Doctor Who In Black And White Again

Character Options does a tremendous job with their line of poseable figures from the classic Doctor Who series. In 2009, the company created a special edition of the figures in black and white - the way early Who fans would remember the first couple of doctors. These are galaxies away from the dreadful Dapol figures we've written about before. Doctor #2 comes with his deadliest foe, the PVC kinky-clad cyberman.

I grew up watching Doctor Who on my local PBS outlet in the 70s and 80s, and back then information about the classic show was kind of scarce. On the show's 20th anniversary in 1983, a large "celebration" coffee table book came out with the only complete listing of all the episodes up to that point (riddled with errors, by the way). This is where i first learned that the show started out in black and white.

I didn't know that it wasn't until 1970 that the BBC started producing TV in color (sorry... "colour"), so at that point nearly half of the series would have been monochrome. My PBS station was reluctant to show any of the older black and white episodes. The pace was a bit slower, the production techniques a bit more, um, "homespun". The fear was that they'd lose viewers on one of their biggest ratings grabbers.

That turned out to be the case, but to their credit my local station soldiered on through the black and white. They got through the crotchety first years of William Hartnell (above, chumming around with an early Dalek), then came the glory that is Patrick Troughton. His take on the character was impish and magical. He was both congenial and conniving in a way that gave the character new life. Even though few episodes remain from that era, it was a powerful new take on Doctor Who and the start of the show's popularity among adults.

You can still find these excellent B&W figures on Amazon and eBay.