homepage/papers/drwho/season01.md

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Every Episode of Doctor Who

I'm going to try to watch every episode of Doctor Who, in order. Then I'm going to write up what I think.

A few rules I'm setting out initially:

• It's okay to skip an episode if I just can't handle it.
• I don't have to write a big ol' treatise on each one.
• I fully understand I lack cultural and temporal context for a lot of this, and I'm not going to feel bound to try and attain said.
• I will be viewing this though my personal biases.
• I may create more rules later on.

Season One

Story 1: Cavemen and Fire

I guess this first story pretty clearly established that they travel through time.

S01E01 - An Unearthly Child

Oh man, the pacing is just slow. I like how they're exploring "what if a time-travelling alien disguised itself as a human and went to high school."

Okay, there are two high school teachers, and this highschool aged timelord girl who's the Doctor's grand-daughter.

The doctor is kind of a jerk.

S01E02 - The Cave of Skulls

Right, okay, cavemen. And of course they're all short-term-memory idiots. Okay, sure.

S01E03 - The Forest of Fear

I forgot what this one was about, because I didn't decide to write things down until later.

S01E04 - The Firemaker

The man teacher makes a fire because of course the man does that in 1963. And then the leader of the cavemen goes hunting. They make some skulls on fire to distract everybody, which is pretty cool, and then they escape.

Story 2: Daleks!

Holy crap! I didn't realized the Daleks went all the way back to episode 4! Also there are some Dutch-looking people who are of course the good guys.

S01E05: The Dead Planet

They find a dead city which, oops, high background radiation. Cool doors open up and some neat architecture.

You know what, for the time and (I assume) paltry budget of the first season, this is pretty badass.

This Doctor is a jerk. Faking a broken part to force everyone to do what he wants.

S01E06: The Survivors

Daleks! It's cool that they waited until the second episode to bring them out. They're pretty clearly assholes right at the outset here. No moral ambiguity with the Daleks.

The Doctor is pretty frail. Honestly, the rest of the crew seems more important than he is.

S01E07: The Escape

I think we really meet the Norwegians here. I don't recall exactly.

I'm pretty sure this is the one where the Norwegians try to meet up with the Daleks and forge a peace treaty, not knowing the Daleks are complete assholes.

S01E08: The Ambush

They start taking out the Daleks. There appears to be some sort of creature inside, which can be taken out, and the dude teacher crawls in.

This is actually pretty cool, I liked this one.

S01E09: The Expedition

I think the guy teacher tries to convince the peaceniks to fight the Daleks, by presenting them with the possibility of him screwing up their stuff.

The Norwegians traipse around through some cool looking sets to look like an alien landscape.

I think this is when the Daleks realize they need high background radiation in order to survive, because the Norwegians (the Thaals I guess) anti-radiation drug kills them. They plan to dump ionizing radiation onto the planet's surface.

A Thaal dude goes to get water and gets sucked up by a vortex or something.

S01E10: The Ordeal

Half the episode was watching people jump over a chasm in a cave. The pacing on this, holy crap.

I think this is the one where the Doctor screws up their electrical grid.

S01E11: The Rescue

Everybody runs around in the cave some more, and eventually they pop out in the Dalek city. The Doctor and his Grand-daughter are imprisoned and he volunteers to teach them about his ship and how to travel through time if they let him go.

The Norwegians and teachers rain holy hell and kill all the Daleks. Everybody goes home.

Honestly, man, for being written 60 years ago, I'm surprised by how compelling the Daleks were written when viewed by me today.

Story 3: A Tardis Button Gets Stuck

This story was bathouse crazy. Part of it was probably that I wasn't paying full attention, but it was also just nuts.

S01E12: The Edge of Destruction

People alternate between normal and crazy. There's a lot of screaming. Random weirdness takes place and it doesn't make sense. Everybody turns of everybody and then suddenly it's fine and dandy.

S01E13: The Brink of Disaster

The Doctor starts piecing together some clues. Turns out the Tardis itself has been trying to send them a message by dropping obscure clues. He figures it out and unsticks the "go back to where you just were" button, which, because it was stuck down, sent them back to the origin of the solar system.

You know, not awful. It felt pretty incoherent but I was willing to go along.

Story 4: Doctor Who goes to China

I guess the film for this was lost, so it was sort of a slideshow playing over a radio drama.

S01E14: The Roof of the World

I made it as far as them getting into a hut in Mongolia and meeting Marco Polo, and then I skipped to the next story.

S01E15: The Singing Sands

More British people pretending they're in China, I presume.

S01E16: Five Hundred Eyes

Skipped

S01E17: The Wall of Lies

Skipped

S01E18: Rider from Shang Tu

Skipped

S01E19: Mightly Kublai Khan

Skipped

S01E20: Assassin at Peking

Skipped

Story 5: Finding the Chips

The Scooby gang has to find some microchips scattered around the planet, so a machine can be repaired to mind-control everyone into being peaceful.

S01E21: The Sea of Death

This was the episode during which I decided to start writing this.

It's really interesting how they kept the sort of stumbling around delivery of lines, rather than shooting another take. I kind of like it. It's like watching a play.

LOL at the alien costume with swim flippers.

Frickin' Susan is, disappointingly, pretty much a horror movie character. Just sort of blithely wandering around all over the place and screaming a lot. Amusingly, they just assumed it was her from her scream.

