The Door In Time: The Classic Series

Following on from PREBOOT:

And indeed BOTIS’s Doctor Who On A Budget:

I have at times been tempted to do a “classic era” episode of The Door In Time, my Doctor Who game, but I suspect it would quickly devolve into jokes about wobbly sets and baggy alien costumes. Even then, there are plenty of plot hooks and backstory elements that could be brought up in an episode set in the PC Time Lord’s history.

A modern “flashback” episode might run less mad, imagining the series with its usual production values.

Of course, my “classic era” owes as much to the Doctor Who Weekly comics as the TV show, so I might still go for spectacle and speed rather than gags about the lack thereof. Gallifrey would be grandeur and nice robes (or grimy Time War gear, perhaps borrowed from Girl On The Moon), not featureless corridors and the costumes the show actually used.

It would also be the perfect time to reimagine some classic monsters in a different way to the modern show. The trick would be to focus on good ideas from early portrayals which have since been superseded. We may soon see pre-2005 Daleks on screen, and BOTIS also discusses a hi-def version of the original some-flesh-showing Cybermen.

Of course, it may all come down to nostalgia. My own Whovian nostalgia doesn’t kick in until the late Tom Baker era, and even then is stronger for the comics than many of the TV serials through to the McCoy/Ace years. But I wouldn’t take the mickey (much) as some of my players are bigger fans than I.