The Golden Age of 'Doctor Who' (for me, at least) is the Pertwee era.
Jon Pertwee was the quintessential Doctor, UNIT was a great idea, and I liked the concept of the threats being on Earth. I can think of very few dud stories (such as 'Love and Monsters' from the current series). With his little yellow roadster Bessie, he was more than a match for whatever alien or domestic threats came his way. Best Pertwee story was probably 'The Daemons.' :thumbsup:

Pertwee's a great actor, and I love the UNIT backdrop for a lot of his era.

It's just a shame his Doctor is an arrogant, rude git, who seemed to spend far too much time belittling others (stand up The Dæmons) and being grumpy that he was stuck on Earth.

What also didn't help was the idea to make more 6-part (or longer) stories - meaning we had stories like Doctor Who and the Silurians, Colony in Space and The Mutants which went on much longer than they needed. Obviously this was done to conserve budget (since it's easier to build sets for 5 long stories than 6 shorter ones), but it lead on to some bad padding.

Yes, he could be cantankerous, but no more than Hartnell. I think the intention was to get some comedy, as sometimes he'd flip from pompous to childish ("What's wrong with being childish? I like being childish").

The long stories were sometimes the result of another story being pulled at the last moment. A good example of this is 'Inferno' - mind you, if not for the cancellation of another story, we wouldn't have had all that wonderful alternate Earth stuff with the evil Brig.

Anyone have a favourite Pertwee story? :)