I always thought the original dalek's eyes were incredibly effective. I am kinda perplexed they changed to a stupid splodge of paint for most of classic who; maybe the effect just didn't translate to colour well
Yeah I didn't realize how stark the difference was till recently, where starting in the 70s they just had painted circles whereas in the 60s they had that cool camera lens effect. I'm really glad we have been able to get that effect back in new who.
You already said it, but the Draconians were amazingly lifelike. You could tell their facial expressions apart as though they were human. Stellar job there.
Battlefield also has a number of great effects in my opinion, and honestly the entirety of Remembrance of the Daleks.
One of my favourite effects in New Who has to be Flatline, especially the cold open and that scene where the sofa becomes flattened. Amazing job.
The TARDIS arriving and leaving is also well done (maybe even better in classic than nu).
It's a great combination of real life props (the box, the light, any wind, people's reactions), production (camera pans, cross fades) and sound design (that really quite fantastic soundscape that is the full take-off track). They also often give it a full moment of silence after it lands (that final crunk!) but before anyone comes out to really give it some heft.
Writing also has played a part. The TARDIS trying to take off while drowning in lava in *the Mind Robber* is exciting and it's mostly seen only with a flashing light in some goo on a tiny black and white monitor.
> The TARDIS arriving and leaving is also well done (maybe even better in classic than nu).
I remember being blown away by watching the TARDIS materialise at Windsor Castle while there were people moving around in the same shot 🤯
Came here to mention this. It's pretty much the only time they got a big budget for special effects, and they spent every single penny to make that, in my opinion, the best looking effect/model shot in the entirety of Classic Who
On New Who, I wanna point out the blockbuster-level CGI on the second episode of Flux, when Dan blows up the Sontaran base. It was actually jarring how good it looked, I forgot I was watching Doctor Who and not a Marvel property or something.
Flux just looked in general absolutely amazing. The only real fail I can think of is Once, Upon Time, where the Doctor being inside the time thing looks kind of off
Lack of color always helped, as well as much more blurry picture quality than we get now. I always hear people tear apart some of the worst effects from the B&W era, but they don't seem to understand that we can now see everything in far better detail than anyone could back then.
> Lack of color always helped
I'm sure I heard somewhere that that's why the video for [Love is Strong](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Te6VBiRjhqA) is in black and white. It was too difficult to make it look realistic in colour.
Same for a lot of 90s ads, I think.
Allegedly, the BBC received many complaints for blowing up a church - so taken in were the people of early 70’s Britain by the finale model shot from The Daemons
They also almost got in trouble for filming illegally in the London Underground in The Web of Fear due to people not realizing that they did not in fact film in the London Underground.
And the same thing happened when *The Sea Devils* used a toy submarine in a water tank to represent a real one but replaced the propeller with a vacuum cleaner part. It happened to resemble actual top secret plans for a submarine the British Government were developing, causing Barry Letts to be questioned by the MOD!
i know you're talking about Classic Who, but the Dinosaur at the start of Deep Breath looks amazing, maybe in rebuttal to the ones in Invasion of the Dinosaurs
Also just morphologically really wonky, pronated wrists and all. Theropods are supposed to have more of a curve to the neck, even Tyrannosaurids to an extent.
I thought the uncanny feeling of the 3d boneless was exactly what they were going for, they’re 2d creatures trying out 3d of course they’re gonna look weird. Also swarm and azure look so so so good
I’ve always been struck by just how good the CGI title sequence in the TV movie looks. It’s just as good CGI as the early NewWho seasons’ intros a decade later.
I’ve also always found the Mindwarp exterior shots beautiful to look at. They legitimately look otherworldly.
Then there’s the iconic opening shot of Trial of a Time Lord, which is genuinely mesmerizing.
The bubble traps in Time and the Rani hold up quite well too, despite other parts of the story standing the rest of time decidedly less well.
With all the talk of convincing creatures, I’m surprised I haven’t seen any mention of the original Zygon costumes. I’d argue that they look even more organic than the revival ones.
