Doctor Who Marathon: Least Favorite Stories

And then, finally, there are the clunkers. The stories that, once I'm done with this marathon, I may never watch again. The ones I'd happily say "junk them all!" if meant the return of episode 2 of The Ice Warriors.  Behold, a collection of the banal.

• The Keys of Marinus- Doctor Who's first real failure. Awful scripts by Terry Nation, with poor characterization of the regulars and near universal bad acting from every single supporting role. Cheap design throughout (though the hair-drier phones of Millenius are kinda neat). And possibly the stupidest alien baddie in the entire run of the show.  
• The Chase- Almost everything  I said about Keys of Marinus can be applied to The Chase; they're basically the same story. The Chase is marginally better because the Daleks provide *some* sense of menace and drive to the plot, but not much. This was the first Hartnell story I ever saw and it had the unfortunate effect of ruining my perception of the era for years to come. 
• The Dominators- Better writers than me have noted why this story doesn't work. Let's just say I agree with them and save some time. 
• Doctor Who and the Silurians- Good God, I don't know how I never noticed how.........much........padding.......there.......is........in.......this..........story...........before......now. Whole scenes of characters sitting around conference tables reiteration the same arguments episode after episode. One could easily make this a 4-parter without trying too hard. Indeed they basically did, in The Hungry Earth/ColdBlood, which is much better. Go watch that instead. Fulton Mackay is also terribly miscast as Dr. Quinn, which results in the first three episodes having less menace than they otherwise could have before the Silurians show up. 
• Planet of the Daleks
• Invasion of the Dinosaurs 
• The Deadly Assassin- And not for stupid fanish reasons, like it goes against all previously established show history, though there is some of that. No, I just didn't think it was a very good piece of television.  
• The Invisible Enemy 
• The Visitation 
• The Twin Dilemma
• The Two Doctors
• Terror of the Vervoids 
• New Earth 
• 42 - The big gimmick to 42 is that it's told in real time. Hence the title, 42 minutes. The irony is it still feels like it's padded, by a considerable amount. It looks fantastic, but that's about the only good thing I can say about this story. Acting and characterization are weak all around, including the Doctor and Martha. The plot is virtually nonexistent, and stupid at that. I'm debating with myself if this the moment where the rot starts on the RTD era. The next for episodes following this are amazing, so maybe not. But I'm watching....  
• Cold Blood
• Closing Time
• A Town Called Mercy
• Cold War 

Doctor Who Marathon: Least Favorite Episodes

But, conversely from my previous post, there's going to be episodes where one wonders why the BBC continued to renew the program for 26+ years when episodes like these were the result. Once I get to the Pertwee and Baker era, I suspect a lot of Episodes 3's & 5's will populate this list. Early on, when the program is more serialized and they're still experimenting with the structure of the show, it will probably be more random.

• The Screaming Jungle (The Keys of Marinus Ep. 3) Bad design abounds. Bad characterization abounds. Just when you think the stone statue with the obviously human hands is the epitome of Cheap Doctor Who, Ian is trapped by the Cage of Dowel Rods and Barbara is nearly crushed by the Ceiling of Polyurethane Swords.   
• Journey Into Terror (The Chase, Ep. 3) - This is supposed to be a funny sendup of the whole horror genre. But it's more like a bad episode of Scooby-Doo.
• The Dominators, Eps 3-5 For it's first two episodes, The Dominators is actually not that bad. There's some cleaver satire of stodgy academia going on somewhere there. But the last three are as bad as it's reputation. It doesn't help when the antagonist hate each other more than the Doctor.
• Inferno, Ep 6-  Look, I really like Inferno, it's probably my favorite Pertwee story. But this is the weak link in the chain, an episode that is almost all padding. How many times does Petra try to rewire the nuclear power controls and get it wrong? Saved slightly by having possibly the best cliffhanger in the history of the show. 
• The Daemons, Ep 4 - You could basically excise this entire episode and not miss a thing, though those who like morris dancing my disagree with me. While watching The Daemons this time around I noticed that any time a character ends up in the pub, the writers are basically saying, "We have nothing for this person to do right now, so we're just going to stick them here for the time being." Benton, Yates, and the witch spend a lot of time in the pub. Ditto can be said about the whole heat converter scenes, though I do like Sgt. Osgood.   
• Invasion of the Dinosaurs Eps 1-2. I suspect I'm going to be listing every episode from this story, but I'm starting with the first two, with a different reason for both. Episode 1 actually starts off quite moody. Mac Hulke takes a page from Terry Nation's playbook and basically has the Doctor and Sarah exploring abandoned London on their own for the entire episode. Unfortunately, it's all padding. There's only about 3 minutes of real material here, and its between the Brig and General Finch explaining that London's been invaded by monsters. Ep 2 is just dull, dull, dull.  Absolutely no one seems to care about what's going on. London's been invaded by fucking dinosaurs, and they may as well be discussing golf. Actually, that's probably be more fun. 
• The Invisible Enemy, Ep. 2 - The first part of The Invisible Enemy is actually rather good. At worst, it seems like the story will be a Base Under Siege, but with the twist that the bad guy is coming from within. But then this mess of tin-dog poop happens, and the strongest run of stories since the Hartnell era comes to a screeching halt just like that. I dare anyone to make sense of what's going on here. Characterization, gone. Plot, gone. Even the bad guys don't make sense. Michael Sheer, as one of the virus' hosts, declares earlier that Titan would make a ideal spot for the nucleus to incubate. Then, when all he has to do is kill the unsuspecting Leela and game over, decides it's a good idea for the three of them to travel to a bloody hospital asteroid.  

