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In honour of Doctor Who's 60th birthday, here are 60* things that I like about less popular** Doctor Who stories.

(*in multiple posts because I'm falling foul of the character limit)

(**IMDB rating of less than 7/10)

1. Susan is great in The Sensorites. She's at her absolute best in stories like this where she gets to be genuinely a bit alien and a bit weird.

2. "So," said someone at the BBC, "we're going to produce an allegory for different political systems, using insects. Choreographed by a mime artist. On a budget of about £2.50." The Web Planet might not entirely have succeeded, but my god, you have to love that they tried.

3. They introduced Jamie, the best companion, in The Highlanders! How is does this have less than a 7/10 rating, what is wrong with you people. It's Jamie.

4. I applaud the utter bonkersness of The Underwater Menace, and Patrick Troughton really gives it socks.

5. The Wheel in Space is proper 60s sci-fi: Servo-Robots, x-ray lasers, radio beams! I can practically smell Penguin mass-market paperbacks thinking about it. And with the introduction of Zoe, it completes my all-time favourite TARDIS team.

6. The Dominators contains the Quarks, who are adorable. They weren't supposed to be, but it doesn't matter.

7. Zoe is still relatively new to the TARDIS, but she has heaps to do in The Krotons. Nice having a female companion who's written as smart and capable.

8. We have entered the 70s, so with Colony in Space, we get Social Issues. Especially an Evil Mining Corporation, which are always fun.

9. More Social Issues in The Mutants, but this time they're paired with big sci-fi ideas. Ancient tablets! Strange life cycles! Love how much is going on here.

10. The Time Monster is like the Eurovision of Doctor Who. Deeply silly, but what would Doctor Who be without silliness? I'm sorry about Jo's coccyx too.

11. I love that they returned to Peladon in The Monster of Peladon, especially with the 50-year time jump. I'd like to see that kind of follow-up more often.

12. Is it not cool to love K9 any more? Well, I like my Doctor Who with a dose of silliness, and The Invisible Enemy delivered that. Every time traveller needs a robot dog.

13. The design of the Seers in Underworld is excellent, I love a brass dome.

14. Doctor Who doesn't have enough giant squidmonsters looming on the horizons. I'm glad the The Power of Kroll does something to address the deficit.

15. The Creature from the Pit gave us the line "a teaspoon and an open mind", and I appreciate it for that at least.

16. Romana wears one of her best of many splendid outfits in The Horns of Nimon.

17. I liked all the arch dialogue between the Doctor, Enlightenment and Persuasion in Four to Doomsday.

18. Heathrow airport is an underrated setting. I also appreciate how Time-Flight prominently features Concorde, making it far more 80s than they could ever have planned.

19. I don't intend this to be damning with faint praise (even though it probably sounds like it) but my favourite thing about Arc of Infinity is that we get a little jaunt through 80s Amsterdam. I do love a tram.

20. Babyfaced Martin Clunes doing his spoiled princeling thing in Snakedance is enjoyably disconcerting.

21. Terminus is tense and scary and bleak. Another one that I'd expected to be more highly rated.

22. Warriors of the Deep gives us a very solid base under siege. Silurians + Cold War is a winning combination.

23. Landing in a modern village doing a historical re-enactment in The Awakening is a witty touch.

24. I can’t say I enjoyed the idea of the Doctor’s violent moods in The Twin Dilemma, but I have to commend it as a punchy way to introduce the new regeneration.

25. The Mark of the Rani should surely get some love just for introducing the Rani: camp, delightful, iconic.

26. Herbert turning out to be HG Wells in Timelash is a lovely twist and handled well.

27. The Trial of a Time Lord is so grand and ambitious. If the show hadn't been struggling in general at this point, it would be among the all-time greats.

28. With its colour-coded gangs and faux-urban slang, Paradise Towers is gloriously of its time in a way that currently feels quite naff, but that I suspect will be fascinating to revisit in about 30 years.  

29. Delta and the Bannermen is action-packed and has one of the best titles in 80s Who.

30. Possibly the most terrifying moment in all of Doctor Who is Kane's face melting in Dragonfire. This series is nothing if it doesn't send children running for safety behind the sofa.

