Friday Fives: Essential Classic Doctor Who (1)

I’m going off topic for today’s Friday Fives. Paper Hangover is asking What are your FIVE favorite holidays/Christmas novels?, and I’m afraid I don’t think I can come up with five! Sure, I’ve read some great Christmas books (GRIMBLE AT CHRISTMAS, for example), but I just can’t think of five “holiday” novels that I could call “favorites.” However, I still want to do a Friday Fives, so for the Doctor Who fans out there (sorry, I know I’ve been neglecting you!), I’m going to list what I consider to be five stories that every fan of the show, young and old, should see.

1. An Unearthly Child (or “100,000 BC”): The first Doctor Who story. Episode 1 aired on November 23, 1963, and was repeated the following week because it had (understandably) been upstaged by the news of JFK’s assassination. Ian Chesterton and Barbara Wright are teachers whose curiosity over an unusual sixteen-year-old student, Susan Foreman, causes them to follow her home from school. They see her enter a junk yard where they run into an old man who tries to send them away. However, they hear Susan’s voice coming out of an old police telephone box. When they force their way into the blue phone box, they are amazed to find a large room with a console in the middle. They learn that the old man is called The Doctor, Susan is his granddaughter, and they are both aliens on the run from their own people. Furthermore, this telephone box is actually a space-time vehicle in disguise–the TARDIS, Susan calls it, for Time And Relative Dimension In Space. The teachers find this all very hard to take in, but things become even more–um–interesting for them when the TARDIS transports the four to prehistoric times. In the midst of their adventure with the cavemen, we see the teachers being forced to put science and history to practice, and the Doctor almost murder an injured caveman! A very interesting start, and worth watching if only because this is where it all began.

2. The War Games. Due to purging at the BBC in the early 1970s, not much of the Second Doctor’s era (1966-1969) remains. However, one of the stories that survived is this, his last. This ten-part epic adventure pits the Doctor, Jamie, and Zoe, against the War Lord, and his scheme to create a master army by extracting soldiers from various time periods on Earth, and forcing them to fight within environments simulated to look like the ones from which they had come. The soldiers are brainwashed to help them live out the pretense as though it was real. The survivors of these war games would form a master army, which the War Lord would then use to conquer the universe. The War Lord is aided in his time travel exploits by a renegade Time Lord called the War Chief. This story is notable as being the first to mention the Doctor’s people, the Time Lords. The final few episodes are historically important for the show since we see the Doctor forced to call on the Time Lords for help, knowing full well they would want to bring him home to deal with him. In the final scene of the last episode, the Doctor stands trial before his people, accused of interfering in history. His punishment is a forced regeneration, and exile to Earth. I realize it might be a bit much for a modern audience to sit and watch four hours of black-and-white British sci-fi, but this story really is a classic, and one of my favorites from my favorite Doctor.

3. The Time Warrior. From the mighty pen of one of classic Who’s greatest writers, Robert Holmes, this story, first aired in 1974, introduces us to The Sontarans (a vicious race of potato-headed warriors), Sarah Jane Smith, the Doctor’s new assistant who would become one of the most beloved, and there is the first mention of the name of the Doctor’s home planet: Gallifrey. A Sontaran spaceship crash-lands in medieval England. To effect repairs on his ship, Lynx, the Sontaran, recruits the help of a local band of no-gooders, and in return for their help, Lynx offers them guns and ammunition to aid them in their attempt to overthrow the local lord. Since the locals can’t offer technical help, Lynx transports himself forward in time and steals technicians from a research facility. The Doctor traces the missing techies back in time and uses the TARDIS (with Sarah Jane Smith stowed away on board) to find out what’s going on. The ensuing adventure has the Third Doctor and Sarah Jane involved in trying to quell a medieval uprising while stopping Lynx from changing the course of history. Excellent stuff!

4. The Robots of Death. I remember this story vividly from when it first aired in 1977. Indeed, when I wanted to introduce my children to Doctor Who, this is the story I showed them. The TARDIS transports the Fourth Doctor and his new companion, Leela, aboard a sandminer, crewed by a motley group of people with hidden agendas and personal ambitions. Assisting the humans are a team of humanoid robots, built to serve, and to obey the first law of robotics: never to harm a human. But when members of the crew start turning up dead, the fact that the human crew all seem to have alibis leads the Doctor to a frightening and yet inevitable conclusion: someone has found a way to override the robots’ programming and enable them to commit murder. With the help of the surviving crew, the Doctor and Leela need to find out who’s been tampering with the robots, and stop them before the robots wipe out everyone on board. This story has all the elements that make for good Who: interesting characters, a mystery, suspense, creepy monsters, and plenty of scares. Sure, the special effects in the 1970s don’t compare to the wonders of modern CGI, but there is still something scarily sinister about the robots–especially when they are going in for the kill with their outstretched arms, their jaunty walk, and the glowing red eyes. Behind-the-sofa watching at its best!

5. The Caves of Androzani. Another Robert Holmes classic, this story is the last of the Fifth Doctor’s run, first broadcast in 1984. Eighties Who is very hit-and-miss. It was definitely a rough time for the show, especially from the mid-eighties on. However, there are still some gems in there, and this is one of them. The Doctor and new assistant Peri land on Androzani Minor where the precious life-extending spectrox is a hot political commodity. The Doctor and Peri find raw, unrefined spectrox, which is a lethal poison. Not knowing what it is, they both touch the sticky substance and suffer the consequences. The only known cure is from the milk of a bat that inhabits the lower reaches of the caves. If the dangers from soldiers and androids weren’t enough, the Doctor needs to obtain the bats’ milk lest they both die. Sorry for the spoiler, but the Doctor manages to get the milk and carries the dying Peri back to the TARDIS. However, he spills some along the way, leaving only enough for one dose. He gives that dose to Peri, knowing that he will regenerate. This story has consistently been voted one of the best Doctor Who stories of all time. The characters are interesting, particularly Sharaz Jek who is simultaneously fighting against his old business partner, Trau Morgus, gun-runners, and soldiers from Androzani Major, while at the same time harboring a deep affection for Peri which, in the end, probably saved her life. He is, therefore, a mix of self-interest, revenge, and love. Makes him almost seem… well… like a real person!

I called this “Essential Classic Doctor Who (1)” since, as I have time and opportunity, I will offer more classic Doctor Who stories that I think are worthy of your time and attention. These that I’m showcasing are all readily available on DVD (and possibly for download on Netflix or other services).