I’ve always I loved classic Doctor Who, especially the 60s stuff. It’s my favorite TV show in fact. Though as I’ve grown up it’s been hard for me to say what draws me to it. After all I’ve liked NuWho half the time at best, and on paper that’s a much better show with more time and budget. But I love Classic Who instead. For a while I settled on being drawn its odd contrast of camp visuals with genuinely impactful scripts. That a good part of the charm came from its amateurish style. After all it was kids show with bug eyed monsters filmed in a tiny studio, yet somehow it ended up with (semi) consistent antifascist and anti-colonial messaging. It doesn’t make sense, it simply had to be somewhat accidental. I thought because it looked like a pantomime but it told revolutionary stories that’s what made it compelling.
But recently, that idea has changed. A bunch of little stuff has made me reconsider. I realize I still genuinely love episodes with… rather naff scripts like Planet of Giants or Galaxy 4. I’ve started seriously studying both drawing and film making and as such started learned how much care it takes to construct an image. And for the first time I’ve seen just how bad truly uninspired visuals are through AI slop. My perspective on images and what goes into them has changed. And the return of the recent Dalek’s Master Plan episodes letting us see how incredibly well shot they were solidified it. I realize I was wrong about the show. The budget maybe low, the sets cardboard. But Doctor Who is not amateur when it comes to it’s visuals. Look at these shots.
These are gorgeous. Despite being shot in a tiny studio with only 3 lumbering cameras the crew had to wheel around for every shot, they still stand as striking images. And even after getting crunched onto ancient video tape with barely any resolution, they kept a visual clarity and sense of depth against the flat sets. And to me they impart a genuine unearthly energy. It feels miraculous.
Doctor Who has always been well made. And the points they do feel ropey or amaeture… it’s because they were pioneering things never attempted on TV before. They were making genuinely experimental art in the TV pipeline.
The real reason I love 60s Who is because it was made by incredibly passionate people at all stages of production. The crew, writers, producers and actors were unafraid to genuinely push the medium of television to its limits. They always put such care and love into a children’s show that they thought would be seen once and then never again. Is it still silly and camp, with a lot of little flubs? Undoubtably. I mean by god it was produced in a week and recorded pretty much live. But the fact they pushed for so much with such little time or resources makes so real, and human. In an age of perfection and polish it stands proud as something made by artists. And the unearthly dreamlike magic they created was never accidental, or a mistake.
