Dr Who: the return!

Queer As Who?

Contrary to recent reports, I have little time for Dr Who. However I am possibly slightly too excited about receiving my Prisoner Cell Block H dvd from Amazon this morning.

Alf, when he was on PCBH, was my favourite TV character evah. I loved the way he wore his shades indoors and we could see his cigarette smoke reflected in them. Along with the camera crew.

BUT

i think my black friend psyche shd play the new doctor cz
i. she is funny and sexy and it wd be a brilliant, and
ii !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! IT WD BE BRILLIANT !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

ilx write-in campaign NOW!!

I was wondering about this as well, the Tardis quite categorically never flew.

Best Prisoner inmates were of course the token Pommie tart Chrissie Latham, gorgeous Noeline Burke, devious "Dr. Death" Kate Peterson and Wentworth's very own serial murderess Bev "Relax, I'm a trained nurse" Baker.

I believe that there's been two DVD boxed sets (12 episodes on each) released in Australia with a third on the way. I'd like to see the whole lot released, with the DVD boxes perhaps forming one (wobbly) brick wall.

Let's not forget Joan "The Freak" Ferguson and her black gloves, every bit as iconic as Tom Baker and his floppy hat and long scarf. "This prison is my domain!"

The DW ref on teachers the other day didn't go deep enough. Simon said that Matt was like him regenerated, at which Matt bridled "Are you saying I'm like Sylvester McCoy?" -- this of course is not such an insult when you realise that the flip to this is that Simon is likening himself to Colin Baker. ew.

It should be called The Second Coming Of Dr Who. I'll be quite excited to see it, just because it's being written by Davies.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/cult/doctorwho/tardiscam/images/street.jpg
http://www.ashleighhotel.co.uk/drwho/tombaker.JPG
http://www.ee.surrey.ac.uk/Contrib/SciFi/DrWho/tardis.gif
http://www.timelash.com/tardis/images/bbc10-med.jpg
http://www.scificollector.stamp-centre.co.uk/scifishop/doctorwho/images/infopics/C_leela.jpg
http://home.earthlink.net/~qstnmark/seedsdth/seedmess.jpg

I am actually scared this will happen now. God help us. The overwhelming presence of fandom in the current stock of BBC people-who-can and in current telly writers is unnerving. Maybe the choice is recommission DW or do more Randall and Hopkirk.

Quick, a list of British-made telefantasy made in the last 10 years.

Matt on one occasion I hid upstairs at the start of an episode because the previous cliffhanger was so frightening.

xpost: didn't the writers set a limit, at one point, on the number of regenerations a Time Lord can have? How long before The Doctor runs out?

The only British fantasy series I can think of from the 90s was Neverwhere. This is just me having a crap memory, though.

I, like many people, had a sofa which was pushed against the wall as a child. To hide behind would have meant being wafer thin.

Let the Joanna Lumley rumour start HERE.

"Remembrance Of The Daleks", 7th/Ace, I think episode 2 cliffhanger.

Starry OTM about Jessica Stevenson for companion.

The regenerations limit thing is also screwed by the car-crash of continuity that is "trial of a time lord"

the pinefox can be her assistant

Or "alexei sayle/william gaunt/machine gun blaring" as I like to think of it.

This is so off the money. Jonathan Creek had some of the finest locked room mysteries in a long while; classic English detective stories innit.

Replace davros with thatch in the infamous Genesis of the Daleks "snap the vial containing the virus to destroy all life in the universe" skit. Scary.

scary

i have vague memories of something like a Lenny Henry or Victoria Wood sketch with thatcher as davros

No Jennifer Saunders is married to Adrian Edmonson silly.

There are no pictures of him anywhere on the Interweb that I can see.

http://www.timetravelreviews.com/images/television/crime_traveller_cast.gif

The BBC had a list of potential Dr Whos a while ago, and Joanna Lumleey was on it. So, inexploicably, were Denzel Washington and Minnie Driver.

We discussed this at work with my Dr-Who-encyclopaedic colleague and he wants Richard E Grant to do it. I personally want it to be Eddie Izzard.

Alan Davies 9.00
Richard E Grant 15.00
Sean Pertwee 17.00
Patrick Stewart 17.00
Jonathon Price 21.00
James Nesbitt 21.00
Sean Bean 26.00
Ross Kemp 26.00
Nicholas Lyndhurst 26.00
Hugh Grant 26.00
Alan Rickman 26.00
Timothy Spall 34.00
Tim Roth 34.00
Stephen Fry 34.00
Ray Winston 34.00
Mark Strong 34.00
Linus Roche 34.00
Leslie Grantham 34.00
Lenny Henry 34.00
Art Malik 34.00
Andrew Lincoln 34.00
Jimmy Nail 41.00
Ian Mckellen 51.00
Michael Caine 67.00
Don Cheadle 101.00

Where's the smart money?

http://www.knightayton.co.uk/Sir_Roy_strong.jpg

i'm backing linus roach's dad

dead ringers this morning suggested that it'll only fit in to current bbc schedule with a few changes - make it into a house makeover / cookery show. with hilarious consequences. details still available on bbc4 streaming audio as i type, probably (second half of show).

australian friend tells me that they are currently repeating them all from the beginning over there, the ones they didn't tape football over anyway. this, to me, is a better option than a new series -it runs less risk of pissing the diehard fans off.

andy

"Git your 'ands off my facking screwdriver, yah cunt"

please go away with this shite about how "The Doctor Should Be A Woman". No other Timelord ever had a cross gender regeneration, so leave it out.

Doctor Who and the Curse of Fatal Death

"Starring  Rowan Atkinson, Richard E Grant, Jim Broadbent, Julia Sawalha, Joanna Lumley, The Daleks and a special guest appearance of Jonathan Pryce as The Master"

written by Steven Moffat (Coupling) who knows Russel TD quite well I think

Doctor as a innuedndo heavy randy flirt is urgent and key (Kenneth Williams would have made a grebt Doctor). Bloke from Gimme Gimme Gimme hasn't had any work for a while.

Doctor as a innuedndo heavy randy flirt is urgent and key (Kenneth Williams would have made a grebt Doctor). Bloke from Gimme Gimme Gimme hasn't had any work for a while.

Don Cheedle is a good call as long as he doesn't do that rubbish accent.

Pete: HEIN?

Re. your Virtual Murder suggestion, unfortunately the lead actor, Nicholas Clay (Lancelot in Boorman's Excalibur, is sadly deceased.

-- ailsa (ailsa_watson7...), September 27th, 2003 9:41 AM.

Are we all ignoring my prescience in suggesting Mr Izzard long before anyone else mooted him as a possibility? Though I have since changed my mind and decided he should be the assistant rather than the Doctor.

No one will get the job for at least six months to increase press speculation & PR.

I FINALLY got around to seeing this. I absolutely love it. I'm still in season one. Really really good.

Season 1 is probably the best of nu-Who on balance.

no wai

That's pretty crazy talk, unless they've relabelled the series as starting from #1 again when it goes RTD -> Moffat.

I love the first season mostly because of Eccleston, but for me season 5 is perfect.

Episode 2 of maybe imminent new series called DINOSAURS ON A SPACESHIP. This is a good thing. It is written by Chris Chibnall, which is less good.

My heart sinks every time I read his name, what an awful writer.

