A Quick Guide to Classic Who Season 7

0:22 traders of histone to be Oh the change between season six and seven was the single biggest change the show went through in the classic series the only bigger change in the show's entire history happened when the show returned in 2005 season seven ran from the 3rd of January until the 20th of June 1970 and you would be forgiven for not realizing was the same show that was on six months

1:08 earlier I'm not going to list all the changes but here's a few it's suddenly in color the doctor went from the chaplain desk shortened funny Patrick Troughton to the tall serious flashy and possibly inspired by Adam Adam and Jon Pertwee the entire setup of the show had suddenly changed from travels around the universe to being earthbound with the doctor assisting the military against aliens that attack the earth you don't even have the same companion as the last season so that continuity safety net is gone even the theme music staged admittedly not by that much so it could have been worse or at least more different cosmic waste to taste a person Suns coming up

1:54 outside laughter gee I'm sure dr. I can only wonder what the hell went through the audience's mind at the time I mean apart from all that Jon Pertwee was mostly a radio comedy actor so even if he knew about the rest of the changes you'd most likely be going into this expecting more comedy and then BAM arguably the most serious incarnation of the doctor frankly the fact that Pertwee Zira was the most successful that she would ever been until this point is baffling well it would be if it wasn't for the stories being quite as strong as they are the companion this season was Liz Shaw she's one of the Companions who break the mold a bit by being extremely intelligent and by never travelling in

2:40 the TARDIS this of course has made up for in the movie Prometheus where Liz Shaw travels to alien planets and is really stupid also hiding about her Brigadier lethbridge-stewart father of Kate Stewart from the new series and sergeant Benton they're both soldiers that the doctor assists against alien invasions and related stuff there are only four stories this season but they make up for that by having three of them be seven parts long this is by far the shortest season thus far we open up with the four-part spearhead from space the doctor falls out of the TARDIS having just regenerated off-screen now there are arguments about whether the second doctor regenerated immediately at the end of the war games or it's grabbed with the Time Lords secret service to do missions I myself am definitely in the of course season 6b happened

3:26 Kemp and I'll talk about it at length when we get the season 22 so the doctor is grabbed by unit just in time for an alien invasion the villain of the story is the Nestene consciousness a semi formless sometimes made of plastic intelligence that is the ability to control plastic with it sometimes disembodied mind if this sounds familiar it's because they were the first aliens fought and knew who it's easy to see why the idea of living plastic trying to kill the craft but ru is just as effective now as it was back then maybe more apart from this being a classic this is one of the best-looking stories in the show's history mostly because they were behind the scenes issues and they couldn't shoot it on the usual videotape and since they couldn't just drop the story because it was the relaunch they had to shoot it on film

4:11 under location rather than sets and it looks just great it's so good-looking that it's likely gonna be the only piece of plastic who ever to be released on blu-ray this was officially the start of Robert Holmes's Doctor Who godhood he made up for the space pirates in the croutons in one fell swoop he is the best writer in the show's history and from now until the death of the fifth doctor he's mostly in his AGame the second story of the season introduced another important race from the new show the Silurians the name of the story is Doctor Who and the Silurians but mostly just gets shortened to the Silurians which is a much better title and causes minimal ranting from me about the doctors name this

4:57 story was pretty much remade in you who as the hungry earth and cold blood people find hibernating Silurians under the ground they wake up happens as humans versus reptiles ooh but there are a few differences one the look of the Silurians while in this the Silurians might look like fairly ludicrous pieces of prosthetic I honestly prefer this design over the one from new who and it comes down to one issue these guys don't look human at all I knew who they are human looking eyes and the female soul Aryans are smaller than the males and have obvious tits now I'm fairly sure I don't need to explain why that's stupid the new series even went as far as creating a prototype for their update of the classic Silurian look and it's great alas they decided to play it safe and

5:43 stupid it's a real shame in cold blood they could have had all the Silurians played by men and had a nice moment for the kids where they find out that the captured one was a female and the doctor could point out that sexual dimorphism is not the same across different species it would be a message of not judging a book by it's cover but now we get reptiles with tits who were closed because naked reptiles would've been too much for the audience or too expensive or to something else and to the outcome in Doctor Who in the Silurians is bleak and much more realistic than the hungry Earth's it's not at all hopeful which I loved what's that

6:32 brigadiere he's blown up a Silurian base that's murder the story is seven episodes long and it's another good one the season is full of slightly more realistic stories and this one's no exception the third story is the seven part ambassadors of death where some astronauts have returned to earth but they never remove their helmets and they keep killing people with radiation clearly something's going on from a story that was pretty much remade and knew who - some aliens that have pretty much been visually recreated twice in knew who I am of course talking about the Impossible Astronaut on silence in the library don't worry those have nothing to do with these guys beyond the imagery of evil spacesuits causing trouble I only mention it because it's a good image this is another good and