31. Got to love it when Who gets aggressively anti-Thatcher, and they never did it more than in The Happiness Patrol.

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ok but where can i watch classic who??? i dont live in the uk and i dont have a vpn and i cant find any dvds so do you know where i can watch it??

i really want to :(

(its fine if you dont/cant answer this btw)

-jm

here is a link to EVERY SINGLE episode of doctor who for free! it's a google drive folder - completely free and safe. ❤

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Why I like Ashad

This Cyberman Day let's talk about the Lone Cyberman, Ashad, the Modern Prometheus.

Daleks, I have noted elsewhere, are at their best the fewer Daleks there are.  One Dalek is a threat, a terror - a million Daleks are a nuisance.  It doesn't really matter though what circumstances arrive at a paucity or plurality of Daleks, it's a simple numbers game: the Law of Conservation of Ninjitsu.

Cybermen, by subtle but important contrast, thrive at boundaries.  Cybermen seem to always be on the edge of extinction, and rightly so - their origin story (s) take place at the edge of extinction.  They are inherently liminal - between one thing and another.  The number of Cybermen then doesn't really matter so much as the desperation.  You can have a good story with as many Cybermen as you like, so long as they're dying.  (If they're not dying they're just a large disposable robot army with no point beyond explosion fodder).  

The Lone Cyberman, then, combines these styles of effective monster writing.  Whereas vanishingly small numbers of Daleks are commonplace, this is the first time the Cybermen have gotten to benefit from their signature Law of Conservation of Ninjitsu.  But he is the perfect embodiment of this liminality - the crossover point between the Cybermen in decline and the Cybermen in ascendancy - the First and the Last.

It is unusual to think of Cybermen in the Singular - loss of individuality is sort of the point, isn't it?  But we have this Lone Cyberman, this singular, individual Cyberman, ready to do the whole Cyberman thing on his own, by himself, because he wants to.  He's so much of an Individual that he has a name.  And it doesn't help.  The Lone Cyberman with his human face and his human name is still every inch a Cyberman - and that's terrifying.  The original Cybermen weren't scary because they might happen to you, they were scary because they did that to themselves, on purpose, and Ashad recaptures that horror.  The voluntary and willful sacrifice not so much of individuality but of humanity.  Almost universally across the recent seasons of the show we've seen people from Yvonne Hartman to Bill Potts assert their personality, their individuality, in defiance of Cybermankind, but Ashad asserts his in favor of it.  The appeal to his "inner humanity" fails.  As his systems break down he's not upset to be a Cyberman.  Offered a choice, he chooses the Cyberium.

"The Haunting of Vila Diodati" is a wonderful ghost story.  Everything about it showcases this liminality that is typical of the genre.  Even the setting is there at the boundary between Storm and Stress - very literal Sturm und Drang.  Likewise Shelley existing so much at the border of Life and Death that the Doctor is able to leverage that as a plot point.  And central to all of that (if it makes sense to talk about something being simultaneously Central and Liminal) is Ashad.  As the last (and first) of his kind he exists at the border if cybermankind.  As cyberman, he exists very visibly at the borders of man and machine.  I love his design so much.  Damaged, Ashad cannot be mistaken for a construct, a mere robot - he is equal parts Cyber and Man.  Transhumanism gone horribly horrible right.  And he is there at the border of Life and Death as well, beautiful and grotesque.  Superhuman and subhuman - he is Sublime.

It is no wonder then that Mary Shelley is fascinated by him.  Ashad perfectly captures the horror themes of the of Frankenstein, which is what the episode is about after all - the manmade monster and the man, made Monster.  The horror of Frankenstein is not that the Monster is monstrous, but that he is beautiful.  Prometheus brings the fire of the gods down to mortals, and Frankenstein brings down the act of Creation itself - but what will we Create with it?

...Cybermen, apparently.

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Surprise B*tch

I Like Doctor Who

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Why I Like Brandon

A redheaded child, found in a basket - a changeling, a cuckoo child, a classic story.  His given name evokes both St. Brendan - the eternal traveler on a cyclic sea voyage, always discovering the familiar in the strange and the strange in the familiar - and Bran the Blessed - legendary King and Founder, whose presence and influence protect Britain into perpetuity.  It’s a good name for a foundling on a strange shore, and even if it might not be the name he was born to, well, it’s the name you choose that’s important after all, isn’t it?