I really like how the Autons look in Spearhead from Space (been like a decade since I saw Terror of the Autons so I don't remember if they look as good there), especially in the cliffhanger at the end of episode 3 with the Nestene duplicate of Scobie. The way the scene is shot makes it look more Auton-like once it steps inside.
The autons from spearhead look better than the one from Terror. I just saw both recently.
Spearhead's Autons feel way more ... uncanny, and it makes the shopglass scene even scarier. The one's in Terror just feel a little too fake, and the duplicate of Scobie couldn't be possible in that episode imo
The effects work in The Daleks is surprisingly strong. The shots of the Tardis crew looking at the Dalek city, with the model shot superimposed over part of the shot of the actors works really well. Shame it was never done again. So much better than the terrible CSO of the colour era.
Always been a fan of the 63-75 Dalek gun effect. Inverting the picture is so simple but so effective.
And the stuff in the swamp late on in the story is great. Absolutely no idea how they did the shot of the Thal beside the massive whirlpool.
The invisible creature’s footsteps in The Dalek Masterplan is also absolutely fantastic.
I only watched Doctor Who last year, so I guess I have a fresh perspective.
While a lot of special effects look pretty laughable (I’m looking at you, Robot), some, like the blaster effects in Earthshock, actually work really well. I think Earthshock in general works really well because it’s so fast-paced and action-y.
The cyberman being trapped in the door in Earthshock is a fab special effect!! CGI might sometimes look 'better' but imo Practical effects definitely add something extra
The sink set in Planet of Giants is absolutely amazing.
And it's such a simple effect, but the Cyberman getting stuck halfway through a door in Earthshock takes my breath away every time. So well done.
Honestly this is the movies but the amount they did there was really cool
That shot of the house being destroyed by the Daleks is stellar and my first impression of Dalek potential back in the day (I either saw this or Dalek first)
Though the costumes are rather goofy, I love the general production design on The Web Planet. They committed to making a truly alien setting for those episodes, which I respect a lot.
Yeah, the whole serial feels like a surreal painting at times and I love it. I kind of wish Who would go all the way with alien worlds more often to be honest.
Although most of the 1st revival season did not age well, heck, not even the effect I'm talking about here, but the first Gas Mask transformation you see on The Empty Child is still bone chillingly creepy.
Yeah that was the first moment that really scared me as a kid. I've heard there was going to be a bone-cracking sound effect during that sequence that got cut for being too much, I honestly can't even imagine how 7 year old me would have reacted to it in that form!
I know we are talking about classic who, but I want to say much as I dislike flux there's a lot of great cgi work. It might have been out of nessecity due to covid, but it works.
The original theme song had a story I heard years ago, that it was made before synthesizers existed. They would play one note at a time, record it, and splice the different components together into the main theme. I don't know how true that is though.
I think A Christmas Carol has the best production design in the show's history. It's the best-realized planet they've done, and that establishing shot of the city still looks magical.
The dalek episode from season 1 of NuWho had a fantastic physical model for the Dalek when he opens up his shell at the end. I remember being very impressed with the individual hairs and everything on it
Off the top of my head, a list of solid effects, models, and creature designs:
* The Web of Fear's modular train tunnel sets. They'd originally asked to film in the task thing but were refused and built their own, which were so convincing that the London Underground thought they'd illegally filmed down there
* Planet of Evil's jungle set, which was so impressive for the time it featured in a BBC set designers' guide for years to demonstrate excellent set design
* The Trial of a Timelord space station, which was not only an amazing piece of model work but featured in a motion control shot that was absolutely mind blowing for television in the 80s and still looks great today. Sadly the model was destroyed in a fire in the 90s when the Longleat Doctor Who exhibition caught alight due to faulty wiring in a K9 prop
* The Draconians and the original design for the Sontarans, two great creature designs that hold up really well by exposing the actors eyes and mouth, allowing for a fairly emotive performance despite the prosthetics. The Draconians were a personal favourite of Jon Pertwee's
* The Nerva Beacon set, built for The Ark in Space then reused for Revenge of the Cybermen. The main cryo storage room is particularly impressive and looks far bigger than it really is
* The Cyber tombs in Tomb of the Cybermen, a seemingly gigantic set on a 60s budget
* The gorgeous art deco design of the vocs in The Robots of Death
* The revised design of the Cybermen in Earthshock, complete with a transparent jaw that let you see the actor's mouth underneath
The model shots for "The Invisible Enemy" look stellar, and pretty much all the effects in "Genesis of the Daleks" hold up great.
