I'll continue with the overview of my completely random and far too box-set-based watching of Classic Doctor Who adventures right away: for the preamble, see my previous post.
Fourth Doctor (Tom Baker). Episodes watched: The Key to Time series including The Ribos Operation, The Pirate Planet, The Stones of Blood, The Androids of Tara, The Power of Kroll and The Armageddon Factor; The Pyramids of Mars.
A good place to start? I rather think so, at least the Key to Time adventures. True, there are more highly regarded Tom Baker episodes - I really must see The Genesis of the Daleks, which everyone talks about - but there are also, I've gathered, those which are a great deal worse. I enjoyed every episode of the Key to Time series; even The Power of Kroll, which is probably the weakest, has its highlights. Yes, the assembling of the Key to Time itself is a classic McGuffin, but I'm a sucker for a story arc - any story arc. What's more, Romana, the (comparatively) young, competent Time Lady accompanying the Doctor on these adventures, proves a good match for him.
You could say that Tom Baker is the Great Expectations of Classic Doctors. Although he's not my personal favourite, he is in all probability, objectively speaking, the best Doctor of the Classic era. He nails the excentric, charismatic alien perfectly and when he breaks into that smile you just have to surrender. However, I do have some inner resistance to overcome when the Fourth Doctor's concerned. Most likely it has to do with him being popular, and me being contrary. For whatever cause, the Fourth Doctor, like David Tennant's Tenth Doctor in a different way, strikes me as a bit of a diva. They are both great Doctors, and they know they are. Therefore, it's good to see this Doctor with a strong companion who doesn't stand for any nonsense. On paper, it may not seem like the best idea to have the Doctor travelling with another Gallifreyan (the Doctor will always be a Gallifreyan to me, never mind The Timeless Child). The companions are mostly earthlings and the audience's point of reference in the Tardis team: they are partly there to be as confused as we are and ask the right questions. A Time Lord and a Time Lady ought to be too much of a muchness. But Baker's Doctor thrives on being occasionally put in his place by Romana. Mary Tamm is really classy in the role, and I look forward to seeing the second version of Romana played by Lalla Ward in future adventures. Her chemistry with Baker was apparently something else (they married, though it didn't last). Oh, and one bonus with The Androids of Tara is seeing Peter "Bulstrode" Jeffrey acting his socks off as the dastardly Count Grendel.
The Pyramids of Mars was included as a bonus on one of my Sarah Jane Adventures box sets and is very well thought of, but I must admit I enjoyed the Key to Time episodes more. True, the villain in Pyramids is great, but he doesn't really feature until the end of the adventure, and there's a lot of not very thrilling stuff to sit through first. What's more, I didn't really care for the Doctor in this episode: he's grumpy even before encountering the serious threat the villain represents and dismissive of Sarah Jane. Some of my favourite New Who Doctors are grumpy (Capaldi and Eccleston), but it doesn't work for the Fourth Doctor.
Fifth Doctor (Peter Davison). Episodes watched: The Black Guardian/Turlough episodes, including Mawdryn Undead, Terminus and Enlightenment; The Caves of Androzani.
A good place to start? No. That is, The Caves of Androzani is excellent, one of the very best episodes of Classic Who I've seen this far, but it is the Fifth Doctor's last adventure, so maybe not that good of a starting point. With The Black Guardian trilogy, my fondness for box sets led me astray. The unifying story which ties these three adventures together is that the villainous Black Guardian is half bribing, half threatening Turlough, an unscrupulous lad (who's actually an alien stranded on Earth), to ingratiate himself with the Doctor, travel with him and ultimately kill him. The Black Guardian is great fun when he appears (which is only intermittently), and I liked the Uriah Heepish vibes I got off the conflicted Turlough (he's a lanky redhead). However, the adventures themselves have considerable longueurs, especially Terminus which feels interminable. (Though Mawdryn Undead was a tight story with an interesting ethical dilemma.) Also, you don't really get a handle on Davison's Doctor and what makes him tick. I loved Peter Davison as Tristan in All Creatures Great and Small, and I suspect it is as Tristan I will always primarily see him. There must be better show cases for his Doctor than the Black Guardian trilogy, though.
Sixth Doctor (Colin Baker). Episodes watched: The Trial of a Time Lord series, including The Mysterious Planet, Mindwarp, Terror of the Vervoids and The Ultimate Foe.
A good place to start? Yes! Even though these are the last adventures of the Sixth Doctor, because I suspect he doesn't get much better than this. Poor old Sixie and Colin Baker got really shafted. When Baker replaced Davison, the role was taken in another direction than he would have preferred, and he was obliged to play an arrogant and confrontational Doctor wearing a multi-coloured jacket that makes the viewer's eyes ache. Then, when this version of the Doctor didn't catch on, Baker was made the fall guy and unceremoniously sacked. With that kind of context, you would have to be very un-contrary indeed not to go into a Sixth Doctor adventure really wanting to like him as much as possible.
And actually, the Sixth Doctor in The Trial of Time Lord series isn't half bad. In it, the Time Lords have put the Doctor on trial for wreaking universal havoc with his meddling. This is a kind of situation which suits the cross-grained Sixth Doctor, and I enjoyed watching him splutteringly defend himself ("Poppycock!") aginst the prosecutor, the sinister and impressive Valeyard. (I'm certainly one of the many fans who want the Valeyard to be brought back in New Who, though goodness knows how they'd manage it considering who he turns out to be.) The Doctor adventures submitted as evidence in the trial are maybe not the strongest, but they held my attention (Mindwarp's really a bit of a mess, though). Even new companion Mel, mostly known for screaming a lot, is perfectly all right here. I was left with the impression that though the Sixth Doctor may not be the best of the Doctors, he deserves his place in the line-up of Doctor regenerations.
Next time: Sylvester McCoy's Seventh Doctor, whom I appreciated far more than I anticipated, and the oddity that is the 1996 Doctor Who TV movie starring Paul McGann's glamorous Eighth Doctor. Yes, even without The Timeless Child, this character has had good many lives.