Brandon is a mystery, but a mystery that... doesn’t really need to be solved.  He is adopted, claimed - and loved.  And it’s enough.  What he is matters less than who he is - and who he is is ultimately a function of what he does.  And what does he do?  From his own mouth, all he wants to do is Serve.  Why is he here?  He’s here to help.  And maybe he’s got some special abilities, a strange (alien even) resilience.  Does it matter?  It’s convenient - but it doesn’t really change anything, does it?

Doctor Who is frequently fast paced, frenetic even.  But inserted into the life-and-death struggle, universe on the line, all or nothing style we get this very gentle, very restful, very normal life being played out.  It’s lovely.  It’s so pleasant as to be almost sinister.  Where is the other shoe?  When we finally get the backstory, solve the mystery, will it Change Everything Forever?  How could it?  Brandon is a child when we meet him - maybe he’s Special, but he only knows what he’s been taught - and  he only is what he chooses to do.  But Brandon’s story being played out gently gives us space in the narrative to breathe, and to wonder (which is always the fun thing).

There’s a Stargate episode where the action hero has become unwittingly telepathically linked to...a random barber in Illinois.  So the barber dreams of Adventure too fantastical to be real, and the action hero dreams of...peace.  Normalcy.  He never brings it up because it’s unremarkable.  Like the life of a foundling in Ireland - why would you question the gentle memory of a pleasant life not your own?  

I like Brandon.  I like the way his story breaks up the rhythm of the episode.  It doesn’t quite evoke the “I kinda wish I were watching that show instead of Doctor Who” that I got off of “Human Nature,” but it is just...nice.  In the midst of Cybermen and explosions there’s a still place, a quiet mystery that might get solved or might not and will probably end up just as well either way.  A whole life lived, a child accepted, a man who is here to help.  Proof that the pauses can be just as compelling as the action.

I don’t really care where Brandon came from.  What matters is he’s a good boy.

I sure hope nothing bad happens to him.

Happy Birthday, Doctor Who

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Thank You

Today Doctor Who celebrates its 54th anniversary. It also happens to be Thanksgiving Day in the US, so it seems an appropriate moment to say thank you to all of you who have made this project a success.

I started this project in 2013 as my contribution to the 50th anniversary festivities. This is a fandom that has been fraught with division and vitriol for, well, the past 54 years - the nature of the franchise almost demands it. Doctor Who is vast and varied, and so too are its fans, and across the decades we have embodied the best and worst fandom has to offer. My purpose with this project was to give us something we could all get behind; and specifically, in 11 months, to find at least something worth liking about every single episode of the show.

And I did. I found something good to say, every day, for very nearly a year. I think I missed one update in that whole period (although I have done less well since then. And I found something to like about every Doctor, every companion, every adversary who appeared in more than one story, and every single story that had yet aired. I may have changed a few minds. I certainly changed my own at several points, which by itself justifies the exercise. And, like Light, my beautiful catalog was once more incomplete the moment I finished it, and for the same reason.

Doctor Who is a show about change.  Like everything in the universe, that change is what has allowed it to go on so long and what, like William Hartnell, I hope will allow it to go on forever.  But I cannot.

This July I had a baby. And he's perfect. But the careful reader will have noticed that the output of this blog dropped abruptly at the beginning of series 10. Not because there is anything wrong with this latest season, but because I wasn't able to keep up even with watching the new episodes, let alone writing on them. I gave myself until today to either create a backlog of posts to get up and running or to give up the project.

And so I am retiring this project.

We are on the cusp of a new era in the show, which will give us innumerable new things to argue about, to love and to despise, and, I am sure, a passel of new fans to join the conversation.  I have in no way stopped liking Doctor Who - rather, they are making new Doctor Who faster than I can like it!  And that is wonderful.  Doctor Who has been back long enough that it no longer sorts easily into strict binarities - the lesson has been learned once more that there is a lot of Doctor Who.  Hopefully that perspective will also teach us to be kinder to one another about it.  Either way, I am looking forward to what the future has to offer and to being part of those conversations.