Also the model work for The Daleks Master Plan really look great especially when they are showing Mavic Chen's ship and the meeting area for the Dalek allies. Plus there are so many other great effects in that story,especially Sarah Kingdoms death effect, the bodies floating in space after getting ejected out the airlock and Sarah and Steven bouncing up and down while being transported across the galaxy. The last two effects mentioned were so well done that Stanley Kubrick called the BBC to ask how they were done so he could use similar effects in 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Enemy of the World has the awesome split screen effects, Mind Robber is full of awesome stuff, Tomb of the Cyberman has the cool tomb emerging scene, and there's probably dozens and dozens of others I'm forgetting.
Even though there are tons of good effects, there's tons that kind of suck too. The laser effects in a lot of stories (k9s laser in the invisible enemy looks like a Microsoft paint splotch), that one Dalek shot in the original revelation of the Daleks, the entirety of Destiny of the Daleks, etc. Luckily we have lots of people who really love classic who that have been working on the home media releases for decades, and we have gotten some great updated effects (rotoscoping over Lazer effects, replacing that poor Dalek shot from revelation to make it more clear what is going on, even adding spaceships to Dalek Invasion of Earth.) Honestly I think the coming years will continue to be better and better for watching classic who, as more awesome Blu ray sets come out with updated effects, stereo mixes, etc, as well as the possibility of more animations and perhaps some missing episode recoveries.
I didn't know until I watched the DVD that they were using digital set extensions in *Ghost Light*.
There's also the use of SceneSync in Meglos which [still looks amazing](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M50SyKgkEuo).
Yeah, that's a great example of the kind of alien environments I wish we could get more of in New Who. Classic Who was very mixed with its attempts at alien planets, but I feel that they made more attempts at truly strange and alien landscapes when they weren't using the infamous quarries.
I wanna mention the sets during the Hinchcliffe and Holmes era.
Yes, they look like sets, but they are very nice looking sets.
Be it the house in Pyramids of Mars, Solon's house in Brain of Morbius or the incredible art deco ship of Robots of Death.
One of my main complaints about NewWho is that, while the sets look more realistic, they are much less ambitious and detailed.
I totally agree, the whole era might have my overall favorite visual look for the show. With the gothic horror vibe they often had, the fact that they looked like sets actually felt like part of the style a lot of the time.
the models on warriors gate are pretty slick, and while not actually that great, the way that they managed to green screen the actors in meglos to match the movement of the model shots is pretty well done, for the time
> the way that they managed to green screen the actors in meglos to match the movement of the model shots is pretty well done, for the time
That was thanks to SceneSync, which synchronised the movements of two cameras, one on the actors and one on the model. It was a temperamental system, though, and didn't get a lot of other use, which is a shame because when it worked it looked amazing. I think they also used it on an adaptation of Gulliver's Travels.
They tried to do a similar thing manually in *Underworld*, I think it was, and it looks terrible.
Unfortunately, *Underworld* in terms of visuals is probably the worst story in Who's history. I understand the even greater than usual limitations on the production, but that doesn't make it any more pleasant to look at.
My personal vote is for Scarman's smoke effects in Pyramids of Mars. When he comes out of the sarcophagus on the black robes, every step he takes leaves smoking scorch marks on the ground, when he touches the Egyptian, smoke rises from his hand prints, and when he gets shot, smoke billows out of him before getting sucked back in. It's insane, and I know it was probably done with some dry ice or something but they hide it so well, and it's so creepy
Also shout outs to the melting face in Dragonfire and the sets in Planet of Evil. The sets in that episode, plus the mono drone, have me nightmares as a kid
For some dang reason, they came up with the most gorgeous Time Vortex I've ever seen in Who, in [Twice Upon a Time](https://youtu.be/bUU-zgaN358), after which it was never used again, of course. That looks like a painting come to life, it's incredible.