Eccleston was p great. I dunno which season is my favorite. I love Season 2 (starting with the special where Tennant fights the aliums in his bathrobe, satsuma in the pocket etc) mainly bc Girl in the Fireplace and the Sarah Jane episode

I love those two episodes as well but find Rose so insufferable in the rest of the season that I'd probably consider it my least favorite.

one or two great eps a year aside, overall I think I rank the RTD era only above Saward

I really like Rose

loneliest fan island ever lol

If it makes you feel any better any time I meet any Doctor Who fans in real life they always talk about how much they love Rose? I'm usually the odd person out.

everyone I know hates her and LOOOOVVVES Martha.

i like all of them tbh

I would rate the seasons:

4
3
1
5
6
2

Donna and Martha vie for best companion in my heart; Rose became super irritating but I think on balance she had the benefit of being novel over Amy. Also there is no actual jump in quality between seasons for me until you get to season 2, which I on balance detested.

;_;

why u braek heart

because The Idiot Lantern and Fear Her are among the worst episodes of Doctor Who I have ever seen, stretching back to classic era

Maybe Girl in the Fireplace is clouding too much of my memory.

Girl in the Fireplace and Love & Monsters did a lot to redeem that season, and tbh I still haven't seen the Cybermen 2 parter that was Mickey's exit, but there were several painfully terrible stories that season that almost made me quit on nu-Who altogether

Wait. So you haven't seen all of S2?

*points to door*

Girl In Fireplace, School Reunion and Love & Monsters are the only good eps that year, DJP keep on keeping on

I remember coming to The Satan Pit after everyone had proclaimed it to be one of the worst episodes ever shown and thinking "well, this is no Idiot Lantern, I don't know why everyone got so mad"

I didn't like the Girl in Fireplace episode very much at all

Eccleston is so great! I always loved him, but now I love him even more. Never liked Billie Piper before, but now I do.

The ep "Third World War" (?) was sooooooooo funny. Just loved it.

Can't wait to see more tbh. I was always apprehensive (?) because I am not much of a Sci Fi fan (blast me into outer space) but this is GREAT.

I think S1 has by far the fewest duff episodes of any series, including the Moffat era. Also a real freshness and energy that later series lack.

Its my firm belief that people who don't love Hartnell era must just have untreated ADD.

Oh you didn't mean that S1...

If Hartnell was as easy on the eyes as David Tennant, I'd definitely have more fondness for _that_ S1

Season 1 was great 'cause if the energy. Season 5 ruled just to watch Matt Smith get better and better - and that final episode. Season 6 I enjoyed at the time but have no desire to watch again.

2-4 are of a muchness. Some good, some bad, some worse than that. Tenant's performance hasn't aged well.

which is the season that had that kinda cringeworthy tinkerbell-esque finale?

Three, the Martha series

I'm about to finish The End Of Time tonight--I'm in love with this show good or bad (tho' the bad is godawful, it's usually delightfully so).

That's exactly why the new series has charmed me so much; even when it is wrong, it is wrong in the right way. Except for The Idiot Lantern, that shit was unforgivable

wait which episode was it again, I'm unclear

Idiot Lantern okay compared to Fear Her,

I want to rewatch all the seasons now

Idiot's Lantern: Fascist alien face stealers in the TV
Fear Her: the doctor vs the olympic torch

I liked the face stealers in the TV one

Tennant's exit was wonderfully executed I thought. He also had a couple of episodes (the first Weeping Angels one, and that one on the shuttle with the disembodied creature that caused whoever it possessed to start mimicking everyone else) which were pants-wettingly scary compared to the rest of Nu-Who. Wish there were more like that.

I've really enjoyed Matt Smith as The Doctor since he took over, but I'm actually finding that I really struggle to recall individual episodes or story arcs in his series. Just kinda blends into one, with a couple of notable exceptions. I remember thinking that the one where Toby Jones had them trapped in a weird dreamworld was extremely entertaining.

Tennant's exit was torturous and grotesquely executed I thought.

Eh, I had a soft spot for him in the role I suppose. Never watched an episode of his back since, but he was the first Doctor I got properly into.

The only thing I really like about Tennant's final episode is that it led to this gif:

http://media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m76wpofdJm1qcirt8.gif

I thought the entire sequence where he goes back and peers at all of his old companions was the most self-indulgent, unearned sequence I'd ever seen in Doctor Who. If he'd writhed on the ground and flashed back to all of his past companions, that would have been fine. If he'd spied on them using the scanner I would have been okay. Having him actually go visit/spy on all of them while going "argh argh my body argh lo, I die" was really fucking stupid and basically felt like padding so that RTD could shoehorn in wanky cameos from all of the actors.

Haha, I just read the synopsis on wikipedia, I'd actually forgotten more or less all of that extended sequence except for the last bit where he visits Rose. In my head it was only a minute or two long. When I claimed that his departure was well-handled I was thinking specifically of the "he will knock four times" reveal and the precise moment when Tennant realises that his number's up, which is the memory which has stuck from those couple of episodes with Timothy Dalton in. Maybe those specials could do with a rewatch some time.

It was so self indulgent and self pitying, and even though I really liked the Tenth Doctor/Tennant I was so fed up and ready for him to regenerate by the end of it. xp

ha okay, I will grant that the "he will knock four times" reveal was excellent

OK I've gotta stop reading this thread til I get finished w/ PT 2.

I do hope this will become the new Nu-Who thread though. The other ones are too inside baseball for a nu-comer like me.

destroy all since 1980

That's the best rule for Doctor Who. Although I'd admit some '81 stuff (Meglos and State of Decay certainly) and absolutely Black Orchid from '82.

I will admit, having watched the Tennant era 3 times I don't think wild horses could drag me to watch any of it again. By comparison, I have watched The Time Meddler maybe 15 times to date.

oh come on, The Time Meddler is one of the best stories ever produced under the Doctor Who banner

OK, I have watched The Dominators maybe 10 times.

that may be a sign of illness

yeah, that last bit revisiting all the past companions & associates was "too much"

aldo you don't like Sylv'n'Sophie?!

Oh Jesus no. Although I don't mind Sylv's performance, they're let down by some weak stories and (let's face it) the worst acting that exists from a companion. Sara Griffiths should have got the job, she would have put in a much better shift having been the best thing about Delta and the Bannermen and was actually about the right age.

Remembrance is good, Fenric's all right and there's a decent story somewhere in Ghost Light. That's about it. I was never one for the Cartmel Masterplan either.

the worst acting that exists from a companion.

Strong language! Apart from anything else Sophie usually gets a popularity boost due to not being Bonnie Langford.

STRONG BUT JUSTIFIED

Bonnie's acting's fine, it's just Mel that's awful. I have a soft spot for Vervoids really, it's like a Season 14/15 story. Martha NuWho runs Sophie close though.

I thought the entire sequence where he goes back and peers at all of his old companions was the most self-indulgent, unearned sequence I'd ever seen in Doctor Who. If he'd writhed on the ground and flashed back to all of his past companions, that would have been fine. If he'd spied on them using the scanner I would have been okay. Having him actually go visit/spy on all of them while going "argh argh my body argh lo, I die" was really fucking stupid and basically felt like padding so that RTD could shoehorn in wanky cameos from all of the actors.

― PITILESS LIVE SHOW (DJP), Wednesday, 18 July 2012 14:11 (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This. Add, the crummy/patronising bit where he gets JBarrowman a nice boyfriend. c'mon, he doesn't actually need the help, right?

I dunno, my opinions are worth nowt here, really. I watched little of the Tennant years, but the one set in "a bus" sort of impressed me and reminded me of 12 angry men..

The Amy Pond years I liked a lot, but then again probably because I like the Diana Rigg years of the Avengers, which was pretty much how it was playing.

I think I like Torchwood (and maybe even SJA) more than NuWho, even with giant earth vaginas and all.

Amy's move from a one-dimensional zing monster has at least been interesting, and I'm not sure there's been another spousal abuser cast as a hero in modern drama, but I don't like the idea of companions being important or key to the universe (Ace/Rose/Amy, big hints of it in Donna late on - "the only one who could have shared a Time Lord brane" etc).

