Galaxy 4 Part 4/4: The Exploding Planet

Recap: the Rills are cool but can only breathe ammonia, the Drahvins are not so much morally ambiguous as they are cold and murderous, Steven is stuck in an airlock sans air with the choice of suffocating or surrendering to Maaga the Duchess of Sexytown, and the Doctor and Vicki are chillaxin' outside Sexy Drahvin HQ with a couple Chumblies and a sexy Drahvin who doesn't know wtf is going on. And also the planet's going to explode in a few hours because of reasons.

So, Maaga and her sexy cronies are on the inside of Sexy Drahvin HQ when boom, the Chumblies throw an ammonia bomb at them to distract them while they shoot open the door to the airlock. Steven stumbles out and the Doctor and Vicki are somewhat concerned because, as well as the oxygen deprivation, Steven seems to be suffering from Chronic Blurring of Face, the infamous alien disease.


This is, understandably, very distressing for them. While the TARDIS crew are familiarising themselves with Steven's new and unfortunate lack of facial features, the Rills start a dialogue of trash talk with the sexy Drahvins.

RILL VIA CHUMBLEYCOM: Maaga, you will take your soldiers back into the ship, and you will stay there. Until now we have spared you, although you have attacked us time and time again. But we will always defend our friends.
MAAGA: Friends!
RILL VIA CHUMBLEYCOM: We will prevent any attempt on your part to leave the ship. I am resolute. Now go back into your spaceship.
MAAGA: You have polluted the air with your bomb!
RILL VIA CHUMBLEYCOM: Ner ner ner ner ner, you smell of cat pee!

The TARDIS crew head back to the Rill base and decide that, as they have only six hours before Shit Goes Down™, they best get a move on with the 'powering the Rill ship by TARDIS juice' plan they have. So, the Doctor and Vicki head back out onto the planet to the TARDIS and leave Steven with the Rill so he can recover from his blurry face some more. (It's getting better, but it's still not quite there.)


There's a hilarious awkward silence between Steven and the Rill, and then Steven makes it VERY clear that he doesn't think much of the Rills' motives for saving him. You've spent too much time around the crazy sexy Drahvins, Steven. Not all aliens want to kill you, I promise. The Rills, because they are adorable, assure Steven that even if their ship doesn't get fixed, they'll let the TARDIS crew go because the Doctor "travels further than they can" and "everything he has shown he stands for is what they believe in." Which sounds cute but the things the Doctor has shown he stands for include mass murder and being generally incompetent. Steven, however, is overcome with the urge to cuddle these hideous creatures, and offers to help fix the Rills' power cable. The Rills accept, and the footage cuts away before Steven can express his lustful feelings for yet another alien species.

The Doctor and Vicki arrive safely at the TARDIS, and Vicki is getting worried about the imminent destruction of the planet, because it's starting to get dark. The Doctor assures her that they've still got about five hours left, and also soothes her fears about the coming explosion.

VICKI: Strange to think that at dawn all this will explode into nothing.
DOCTOR: No, not just nothing, child. Hydrogen gas that springs itself out like molten silver against the other stars in the same galaxy. Hmm.
VICKI: Wow, for a doctor, your bedside manner is really, REALLY bad.

While all this is going on, the Drahvins are still plotting to steal the Rills' spaceship and kill everything. They've already taken out the Chumbley standing guard outside Sexy Drahvin HQ, and now Maaga and her underlings are questing out into the wilderness (or out into the few hundred metres that seems to separate the Drahvins from the Rills) to get shit done. The alarm on the now-defunct Chumbley outside Sexy Drahvin HQ alerts everyone at Rill Base about this; the Doctor's advice is to not worry about it and just stay chill for the couple hours it's going to take to get the Rill ship working again.

Suddenly, Drahvins. (Steven's brilliant reaction: "Well, they don't waste time, do they?") A Chumbley manages to paralyse the one threatening them, then they all go take cover in the main Rill's room. Turns out, the Rills? Not sexy.