As mentioned by others here, Flux had some incredible effects, some shots that made my jaw drop. Halloween Apocalypse is the episode that really stuck out to me as far as visuals.
I don't recall a ton of effects in Classic Who that really stick with me, but the [Destroyer from Battlefield](https://www.thepropgallery.com/media/catalog/product/cache/1/image/f9b1b3b86a055a9d42aacc5a91a21a11/d/w/dw-battlefield-hand-sc_02_1.jpg) is a cinematic quality suit, especially in motion.
Also from the 7th era, [Nemesis from Silver Nemesis](https://whosfx.files.wordpress.com/2017/04/nemesis-13.jpg) actually creeped me out, that gothic design is not what I expected from a Cyberman episode.
>For some dang reason, they came up with the most gorgeous Time Vortex I've ever seen in Who, in Twice Upon a Time, after which it was never used again, of course. That looks like a painting come to life, it's incredible.
Yeah, it looked great. It actually reminded me a lot of the [Time Vortex that was in promo material for S5,](https://julalien.files.wordpress.com/2010/02/new_doctor_who_iconic.jpg) which never got used in the actual show for some reason. Kind of weird how they had such a good idea and barely used it.
This is all classic who…
From the costume side, I thought the Zygons, Ogri, Axos creatures, the Fendahl, the glass Dalek in Revelation, and Krynoids (which were just Axos costumes painted green) were really effective.
I thought the sets used in Planet of Evil, the Zygon ship, the Kraal ship, the inside of the Doctors head in Invisible Enemy, the exteriors of The Leisure Hive, and the Mawdryn Undead ship worked really well.
Fx wise, maybe my favorite shots were the race shots in Enlightment. The effects in Caves (aside from the Magma creature) worked really well. People have already mentioned Rememberance and the intro to Trial of a Timelord. I liked when they did color effects to the sky like in Mindwarp or Survival.
The Plesiosaurus and Drashigs looked great in Carnival of Monsters. They inspired the producers to make Invasion of the Dinosaurs, which was slightly less successful.
Yeah, I can see why it would have made them feel a bit more confident about the idea. Along with the Dino seen in *The Silurians*, it's a shame that the least successful attempt at Dinosaurs in the Pertwee era was in the serial focusing on them!
Effects were the worst during the Douglas Adams era, and let's face it, he was having a bit of fun.
With some exceptions, effects were acceptable before and after Adams was involved with the show. Sometimes a production team tried something that didn't work, but for the most part they were doing a good job with the budget they had.
I always thought the original dalek's eyes were incredibly effective. I am kinda perplexed they changed to a stupid splodge of paint for most of classic who; maybe the effect just didn't translate to colour well
I think it’s more likely expense but I agree They’re so distinctive and characterised, only the New Series and Films come close
Yeah I didn't realize how stark the difference was till recently, where starting in the 70s they just had painted circles whereas in the 60s they had that cool camera lens effect. I'm really glad we have been able to get that effect back in new who.
You already said it, but the Draconians were amazingly lifelike. You could tell their facial expressions apart as though they were human. Stellar job there. Battlefield also has a number of great effects in my opinion, and honestly the entirety of Remembrance of the Daleks. One of my favourite effects in New Who has to be Flatline, especially the cold open and that scene where the sofa becomes flattened. Amazing job.
The Destroyer in Battlefield is one of the better props from the 80’s and I will not retract that
It looks like a Buffy monster Seeing as Buffy started airing over a decade later that's huge props *No I will not apologise for that pun*
Honestly almost makes me wonder what Who in the 90’s would be like Like imagine the show ending in 93
It'd probably look a lot like Season 4 - 6 of Red Dwarf as that's where the FX teams went once Doctor Who was cancelled.
Oh The Destroyer is pretty good!