I like my companions to wander into the TARDIS, spend their first half dozen eps going "wtf is all this about", then just act like it's something that happens every day and they're just having random adventures. I can't be doing with the idea of season arcs and season cliffhangers, the Key To Time bits of Key To Time get in the way of how great Ribos Operation and Androids of Tara are; and in a different way this is true of ToaTL, I really like Mysterious Planet and am fond of Vervoids but can take or leave the courtroom stuff.

Amy's importance is why Dr/TARDIS end up finding her though, bcz of crack in world that he's there to check out, it's not RTD-level of pre-shipped-for-yr-convenience nonsense

aldo do you properly like ANY post-82 Who?!!??! The World Shapers? Jubilee? The Dying Days? your contrarianism is obv usu a great presence on Whu-threads because of its reasonedness but if you have disliked absolutely everything out of a fifty-year-old property for THIRTY of those years you might be better off stopping taking it in. Especially three times!

(this question is addressing the broad strokes expressed above, affection for Vervoids presumably being countered by you preferring it destroyed. and no sane human likes the courtroom bits of ToaTL, that hardly needs saying)

(though coming after saying you like Torchwood does remove that caveat, so)

tbh I don't think Tennant's Doctor works all that well until Rose gets out of the way; I thought the unrequited crush angle for Martha was an interesting dynamic (and also I love Freema) and the quality of the stories went up a noticeable level in season 3 around The Lazarus Experiment and stayed there through most of season 4

also this is OTM: Bonnie's acting's fine, it's just Mel that's awful.

I think the deal with the RTD companions is less that the companions are a priori magical and special, than their time in the Tardis changes them, in the same way that people who've actually walked on the moon are not the same afterwards.

xp Dude the Lazarus Experiment was stunningly average, but it was also just before 42! I mean it was better than the story before it, but that was Daleks Take Manhattan, so low bar, low bar.

I think the reason I don't get on with Amy's importance is that it just goes on for so long, and she's so unlikeable it drags and drags and drags. And so much of it remains unexplained and unresolved after three years.

There's lots to like post 82, but Eric Saward is clearly where it starts to go wrong. So much of the Wet Vet era, as I think I've said before, is blighted because the companion structure just doesn't work - three is just too many. That's why we get one (usually Nyssa) off working something out in the TARDIS and not actually taking part. And then when it does gel, like in my personal Wet Vet favourite Black Orchid, it's got TWO Nyssas (sort of) so confounds the problem by breaking it. Kinda/Snakedance is genuinely great and I love the Black Guardian trilogy (although Enlightenment is a bit over-cooked). In fact, I'll go further - the only actively bad things in his era are Time-Flight and Frontios, and that's only because of how criminally bad the Lactators are and Turlough's magnificent gurning and dribbling (mainly because the race memory thing had been done before in The Silurians, which in turn had ripped it off from Quatermass and the Pit.

I genuinely love Colin's turn. The scripting at times is terrible - hi dere Twin Dilemma, Mindwarp - and the effects are often laughable (it won't surprise you I'm thinking of Timelash in particular) the characterisation is great (who wouldn't have liked to have seen the violent mentalist Doctor for more than the first story?) and there's a depth of acting relationship between Colin and Nicola that was missing for many of the preceding years.

Sylv's performance is very watchable, but from his whole era the only things I actively enjoy are Remembrance and Fenric (although Sophie's speech about the wind is one of my most hated things in all Who). I actually re-watched Ghost Light over lunch and it's OK, but the central idea is SO much better than was actually realised it just feels like a waste.

TV Movie: I live with a Who fundamentalist that maintains Wiggy doesn't count. I wouldn't go that far, because his audios area treat, but the Movie/Enemy Within is awful. Doesn't feel like Who at all.

Outside of that, lots of the audios are great. Some of the books are great. I love the spin-off films (for which I have a whole thread), the PROBE and Stranger stuff.

I tried hard with NuWho. I was genuinely enthusiastic about an awful lot of it at time of airing in Series 1 especially but then the weight of the bad writing, and Tennant's gurning, destroyed the goodwill I realised I was giving it. I feel the same about Steven Moffatt as I do about Neil Gaiman, truth be told - that he made his name off one idea and is selling inferior copies of the same ever since. "Wibbly-wobbly-timey-wimey" isn't clevarr, it's just Rusty's Big Red Reset under a different name. And most of all, I HATE THAT SMUG GINGER WOMAN. Every time she says "spoilers" I feel like that taxi driver watching the Sex Pistols on Bill Grundy.

But I think the thing I hate the most is the escalating power of the Doctor. Never again could we have the man who turns round and says "Leela, I've made a terrible mistake. I haven't shut it out there. I've trapped it in here, with us." because now we've got the Name Known All Across The Universe, All The Children Know Of Him, All Races Have Legends About Him, All Powerful Messiah we never should have had. And with escalating power comes escalating responsibility, and escalating baddie power. It's not enough to save three people in a spaceship any more, it has to be about the DOOM THAT WILL DESTROY ALL RECORDED HISTORY. And that's not what I want to watch. I want to watch being mistaken for someone else, and playing cricket in his stead for something like 30% of the story time.

Season 1 of Torchwood I gave up on during it, but Season 2 was great and both Space Child Eating Squid and Giant Earth Vagina were really good in parts. SJA is frequently better than both, but does suffer from an effects budget of near zero.

Have I talked before about how much I love A Girl's Best Friend? Because I do. I could watch that on repeat.

I want to watch being mistaken for someone else, and playing cricket in his stead for something like 30% of the story time.

^ The Lodger is in my top ten Who stories ever (I don't feel really fair rating anything bar Remembrance from JNT post-Bidmead coz I've not seen them since first TX*, if in full at all, but li'l me loved loved loved Black Orchid so)

[*Remembrance I ranked super-high anyway, and rewatched last week for the first time**, and it was MUCH BETTER than I remembered!]

{**so I'd be familiar with it in time for the Eruditorium's coverage}

Not a big fan of "I'm the Doctor, google me,"*** and have angrily groused on here and elsewhere and in pubs and at parties about how HUGELY MUCH I hate the Dr's actual real out-of-nowhere superpowers in Human Nature 2 and Kylie Titanic (and The Master's in The End Of Patience), but rly rly like Moffatt's handling of this - he couldn't ignore what he'd been dealt by RTD, but S5 goes from "I'm the Doctor, google me," and the invaders fucking off, to "I'm the Doctor, yeah you know me bitches," and everyone PRETENDING to fuck off to trick the overconfident div. And then ending S6 with a Doctor pledging to knock that shit off in the future.

*** not least for how it takes away so many 'the Doctor turning up in some falling-apart scenario and having to think everyone's way out of it' set-ups. but also I totally don't mind The Doctor being played completely differently in different eras, so! I like the "not showing his cards" TV Sylv. Have no interest in the Cartmel Masterplan II thingo in the novels where he's the secret ancient spider god of Gallifrey or whatever, but it seems to have been huge fun for a lot of writers and enjoyed by the audience at that time. It seems that the Eighth Dr novels had him amnesiac and lost in time, or lost in C20th Earth, for a long stretch? That's a fun setup and a good excuse to get around the Eighth not having had a personality established. I love the dickishness of the Sixth getting written and very well played as peacockishness that can be zinged by companions and others in a bunch of Big Finishes I've heard. So if it ends up being part of the RTD years only, and pushed under the sofa cushions for the next five years, oh well big whoop in the end.