Thirty minutes to planetary destruction! And the sexy Drahvins are getting a bit frantic because they can't get past the Chumbley guard to the Rill base. But it's good news for the Rills: their spaceship is fully charged! Things are looking up! The plan now is for the Rills to high-tail it out of there ASAP and the TARDIS crew to take a Chumbley guard to get them across the planet and vworp the frick away.

The Rill ship takes off! Hell yeah! This angers the sexy Drahvins and, with a crazed look in their sexy eyes, they turn to the TARDIS as their only means of escape. You're probably better off on the planet, sexy Drahvins, you can't even choose where you want to go in that thing. Maaga, Heiress to the Fortune of Sexiness, pulls out her sexy weapon but the Chumbley is on the case and zaps the sexy Drahvins until they fall over and then it points at them and laughs.

Then, boom. The trio are safely in the TARDIS and they make it off the planet without any further fuss. We get to see a shot of Planet Time Bomb very scientifically living up to its name by blowing up right on time. Because of science. Steven only pines for the Drahvins a little. 

Vicki takes a peek at the TARDIS scanner and sees that they've materialised orbiting this other (hopefully non-exploding) planet.

"Look at that planet," says she. "I wonder what's going on down there."

"Yes," the Doctor responds. "Yes, I wonder. Hmm?"

This can only be foreshadowing, am I right? How exciting.


Holding out for actual footage in the next serial. How good would that be.

Moosh

Galaxy 4 Part 3/4: Air Lock

So here's where we're at: the Doctor and Vicki have creeped onto Rill territory. They're in a room with a spaceship and a broken Chumbley robot, and this weird monster thing has appeared at the window and is almost definitely not cool with them hanging out on his turf.

But alas! More peril! A Chumbley appears and chases them down a corridor. A corridor which - gasp! - ends in a locked door! BUT WAIT. On the wall there's a machine that converts air into ammonia (cat pee)! The Doctor does some Time Lord maths and figures out that

(robots that go outside for them) x (machine to convert air into ammonia)
=
the Rills CAN'T BREATHE AIR omg

So obviously because he is a kind and loving Time Lord, he thinks it'll be funny to break the machine that converts air to ammonia and allows the Rills to breathe. While he's working on suffocating dozens of creatures without ever speaking to them, two Chumblies chumble on over to take Vicki somewhere. Weirdly, she's not up for following these machines of wedding cakey death, but the Doctor urges her to do it so that he has more time to murder everything.

Vicki's taken back to the room where she saw the creepy thing peering in the window. The Chumblies beep some weird alien shit at her, to which she responds, "God can you just speak English please you losers," (I'm paraphrasing) and then cool! They do!

A bit of light-hearted interrogation follows, in which it is revealed that the Rills have offered to take the Drahvins with them in their ship so NOBODY gets blown up by the Absolutely Scientific Time-Bomb Planet. Vicki is confused, because the Drahvins told her that the Rills hated them and surely nobody that sexy could LIE.


Turns out, the Rills are basically just intergalactic Hufflepuffs (called it) and the whole Drahvin/Rill 'they killed one of us!' thing was a massive accident caused by the sexy Drahvins shooting the crap out of the Rills and the Rills getting in a hit in retaliation and then both of them crashing onto Planet Time-Bomb. (Technically it wasn't even the Rills' shot that killed the Drahvin; one of them was injured by the crash and the Rills tried to help them, but the Drahvins chased them away and Maaga shot the injured one to save herself the trouble of healing her.)

Vicki is getting on well with the Rill (who is using the Chumbley as a thought-to-speech walkie talkie because the Rills don't have vocal chords, and also he refuses to let Vicki see his full body because it would "not be pleasant" to humans, yeah, I know where you're coming from there, bro) when she remembers that oh shit! There's a crazy Time Lord working to smother them all with oxygen!

Meanwhile in Sexy Drahvin land, Steven has had enough of all the sexual frustration that the HQ has to offer. He knocks out the Drahvin who is standing guard over him, nicks her gun and heads for the door. Thing is, there's a Chumbley right outside, and he has seen those things explode shrubbery so he knows they are not to be messed with. He's then stuck between a wedding cake and a sexy place, because Maaga has appeared and is smirking at him in her alluringly evil way. What do, Steven? Well I don't know yet, because we're back with the Doctor's light-hearted mechanical tomfoolery and racial cleansing.