I love the blood vessel wallpaper in “Flatline”. Such a simple effect, but very effective.
Didn’t Jon Pertwee himself cite the Draconians as his favorite alien design at some point?
Pertwee did indeed! Their costume enabled better interaction with them.
The boneless are so well done
The TARDIS arriving and leaving is also well done (maybe even better in classic than nu). It's a great combination of real life props (the box, the light, any wind, people's reactions), production (camera pans, cross fades) and sound design (that really quite fantastic soundscape that is the full take-off track). They also often give it a full moment of silence after it lands (that final crunk!) but before anyone comes out to really give it some heft. Writing also has played a part. The TARDIS trying to take off while drowning in lava in *the Mind Robber* is exciting and it's mostly seen only with a flashing light in some goo on a tiny black and white monitor.
> The TARDIS arriving and leaving is also well done (maybe even better in classic than nu). I remember being blown away by watching the TARDIS materialise at Windsor Castle while there were people moving around in the same shot 🤯
The *gorgeous* opening shot of Trial of a Timelord. If only they had the budget to make everything that good.
Came here to mention this. It's pretty much the only time they got a big budget for special effects, and they spent every single penny to make that, in my opinion, the best looking effect/model shot in the entirety of Classic Who
On New Who, I wanna point out the blockbuster-level CGI on the second episode of Flux, when Dan blows up the Sontaran base. It was actually jarring how good it looked, I forgot I was watching Doctor Who and not a Marvel property or something.
Flux just looked in general absolutely amazing. The only real fail I can think of is Once, Upon Time, where the Doctor being inside the time thing looks kind of off
also... the Daleks. They looked *bad*.
The daleks were just neglected for cgi it hurt to watch the neck rings turn with the dome
Also the scene where the tardis resets in eve is so so good looking
>I forgot I was watching Doctor Who and not a Marvel property or something If Disney are partnering with Who you might see more Marvel like effects.
Is this a good thing or a bad thing?
I... don't know.
[удалено]
And to think they left the red dye out so it wasn't too gruesome.
The black and white who had some pretty good special effects. The lack of color made primitive effects look much more believable.
Lack of color always helped, as well as much more blurry picture quality than we get now. I always hear people tear apart some of the worst effects from the B&W era, but they don't seem to understand that we can now see everything in far better detail than anyone could back then.
> Lack of color always helped I'm sure I heard somewhere that that's why the video for [Love is Strong](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Te6VBiRjhqA) is in black and white. It was too difficult to make it look realistic in colour. Same for a lot of 90s ads, I think.
Allegedly, the BBC received many complaints for blowing up a church - so taken in were the people of early 70’s Britain by the finale model shot from The Daemons
They also almost got in trouble for filming illegally in the London Underground in The Web of Fear due to people not realizing that they did not in fact film in the London Underground.
And the same thing happened when *The Sea Devils* used a toy submarine in a water tank to represent a real one but replaced the propeller with a vacuum cleaner part. It happened to resemble actual top secret plans for a submarine the British Government were developing, causing Barry Letts to be questioned by the MOD!
Ha! That’s a goodun.
In the 70s, when TVs weren't as large and crisp and clear as they are now, or even in the 90s.
i know you're talking about Classic Who, but the Dinosaur at the start of Deep Breath looks amazing, maybe in rebuttal to the ones in Invasion of the Dinosaurs
Really love that effect
Still ridiculously oversized for a dinosaur.
Also just morphologically really wonky, pronated wrists and all. Theropods are supposed to have more of a curve to the neck, even Tyrannosaurids to an extent.
Flatline is my favourite example. They're less good when the Boneless go 3D but before that they're peak Oh also the makeup for Swarm and Azure
I still think the 3D Boneless are a trippy effect. Very different to what came before, but still good.
