Ulitmate Doctor Who: Season 11

[SiHart]

Yes, two today, as I wasn't around yesterday...



With Jo up the Amazon with Professor Jones, a new companions joins- the legendary Sarah Jane Smith. Brave and inquisitive, she takes ion Linx, Dinosaurs, Daleks, Giant Spiders and male chauvinism! Go girl!

It's business as usual until the end of the year when a heavy dose of radiation sees off Jon Pertwee and we're off into a new era.

But which is your favourite?

[Stuart Wallis]

The Time Warrior, a great start for the seasons, the Sontarans and Sarah. (Today's review brought to you by the letter S!)

[Terry Leptil]

This has to be my least favourite Pertwee season. It gets off to a good start with The Time Warrior but it's the middle stories that let it down with The Monster of Peladon being the worst. However, Planet of the Spiders is an improvement and is a great swansong for the Third Doctor, so I'm plumping for that. (I find it better than later swansongs Logopolis and The Caves of Androzani, which I both find overrated.)

[Jonno]

I love the first two stories of the season but my vote goes to Spiders for purely nostalgic reasons as it's the first story I clearly remember seeing (although I do have a "false" memory of Dinosaurs, a scene that is almost but not quite on screen so that may have been a dream at the time!).

I should add that I really enjoy Spiders as well, it's not just a nostalgia vote here!

And a big hurrah for the new title sequence this season too, as seen in Wayne's current signature!

[Dirk Gently]

For me this season is Hit, Miss, Palpaple Hit, Miss, Hit.

So it's a difficult choice. I have to choose 1 & it's Spiders just ahead of Death & then Time Warrior.

[SiHart]

Invasion of the Dinosaurs is a brilliantly overlooked story. The poor dinosaurs overshadow what is a very clever storyline. What's underneath is a story of paranoia, double dealing and evangelical greenism. I love it to bits.

[Andrew Curnow]

Spiders is a perfect tribute to the Pertwee era: it has UNIT bits, outer-space bits, it has a chase sequence, it has some ploddy bits, it has some great guest performances, it has some awful guest performances, it has some dodgy CSO... I'm too young to have seen it 'live' but even so, Pertwee's "I was lost in the vortex... the TARDIS brought me home" always makes me tingle.

Death to the Daleks is a lovely little romp of a tale, I remember getting the video on release in 1987 and loving it straightaway. And I often hum the Exxilon chant to myself.

Time Warrior is the ultimate romp, probably one of Holmes' very finest scripts for the show. Both Sarah Jane Smith and the Sontarans are given superb debuts.

But I'm with Si, and am going for Invasion of the Dinosaurs. It's a really tight story, probably one of the least-padded six parters of the era - the spaceship subplot is inspired, not just in keeping the story fresh but also in really establishing Sarah as a capable & independent companion. And in fact, I'd go so far as to say, for the time & budget, even the dinosaurs aren't that bad... except the T-Rex, which is awful - unfortunate, given that it is the focus of three out of the five cliffhangers...

[Andrew Curnow]

Given that it's the anniversary year, I've found myself watching some stories I've not seen for years and felt in quite a few cases that I've come to them fresh - DioE and Varos have both felt 'new' this time round, and been all the more enjoyable for that.

Although I've not yet braced myself enough to rewatch the often-maligned Monster of Peladon, I did earlier in the year try and find something nice to say about it, for a project a guy online was putting together (called 'Celebrate Regenerate'). So in the spirit of trying to not mock the afflicted I thought I'd share it with you:

I don't often think about The Monster of Peladon. As soon as I try to focus on the miners who strike to attract the Federation's attention but then agree to pretend to still be working so as not to attract the Federation's attention, I feel my brain begin to melt out of my ears. I don't think I've ever been as pleased to see anyone as I was to see Alan Bennion pop up in part four to give us his very best of Ice Lords; but sadly it's all too little too late, and very quickly even he is beaten down by the unrelenting grind of what passes for the plot. I loved The Curse of Peladon when I first saw it, and was expecting the even longer sequel to be even better. Alas, in the case of Peladon tales less is definitely more.