VICKI: Heyyy Doctor hello, um, don't do that, the Rills are cool.
RILL VIA CHUMBLEYCOM: Yo, we heard you got a dude in Drahvin HQ?
DOCTOR: Omg is that a Rill speaking via Chumbleycom?
VICKI: Yep!
DOCTOR: HELLO? CAN - YOU - HEAR - ME?
VICKI: They're not deaf.
DOCTOR: What?
RILL VIA CHUMBLEYCOM: We're not deaf.
DOCTOR: Oh.

By reminding the Doctor that the Rills could have shot them ages ago with their Chumbley death machines, Vicki and the Rill convince him to step away from his work on the Mechanism of Mass Suffocation.

The Doctor does so and only acts a little embarrassed about his cold-hearted murder plot. To make amends he offers the Rill the information that the planet is going to explode in a couple days' time and the Rills need to hurry their shit up. But alas, the Rills thought they had two weeks and so are not ready for imminent detonation of the ground. The Doctor still feels a little guilty though and so he offers his TARDIS powers to help the Rills get out of there. Everybody wins! Except Steven, who is still trapped in a weird nightmare/wet dream crossover.

Speaking of which, Steven is currently trapped in an airlock - hey, it's the title of the episode! - between the outside, where the Chumbley is, and the inside, where the sexy evil Drahvins are. He thinks it's all cool, because while he's trapped in there neither of them can harm him, but then Maaga starts emptying all the air out of it, which he should have seen coming, really. She tells him he has three options:

1. Stay in the airlock. Pros: No one will shoot him. Cons: Death.
2. Open the door and go outside. Pros: That's the opposite direction to the crazy lady with the gun. Cons: Probable death by robot wedding cake.
3. Surrender to the Drahvins. Pros: They're really hot. Cons: Probable death and sexual frustration.

He decides to wait it out.

The Chumbley outside the airlock sends a message about this to the Rills, who pass on the information to Vicki and the Doctor that their friend is about to suffocate (which is a kind of poetic justice, when you think about what the Doctor was trying to do to the Rills not TEN MINUTES BEFORE). The Doctor is extremely distressed when he hears this. He can barely hold himself together.


Such emotion. It's overwhelming. Vicki and the Doctor grab a couple of Chumblies in case they need to blow shit up, and head back on over to Sexy Drahvin HQ. A sexy Drahvin notices that they're followed by robots controlled by The Enemy and politely inquires as to why that is. Vicki tells them that the Chumblies are controlled by them now and makes a Chumbley do a little dance to prove it.

But after Vicki's demonstration of power and dominance (weird how that would work on the Drahvins, right), Sexy Dravhin 1 is convinced and lets them through to see what's happening with ol' Stevey Baby.

I mean, it's not looking well for for him. He's pretty much entirely out of air, and he tried the button to let him outside where there is oxygen and only probable death, and, whoops, the pressure is too low in the airlock, the door won't open.

AH JEEZ and there's the end music!


Mannnn, this is getting tense! Will the sexy Drahvins stop being crazy and killing everything? Will we ever get an explanation of why the planet is going to explode? Will Steven make it out alive? And more importantly will he ever get laid? So many questions left unanswered! Next episode better be good, man.

Moosh

Galaxy 4 Part 2/4: Trap of Steel

Last episode concluded with the bombshell that the planet on which the TARDIS crew, the sexy Drahvins and the Rills with their chumbley wedding cake robots are all currently residing is going to explode in two days. This is a scientific fact as tested with science. No explanation has been offered but I don't doubt that it is definitely true.

The Doctor and Steven are inside the TARDIS after carrying out their Scientific Tests and a Chumbley approaches with an Exploding Device. An Exploding Device which, despite not affecting the exterior of the TARDIS at all, throws the Doctor and Steven across the console room and there's a lot of heavy breathing and moaning as they right themselves. (There isn't any footage of this bit, so I'm assuming that's what the heavy breathing and moaning is about. Unless the BBC in the sixties was a lot more progressive than we give it credit for. At one point Steven genuinely says 'Oh, please, Doctor!', so I am beginning to doubt myself.)