(And if Moffatt makes a giant feature of it after all in his Doctor WHO?!?!? year and a 50th anniv special, I'll probably make apologies for him anyway)

oh speaking of

I feel the same about Steven Moffatt as I do about Neil Gaiman, truth be told - that he made his name off one idea and is selling inferior copies of the same ever since.

pfft come on, Linda Day is WAYYYYY closer to Colin or even HARTNELL than to Smith!

I am sort of curious about how much of the goodwill I've given Moffatt's Who is due to how good Matt Smith is - I remember wondering at the end of Season 5 whether it sucks more to be David Tennant or RTD as regards being immediately and definitively superseded - I'd probably row that back a little now but I think I'm definitely more tired of Moffatt than Smith.

Of course one of the things I like about Smith is how much he reminds people of their favourite Doctors (in my case McCoy), and by extension how his time in the role serves as a judgement on Tennant for being.. undoctorly?

the 2005 Dr who is eye-marming and doesnt really capture the feel of dr who. the doctor is a dickhead in an annoying way, not a clever way. once again special effects take precedence over silly aliens

Yeah, I do like Smith - not least because he reminds me of Hartnell in a lot of ways. And I do agree that Moffatt's been forced into spending his time undoing Rusty's God Of The Universe.

As I wrote it I realised Gaiman is way more of a one-trick pony. I guess what I mean is writing the same characters - they're so one note and work in the same story:

Empty Child - spooky generically-faced monsters become hivemind and use misguided healing powers. Companion that should-have-been appears. Recurring character with time travelling powers appears.

Girl In The Fireplace - spooky generically-faced monsters appear and use misguided healing powers. Companion that should-have-been appears. Wibbly-wobbly-timey-wimey.

Blink - spooky faceless monsters appear and wibbly-wobbly-timey-wimey. Companion that should-have-been appears. (story itself a rehash of a short story in the previous year's Who annual)

Silence In The Library - spooky generically-faced monsters appear and use misguided healing powers. Companion that should-have-been appears. Wibbly-wobbly-timey-wimey. Recurring character with time travelling powers appears.

Since taking over, he has written two Rusty-esque Christmas specials, the Amy three-parter (Eleventh Hour, Pandorica Opens and Big Bang - which are timey-wimey) and the River Song arc (recurring character and recurring villains).

Okay, just checking, are you using wibbly-wobbly-timey-wimey for any instance of time travel actually occurring within an episode?

I mean, I supposed that's one change, and one I really love, that time travel is not always just the framing device "Oh we're here oh no we've lost the TARDIS for some reason oh we've saved everything oh hey there's the TARDIS"

(Tho obviously that's necessary for a lot of them)

there isn't even any time travel in Silence. he meets someone from another time zone with some kind of connection to him = like the Meddling Monk but LESS wimey storywise if anything

agreed on loving real time travel in stories tho

also bring back proper historicals too, what's more

kind of crazy that "Black Orchid" was the last true historical

Well no, I'm using it in the OH NOES THEY ARE IN DIFFERENT TIME STREAMS SO AGE AT DIFFERENT RATES AND AREN'T DOING THE SAME THINGS TOGETHER way. Silence in the Library starts the Doctor/River 'travelling in opposite directions timey-wimey. I'm sure the Doctor even refers to it as timey-wimey at one point when Amy questions it. River just says "spoilers" when she's asked about it.

Basically, it's the modern version of "I'll explain later, Jo".

are you eliding River stories here or misremembering Amy being in Silence in the Library

I assume that aldo means that Amy later asks about the 'travelling in different directions', which I think I've ranted about before as a clever idea that falls down as soon as it becomes a defining characteristic.

Andrew is right, that's what I mean.

well they also threw that concept out the window as a rigid construct as opposed to a general description of how they were interacting in Let's Kill Hitler so it seems like a silly thing to continue holding against the show

You're right, there are much worse things to hold against Let's Kill Hitler.

only thing I really disliked about Let's Kill Hitler was the unearned ending, but part of that is a side-effect of not doing the story as a two-parter in order to better sell River's change of heart

the ludicrous fight/chase sequence was hilarious tho

Oh yeah, it was just the ending I didn't like really.

This show is incredible. I grew up loving the Tom Baker-era Dr. Who cos i think they showed some of that on PBS in the States. Not sure though. Anyways a week ago I finally started watching the new series and I am addicted! I'm currently in the middle of the second season and have been jumping around between the first two seasons/doctors to see different episodes. There seems to be plenty in the new show that is linked through serialization, so I will likely settle down and continue chronologically.

I really love the cast for this. Even the supporting cast is excellent, and often have very touching and interesting character arcs of their own. Rose is lovely and wonderful; there are times when she is carrying so much of the show, and she does a great job. The two doctors are so good (I find Eccleston more fun tho) and there seems to be a nice morality running through it all that perhaps was in the original series but I didn't pick up on at the time? It's tempting to say the Doctor is power mad and running through time just causing chaos but there does seem to be a method to his madness. He is very particular about not discounting faith in the common man/woman. He is against all forms of slavery, against murder, and against keeping secrets. Though the show is not afraid to play up moral ambiguities. The first Dalek episode (which I loved so much!) has him come across as almost something of a villain at the start. He seems to get pleasure from his continuing battle with the Daleks.

And on that note, the Daleks, the Cybermen, all the monsters and aliens and beasts that we encounter on this show are all done with immense love and care. It really reminds me of those old 60's horror or sci-fi b-movies, but if they were actually really well-done. I love how the show is cheesy and over-the-top and at the same time the fact that it sort of acknowledges this (very slyly) makes it all so much more fun to take in and suspend your belief.

What a great show! I hope it goes on forever!

Maybe we can have a female Doctor some day?

The last one I watched was the two-part Cybermen where Rose leaves Mickey at the end and he decides to stay in the parallel dimension forever. Effing heartbreaking stuff.

I love this show!

(I don't feel really fair rating anything bar Remembrance from JNT post-Bidmead coz I've not seen them since first TX*, if in full at all, but li'l me loved loved loved Black Orchid so)

rewatched Black Orchid a few months ago (had a bunch of ppl round for dinner and Orchid and Androzani, inc Davison n00bs) and still A+ loved it

yeah Black Orchid is endlessly fun... new Who could stand to take a few lessons from it.

Black Orchid rules so hard

Ok i just finished Season 2, and saw the first ep of Season 3. Bye bye Rose! Oh, that shit was so sad. Pretty cool that Mickey somehow ended up parallel universe-jumping back into her arms. Also cool that Rose's parallel dad is hooking up w her mom, I guess, though yes it seems kinda odd. Are they now stuck on the alternate Earth where the ice caps are about to collapse and flood or something?

I had no idea Catherine Tate was in this, so yay! Boy, the Doctor must hate Christmas...

I think I'm going to mainline season 3 this weekend.

Season 3 ep 10(?), 'Blink', is one of the best eps of Doctor Who ever

Just saw the "Crimson Horror" episode, so I'm almost caught up. I love the more steampunk episodes, where they are in Victorian England and there's a mad human villain working for an evil alien and they have rockets and victrolas and all that stuff.

Still enjoying the show plenty! Clara is a fine companion and it will be interesting to see what the BIG SECRET is regarding her nature. It will likely be ridiculous hand waving or something but at the very least it is sure to be entertaining.

So after I finish this, I was planning on catching up on vintage Dr. Who (never seen much besides the big Tom Baker stories) but a few re-watches of the new series have made me want to re-watch the entire thing again starting with Doctor Number Nine. As much as it feels like the writers have been winging it, writing insanely complex stories and then hand-waving their way out of them, I think there probably are plenty of things that are deliberately planted in the show and can only be realized on a second viewing. Or is that not really the case?