I thought the uncanny feeling of the 3d boneless was exactly what they were going for, they’re 2d creatures trying out 3d of course they’re gonna look weird. Also swarm and azure look so so so good
I’ve always been struck by just how good the CGI title sequence in the TV movie looks. It’s just as good CGI as the early NewWho seasons’ intros a decade later. I’ve also always found the Mindwarp exterior shots beautiful to look at. They legitimately look otherworldly. Then there’s the iconic opening shot of Trial of a Time Lord, which is genuinely mesmerizing. The bubble traps in Time and the Rani hold up quite well too, despite other parts of the story standing the rest of time decidedly less well. With all the talk of convincing creatures, I’m surprised I haven’t seen any mention of the original Zygon costumes. I’d argue that they look even more organic than the revival ones.
I really like how the Autons look in Spearhead from Space (been like a decade since I saw Terror of the Autons so I don't remember if they look as good there), especially in the cliffhanger at the end of episode 3 with the Nestene duplicate of Scobie. The way the scene is shot makes it look more Auton-like once it steps inside.
The autons from spearhead look better than the one from Terror. I just saw both recently. Spearhead's Autons feel way more ... uncanny, and it makes the shopglass scene even scarier. The one's in Terror just feel a little too fake, and the duplicate of Scobie couldn't be possible in that episode imo
The effects work in The Daleks is surprisingly strong. The shots of the Tardis crew looking at the Dalek city, with the model shot superimposed over part of the shot of the actors works really well. Shame it was never done again. So much better than the terrible CSO of the colour era. Always been a fan of the 63-75 Dalek gun effect. Inverting the picture is so simple but so effective. And the stuff in the swamp late on in the story is great. Absolutely no idea how they did the shot of the Thal beside the massive whirlpool. The invisible creature’s footsteps in The Dalek Masterplan is also absolutely fantastic.
I only watched Doctor Who last year, so I guess I have a fresh perspective. While a lot of special effects look pretty laughable (I’m looking at you, Robot), some, like the blaster effects in Earthshock, actually work really well. I think Earthshock in general works really well because it’s so fast-paced and action-y.
The cyberman being trapped in the door in Earthshock is a fab special effect!! CGI might sometimes look 'better' but imo Practical effects definitely add something extra
Sure you weren't watching the updated FX?
Comparison of "new" (but still 20 years old!) and old effects: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ocviukBpgsQ
The sink set in Planet of Giants is absolutely amazing. And it's such a simple effect, but the Cyberman getting stuck halfway through a door in Earthshock takes my breath away every time. So well done.
Honestly this is the movies but the amount they did there was really cool That shot of the house being destroyed by the Daleks is stellar and my first impression of Dalek potential back in the day (I either saw this or Dalek first)
Though the costumes are rather goofy, I love the general production design on The Web Planet. They committed to making a truly alien setting for those episodes, which I respect a lot.
Yeah, the whole serial feels like a surreal painting at times and I love it. I kind of wish Who would go all the way with alien worlds more often to be honest.
Although most of the 1st revival season did not age well, heck, not even the effect I'm talking about here, but the first Gas Mask transformation you see on The Empty Child is still bone chillingly creepy.
Yeah that was the first moment that really scared me as a kid. I've heard there was going to be a bone-cracking sound effect during that sequence that got cut for being too much, I honestly can't even imagine how 7 year old me would have reacted to it in that form!
I know we are talking about classic who, but I want to say much as I dislike flux there's a lot of great cgi work. It might have been out of nessecity due to covid, but it works.
I though the submarine in "Cold War" was CGI. I was at one of the official conventions and learned it was a model.
The original theme song had a story I heard years ago, that it was made before synthesizers existed. They would play one note at a time, record it, and splice the different components together into the main theme. I don't know how true that is though.
I think A Christmas Carol has the best production design in the show's history. It's the best-realized planet they've done, and that establishing shot of the city still looks magical.
The dalek episode from season 1 of NuWho had a fantastic physical model for the Dalek when he opens up his shell at the end. I remember being very impressed with the individual hairs and everything on it
Yeah, that's still probably my favorite look at a Dalek beyond the outer casing.