The two of them decide to abandon ship ASAP before the Chumblies come and force them upon each other once more, and there's a bit more dramatic dialogue reminding us that there are only TWO DAWNS before shit goes down.

Meanwhile, in Sexy Drahvin HQ, Maaga is trying to seduce Vicki with food.

MAAGA: Are you sure you won't eat?
VICKI: No, thank you.
MAAGA: Mm... It's very good.
VICKI: You know what's very good? Not being on this dumb planet. Your sexy powers will not work on me, you very attractive alien lady, you.

Vicki is saved from further sexy attempts on her virtue by the timely arrival of the Doctor, who insults the Drahvins' spaceship, and Steven, who is probably hoping to get a slice of the seduction pie. The Doctor reveals that the Rills were correct and the planet is definitely going to explode, but assures Maaga that it's in two weeks, not two days. Steven plays it cool when he hears this so as not to give the game away.


Maaga, Priestess at the temple of Sexy, tries to use her feminine wiles to get the Doctor to help the Drahvins get their sexy selves out of there. The Doctor will give them a hand on the condition that the Rills are allowed to leave too. Maaga refuses this as the Rills are Evil and Bad, but as the Doctor has seen no evidence to support this claim (... apart from the fact that the Rill machines tried to blow up his ship, but we'll not mention that) he stands his ground.

Obviously, Maaga ain't takin' no shit from nobody, so she pulls out a sexy gun and aims it sexily at the Doctor, at which point Steven takes the opportunity to try and tackle her to the floor under the pretext of 'stopping her from killing his friend' or whatever. You're fooling no one, Steven.

It's all going well and Steven has nearly unhooked Maaga's bra (again, I'm guessing, as there is no footage) when two more sexy Drahvins appear and point their weapons at Steven. Understandably, Steven gets excited and backs off.

Maaga, newly armed with more sexy weapons, sets about intimidating the Doctor into helping her. Somewhere along the way, the Doctor gets pretty flustered by this and ends up admitting that the planet's going up in smoke in two days, not fourteen. Maaga is displeased. She tells the Doctor to go and capture the Rill spaceship right now and I swear to god this exchange happens.

DOCTOR: Oh, you have great faith in me, haven't you, hmm?
MAAGA: Yes I have, because I shall keep one of you here. I shall keep the girl!
STEVEN: Oh no, you won't. You'll keep me!

God, Steven. You need to be more cool.

The Doctor and Vicki head out to deal with the Rill business (and the Doctor casually mentions that because there are three suns, they actually have about two hours before their first day is over) and in Sexy Drahvin HQ we discover that the stuff Maaga was eating was 'food for leaders only', so, like, I'm becoming convinced that Maaga is kind of into Vicki. Steven is not allowed this special food.

The sexy Drahvins pull Maaga to one side and politely enquire as to why they haven't killed the non-sexy human male. Maaga mysteriously tells them that she'll let them kill him when she's 'good and ready', so. Dunno what's happening there. Probably something incredibly attractive and deeply sexual. But I'm just guessing.

Oh man and there's a fantastic interaction between the Doctor and Vicki. They reach the Rill ship and see loads of Chumblies patrolling outside.

VICKI: How are we going to get past them?
DOCTOR: Ah, yes, yes, that's quite a problem, my child, isn't it, hmm?
VICKI: You're telling me it is!
DOCTOR: Well, now don't lose patience, you see! Now look, in this case, first we must observe, note, collate, and then conclude. After that, perhaps we can act, hmm?
VICKI: You are the most useless Time Lord ever. You don't even have a sonic screwdriver. What are you.

Vicki takes charge and with some cunning rock-throwing action, discovers that the blind Chumblies can only hear things directly in front of them. The Doctor doesn't approve of her methods.

DOCTOR: You may appear to be right, but it's dangerous, and it's - it's very risky!
VICKI: That was no risk! I noted, observed, collated, concluded... and then I threw the rock!
DOCTOR: You're a little shit, you know that, right?

God, I love Vicki.

They find Rill HQ and see that there's some sort of drill rig next to it? The Doctor declares it to be "most impressive." Vicki describes it as "very temporary." I'm with the human on this one, Doctor.


