I will be adding a "Hey, you may want to track this post" to future ones, so we'll try that.
And ooh. Good question. I am going at this from 'specific serials I just liked or found interesting', not a 'these are the highlights anyone else should watch' or anything conclusive about the series.
Structurally, I've found I tend to prefer the shorter lengths (so New Who, which runs about 45 minutes, or the 2-3 parters in Classic Who. Four parters were okay, but a lot of the six parters felt like they dragged a lot, because of a certain amount of repetition due to the original airing timing. (And I don't blame them for that, but it made them a bit tedious to rewatch in a binge.) I'm also a little tired of both Daleks and Cybermen.
I like a lot of Hartnell in all his crotchety glory, and I liked seeing the development of how they structured stories (and how they played around with things) in that era - the historicals like The Aztecs or The Gunfighters compared to the much more SFnal Planet of Giants or the quest structure of Keys of Marinus.
In general, I liked Troughton a lot more than I remembered doing in earlier watches (which in his case might have been just once, actually). I didn't dislike him based on that, but I just liked his approach. (Also, I pretty much always would like more Jamie. Jamie is fun.)
I particularly liked The Enemy of the World both because it's set in 2017 (so that was a fun comparison!) and because Troughton plays both the Doctor and a look alike evil dictator. And then The Web of Fear which introduces Lethbridge-Stewart, who I've always had a fondness for. (I mean, he has his moments where you want to throw things at the TV, but.)
I like Pertwee's approach to being stuck on Earth, and his insistence on being reasonable and figuring out what the other parties want, in as much as that's feasible (which, Doctor Who being Doctor Who, sometimes it isn't. You just can't reason with Autons.)
I also found some of the 'let us look at this society' fascinating, even if they were often more minimally developed than might be ideal - the two Peladon serials, or Carnival of Monsters.
And on the rewatch, I found The Daemons hilarious on a 'let me geek the ritual theory and magical folklore applied to this episode' front.
For Tom Baker, I have a lasting fondness for Pyramids of Mars - on my trip to London a couple of years ago, I got to go to a lecture at the Petrie for its 40th anniversary by a grad student at University College London who analysed how accurate the Egyptology was (short version: really quite good for when it was made, with bonus references to "If you look at that case there in the break, you can see an example of X item that is not a prop.")
I also really liked The Masque of Mandragora (If you have noticed a "I have a soft spot for people doing ritual magic" serials, you would not be wrong. Either I find them theoretically intriguing and like geeking where the details came from, or I find them hilarious. Often both.)
I am also generally a fan of anything that involves Sarah Jane or Romana.
Davison remains one of my most fav Doctors, for a variety of reasons. I still love Black Orchid for the awesome concentrated Gothic horror aspect of it. I'd remembered not liking Turlough and the serials he was in much, but liked them a lot more this time around.
I have a fondness for The Awakening, and it's also one of the only serials I watched from the canonical position of 'behind my grandmother's sofa because it was terrifying'. (We would not have been visiting her in England when it first aired, so it must have been a repeat later that summer, but I hadn't seen it in the US yet.)
For Colin Baker, I found Trial of a Time Lord structurally really interesting, and The Two Doctors was just a lot of fun if utterly ridiculous in places.
For McCoy, I really like Delta and the Bannermen for the 1950s holiday camp setting and the bees! Plot-important bees! And Ghost Light was just as creepy as I remembered.
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Date: 2018-03-09 04:32 pm (UTC)And ooh. Good question. I am going at this from 'specific serials I just liked or found interesting', not a 'these are the highlights anyone else should watch' or anything conclusive about the series.
Structurally, I've found I tend to prefer the shorter lengths (so New Who, which runs about 45 minutes, or the 2-3 parters in Classic Who. Four parters were okay, but a lot of the six parters felt like they dragged a lot, because of a certain amount of repetition due to the original airing timing. (And I don't blame them for that, but it made them a bit tedious to rewatch in a binge.) I'm also a little tired of both Daleks and Cybermen.
I like a lot of Hartnell in all his crotchety glory, and I liked seeing the development of how they structured stories (and how they played around with things) in that era - the historicals like The Aztecs or The Gunfighters compared to the much more SFnal Planet of Giants or the quest structure of Keys of Marinus.
In general, I liked Troughton a lot more than I remembered doing in earlier watches (which in his case might have been just once, actually). I didn't dislike him based on that, but I just liked his approach. (Also, I pretty much always would like more Jamie. Jamie is fun.)
I particularly liked The Enemy of the World both because it's set in 2017 (so that was a fun comparison!) and because Troughton plays both the Doctor and a look alike evil dictator. And then The Web of Fear which introduces Lethbridge-Stewart, who I've always had a fondness for. (I mean, he has his moments where you want to throw things at the TV, but.)
I like Pertwee's approach to being stuck on Earth, and his insistence on being reasonable and figuring out what the other parties want, in as much as that's feasible (which, Doctor Who being Doctor Who, sometimes it isn't. You just can't reason with Autons.)
I also found some of the 'let us look at this society' fascinating, even if they were often more minimally developed than might be ideal - the two Peladon serials, or Carnival of Monsters.
And on the rewatch, I found The Daemons hilarious on a 'let me geek the ritual theory and magical folklore applied to this episode' front.
For Tom Baker, I have a lasting fondness for Pyramids of Mars - on my trip to London a couple of years ago, I got to go to a lecture at the Petrie for its 40th anniversary by a grad student at University College London who analysed how accurate the Egyptology was (short version: really quite good for when it was made, with bonus references to "If you look at that case there in the break, you can see an example of X item that is not a prop.")
I also really liked The Masque of Mandragora (If you have noticed a "I have a soft spot for people doing ritual magic" serials, you would not be wrong. Either I find them theoretically intriguing and like geeking where the details came from, or I find them hilarious. Often both.)
I am also generally a fan of anything that involves Sarah Jane or Romana.
Davison remains one of my most fav Doctors, for a variety of reasons. I still love Black Orchid for the awesome concentrated Gothic horror aspect of it. I'd remembered not liking Turlough and the serials he was in much, but liked them a lot more this time around.
I have a fondness for The Awakening, and it's also one of the only serials I watched from the canonical position of 'behind my grandmother's sofa because it was terrifying'. (We would not have been visiting her in England when it first aired, so it must have been a repeat later that summer, but I hadn't seen it in the US yet.)
For Colin Baker, I found Trial of a Time Lord structurally really interesting, and The Two Doctors was just a lot of fun if utterly ridiculous in places.
For McCoy, I really like Delta and the Bannermen for the 1950s holiday camp setting and the bees! Plot-important bees! And Ghost Light was just as creepy as I remembered.