Captain_Photon

I have to admit, I've seen this joke many times, but I still don't get it. (Not the "fixed!" thing, that's transparent enough. The other thing. The one the new board's quoting system wouldn't let me quote without more faff than I was willing to do.)

No, no. I just... you know, War Witch.

And Mynx.

And Positron, a bit, but not in that way.

... I'll just be over here.

That would technically be impossible, since a number of the early episodes have been destroyed. And would in any event be inadvisable, since even a fairly serious long-time Doctor Who fan (uh, me, for instance) will readily admit that there's quite a lot of the original version that's rubbish.

Here's the thing about early Doctor Who that you have to accept before you'll get anywhere with it: Even when it was really good, it wasn't very well-made. The BBC spent about £4 3s. 9d.* on each episode for most of the 1963-1989 run, and it shows in a lot of ways. It's kind of like amateur theater, especially in the very early black-and-white era. To get anything at all from a lot of early Who, you've got to look much more for writing and performance than for any sort of visual wow-factor (with the exception of Wendy Padbury in that Jumpsuit of the Future in The Wheel in Space). And you have to be able to walk that tightrope wherein you're respecting something enough to enjoy it and willing to laugh at its utter failures at the same time, which a lot of SF fans find very difficult.

That said, there are some gems, even in the flimsiest black-and-white stuff. If I had to pick one serial for each Doctor, it'd go something like:

The First Doctor (William Hartnell)
The Dalek Invasion of Earth (1964) - Not as awkwardly paced as the original Dalek story, The Dalek Invasion of Earth shows the Daleks at their most frightening, crushing all resistance and plotting the destruction of humanity. This was the first time they really transcended the fact that they're rather crap props to be properly scary villains anyway.

The Second Doctor (Patrick Troughton)
Tomb of the Cybermen (1967) - Again, much better and much scarier than the original appearance of the Cybermen, this shows them for the menace they can really be (and they look a lot less like escapees from a burn ward). Also features the Doctor showcasing that fine balance of zaniness and God-you-people-are-stupid frustration that has become a hallmark of most versions of the character since.

The Third Doctor (Jon Pertwee)
Terror of the Autons (1971) - Another second outing for a villain (in this case the Autons), but the real key here is that this is the first appearance of the Master, as played (to the hilt!) by the late Roger Delgado.

The Fourth Doctor (Tom Baker)
The Talons of Weng-Chiang (1977) - There are a lot of Fourth Doctor stories, and a lot of them are either good or epochal (Genesis of the Daleks, for instance, is both), but this one's my favorite. Someone at the BBC realized, wait, we have a show whose protagonist is a time traveler. That means we could do a spot of Victorian horror if we wanted! So they did. Marvelous.

The Fifth Doctor (Peter Davison)
The Caves of Androzani (1984) - I might have gone with Earthshock for this one - it's certainly significant, and contains the greatest Cyber Leader line ever ("These things are irrelevant!") - but I just couldn't, because this, for my money, is the best damn story in the original run, with the Doctor at his most heroic.

The Sixth Doctor (Colin Baker)
I didn't like the Sixth Doctor. Um... at all. So I have no recommendation to offer here.

The Seventh Doctor (Sylvester McCoy)
Remembrance of the Daleks (1988) - I could've gone with almost any of the Seventh Doctor's serials - big fan - but even I have to admit that several of them are crap (I'm looking at you, The Happiness Patrol). This one, however, is not. It was the final appearance of the Daleks in the original series and sees them out with a bang, and it contains one of the show's great "whoa, okay, zany little cheery Doctor fellow is not an enemy you want" moments.

The Eighth Doctor (Paul McGann)
Doctor Who (1996) - Well, that was easy. He was only ever in the one thing.

Most, if not all, of these things are available on DVD nowadays (though the last time I looked, the Eighth Doctor movie was only out in Region 2 - which is weird, since it was produced as a pilot for an American TV series).


* SKETCH WRITTEN BEFORE DECIMALISATION

Well... a few... is that so wrong?

¡Gooooooooooooooooooooooollllllllllll!

Years ago, a friend of mine was building a Champions(? might've been Villains & Vigilantes or Heroes Unlimited, it was a long time ago) character when he discovered that any effect could be teamed with any power. He promptly made a character who had Ego Attack with Knockback, which we liked to envision as Captain Magnificent going up to a villain and saying, "You suck!" with such force of personality that the villain would be sent flying.

OMG, nerf Nemesis Rifle!

It's a strange phenomenon, being "old" in the context of Internet game time. I think about it every now and then - it's not something previous generations had to deal with. I mean, you didn't see 19th-century chess masters sitting around saying, "I remember when knights could move three squares forward and two to the right. Some players quit over the Great Knight Nerf."

Try as I might, I can't parse this sentence, particularly the part after "curtailed".

Nope. Not having to team up with people you don't want to team up with is one of the inalienable rights of mankind. Thomas Jefferson had it in mind when he wrote the Declaration of Independence. It's a little-known fact that the American colonies' split with England was largely due to the fact that King George III was a rotten teammate and all the American patriots hated playing with him (he had really bad aggro management skills), but he kept forcing people to team with him anyway because he was the king.

Now you've just stopped making sense entirely. Some kind of joke regarding unique snowflakes and unique dragons is hovering just outside my reach, rather in the fashion that such witticisms always occurred to, but frustratingly eluded, Captain Jack Aubrey.

I will happily destroy any proposal that involves "the players (sic) inability... to be unable to say no to teams". The day I'm unable to say no to teaming up with random idiots is the day I say no to MMOs entirely.

Yeah, didn't they used to have a maint window every morning? They didn't always use it, but ISTR the rule used to be something like "0700 to 0900 Eastern, don't make any plans."

I'm not even talking about people spamming powers, I'm talking about there being so many characters to draw (and so much chat traffic) that the system just grinds to a halt.

Yes, though he was still there when I left, so I didn't get to see how such things are dealt with. I was hoping that one of the Police Drones would swing round into the shop and beam him to the Zig, but I suppose the GMs probably don't have the ability to make them do that.

Ooh, I hope not Plasma Win. It burns exposed skin.

I've seen that. As you know, I am not a great proponent of PvP, but I must admit that I very much wanted, at that moment, to be able to kill him.

Yes. This. And just so you know in advance, they're probably going to want to see a dxdiag output.

I guess I did. Which is good, I guess, because I rather like being able to hear myself think as I look through the list of playable arcs, and move around at a frame rate greater than about 5 FPS, neither of which really works out when a huge mob of player characters is about.

See, it's funny how different players' experiences will differ. What you just described is kind of the ideal way something like this should work from my perspective - so what you think of as AE being "murdered", I'm seeing as AE being made worthwhile. I can't abide great teeming mobs of PCs and being invited to team up with strangers every 36 seconds. It's one of the several reasons I'm not enamored of that "invasion" business. If the Architect buildings were still like that, I'd never go near the damn things. Actually, I wouldn't be able to go near them, on account of the aforementioned framerate issue, but I digress.

(This is where someone - maybe the OP, maybe just someone who can't resist putting the boot in - will look at me archly and go, "You do know you signed up to play a massively multiplayer online game, yes?" If you are that person, then, in advance, kindly go soak your head. A desire to be one of the extras in the stock exchange scenes from Wall Street is not a prerequisite for MMO gaming and you know it.)

Oh, yeah, it's not without risk, but then, nothing truly great ever is.

And you're right about the headdesk. It's absolutely critical that you've finished the facepalm and your hand is no longer in front of your face when your head hits the desk. But at the same time, you can't wait too long or it won't be a proper combo. It's tricky but very rewarding.

See, now, that's funny, because I'm an American, and I don't know why I was under the impression that someone from Europe would be able to capitalize and punctuate.

What, you don't take Jump Kick? (Speaking of strange powers. )

I'm imagining it. Mostly, I'm imagining all our hugely expensive, painstakingly arranged equipment getting broken. It's... well, it's not striking me as great fun, to be honest.