Okay, got the main plot point. The dude needs to recover some keys so they can mind-control people to make everybody peaceful. I really hope they don't just accept this without question.

Their mime acting could use some continuity work, LOL.

S02E22: The Velvet Web

When the statue's eyes lit up and the creepy lady came out to put rocks on everybody's forehead, it really felt like a 1970s episode from when I was a kid.

Aww yeah, brains in jars getting killed.

S02E23: The Screaming Jungle

The Screaming Jungle, eh? Must be about Susan.

For crying out loud, yep, she's screaming again. I read that this actress quit early on. I don't blame her. What a limiting role to have to play.

Now Barbara's screaming. A statue grabbed her.

Now she's screaming again. A net fell on her.

Third time screaming. Some plants grabbed her.

Apparently the scream in the jungle was mostly Barbara.

S01E24: The Snows of Terror

Okay, now Ian and Barbara are cold. And a beardo has rescued them.

Ian left for some reason, and Beardo's giving off some really rapey vibes. Oh, sure enough, he's got all their junk.

Susan and a blonde woman are in a cave. I've decided I don't like Susan at all, her sole role appears to be screwing things up and screaming.

Oh boy. They're all in another cave, and they're going to explore it.. Oh, okay, we don't have to watch that. They melt some ice and... Susan's screaming again as some dude with a cardboard sword wakes up.

Great, they found another key.

S01E25: Sentence of Death

The Scooby gang vs. the Japanese Criminal System, I guess. They assumed Ian is guilty and he has to prove he's not. The Doctor is going to be his defense.

I've seen this episode at least three times on Star Trek, and once on the Brady Bunch. I might skip this one.

Oh, neat, a dude who hits his wife.

Okay, but you know what, I dig the costumes.

S01E26: The Keys of Marinus

I don't like Barbara's hairstyle, though.

Oh, snap! What a twist! I seriously was not expecting this one. I mean, I probably should have, from a casting standpoint, but I'm not really devoting a lot of mental energy to this.

Okay, I guess they decided the mind-control machine wasn't so great. Kind of a naive take but whatever, it was a pretty fun story.

Story 6: Doctor Who goes to Mexico

A bunch of white people pretend to be Aztecs, and explore the moral aspects of human sacrifice.

To its credit, there is at least lip service to the notion that this is some other culture and maybe you can't impose your current moral structure over it.

S01E27: The Temple of Evil

Oh goodie. Barbara's gone and gotten herself in trouble again. I'm not sure I can stomach this one.

Yay, let's focus on human sacrifice. And let's frame it as summoning rain, because I'm sure that was the beginning and end of the philosophy behind it.

LOL the sword fight.

Haha, Susan's screaming desecrated an Aztec temple.

S01E28: The Warriors of Death

Damn, the Doctor's pissed.

Holy crap, the Vulcan Nerve Pinch! 2 years before it showed up in Star Trek!

More 1960s dudes wrasslin'. But there's a twist, he got scratched.

S01E29: The Bride of Sacrifice

Aha, the old Saffron maneuver, eh? Looks like the Doctor's gettin' hitched!

The gang has a moral dilemma about altering the culture of the Aztecs by Barbara abusing her god status to outlaw human sacrifice. The Doctor gets married or engaged or something. Susan finally expresses an emotion other than terror:

I'm back to being uncomfortable with the cultural framing here. I mean, maybe this is useful for viewing 1960s British culture, but that's still too recent for me to not feel squicky about it. The only reason I didn't skip this entire story is because Wikipedia said it was one of the best stories of the entire franchise.

S01E30: The Day of Darkness

They found a tunnel or something, to get back into the burial chamber containing the Tardis. Susan is going to get married or sacrificed or something. Ian does the Vulcan Nerve Pinch on a white guy dressed as a brown guy, saving the white lady. They find a way to escape, and somebody gets sacrificed, and then Barbara gets to watch Susan get sacrificed or something, I'm not sure.

Oh, more 1960s dudes fighting. I skipped it. I presume the British high school teacher beats the Aztec warrior who's been training his entire life.

Barbara has some sort of moral quandry about her inability to change the past, which I guess was the point of the story. I sure hope they don't wind up on earth again in the next story.

Story 7: The Sensorites

S01E31: Strangers in Space

They're in a spaceship, thank goodness. The lighting is pretty bad.

Okay there are these sensorites messing with peoples' minds. Aw, crap, we're sort of on Earth. At least it's in the future.

This is a cool premise, taking over a ship by manipulating everybody's emotions.

S01E32: The Unwilling Warriors

Hey! Creepy! I like this story.

Susan is doing something! Nice!

Susan makes a sacrifice

S01E33: Hidden Danger

Susan needs to get out of this place! The Doctor's being a real jerk. Again. Seems like she's growing up and needs her own space.

Anyway. The Sensorites are cool. And I'm glad Barbara seems to get an equal say in matters. Like, she just argued with Ian about something, and she was like "well then it's settled, we'll do it my way". Still can't abide her hairstyle, though.

Ian seems really British. It's not difficult to imagine pretty much everything he does being done by an older dude with a brandy in his hand. He doesn't seem to get to grow as a character, he's already fully grown, I guess.

I dig that the sensorites have internal debates.

Story 8: Dr Who vs the French Revolution

I just couldn't get myself to care about another one of these.