child%

The Time Meddler

When we first met the Doctor and his granddaughter we learned that they were fugitive aliens with a malfunctioning time machine. By the time we got to The Time Meddler, the last serial in the show’s second season, we really hadn’t learned anything else about who the Doctor was or where he came from. We had learned a thing or two about what the Doctor was capable of and what made him tick, but there still wasn’t anything terribly concrete about his back story. And even though The Time Meddler introduced another time traveler, with his own TARDIS, we never learned where exactly he and the Doctor were from or what kind alien they were specifically. What we did get, though, was a great serial. The Time Meddler combined a historical setting with science fiction themes, to great effect. It also gave us our first real chance to see the latest companion, Steven Taylor, in action. Steven comfortably filled the Ian shaped hole in the show's cast, confounding the Doctor (and occasionally Vicki) with his questions while also being young and spry enough to throw down when fisticuffs were in order. At the end of serial, we don’t know where the Doctor and his companions were off to next, but thanks to The Time Meddler the show had greatly expanded their options.

Rating: I'm not a mountain goat%

The Chase

In the very first episode of Doctor Who, Ian and Barbara force their way into the TARDIS and become wrapped up in the Doctor's aimless travels through time and space. It's worth remembering that the first Doctor is a fugitive who may or may not be in control of his ship. The Doctor is seemingly unable to return Ian and Barbara to their proper time and place and so they go with him, unsure if they'll ever make it back home. By the time we get to The Chase, the crew of the SS TARDIS have settled into a routine. They no longer seem impressed by or afraid of what awaits them outside the TARDIS's doors. They've become reckless tourists, content to sun themselves on a dying world. But as we learned at the end of the previous serial, The Space Museum, the Daleks have their own time machine now and they are ready to follow our friends until the end of eternity. This six part serial is almost like a greatest hits package, dropping our characters into and out of a variety of stories and locations. They're never in one place for more than two episodes and each place they visit could easily have been the setting for an entire serial. In the end, Ian and Barbara are able to make it back home, but the Doctor continues onward, into the unknown.

Rating: I shall miss them. Silly old fusspots%

Fun Fact: In the first episode of the serial, The Doctor repairs a Time-Space Visualiser (essentially an intergalactic DVR) that he got from the Space Museum. The device is capable of showing any event from history. Vicki uses the machine to watch The Beatles perform "Ticket to Ride" on Top of the Pops. Because of the BBC's policy of erasing old tapes, this is the only surviving footage of The Beatles on Top of the Pops.

The Space Museum

The Space Museum is a bit of a letdown. It's not bad, it's not good, it's just alright. Which is a shame because the first part of the serial is easily one of the best single episodes of Doctor Who that I've seen so far. After a strong start, the remaining installments play out like lackluster retreads of countless previous episodes. There's even a Dalek cameo at one point, which gives our main characters a chance to reminisce about some of their previous (and more popular) adventures. Things work out great for Vicki here though, she not only gets to show off her intellect but she plays a pivotal role in the story. Susan rarely got to be such an active player when she was part of the Doctor's entourage. The serial ends by teasing that the Daleks will once again be facing our heroes, which only reinforces the feeling that The Space Museum is pretty inconsequential.

Rating: I must confess I didn't enjoy the refrigeration%

The Crusade

Early Doctor Who serials are divided up pretty evenly between those with historical premises and those based in science fiction. It's my understanding that the historical serials were never particularly popular and were eventually abandoned after the first few seasons. Having seen about a half dozen of these historical serials, it's easy to see that they often follow a basic formula. One or more of the travelers get captured and those remaining find themselves rubbing elbows with a famous historical figure while the rest of the plot unfolds. The Crusade definitely has some of this formula working for it/against it, but for the first time you get a sense that the characters have learned from their previous experiences. Barbara is captured in the first few minutes of the story and yet she never despairs and never stops trying to escape. Having survived more than a dozen impossible scenarios by this point, she remains unfazed in the face of certain death.

Rating: You ask for the impossible very lightly%

(Image from aintitcool.com)

The Web Planet

This is a serial that really pushed the limits of what Doctor Who was capable of accomplishing, despite its meagre budgets and limited technical resources. Yes, you can spot the seams rather easily, but you can also tell that the cast and crew of the show were giving it their all. Time, unfortunately, has not been kind to The Web Planet, it's generally regarded rather poorly when compared to other serials from Doctor Who's early years. The Doctor and his companions don't really drive the plot of The Web Planet, they're mostly supporting characters in a larger, unfolding story. But at six parts, the serial ends up dragging on too long. Also, most of the alien creatures encountered by the Doctor and his friends speak in halted speech patterns, making their scenes feel endless. And while some of the effects are impressive, some merely distort the recorded images making everything hazy and out of focus.

Rating: We've been dragged off our course. The question is, is it some natural phenomena, or is it intelligent, deliberate, or for a purpose? Hmm%

(Image from bbc.co.uk)

The Romans

It's 64 AD in Rome and the Doctor couldn't be happier. It might actually be the first time we see the Doctor in a really good mood. We also get to see the Doctor in a fight at one point, his first real physical altercation in the series. And not only does he kick the guy's ass, afterwards he gloats that since he's so used to outwitting his opponents he forgets how much he enjoys "the gentle art of fisticuffs." The Doctor also seems very much in his element when he inserts himself into a conspiracy by assuming the identity of a murdered musician. In hardly any time at all, he gets up close and personal with Nero. Things don't go so well for Ian and Barbara though. Ian gets beat up, he becomes a galley slave, he gets shipwrecked, he gets captured, he almost gets thrown to the lions, and then he's forced to fight a friend to the death. Barbara has a rough go of it too, but even though people are trying to kill her it's mostly just her running away from a horny Nero Pepé Le Pew style. Throughout their ordeals, Ian and Barbara remain pretty calm and focused on escaping their captors, which they eventually do. But while all that is going on, the Doctor is living it up in Nero's court. He plays tricks on everyone as he pieces together the murder mystery that landed him in Nero's lap. He even ends up inspiring Nero to start the Great Fire of Rome. And then, as the city burns in the background, the Doctor and Vicki slip quietly out of Rome and head back to the TARDIS.

Rating: There's one thing you've got to learn about me. When I say we go to Rome, then we go to Rome%

(Image from Wikipedia)

The Rescue

After the opening credits, The Rescue starts with a brief shot of an empty cave. The TARDIS slowly fades into view. The police box's overhead light blinks. The episode's title is shown. The writer's credit appears. Normally these events would be followed by a cut to the people inside that police box; the show's main cast. Instead, we cut from the TARDIS to a crashed spaceship and the first of it's two survivors: Vicki. In 1965, when this episode first aired, Vicki was kind of a big deal. She was to be the first new companion to join the Doctor's escapades through time and space. The Rescue isn't really an important serial because of its story*, it's important because it establishes that the characters on this show are temporary. The cast could and would ebb and flow around our titular Doctor. Though no one at the time, probably not even the show's own producers, had any idea just how temporary that Doctor could also be.

Rating: Yes, I see. An easy way to get out of a locked room%

(Image from doctorwhomindrobber.com)


*I'll break it down real quick for you: Vicki and Bennett are stranded on the Planet Dido (make your own jokes here). Their rescue ship is still a few days away. Periodically, a scary bug man named Koquillian comes by and freaks Vicki out. Long story short: Koquillian is really Bennett in disguise. He was just trying cover up for killing a whole bunch of people. The Doctor and his companions show up, bust Bennett Scooby-Doo style and essentially nag Vicki into joining them.