131 thoughts on “genesis of the daleks”

1. Stephan Moffat has been trumpeted here several times, as well he should be. You can find much of the best television of the past decade by following his projects. Coupling is still funnier than most recent American sitcoms (especially the lame, miscast clone that NBC attempted). The Jekyll miniseries was a bit uneven but wildly entertaining because it successfully managed to be both terrifying and hysterically funny, often both at the same time. (Actor James Nesbitt was a big part of that.) Moffat understands tension. He gets that what makes both comedy and suspense work is pacing. He generally starts big, then drops back, explains what made the moment big, and ultimately goes bigger. Usually several times over. That one writer can use the same tactics to successfully achieve adventure, horror and comedic goals is particularly impressive.

2. I love it so much that so many people can come together because of Doctor Who! (Sorry for calling it “Dr.” in my post. I didn’t know any better.)
   MonkeyT: Jekyll is my favorite new series since BSG, thanks to John Rogers, who wouldn’t stop talking about it at Comic-Con. American viewers: you’ve got to see this show, but make sure you see the British version; the BBC America version is apparently edited pretty heavily.
   Hrm . . . I love Jekyll so much, it deserves its own post. Looks like I have an assignment for tomorrow.

3. Watching Doctor Who for the first time (when I was 14) ranks up there with the first time I discovered video games in the geekfest that was my childhood. I loved the character of the Doctor so much more than any of the characters from Star Wars or Star Trek because he was mysterious, quirky, funny, eccentric, intelligent, impulsive, and full of heart. He was prone to mistakes, despite all of the deus ex machina that surrounded him, and when he was brought to anger, his intensity was a sight to behold. Most importantly, his character had more of an influence on how I lived my life as a human being than any other fictional character, and for that I am eternally grateful.

4. I was into Doctor Who even more than I ever was Star Trek, or anything else — it hit me at just the right time in the 1980s as a pre-teen; well before TNG started or anything. So it has been my favorite television series for a very long time.
   Doctor Who is, in its way, at least as complicated as Star Trek — and probably worse, actually.
   As has been said, “Whovian” was the term generated when it was felt by some of the American fan groups that there had to be some term equivalent to Trekkie — and really, it’s got the same sort of baggage as Trekkie.
   “Genesis of the Daleks” is top shelf Doctor Who. It is a classic — Best of Both Worlds is certainly the right sort of comparison, as the early Tom Baker era is certainly widely considered a high point in the series in much the same way that Best of Both Worlds was amongst a group of very brilliant Trek episodes.
   Doctor Who certainly had its ups and downs in the 1980s — a reasonable comparison would actually be to compare it to the Voyager-to-Enterprise era of Star Trek.
   But one of the glorious things about Doctor Who is that every era has its defenders and critics.
   Doctor Who fans argue about everything — for all of the obvious and not-so-obvious reasons.

5. Oh, I love Doctor Who. And rmd is correct – Blink (which was a double bank episode) is the scariest thing I’ve ever seen.
   I never watched Doctor Who when I was a kid because I knew that ET terrified me, so I’d be completely shitscared about Doctor Who. Now, I’m glued to the television but a bit jumpy.

6. Wil Wheaton Discovers Doctor Who

   He had the good sense to pick Genesis of the Daleks — which is, of course, as good as Doctor Who ever gets.

7. Tom Baker was so much my favorite that I’m not sure I like him anymore. I guess I OD’d.
   I really had a thing for Peter Davidson and Adric… gag. A major pre-teen girl thing. I’m so ashamed.
   I really loved Sylvester McCoy’s character and outfit even though Ace and the few episodes they aired here sucked.
   I loved Eccleston and was very sad to see him go so soon. I would NEVER have recognized him on Heroes if I hadn’t looked him up on IMDB. The Girl In The Fireplace was brilliant! I’m now excited to resume watching because I haven’t seen Blink, which everyone’s raving about. Last one I saw was the one where everyone had phones in their heads.
   I think I’ll watch the next one right now. Thanks for bringing this up, Wil!

