Backwards, Forwards, Sideways

[SiHart]

The original premise for the show indicated that the production team wanted a mix of historical, futuristic and sideways (or just odd!) stories. There's a bit of a mix of these throughout Season 1, though the sideways trips got rather lost with possibly only Edge of Destruction counting.

Which ones do you prefer and why?

[Anthony Williams]

Definitely the futuristic!

Despite how much everyone else seems to love them, I've never been a particularly big fan of Marco Polo or The Aztecs, and The Reign of Terror is decidedly average.

The Daleks, The Edge of Destruction... heck, even The Keys of Marinus and The Sensorites! I love them all!

I can't really explain why... maybe I'm just still a little boy at heart, who loves robots, spaceships and big mind control machines!

[J.R. Southall]

The original premise for the show indicated that the production team wanted a mix of historical, futuristic and sideways (or just odd!) stories. There's a bit of a mix of these throughout Season 1, though the sideways trips got rather lost with possibly only Edge of Destruction counting.

Which ones do you prefer and why?

Definitely the historicals. I always enjoy any show for the characters first and foremost, and the historicals are rich with fully-realised characters, whereas the futuristic stories are saddled with some pretty cardboard cut-outs.

I must say, Season 2 got the balance a lot better than the first series, and generally speaking, the stories were a vast improvement too (with obvious caveats).

Incidentally, both Planet of Giants and The Dalek Invasion of Earth were made for Season 1 and postponed, so that kind of gives you a second 'sideways' Season 1 story.

Right, now we need someone who prefers the sideways stories...

[kevinwho]

Well, I suspect I'm a sideways story kind of guy. I don't think they ever made enough of stories that qualify to actually define what a sideways story would be. But it suggests to me stories with a certain creativity of premise.

I like future stories if the writer makes the effort. To many stories set in the future (in Who and elsewhere) are just present-day stories with window-dressing. I.E. run-of-the-mill cop drama, but they carry rayguns so it's a sci-fi. Puh-lease! Doctor Who has had some of these lame-os, and some quite inventive stories, but what I'm saying is it ain't great just because it has a spaceship in it.

Oh, heck, give me all of them - past, future and sideways. Let's just get past this whole Pond family saga thing and get back to going new places.

[Rob McCow]

I like future stories if the writer makes the effort.

I certainly agree with this.

I've grown to love the historicals, but they weren't my favourite as a kid. But then, a lot of my thinking was based on Target book covers so that 'The Krotons' was clearly better than 'The Aztecs'.

These days of course, it's easy to say that the historicals were consistently brilliant, whereas the sci-fi stories were variable. Although I love 'The Keys of Marinus' and 'The Sensorites', they're not nearly as good as any of the historicals from Season 1. At least as TV shows.

[SiHart]

I love the enthusiasm and gusto that they approach the Sci-fi stories with, but really I think aside from The Daleks they're deeply flawed. the design work is generally excellent, but the storytelling isn't so wonderful.


However, there's a real confidence to the historicals- both storywise and production wise. Everything is a bit less shaky. Marco Polo and The Aztecs are both fabulous and some of the best Hartnell's of all. So I vote Backwards!

[Stuart Wallis]

I'm surprised Tim hasn't made something of the title of this thread...