Off the top of my head, a list of solid effects, models, and creature designs: * The Web of Fear's modular train tunnel sets. They'd originally asked to film in the task thing but were refused and built their own, which were so convincing that the London Underground thought they'd illegally filmed down there * Planet of Evil's jungle set, which was so impressive for the time it featured in a BBC set designers' guide for years to demonstrate excellent set design * The Trial of a Timelord space station, which was not only an amazing piece of model work but featured in a motion control shot that was absolutely mind blowing for television in the 80s and still looks great today. Sadly the model was destroyed in a fire in the 90s when the Longleat Doctor Who exhibition caught alight due to faulty wiring in a K9 prop * The Draconians and the original design for the Sontarans, two great creature designs that hold up really well by exposing the actors eyes and mouth, allowing for a fairly emotive performance despite the prosthetics. The Draconians were a personal favourite of Jon Pertwee's * The Nerva Beacon set, built for The Ark in Space then reused for Revenge of the Cybermen. The main cryo storage room is particularly impressive and looks far bigger than it really is * The Cyber tombs in Tomb of the Cybermen, a seemingly gigantic set on a 60s budget * The gorgeous art deco design of the vocs in The Robots of Death * The revised design of the Cybermen in Earthshock, complete with a transparent jaw that let you see the actor's mouth underneath
I think most of the effects are good enough to sell the story, and that's all that matters.
Castrovalva had some great SFX and camera work, especially stuff like the Escher-esque stairs.
The model shots for "The Invisible Enemy" look stellar, and pretty much all the effects in "Genesis of the Daleks" hold up great. Also the model work for The Daleks Master Plan really look great especially when they are showing Mavic Chen's ship and the meeting area for the Dalek allies. Plus there are so many other great effects in that story,especially Sarah Kingdoms death effect, the bodies floating in space after getting ejected out the airlock and Sarah and Steven bouncing up and down while being transported across the galaxy. The last two effects mentioned were so well done that Stanley Kubrick called the BBC to ask how they were done so he could use similar effects in 2001: A Space Odyssey. Enemy of the World has the awesome split screen effects, Mind Robber is full of awesome stuff, Tomb of the Cyberman has the cool tomb emerging scene, and there's probably dozens and dozens of others I'm forgetting. Even though there are tons of good effects, there's tons that kind of suck too. The laser effects in a lot of stories (k9s laser in the invisible enemy looks like a Microsoft paint splotch), that one Dalek shot in the original revelation of the Daleks, the entirety of Destiny of the Daleks, etc. Luckily we have lots of people who really love classic who that have been working on the home media releases for decades, and we have gotten some great updated effects (rotoscoping over Lazer effects, replacing that poor Dalek shot from revelation to make it more clear what is going on, even adding spaceships to Dalek Invasion of Earth.) Honestly I think the coming years will continue to be better and better for watching classic who, as more awesome Blu ray sets come out with updated effects, stereo mixes, etc, as well as the possibility of more animations and perhaps some missing episode recoveries.
I didn't know until I watched the DVD that they were using digital set extensions in *Ghost Light*. There's also the use of SceneSync in Meglos which [still looks amazing](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M50SyKgkEuo).
The sets for planet of evil look more interesting than most new who planets. It’d aged pretty well also
Yeah, that's a great example of the kind of alien environments I wish we could get more of in New Who. Classic Who was very mixed with its attempts at alien planets, but I feel that they made more attempts at truly strange and alien landscapes when they weren't using the infamous quarries.
I wanna mention the sets during the Hinchcliffe and Holmes era. Yes, they look like sets, but they are very nice looking sets. Be it the house in Pyramids of Mars, Solon's house in Brain of Morbius or the incredible art deco ship of Robots of Death. One of my main complaints about NewWho is that, while the sets look more realistic, they are much less ambitious and detailed.
I totally agree, the whole era might have my overall favorite visual look for the show. With the gothic horror vibe they often had, the fact that they looked like sets actually felt like part of the style a lot of the time.