8. I was lucky enough to have Doctor Who on Oklahoma’s PBS network when I was just a kid. Tom Baker was still playing The Doctor at the time, and while the Pertwee episodes would run every time the reruns would catch up to the current distribution and start over, that was all there was to be had. At the time, all the first and second doctor episodes were deemed “lost.”
   There was a huge celebration when a large number of the “lost” episodes were found and at first the quality was terrible. They ultimately cleaned up okay.
   One of the strange/wonderful things about Doctor Who is how the premise has changed so many times over the years. The original run had The Doctor as a grandfather showing the universe to his grandchildren. So he was called “Grandfather” more than “Doctor.” Who the Doctor is, who his enemies have been, and why he does what he does has mutated quite a few times between the movies, the books, and the radio and TV series.
   Think about that as a writer. The stories are so good that the audience will suspend not only disbelief, but even allow departures from the backstory to allow the new directions to unfold.
   One cool thing growing up in Tulsa as a geek at the time: There were a number of BBSs of note–mostly at 2400 bps, some at 1200–but one of the best had its “rooms” organized as a Tardis. Navigate going North, South, East, West, Up, Down, but go far enough in any one direction and you’ll end up back in the Tardis Control Room.
   Count me as another vote for “Blake’s 7,” too. Great series, and another Tulsa BBS was modeled after that show, which was having its first run on Oklahoma PBS just about the time ST:TNG first went into production.
   Incidentally, before the noun “Internet” came into being, and before TCP/IP was the backbone of the world, dozens or hundreds of small computer networks were starting to link up with “store and forward” mechanisms. We marveled that email and files could cross the globe in a matter of hours, between all the FidoNet, UUCP, ARPANET, and various gateways between them. For a time, we called this collective global network “The Matrix,” which was a direct reference to the vast repository of knowledge the Time Lords had on Gallifrey.
   I gotta say, growing up with Doctor Who, watching BBS network happen, then ARPANET going from the DOD to the NSF, then becoming “the Internet.” It’s been extremely cool to live at the time and place I have.

9. Wil, as far as shortening Doctor Who to Dr. Who goes, it’s okay once.
   Just don’t ever call the Doctor ‘Doctor Who’ and you’ll be okay. 😉

10. I was a Who fan in the eighties, and I was the only one around here as far as I knew. (Well, there was one other, but he moved to Orlando.) I used to catch a lot of hell from all the Trekkies on the BBS’s for defending Dr. Who.
    The only fan term I’ve ever heard is “Whovian,” but I’m not married to it or anything.
    Genesis of the Daleks was one of the high points of the Baker years, but in my opinion, there were a bunch of high points. Tom Baker was my first Doctor.
    I never got into an argument about which Doctor was the best. I was defending myself against rabid Trekkies.

11. Back in the early 80’s when I started going to science fiction conventions, Doctor Who was the big show. Unlike many, while Tom Baker was the first Doctor I saw on PBS, Peter Davison is my favorite. That may be colored by the fact that I knew and liked the actor before he became The Doctor, having seen him in the series, “All Creatures Great and Small”. It may have been because Davison is tall and blond. Or it may be that by going to conventions, I saw how Tom Baker was in person, and I didn’t like him. Back then, he was having a hard time getting work, being typecast as The Doctor. He had the role for 6 seasons, longer than any previous actor. So it occasionally made him a bit, um, cranky, during his appearances. At the time, I didn’t appreciate his honest reactions to his problem. From what I’ve read, he seems more comfortable now with his time as The Doctor. That’s great, because it would be a shame that being such an iconic figure would become a burden.
    The new Doctor Who episodes are wonderful. The effects are amazing and the aliens really look alien. What started out as a children’s series back in the 60’s is now a well respected adult. I’m amazed at the actors who are guest starring on the show.
    No one has mention the 2 movies Peter Cushing did as The Doctor. While this Doctor is an alternate universe version of the TV Doctor (he’s not even an alien, he’s a human scientist with the name of Dr. Who!), the movies do have Daleks.
    Welcome to the Who Universe, Wil!

12. True story: there is an episode during the Tom Baker reign that contains a worm’s eye view shot, and Baker has this enormous booger dripping out of his nose. He snorfles it up and goes on with the scene. Wish I could remember which episode.

13. We used to watch Who on Sunday nights at my college dorm. Sarah Jane’s outfits alone were worth the price of admission. The Tom Baker episodes did get into some pretty trippy plots, like when a teenaged prodigy left his ship to be the companion to a time travelling alien.

14. All good questions!
    1. DW fans have many nicknames. Whovians, Whofen, Anoraks, Pervy Doctor Fanciers(boys tend to be Pervy Companion Fanciers, for obvious reasons which may or may not include Wendy Padbury’s glittery rump)
    2. Uneven, yeah. Well a show that’s been around as long as Doctor Who is gonna have ups and downs, but the handy thing is that with each Doctor having his own distinct personality, and each era having its own writers, you can quickly figure out which ones turn you off and zoom in on the ones you really love…in your case I would ask, what is it about Genesis of the Daleks that is so striking, and look for other stories with those elements.
    3. A bit, yeah. The nice thing though about the hiatus is that it let the stories expand into other media – the book series, the audios, etc – so people who’d grown up with the show who had zero chance of ever getting into the BBC studios proper suddenly had the chance to contribute to the Whoniverse in all these other ways, and I think the combination of new blood and the fact that books don’t have limited production budgets meant the stories could become vastly more complex and rich. So when the show came back, it came back with vastly higher standards of storytelling and I think it’s naturally evolved to be better than it would’ve been had it just limped along into the 90s.
    4. Not so much, really. Arguing about canon and RTD’s ‘gay agenda’ takes up so much energy there’s no time to bitch about which Baker was better or whether McGann was a ‘proper Doctor'(he is) or whether David Tennant is playing the Doctor as a smug git(yes, but not nearly as much as Colin Baker did) or whether Rose was the Bestest Companion EVER and the Doctor’s Twoo Wub(no, she’s not)
    So…there you have it. We’re all mad in the Whoniverse. Beware what you’re getting into. Jelly baby? 😉