Holy guacamole i just learned that Mrs. Gillyflower was played by none other than Diana Rigg!

Also, I have to say that it's sort of stunning that in the face of the budget for this show steadily declining, it seems to look better and better every season! I really love the practical effects and real sets and it's something that wouldn't happen on a show with a giant budget to spend on CGI green screening everything.

As much as it feels like the writers have been winging it, writing insanely complex stories and then hand-waving their way out of them, I think there probably are plenty of things that are deliberately planted in the show and can only be realized on a second viewing. Or is that not really the case?

It sort of is? There are seasonal arcs but nothing really cross-season that wasn't shoehorned in after the fact due to behind-the-scenes production serendipity to explain why Freema Agyman played a character who died at the end of nu-Who season 2 but came back to play a different character as the companion.

Rigg's daughter plays her daughter in that too

so much of the is fuzzy cgi that I literally sat up and gasped at the submarine model in Cold War

As much as it feels like the writers have been winging it, writing insanely complex stories and then hand-waving their way out of them, I think there probably are plenty of things that are deliberately planted in the show and can only be realized on a second viewing. Or is that not really the case?

depends on which writers, what are you thinking of?

they never used to explain why Philip Madoc played so many villains or why The Brigadier had been a space hero in the future or how Barbara got old and became a priestess or why the Fifth regenerated into the face of a guard he'd met once

but, Romana II

I don't know, I guess the whole River Song and Amy thing will reveal some cool backwards/forwards easter eggs but maybe not!

Yeah, I know I saw Freema be turned into a Cyberwoman, like really shortly before she was on the show as a companion! Can't blame them for wanting to have her on the show as much as possible....

I don't know, I guess the whole River Song and Amy thing will reveal some cool backwards/forwards easter eggs but maybe not!

That's all written by Moffatt, so yes it usually rewards backwards-forwards thinking on rewatching

no-one else other than RTD has even had the opportunity to do any long-range plotting, and RTD wrote LOTS of handwaves, but only to cover really simple stuff; he never wrote anything complex at all

my favorite RTD-driven long-range plotting thing was how he made everyone in season 1 use the phrase "bad wolf" somewhere in their story, often in some completely inconsequential, wholly innocuous and ignorable way, so that in the penultimate episode of the season he could have the Doctor shout "BAD WOLF HAS BEEN FOLLOWING US!" and do a clip show

http://i.imgur.com/DWUEZPH.jpg?1

How are they going to explain Capaldi. I’d rather hope they won’t.

... What is there to explain?

he's here. he's awesome. deal with it.gif

Playing a big part in a previous Who story, and, er, an episode of Torchwood.

I am using this as an excuse to post this again because lol

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45d8kn5hApg

I have been getting many lols since you changed yr d/n for the same reason

(rephrase in english if you prefer)

Having the same actor play different, unconnected roles happens all the time. I'd prefer they just ignore it.

I'm very much enjoying Adam's unjaded enthusiasm for Nu-Who, even if I sometimes don't agree with it.

Hah yes I am very forgiving. Maybe one reason is that I'm watching these sort of back-to-back, so the trend of ridiculous plot twists and endings or whatever just seems like the overall style of the whole. Had I watched these when they aired, with a week (or longer? does the show generally air once a week?) between episodes and invested heavily in the plot in rewatching each episode and thinking it over in the interim, etc, maybe I would be jaded!

But yes, Doctor acting whimsical, silly monsters, pretty girl, cosmic jibber-jabber, and I'm satisfied!

Having just finished the last episode (the Doctor dies again? of course he does! he probably has a near-infinite variety of fake-out deaths!) I have to say I didn't mind the Clara plot twist especially as it dawned on her just after it dawned on me that this was going to be what had to happen the entire time, since the first Dalek episode. Super excited to see 10 & 11 battle John Hurt's non-Doctor in the 50th, or whatever that turns out to be...

I'm planning on rewatching the entire nu Who again before the 50th, but I'll take a break in the meantime to catch up on some classic episodes. Any recommendations? I'm super curious about the Beatley Doctor w the flute (but would be fine with bad 80s video effects. Anyone want to list their favorite episode for each individual Doctor? Wikipedia says there are 798 individual episodes...

"Tomb of the Cybermen" is def on my list, i keep hearing about that one.

Tomb is kinda great, kinda accidentally terrible but the earliest intact Beatley Doctor story. It'd make a GREAT one-hour highlights edit.

Have you seen the very first episode? Still an incredible piece of television. (NB the next three episodes are a different, and utterly boring, story, despite sharing production codes)

Playing a big part in a previous Who story, and, er, an episode of Torchwood.

see my post at 13:04 on 15th Aug 13

i love the very first ep.

I like "War Games," even if the first nine (yes, nine) parts get repetitive really quickly, the tenth is awesome trippy and fantastic.

it's Hartnell appreciation Saturday

http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m5601ls3iz1r4vj4bo1_500.gif

Hartnell: The Time Meddler
Trougton: Tomb of the Cybermen
Pertwee: Inferno
Baker, T: City of Death

I'm a bit hazy on Doctors 5 through 7.

Two of those are great but about inverting a status quo that he won't have had set up. For Hartnell, definitely try at least An Unearthly Child (the first ep), four or five eps of The Daleks, and The Aztecs before The Time Meddler.

Troughton has no intact stories from his first year, but you could try an existing ep or two of The Moonbase, The Faceless Ones, and The Evil Of The Daleks before Tomb, and an episode each of Abominable Snowmen, The Ice Warriors and The Web Of Fear would be very rewarding in this year's context. Plus the one episode of Enemy Of The World (before Web) is rewarding in any context. The Mind Robber is intact, plus the bonus bottle episode, and great to watch after other Troughton.

aldo and I basically broke down the entire Pertwee era to an extent on another Who thread a few weeks ago.

Tom's first few years really only have one dud per season, you could skip Robot and just start going if you were keen. Then become selective from late '77. If only one, then chap is otm

Davison: Kinda, Black Orchid, Snakedance, maybe Mawdryn Undead, Enlightenment, [20th anniversary special The Five Doctors is quite, quite bad, but you might want to try in 50th context], Caves Of Androzani

Colin: Vengeance On Varos is the only half-good TV story. So listen to Jubilee as well, to get to hear him be good. Only €2.99 to download now btw.

Sylv: Paradise Towers maybe, then Remembrance, Greatest Show, Happiness Patrol, Curse Of Fenric, maybe Ghost Light, and Survival (last broadcast OG story)

I'd watch pretty much any Hartnell, although the advice about Time Meddler is right - it's definitely not where to jump in. The Web Planet is the least objectively good, but I kind of love the sheer audacity in thinking you could get away with making it. War Machines is maybe the one I pull off the shelf least. The Romans is a comedy, if that appeals and parts of The Chase are played for laughs.

Orphan Troughton eps are probably more worthwhile than any complete story. Tomb and Mind Robber are good, Dominators and Krotons are bad, Seeds is neither and The Invasion and the War Games are just too long (at least the latter has the cancellation to explain why).

See the other thread for Pertwee advice, but every season has a very dry, wordy, politicised story. (Silurians, Colony, Mutants, Frontier + Planet/Daleks, second Peladon imo)

Tom stinkers are Underworld, Invisible Enemy, Power of Kroll, Creature from the Pit, Nightmare of Eden, Horns of Nimon, Meglos and Full Circle. Pretty much anything before Graham Williams is guaranteed fun times.

Can't disagree at all with the Wet Vet choices. I'd add Resurrection.

I like watching Colin and I'd quite happily put Attack and Revelation on a watch list. For me, all the Trial stories have something going for them and it's just the Bob/Pip'n'Jane issue that is a problem.

