Doctor Who: The Fourth Doctor Era (1974-1981) - Part 3

Today on Sci-Fi Adventures I'm still reviewing all those stories I watched during Twitch's classic Doctor Who marathon. I've reached the 80s at last, the classic series' final decade and I'm writing about Tom Baker's final season as the Fourth Doctor. That's The Leisure Hive to Logopolis for everyone who hasn't memorised an episode guide.

1980 was the point that John Nathan-Turner took over as producer and he remained in the role for 10 years until its cancellation, when he was finally freed. It was also the point where Christopher H. Bidmead become the script editor, but he only stuck around for the one season. The two of them brought a few changes to the show, but the one I feel like talking about right now is that bloody logo up there. Apparently, the designer thought that a neon sign was the ideal style to make the logo look fresh and modern, and maybe it was really trendy in 1980, I wasn't born yet, I wouldn't know. But right now it looks like it should be hanging up on a shop wall. Plus it's not even an illuminated sign, it's just glass! I hate it so much!

This era also got a new arrangement of the theme music, which was kind of a big change seeing as the original theme had been around in slightly different variations for 17 years. And I don't hate it! In fact, it really grew on me over the next few seasons. I think I still prefer the original theme better though and I'm definitely not so keen on the slit-scan tunnel being replaced with the cheesy starfield. Nathan-Turner thought that the old opening title sequence looked dated and needed an update, but I think the kaleidoscopic time vortex has actually aged better. Making new a title sequence for every season is something I can definitely endorse though, so it's a shame I reckon that they stuck with variations of this one for the next 7 years.

There'll be SPOILERS beyond this point, but not for future episodes. Only past and present ones, relative to the story you're reading. So I won't be sharing my first impressions of Jodie Whittaker's Tardis console room halfway through my review of The Keeper of Traken.

Doctor Who: The Fourth Doctor Era (1974-1981) - Part 2

Today on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm reviewing classic Doctor Who stories based on my fading memories of a Twitch marathon I watched ages ago, again!

I've reached the second era of the Fourth Doctor's run here, which was when Graham Williams took over as producer and Anthony Read took over as script editor (before passing the job over to Douglas Adams for season 17). So this article will feature reviews of every serial from seasons 15 to 17, starting with Horror of Fang Rock and ending with The Horns of Nimon.

I'm still dropping SPOILERS for every story I review, but they'll be limited to the current serial and those that came before it. I'm not jumping ahead in my personal timeline.

Doctor Who: The Fourth Doctor Era (1974-1981) - Part 1

Today on Sci-Fi Adventures I'm still reviewing (almost) every classic Doctor Who story based on my fuzzy memories of the Twitch marathon aired across June and July.

I've finally reached the part where I get to share my thoughts on the Fourth Doctor era, which is good, because everyone seems to like it, and bad, because man the guy had a lot of serials to write about! Tom Baker was in the role for seven years and had almost twice the stories of any other Doctor. 30% of the classic Doctor Who serials I watched starred the guy with the scarf! Fortunately, his seasons divide pretty well into three eras, so I've split him up into three articles.

This first post will feature Philip Hinchcliff and Robert Holmes' three gothic horror-themed seasons, spanning from Robot to The Talons of Weng-Chiang. If you want a list of what's in there, check at the top of any 'Greatest Doctor Who Episodes Ever' poll.

There will be SPOILERS below for each serial and maybe earlier ones as well, but I'll not be spoiling anything that happens after.

Doctor Who: The Third Doctor Era (1970-1974) - Part 2

Today on Sci-Fi Adventures, the second half of my Third Doctor reviews, covering seasons 10 and 11 (that's The Three Doctors to Planet of the Spiders if you're curious).

That also covers this surprise new opening title sequence that appeared at the beginning of season 11. I had no idea that the Tom Baker's diamond logo was introduced in Jon Pertwee's last series! I've never been keen on the logo itself, it looks like it belongs on a bottle of ketchup, but the people in charge of licencing were apparently keen on it. It ended up on VHS tapes, books and even a video game made long after the series itself had gone through its terrible neon tube and 3D logo eras (and then died). Man, I hate that neon tube logo, I hate it so much!

I love the psychedelic slit-scan time vortex effect though. It was created using the same technique they used for the ending of 2001: A Space Odyssey, and by 'technique' I mean 'dark forbidden magic', as I've seen the process involved and it still seems like sorcery to me.

It's my duty to inform you that there will be SPOILERS beyond this point, but I'll only be spoiling the serial I'm reviewing and occasionally stories leading up to it, nothing that came afterwards. So for example, you won't have to worry about me ranting about the terrible neon tube logo from season 18 when I'm talking about the diamond badge logo from season 11. Oh, wait...