So thank you.  Thank you to all of you who have made this project a success.  Thank you to everyone who has made this show such a joy that it warrented such a project.  Thank you to the people who have challenged me and encouraged me.  Thank you to Franny and Seumas, for lighting a fire under me and helping me make this all work.  Thank you to every guest poster, every person who argued with me, everyone who put something like !!! in their tags.  Thank you to the showrunners and writers and actors and the rest, for everything they’ve given us for fifty-four years!  Wow!

Doctor Who has had a lot of beautiful valedictions, but I think I’m going to go with the first one, and bid you go forward in all your beliefs, and prove to me that I am not mistaken in mine.  And I don’t mean specific tastes and such - no one will ever love plant monsters as much as I do and that’s okay.  But the belief that we can and should be a mutually congenial fandom, despite and because of all our heterogeneity.  That tastes differ and that reasonable minds can vary.  That the enemy is never those who make more Doctor Who, only those who make less.  That we should be hating the Burninators, Mary Whithouse, Michael Grade - not each other.

Happy Thanksgiving.  Happy Whoniversary.  Be Excellent to each other.  And I’ll see you around.

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Doctor Who Watch List

(William Hartnell Episode / Peter Capaldi Episode):

100,000 BC: An Unearthly Child / 8x01 Deep Breath

The Daleks: The Dead Planet / 8x02 Into the Dalek

The Daleks: The Survivors / 8x03 Robot of Sherwood

The Daleks: The Escape / 8x04 Listen

The Daleks: The Ambush / 8x05 Time Heist

The Daleks: The Expedition / 8x06 The Caretaker

The Daleks: The Ordeal / 8x07 Kill the Moon

The Daleks: The Rescue / 8x08 Mummy on the Orient Express

Inside the Spaceship: The Edge of Destruction / 8x09 Flatline

Inside the Spaceship: The Brink of Disaster / 8x10 In the Forest of the Night

The Aztecs: The Temple of Evil / 8x11 Dark Water

The Aztecs: The Warriors of Death / 8x12 Death in Heaven

The Aztecs: The Bride of Sacrifice / 8x13 Last Christmas

The Aztecs: The Day of Darkness / 9x01 The Magician’s Apprentice

The Invasion of Earth: World’s End / 9x02 The Witch’s Familiar

The Invasion of Earth: The Daleks / 9x03 Under the Lake

The Invasion of Earth: Day of Reckoning / 9x04 Before the Flood

The Invasion of Earth: The End of Tomorrow / 9x05 The Girl Who Died

The Invasion of Earth: The Waking Ally / 9x06 The Woman Who Lived

The Invasion of Earth: Flashpoint / 9x07 The Zygon Invasion

The Rescue: The Powerful Enemy / 9x08 The Zygon Inversion

The Rescue: Desperate Measures / 9x09 Sleep No More

The Romans: The Slave Traders / 9x10 Face the Raven

The Romans: All Roads Lead to Rome / 9x11 Heaven Sent

The Romans: Conspiracy / 9x12 Hell Bent

The Romans: Inferno / 9x13 The Husbands of River Song

The Chase: The Executioners / 10x00 The Return of Doctor Mysterio

The Chase: The Death of Time / 10x01 The Pilot

The Chase: Flight Through Eternity / 10x02 Smile

The Chase: Journey into Terror / 10x03 Thin Ice

The Chase: The Death of Doctor Who / 10x04 Knock Knock

The Chase: The Planet of Decision / 10x05 Oxygen

The Time Meddler: The Watcher / 10x06 Extremis

The Time Meddler: The Meddling Monk / 10x07 The Pyramid at the End of the World

The Time Meddler: A Battle of Wits / 10x08 The Lie of the Land

The Time Meddler: Checkmate / 10x09 The Empress of Mars

The Tenth Planet: Episode One / 10x10 The Eaters of Light

The Tenth Planet: Episode Two / 10x11 World Enough and Time

The Tenth Planet: Episode Three / 10x12 The Doctor Falls

The Tenth Planet: Episode Four / 10x13 Twice Upon a Time

What is this? This is a suggested watch list for anyone wanting to get caught up on rewatch the twelfth Doctor era of new Doctor Who (series 8-10 starring Peter Capaldi, 2014-2017) who either hasn’t watched any of the first Doctor era (season 1-4 starring William Hartnell, 1963-1966), or wishes to re-familiarise themselves with the character in the run-up to this year’s Christmas special, Twice Upon a Time, which is set to feature both incarnations of the Doctor.

