Worth Watching

* indicates a Must See story.

What's Interesting About the Season?

Well, it's a pretty damn good season.

Much better and more even quality than the first season. Given that other than the opening episode, I only rated the last three stories of the first season as worth watching, it's really like the this season started with The Aztecs and just roared on from there.

The Dalek Invasion was as serious as it gets (and I appreciate that the invasion is not forgotten after the story is over; the repercussions through the centuries are mentioned multiple times by Vicki in subsequent stories), The Romans was as enjoyably silly as it gets, and The Time Meddler was a nice mix of the two.

We end this season with none of the original companions, which to the show's credit does feel like losing friends. But Vicki is intriguing and gets to actually influence stories (sorry, Susan), and we'll see how this Steven guy develops.

The Doctor seems to have a more even-handed relationship with his new companions, not bogged down by the baggage of them starting out as unwelcome stow-aways, as Ian and Barbara did.

Now we head into season 3, more or less. That is, we now enter the desert of wiped stories, where for a while we miss out on more than we get to see due to misunderstandings (BBC offices assuming someone else must have a copy), attempts to save money by reusing video tape, and the pressure from the actor's union to get rid of recorded material to ensure that actors would continue to have jobs.

After getting this chance to go back and see the first two seasons almost completely and being surprised by how much I enjoy what's here, it honestly upsets me to think of all the lost stories.

Well, here we go. Sigh.