15. Yep, it’s all about the first doctor. For me, it’s Tom Baker (who was the first doctor for many as he was there for so long).
    I’ve got a soft spot for Peter Davidson (he had a nice spot where he was floating in space midway between a spaceship and his tardis, he would float there forever – so he saved himself using his cricket ball…. in such a way that he managed to keep the ball).
    Colin Baker (no relation) didn’t do it for me, and Sylvester McCoy suffered from the BBC trying to kill it off (though he had a great Dalek episode).
    I particularly liked ‘the five doctors’, which showed doctors one to five all interacting….
    The new Who is pretty watchable, though can at times be a bit sentimental for my tastes, sunbathing dalek? puh-leese. However, you can’t argue with the fact that it’s back and it’s big again….
    FWIW, David Tennant’s Doctor was Peter Davidson (and they alluded to this in a ‘Children in Need’ short).

16. Strangely I found this via the Dr Who lj comm before I read your post… (link: http://community.livejournal.com/doctorwho/2469529.html)
    * What do you call yourselves? Whovian is a common term… personally I’m more a Torchwood fan (then went on to The Doctor) so I’m a “Torchwood Geek”.
    * Do Dr. Who fans have blood feuds about their favorite Doctors the way Trekkies do about their favorite captains? Not really… but everyone does have “their” fave Doctor. Mine is Ten (David Tennant). Second being Nine (Eccleston).
    Side note- A lot of fan refer to the Doctors by numbers- this goes only by the BBC tv Doctors- not the film or other versions (full list http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_actors_who_have_played_the_Doctor). My fave set of non-canon (or at least non-BBC-TV-series) Doctor is Rowan Atkinson is from the comic relief sketch Doctor Who and the Curse of Fatal Death (youtube it!).
    The most recent charity one was Time Crash (for Children In Need)- see here- the best bit TWO DOCTORS! Five (Peter Davison) & Ten
    
    although I haven’t, I do recommend watching some more of the older eps- as I’m sure some will advise on…
    Of the New Who (2005 onwards) any episodes by Steven Moffat are highly recommended.
    From the Nine era- “The Empty Child”/”The Doctor Dances” are a two parter set in WWII and are perfect Who with a balance of comedy, suspense and some very eiry lines. Also features Captain Jack who stays for a while and later becomes the lead in the equally-seeable Torchwood.
    Stepping in to Ten era an all be it slightly fluffy episode as Who’s goes but a excellent one never the less is “The Girl in the Fireplace”, also has some of the best lines (Always take a banana to a party!) and a horse.
    The next- and to me- most terrifying episode is “Blink”, full of Moffat genius but completely and utterly terrifying… (i also don’t recommend watch while under the influence or you will be looking very closely at certain objects in the room). I want to watch it again… but I’m waiting for the evenings to get lighter- not watching it in the dark again!
    Of the non-Moffet episodes I’d recommend…
    Nine- “The Long Game”- especially fun if you don’t like reality TV
    Ten- “The Impossible Planet”/”The Satan Pit” and also “42”, the first is a set on a spaceship and explores a time before Timelords. And the second while very similar in location and style has a very different storyline.
    “Human Nature”/”The Family of Blood” is a very different view of Who- when The Doctor is in fact not. One of my faves.

17. Like you, I caught episodes of Dr. Who here and there in the 80s and enjoyed it. But I was never a loyal fan. FWIW, my favorite episode was Paradise Towers. Sylvester McCoy played the Doctor, and there was a rumor that Douglas Adams wrote the script. Little old lady cannibals and killer robots…what’s not to love?
    I’m also loving the new episodes, which are spectacular.