Doctor Who: The Third Doctor Era (1970-1974) - Part 1

Today on Sci-Fi Adventures, my epic Doctor Who review saga continues.

I watched Twitch's classic Doctor Who marathon a few weeks back without any intention whatsoever to write anything about it, because reviewing 600 episodes in a hurry would be crazy, but then afterwards I decided to do it anyway. It wasn't too much work to write about the First and Second Doctor's stories, due to the BBC thoughtfully erasing all their tapes and giving me less to review, but from this point on all the classic serials have been recovered. Plus I found more to write about the Third Doctor's stories because I actually wrote some notes down for them while I was watching, sometimes even three or four sentences per serial! (It was something to do to pass the time).

That's a lot of opinions for one article, so I'm going to split the Pertwee era into two parts for both your sake and mine. I'll give you the first three seasons now and you can come back for the last two and my conclusion later.

There don't seem to be any notes here to let me know what I feel about the Third Doctor's flashy new opening titles sequence, but I'm going to assume that I like it. The effect was produced using the same black and white process as the first two opening titles, but when they tinted the footage it came out looking less spooky and more psychedelic. I definitely like this version of the title text as it's probably my favourite of the classic logos, and I guess the people who made the TV movie thought so as well as they brought it back for the 90s.

I should inform you that there'll be SPOILERS in every review, but nothing from serials later than the one I'm writing about. So there'll be no speculation here on who would win in a fight between Bessie and K-9.

Doctor Who: The Second Doctor Era (1966-1969)

Today on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm still dealing with the horrifying consequences of my past decisions!

My first mistake was to watch (almost) all of classic Doctor Who over eight weeks during Twitch's marathon. Actually, I'm kind of not regretting that even though it was very much not the way these stories were intended to be watched. My second mistake came afterwards when I let my brain even entertain the possibility of writing a short review for each and every serial I'd watched. That's the kind of thing you really want to prepare for while you're watching them or better still never because that's a lot of words, man. But I figured it was either now or never, I ain't watching them all again.

So I've written down what I remember thinking about the Second Doctor's serials, the ones that Twitch showed anyway (plus a couple of bonus stories). That's 13 whole reviews in one article, some of them more than a couple of paragraphs long! In fact, I'll even throw in an extra opinion right now: I like the way the new title sequence tears apart to reveal the Doctor's face, it's a clever effect. Not sure the plain logo's much of an upgrade though, but I guess they needed to keep it simple to make the video effects work.

There's going to be SPOILERS all over the place, but my plan is to only spoil things that happened either during the episode I'm reviewing, or the ones that came before it. So if you're reading about Tomb of the Cybermen you'll get no spoilers for The War Games, but I might spoil something about The Tenth Planet.

Doctor Who: The First Doctor Era (1963-1966)

I realise that I've been slacking a little bit when it comes to this sci-fi review site of mine. "Next on Sci-Fi Adventures I'll be writing about Deep Space Nine's Rivals," is basically what I said at the end of my last post, and then I disappeared entirely for six months.

What happened was that I got distracted with other things, some of them important, some of them less so. Like that Doctor Who marathon that Twitch was showing a couple of months back for instance. Until then my exposure to the classic series had been pretty pitiful, I'd seen maybe two stories from each Doctor, so I'd always felt like I'd missed out on an important part of British pop culture and there was a gaping hole in my sci-fi knowledge. Then Twitch announced it was showing the entire classic series (more or less) for free over two months and I figured it was an opportunity I couldn't miss. In fact, I even watched some of the stories that they skipped, if there was anything still surviving of them to watch.

Turns out that 8 weeks of 16 episodes a night is actually quite a lot to sit through. But I somehow made it through and my evenings were finally my own again. Then I had my second bad idea!

I had no intention to write about any of the serials for Sci-Fi Adventures because I wouldn't be able to rewind to the stories to check things, getting good screencaps would be a pain, and there was something like 140 of them, so I didn't bother writing up proper notes, or coming up with reviews as I went along. But then afterwards it occurred to me that this was it, I'm never going watch all these stories again, this was my one and only chance to ever write about the whole of classic Doctor Who like this. So I've gone and written mini-reviews of every story I watched using whatever notes and screencaps I did take, the chatlog of conversations I had while watching, and anything that was left in my brain after a few months. I can definitely relate to the Doctor's memory problems now; a lot of the series is still in there but it took a bit of prodding to come out.

What you'll find below are my first 19 reviews covering the whole Hartnell era. I didn't write a synopsis for any of them but I did include some SPOILERS. I'll only be spoiling up to the serial you're currently reading though, so I'm not going to go into a rant about Dodo or whatever midway through The Aztecs.