Who is it for? First of all, it’s worth noting that there’s absolutely no wrong way to watch Doctor Who. Whether you only like one Doctor or era and resolutely stick to watching and rewatching it, enjoy bits and pieces of various parts of the show, only enjoy one of the spin-offs, or you enjoy it all, it’s all totally valid. You’re under no obligation to watch anything you don’t enjoy or have any interest in. But I’m aware that some people who are fans of the new series are interested in seeing some of the classic series (specifically the first Doctor, in light of the upcoming special) but aren’t sure exactly where to start, so this is for them, or anyone who wants a pared down rewatch list in the lead-up to Christmas.

Why does it exist? While there are lots of varying suggestions for how to go about watching the classic series–there’s a whole blog which sets out to offer differing opinions in one place, while I personally just started with the first episode and watched it chronologically–this is a list I made for my parents to follow after they expressed an interest in getting to know the first Doctor, and I thought maybe others might find it useful.

In putting it together I took into account their unfamiliarity with the serialised format (stories take place over multiple 20-something minute episodes instead of one 45 minute episode), pacing, and tone of the ‘60s episodes and avoided any stories that feature missing episodes from that period in the show’s history, and attempted to compile a list that gives a broad overview of some of my favourite stories while maintaining some kind of overarching narrative and arc for the Doctor specifically.

How does it work? I have a feeling that one of the biggest hurdles for people coming to the first Doctor era cold is the entirely different tone and pacing it has to any modern television show, let alone the new series of Doctor Who, and a lot of people burn themselves out trying to consume it how they would a modern series (i.e. binging) rather than taking into account it was a weekly series.

With that in mind I usually suggest slowing things down and limiting yourself to just one episode at a time, at least until you’re used to how the series works.  Having said that, I know that sometimes one episode of Who just isn’t enough for me, especially such a short episode, so I thought that pairing each with one from the twelfth Doctor era would give you a good sized burst of Who for the day, while balancing out any sluggishness you might feel from the more theatrical serial structure of the 1960s, which many take a while to adjust to (I know I did, but now I love it).

So in order to follow this viewing order I suggest taking 40 days–there will be exactly 40 episodes starring Peter Capaldi come Christmas day so I chose to pair them with just 40 starring William Hartnell–and watch one episode of each era per day, slowly working your way through both eras and allowing yourself to mellow in the cliffhangers of each. There’s no rush–it obviously doesn’t necessarily have to be forty consecutive days!–but that’s the premise. It might turn out to work terribly for some of you, but so far it’s working well for my parents, so I’m hoping it won’t.

When do I need to start? If you wish to be all caught up in time for the broadcast of Twice Upon a Time on 25th December, 2017 (or 26th, if you’re in a timezone ahead of the UK) but still pace yourself then obviously the latest you can begin is 40 days before that, which is the 15th (or 16th) November. I’m sure doubling things up and doing two episodes of each era on some days will work perfectly fine if you’re crunched for time or finding this after that date has been and gone, though. It’s not like I can’t stop you.

Where can I watch the show? Okay, this is a massive kettle of fish to open that depends entirely on where you are. The new series is much easier to get your hands on than the classic and is repeated on various channels, available on streaming services (Amazon in the US, Netflix in many other countries), and obviously out on DVD and Blu-ray (to buy, rent, or borrow), so I’m going to let you work that out yourselves. As for the classic series, things get a bit trickier…

All the existing stories are widely available (but sold separately) on DVD in the UK, Australia, and New Zealand (and often on sale from specific retailers), all of them including a range of fun and interesting special features, but their availability is much more limited in other places, including the US where many releases are currently out of print due to a negligent publisher. But despite that if you’re American and you have the DVD package on Netflix (apparently it’s still a thing!) many of the DVDs are available for rental, including William Hartnell stories. And if you are looking to buy DVDs I have heard that getting a region-free player and importing the DVDs online is often a cheaper option than buying the region 1 versions, but obviously do your research!

