ATMachine said:

SilverWook said:

towne32 said:

TK-949 said:

towne32 said:

TK-949 said:

Currently I'm watching Torchwood as well as the first episodes of classic Doctor Who.

People who don't enjoy classic british TV will probably find the first doctor hard to get through (though that first episode is enjoyable to most fans).

My girlfriend and I are watching classic Star Trek right now, so I'm in the 60s mood anyway. Just after Season 5 of nuWho I watched the wonderful TV movie "An Adventure in Space and Time" which made me curious about classic Doctor Who.

The first few seasons are even more slow paced and low budget than Trek. It's more as if you're watching a play. They didn't cut or do reshoots unless they really had to (the entire set falls down, an actor curses, etc). So you'll see people slip up on their lines or repeat them, little stumbles here and there, the occasional set wobble. All part of the charm. :)

Videotape was expensive (one factor in old episodes being erased) and video editing in post really didn't exist yet. It boggles my mind that videotape was sometimes spliced with a razor blade and glued together in the early days.

The behind the scenes stuff on the Hartnell era DVD's makes one appreciate how technically complex some stories were to pull off, essentially doing them like a "live" show.

To think I used to stress out over doing a simple three camera talk show back in college!

I suspect part of it was that the BBC just had really antiquated equipment and almost no money. (Not to mention a production crew that came out of radio, rather than film.)

After all, only one year after the first episode of Doctor Who, Gene Roddenberry in the US was able to make "The Cage," which is quite complex in terms of editing, and still fairly visually impressive.

The Cage was shot and edited entirely on 35mm film. It also reportedly cost over $600,000 to produce, a hefty sum for a tv pilot at the time.