Doctor Who - Planet of Evil [VHS] [1963]

I never really looked back on Doctor Who, in the sense of buying videos or DVDs to watch the episodes again. Instead I left it all to sit in my misty memories.

That's until a coupe of weeks ago. I accidentally caught a BBC documentary of Doctor Who, which interviewed the actors and showed numerous clips from the series. When Tom Baker's era was covered, a profound burst of nostalgia hit me. The vivid imagery, the sounds, the title music - the whole 'Who aura' - made me almost weep. I felt like I'd been teleported back to my childhood. "Oh my God", I thought. "I need to buy some of those videos!"

So I ordered six Doctor Who videos from Amazon. I was half expecting to be disappointed, I must admit. Everybody knows about the low budget sets, and the fact that the series was aimed at kids. But I was pleasantly surprised to find that the episodes were great viewing. Most of the story lines are classic science fiction. Baker's eccentricity is engaging, and the dialogue - including the Doctor's quirky one-liners - are excellent and witty. The simplicity of the sets add to the overall vivid imagery in my view, and didn't really diminish anything. I think 'the Who' expresses a simple but hearty spirit, which captures the child in us all. ("They don't make 'em like they used to", is so true when comparing today's TV with Doctor Who. But I'm sure they couldn't make 'em like they used to even if they tried.) To top it all off, the nostalgic value is profound.

"The Creature from the Pit" was the first video from the batch that I watched. When I ordered it, I was looking for "Planet of Evil" without knowing it. One of the earliest, most vivid childhood memories I have from Doctor Who is of a white, wire-framed-like monster rising from a big hole in the ground. When ordering the videos, I didn't know which series this was from, and assumed that a title like "The Creature from the Pit" would be the one. I later saw a review for "Planet of Evil" on Amazon.co.uk, and the reviewer wrote: "I had childhood memories of this story involving a wire-frame luminescent monster arising from a hole in the ground."

I thought, "There's a man of my own heart!", and quickly ordered it. And I wasn't disappointed. This story is surprisingly creepy and atmospheric even now. When I saw that particular scene, I was hit by a deep sense of nostalgia - it was exactly as I'd remembered. (I've since learned that I was only three and a half years old when I last saw this episode. Talk about the impact of vivid imagery!)

All in all, the depth and pathos of Doctor Who is profound. This stuff is fantastic, and Doctor Who needs to stay up there with the all-time TV classics.