18. Genesis of the Daleks is the gold standard of Dr. Who. If you’re going to be introduced to the world of The Doctor, that’s where you should start. Keep in mind that nothing else compares in quite the same way.
    Tom Baker is the favorite of a lot of people. I personally prefer Jon Pertwee (Doctor #3), but I still think of Tom Baker when someone says Doctor Who. Unlike a lot of the folks here, I thought Colin Baker and Sylvester McCoy were pretty cool (McCoy is bordering on favorite status). The writing on Sylvester McCoy’s stuff was really well done, but there is little question that the height of Doctor Who in terms of its unique flavor happened during Tom Baker’s reign (right around Sarah’s and Leela’s tenure as companions).
    Sontarans rarely entered into the book of greatest villains, although they are pretty strong. It’s pretty much always been Daleks vs Cybermen.
    Regarding the new series, Christopher Eccleston could have become a favorite if he’d lasted. David Tennant is kind of irritating (he reminds me a bit too much of a pop-culture version of Peter Davison), but I haven’t seen any of the third season yet.

19. Genesis of the Daleks was the story that got me hooked too, in 1981. My PBS station edited serials into features, but broke up six-parters into two, so I saw the last half. It was the “Do I have have the right?” scene that did it, of course.

    1. I call us Whofans.
    2. Genesis is a great story and a popular favorite. (My favorite is The Two Doctors, 1985.)
    3. 80s Doctor Who was a little uneven (it particularly suffered from having only one showrunner all decade, and not willingly so on his part), but I wouldn’t say there was any single season that didn’t offer some worth.
    4. There have been blood feuds over Doctors, but since the show was revived in 2005 the blood feuds have been over companion/assistants instead.

    Now that I’ve offered my answers to your questions, I’ll see what everyone else has told you.

    Oh, and we enjoyed your turn on NUMB3RS the other week.

20. I’ve always been referred to as a “whovian” but I agree, it does sound a little Seuss-like.
    I confess to Tom Baker being my favorite doctor (as someone mentioned, it’s probably because he was my “first”); Eccleston and Tennent come in at 2nd and 3rd. I’ve experienced no heated arguments over the fact… certainly no where near the scale of Kirk vs Picard.
    Once you have run through all of the Doctor Who episodes (should only take a year or so), do check out Torchwood; Countrycide and The Keep Killing Susie are two of my favs.

21. Yes! An entry just for Jekyll would be wonderful. I loved that series – James Nesbitt was just fantastic. I saw it on BBC America. But now I’ll have to find the full version.

22. I’m just going to blather on a bit since you’ve clearly gotten the info you’ve asked for.
    1.) i think, at least in this country, that there really are no good names for Dr. Who fans because we are still a bit under ground. DW is the India Pale Ale of Science Fiction. Delicious yes in it’s own right but an aquired taste, those who aquire it lust after it other people just think it’s chalky and bitter and has big foamy costumes composed largely of plumbing supplies.
    2.) each dr. is excellent in their own right for completely different reasons. With Baker2 and McCoy we got a peak into the dark and mysterious nature of the dr the Davidson had all but abandoned. However the emphasis at the Beeb was on making it shiny and new looking with snazzy computer effects which in the late 80s were well nigh impossible to achieve without a budget like say, Star Trek the Next Generation had so they just looked a bit silly but not in a good way.Also Peri is crazy hot, even today. Thats the end of my defense of late 80s dr except that the curse of Fenric is a pretty neat episode. check it out.
    3. The fact of the matter is that dr who requires a greater suspension of disbelief than main stream america want of their tv so it never got the credit it deserved until a newly envigored hip version of it got rolled out in 05. If it werent for shows like Buffy and FarScape making american audiences a bit more amenable to simultaneously using their imagination and watching tv we probably wouldn’t even see it in this country. I can remember back in the day (80’s) people joking about original trek having “cheesy” sets and costumes and what not, but then some time in the 90’s it became “campy” which is the third cousin twice removed from “ironic” which is married to the daughter of “cool”. So i’m unsure that without the ironic detachment so prevalent in the 90’s and today we could have a Dr. Who on in this country, which is odd because i kind of feel like thats what killed Trek to a certain extent.
    4.) i realize that at this point i am enumerating things in a completely capricious way. I refer you to my preamble.
    anywho, pun intended, i’m glad to see someone of wils magnitude putting this out there and creating another venue for us “whovians” (Davros be praised i hate that name) to chat. Go wil.

23. Wil, welcome to the club! If you come across the relaunched series and still enjoy it, the showrunner would probably bite his own leg off to cast you in some capacity…
    1) We tend to call ourselves Fans, and let the rest of the world work it out. Whovian is a term that’s drifted back over the Atlantic though, and it looks like we’re stuck with it.
    2) Genesis of the Daleks tends to be the ‘popular choice’. It tops dozens of polls for best story ever and tends to be the one the general public remembers – but this may be as it’s the one that’s repeated most often. In fact, it’s fairly atypical in a number of respects (downbeat ending, no TARDIS, radical rewriting of series continuity, etc)
    3) Depending on who you talk to, Doctor Who spent some of the 80s sucking. Which part is a matter for debate. For my money it got shite around 1981 and picked up around 1988, just in time for its 1989 cancellation.
    4) There used to be some pretty nasty bile flying between fans of Sylvester McCoy and EVERYBODY ELSE, but it’s settled down now, although they have found other things to argue about.
    Cross-posted on the LJ side.

