Discounting Dalek stories and other landmark episodes of the 1st Doctor, the War Machines is one of the first stories I think of when it comes to his era. I believe this one can also be considered the prototype story for all future Who stories that take place in the contemporary period of their initial airing?
The funny thing about The Doctor having a funny feeling about The Daleks being around is that, if you go to The Faceless Ones and pay attention you'll notice that it's set around the same time Ben and Polly started their TARDIS journey. The very next adventure? Evil of the Daleks. Also! The Doctor's mathematical test is interesting for two reasons. Firstly, the answer WOTAN gives is wrong... but that might not have even been The Doctor's "real test". At least from the Watsonian view. See, he'd know full well a computer could solve a mathematics problem easily enough. But a *spoken* maths problem? That's a lot harder. Look up Moravec's Paradox, if you aren't aware of it already.
I recall watching the (surviving) Hartnell episodes with my sister. This story is the one where the Doctor…really felt like the Doctor as modern Whovians would understand him. Before this, the Doctor would get roped into events and was along for ride, wanting to leave as quickly as possible, and uninterested in helping anyone. But in this story, the Doctor senses at once that something is wrong, and goes to investigate. Once he knows the threat, he actively works to defeat it instead of fleeing, and there’s nothing stopping him from fleeing either. The iconic moment in this serial for me was not the part where the computer says “Doctor Who is required,” but the moment the machines circle the Doctor, and he simply waits for them, smiling and unafraid. This isn’t the sinister, cowardly old codger we started the show with! Watching the development happening over two seasons is fascinating to watch.
The idea of the Doctor getting confounded by the future versions of himself is always funny to me. Like, they can be before him, during him, after him, so long as they're not at the same place at the same time.
The closest I've seen was being confounded by past versions of himself in the hamfisted way they wrote Amy and Rory out of the show because Moffat needed them to give up on their daughter.
@@boobah5643 To this day I hate how they handed Amy and Rory leaving the show. When I first heard that it happened while I took a break from the series I didn't even wanna watch the season. Thankfully I came to really like Clara but still.
@@boobah5643 It sucks because I really liked the bits with Amy and Rory. The Doctor trying his best to handle that awkwardness with Amy like a gentleman was what convinced me to come back to the show at a time when I was really starting to sour on the character. Clair was fine in the early years, but she had none of those moments with the doctor that defined their chemistry.
Yes, The Post Office Tower (now The BT Tower) was classified for quarter of a century until an MP mentioned it in the Commons using her Parliamentary privilege.
I love your alternative explanation for the doctors name at the end. It reminded of the adventures of Charlie Bucket where they are trying to guess Willie Wonka's affiliation.
oh god that part was great. modern people would get six kinds of upset, but it was hilarious, lampooned attitudes at the time, and actually fit in with the original way he'd been drawn.
@@KairuHakubi When comedy was still good. There's a lot of jabs in those stories that don't get the credit they deserve. My favorite part from the sequel has to be when they are trying to call a number in China, and they keep getting stereotypical Chinese names instead.
@@fictiontheorizer1991 yes! you sure as hell couldn't do that now, which is dumb because that's universal humor, and I'm sure they do puns with our common names all the time. It helps that they were actual names and not just sounds someone invented, and an actual characteristic of the country (being populous and having a lot fewer names than people).
@@KairuHakubi Sadly stereotyping is only financed if it's done on the appropriate groups. Unfortunately politics determines cash flow and cash flow determines what people produce. But at least for now we still have the classics. I need to read the second book of that again. It's been too long.
So glad to see you finally covering Dr Who again, it's been far too long! I'm also glad you're covering this one because despites its flaws I really enjoyed the story back when I first saw it in my teens (on VHS). Although, that may have been because it felt more like a Patrick Troughton story than a William Hartnell one. The strange way they shunted Dodo out the door without so much as a goodbye always struck me as very bizarre, but it wouldn't be for a good few years that it dawned on me this was an on-going problem throughout Hartnell's run trying to find the right companions. For what it's worth, even though they're introduced in an odd way I found Polly and Ben to be rather fun companions. Like a younger Ian & Barbara in that they're clearly interested in each other and watch their backs, they even leave together after the airplane story whose name escapes me at the moment.
