TV Tuesday: Doctor Who's first season!

[evelyn_b]

So I just finished watching the first season of Doctor Who (1963-64) and I enjoyed it even more than I expected to. I know watching all of Doctor Who isn't always going to be smooth sailing, but Season One was genuinely a lot of fun, both in its own right and as a supplement to watching new!Doctor Who. Barbara and Ian, the sensible good-hearted

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[lost_spook]

and basically every time Barbara was on my screen doing anything at all.

Totally true. Barbara! &Herats;

that these are actors telling a story with the tools available to them, and I have to be willing to help them out.

That is rather a lovely way to look at it. :-)

There will be some vintage casual racism, but DW fans have never yet agreed on which stories it happens in (or happens worst in), so you will just have to wait and see.

Enjoy S2! The Aztecs is one of the very best Hartnell stories, but there are some other gems to come still & I hope you continue to have fun with it. I'll go now because otherwise I will become spoilery, because I love [SPOILER].

[evelyn_b]

Oh, I also love the scene your icon is from!

The first serial of S2 is a delight so far -- Team TARDIS gets accidentally shrunk due to some timey-wimeyness (that the Doctor is very annoyed at being asked to explain, NOT BECAUSE HE CAN'T FLY THE TARDIS, just because your twentieth-century minds would explode!!) and now they're all crawling around on giant matchboxes and unmasking corporate malfeasance. It's very fun!

(I love when the show's writers get around the bother of working out a sci-fi explanation by cranking up the Doctor's defensively patronizing stubbornness: side-step a writing problem, build a character!)

Also, I don't know if you've seen the latest episode of the current series yet, so I will refrain from rambling about it, but I thought it was very good, and it contained several of my favorite things.

[lost_spook]

and now they're all crawling around on giant matchboxes and unmasking corporate malfeasance. It's very fun!

The good thing about that is that it was pre-CSO and they had to build all the giant sinks and matchboxes. In the 1970s, it'd have all been terrible CSo and less fun. :-)

I have seen the most recent episode! I may occasionally get a day behind, but I'm in the UK, it's on the BBC, I have no reason to be not watching it religiously as it airs. (I have to instruct my Mum not to ring me up.)

Aw, glad you're enjoying it! I'm awaiting Part 2 before I have a verdict, but Michelle Gomez has made it effortlessly to second-favourite Master (even if I have to apologise to Anthony Ainley every time I think that)* and is great fun (and channels all her predecessors by turn; you can tell she's another fan). Also, one day when you get to Genesis of the Daleks you too can be impressed at the way they used that in this! (It could be a while - Dr no. 4! You've only ten years and two Doctors worth of stories in the way

[evelyn_b]

Michelle Gomez is a beauty and a joy. I loved every interaction between her and Clara, and I loved her genuinely frightened reaction when she recognized the planet they were on. She's just killing it -- she and Coleman both, really. Such a confident start to s9! Though I guess I should wait for the second part, too.

Poor Doctor :( Wouldn't it be funny if it were Missy who somehow managed to pull him back from the brink? And by funny, of course, I mean "a friendship older than your civilization and infinitely more complex."

I look forward to meeting the rest of the Masters! Especially this Roger Delgado guy everyone keeps talking about :D (I do have an abiding love for Derek Jacobi!Master, briefly though he burned).

[lost_spook]

Missy is wonderful! It's lovely to be enjoying her so much. :-D

And Ainley and Delgado are both great! I feel a little disloyal immediately putting Missy above the Ainley Master, because he played him for so long and loved it so much (he, er, used to ring up the DW production office in character to ask if he was coming back again; apparently that worked), but yes.

And, aha, I don't want to get annoying about Roger Delgado and have you disappointed when you meet him, but then again, who's going to be disappointed with the original Master? You may still prefer another incarnation, but he's very charming!

[evelyn_b]

I probably won't be disappointed! I am already delighted by the combination of this large picture + your icon.

I feel a little disloyal immediately putting Missy above the Ainley Master, because he played him for so long and loved it so much (he, er, used to ring up the DW production office in character to ask if he was coming back again; apparently that worked)

I love Ainley already. That is too adorable.

[scripsi]

Both Delgado and Ainley are really good and I hope you won't be disappointed! I feel Missy picks up from both of them, which I like a lot.

[scripsi]

but Michelle Gomez has made it effortlessly to second-favourite Master (even if I have to apologise to Anthony Ainley every time I think that)*

Yes, I may say this too soon. At the moment she squabbles with Ainley about second place in my mind. :) But I'll always love Delgado best.