Last week I started watching some Classic Doctor Who. I started from the very beginning and it's really... cute! xD TV from the 60's is really adorable. What I like is that since Doctor Who never has claimed to be a very serious sci-fi show the special effects don't look very ridiculous. Sure I can see that they've had to make do with whatever technology they had along with some classic theater tricks, but the special effects aren't laughably ridiculous as they are in Star Trek Original Series from 1965. And this is 1963. And although I've watched some Star Trek Original Series, this is the first time I've watched a TV-series in black and white. It feels really different and sometimes the picture quality is so bad. I wonder if it was that bad to begin with or if the years just haven't been nice to the film?
And the Doctor is really different! You know, the Doctor from the New Series loves the Earth and loves humans. He's interested in everything new and not suspicious about anything, and he's a grown-up with a knack of getting himself into trouble. This very first Doctor is suspicious about humans and he's kind of looking down on them because their culture isn't very advanced yet. He's very childish. Childishly curious and childishly stubborn, and he uses every means available to him to get his way. But he still has that knack of getting into trouble :P It really is the way I read it would be - the First Doctor is an old man trying to act young while the Eleventh Doctor is a young man trying to act old. And both of them do an extremely good job. The First Doctor is adorable and I really like him. He's such a child, but he knows he's supposed to be grown up so he tries to act pompous and use words like "young man" and "child" for Ian and Susan. But he's such a child. He's the cutest old man ever ^_^
Then there are the companions... They really are a reflection of the 1960's. There's the girl, Susan, who's so extremely girly and giggly and scared of everything. There's the man, Ian, who's always the tough one, always the one to go first into a dangerous situation and always the one to think of a solution. Then there's the woman, Barbara, who goes along with everything the man says but is still a complete whimp herself. Susan or Barbara always scream when there's something scary or unexpected. The classic scream with the hand close to the face and the knees together. The Doctor is a fresh breeze from all the stereotypes. Maybe the way they act will change throughout their tenure in the show, but I somehow doubt it, it being the 60's and everything. Susan is a bit like a rabbit. Scared of everything, but still curious enough to want to explore new things, and the Doctor, her grandfather, is her hero. It's nice to see the Doctor with family, actually.
The format is different. Now there are episodes each of about 40-45 minutes long. The format back then were stories and each story was divided into 2 or more episodes of 20-25 minutes per episode. When I write this I've watched two stories - "An Unearthly Child a.k.a 100,000 BC" and "The Daleks". The first story kind of bored me halfway through. It was the classic tale of a person from the future coming to the really distant past and then there's the whole "making fire business". It has been told before. Maybe not back then, but now it was kind of boring. The second story, "The Daleks", was interesting. Even more so since these Daleks were all eliminated in the end and I was like "WHAT?" But then I read some (spoilers, I know) and found out that the Daleks that show up later were somehow the spiritual successor and that Davros originally got the idea from these first Daleks. Shall be interesting to see. But it was really nice to meet the Thals for the first time :D And I had no idea that the TARDIS had a food dispenser! That's not featured in the New Series or have I completely missed something?
I'm looking forward to following the show from the beginning! I have my work cut out for me, or what do you say? (Click for larger)
There's so much to look forward to! Not just the different incarnations of the Doctor, but meeting the Master for the first time! And old-school Cybermen! And past companions! And past planets! Past creatures! Original K-9! The introduction of the sonic screwdriver! (Right, the First Doctor tried to get through a door and I wondered why he didn't use his sonic screwdriver. Looked it up. It doesn't exist yet. It felt a little like watching a horror movie from the 80's where the killer cuts the phone cord and I for a split second wonder why the victim doesn't use his/her mobile...).
But although the format is different, the quality is strange due to black and white, the acting is different from today and the special effects range from bad to practically non-existent, I really like Classic Who.