In many (particularly English-speaking) countries you are also likely to find public libraries stocks Doctor Who DVDs, or is able to transfer them from another library upon request, so I definitely recommend checking with them if you can. Or maybe you’re in one of the countries where DVD rental places are still a thing, in which case, go look there! Or, depending on your location, you might be able to find classic serials being repeated on television–like the Horror channel in the UK, RetroTV in the US, or SyFy Channel in Australia, just for example–but I know that’s a fairly unreliable option if you want to find a specific story at a specific  time.

But even as I type I know that the easiest and most accessible option people will be wondering about is watching it online, which I wish was simpler to do than it is. For the lucky sods in the US all of the classic stories are available to stream on BritBox, which offers a one week free trial then costs $6.99 per month, which is pretty reasonable if you’re also interested in other shows from both the BBC and ITV. But unfortunately for the rest of us there currently aren’t any legal streaming options, at least not on anywhere near as extensive a scale.

I own all the DVDs after years of buying them when they were on sale so I can’t help with specific suggestions for alternatives if buying, renting, borrowing, or legal streaming isn’t an option for you, but I do know some people on tumblr suggest looking on sites like DailyMotion and YouTube, so there’s always that. But I’ll reiterate that the DVDs are packed with special features and definitely the best option for a good quality experience barring BritBox, and worth getting your hands on if you are able!

“Why did you skip [this episode]?”/“Where is [this companion]?” There were lots of reasons for most my decisions, and I’m happy to ramble on about them until the cows come home, but the gist of it is, “Because.” For instance, I personally really enjoy the rest of 100,000 BC after the first episode, An Unearthly Child, particularly lots of the character-based moments like Barbara and Ian’s response to leaving the TARDIS for the first time, or the exchange about fear making companions of us all that is later referenced by Clara in Listen, but Shakespearean cavemen aren’t necessarily the best showcase of the show’s qualities and scope for new viewers.

And sadly, because of the number of missing episodes in season three I ended up skipping over it entirely, so companions like Steven, Katarina, Sara, Dodo, Polly, and Ben all get a short shrift. It’s not a reflection on them as characters (I love them) or the quality of their stories, the list just felt a bit muddled the more companions I tried to include so I had to streamline. That said, I definitely encourage people to go back and watch any of the stories I skipped after they’re more comfortable with the show and its format, whether it exists or is partially or entirely made up of reconstructions, this is just meant to be an introduction.

Anyway, if you have any more questions feel free to give me a holler, otherwise I hope this is of use to some of you. Happy Doctor Who-ing!

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do you ever just… love doctor who with your whole heart.

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✨❤️🌸 this blog supports every single doctor who companion 🌸❤️✨

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Like WOW am I excited for the 13th doctor. I wanna see what she’s going to wear, how she’s going to act, who her companion is going to be and how they’re going to interact. I can’t wait for her to get into scrapes with daleks and zygons and cybermen and silurians. I want people to ask her “Doctor Who?” and marvel at her tardis. I loved Peter Capaldi and the 12th doctor. I loved the Moffat era. But wow am I excited to see what comes next.

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Please reblog if you wish there was more fandom positivity.

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The Aztecs

Doctor Who’s third trip to the past has a very simple premise: The crew get separated from the TARDIS by a stone wall and have to hang around with some Aztecs until they work out how to get it open again. There’s not even any need for them to win over the locals, as Barbara gets mistaken for a goddess and is immediately ingratiated into their society. There’s no epic journey, no monsters, and on the face of it the jeopardy is very small.

But The Aztecs isn’t trying to be an epic; it’s a character piece, one which places the Doctor and his companions into an unfamiliar society and shows them trying to survive. This came about partly due to a letter from William Russell’s agent, who was (entirely rightly) complaining that his client had had naff all to do during Marco Polo - and he wasn’t the only one. Everyone has something to do in The Aztecs (bar Susan, thanks to Carol Ann Ford’s holiday), and not everyone comes out of it unchanged.

