The Medium is Not Enough

I’ve not had much joy with these meme things, but I thought I’d give it another go. Today’s meme of fun, to be answered in your own blog or in the comments section, is quite a simple one and I reckon there are enough people here in the know to give it a go.

So here it is: what are you three favourite Doctor Who stories and why? You can have stories from the old series, new series, audio plays, movies, books, comics, stage plays, even fan fic. You don’t have to arrange them in any order (nor put down any other stories if you don’t want). You just need to name your top three.

To get things rolling, here are mine:

1. Caves of Androzani: It’s just so bleak! With the exception of two characters, everyone dies; even the Doctor ‘dies’. There are those marvellous, fourth-wall breaking asides to the audience by Morgus.
2. Kinda: One of the only attempts to do proper literary-style sci-fi. Full of Buddhist metaphors, it does suffer a bit from cheapo production values and the inflatable snake. But it’s a cracker all the same. It was either this or the sequel Snakedance anyway.
3. Genesis of the Daleks: Well, it had to be, didn’t it? Again, bleak as bleak can be, but it was Tombo at his finest, Davros at his most nuanced and the Daleks, surprisingly, at their scariest.

I toyed with Ark In Space (evil alien wasp things lay their eggs inside human beings), Deadly Assassin (the Doctor’s first proper return to Gallifrey) and The Five Doctors (it’s fun) but those were the winners.

Who wants to be first with the follow-ups? Anyone? Bueller?

UPDATE: I’m actually reconsidering Genesis of the Daleks in favour of Ambassadors of Death: it’s adult, gritty, and intelligent thanks to a corker of a script from David Whitaker. Pertwee is on excellent form, Liz Shaw has great fun taunting bad guys (my faves: “It’s so simple even you could understand it” and “Don’t worry, I won’t hurt you”) and there’s some fantastic direction, with some particularly well composed shots that you just wouldn’t have expected from the Beeb of the time. Plus you have to appreciate a composer of incidental music, who when faced with an action scene, doesn’t go for the obvious but goes for the flute solo instead. Marvellous.