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Before its highly successful 2005 revival, Doctor Who already had a long list of iconic stories and characters expanding a little over twenty-five years. The original BBC series became a staple of British television, charming millions of viewers before its cancelation in the last 1980s.

Unlike the new series, which is full of standalone and two-part stories, the classic era of Doctor Who is filled with long serials that range from four to twelve episodes each. Many of these epic multi-parters have become 'essential viewing' for any fan of the series or science-fiction in general.

Inferno Sends The Doctor To A Dangerous Mirror Universe <img alt="Doctor Who starring Jon Pertwee as the Third Doctor in Inferno" data-image-id="104708" height="700" src="https://static0.cbrimages.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Doctor-Who-Inferno.jpeg" width="1400" />

Episodes:

7

Director:

Douglas Camfield, Barry Letts

Writer:

Don Houghton

Producer:

Barry Letts

Related Doctor Whos Rose Actor Praises Progressive Trans Story in 60th Anniversary Specials Yasmin Finney discusses the importance of her Doctor Who characters background.

The Third Doctor steps into a deadly parallel universe in "Inferno,...

Hammer’s Dracula goes out with a whimper in this final Chris Lee-Peter Cushing vampire opus, which posits the Prince of Darkness as a super-mogul super-villain (with insufficient infrastructure). He’s battling Scotland Yard, MI5 and his old nemesis Van Helsing, while still arranging ritual sacrifices. And don’t forget the quartet of vampire babes he keeps in the cellar.

The Satanic Rites of Dracula

Blu-ray

Warner Archive Collection

1973 / Color / 1:75 widescreen / 88 min. / Street Date November 13, 2018 / available through the WBshop / 21.99

Starring: Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing, Michael Coles, William Franklyn, Freddie Jones, Joanna Lumley.

Cinematography: Brian Probyn

Film Editor: Chris Barnes

Original Music: John Cacavas

Written by Don Houghton

Produced by Roy Skeggs

Directed by Alan Gibson

The final Hammer horror Dracula opus with Christopher Lee is The Satanic Rites of Dracula, a direct sequel to Dracula A.D. 1972, which is frequently named as the worst film of the series. A.

Dracula and Van Helsing seem more than a little confused, fighting the good fight of virtue against evil in a modern setting dominated by painful Mod fashions and flaky pop rock ‘n’ roll. Hammer’s desperation bid to make itself ‘relevant’ at least gives us Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee, who keep the show on the rails despite the disastrous concept. The two leading ladies are favorites as well.

Dracula A.D. 1972

Blu-ray

Warner Archive Collection

11972 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 96 min. / Street Date October 16, 2018 / available through the WBshop / 21.99

Starring Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing, Stephanie Beacham, Christopher Neame, Michael Coles, Marsha A. Hunt, Caroline Munro

Cinematography: Dick Bush

Production Designer: Don Mingaye

Film Editor: James Needs

Original Music: Tim Barnes

Written by: Don Houghton

Produced by: Michael Carreras, Josephine Douglas

Directed by Alan Gibson

“But the movie is terrible.”

“Don’t worry about that. Caroline Munro looks great, that’s all you need to know.

By the early ‘70s, Hammer films was wheezing and sputtering just to stay alive. Their attempts to stay current with the changing tides of horror were often misbegotten and misdirected (Dracula A.D. 1972, anyone?) as the plots continued to recycle shopworn ideas when audiences were ready for more modern concerns, such as hulking maniacs with chainsaws. In essence, time was passing Hammer by, and they were willing to try anything. Hence we arrive at The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires (1974), a delightful elixir of Dracula and…Kung Fu. This was the last gasp for Hammer’s beloved franchise, and it’s a very worthy burial.

Aka 7 Brothers Versus Dracula, 7 Brothers and a Sister Meet Dracula, 7 Golden Vampires, and Enter The Dracula (no, but who screwed up that marketing?), Legend was a co-production between Hammer and Shaw Brothers, the immortal Chinese martial arts film studio that would crank out 10, sometimes 15 films a year of kinetic,...