They walk in and awkwardly make conversation about the size of the corridors. Something apparently smells weird but they dismiss it pretty quickly, which was foolish of them. It wouldn't have been scripted if it wasn't important! Gosh.

And then they find the spaceship! Hurrah! The Doctor seems to really like it, as he whips his screwdriver out (just a normal screwdriver, not sonic) and starts trying to scratch it. Time Lords have weird customs, I don't even know, but apparently you know it's legit if you can't scratch the metal. Vicki ignores the Doctor's tomfoolery and has a revelation that the funny smell is in fact ammonia (so, cat pee). So that's cool.

They kick around the room they're in for a while, finding a little broken Chumbley which the Doctor makes fun of, when, gasp! A thing appears at the window! And then the end music plays, oh, curses. I bet you a tenner this creepy thing is a Rill, though.


Nowhere near as sexy as the Drahvins, right. That probably means that they're going to turn out to be a nice, harmless species while the Drahvins are horrible bitches who pick on them to feel better about themselves. Or maybe that's just my high school experience talking.

Moosh

Galaxy 4 Part 1/4: Four Hundred Dawns

This is one of those episodes that was lost to whatever crazy party the BBC held that destroyed a bunch of the Old!Who materials, so it starts off with Peter Purves, the guy who played Steven, sitting in the grounds of some stately home and doing a three-minute introduction into the camera. He warns us that there's pretty much no footage of this episode remaining so they've reconstructed it using set pictures and something that a fan filmed off the TV. This is going to be a pleasure, I can tell.

Good news! It is actually something a fan filmed off the TV! You can see the edges of the TV set in shot. Fantastic.


So the three intrepid explorers (the Doctor, Vicki and Steven, if you're not playing along at home) land on a planet. The TARDIS scanners tell them that there's absolutely no life out there, which puzzles the Doctor because the atmosphere is pretty kicking. Optimum levels of oxygen and radiation and all of the good stuff. However, the lucky viewer can see that there actually is something outside the TARDIS. It looks a bit like a robot wedding cake and is, apparently, blind. And it has a telepathic messaging system. Cool.

The robot wedding cake bumps into the TARDIS, because it's all blind and that, and tries to feel its way around to find out what this weird box thing is doing on its turf. The TARDIS inhabitants hear it and Vicki, because she is the most adorable thing in the whole world, says that it sounds like it has a 'chumbley movement'. Baby.

Heedless of the dangers of the robot wedding cake, the trio head outside to see what the deal is with this unknown planet. Steven can barely contain himself over there being three suns, Vicki nearly combusts with excitement when she sees some flowers and the Doctor ignores them both and tries to act clever by noting how quiet it is. But the impression of wisdom is thwarted once again by Hartnell not being able to say his lines properly and the 1960's not being able to do retakes.

DOCTOR: This silence reminds me of the planet... er... Xeros.
VICKI: You don't think we've jumped the time track again, do you?
DOCTOR: No. No, my dear, not again. Not again. But, uh... it's so quiet.
VICKI: Get your shit together, Doctor, you're supposed to know what you're doing, here.

And then Vicki spots the robot wedding cake! And she calls it a Chumbley after the way it moves. God, how so adorable, Vicki. It has this pipe thing sticking out between two of its tiers and that is apparently threatening enough that it scares the shit out of all three of them.


Oh, then it uses the pipe thing to explode a nearby bush. Okay, right, fair play. The Doctor is way too excited by this and happily lets himself be herded away by the robot wedding cake - or Chumbley, if you will - while two MYSTERIOUS WOMEN watch from behind a rock. No life on this planet, my arse.

The MYSTERIOUS WOMEN throw a net over the Chumbley and introduce themselves to the TARDIS crew as Drahvins. Steven tries to hit on them. Get in there, son.

The sexy Drahvins want to escort the Doctor, Vicki and Steven to their leader, whose name is Maaga. The Doctor is all up for it, Steven is too busy trying to look up the Drahvins' skirts to form an opinion (probably, there isn't any footage of this bit), but Vicki, because Vicki is sensible and wonderful, isn't a huge fan of the idea.