24. Favorite Villain? Well the Master of course. The Dr.’s Moriarty. Favorite monster? thats a tough one- i kind of dug the Silurians and i loved the Jagaroth. okay i’m going with Jagaroth.

25. As for arguments about favorite doctors, well… yes. I argue that David Tennant is my favorite Doctor just as vehemently that Patrick Stewart is my favorite Captain.

26. 1) Whofans.
    2) “Genesis of the Daleks” was written by Terry Nation, who created the Daleks in 1963. Their first appearance was in the 2nd Hartnell episode.
    That’s the main reason why it’s such a good ‘un.
    3) BBC cancelled it in 1990ish during Sylvester McCoy’s run. Fox tried a US version with Paul McGann-eh. Russell T Davies (Queer as Folk) revived the series several years ago and added a whole new level of mythos and intrigue to the character. I love Eccleston and Tennant equally.
    4) In talking to British friends and acquaintances, I find that their favorite doctors are usually the first ones they ever saw. So my favorite is Tom Baker. I like all of them except Hartnell–he just seemed peevish and clueless much of the time.
    DVDs and novelizations are the best ways to catch up, esp. since some early episodes no longer exist on tape or film due to BBC pennypinching.

27. I just wanted to congratulate you for finding Dr. Who, though I’m an old fan who still finds it vaguely disconcerting that it has become such a popular fandom.

28. i’m stealing my ex-gf’s login just to answer your questions. (don’t worry – she won’t mind. i’ll tell her about it later today. 🙂
    1. i’ve always been fairly resistent to the idea of creating a label name for any fandom of mine. calling myself a “trekkie” or a “whovian” or whatever to me has too much implication behind it that can be misinterpreted, giving it either too much positive or negative light. To me, saying “fan of” or in some cases “avid fan of” suffice in making my devotion for a show or a character as objective as possible. If someone else assigns a label to identify me, i’ll shrug it off (if i’ll never speak to them again) or try to slowly work a change in perception (if they regularly interact with me). typically it’s not a huge problem. people who know me understand my dislike of labels of any sort.
    2. GoTD is a fantastic story. You started with a good one. But there are others of that caliber as well throughout the series.
    3. Doctor Who went through a big dip in popularity during the Colin Baker era, and it was unfortunate the way that it happened. The plan for that doctor was to have him start out as being this crass and violent character due to a shaky regeneration and then slowly during his tenure develop and mature into someone more caring than even five or three. But that never had a chance to go off because the immediate reaction to Colin’s tenure was so strong, and the introduction of Peri as a companion also put other people off. This reaction caused BBC head of programming to demand of JNT to fire Colin Baker earlier than intended. When McCoy took over, it started back on an uphill climb – the last two seasons of McCoy’s tenure had some great stuff in it, and Ace was a fantastic companion – but then the BBC yanked it.
    4. Although Doctor Who fans will have their favorites, i don’t think i’ve ever seen people get into heated arguments about their favorite in the same way that you get the starship captain arguments. you see that sometimes with new Who fanswho argue about nine over ten. People typically argue more about the Doctor’s companions or the best enemies than the Doctor himself. But maybe it depends on who you talk to.
    Several comments here have talked about Blake’s 7. I can’t stress enough how fantastic that series is. I watched the series again recently for the first time since i watched it growing up, and i was pleased that it still had lasting power, that it was still as good now as it was back then. Lots of comparisons have been made between B7 and ST:The original series, so i can’t imagine that you wouldn’t enjoy it.
    as another aside, i personally would recommend getting yourself pretty familiar with the classic series before you touch the new one. i could get into a big discussion about that as well, but this is already becoming long-winded.
    welcome to the world of doctor who, sir. 🙂
    -Mendel (darknote)

29. Hurray! I’m not totally alone!
    I’m one of those new fans. A friend of mine with a crush on “Captain Jack” tried to get me hooked on Torchwood. That didn’t go over as he intended as the show didn’t always work for me. It did end up with me pondering all the back story he kept touching on. So, with Captain Jack as a known quantity, I caught the episodes he was in…in the third of the new series.
    So, I started at the very END of the whole shebang. Oddly, this is how I usually get introduced to things. Someone points out that I should see X actor or Y show or Z plot and I check it out to find out that there’s nothing more because I just saw the ending!
    Anyways, I’ve been slowly going backwards and picking up episodes and checking out the series. So far, I’m adhering to the British Rule of Favorite Doctors (Tennant was my first doctor and I LOVE his character) and it’s companion (pun intended) for the assistants (Martha for sure).
    So, aside from Genesis of the Daleks (already requested it from a friend who’s a Who fan), what else does the peanut gallery suggest? I’ve seen all of the Tennant’s stint as the doctor and most of Eccelstons. I freely admit I may have been permanently damaged by my exposure to the new series, but I’m more than willing to give the older stuff a try.

