Doctor Who: The Clunkers
In order to distract myself from the summer break between A Good Man Goes To War and Let's Kill Hitler, I'm going to be watching and reviewing a story from each of the eleven Doctors here every Saturday. But, since Doctor Who fans are often far better at slating their favourite show than praising it, I'll be watching eleven of Doctor Who's all time clunkers.
In the unlikely event of anyone wishing to join me in this quixotic quest I am only choosing stories currently available on DVD. However, if don't own the DVDs and don't want to buy some of the more disappointing entries into the Doctor Who canon, then you can also find most Doctor Who stories over at DailyMotion. And for anyone interested, the running order will be:
The Space Museum
The Dominators
The Time Monster
Revenge of the Cybermen
Time-Flight
Timelash
Time and the Rani
Doctor Who (1996 film)*
Aliens of London/World War Three
Partners In Crime
The Hungry Earth/Cold Blood
So join me here, next Saturday, to read my review of The Space Museum. If you don't find this whole idea tedious, that is...
*Yeah I know there isn't any other choice when it comes to the Eighth Doctor, but in about nine week's time I'll be explaining why this is one of the weakest Doctor Who stories of all time regardless.
Labels: Cult TV, Doctor Who, Reviews, The Clunkers
posted by The Nameless Libertarian @ 10:08 am
5 Comments
5 Comments:
Don't tell me you rate the Runaway Bride, Voyage of the Damned and Planet of the Dead ahead of Partners in Crime? The Brown loving Tennant era was littered with clunkers, I know it is a hard choice.
There are no real clunkers in the Hartnell era. One of the best things about it is that each story is different, vibrant, original. The Space Museum has a brilliant opening episode and is really entertaining.
I'm not the biggest fan of the Hartnell era - I could have chosen a number of stories for this project, but settled on The Space Museum as it has that stark contrast between the first episode and the three that follow.
And yes, for me, Partners in Crime is the nadir of the Tennant era for reasons I'll be explaining in about eleven weeks. The other stories you mentioned are flawed (especially Planet of the Dead) but none of them are, for me, as week as the dire Partners in Crime.
An interesting selection... I can predict a rather lively debate ;-)
It's amusing to think that The Space Museum would probably now be remembered as a lost classic if only the first episode had survived.
I think that the problem with the Hartnell era in general is that it was consciously aimed at a young audience, from a 1960s BBC perspective of what television for a young audience ought to be. Nowadays even a young audience has an instinctive understanding of television storytelling because they are exposed to technically sophisticated programs from a very early age. They learn all the tropes without even knowing it. That wasn't true in the 1960s, which is why the Hartnell era often makes things very simple and obvious in a way that seems absurd today.
So the Hartnell era was made for an audience that no longer exists. It's still possible to watch it for historical interest. There are also some scripts which have such strong stories that they still work despite the antique way in which they are presented, such as The Aztecs. But for the most part it passes us by because it's speaking a different language.
Jim - I'll look forward to it!
Andrew - I think you're right about the Hartnell era. Much of it jars with what follows because it is trying to do something very different not just to what the new series wishes to achieve, but from what even the Troughton era was trying to do. But it is that feel of wide-eyed experimentation that leads not only to the clunkers of the Hartnell era, but also some of the best stories. I mean, in what other era could you have stories as bold, different and mixed in their successes than the run of stories from The Crusades to The Time Meddler? Half of those stories work, the other half don't. But that's part of the point, and part of the joy. At that juncture, they were still creating the show and the format that so many of us love today.
TNL
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