Old School vs New School

[Rosamunde]

I've only been a Who fan for about two months, so I'm sorry if this kind of thing has been discussed before. I've yet to see any of the old skool series and I was wondering do people have favourite Doctors / favourite seasons / favourite arcs from back in the day? (I'd love to hear recommendations!)

Also, I'd be interested to know how people feel about the transition from Old Who to New Who. Does the show feel the same to you, just with better graphics? Or are they completely different shows to you, just with a similar concept? Or do you feel the show often changed a certain amount as it moved from Doctor to Doctor?

Do you think the New Series has changed the fabric of the Who-verse drastically? I was very interested to learn that the Master wasn't always depicted as being tormented by drumbeats, which I find very interesting, because I think it changed the morality of the character hugely. Do old school fans pick up on many changes like that? Does it bother you?

[tangent]

I think that New Who is doing a very decent job of keeping up with the classic series although there are a few things that could be done a little better.

The doctor facing up to his three biggest and most iconic foes in the first three season is a good way of linking things in with 'the old days' but the time war bit adds a newness to it and also changes the Doctor's character and motivation somewhat. But I suppose everything needs to move on and for that Who is an ideal format because whilst the doctor remains the same character throughout his regenerations each of these brings out new traits and new sides to his character so that the show can be changed along with each regeneration and taken into new directions.

One of the slightly shakey things about New Who is the lack of splainy about some of the changes in the shows mythology.The drumbeat thing is definitely one of those things. with the Master being a much less sympathetic villain originally. I also thought the master's regaining of his regenerations was glossed over (he had none left and had been absorbed into the Eye of Harmony last time we saw him) and the Daleks definitely seem to have had an upgrade if one could take over the whole of america (Dalek).

However one of the very best things for me is the way that we get continual sly little references to Classic Who thrown in to the mix every now and then such as reversing the polarity in the Lazarus experiment which was a trademark of the third Doctor, the jelly babies offered by the Master to Mrs Master which were a definite trademark of the fourth Doctor and of course the arrival on the scene of Sarah Jane and K9. These little touches do tie things in nicely.

Oh and 'my Doctor' will always be the fourth Doctor. That's him, up there on the left.