30. I just wanted to say that I’m in the same boat as you, Wil. I remember Tom Baker as Dr. Who, but I didn’t really start liking it until the 9th Doctor. And that’s the only one I really like. However, I will say that I haven’t seen much of “Barty Crouch, Jr.” as Dr. Who yet. But I will definitely give him a chance.

31. 1) Dr Who fans, or Whovians if you’re a hardcore nerd. In the UK, being a who fan isn’t like being a trek fan, unless you’re a real, real hardcore nerd anyway. Hell, the Prime Minister is a ‘Who Fan’.
    2 and 3) Yes.
    I’d get some discs and decide for yourself: Using ‘Available on DVD’ as a guide:
    One: The Aztecs
    Two: The Invasion (It has Cybermen)
    Three: Spearhead from Space (looks gorgeous)
    Four: Genesis of The Daleks Five: The Visitation or Earthsock
    Six: Don’t bother
    Seven: Remembrance of the Daleks

32. genesis of the daleks is cool and all, but seriously, you should check out THE DALEK INVASION OF EARTH. it was done in 1964, i believe, and takes place in future london when the daleks have…err, invaded earth. It old, the special effects are non-existant and sets are wobbly at best but it kicks all manner of arse. the shot of the dalek emerging from the water gets me every time. plus also they cleaned it up for the dvd release and it looks pretty good for something from the mid sixties.

33. After which, you should check out TOMB OF THE CYBERMEN. thats a patrick troughton one from ’67, i think. there aren’t a lot from the late sixties that have survived intact because the bbc trashed a lot of the films. a shame really, what little i’ve seen suggests troughton was a fantastic doctor.

34. (1) Whovians. Although I haven’t heard that being used in since the show went on extended hiatus (how can a show be canceled if it keeps coming back and continuing the same story?). I think it’s most Doctor Who fans these days. Or BBC viewers.
    (2) It’s all grotesquely uneven, which is a tradition that is still being continued in the new series. Which is probably why we love it so — if it was perfect we’d have nothing to moan about. But really, there wasn’t any excuse to follow up The Caves of Androzani with The Twin Dilemma. But that means …
    (3) Although the 80s looks like a very fallow period for the show there is still a range of really decent stories but they tend not to be the norm because the production staff were over worked, underbudgeted and usually didn’t have time to see what was really working and what wasn’t. Most of it was on instinct so most of the classics were happy accidents.
    (4) I don’t know that people feud about Doctors so much as production eras. Tom Baker’s tenure can be broken down very clearly into the Hinchcliffe era (gothic), Williams era (undergraduate humour) and Nathan Turner (weird) and even McCoy’s three years can be split between the spoon playing of the first year into the mad manipulator playing through the final two. Everyone seems to be a fan of some of it. The problem with picking Doctors is that there are people who really, really hated the Colin Baker tv stories but love his Big Finish audio dramas which have rather rehabilitated his reputation.

35. I have always said “Dr Who fan”. I’m not particularly fond of “whovian” (it strikes me like “trekker”).
    Genesis of the Daleks is one of the best stories.
    I really started watching in the Troughton era (though I vaguely remember a little of the first doctor). My favourite is probably Jon Pertwee, but Tom Baker did some great stories too.
    The Pertwee era contains one of my favourite Dr Who lines, from the Brigadier:
    “Jenkins! Chap with the wings, there. Five rounds rapid.”
    Of the new Dr Who stories, my favourite would be “Blink” (the doctor is only an incidental character in that one).

36. Right, so what everybody said above (I’m a life-long Whovian, fashion be damned.) and Baker is marvelous, as is Eccleston. Davison and Troughton are my next favorites, and Steven Moffat=brill.
    Not that you’ll have time to work your way up to this level of fandom, but there’s a Who con in February in LA. It would send my geek heart into paroxysms of joy to run into you there.
    Feel better, and get the Key to Time season (Douglas Adams wrote “The Pirate Planet” episode).

37. My 1st Doctor was Pertwee on Chicago’s PBS Channel 11 & transferring the vidtapes to DVDs is on my list. Doctor Who, The Prisoner, The Avengers, Mr. Bean, Black Adder, Python, Fawlty Towers, etc. – Brit TV rocks!
    I remember seeing a Brit charity DVD starring Rowan Atkinson (Mr. Bean) as the Doctor – don’t know if it’s still available – so he belongs on the Who list too.
    Ever try saline nasal spray this time o’year to keep da sinuses moist?
    Happy Newt Year to you & your family. A moose once bit my sister.