Take the Doctor, for instance. After five stories with the Doctor as a serious, often cranky old man, William Hartnell suddenly gets given a love story. Cameca is the first person the Doctor’s met (with the possible exception of Kublai Khan) who he regards as an equal, and he’s clearly smitten with her from the moment he lays eyes on her. It’s a whole new side to the Doctor, and he’s clearly upset at having to leave her at the story’s end - a real eye-opener for me, as I hadn’t expected that kind of emotional depth from these early tales.

Ian, meanwhile, gets to go full alpha male as he plays soldier for a bit. He gets himself into several difficult situations as a result of the Doctor’s meddling, leading to one of the big frustrations I had with this story - several of the problems the TARDIS crew have could have been solved if only they’d asked for a bit more clarification on the things they were being asked to do. Perhaps we’re meant to assume that the Doctor was just too lovestruck to think straight.

The other frustration I have with The Aztecs is that the TARDIS crew are… kind of dicks. They spend the whole story giving Tlotoxl the runaround, insisting he’s wrong about them and generally making him look stupid, but… He’s entirely right. It may be an understandable act of self-preservation on the part of the Doctor and chums, but they’re also pretty selfish.

And of course Tlotoxl is cast as the villain due in part to his role in the human sacrifices of the Aztecs, which brings us round to the most interesting part of the story: Barbara’s attempts to change history, and her failure to do so. It’s this that raises The Aztecs above being just a knockabout historical romp; the question of whether the regulars can affect the past is a natural one to ask, and I don’t know if it’s ever handled quite so well again - certainly not in ‘classic’ Who.

It’s a perfect storyline for Barbara, who is quickly becoming the heart of this initial TARDIS team, and Jacqueline Hill really sells the emotional beating that Barbara takes at the end of this one. But like the Doctor’s romance and heartbreak with Cameca, the Doctor’s assertion that Barbara did make a difference by helping Autloc find a better way is something that could just as easily come from the modern series - and that’s got to be one of the big reasons why The Aztecs is still hailed as one of early Doctor Who’s finest hours.

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I could talk on lengths about why you should watch classic who; the quirkiness, the amazing companions, the absurd yet endearing effects, the insane story lines, the passion each actor brings, the furry lesbians, etc. 

Or, I could just show you this:

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you know… you aren’t a better DW fan than someone who’s only in it for Ten/Rose or someone who wears a “bow ties are cool” shirt but doesn’t know who Susan Foreman is or someone who’s seen the Tennant/Smith/Capaldi eras a dozen times but never watched a single Eccleston ep.

like, I’m saying this as someone who’s deeply entrenched in Classic Who and the EU, and sure, we all get annoyed sometimes when we see people posting meta or theories or whatever that make no sense if you know a few basic facts about Classic Who, but ultimately we’re still not better fans than they are and no one’s obligated to consume any more of the DW universe than they personally want to.

the right way to experience Doctor Who is the way that’s most fun for you. that’s all. it really doesn’t matter if your idea of fun is listening to every single Big Finish release or just watching the episodes where David Tennant looks cutest. it’s all good.

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So this Doctor Who show… I like it.

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so the RTD companions are introduced so that you know everything important about them in their first episode. Martha: difficult family, med student, rational/logical intelligence, seeks authority, swallows own needs, already knows aliens exist, loves the universe even when it really sucks, unrequited love. Donna in PiC: forceful, independent, horrid mum, lovely grand-dad, sarcastic funny, misses everything, mysterious coincidences, helpful job skills. Rose: ordinary, lower-class, wants more, kinda nice kinda self-absorbed mum/boyfriend, perceptive, intuitive, takes initiative, instantly takes to the Doctor… it’s all there, big and obvious, and if there’s anything introduced later it’s just details, and even when they should be really important (eg idealisation of dead dad) they don’t make much impact to people’s perception of the character. 

and Moffat haha no.

it’s all details, and they matter.