I don't like watching Sylvester. I couldn't say I'd watch any but the list above are the least bad.

Counterpoint just for Adam: Sylvester is a constant joy to watch

The length of The Invasion is only a problem in that new viewers have the episode-4 reveal spoiled on the front of the case, the back of the case, the disc, the booklet, and all the DVD menus. Shit would have been killer and p nailbiting for all two months on TV originally.

That's true and the Zoe/Isobel dynamic carries the first half (plus a callback to previous stories).

And I agree if you watch Sylv's acting it's entertaining. I'd say the same of Colin though, he's very good especially in the Twin Dilemma but ymmv.

I recently watched Troughton's first story, Power Of The Daleks (none of which actually exists, but you can get the narrated audios with screen captures on Youtube) and I thought it was fantastic.

Invasion and War Games are both very fun too.

I'm halfway through "The Tomb of the Cybermen". Sweet Jesus the voice of the Cyberman leader at the end of episode 2 is cool! I love the soundtrack as well, all the minimalist droning synth loops and effects-laden 60s Action Movie orchestration. I love when they are standing in front of that psychedelic light show video screen!

Some of the effects are laughable, but i enjoy a good laugh!

Ok, I've seen a number of 1st Doctor episodes now. He's definitely a different breed of character than the post-revival version. Much less the center of the story and much less altruistic. He seems like he's frustrated at that point in his life. The actor does a fine job, but his age is definitely distracting, at least from my Tom Baker-and-20XX Dr. Who perspective. Whereas this show has always followed b-movie protocols about wasting time with scenes of actors traveling across sets, in some of these episodes he isn't even traveling. He is winded, and taking a break from running about. Still grumpy old man aside, he is entertaining to watch, and has a nice mysterious quality to him.

The companions are all fine, but his granddaughter gets on my nerves w her constant screaming and whining, but I'm sure that is just something I'll have to get used to. The female characters in this show are pretty one-dimensional (despite claiming to know 5th dimensional math).

The very first episode was a great introduction! Actually, i half expected it to contradict the new show in lots of ways, but the new show has taken many cues from the classics right from the start. I loved how the first time they travel w the TARDIS it goes into a psychedelic light show. Imagine seeing this on TV in 1963!

The first Daleks one was nice, but the "Edge of Destruction" is easily my favorite of the old ones I've seen. Then again I'm a fan of the nuWho bottle episodes where they are running around the TARDIS and you don't know what's real and what's not. Susan was pretty scary holding those scissors!

8th Doctor special this Saturday :D

The companions are all fine, but his granddaughter gets on my nerves w her constant screaming and whining, but I'm sure that is just something I'll have to get used to.

The actress got so fed up with it that she quit!

The female characters in this show are pretty one-dimensional

Barbara is the closest any companion has to an interior life until the very last companion of the classic series (who is also the first character with a character arc since the first doctor)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Do-wDPoC6GM

This is funny!

^ Moffat's second Who story ever

http://www.mirror.co.uk/tv/tv-news/106-doctor-who-episodes-uncovered-2343474

"A group of dedicated Doctor Who fans tracked down at least 100 long-lost episodes of the show gathering dust more than 3,000 miles away in Ethiopia.

It was feared the BBC ­programmes from the 1960s – featuring the first two doctors William Hartnell and Patrick Troughton – had vanished for all time after the Beeb flogged off a load of old footage.

But after months of ­detective work the tapes have been unearthed at the Ethiopian Radio and Television Agency.

A television insider said: “It is a triumph and fans ­everywhere will be thrilled."

YAY! This has made my day, I want to see an episode list soooooooooo bad, am I going to get to see those trashed Troughton stories?

Hopefully Power of the Daleks is among them. Have much enjoyed the novelization.

I mean

I literally have no words

omfg

so this isn't true

or is

Oh jeez, I hope it's not a hoax

they've announced TWO found for sure, anyone citing over 100 is obv trolling and should be ignored

What, really? I am dubious.

well, they've announced two Troughtons to be released digitally, one still could just be the Underwater Menace episode recovered two years ago

This is the so-called Omnirumour and has been around for months. Fandom is split down the middle between deniers and believers, but there seem to be TWO people who "know" it's true. The last big wave of speculation was around a gagging order the BBC acknowledged existed which turned out to be anniversary related.

Ethiopia is the new version of it, it's been Gambia before. Basically someone has imported several ISO containers of films from "an African country" which MIGHT have some erased stories in them. They might not. The story originated on a Dad's Army forum I believe.

Have thought that when time travel is eventually discovered it will be done by geeks who may have interest in shows like Dr Who and they will want to recover lost shows. They would then have to cover their tracks by putting them subtly back into the time stream somewhere inconspicuous.
Grandad's attic or some 3rd World country's broadcast station's storage facility.

Anyway would love this discovery to be true Patrick Troughton for one is seriously under-represented with complete story arcs.

okay lol

http://www.cnn.com/2013/10/07/showbiz/celebrity-news-gossip/matt-smith-doctor-who-psycho/index.html?hpt=en_c1

Wondering about 'Hip to be Square' musical number.

Haha what

BBC are now reporting it. Blimey, this is actually happening.

The strongest part of the rumours then is that Enemy of the World and Web of Fear (without ep 3) are first. It's been claimed that part of the deal to buy is that they are all released on DVD and these are being rushed through for the November event and retail the Monday after. Next up are supposedly MMM (Marco Polo, Massacre, Macra Terror).

89 seems to be the number that the people who may have been embargoed are quietly nodding along to.

;)

Hats off to all working under the embargo, this has been a very well kept secret.

I'm just as curious as to what Dad's Army and Avengers has been recovered. A Stripe For Frazer, maybe?

ever since I purchased and read the novelization for Marco Polo, it's been the Doctor Who story I've most desperately wanted to see

The half-hour edit on Edge of Destruction just doesn't cut it, does it?

Power of the Daleks is the one I'd love to be in there.

Well this is exciting.

yeah, well done MJ

Enemy Of The World would be amazing. Personally I'd love to see Evil ep 1 over Power ep 1, for basically being a comedy episode with Troughton and Jamie going antiquing

woop!

I thought they were going to do a full official presser today listing what they found.

No, that was cancelled yesterday.

Thursday, I hear?

even the official press conference was supposed to be announcing the two single episodes to be digireleased, not everything found

So has ANYthing been found fer sure other than those two eps?

well, nothing's for sure until it actually comes out.

Debbie Watling has broken cover and said on her website that her and Fraze are doing the press launch on Thursday.

I'd like it if they started screening these on BBC 4 or something in addition to the DVDs.

no idea if this is true but quite possible knowing the amount of amazing stuff they have moldering away in the ETV vaults, most of it not properly cared for and they will charge you an arm and a leg for access/use

Apparently my brother is "held in high regard" in Dr Who fan circles cos he writes for some geek Who magazine or website or something and got a book published that he edited. wtf.

quick google, ah yes think i've found him:

The doctor who destroyed families: Southall struck off for accusing parents of killing their children

I just had an old friend who I've not seen in years Facebook me out of the blue to ask if I had any 'secrets' from my brother who's at some conference about missing episodes or something. Confusing.

Enemy of the World and and the Web of Fear; 9 episodes found, and they've already put them on iTunes as of a while ago.

(web of fear missing episode 3)

http://io9.com/exclusive-trailer-for-the-newly-found-doctor-who-story-1443664254

Full press hash:

New York – October 10, 2013 – BBC Worldwide North America announces that a stash of BBC master tapes from the 1960s featuring missing episodes of Doctor Who has been recovered in Nigeria, Africa. The BBC has re-mastered the tapes, and is making two stories, The Enemy of the World and The Web of Fear, now available exclusively on iTunes (www.itunes.com/DoctorWho).

