Can it really B 9 or so months since our last foray into the (very) occasional series of posts examining the haphazard world of Doctor Who Production Coding. To re-cap the classic series used letter codes for each story which started with A (for An Unearthly Child) and ran to 7Q (Ghost Light). ‘I’ was never used, ‘O’ and ‘U’ sparingly, but as for the rest…
And the Tour followed, even extended this into nu-Who all the way forward to Whittaker. It’s also an incredibly handy way to sort stories. Previous stops in this ramshackle series included stops at ‘B‘ and ‘R‘ and ‘X.’
L | The Rescue |
LL | The Evil of the Daleks |
LLL | The Sea Devils |
4L | The Seeds of Doom |
5L | The Horns of Nimon |
6L | Warriors of the Deep |
7L | The Happiness Patrol |
8L | Boom Town |
9L | Human Nature |
10L | The End of Time Pt II |
11L | The Girl Who Waited |
12L | Time Heist |
13L | Smile |
14L | Orphan 55 |
Even a cursory glance at the list shows the enormous variation in perceived quality that shows the full range of Doctor Who. The Rescue was a neat little for what that started the reset Doctor Who could be beyond the original four cast members, The Evil of the Daleks is in acknowledged, and sadly missing, masterpiece. The same can be said for The Sea Devils and The Seeds of Doom. The L-etter of the L-aw then takes a turn with The Horns of Nimon and Warriors of the Deep. Not exactly well regarded–and that’s being kind.
For some, The Happiness Patrol is an oddball story that works, although the Tour has some real conflicting feelings about it, but it is at least interesting.
In Nu-Who era, Boom Town was a brand-line extension for an un-loved two-part story from earlier in the season, but Human Nature was the great front-end of a two-parter, whilst The End of Time Pt II was the great back-end of a two-parter (although The Tour seems to be on the short end of fan opinion here).
The Tour considers The Girl Who Waited a stone-cold classic of the Moffat era, but is less kind to Time Heist and even more (that is) less so to Smile. And the less said about the confusing Orphan 55, the better.
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The Tour aLways Likes to keep an eLevated LeveL of Levity in aLL things Doctor Who. No need to take an ‘L’ for that.