Me then Fiona:

...

Helen wrote:

Actually, *Fiona* wrote:

Ah, sorry - so many emails lately, I'm easily confused :-(

Perhaps if you'd watched a bit more of the series?

When I said I watched DW to a fannish degree, I meant that I've seen every episode currently known to exist (this is where I really come out of hiding and declare my sadness to the list), though some of them very poor quality I have to admit....and I'm not just talking about the plots :-( And I've heard most of the rest on audio.

Romana II and Leela both could hold their own against the aliens without screaming, Tegan gunned

down

Cybermen in Earthshock; Ace, the companion of the late 80s, wielded a baseball bat and frequently distressed the Doctor with her violent

approach

to aliens-- and even in the very second story, screened in 1963, the

female

companions stoically insist on accompanying an otherwise all-male Dalek-hunting expedition.

Leela was fantastic, despite the costume :-) Unfortunately even the Romanas demonstrated stupidity under attack on more than an acceptable number of occasions. Nyssa, supposedly a competent scientist from a technologically extremely advanced civilisation, could have had her lines exchanged with Tegan's 90% of the time. Though of course the same could be said of Cally and Jenna in some B7 episodes. Ace was a good character when she wasn't getting right up my nose, which basically means her later stories when she shows a little maturity.

the mid-70s brought us some of the most morally complex stories ("Genesis of the Daleks," "Face of Evil,")

and

characters (Taren Capel, the baddie of "Robots of Death," to name but

one),

and in the later part of the series, there are some quite biting stories

by

Philip Martin and Ian Briggs standing out. Furthermore, I have never seen Robert Holmes, Chris Boucher (See, B7 content here!), or Douglas Adams,

all

of whom wrote prolifically for the series, turn out a less-than-quality script.

Unsurprisingly, you basically just listed my favourite stories :-) I always feel Androzani deserves a special mention here.

(I've always found the Cybermen's quest for survival at all costs rather tragic, myself, to say nothing of less morally wrong "baddies" like the Silurians, who simply want their home back).

I love the concept of the Silurians in their first story, with the usual mix of good and bad guys in both camps. It's a pity that by the time of Warriors of the Deep they'd basically been relegated to generic monsters with only passing mentions to their motivations and no sign of the compromise-friendly individuals we met earlier (Silurians, Sea Devils, I tend to think of them interchangeably in this story).

...

the Doctor the guy in the right who saves the planet.

Not Colin Baker's. Or Sylvester McCoy's.

Colin Baker ties for my favourite doctor with Peter Davidson (and I grew up with Tom Baker before anyone tries to explain it away that way) :-) I like Colin Baker because his Doctor has lots of flaws, Peter Davidson because of the number of times the Doctor actually fails to save the day or at least only partially succeeds (again a special mention for Androzani here - I love that the Doctor's only aim is to get himself and Peri out of the middle of a war zone _not_ trying to interfere with the political goings on).

...

It's fun to watch for 25 minutes, but what's to discuss?

Um-- have you *seen* the number of mailing lists for DW out there :)? Some people have a few ideas...

So I gather :-) But in the end the series just didn't grab me that way. I know there's good stuff in there (another reason for my enormous ever-growing video collection), but the wheat to chaff ratio just struck me as being unbearably low - whereas I'm hard pressed to find a B7 episode I can't say _something_ good about (DotG possibly excepted), I find myself unable to justify the existence of, say, The Space Museum, Carnival of Monsters, The Creature from the Pit or Delta and the Bannermen.

To think we kept those and lost The Massacre (sigh).

Louise