Revisiting some old faces

The UK Drama Channel (Freeview channel 20) is currently showing some classic Doctor Who stories, one for each of the pre-2005 Doctors on Sunday afternoons at 4.00 p.m.  Just the thing watch whilst doing the ironing!

They started with The Aztecs, which is watchable enough, but not one of the best surviving Hartnell stories, in my opinion. This was followed by Tomb of the Cybermen, which is one of the classic Troughton stories, and one which actually manages to make the Cybermen creepy and scary.  (In general I think Doomsday was quite right and that Daleks beat Cybermen any day.)

Last week it was the turn of Pertwee, and Spearhead from Space.  I enjoyed this so much that I followed it by watching Rose on DVD in order to compare the effects of two very different new Doctor stories/series reboots starring Autons.  In both cases the shop dummies work much better than the Nestene Consciousness, which is slightly disappointing in both its felt tentacle and orange CGI guises.

This Sunday the channel will be celebrating the Doctor's 51st birthday with one of my all-time favourite stories, and one which genuinely terrified me as a child, The Pyramids of Mars. Between that and Sexton Blake and the Demon God (broadcast in the Sunday teatime slot in1978), I was definitely traumatised by all things Eygptian.

 It won't stop me from watching on Sunday though, even if I'm hiding behind the ironing board.