Interesting that the super computer is called Wotan where Warhammer 40K just reintroduced the dwarves as The Leagues of Wotan, with said Wotan also being highly advanced super computers that are going a bit odd.
@@fictiontheorizer1991 There's some logic to that when the Doctor solos things, and maybe it's just been that last few years, but the last 2 Doctors were fine in my book and didn't make up for my last of interest in the companions.
@@chrisw207 Are you talking about New Who? Because Jodie Whittaker struck me as kind of bland. That accent just doesn't do it for me. Peter Capaldi did a okay job, but the writing just felt kinda of meh.
@@fictiontheorizer1991 Whittaker wasn't great, but not bad. She spent too mich effort on redoing David Tenent. Capaldi is what I mean: great away from the companions, but not a good fit otherwise.
@@chrisw207 Jodie lacked a whole lot of emotional depth that other Doctors had. Peter's companions were just badly written in general. Peter was good at being reflective and methodical, but there weren't many scripts that showcased that well.
Well... that computer voice is creepy. Also, referring to The Doctor as "Dr. Who" could indicate that it's just people randomly referring to him as "Dr. Who?" because they have no idea who he is.
Discounting Dalek stories and other landmark episodes of the 1st Doctor, the War Machines is one of the first stories I think of when it comes to his era. I believe this one can also be considered the prototype story for all future Who stories that take place in the contemporary period of their initial airing?
The funny thing about The Doctor having a funny feeling about The Daleks being around is that, if you go to The Faceless Ones and pay attention you'll notice that it's set around the same time Ben and Polly started their TARDIS journey. The very next adventure? Evil of the Daleks.
Also! The Doctor's mathematical test is interesting for two reasons. Firstly, the answer WOTAN gives is wrong... but that might not have even been The Doctor's "real test". At least from the Watsonian view.
See, he'd know full well a computer could solve a mathematics problem easily enough. But a *spoken* maths problem? That's a lot harder. Look up Moravec's Paradox, if you aren't aware of it already.
Somewhere out there is a guy with the name Doctor Hu and he keeps getting all the Doctor's mail. 😁
Which is pulling time away from him working on his giant King Kong robot.
I recall watching the (surviving) Hartnell episodes with my sister. This story is the one where the Doctor…really felt like the Doctor as modern Whovians would understand him. Before this, the Doctor would get roped into events and was along for ride, wanting to leave as quickly as possible, and uninterested in helping anyone. But in this story, the Doctor senses at once that something is wrong, and goes to investigate. Once he knows the threat, he actively works to defeat it instead of fleeing, and there’s nothing stopping him from fleeing either. The iconic moment in this serial for me was not the part where the computer says “Doctor Who is required,” but the moment the machines circle the Doctor, and he simply waits for them, smiling and unafraid. This isn’t the sinister, cowardly old codger we started the show with! Watching the development happening over two seasons is fascinating to watch.
The idea of the Doctor getting confounded by the future versions of himself is always funny to me. Like, they can be before him, during him, after him, so long as they're not at the same place at the same time.
The closest I've seen was being confounded by past versions of himself in the hamfisted way they wrote Amy and Rory out of the show because Moffat needed them to give up on their daughter.
@@boobah5643 To this day I hate how they handed Amy and Rory leaving the show. When I first heard that it happened while I took a break from the series I didn't even wanna watch the season. Thankfully I came to really like Clara but still.
@@boobah5643 It sucks because I really liked the bits with Amy and Rory.
The Doctor trying his best to handle that awkwardness with Amy like a gentleman was what convinced me to come back to the show at a time when I was really starting to sour on the character.
Clair was fine in the early years, but she had none of those moments with the doctor that defined their chemistry.
My favorite explanation for the name issue is that the computer found information about the TV show itself.