But-- but, and in the interests of fair play, it would be very wrong of me not to mention just how thrilled I was when my Dad unexpectedly bought me the Target version just after it came out in Summer 1982. True, just as with the TV shows so it is with the books, and Dicks' Monster is a poor 'also-ran' to Hayles' Curse, but I was thrilled nevertheless - and it does at least give us Pertwee's Klokleda Partha Menin Klatch in full.

It would also be very remiss of me not to recall that, going back to my first watching of the BBC video, I was joined by my Mum. By the end of episode one I could already begin to feel the madness calling to me, but as I reached for the VCR's stop button, Mum insisted we carry straight on and watch episode two. Back in the day, when the show first started, my Mum was quite the fan so it's fair to say she's sat through her share of duff episodes in her time. (I once heard her refer to lost classic The Celestial Toymaker as "that stupid one with the dolls"). Given that, it has to be at least some sort of a recommendation for The Monster of Peladon that she was willing to voluntarily sit through fifty minutes of it.

As fans we're forever trying to analyse what makes the 'classic' stories so darned good, but maybe if we're trying to define that indefinable magic of Doctor Who we should be looking at the 'passable' stories, the second-raters, even The Monster of Peladon and others of its 'bottom of the barrel' ilk. Clearly, though I still fail to see much appeal in this ploddily pedestrian Peladon penultimate Pertwee, my Mum did. And perhaps, although its duller episodes last for what feels like millions of years, out of their dreadful naffness must come something good.

[Wayne]

Planet of the Spiders is my long-time favourite, just edging out Death To the Daleks, whilst Monster of Peladon takes the bronze.

[Rob McCow]

out of their dreadful naffness must come something good.

Quite so - even Timelash stands head and shoulders above many, many episodes of Star Trek: Next Gen, Voyager and Enterprise.

I went for Planet of The Spiders too, because it's one of my favourites as it turns out. I didn't think it was, but I love the atmosphere of the early scenes and the Monastery in Kent - you can smell the English Autumn as Mike and Sarah drive down the lane, molested by the phantom tractor. The Earthbound casting is great and even The Community of Rubbish Actors on Metebelis Three are at least amusingly poor.

Plus 'Is that FEAR I can feel in your mind?' is either hopelessly overblown or the finest single moment of the entire Pertwee era, depending on what mood I'm in.

[dalekkiller]

The Time Warrior an excellent introductory story for Sarah Jane Smith and the Sontarans

Invasion of the Dinosaurs underrated owing to the poor special effects but an excellent flipside to the Green Death

Death to the Daleks a solid story undermined by poor music and some dodgy performances

The Monster of Peladon the wooden spoon of the season just weak and at least two episodes too long

Planet of the Spiders a good beginning and a good end marred by a poor middle

[Paul Clement]

Planet of the Spiders just edges Time Warrior.

[Dave Tudor]

Other than Monster, I've got a lot of time for all of these stories, and I was very tempted by both Spiders and Death (I'm not as familiar with Invasion, although it is another fab story), but in the end it was jolly, funny, exciting pseudo-historical romp that is The Time Warrior.

Oooooooooh MICE!

[Nyder]

I seem to be the lonely voice championing DTTD!

[Dino]

I was going to vote DTTD, I really was. I love it. But The Time Warrior has a new monster introduced, Sarah Jane introduced and a great guest absent minded professor.
And the bloke from Boon in it as well!

[Wayne]

I was going to vote DTTD, I really was. I love it.

I love it too, and was almost tempted to give it my vote....

[Dirk Gently]

I love it too, and was almost tempted to give it my vote....

What he said.

[MacNimon]

Spiders for me. The first three stories are all very enjoyable, and maybe a couple of them are more deserving of a vote than POTS. But my first experience of a regeneration can't be ignored; the series was never quite the same (I don't mean in a bad way!) after this...to my young self, it just seemed that Pertwee had always been the Doctor and this really was the end...

[brandynigma]

All great with the exception of Monster (although the Doctor's foreshadowing self-sacrifice is brilliant), but I chose Time Warrior.