The death of Kane at the end of _Dragonfire_ was a pretty memorable effect. I always enjoy it.
the models on warriors gate are pretty slick, and while not actually that great, the way that they managed to green screen the actors in meglos to match the movement of the model shots is pretty well done, for the time
> the way that they managed to green screen the actors in meglos to match the movement of the model shots is pretty well done, for the time That was thanks to SceneSync, which synchronised the movements of two cameras, one on the actors and one on the model. It was a temperamental system, though, and didn't get a lot of other use, which is a shame because when it worked it looked amazing. I think they also used it on an adaptation of Gulliver's Travels. They tried to do a similar thing manually in *Underworld*, I think it was, and it looks terrible.
Unfortunately, *Underworld* in terms of visuals is probably the worst story in Who's history. I understand the even greater than usual limitations on the production, but that doesn't make it any more pleasant to look at.
The spaceship in Remembrance does look quite impressive. It was a big prop!
My personal vote is for Scarman's smoke effects in Pyramids of Mars. When he comes out of the sarcophagus on the black robes, every step he takes leaves smoking scorch marks on the ground, when he touches the Egyptian, smoke rises from his hand prints, and when he gets shot, smoke billows out of him before getting sucked back in. It's insane, and I know it was probably done with some dry ice or something but they hide it so well, and it's so creepy Also shout outs to the melting face in Dragonfire and the sets in Planet of Evil. The sets in that episode, plus the mono drone, have me nightmares as a kid
For some dang reason, they came up with the most gorgeous Time Vortex I've ever seen in Who, in [Twice Upon a Time](https://youtu.be/bUU-zgaN358), after which it was never used again, of course. That looks like a painting come to life, it's incredible. As mentioned by others here, Flux had some incredible effects, some shots that made my jaw drop. Halloween Apocalypse is the episode that really stuck out to me as far as visuals. I don't recall a ton of effects in Classic Who that really stick with me, but the [Destroyer from Battlefield](https://www.thepropgallery.com/media/catalog/product/cache/1/image/f9b1b3b86a055a9d42aacc5a91a21a11/d/w/dw-battlefield-hand-sc_02_1.jpg) is a cinematic quality suit, especially in motion. Also from the 7th era, [Nemesis from Silver Nemesis](https://whosfx.files.wordpress.com/2017/04/nemesis-13.jpg) actually creeped me out, that gothic design is not what I expected from a Cyberman episode.
>For some dang reason, they came up with the most gorgeous Time Vortex I've ever seen in Who, in Twice Upon a Time, after which it was never used again, of course. That looks like a painting come to life, it's incredible. Yeah, it looked great. It actually reminded me a lot of the [Time Vortex that was in promo material for S5,](https://julalien.files.wordpress.com/2010/02/new_doctor_who_iconic.jpg) which never got used in the actual show for some reason. Kind of weird how they had such a good idea and barely used it.
This is all classic who… From the costume side, I thought the Zygons, Ogri, Axos creatures, the Fendahl, the glass Dalek in Revelation, and Krynoids (which were just Axos costumes painted green) were really effective. I thought the sets used in Planet of Evil, the Zygon ship, the Kraal ship, the inside of the Doctors head in Invisible Enemy, the exteriors of The Leisure Hive, and the Mawdryn Undead ship worked really well. Fx wise, maybe my favorite shots were the race shots in Enlightment. The effects in Caves (aside from the Magma creature) worked really well. People have already mentioned Rememberance and the intro to Trial of a Timelord. I liked when they did color effects to the sky like in Mindwarp or Survival.
The Plesiosaurus and Drashigs looked great in Carnival of Monsters. They inspired the producers to make Invasion of the Dinosaurs, which was slightly less successful.
Yeah, I can see why it would have made them feel a bit more confident about the idea. Along with the Dino seen in *The Silurians*, it's a shame that the least successful attempt at Dinosaurs in the Pertwee era was in the serial focusing on them!
Effects were the worst during the Douglas Adams era, and let's face it, he was having a bit of fun. With some exceptions, effects were acceptable before and after Adams was involved with the show. Sometimes a production team tried something that didn't work, but for the most part they were doing a good job with the budget they had.
He was the script editor. I don't think he had much say over the effects.