“The Rescue” gives the audience a chance to breathe after the expansive, Earth-encompassing storyline of the previous Dalek serial. And Susan is replaced by new traveling companion Vicki, an orphan from five centuries in the future.
Archive for the ‘1st Doctor – William Hartnell’ Category
I love “The Daleks’ Master Plan”, and wish I could watch the entire twelve episodes. The quality varies from episode to episode, and yet the story as a whole hangs together and feels like an epic struggle between the Doctor and his biggest enemies.
I wasn’t sure exactly how to begin reviewing this particular story. In my start to finish Doctor Who marathon I’ve finally reached the final tale in William Hartnell’s era of the show, and it’s strange to think that in four more episodes, he’ll be gone.
There is a big shift in tone from the light and imaginative “Planet of Giants” to the grimness that pervades “The Dalek Invasion of Earth”. I really do enjoy this story. The horrible circumstances the TARDIS crew find on 22nd century Earth bring out the hero in all of them, and what we end up [...]
This is a fun little story. The basic plot about a ruthless businessman who commits crimes to protect his profits isn’t terribly engaging, but the twist of having the Doctor, Ian, Barbara and Susan at an inch tall is. It’s fascinating and rather amusing to watch them struggling to survive the perils of a garden [...]
“The Keys of Marinus” presents us with a classic story that almost matches the new series format all by itself. By which I mean that you have a number of individually titled, self-contained episodes that are part of a larger story, and the episodes barely have time to scratch the surface of the characters and [...]
“The Smugglers” is written very much in the same vein as stories like “Treasure Island”. We have many of the staple ingredients present and accounted for: pirates, buried treasure, tales of a curse, secret passages, the small provincial village and the lonely church on top of the cliff. These aspects of the story are all [...]
The Three Doctors
Posted: November 21, 2009 in 1st Doctor - William Hartnell, 2nd Doctor - Patrick Troughton, 3rd Doctor - Jon PertweeWhen I first discovered Outpost Gallifrey’s reviews, I was honestly surprised to find negative opinions of “The Three Doctors”. I can understand fans having issues with “The Web Planet” or “The Underwater Menace” for example, both stories I happen to like but which admittedly have genuine problems. But how can anyone dislike a story as [...]
“The War Machines” is a very atypical Hartnell story, to say the least. With no companions except Dodo, and with the first Doctor in a contemporary setting, this really does feel like something new, concluding the story variety of season three nicely. After three years on the air, Doctor Who is still innovating, still taking [...]
Can an episode set in the Doctor Who universe work when the Doctor himself isn’t present? “Mission to the Unknown” would seem to indicate that it can, at least on a limited basis. This single-episode story sets up “The Dalek Master Plan” and focuses on Space Security Agent Marc Cory’s attempts to determine if the [...]
