Memories of the Show ?

[Escher]

I'm currently convalescing at home on meds, so please ignore odd ramblings, posts or odd syntax !

I've had some time to begin rewatching classic episodes (in no order) and I'm loving being reacquainted with some real favourites and it led me to wonder about what other's experiences and memories of the show are.

My first dim memories of Doctor Who are of a scene in Tomb of The Cybermen, where the episode ends with a motionless cyberman sliding out in front of a target. I remember clearly The Space Pirates and the ending of The War Games.

Spearhead From Space scared the stuffing out of me (I was nearly 4). I fell in love with Petra in 'Inferno', and when Season 8 began with Terror of the Autons, I asked my dad where she had gone - I was quite upset. I also asked him what the word 'evil ' meant, when I heard Mrs. Farell utter it about the Nestene doll. The show for me was very educational. I'm sure I drove my dad a bit mad with all the questions.

I recall the entire Pertwee era. I watched from the ages of 3 to 8. I loved the UNIT family, and to me, the Doctor seemed both reassuring and creepy the same time. The Master was absolutely terrifying. I literally ran screaming from the living room when I saw Azal. The theme tune (and opening sequence) seemed to me to be creepy, alien and infernal. Even as an adult having worked professionally in music, the Pertwee theme music is still indescribable and remarkable. I have complete admiration for The BBC Radiophonic Workshop and Delia Derbyshire.

As iconic to me as Jon Pertwee's Doctor and adventures were, Tom Baker's tenure was my real cognitive experience with the show from the ages of 8 to 15. Tom became The Doctor so completely and so utterly believably. I later found out he was actually just playing himself. His real-life persona is that remarkable. I think if you gave Tom Baker the ability to regenerate and sent him to University for 200 years, I have no doubt he would actually BE The Doctor for real; albeit with unrepeatable hair-raising anecdotal adventures, mostly involving wine and women.

The transition from the 4th to the 5th Doctor was the first time I property digested a full regeneration.

I lost touch with the show in 1984 when I moved to London. I missed all of Colin Baker and Sylvester McCoy's serials.

When the show came back in 2005 I was overjoyed and I'm now delighted with its growing global success and appeal. Who would have known it would have become so popular?

How about your memories?

[misterharry]

Nice way to convalesce! I hope you're recovering well.

We're also on a Doctor Who marathon at the moment. It started on the 59th anniversary last year, one episode a day so long as we have the time, occasionally two. We started with An Unearthly Child and are continuing in story order, filling in with animations and soundtracks for missing episodes. My wife hasn't ever seen most of the 1960s episodes before and it's fun to hear her comments and speculation as to what's happening. We're currently in the middle of The Web of Fear and she has no idea who the traitor in the camp is!

I was born a few months before the launch of Doctor Who and have been wtching it as far back as I remember. I don't recall watching any Hartnell stories but I know I did, as I've a memory of realising the Doctor had changed his appearance. The earliest story I have any memories of is The Evil of the Daleks, scenes such as Kemel bending the iron bar in his test of strength and the friendly Daleks playing trains with the Doctor. However, I suspect it's more likely my memories are from the repeat broadcast that followed The Wheel in Space.

Setting Evil aside, for years I had a general impression of the Doctor and Jamie watching an ice-covered Cyberman, which must have been from Tomb. But when the story was recovered and released on VHS, I couldn't match my memory up with anything in the story. After that, brief bits of the Yeti in The Abominable Sonowmen, then a jump forward to Season 6. Loads of memories from that point on.

"My" Doctor was also Jon Pertwee, though my favourite era of the show is Seasons 12-15. I fell out of love with it during the '80s while I was at uni, and really didn't like the early McCoy stories. I've since come to appreciate them, but they'll never be my go-to Who.

[spydalek]

My first memory of Who is either the cliffhanger of Aliens of London or the recap in front of World War Three. And me being Young Me, was terrified of the unzipping. I ran out of the room my cousin was watching it in.

After that, School Reunion was my first proper episode. I saw the K-9 prop on an episode of Totally Doctor Who, or maybe it was Blue Peter, unsure. Just know it was the week before School Reunion aired, and I had to know more about that little robot dog because of that. And when they said he was on Doctor Who on Saturday, I had to watch it. Didn't even connect it to that show that scared me the year prior.

I caught random episodes of s2 after that, but I became hooked with s3. And haven't looked back since.

[Escher]

Thanks misterharry. Web of Fear - yes, I finished that one last night. Patrick Troughton is wonderful. I'm still hoping those lost stories might be found one day, in some remote BBC storeroom in an overseas territory somewhere.

Spydalek, it's great to hear different perspectives, from different generations. We all have our own unique nostalgia don't we.

Worth mentioning, unlike today, where there are dozens of ways younger people and kids can enjoy themselves, back in the late 1960s and early 1970s, we had toys that were mostly unchanged from the 1900s (board games, dolls/early crude action figures). There was no social media. No mobile telephones. In the UK, everything stopped on Sunday. There was no late-night shopping and we only had three TV channels. There was no way to re-watch what was on TV. If you missed it, it was gone. Forever. Kids would record the audio off the TV on a tape cassette recorder (if it was 1971 or later) or a home reel-to-reel machine. I suppose this was why the Doctor Who Target novels were such an immediate hit later on (I love those Chris Achilléos covers).

I'm mentioning all of this, because to a kid in the 60's or 70s, with quite mundane alternatives for pastimes, the likes of Gerry Anderson's UFO, Thunderbirds, Space 1999 et al, and Doctor Who, were absolutely sensational. There was nothing else like it.

[misterharry]

Jun 1, 2023 18:44:25 GMT Escher said:

Kids would record the audio off the TV on a tape cassette recorder (if it was 1971 or later) or a home reel-to-reel machine. I suppose this was why the Doctor Who Target novels were such an immediate hit later on (I love those Chris Achilléos covers).

Oh, the trials and tribulations of recording the soundtrack using a cassette recorder with a mic up against the TV speaker! I think the first one I attempted was Horror of Fang Rock, but the tape got chewed up by the machine. But I managed to record audios of The Invisible Enemy through to Time-Flight (plus The Five Faces of Doctor Who series of repeats), which I listened to for years. There were loads of episodes which had external noises intruding on them, which became part of the listening experience - the phone ringing, budgie tweeting (before being removed from the living room prior to recording), and my younger brothers trying to make each other laugh!

The Target novelisations were pretty much the only source of story information about the older shows at the time and were read and re-read constantly. There's a huge nostalgia value to those early novelisations.

[Escher]

Jun 2, 2023 13:46:27 GMT misterharry said:

The Target novelisations were pretty much the only source of story information about the older shows at the time and were read and re-read constantly. There's a huge nostalgia value to those early novelisations.

Absolutely. When I was about 15 I sold my Casio keyboard at a second-hand shop, then took a train into the city to Odyssey 7 in Manchester, UK, one of the only few comic book / sci-fi stores which existed at the time, for the sole reason of buying Doctor Who target novels.

They had the lot, plus more Who-related merchandise. It was the first time I'd been inside a shop like that and it was amazing.  I returned home with a carrier bag full treasure. I also got a boxed second edition of Call of Cthulhu RPG, which was the first RPG I'd ever saw or bought. I still have the dice, but sadly not the game or the books.

I got a good bollocking from my parents for selling the keyboard, but it was worth it.

When the BBC started releasing videos of the classic series, I couldn't get down to WHSmith's fast enough.

EDIT: another memory - visiting the Doctor Who exhibition in  Blackpool. 1975 I think. It was amazing. Seeing the TARDIS console up close was incredible. I'd completely forgotten about that!