A thing to love about The Ark: The elephant!

And another thing to love: the sense that the production team didn't know when they had a good story and when they didn't. It should have been clear from the start that the script isn't a classic, but they sprayed money at it anyway. Was March really a time to try and win new fans?

A thing to love about The Massacre, or at least about one version of The Massacre that you can see: Here's William Hartnell about to be killed.


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One thing to love about The Dalek Mas Ter Plan: Hmm, can't do one, here are lots.

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A thing to love about The Myth Makers: Contrasts. The story is driven by contrasts. A lot of the humour derives from a juxtaposition of the epic and the banal, sometimes through two opposing characters (Paris reacting against Cassandra), sometimes through a single character reacting to his environment (typically Odysseus). (Vicki gets the best of ( Read more... )

Here's where Season Three really starts: grittier, more focused, more disciplined. The most obvious thing great thing about it is that they did an entire episode without the TARDIS crew at all. So the thing to love is… the end credits.


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A thing to love about Galaxy Four: The newly rediscovered episode 3 won't do a lot to raise anyone's reputation, except possibly Maureen O'Brien's because once again she lights the whole thing up. But props are very much due to the fantastic tracking crane shot that Derek Martinus chose to use for the first entry to the Drahvin's spaceship in ( Read more... )

A thing to love about Season 2: As is totally clear, the thing I love about Season 2 is all of it. It says a lot about a season when probably the least strong story in it, The Crusade, is the one written by David Whitaker, the one the actors all loved most, and one of the two they chose to novelize. In the context of its time (and you have to add ( Read more... )

A thing to love about The Time Meddler: Tricky one, this. This is the first story where almost all the good bits are good on purpose, so although it's a big step forward in the professionalism of the show, it's less lovable, less Season Two-ish, than what came before. The bit I really love is the Doctor's “panda on a chair!” speech at the start of ( Read more... )

A thing to love about The Chase: You know what? I actually love the haunted house sequence, up to and including the fact that the “explanation” is no explanation at all (“Festival of Ghana” indeed). Previously in the season the show changed radically from month to month; watching The Chase, I like to imagine people who thought they knew what they ( Read more... )

A thing to love about The Space Museum: Although there are more obvious things to love, the bit that brings the biggest smile to my face is the scene at the start of episode 3 where the local guard commander complains that he isn't being paid enough to do the job he's doing, especially with the quality of help around here. There still isn't a solid ( Read more... )