Eleven Doctor Who episodes were discovered (nine of which have not been seen for 46 years) by Philip Morris, director of Television International Enterprises Archive, by tracking records of tape shipments made by the BBC to Africa for transmission. Morris says, “The tapes had been left gathering dust in a store room at a television relay station in Nigeria. I remember wiping the dust off the masking tape on the canisters and my heart missed a beat as I saw the words ‘Doctor Who’. When I read the story code I realized I’d found something pretty special.”

BBC Worldwide has re-mastered these episodes to restore them to the fantastic quality that audiences expect from Doctor Who. The titles are available exclusively on iTunes - www.itunes.com/DoctorWho.

The first recovered story, The Enemy of the World, is a six-episode tale which first aired on the BBC in December 1967. The story features Patrick Troughton as both the Second Doctor and his antagonist (Ramon Salamander), alongside companions Jamie (Frazer Hines) and Victoria (Deborah Watling). Episodes 1, 2, 4, 5 and 6 had previously been missing from the BBC Archives, and were returned by Morris.

Also recovered is the 1968 six-episode story, The Web of Fear. Also starring Patrick Troughton alongside Frazer Hines and Deborah Watling the story introduces Nicholas Courtney for the first time as Colonel Lethbridge-Stewart (who later returns as Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart). Episodes 2-6 were feared lost, but now episodes 2, 4, 5, and 6 have been recovered. With episode 3 still missing, the restoration team has reconstructed this part of the story using a selection of the 37 images that were still available from the episode along with the original audio, which has been restored.

Beth Clearfield, SVP, Digital Distribution & Business Development says, “For many, this will be their first chance to watch these long-lost Doctor Who stories. We’re thrilled to partner with iTunes in bringing these missing gems back to new and long-time fans after all these years.”

So that's all of the episodes that were recovered?

won't be surprised if some more show up; that would be nice, anyway. from 110 down to 9 seems like a big drop.

Hmm how do I feel about this? Oh yeah....

SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

Are they going to reconstruct any more stories animated in Flash again? How many lost stories do we have decent audio for?

won't be surprised if some more show up; that would be nice, anyway. from 110 down to 9 seems like a big drop.

there weren't even 110 episodes missing a week ago, lol rumours

I don't think any stories have been "reconstructed in Flash", but there are different animation teams working on at least two stories for DVD right now, and Tenth Planet has been finished for a while, for November release.

There's audio from every missing story, all recorded by ppl holding tape players or microphones up to the telly on first TX, so quality varies

Hmm how do I feel about this? Oh yeah....

SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

djp otm

My Tenth Planet is in the post, due to turn up tomorrow. The next question is The Moonbase - delayed to late Jan, the trailer was on Zygons and bizarrely HAD NO CLIPS OF ANIMATION IN IT. The only animation anybody's seen is a couple of head models. This has been a source of speculation in itself. The Underwater Menace ep 2 has been indefinitely delayed - presumably it was going to be added to the other two existing and have the missing ep animated, however, BBCWWW/2E have been most insistent there are no animations beyond Moonbase so this has been another source of speculation.

The announcement for Web of Fear says ep 3 will be a telesnap recon. Whether this will be a Loose Canon style or a MArco Polo style remains to be seen. Either way, I am holding out for the dvd release. It's only about 6 weeks, I can wait that long for Enemy (after all, Tenth Planet 4 has been long enough coming) which I'm looking forward to much more than Web.

Ice Warriors is also meant to be out this year with episodes animated, but not by Australian teenagers

also Web is planned for Feb release, not six weeks away

Ice Warriors is out already.

Is that Web release date confirmed anywhere? Omnirumour had it available at the Nov 50 years expo, and in retail the Monday after.

(These might be R1/R2/R4 issues, obv)

Next big question, and reveal, would be MMM.

Apologies, now I am pre-ordering I see that Enemy is next month and Web is indeed Feb. No worries.

I've got no justification for finding this exciting when there are so many other 1st/2nd stories I already own and haven't got around to watching yet, but I've bought these anyway.

Anyone else going to be at the 50th expo btw? I'm there on the Sunday.

BBC Worldwide has re-mastered these episodes to restore them to the fantastic quality that audiences expect from Doctor Who.

dying here

I parsed that as them having gone through the full RT process - VidFIRE etc.

Are they going to reconstruct any more stories animated in Flash again? How many lost stories do we have decent audio for?

― Your Own Personal El Guapo (kingfish), Friday, October 11, 2013 1:21 AM (10 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I watched pretty much all of Dr Who through in around 2009, 2010 and as far as I can remember pretty much everything did survive in audio. This lead to the video files I'd downloaded consisting of surviving stills from the relevant episodes being shown over soundtrack. So I had been thinking at the time that that would be a good way to go. Animation over sound. So glad to see it was done, not sure if it had already been done in some cases at the time.
I think the resource I was looking at for information on the series at the time is gone which is a shame since it was very useful. Had reviews by readers/watchers of the individual stories etc etc.
Think it was called something Gallifrey.

The BBC have officially released the lost episode audio recordings on a series of CD box sets:

http://www.bbcshop.com/doctor-who-the-lost-tv-episodes-collection-1-1964-1965/invt/9781408467510

Seems a major coincidence that one of the 2 stories was brought up recently when Clara was introduced in Victorian London battling the same enemy.
Not sure how many stories are missing but pretty handy that one appears.

I guess it's my own fault listening to rumours, but not having the patience to google 'Dr Who Forum' - because there must be a ton -

I can't help feeling a little ticked by the idea that there still might be a bunch of EPs that may or may not be in the possession of the Beeb, and they are holding back for the Anniv, just TELL ME IF YOU HAVE THEM OR NOT

Is there any reason to think that beyond hearsay though?

The main reason is that it's acknowledged by all parties, even the Episode Hunter, that he brought back four tons of film - the shipping notes have been semi-public. Accordingly if ANY of it was true (as it turned out to be) then it may well all be true.

The most speculated version of events is that he is selling what BBCWW are prepared to pay for. Crucially, this is not the BBC buying them, it's a commercial For Profit arm. Accordingly they don't have the budget to just spend, they need to get a return on what they shell out - I would guess they need iTunes and DVD sales to fund the next batch.

The Episode Hunter wants to sell them, as he can't produce the DVDs or downloads himself because of licensing. The BBC are prepared to let BBCWW/2E have the licence for free though.

Ah ok, thanks. Interesting.

So if that's true, the BBCWW are essentially testing the waters with these to see how well they can expect the others to sell (I imagine they'll do extremely well).

Though they'll have to admit they've been deceptive at some point, which seems a little odd.

I guess this means that none of the missing dalek or cybermen stories have been found, as I'm guessing they'd be more lucrative releases with which to begin this series.

I dunno, I think they're thinking -- rightly -- that the main selling point is the Doctor himself.

Is there any reason to think that beyond hearsay though?

No you're quite right, but dammit, I wanna see Fury From The Deep real bad.

I dunno, I think they're thinking -- rightly -- that the main selling point is the Doctor himself.

If there are others found, you don't think that releasing Web in the same year as Snowmen and Name is a deliberate, considerate, and sensible move?

chap - less "being deceptive", more "not announcing confidential business negotiations to the public at every step," I'd say.

Also from a sales perspective it must be better to release less anticipated stuff up front, to capitalise on the initial excitement, then bring out the big guns later because they're more likely to sell under their own steam. I'm sure Enemy of the World is selling much better now than it would've if it had been the 5th or 6th story to pop up, after a bunch of dalek eps or whatever.