SEXY DRAHVIN 1: If you stay here, more machines will come. They will capture you and take you to the Rills.
DOCTOR: The Rills... are they the people that control these things, hmm?
SEXY DRAHVIN 2: They are not people.
SEXY DRAHVIN 1: They are things.
SEXY DRAHVIN 2: They crawl.
SEXY DRAHVIN 1: They murder.
VICKI: Murder?
SEXY DRAHVIN 2: They have already killed one of us.
DOCTOR: Oh, I should like to meet these Rills!
VICKI: Doctor I swear I have had it up to here with your bullshit.

Some more Chumblies appear and chase them all back to Sexy Drahvin HQ and it turns out that Maaga is this crazy dictator lady who has all the other sexy Drahvins scared shitless. Also they don't live on the planet that they're on, they come from this place called Drahva.

MAAGA: There are too many of us on Drahva.
STEVEN: All women?
MAAGA: Women?
DOCTOR: Yes, er. Feminine. Female.
MAAGA: Oh. We have a small number of men. As many as we need. The rest we kill.
DOCTOR: ... woah.
STEVEN: I have the weirdest boner right now.

Also, the planet that they're on? It's gonna explode in two weeks. Apparently. And the sexy Dhravins can't leave because the Rills broke their spaceship, so they're fighting these Rills so they can steal THEIR spaceship and GTFO.

Understandably, the Doctor questions the legitimacy of the 'this planet is defo gonna explode in two weeks' claim, which Maaga the Sexily Dominant acknowledges but has no way of testing.

THE DOCTOR: Hey! I have this spaceship of science, I could give it a go if you let us leave.
MAAGA: Well you can't ALL go.
VICKI: Because we're your prisoners, right?
MAAGA: Of course not! But if you see a Chumbley then you might DIE. One of you should stay here. Just to make sure that all of you are safe.
VICKI: This logic is not really working with me but I'd rather put as much distance as possible between Steven and these sexy crazy people. I'll stay.
STEVEN: Curses.

The Doctor and Steven make it back to the TARDIS to find a Chumbley already trying to get in. It doesn't have any luck, so it sends a message to its Chumbley buddies and chumbles away. The Doctor brags about his awesome security and he and Steven go inside.

After a little bit of Science, the Doctor declares that the Rills were right! The planet is going to explode! Shit! But ooh, plot twist: they don't have two weeks. They have two days! Dun dun dunnn! The Doctor puts on his best Shit Is Going To Go Down face in honour of the occasion and the adorable old theme tune plays them out.


See you on Wednesday with Part 2!

Moosh

Seasons 1 and 2 RECAP

Like I said in the introduction post, I've already watched the first two seasons of Classic Doctor Who. If I were blogging any other show, I'd probably go back and rewatch them, but as One's episodes are such a massive slog to get through, instead of blogging each episode of the first two seasons I'm just going to do a big old comprehensive recap of the important points.

So HERE'S WHAT YOU MISSED ON DOCTOR WHO:

The Doctor started off in England in 1963 with his granddaughter (I don't know either! It has not been explained!) whose name is Susan and who is, I think, also Gallifreyan but was enrolled in a muggle school in London because the TARDIS needed repairs, or something.

So one day, two of Susan's schoolteachers, Ian and Barbara, notice something weird about Susan so they follow her home because they are in fact teachers of the subjects of Inappropriate and Not Cool. They meet the Doctor and because the Doctor is a bit of an arse when he looks like William Hartnell, he has an argument with them and follows that up with some super funsies by trapping them all in the TARDIS and travelling to CAVEMAN TIMES.

I should also mention that One's TARDIS is a bit rubbish. Like, he can't control where it goes. If they dematerialise from somewhere, they just. Can't get back. It's a fact that the reboot Doctors are pretty bad at controlling where the TARDIS lands, but there's at least a little bit of steering involved. In 1963? Not so much. So Ian and Barbara were pretty screwed over by the Doctor, there. Like I said. Bit of an arse.