Doctor Who Marathon: Favorite Episodes

Likewise, there are certain episodes that just stand out. Maybe they have a magical moment or a bit of good direction, or excellent dialogue. I will add them here as I find them, and maybe add some brief descriptions on why i find them great.

• An Unearthly Child, Ep. 1
• The Daleks, Ep. 2. Great example of building tension and mood.
• The Daleks, Ep 4. Wonderful direction by Christopher Barry, and excellent special effects, especially considering the era. The rest of Doctor Who's 50 years may rest on the strength of this episode alone.    
•  The Dalek Invasion of Earth, Ep. 2. Feels like the show as a whole is taking a massive leap forward. It's got location filming, nice (and LARGE) set designs, a great soundtrack, and the largest cast in Doctor Who up to this point in the programme's history.
• The Romans, Ep. 3. The whole story is rather wonderful, but this is the best episode. I wish they had been more willing to do the occasional comedy in the later on. 
• The Daemons, Ep 1 The rest of the story isn't all that great, but episode one is actually pretty good. It's paced tightly and has a sense of energy with the goal of getting the Doctor and Jo to Devils end before the barrow is opened. Up. Nice use of media as a narrative device. 
• The Ultimate Foe Ep. 1  The only time Colin Baker's era truly meets greatness. Should have been like this more often. 

Doctor Who 50th Anniversary Viewing Marathon: Favorite Stories

As I go through this marathon, here are the stories that stand out: the ones that are head and shoulders above the rest. Maybe towards the end I can start to arrange them in some sort of order of preference.

• The Daleks
• The Aztecs
• The Romans 
• The Gunfighters
• The Ice Warriors
• The Mind Robber
• The Invasion
• The War Games
• Inferno
• The Mind of Evil
• Day of the Daleks 
• The Sea Devils 
• Carnival of Monsters
• The Time Warrior 
• The Ark In Space
• Planet of Evil
• The Seeds of Doom 
• The Face of Evil
• The Robots of Death
• The Talons of Weng-Chiang 
• Horror of Fang Rock 
• The Invasion of Time
• The Ribos Operation
• The Androids of Tara
• City of Death
• The Leisure Hive
• Full Circle
• Warriors' Gate
• Castrovalva
• Kinda
• Earthshock 
• Snakedance
• Frontios
• The Caves of Androzani
• Vengeance on Varos
• Mindwarp  
• Delta and the Bannerman
• Remembrance of the Daleks
• The Greatest Show in the Galaxy 
• Battlefield 
• The Curse of Fenric
• The Curse of Fatal Death
• Rose 
• The End of the World 
• Father's Day
• School Reunion
• The Girl in the Fireplace
• The Satan Pit
• Smith and Jones
• The Shakespeare Code 
• Human Nature/ The Family of Blood
• Utopia
• The Sound of Drums
• Time Crash
• The Fires of Pompeii
• Forest of the Dead
• Turn Left
• Waters of Mars
• The Eleventh Hour
• The Time of Angels/ Flesh and Stone
• Vampires of Venice
• Amy's Choice  
• Vincent and the Doctor
• The Lodger
• The Pandorica Opens
• A Christmas Carol
• The Doctor's Wife
• The Rebel Flesh/ The Almost People
• The Girl Who Waited
• The God Complex
• The Power of Three
• The Rings of Akhaten 
• Hide
• The Name of the Doctor
• The Day of the Doctor