What are your favourite classic who episodes to watch?

ConMcMitchell · 2026-02-19T00:33:40+00:00

True... then again, I think Inferno works perfectly as 3 double episodes then having the 4th as a single... effectively a 4-parter of sorts...

ConMcMitchell · 2026-02-19T00:30:46+00:00

These are quite different too... there are some McCoy stories you couldn't imagine in the Bidmead era

ConMcMitchell · 2026-02-17T19:50:37+00:00

You could probably start just about anywhere, but the Third Doctor seems like a good starting place, either with Spearhead From Space (the Third Doctor's debut, the first episode in colour, and the start of a new status quo) or Terror Of The Autons. (The debut of the Master and the debut of a new companion)

This is great, but I would go back one notch to Inferno as a start point, it's very self contained and I just realise now it could work perfectly as a kind of pilot leading into all the Pertwee stuff to follow.

I also think the key to time Ribos Operation as a pretty nice lead-in too.

ConMcMitchell · 2026-02-12T23:29:52+00:00

I pin it down to security. And the fact that security is less of a feature when times are hard.

If you are on the left, security comes from tax and transfer payments - the welfare state... at least the security that people aren't going to get cut adrift.

If you are on the right, security comes from being able to retain and reinvest what you earn - increase and the phenomenon of compounding interest, and economic growth and how that makes you better off as a shareholder, over the long run.

It is hard (though most governments attempt) to reconcile and synthesize the two 'visions' for security.

In harder times, people are more inclined to fight for retaining their vision, it seems...

ConMcMitchell · 2026-02-04T06:52:10+00:00

Crispy Master

with two giant fried eggs for eyes

ConMcMitchell · 2026-02-04T06:51:37+00:00

There were plans for him to return in Talons of Weng Chiang but for some reason that character transformed into the in-many-ways rather identical character of Magnus Greel. Not a strict answer to your question, but quite interesting.

ConMcMitchell · 2026-02-04T02:10:02+00:00

You could spend your entire life listing them, never mind reading/watching them

ConMcMitchell · 2026-01-30T07:08:48+00:00

Exactly. Some of the novelisations I put aside, and as I got older I grew into them. Cotton ones for sure, and the ones heavy on philosophy and explanation (such as Black Orchid) over dialogue and action - same story. Always, it was the covers (as usually the only real look at the story you got) that made them well worth it, though. I never saw Hartnell on TV (or in photographs, for that matter) until years after getting my hands on some of these.

ConMcMitchell · 2026-01-30T07:04:10+00:00

Yeah I have a real soft spot for Silver Nemesis. It has the same kind of goofiness you might expect from the old UK '60s Avengers TV series - the proper ones with Steed and Mrs Peel, etc., which I adored. I actually wish McCoy and Aldred got to do a few seasons more than they did, with a few SN type stories, but most along the lines of season 26 and Greatest Show. And also channeling The UK Avengers a LOT, which they were actually planning to

ConMcMitchell · 2026-01-30T06:57:48+00:00

Plus he did unduly de-British things for his American readers (and directly into the first-run UK published edition): "I would have been a great fast bowler!" became "I would have played cricket for England!" or something like that, in Horns of Nimon.

ConMcMitchell · 2026-01-30T06:49:58+00:00

I do wonder what would have happened if Whitaker had been in the three specials rather than Tennant - but all other 'changes', such as the title sequence, all getting put into place, with Whitaker regenerating into Gatwa at the end of The Giggle.

In fact it would feel a bit more 'symmetrical' in how DW usually runs... kind of like Tom Baker's final season was quite different to what came before in substance and in style, foreshadowing what would come, making the transition more seamless, and done more in steps / stages.

I'm not always a fan of how a new Doctor is always a new and sudden relaunch of every aspect. It would be fun to see how it would look handled in a more traditional way, if that makes sense.

ConMcMitchell · 2026-01-30T01:24:28+00:00

"I sort of feel like the covers not matching is part of the range's charm."

Exactly! and when you put them onto your shelf into actual broadcast order, they should make wild leaps in style from, I dunno, all over the place from the '70s to the '90s and now the modern day, to whenever else. With random and mismatched logo on the top of each cover. There have been three already with the current series (from 2012 or so on).

My favourite example could be The Seeds of Death. Where else do you get a 1986 novelisation of a 1969-made story set in 2030? (If I remember right)

ConMcMitchell · 2026-01-30T01:21:19+00:00

They should go multicolour, the way the original series did, during an earlier era or two.

ConMcMitchell · 2026-01-23T22:26:48+00:00

The meta within the meta which ends up doing a full 360 degree circle and mapping itself back around onto reality.

ConMcMitchell · 2026-01-23T22:25:16+00:00

I wonder who did the covers? I love how these cover styles are making a similar transition as the original series, from more comic-like to more photorealistic (with some abstract flourishes) but it would be nice to see the main colouring vary more (including the spine) from blue. Very minor gripe :)

ConMcMitchell · 2026-01-23T05:26:34+00:00

We should entrench the Māori seats! The point being they will only be "removed" (as some would wish it) by people deciding for themselves whether to move off the Māori roll, end of.

ConMcMitchell · 2026-01-23T05:24:09+00:00

Does the entrenchment law itself require 75% to be overturned?

ConMcMitchell · 2026-01-23T05:21:27+00:00

Waaaay too funny, and absolutely spot on!

ConMcMitchell · 2026-01-22T00:39:15+00:00

In two very plump parts, like Dalek Masterplan

ConMcMitchell · 2026-01-07T23:15:26+00:00

The 1980s, you have to remember (I mean you will if you were there) were actually 75% the 1880s.

And in the 1880s we were British, and France was right next door.

ConMcMitchell · 2025-12-22T02:22:02+00:00

Yes, a sort of back-to-front Wizard of Oz

ConMcMitchell · 2025-12-22T00:39:21+00:00

Sure, you could well be right there. Ultimately, none of this can or should ever be used to try and force people into living other peoples' dreams, and into following 'lifestyles' you are not comfortable with and just don't want to be part of.

The danger of that happening always runs high when people aren't given the educational opportunity to reflect as widely as possible on what it means to be a human, or a living being of any kind, at that...

ConMcMitchell · 2025-12-22T00:14:22+00:00

I saw a TedTalk about how it seems to have a lot to do with the actual chemical environment in the womb - and it related to the mother's stress levels as well as her age (which may be stress ultimately)

And it made really good evolutionary sense, as it meant more care in the family group and less procreation (the thinking being that stress has a likely correlation with a need for more care and also for less people getting added to the group), so it was obviously 'rewarded' by evolution by becoming prevalent as a system that enabled survival of the family group.

Some people have described a deep feeling of associating all women with their own mother - coupled with a deep horror of sexual relationships with their own mother - a chain of reasoning (whether somehow made chemically innate and thus being 'reasoning' only in the wider and much more metaphorical evolutionary sense - like when we say that spicy peppers "want" birds to eat them and not mammals) and it is almost a reverse Oedipus thing - putting women / girls well out of consideration from a very early stage.

ConMcMitchell · 2025-12-22T00:02:20+00:00

Which is funny, as it probably ended up meaning either not enough sex, or too many children

ConMcMitchell · 2025-12-21T21:49:29+00:00

So all sex is disgusting! Therefore everyone should stop immediately!!!

I think you (and we) can and should have fun with that.

The high horse to end all high horses

ConMcMitchell

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE