As revealed at the recording of our last live episode, Two/Evil, here is your homework viewing for episode Three/Family!
If you’re not familiar with the ways of the Third Doctor, we reckon the following three stories will give you a pretty good idea what he’s about:
- Spearhead From Space
- Carnival of Monsters
- Death to the Daleks
There’s lots to choose from, of course, so feel free to watch as much as you can!
For the theme of “Family”, we suggest watching the following:
- The Rescue (William Hartnell, 1964)
- The Daemons (Jon Pertwee, 1971)
- The Keeper of Traken (Tom Baker, 1981)
- Father’s Day (Christopher Eccleston, 2005)
- Dinosaurs on a Spaceship (Matt Smith, 2012)
As always, please feel free to share other suggestions in the comments below.
I hope there will be some talk about Mike Yates’ arc with “Invasion of the Dinosaurs” and “Planet of the Spiders”. His betrayal certainly shocked me as a kid, and certainly added a lot to his character, over others like Benton and Lethbridge-Stewart.
Not counting The Master, Yates is really the black sheep of the Family.
There’s a surprisingly modern “arc” (urgh) there with Yates, isn’t there? I think the ABC didn’t play Invasion Of The Dinosaurs when I was a kid (what with it missing an episode in colour and all) so it was only later I experienced that story in the correct order. Classic Who has a lot more emotion in it than people give it credit for, it’s just a bit more “stiff upper lip” than we’re used to now (compare Jo’s farewell to Rose’s, for example. They’ve both got emotional heft, but Jo doesn’t need to spend half-an-hour crying on a beach).