REVIEW OVERVIEW: BAD FIRST IMPRESSIONS - RATING THE FIRST APPEARANCES OF RECURRING FOES

So I'm always looking for new ways to enjoy my more-or-less full collection of Doctor Who videos. Recently, I thought to myself: "Hey! The Doctor's got a ton of recurring foes. Let's just watch the very first adventure of each of them and see what I think."  It's an interesting study. Some villains are fully-fleshed right in their first appearance. Others take some time to grow into the monsters they will become. The whole experience is quite fascinating to watch. 

Initially, this was just a study I was doing for my own sake. But, oftentimes, when I undertake such ventures - it turns into a blog. Or, in this case, a whole series of blogs! 

A REVIEW OVERVIEW entry is a great way of restraining my blowhard opinions. Instead of just looking at something from the show and spewing out unfounded nonsense like: "I like this but I don't like that!", I have to work to a sort of grading system. Adhering to such a construct makes me more analytical or even objective about the material I'm reviewing. 

It's also a method that works well with broader themes that span several years of the show. My very first post of this nature, for instance, looked at all the different stories that have featured Homo-Reptilia. A species we first saw way back in Season Seven that is still making appearances to this very day. Breaking so many stories down into categories that received "marks" made the whole process of comparing them go more smoothly. 

So now I want to look at the first stories of all recurring foes and see how effective they were. Particularly in relation to each other. That's another big topic to cover. Best to come at it with something systematic rather than just say stuff like: "The Daleks is way better than The Tenth Planet. So there!"

As an introduction to this series, I'm just going to take the time to explain the Five-Point Grading System. In subsequent posts, we'll go through various eras of the show and cover them in their own distinct entries. 

So, here we go:    

Writing: This section will look at how well the actual foe was written in their very first story. Did the author do a good job of constructing them or was it subsequent yarns involving them (that were, perhaps, penned by other writers) that built them up properly?     

Performance: Writing is, of course, only half the battle in making a good recurring villain and/or monster. The actor that was hired to portray the miscreant contributes massively to their success. There are times when that initial performance is what captured the audience's imagination and earned the return appearance(s). On other occasions, subsequent iterations of the role outshine the original.     

The Actual Story: Setting aside the foe for just a moment, how well-executed was the plot of the story that featured them? A good narrative can help massively with determining whether or not we see someone come back. Not just in terms of the quality of the script. Production, in general, can have a huge bearing on this sort of thing. 

How They Interact With the Doctor: How the Doctor deals with these foes in their initial confrontation can also be crucial to their success. There are any number of foes that made return appearances because they sparked off of him so well in their first adventure. 

Long-Term Impact:  Something a bit more abstract that still relates to the quality of the initial story. How were the subsequent adventures that featured the foe? What sort of legacy did that initial tale create?   

IMPORTANT NOTE #1: Each category will receive a score between 1 and 10. I will also give a relatively short dissertation on why it received that mark. 

IMPORTANT NOTE #2: We should properly define Recurring Foe: 

This is a character or group of characters that the Doctor openly opposes on all occasions that they meet each other. They may form brief alliances to handle certain problems (ie: the Doctor and the Master fighting entropy together during Logopolis), But, overall, the Doctor is trying to foil whatever sinister plans the foe is brewing. Obviously, they also have to have, at least, two separate encounters in two different stories to qualify as a recurring foe. 

IMPORTANT NOTE #3: It should be noted that the definition I just gave does have grey areas. There will be some characters that don't fit the description perfectly that will still be included in the analysis (ie: the Ice Warriors are, for the most part, nasty to deal with). There may even be certain individuals that don't make the cut that you feel should have (ie: As much as I love Sabalom Glitz, he is very much the Doctor's friend in Dragonfire. So he's disqualified). 

All righty, then. The Rules have been defined. Lets start Review-Overviewing (that's totally a real verb). In the next post, I'll be looking at the First Doctor Era. He meets quite a few returning baddies for the first time so he'll get an entry all his own...   

I review-overview 

You review-overview 

He/She review-overviews

and so on....