Watching First Doctor serials

[ghost2]

I realized I haven't watched nearly enough First Doctor serials and that is just not right. So I started from the beginning. I've seen other reviewers completely trash the First Doctor era, but I found his serials to be very watchable.



An Unearthly Child started brilliantly. Ian and Barbara were awesome, and their initial meeting with the Doctor completely absorbed me. After a while, the story lapsed into more standard fare. But the character interaction was great. I don't believe I've ever seen this serial before, though it's hard to say for sure. I used to own the novelization and most likely my reading of it explains why bits and pieces of the story seemed incredibly familiar to me.

Next story was The Daleks. I'm not a big Daleks fan, but it was their introduction so that helped keep me interested. Yes, the story was a bit padded. OTOH, I think the same about most of the episodes of the new series too. BTW, I haven't mentioned Susan yet; I very much liked her and thought she had some good material early on.

Moving on, I saw The Edge of Destruction. This one was a two-parter set entirely aboard the TARDIS, an idea I've always favored. The length of the story was just right and it worked okay for me. If it had been any longer, of course, I think it would have fallen apart completely. Excellent idea; so-so execution.

Marco Polo was an odd experience. I watched the condensed version, a quick reconstruction with stills and audio. Probably I should have tried to make it through the full reconstruction, but the godawful colorization annoyed me. It was incredibly ugly and distracting. And no, that day I didn't feel like turning down the color on my TV. I'll most likely go back some time and give it another try (definitely in beautiful B&W, though) but not for a while. Anyway, the short recon was decent. It was the first recon I've tried to watch and it wasn't at all difficult for me. I think the fact that I've listened to quite a few Big Finish audios helped a lot. I've become accustomed to listening to dialogue and picturing the action that goes with it. Not far off of what you have to do when watching a recon.

I'm currently working on The Keys of Marinus. About halfway through. Barbara and Ian are particularly great in this one, at least so far.

I haven't said much about the First Doctor himself yet. Well, he's not one of my favorite Doctors, but he'd have to drop a fair amount to fall to the bottom of my list. So early in the series, I feel like the writers didn't know where they were going with him and consequently the characterization suffered. I've seen some of his later serials, where he was more consistently written, so I know matters improve. It helps that he has the right companions. All three work nicely with him, and with each other.

After I finish Keys of Marinus, I'll keep going along in order for a while. I'm looking forward to seeing Dodo and Steven and Polly and all the other companions.

Comments

[ghost2.livejournal.com]

Once I work through One, I definitely need to watch a ton of the Second era. I haven't seen all that much of it. And yes, the movie was terrible. PM was excellent in it, though. I don't think I could made it through if he hadn't been so good even while working with such sheer crap.