Must-see TV shows are futuristic classics that shouldn’t be missed. Of course, not every must-see is perfect. That’s why we’ve rated them 1-5 on the patented “crunchy goodness” scale.
Title: Doctor Who
Date: 1963-1989
Vitals: A man of a half-dozen (or so) faces travels through time and space in a police phone booth, fighting cyborg thugs, giant monsters and the occasional eco-allegory.
Famous names: Tom Baker, Peter Davison, Peter Purves, William Hartnell, Patrick Troughton, Colin Baker, Jon Pertwee, Sylvester McCoy, Terrance Dicks, Robert Holmes, Nicholas Courtney, Sophie Aldred.
Crunchy goodness: 5
Memorable product tie-in: The Daleks, mutant nazis in personal super-tanks, spawned a zillion types of crap, from a plastic zip-up playsuit to remote control wheelie Daleks to Dalek Sky-Ray ice lollies. (An ice lolly is like an ice-cicle.) Embarrassingly, a shitload of toy Daleks actually appear in longshot in the story Planet of the Daleks, as an army of super Daleks preparing to conquer the galaxy.
Design breakthrough: Doctor Who pioneered the art of filming in front of a greenscreen — but didn’t exactly perfect it. More successful were John Friedlander’s latex masks (Davros, the Ogrons, the Draconians) and Delia Derbyshire’s pioneering all-electronic arrangement of the theme music.
Life lesson: It’s not murder if you trick the bad guys into blowing themselves up (in, like, every episode.)