Morris must know these are worth more this year than they will be next though, purely because of the anniversary. And the BBCWW must know that too. So maybe it's in their interests to draw things out and just take a couple off him until after November.

for a brief moment time travel IS possible

I'd guess from pretty much any of the haul these might be the two most obvious fan favourites. Web has always been very highly regarded and Enemy is well thought of as an acting highlight with Troughton playing against himself fully (unlike the Hartnells where he's just mistaken for people that we see separately - although if the Massacre turns up as speculated then we'll get to see that too).

Evil of the Daleks is a bit of a clunker imo, but Power is good and has the first regeneration scene so you'"do think might have been one of the first announced. For a variety of reasons it's 99.9999% likely Daleks Masterplan will never be recovered, not least as Feast of Steven was never knowingly shown outside of theUK.

There is only one Cybermen candidate - Wheel In Space and it's really not much cop. Of the partially complete, Invasion has been released with animation, Tenth Planet comes out this weekend with animation and Moonbase comes out in January (supposedly with animation but nobody has seen any of it and there's speculation we might all get a surprise when it comes out).

Quality and fan reputation notwithstanding though, if there are stories with a bigger mainstream appeal still to come I can imagine this might be why those aren't first out of the gate.

The other story I've fantasized about seeing since I was young is The Celestial Toymaker

Oh me too!

So I bought Web Of Fear, imma watch it tonight, excited

Web follows directly on from Enemy if you don't know (and haven't watched ep 1 in the past)

"The other story I've fantasized about seeing since I was young is The Celestial Toymaker"

yeah I've always wanted to see that.

XP - Sic, I did not know that but found out pretty fast of course. Still it didn't diminish my enjoyment of WOF, lots of fun. Fantastic overacting from the Welsh soldier in particular, eyes bulging out of his head Frank Spencer style every second of screen time.

Even the tiresome 'everybody gets separated and spends acres of time trying to locate each other' format failed to spoil the sense of occasion.

trailer is fantastic:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7hRy2N2CMhQ

http://www.doctorwho.tv/whats-new/article/11-things-we-loved-in-the-doctor-who-50-year-trailer

rong thread

Bought The Moonbase today and it has a coming soon trailer for The Underwater Menace, no mention of any fill-in animation though, did I miss something?

No, the animation is currently not going ahead as (allegedly) 2|E pay less than going commercial rates and the company doing it have put it on the back burner in favour of paying work. The company have confirmed it has been put back in their queue.

It will still probably come out this year, and the rumoured Feb lost episodes announcement might have a bearing on it.

Ah well thanks for the info, meanwhile.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/DR-DOCTOR-WHO-VERY-RARE-ORIGINAL-KATY-MANNING-GIRL-ILLUSTRATED-MAGAZINE-1977-/231100913959?pt=UK_Magazines&hash=item35ceb01927

also seems Dan Hall has been boned from the DVD range, so might be the end of animation and super-excellent VFM extras overall

Well UWM is the last planned release, and the implication from Enemy and Web was that any discoveries would be released with little more than the episodes. From previous statements that nothing with more than 2 missing eps would ever be considered that only leaves the Crusades as a lost opportunity.

dude at least had wish-plans for repackaging once the range was done though. Enemy and Web are unusual circs, obv, but if WW were interested in not being cunty they could have contracted Pup for Web, if not EoW. However.

Crusade would have had animation models for Billy and Ian and Barbara but not Vicki - I'd guess that Planet 55 becoming a "real" studio stepped on Crusade being commissioned. A mild tragedy in the light of Enemy's recovery IMO, as every newly viewable Whitaker episode better reveals him as one of the most (if not the) important figures in the history of the show

(though from what I've seen of RoT they ought to have rebuilt their Chesterton and Babs sprites anyway)

Can't disagree at all other than to say that RoT is maybe my favourite animation - I know a lot of people rate the faux- rotoscoping on Moonbase etc but something feels more, I don't know... real about RoT.

With you on Whitaker, and everything new cements my belief in the Billy era really being the golden age.

recovery of Web suggests further that a theoretical Crusade animation ought to have leant way harder on camera scripts and telesnaps than the fairly free adaption of RoT did - Camfield obv not underrated previously, but he carries p much all of Web that the actors aren't, after halfway through ep 2

it's great that animations don't HAVE to be bound by sparse single images, of course.

(Enemy's recovery also bumping Letts hugely up the rankings of directors - if he hadn't been splitting duties in the 70s he might be even better remembered. EoW >>>>>> Web in every way.)

thought: Whitaker, Holmes and Moffatt as the three most notable TV writers - Whitaker the only one who (probably) ends on a high note, having gotten better and better as he's gone along. [Holmes having ended on his two worst stories ever, even allowing for him dying literally one episode into the final one; even if Moffat has a resurgence with Capaldi/S8, no "showrunner" will ever have endured as much vocal criticism of his latter years, in the history of the series. {Saward started about as badly as he ended up, JNT was more engaged and useful than he'd ever been in S25 and 26}]. also the only one who started as story-"runner", and moved to ~best writer~ role later. and that after ghostwriting most of the most popular material ever!

Terry Nation: increasingly disappointing Dalek retreads (I enjoy Genesis, but think it's over-rated) , a fetch quest and a secret invasion/hypnotised spaceman boilerplate script. There's an argument that his work on other shows is better than his who work, which feels wrong given how much he's associated with the show.

Tewwance Dicks: more highly thought of probably as script editor and Target author, but he wrote some of the real 'comfort food' Tom era stories. Better than he gets credit for, just don't include the Five Doctors.

Mac Hulke: I'm going to hold him up as the forgotten man here, his Wurzel material is uniformly great if mired slightly in some of the UK politics of the time.

Bristol Boys: superb up to Hand of Fear, pretty dreadful afterwards. That's one hell of a tail-off.

Nation is one of the most consistently terrible Who writers ever. Genesis is indeed overrated (though good), plus the only case where a script editor was able to get him to rework something, plus v v probably still rewritten by Holmes almost as much as other script editors had to finish off other Nation scripts.

His subsequent insistence on the use of Davros makes every Dalek story between '74 and '88 a tedious waste of time, too.

I'll Stan for all the Susan era material, but apart from that... Death is kind of fun, even if it's just OMG DALEKS INVENT MACHINE GUNZ (although you have to love their little wooden TARDIS they have in their spaceship for just that eventuality) and the Belial stuff in the city is clearly where Tewwance stole the Tower stuff in Five Docs from. Android Invasion borrows liberally from Ambassadors imo and is inferior in pretty much every way.

It's telling he didn't write Day of the Daleks, which is the best Dalek story in colour, and the most obvious precursor to the current era and the obsession with timey wimey.

Day would be better without the Daleks, as it was originally written. Their addition isn't a massive problem, but the fact they only had three shitty Daleks that couldn't move properly undermined their role in the story, and their insertion does detract from the interesting political / moral / wimey things that the story is trying to do.

(Remembrance >>>>> Day, but yes re colour otherwise)

I do enjoy Remembrance (in fact I had it on the other day) but the AHA WHO IS THE REAL NAZI DYS!!1!1?? is a bit too heavy-handed for me. I think maybe even I prefer Revelation to it.

Watching "The Invasion" recently without being plugged into the reconstruction talk -- do they use Flash animation? I also assume that they don't have storyboards to go off of, since the editing rhythm seems to be anachronistic.

Every time this thread gets bumped I get excited that maybe the BBC have announced more recovered episodes.

Yes, CH used Flash, as with Scream Of The Shalka. I don't think storyboarding has ever been a regular aspect of Who production, and there were no telesnaps for the two missing episodes either. Presumably the incredibly stupid error with Zoe's clothes would have been avoided if there were.