Digital Spy readers named David Tennant as Doctor Who's greatest ever Doctor - now, with just 10 weeks to go until the 50th anniversary, DS is embarking on a new quest... to list the top 10 Who stories of all time.

Jon Pertwee's third Doctor makes his second appearance in our top 10 this week; after 'The Daemons' scooped ninth place, an earlier Pertwee outing - originating from mid-1970 - takes up position number six in our list...

6. Inferno (1970) - Seven episodes - written by Don Houghton

"Listen to that! It's the sound of the planet screaming out its rage!"

Doctor Who's seventh season is one of the show's all-time greatest runs, comprising Jon Pertwee's thrilling debut 'Spearhead From Space', the thoughtful and terrifying sci-fi of 'Doctor Who and the Silurians' and the Quatermass-esque 'The Ambassadors of Death'.

But it arguably reached a zenith with its final tale – Hammer...

Feature Philip Tibbetts 22 Aug 2013 - 07:00

Philip revisits short-lived but well-loved time-travel TV series featuring Joanna Lumley and David McCallum, Sapphire & Steel...

Despite being a show about a Time Lord, Doctor Who didn’t really start to focus on the themes and workings of time travel, paradoxes and other temporal phenomena until its 2005 rebirth. However, at the turn of the 1970s, a short-lived ITV rival described as “completely different to Doctor Who” set a chilling example of the dangers of messing around with time…

“All irregularities will be handled by the forces controlling each dimension. Transuranic, heavy elements may not be used where there is life. Medium atomic weights are available: Gold, Lead, Copper, Jet, Diamond, Radium, Sapphire, Silver and Steel.

Sapphire and Steel have been assigned”.

Sapphire & Steel follows the two titular detectives, played by Joanna Lumley and David McCallum respectively; assigned by an unknown authority to correct anomalies...

Doctor Who Mind of Evil Color DVD. BBC

Kieran Kinsella

Once upon a time, it was thought that people wouldn’t want to watch old TV shows. In the 1970s, the BBC did a pretty good job of destroying bucket loads of episodes of shows such as Dad’s Army and Doctor Who simply to clear shelf space. Roll on the invention of the VHS videotape and suddenly there was a lucrative market for old TV shows. Among the episodes that were lost during the BBC’s Stalin-like purge were all six episodes of the Jon Pertwee Doctor Who story The Mind of Evil. Thankfully, a black and white version of the story survived the cull but it has been 40 years since anyone saw the show in it’s full glory – until now. On 11 June, BBC Worldwide are releasing the color version of The Mind of Evil in the U.

Review Andrew Blair 8 May 2013 - 06:29

A classic Doctor Who story gets another re-release. But is this newly-minted Inferno DVD a worthy purchase? Andrew takes a look...

The main reason for buying this re-release of Pertwee-era serial Inferno is its improved picture quality. It's instantly noticeable when compared with the 2006 release, and makes the film and video transitions less jarring. It is so sharp that it could be mistaken for the Third Doctor's dress sense, although he gets somewhat rumpled in this one.

Inferno, for a seven-parter, largely manages to avoid feeling padded. Season seven had its production schedule imposed on it by the outgoing Troughton-era team; the new regime of Barry Letts and Terrance Dicks were concerned that the two seven-parters scheduled might drag on a bit, and came up with sub-plots that could keep the momentum going and re-energise the narrative. In Inferno's case, this resulted in a...

One of the joys (and occasional nightmares) of classic Doctor Who is how all those hard-working writers, producers, designers, and directors were able to take what most agreed was a pittance of a budget and create a show that’s lasted in some form or another for fifty years now. Very few other franchises can claim to have made so much out of so very, very little. There are times, of course, when the lack of budget is impossible to ignore – for every brilliant Dalek design, there’s a Myrka waiting around the corner to make you mutter, “Oh, dear.”

The latter example is a case of the concept being kinda awesome on paper but horrible in its execution (a pantomime horse dressed up as an electricity-producing under-seas beast was always bound to be a let-down). But the show has every bit as many examples of a concept that probably...