A Free Addendum
Mostly because it interested me to do so, and because they were among the first Doctor Who stories I watched, here’s a brief summary of my dredged up memories of Pertwee stories. These are the sorts of things that I’ll be mentioning from now on, having opened the door to that strand of the project. (I have no particular reflections on Troughton and Hartnell, which I watched so sporadically and rarely that I have little to say beyond “I didn’t much like Hartnell as a kid/teenager, and very much liked Troughton.”) So I thought, in the interests of playing fair, I’d add a quick postscript to the Pertwee era in which I summed those bits up.
Inferno: I remember mostly being struck by how old this one was. Even without looking at an episode guide, the bizarre opening credits and lack of either of the Pertwee companions I recognized made it clear that I was off in an odd end of the Pertwee era – presumably the early days, since I’d seen the latter days. I remember thinking parts were cool, but finding the whole story off-putting, and being in shock when it turned out to be seven episodes long – probably the first point where I realized that sometimes Doctor Who stories were the length they were for less than stellar reasons. So yes, I’ve actually always hated Inferno.
The Claws of Axos: I thought this was improbably silly at the time, and it ends up exemplifying for me what I hated about the Pertwee era. A stupid Trojan Horse plot with silly gold men and gaudy colors that struck me as impossibly boring. Which is amusing, because it was one of my favorites on this pass.
Day of the Daleks: I think this was my first Dalek story, and I popped it in eagerly because I knew the Daleks were the big enemy and I couldn’t wait to see them. You can see where this is going – utter disappointment at the degree to which the Daleks are just not a part of this story. Though I remember even at the time thinking the basic idea was cool. I remembered this story as much more timey wimey than it was, which suggests that the time travel aspects did stick.
The Sea Devils: Unlabeled on a tape that contained other things, this one took me ages to actually discover, and was one of the last stories I did discover my parents’ copies of. I actually quite liked this one, but it was in digest form with the cliffhangers edited out, which on the plus side meant I only had to watch the sword fight once, but on the minus side means that the Master just sits in prison for 90 minutes straight, which turns out to be a bit of a letdown, and is something I still can’t un-notice watching it episodically.
The Time Monster: One side effect of being a fan for whom every new Doctor Who story – even the Pertwee ones – was a treat that one never knew when one would have again – is that I completely failed to have any idea what stories I was supposed to hate.…