7:18 mostly grounded story there's an evil general seeking to cause an intergalactic war and some lowlife seeking to use aliens as terrorist weapons they were originally supposed to be Irish and then someone remember that the troubles were happening yeah anyway the doctors removed his console from the TARDIS and I'd love to know exactly how he intends to use it in any experiments he feels the need to run though mostly he just uses it to try and fix the TARDIS we can escape the earth I get the feeling the doctor feels but the earth the same way I feel but much of the Jon Pertwee era it's good it's solid it's fun it's very well-made it's just a bit samey this is the story where sergeant Benton the fourth part of the so called unit family was officially

8:04 introduced in the last story of season 7 which again aptly had seven parts the doctor thinks he's fixed the TARDIS but finds himself sent sideways and time and space and into the show's first parallel universe it's the usual generic parallel universe set up everyone good in the main show is evil in the alternate reality they couldn't give the Brigadier a goatee so he makes do with an eyepatch and Liz where it's a black wig and dresses like a fetish Nazi or as close as you could get to it in family TV in the 70s it's a very good look in both universes people are drilling the deepest hole in human history you might think this was a really random thing for them both to be doing and you'd be right but in real life this was inspired by a Russian attempt to do the same thing which was suddenly abandoned and no one

8:51 exactly knew why I'm sure we now know it was because they didn't want to release the racnoss but in the 70s it was a mystery and the best answer they could come up with was a you'll come across liquid that turns you into blue werewolves with a thing for extreme heat yes this was the worst looking monster and a great Doctor Who story at least until season 21 and be if you keep drilling you will destroy the planet which is a much better fate than awful makeup and acting like a idiot so in the option in reality they're slightly further ahead in the drilling of the doctors efforts to stop them do exactly so it's bye-bye - evil fascist alternate earth but will he get home in time to save his own well obviously this is my favorite Pertwee story everything except

9:37 for the evil primers brilliant making the doctor watch helplessly as a world almost exactly the same as his be destroyed in a fire knowing his TARDIS console can only travel with one person is just horrific he has to convince people that know that he can't save them to let him go and save people that they don't give a about I can't imagine you who being this brave I really hope it is one day this is the next best thing to actually destroying the earth it affects him badly a world destroyed in fire becomes his worst nightmare which makes the time or even worse now you know that doesn't it one last thing about the alternate reality we never found out where the alternate reality doctor was or who he was but it's been suggested that he was

10:24 actually their big brother figure The Dictator portrayed in several posters now if that's true that's just beautiful the evil alternate reality doctor gets exiled to earth by evil alternate reality Time Lords and sets about setting himself up as the Lord of Earth then it pretty much immediately gets blown up for no reason at all probably just as he was putting the finishing touches to a makeshift TARDIS like ship he was using the earth's resources to build so he could escape the special effects are still mostly terrible but now they don't have the black and white to hide it much of the practically film stunt work is better than the stuff you'd see in new who admittedly that's mostly because they went to real locations and find people willing to throw themselves off tall things for small paychecks so watching this year when you're used to

11:10 the new show can be a little weird the stuff that new who is great at special effects are terrible here but the stuff that new who is not so good at realistic looking practical stunts are amazing here it's a bit like a parallel universe really see what I did there yeah I'm smooth it's an interesting dynamic to have supporting characters other than the companion unless y'all is just great now Liz Shaw didn't appear in the show after this story Caroline John left the show and was replaced by Joe Grant the second of the four iconic companions of classic who she's blond bubbly and stupid and short she's the perfect generic Doctor Who companion Liz Shaw reappeared in novels audios and even some unofficial stories where she worked for the preternatural research bureau or probe basically the

11:57 UK's very low-budget version of the x-files made by Doctor Who fans season 7 was very good no bad stories at all just a bit samey in places three of the stories were also a bit long at 7 episodes I would have rather they shrank Silurians and ambassadors of death the five parts each and given us another four-part ER but the long stories like the Exile to earth were a side-effect of the need to save money so I can understand why they did what they did season seven is one of those bits where it's very easy to jump into classic who so if you really want a place to start don't mind the savin easeness or long stories but you can't quite handle black and white I'd say this is as good a place as any to start if you can handle black and white then feel free to begin with an unearthly child or you could

12:44 just watch these guys and check out the stories that sound the most interesting now this is for the one person who'll point this out sergeant Benton was played by John Levine who played a unit corporal in the invasion with Patrick Troughton so hypothetically that might have been where he was introduced and not the ambassador's of death it doesn't really matter though anyway join me soon for seas eight when they introduce the master and honestly sometimes it feels like he'll never leave

13:34 shoes they seem to be worrying himself are these what you're looking for I wonder if the brains damaged he does seem to be behaving very erratically