Yes, The Post Office Tower (now The BT Tower) was classified for quarter of a century until an MP mentioned it in the Commons using her Parliamentary privilege.
I love your alternative explanation for the doctors name at the end.
It reminded of the adventures of Charlie Bucket where they are trying to guess Willie Wonka's affiliation.
oh god that part was great. modern people would get six kinds of upset, but it was hilarious, lampooned attitudes at the time, and actually fit in with the original way he'd been drawn.
@@KairuHakubi When comedy was still good. There's a lot of jabs in those stories that don't get the credit they deserve.
My favorite part from the sequel has to be when they are trying to call a number in China, and they keep getting stereotypical Chinese names instead.
@@fictiontheorizer1991 yes! you sure as hell couldn't do that now, which is dumb because that's universal humor, and I'm sure they do puns with our common names all the time. It helps that they were actual names and not just sounds someone invented, and an actual characteristic of the country (being populous and having a lot fewer names than people).
@@KairuHakubi Sadly stereotyping is only financed if it's done on the appropriate groups.
Unfortunately politics determines cash flow and cash flow determines what people produce.
But at least for now we still have the classics. I need to read the second book of that again. It's been too long.
@@KairuHakubi "The country's so full of Wings and Wings, every time you wing you get the wrong number."-CHARLIE AND THE GREAT GLASS ELEVATOR.
So glad to see you finally covering Dr Who again, it's been far too long! I'm also glad you're covering this one because despites its flaws I really enjoyed the story back when I first saw it in my teens (on VHS). Although, that may have been because it felt more like a Patrick Troughton story than a William Hartnell one. The strange way they shunted Dodo out the door without so much as a goodbye always struck me as very bizarre, but it wouldn't be for a good few years that it dawned on me this was an on-going problem throughout Hartnell's run trying to find the right companions. For what it's worth, even though they're introduced in an odd way I found Polly and Ben to be rather fun companions. Like a younger Ian & Barbara in that they're clearly interested in each other and watch their backs, they even leave together after the airplane story whose name escapes me at the moment.
Interesting that the super computer is called Wotan where Warhammer 40K just reintroduced the dwarves as The Leagues of Wotan, with said Wotan also being highly advanced super computers that are going a bit odd.
GW was always good at "letting themselves be inspired", if you know what I mean.
I'm not much of a Who fan, but in what I've seen, the companion is far more important to get right than the Doctor.
It's both really. You need a good companion to draw in audiences, and you need a good doctor to keep them around after the companion leaves.
@@fictiontheorizer1991 There's some logic to that when the Doctor solos things, and maybe it's just been that last few years, but the last 2 Doctors were fine in my book and didn't make up for my last of interest in the companions.
@@chrisw207 Are you talking about New Who?
Because Jodie Whittaker struck me as kind of bland.
That accent just doesn't do it for me.
Peter Capaldi did a okay job, but the writing just felt kinda of meh.
@@fictiontheorizer1991 Whittaker wasn't great, but not bad. She spent too mich effort on redoing David Tenent. Capaldi is what I mean: great away from the companions, but not a good fit otherwise.
@@chrisw207 Jodie lacked a whole lot of emotional depth that other Doctors had.
Peter's companions were just badly written in general.
Peter was good at being reflective and methodical, but there weren't many scripts that showcased that well.
As ex-army personnel, I would like to say I would rather be a soldier than Seaman :p No, but really all the respect to my wet brothers in arms.
A computer who can hypnotize people? Is it part television on its mother's side?
Before Chuck changed it, there was another song for the intro of the Doctor Who reviews. What was the name?
Can't think of anything apart from Uprising by Muse, even though I'm pretty sure that's not it
@@alfje5492 It's not.
I think it was the theme tune to the 1989 tv series "doctor, doctor"
@@VampireNewl That's the one, thank you. I'm so glad Chuck changed it, that song is horrible.
Well... that computer voice is creepy.
Also, referring to The Doctor as "Dr. Who" could indicate that it's just people randomly referring to him as "Dr. Who?" because they have no idea who he is.