h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

It should also be noted that the 'early years' were filmed and broadcast in black and white (and shade of grey), no one having colour tellys in those days.

This 'inconveinience' made it nessessary to include the following dialogue in most episodes: 'ooooh, look grandfather, the forest is a strange red colour'. or 'press the red button, the one on the top left'.

Dr Who got better in 1970 when it was shown in CoLoUr.

Orange, good point. Hopefully, before the yarn appears on the front page, one of the h2g2 editorial staff will see this thread and incorporate the B&W info into the article.

Loony

As you were. This line is already included:-

It began reassuringly enough, with that theme like the massed twanging of rubber bands - and the grainy, black-and-white menace of all the best early British drama.

Its all true but I still love it.
My personal favourite is when the Doctor has to fight a robot double, who is quite blatantly someone else, as the close up of their two gurning faces proves

I think you're being ever-so-slightly unfair on a couple of counts. Early DW, a lot of the time, stands up today rather better than most early-60s TV. You can't blame the production team for having to improvise with minimal resources, can you?

I watched a lot of the early Hartnell stories recently (there's a link from my personal space to a site where I posted some reviews) and a lot of them compare very favourably to the 80s and even 70s stories. The Aztecs, from Season One, is a serious contender for the all-time top ten list (IMHO).

Awix, taken overall, I think most people would agree it is a favourable review.

Favourable in a "We all know it ain't that good really" kind of way. Sadly, I'm mad as a badger on it, and have been known to claw peoples eyes out if they are not quiet when watching it. That said, I still thought it was a good, nostalgic article.

Hey, I read the book of that one! (Ian and Barbara, Dr Who fighting his double, and all that)... I've never seen the TV show, grin, but the book was great fun...

I'll have to track it down sometime.

It was called The Chase and also had Daleks and giant twenty sidied dice in it. Oh, and Frankinstein's Monster too

Hmm... the book was called The Chase, and had Daleks and Frankenstien's Monster... and I think the cover illustration *did* look something like a twenty sided dice, now I come to think of it

Er... I think I meant, the cover illustration did have something which looked like a twenty sided dice.

*engage geek pedantry mode* The twenty-sided dice in question was a Mechanoid, one of the monsters in the story (aka the writers' attempt at another cash cow). This story really does stink, BTW; I won't argue with anyone who says that at least some of the Hartnell episodes are rubbish.