‘cause Amelia praying to Santa, that’s just a silly kid right? so when she says “either way it’s my only chance of seeing him again” you miss the implied belief in an afterlife. you miss what it means to believe in stars that never existed. so a raggedy man who never existed just looks like the relationship, nothing to do with Amy’s character traits.  if you peg Amy as “flirty fiesty violent sex object’ you misss. a) everything, lol. b) her ability with technology, whether it’s a video recording or Silurian motorised transport disk or making a sonic probe or w/e. no, you think. she’s just sometimes snarky or violent.what just happened? a one-off. irrellevant. if Amy’s just generically flirty, she doesn’t have serious issues with commitment, so changing jobs isn’t her struggling towards stability. it’s a barbie doll character chaning dresses, and terrible writing. if you feel like she’s just eye-candy then her sexual confidence just sounds like excuses. you won’t wonder what it means that she takes a job of wearing costumes, or that she goes under-cover again, for vampires and orphanages.  if you take her overwhelmedness at blitz london as generic, you miss how she fangirls over over van gogh (you miss that, so you think her art is only ever about the doctor, even when she paints stars) so you think ‘my favourite subjecct at school’ is a bland joke, not her actual character traits being expressed. you think nothing at all of her admiration of nefertiti.

nobody saw Clara yank a laptop of the doctor and thought ‘needs control’. but you miss, that; you see Clara tell the TARDIS I don’t care if you die and peg it as ‘cute’; taking command of a washed-up battalion of soldiers ‘comes out of nowhere’; suddenly it’s Christmas and you’re staring at the screen wondering what? bossy control freak? since when? you decide it’s invented, show-not-tell, she’s done being a plot device so know we make up a personality, eh? poor writing, naturally. you see her book of 101 places to go and sigh:generic desire to travel, you mutter sagely, and you tune out when Ellie encourages Clara to explore , you never consider how it’s linked to her hero worship of her mother (the dead mother more important for how she lived than how she died, how rare is that?) never notice the other motives boiling away; the need to be needed (’the adverts are in’ ‘here as long as you need me’;’just saw a little girl who needed help’;’best of all, he really needs you’)a making herself over into a hero (from ‘i say leg it’ to ‘no point telling you it is dangerous’, ‘dare me’ when she’s scared of ghosts, the triumph of “i’m not afraid, i’ll leave that to you’) or how that links to Ellie and the story of how she saved Dave, or that she saved Clara on the beach, or that Clara twice specifically remembers her mother’s words as motivation to save the day. after all, this is moffat era we’re talking about. if you have to think about it to come to a conclusion, that means it’s just headcanon. Clara thinks the best chapter of a book is one that makes you cry your eyes out? that’s not evidence of her romantic/tragic view of stories, that’s evidence of moffat’s ego-size. not even general book love, even if she knows the plot by chapters and she brings a book on her first adventure and her shelves are always stacked and she’s reading in the tardis and and and. she doesn’t have preferences, her tea love is just. idk. non-existent? and if she’s just cute flawless ‘spunky companion’ she can’t have a particular phiolosophical flavour of intelligence tin series 7that solidifies in s8, and she can’t be callous and she can’t be ruthless and she can’t be manipulative–she’s just, idk, part of moffat’s obssession with lies or something. in an abusivve relationship, that’s a good one. as long as you say there’s no build-up you can ignore the importance of honesty and amidst lies and the danny is to clara as she is to others… that would require both to have traits, impossible. if clara’s just skipping from job to job you don’t think about how she’s always working kids, how she uses her teaching experiences, how it frames a character when her normal life is a job first not family. if you’re thinking Clara’s suddenly a bad teacher you miss that she’s losing touch with humanity when she overlooks Maebh. if you expect moffat’s work to have inconsistent characterisation and zero character development, of course you come off the rails at the hair-pin turn that is kill the moon/mummy express/flatline. you don’t notice the connections, or how it’s the war between [sensible yet impulsive] [ordinary vs story] [responsible or adventure] that’s always fueled her being decided in favour of the Other, this time with added lies and addiction. (do you love being the woman making the impossible choice? of course.)

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A Moment of Appreciation for Classic Who Companions

They’re all beautiful, and I love them all with a great passion.