July 10, 2009

Doctor Who #11-12: The Rescue/The Romans

oh please don't menace me with that spanner

Title: Doctor Who: "The Rescue" / "The Romans"
Year: 1965
Network: BBC
Creators: Sydney Newman, C.E. Webber, Donald Wilson
Director: Christopher Barry
Writers: David Whitaker / Dennis Spooner
Starring: William Hartnell, William Russell, Jacqueline Hill, Maureen O'Brien
Music: Ron Grainer (theme); Tristram Cary / Raymond Jones
Episodes: 6, at 25 minutes; 2 stories (1 of 2 episodes and 1 of 4 episodes), from season 2
Synopsis: the Doctor, Ian and Barbara rescue a girl from an alien planet, then the four of them vacation in ancient Rome
How I saw it: on video (rented from Netflix), over the past couple days
Subjective Rating: 7/10 (Good).
Objective Rating: 9/10 (1 point off for cinematography) c. 3.2/4 (Very good).

A great couple of episodes. Tight, clever writing.  Someone interviewed for the DVD featurette claimed that "The Romans" was the best episode of classic Doctor Who (or maybe it was just of 1960's Doctor Who). While it's not a personal favorite of mine (I'll take science fiction over historical drama any day), I'd say that's a completely reasonable claim.

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