38. Okay, I’m going into uber-geek mode here.
    This comment got me thinking: “…like when a teenaged prodigy left his ship to be the companion to a time travelling alien.”
    My understanding is that Adric was rejected by fans much like Crusher was. Timelords seem to have titles instead of names: “The Doctor”, “The Master” … “The Traveller?”
    Was Crusher’s exit an homage to Doctor Who’s Adric? Did Wesley head off to adventure with a Timelord whose TARDIS had been damaged beyond repair?

39. Doctor Who was always around when I was little but never aroused to much interest until recently. My sister was a fan back then and I can remember Tom Baker’s mad grin on the t.v, if not any of the actual episodes. We’re all huge fans of the new show in my family and I can’t recommend them highly enough. I suppose Tennant would have to be “my Doctor” and Rose my favorite companion… so far. I can imagine the BBC retooling it every generation for a new audience, but I think Time Lords only get, what is it, 13 (?) incarnations. Someone here will surely correct me.
    I’ve come to the conclusion that you simply can’t watch enough Who. It builds on itself and the universe it occupies just keeps on expanding in interesting directions, like all good sci-fi.
    If you ever make it over to the UK, take in one of the many Doctor Who exhibits (we hit three seperate ones in Manchester, Blackpool and Cardiff when we went last October). The newest one’s featuring the latest incarnations of our favorite Time Lord might not be around for long but there is a kickass, old-school Who museum in Blackpool that is a must see if you’re into geek-themed vacations. Tom Baker’s scarf hangs there, and Pertwee’s cricket outfit, not to mention more Daleks than you can shake a sonic screwdriver at.

40. Everyone said what I wanted to say. Blink is the best episode of any show ever on TV…soooo creepy. Stephen Moffat is brilliant, if you haven’t seen Coupling, you must. Jeff is hysterical.
    And Netflix has Jeckyll, the whole series to rent. I did, and all must do so as well. SUCH a great show!
    During the early 80’s the Chicago Tribune printed the pattern for a Tom Baker-Doctor Who scarf, I made one for myself. First knitting project ever for me. I still have it and only wore it one day to college in an attempt to impress a guy, only kinda worked.

41. around 1982 my friend Mark FORCED me to watch Genesis of the Daleks… I’d resisted so long because I remembered just how cheesy Doctor Who (Pertwee) had looked on the one previous occasion I’d checked it out on the local PBS station. But Genesis converted me lock, stock and smoking barrels into a Whovian (which is a great name! but definitely from a club.. I used to get their Gallifrey Times newsletter.)
    And a great Doctor needs great companions. Tom Barker had Sarah Jane, and that helped make a lot of his episodes rock. Check out the OTHER spin-off show from the new Doctor Who, the Sara Jane Adventures (Torchwood is the other show, for Adults only — it’s on BBC America). Sara Jane’s show is for kids, but brings back Liz Sladen as Sara Jane Smith. She’s still a babe, 30 years after her first trip in the TARDIS.

42. Pertwee (who had his photo taken with me for the local paper when I was a little kid and gave him a drawing of him and the Sea Monsters). Baker (who added the humour). After that it went into decline.
    Until the amazing Eccleston/Tennant revival which was almost as big a step-change as TNG compared to TOS.

43. Second the recommendation above for The Girl in the Fireplace. It’s the most painful hour of TV I can remember watching. You know how some media has the tears pouring down your face at the end? This hurt too much for that to happen.

44. I heard back in the 80’s they were talks of a Trek/Who crossover but they could have just been the ramblings of fan of both shows.
    The first shows I watched were the Tom Baker shows on my public TV station (actually it was the neighboring states public TV (North Carolina Public TV). In fact I think Genesis may have been one of the first I saw! The series repeated a time or two before I saw Davidson. I always thought the watcher was the oddest thing.
    I watch Colin Baker as I accepted every actor playing the doctor as part of the story but Colin’s doctor was not my favorite, especially with the silly outfit.
    I’m really enjoying the current revival and think Tennant really captures who the Doctor is. He seems to have a bits of Davidson, Tom Baker, Trougton and McCoy.

45. I am a recent convert to the Doctor. Though I knew of the Whoverse for quite some time, I couldn’t get into it until the resurrectd series.
    It was good times when aired on Sci-Fi just before BSG on Fridays. Good times those were. AnyWho, here are my recommendations:
    S1: Father’s Day – got me hooked with an emotional impact I wasn’t expecting.
    S2: The Girl in the Fireplace – brilliant story telling, a bit of melancholy, and a dose of history to boot.
    S3: Blink – one of the best sci-fi episodes of any show ever IMO.