So Ian and Barbara and Susan and the Doctor don't really have any choice but to frolic about space and time for a while, meeting Daleks (because there is a Dalek episode in every. single. season) and rocking out at the French Revolution and, y'know. The usual shenanigans. That is, until season 2 where there's a DALEK EPISODE and Susan falls for this guy from Earth in 2164 and decides to stay with him instead of indulging in more TARDIS fun. Which is good, because Susan was like. Pretty shit. So.

She's quickly replaced by an Earth girl around the same age from the 25th century whose name is Vicki. Vicki is awesome and kickass and everything that Susan wasn't. The gang stays the same for five more serials until there's a DALEK EPISODE and they meet a new guy called Steven. (I've only seen him in one serial after said DALEK EPISODE, but he seems okay. I'm reserving judgement for now.)

Ian and Barbara nick off with some Dalek tech because the Daleks are advanced enough to have a time machine they can actually point in the direction they want to go, and they high-tail it back to sixties London where they belong. So that's where we are right now. The Doctor, Vicki, Steven and a broken TARDIS.

Oh, also, the last episode I watched (The Time Meddler), the Doctor met another Time Lord. And then trapped him in 1066. As someone who grew up with Nine's terrific woe about being the Last Of His Kind, and then Ten's magnificent chemistry with the Master following the revelation that He Was Not Alone, One's 'yeah you're a Time Lord but you're a bit annoying so I broke your TARDIS lol sucks to be you right now' attitude was really weird. But then again, One is, as I have mentioned, a bit of an arse.

This post was not an episode recap, I acknowledge, so one of those will be up before the weekend is out!

Keep those fragment links hotwired; I will see you soon.

Moosh

Introduction

Hey there! My name is Lindsey (but sometimes people on the internet call me PotterMoosh) and I like Doctor Who. Well, I like New Who, the series reboot. And by that I kind of mean I like reboot seasons 1-4 (I'm a little too feminist for Moffat's writing). Way back in 2011, I decided it'd be fun to do a little time travel of my own and head back on over to 1963 to watch the whole series from the beginning. It was fun - in a very long, slow and tedious sort of way.

No, but seriously. Until this blog started, I'd made it through two measly seasons. Which is more impressive than it sounds, because each story the first Doctor is in is split into multiple parts - usually about 4-6 twenty-five-minute episodes. So what looks like 18 episodes is more like 100. But even so.

The last Classic Who episode I watched ('The Time Meddler', 1965), I typed out what was happening to my friend Lily over Skype, and one of my Golden Rules of Life was once again proven to be true: light-hearted mockery can improve almost anything.

Now, see, Lily is not always on Skype, as she has a life outside of the internet (weird), and also I definitely annoy her far too much with my horrific attempts at humour; I don't think she could stand it if I spewed my hideously unfunny thoughts at her for another god knows how many episodes. And I LIKE Lily. I want to keep her. And while I'm definitely not above using bribery, blackmail and imprisonment of family members to keep my friends talking to me, it's getting more and more difficult to find places to hide the bodies. And thus: blog.

See, I figure that blogging my way through Classic Who has benefits for many people:

1. Me, as I get to ramble on about a nerd thing and nobody has to read it if they don't want to.
2. People who have not seen Classic Who and are interested in the Doctor's backstory but also do not want to drag themselves through fifty years of terrible, terrible special effects. I will watch the episodes for you and the summarise them so you can have the Nerd Points of knowing the lore of Classic Who without having to do the work. Nerd Points are very important on the internet. You're welcome.
3. People who have seen Classic Who and want to fondly reminisce. Remember those giant man-eating mushrooms in the forest that are sensitive to the electric light that was somehow installed? And that time one of the companions went crazy and started going after the others with a sharp objects and then they left the TARDIS and none of them ever mentioned it again? Ah, good times.
4. People who are enthusiastic about words, as I will be using a lot of them. I know over fifty different ones and I'm a terrible show-off.

Gosh, that is all the introducing I have in me for one night! I intend to have posts uploaded fairly regularly but I make no promises as to a schedule. Until next time, then, keep your screwdrivers fully charged, reverse the polarities of your neutron flows (a reference I don't yet understand but ONE DAY), and always take a banana to a party. Bananas are good.

Moosh