Classic Who recs?

[jmtorres]

So I have a as-nearly-complete-as-these-things-can-be collection of Classic Doctor Who, and no idea where to start. I would like to hear your favorite episodes and arcs! Also, I am bringing a selection to a couple of lesbian fangirls, so any femslash fodder would be great. Recommendations?

Comments

[aris_tgd]

So... basically, people tend to love one or two of the Classic Doctors and feel kind of meh on the rest, depending. You'll probably want to figure out your favorites and go from there.

If you like starting as early as possible, The Tomb of the Cybermen is a great early episode and a pretty good introduction to the Second Doctor and Jamie.

If you've heard great things about Tom Baker, I liked The Ark in Space and The Pyramids of Mars as starting points.

For the Fifth Doctor, Tegan and Nyssa are pretty femslashy, and you could do worse than starting with Castrovalva. Or that whole three-episode arc, starting back with Four, The Keeper of Traken/Logopolis/Castrovalva make kind of a complete story.

But if you want all of the femslash and fast-moving episodes, Seven and Ace are your best bet. They're sometimes cheesy or hard to follow, but give The Happiness Patrol, The Greatest Show in the Galaxy, Battlefield, and Survival a shot.

And in case it matters, my favorite Third Doctor episode is probably Inferno (aka Doctor Who versus the fascist lava werewolves,) my favorite Sixth Doctor episode is The Mysterious Planet (or the first part of Trial of a Time Lord,) and my favorite First Doctor episode is probably The War Machines.

[ide_cyan]

Seven and Ace are the best / you best bet -- I second that rec. (And Seven might remind you of a less hyperactive Miles Vorkosigan.) There's also Victorian-era cross-dressing in Ghost Light, which is not as confusing as its reputation would have it. And if you watch Remembrance of the Daleks, it's really fun (albeit mind-screwy) to go back to the very first episode from 1963 afterwards; and then you can segue into more First Doctor stuff. Plus Verity Lambert & Waris Hussein are FTW -- Doctor Who started out with a young woman as producer and a young, gay, Indian-born director.

I could to give you recs from other eras but they'd tend to be more problematic. (1st Doctor serial "The Romans" is really fun, for instance, but could use a Rape Humour warning.)

If you want a quick taste from the Fifth Doctor era, there's "Black Orchid", as a really short two-part historical, which has Sarah Sutton in two roles.

Also femslashy: Revenge of the Cybermen, while one of the bleak and violent Eric Saward-era serials, has Peri and the all-female Cryons.

[ide_cyan]

*kicks self* I mean Attack of the Cybermen, the 6th Doctor story. Revenge is a 4th Doctor story -- the Cybermen & Dalek titles are easily mixed up that way -- and if I saw it the last time was probably twenty years ago.