46. I’m in the same boat you are as a Dr. Who fan. I was an on-again, off-again fan as a child, mostly of Tom Baker, and then became a huge fan when the series was relaunched recently.
    An old friend is knitting me a Tom Baker Dr. Who scarf.
    But I mostly wanted to comment on making a living doing geek stuff. That’s what my job is like, and it’s the absolute best. I’ll be watching cartoons or the scifi channel or playing a video game and feel that pang of guilt that you’re supposed to feel, and then suddenly I’ll remember that it’s my job to do this stuff.

47. I’d agree with all the posts in this entry as to the choices of which Doctor Who stories to watch.
    I say that you should sample a good selection of each of the Doctors (even though sadly, most of the Patrick Troughton era is lost).
    But for Troughton, I’d say Tomb of the Cybermen, Invasion, The Mind Robber and The War Games.
    You have to excuse the Colin Baker and Sylvester McCoy eras, as at that point, the BBC were run by two controllers who had no love for anything sci-fi (Michael Grade and Jonathon Powell). (the Big Finish audios more than make up for the more dodgy TV stories of the Baker/ McCoy eras.)
    A lot of people knock the 1996 TV movie, which starred Paul McGann, but for what it was, it was entertaining, though it did pander to US viewers and the wishes of Fox. But, the later audio stuff by Big Finish, showed that Paul McGann made an excellent Doctor.
    If you want to get your sons into it, then show them the Christopher Eccleston and David Tennant stuff, as they are some of the most corking and fun episodes, with effects to keep the most hardened youth of today entertained.
    BTW, series 1 of Torchwood can be a bit hit and miss, but the final three episodes more than make up for the others, and the second series that starts in a couple of weeks, both in the UK and US, look like a vast improvement.

48. For what to watch, you’ll get different recommendations from every fan, which is part of the joy of the show: its variety.
    I’ve made a list which is a compromise between trying to see all of the episodes in order and picking them at random. The list I’ve made covers the comings and goings of the various companions; gives a good representation of the recurring monsters and villains of the series; includes the stories which build in the mythology of the stories; and features all the stories that rank highly in fan polls.
    If you watch the whole list, it should give you a very good overview of the series without having to watch all of the episodes. However, all the stories stand on their own pretty well – so its rare that you miss out by not knowing what came before. In the 1980s, though (from The Leisure Hive onwards) they did start to feature stories that drew more heavily on continuity, so I’d recommend leaving those stories until last, if you can.
    As other people have said, the 5th to 8th Doctors have also featured on a number of audio adventures, which many people consider to be superior to their TV outings. For more details of these, see the Big Finish website:
    http://www.bigfinish.com/
    Episodes that were wiped by the BBC still exist as audio recordings, and can usually be found on BBC CD releases (with narration) and fan reconstructions. Episodes that aren’t out on DVD are probably available used on VHS (via amazon or ebay) and can usually be tracked down via youtube, stage6.dix and file sharing programmes (I wouldn’t feel too bad about this if the episode isn’t commercial available, although you should rent or buy it once it is released).
    There’s also a US-based on-demand service for classic Doctor Who episodes:
    http://www.illusiontv.com/
    This has just launched, though, so it remains to be seen how many episodes they make available.
    There’s a wikipedia page with details of DVD releases here:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctor_Who_DVD_releases
    As far as the 2005 revived series is concerned, I’d recommend watching the whole thing, in order. The Box Sets are available on R1 DVD now.
    Anyway, my overview list follows in the next posts (one per doctor). To see a complete list of the stories, look here:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Doctor_Who_serials

49. 1st Doctor (William Hartnell)
    An Unearthly Child+
    The Daleks+
    The Edge of Destruction+
    The Aztecs+
    The Dalek Invasion of Earth+
    The Rescue
    The Romans
    The Crusade*
    The Chase
    The Time Meddler++
    Mission to the Unknown*
    The Myth Makers*
    The Daleks’ Masterplan*
    The Massacre of St Bartholemew’s Eve*
    The Ark
    The Celestial Toymaker*
    The Gunfighters
    The Savages*
    The War Machines
    The Smugglers*
    The Tenth Planet*
    + Available on R1 DVD
    ++ Scheduled to be released on R1 DVD
    * One or more epsiodes is missing.

50. 2nd Doctor (Patrick Troughton)
    The Power of the Daleks*
    The Highlanders*
    The Moonbase*
    The Macra Terror*
    The Faceless Ones*
    The Evil of the Daleks*
    Tomb of the Cybermen+
    The Abominable Snowmen*
    The Ice Warriors*
    The Enemy of the World*
    The Web of Fear*
    Fury from the Deep*
    The Wheel in Space*
    The Mind Robber+
    The Invasion+
    The Seeds of Death+
    The War Games
    + Available on R1 DVD
    ++ Scheduled to be released on R1 DVD
    * One or more epsiodes is missing.

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