I could have watched a whole episode of the escalating ‘Top Trumps’ battle between the Doctor and the Master (no, not that one) and various fictional characters.
I wish we’d found out more about the Land of Fiction and the entity behind it. Overdue for a TV return! #DoctorWho
The Invasion: a preview of what’s to come in the following season, with much of the action taking place in factories and offices and contemporary streets.
Plus UNIT and the Brig of course, properly promoted to Brig at last! And Benton’s quietly introduced too. #DoctorWho
The Doctor’s off on one again about computers and answering machines and how terrible they are.
Get with it, Grandad!
“It’s exactly the same as your office in London!”
Okay, clever idea to make your budgetary limitations part of the plot, but perhaps it could be done a little less obviously! #DoctorWho
The Krotons: Hmmm, well… yes… a less than auspicious start for Robert Holmes, eh? 😬
Season 6 has a greater variety of stories than season 5, which fell into the base-under-siege plot too many times, but the quality varies a lot more too. #DoctorWho
The Seeds Of Death: it’s the Ice Warriors again. And… it’s ‘The Ice Warriors’.…again. As we get rehashed bits from the first story:
Hi-tech base, older male commander, younger female second-in-command, silly computer voice, former colleague who’s now an outsider…
Troughton’s sideburns by the end of this story.
(Apart from in the pre-filmed bits when they mysteriously disappear 😄) #DoctorWho
I pity the poor Ice Warrior actors in their bulky costumes, since the set designer decided to include steps and ramps and narrow doorways.
There’s also that mad hall-of-mirrors Troughton runs through at one point. I guess the moonbase crew needed something for fun. #DoctorWho
And we’re nearly halfway through before the Doctor, Jamie & Zoe get off that bloody space station thing they’re stuck on!
Still, Frazer Hines always cites this as a favourite and recalls it being very good. Who knows? Maybe it was found we might reevaluate it. #DoctorWho
I love how the super advanced Space Corps ship uses a 1960s telly on a wooden table as a monitor screen. 😆
There’s a lot of that in space stories of this era. Just any old bits and scraps they have to hand get used as set decoration. #DoctorWho
At least Milo Clancy injects a bit of fun into proceedings. And things perk up a bit in the later episodes.
At one point the Doctor rigs up a booby-trap that electrocutes and kills a random guard. Ruthless! And to think of the crap Colin got over that acid bath… #DoctorWho
The first mention of the Time Lords, and in such a casual throwaway manner.
The SIDRATs are also briefly named, without ever expounding on the acronym (Space and Inter-time Directional Robot All-purpose Transporter, nerdy fact-fans!) #DoctorWho
At least the Time Lords gave the Second Doctor a choice of faces before he regenerated… #DoctorWho
“Oh, he’s too old!”
And now for the very worst thing the Time Lords have ever done… ERASING JAMIE AND ZOE’S MEMORIES! 🤬 Oh, and forcibly regenerating the Doctor too of course… #DoctorWho
BASTARDS
The end of Troughton, Jamie and Zoe… and with them the end of the 1960s and the black-and-white era… always feels a bit like the end of the show’s “innocent” era, with things never being quite the same again. 😕
Next up: Colour! Flares! The 70s! #DoctorWho
Spearhead From Space: my eyes! It’s in colour! 😵💫
The whiplash you feel going from B&W telerecordings to this - colour film, in HD on Blu-Ray… and that’s without even mentioning the huge format changes within the show itself. #DoctorWho
Using a trick that would still be done by showrunners decades later, a familiar face (the Brig!) is brought back to ease the transition into the new era.
And what a version of the character this is: intelligent, capable, non-sceptical…if only they’d kept him this way #DoctorWho
Pertwee in the hospital shower… the closest we ever come to seeing the Doctor’s arse crack…😵
And the tattoo! I’ll go with the fan-canon that it’s the mark of an exiled Time Lord. 😜 #DoctorWho
Peter Miles’ combover in this story is phenomenal in its audacity.
Amazing how it had all miraculously grown back by the time of Genesis Of The Daleks… 👀 #DoctorWho
The scenes of the virus outbreak across London would be impressive in their realism if done in #DoctorWho today, never mind 1970.
When the ticket inspector in the station faints, I still don’t know if those are extras or genuine (bemused) members of the public bustling past him.
The Ambassadors… (TWANG!) …Of Death: (that’s it’s official name, don’t argue.)
This is the epitome of the idea season 7 is a grittier, more adult take on #DoctorWho. So many layers of conspiracy and double-crossing and mystery. Not one to watch and only pay half-attention to.
They killed Kenny?
Gavin Winters
Sven