The Classic Who (Re)watch Thread!

No it's not.

But winding up unnoun is a completely valid choice.

Inferno is about as close to perfection as any Doctor Who serial ever gets. Seriously.

No, that's Remembrance Of The Daleks. Seriously.

That's mind-boggling. I like Remembrance, but it's got some major flaws. It's not even in the same league as Inferno.

I'm picturing a cage match between Pertwee and Mc Coy now. Yikes. I suspect the Venusian Akido will be the deciding factor, though as the Seventh Doctor showed us, one finger can be a deadly weapon.

I'm not a big fan of the Doctor destroying Skaro at the end of the story. Okay, so he uses and goads Davros into actually using the Hand of Omega, but he's still ultimately culpable. Were there innocents on Skaro? Any Thals still living there? Did the Doctor even check beforehand? I have no problem with him taking out Daleks. He's been doing that all his life, and for good reason. But it seems more than a little careless of him to allow an entire solar system to be wiped out with all the potential loss of life that entails.

If nothing else, however, his actions create a bit of a link between the old series and the new, with the Doctor doing the same thing to Gallifrey to end the Time War (or believing that he had). This story provides a precedent for planetary destruction and the death of innocents to prevent a worse alternative.

edited 3rd Jan '14 6:33:51 AM by andersonh1

It's SKARO; there are no innocents there.

The Hand of Omega destroyed the star in Skaro's solar system, meaning all the planets in that system would be gone. So it's not just Skaro that's the problem. There's also the fact that both the Daleks and Thals lived on Skaro at one point, though there's no information as to whether this is the case or not by the time Remembrance takes place.

edited 3rd Jan '14 8:41:32 AM by andersonh1

I assume if the daleks are big enough to have a interstellar empire, they probably wiped out the Thals. The only thing keeping them from it in the Daleks was their static thing.

Although I wonder if that's a big reason why the Daleks have slave labor and prison camps on Skaro now, to disuade the Doctor from exploding them again. And as long as you have the masses of oppressed people, might as well have them build a giant Dalek statue.

Why wouldn't they make the statue of the Mutant inside though?

There's a statue of the mutant inside the statue of the ride armor.

Its also a soda fountain.

I don't know that every planet in Skaro's solar system supported life. I kinda doubt it. I mean, it's possible. But then again the Daleks had an interstellar empire by this point. So doubt it.

You're right. They're nothing like the same league. Inferno has a lot more and a lot bigger flaws. As established.

edited 3rd Jan '14 9:48:09 AM by unnoun

Multiple planets on the same solar system being capable of support life is fairly unlikely. Especially given that a) in Genesis, the concept of there being life outside of Skaro was completely foreign to the Kaleds. Only Davros was even willing to entertain the idea. and b) We're talking about a hypothetical race that's next door neighbour to the frickken' Daleks. If they weren't always the only life forms native to that solar system, they certainly would be by the time of Remembrance.

edited 3rd Jan '14 7:10:36 PM by Gilphon

Hardly "established".

It's sci-fi, I wouldn't rule anything out. Yeah, it's probably fair enough to assume there's nothing in Skaro's solar system except Daleks and whatever artificial life forms they created (sleeper agents, Vargas, whatever). But there's no way for the Doctor to be certain, meaning he had to have considered and accepted the possibility of innocents dying due to his actions.

Um. The Doctor can totally know for certain. He can fly over to the system and investigate. It wouldn't even take very long, given that scanning for life from orbit is a thing that can be done in this universe. He'd be looking at maybe few hours of work.

edited 3rd Jan '14 6:03:36 PM by Gilphon

And in that time, Davros or the Renegades would have wiped out all life on Earth.

Er, no, because the Doctor wasn't actually doing much of anything to hinder either faction of Daleks in this serial. And also no because he has a time machine and would therefore only need to be gone for five seconds. And no because I wasn't suggesting he put in those hours of work at some point in the runtime, but rather that he could have easily done it as prep work whenever the idea to pull the trick occurred to him. And finally no because the Daleks were hesitant mess with the time line by attacking earth.

edited 3rd Jan '14 6:51:41 PM by Gilphon

He checked it out while he was still One. Or he knew that he was going to check it out and come up with the right answer by the time he became Merlin.

Exactly as Planned.

Just finished the first episode. The series' first use of the Tardis sound. Fabo.

It's easy to find fault in the drama of the Mc Coy era when you come to it looking for a serious adult drama and find instead Doctor Who.

EDIT: ...weren't we doing Rememberance? Ah, well. Can't blame me for the thread collapsing this time!

edited 3rd Feb '14 5:09:28 PM by Wackd

What about Carnival of Monsters. You know, since Pertwee really had some of the best episodes. (Btw, I haven't actually seen the serial yet, so I'm just basing it on previous Pertwee stuff I've seen)

Carnival of Monsters is really good so far. It's a Third Doctor episode that May or may not be on Earth, it has people in crazy outfits, Jo being scared of chickens, a giant dinosaur, a Groundhog's Day-sequel scenario, and a bunch of other cool stuff so I'd be up for discussing it.

Carnival of Monsters is good.

Yeah, love some Carnival of Monsters. The first time I saw it, I missed part three and was left wondering for months how the Doctor escaped being eaten by a Drashig.

It should go without saying that Carnival of Monsters is better than any stories of the Pertwee era before it, probably the best period, and flat-out one of the best Doctor Who stories ever. But somehow it does not go without saying. On the big Doctor Who Magazine poll, Carnival of Monsters inexplicably finishes behind Inferno, The Daemons, The Silurians and The Sea Devils - and those are just the stories it's completely bewildering why anyone would prefer to it, as opposed to the ones where one can at least squint and pretend that there's some logic to.

edited 4th Feb '14 8:46:12 AM by unnoun