It seems like Who fans are bizarrely rigid and humorless in their idea of a “good” story. Anything held up by characterization is a failure. Anything held up by humor is a failure. Anything held up by concept is a failure. Anything held up by warmth is a failure. Anything that isn’t spelled out, point by point, is a failure. If it’s not a straightforward story with low lighting, told with a serious tone, preferably with a lot of violence, it’s not Doctor Who.

Just lovely.

So far as I’m concerned, Time-Flight and Arc of Infinity are two of the four most enjoyable and/or intriguing Davison stories. The standout Hartnell serials, to my mind, include The Keys of Marinus and Planet of Giants.

The Mutants and The Time Monster are amongst the Pertwees I most see myself rewatching. Though there are a few decent stories before it, season seventeen is more fun and clever than Tom Baker’s period had been to that point.

With the exception of the icky Mindwarp, season 23 is one of the most droll and warm things to come from the ’80s. And then there’s the whole McCoy era, including season 24, which I find refreshing as all hell.

Then likewise, with a few exceptions (including the Pertwee reptiles), I find most of the “good” stories extremely tedious: predictable, samey, slow, long. Full of stock elements, played straight. Little attention to psychology or human behavior. How many plots have relied on one unreasonable hothead in a position of command? How many alien cultures consist of flyspeck feudal European kingdoms with political or social issues (mostly put forward or maintained by one unreasonable hothead)? How many ’70s stories rely on plots ripped from B-movies, in place of the speculative concepts of (for instance) the Hartnell era?

For the most part, the stories I enjoy are the ones that take advantage of the format to try something unusual — be that conceptual, comedic, or dramatic. By nature, these will also be the least balanced stories. Who cares about that, though — or rather, who should care? Part of the reason why season sets make so much more sense to me than individual releases is that, like the tracks on an album, it allows serials to lean on each other to make a larger point and explore a greater spectrum of ideas without each one necessarily having to stand on its on feet.

Would you release “Cars Hiss By My Window” or “Been Down So Long” on their own, to fight their way up the charts? Of course not. But as parts of L.A. Woman, the album, they’re very welcome pieces of the overall picture; they cover ground that wouldn’t make sense to cover in other songs.

By and large, excepting some accidents of fan taste, it’s the “classics” which to my eye tend to specialize in nothing and do nothing to stretch the format. And frankly, I can’t see the appeal there. Maybe it’s comforting. Maybe it’s nostalgic. It just feels like wasted opportunity, though.