The Doctor Who 40th anniversary marathon continues this morning at 10:00 AM PST with Colony in Space (episodic version.) Another very good outing for the third Doctor, now for the first time on another world (though sent by the Time Lords…) It’s a story of the struggle for survival, and the greed of corporations – and a Time Lord’s desire to rule the world with a “doomsday device” (the Master, naturally…) A little bit padded, but over all an enjoyable story. 3.5/5.
1:30 PM PST The D?_mons (episodic, recolored version.) The age-old battle of science vs. superstition is fought in this story, and the result – a draw! Ok… not so much a draw. It seems that science and the occult go hand in hand (or at least what we consider the occult…) I have to admit that this is my favorite third Doctor story (and quite possibly my favorite of all time) so my view of this is definitely biased, but you can hardly argue against this story – it does just about everything right, plus everybody seemed to enjoy making it and it shows. Even my usual complaint about padding doesn’t apply here. Beware the Morris dancers… 5/5
I recently watched the next story, the Day of the Daleks, so I’m skipping it this time around. As far as Dalek stories go, this one is fairly pathetic. As for a story about the paradoxes of time travel, this story is a great story. So because the Daleks were shoehorned in to boost ratings, this story is just average. 2/5.
Unfortunately I don’t seem to have the Curse of Peladon, so I had to skip it. Though things that I remember about it aren’t entirely positive – especially that annoying Alpha Centauri! So from memory, this story is a 2.5/5
I then continued on with the marathon at 9:10 PM PST with The Sea Devils (episodic version.) As with most 6 or more part stories, I feel that it tends to drag on a bit. It does have the saving point of featuring the Master, and dealing very little with the title menace. The music, which was probably “far out” to the original audience, is just barely tolerable now. It’s also a UNIT story that doesn’t feature UNIT… 3/5.
That’s it for tonight, as I started to drop off towards the end…