Doctor Who: Classic or Dud?

The Romans: another OK one. the ending is creepy, with the doctor giggling like a schoolgirl while rome burns.

The Web Planet: When Doctor Who was on the Space channel in Canada in the 90s, the first episode I watched was one of these... and it was also the last episode I watched. I'm happy to find out that it's an outlier. I can't follow what anyone is saying since I'm distracted by all the hand movements.

The Time Meddler: first episode has a great cliffhanger... and the explanation is meted out over the rest of the episodes quite slowly. one of the random things the doctor says is that he's around "50 years earlier" than the monk -- time for a comeback? the nu doctor and the monk would probably be friends.

I've wanted the Monk to come back for DECADES

He did come back within the year tbf

(Just yesterday I read the Davison-era DWM comic that has him come back again, it is v poor. There's a season of McGann audio adventures that have the Monk - played by Graeme Garden! - as a recurring character, which I enjoyed greatly.)

and the explanation is meted out over the rest of the episodes quite slowly.

This is called SUSPENSE and PACING, get with it. And don't even think about trying to blame it on Hartnell being absent on holidays for one entire ep.

Anyway the ep 3 cliffhanger is one of the biggest and most amazing in THE ENTIRE HISTORY OF THE SERIES, so.

yeah i don't mind it that much! just didn't expect it.

http://i.imgur.com/WxNM3nT.jpg

Urgent and key: are they reviewing Doctor Who porn, or reviewing Doctor Who by the way of fucking?

Every single thing about that screenshot makes me depressed.

And in the time it has taken me to type the above sentence, that woman's expression/hairclips have made me very angry.

The Rescue -- a good one that tells a complete story in an hour. I don't think it's a reach to consider this one being about rape -- it's very focused on Vicki's emotions at being stuck with an evil man.

The Daleks' Master Plan -- a disaster. The bad guy, Mavic Chen, is a Ming the Merciless copy, and everything else also feels like a sci-fi serial from a previous decade. Way too long, with the basic gist getting repeated in every episode. It takes a detour into a terrible Christmas special halfway through. The monk comes back but his personality has been replaced with one identical to Chen's.

I skipped ahead to Spearhead from Space -- and color! Liz is a great companion and the Brigadier is a promising character. Seems more like a bunch of ideas mashed together than a cohesive story, but the pacing is much better.

Then I watched the first Tom Baker season. This is a very solid season with a very entertaining doctor. The low point is having the feminist companion getting shit on by everyone, including the doctor, so she can be characterized through her responses. Weakest serial is "Robot" which starts off silly (reminds me of the Kirk vs. computer episode of Star Trek) and is just dumb by the end.

The first Pertwee season (sadly the only one with Liz) is great. The rest of the serials are maybe overlong but also consistently engaging, and go to some fairly dark places.

If you'd said you were going to jump ahead, I would have advised skipping Robot; it's not actually part of Tom's first production season, and likewise Terror Of The Zygons was held over from his first year to the next, and functions as the end of that consecutive run of stories.

oh wait I did anyway! and nobody recommended you watch a shambolic multi-author 13-part serial where most of the eps are missing, you mentalist.

(Robot was made by the Letts/Dicks team, who were totally burnt out by the start of that season, let alone the end; Ark In Space to Zygons is the first season made by Hinchcliffe/Holmes.)

I watched Master Plan because the monk was in it, and because I heard the Christmas episode was weird. I should have just watched the monk's parts.

it's not actually part of Tom's first production season

No, they shot the entire four-parter* at the end of Pertwee's final season. The Hinchcliffe/Holmes team didn't start shooting (on The Sontaran Experiment, because location shooting always preceded studio work bitd) for about four months afterwards.

* a couple of scenes of Sarah and the Robot were reshot one afternoon later.

Pearl Mackie is the new companion http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-36111598

No doubt with a jacket with "Ace" on the back

Maybe she will actually be from the 1980s and struggles to deal with the future or something

Apart from anything else, you appear to have an odd idea of what characterises the '80s?

Mackie said her new character "Bill" was "wicked", describing her as "cool, strong, sharp, a little bit vulnerable with a bit of geekiness thrown in".

Doesn't remind you of Ace?

Could describe any Who companion since Ace. Clara was the only "geeky" one but only in the sense that she had a geeky job.

white male denied companion status YET AGAIN why do i pay my licence fee ffs

seems good. can't believe we're still eight or nine months out from a new episode. hopefully the 2017 series starts in the spring rather than the fall.

Does a good job with some dodgy lines. Interesting face. Got the handsome-but-odd Matt Smith thing down.

There's a Who poll being counted down here, from 380 ballots: http://www.eruditorumpress.com/blog/the-eruditorum-press-doctor-who-poll-results-the-bad-stuff/

Stories, both televised and non-. The sections aren't collected yet, but you can find them on the main page.

oh shit I heard about this and forgot to vote

based on that poll i've been watching the mccoy serials. was there some reason why around half of his serials have scenes in a dirt pit?

"my favorite kind of jazz: straight blowing"

one of my friends was talking about some animated reconstruction of "power of the daleks" they're showing as ppv in us theaters. anybody heard anything about this? i love troughton.

was there some reason why around half of his serials have scenes in a dirt pit?

quarry rental is the cheapest option for alien planet sets

anyone watch Class? reviews aren't promising.

which colour Doctor doesn't have half his serials with scenes in quarries?

yes, lots of people have heard about the animated reconstruction of Power Of The Daleks. Have you heard about the animated reconstruction of The Invasion? Or the animated reconstruction of The Reign Of Terror? Or the animated reconstruction of The Moonbase? Or the animated reconstruction of The Tenth Planet? Or the animated reconstruction of The Ice Warriors?

Class is basically Torchwood At School, except not actively terrible. It's not very good, but then also I am not the audience.

Actually McCoy probably has a better run than most re quarries, due to the OB / studio split on the third production block.

S24: haven't seen Time And The Rani since 1987 and am unlikely to change that, but iirc it has plenty of quarry, but it's also not REALLY the beginning of the McCoy era yet (an interview with Cartmel this year saw him wishing he'd had the confidence to hold his name back). Paradise Towers is all studio except for swimming pool, Delta has real actual countryside, Dragonfire is studio. Dirt pit 1/4, 0/3 if you don't count Baker / Baker / JNT.

S25: Remembrance's locations are all Shoreditch. Greatest Show: quarry planet actually used to show economic depression as reason for setting up psychic circus, as opposed to it being the only cheap place to point a camera within a drive from TC, like every other quarry planet since 1971. Happiness Patrol is studio-bound. Silver Nemesis I haven't seen since 1988 and am unlikely to unless the extended cut ever gets re-released, but I remember lots of village greens and such, not quarries. Dirt pit 1/4?

S26: Battlefield is Brigadier's gardens and country lanes and outside of pubs. Fenric is grim seasides and church yards. Ghost Light is studio-bound. Survival... the Master is living in a Quantel-painted purple quarry, maybe? Dirt pit 1/4.

Man I love Battlefield, it's so fun

I think they went with the PPV/theater distribution for the Power of the Daleks animation because it will probably make more money than just releasing it on DVD like they did the previous animations of lost stories... which are quite good!

It's being released first on the BBC Store, not DVD. And it's not the BBC's own impetus releasing it in cinemas, it's independent distributors in the US (Fathom Events) and Australia (Sharmill) who've arranged it. Fathom have been behind the Day Of The Doctor and Dark Water/Death In Heaven US cinema events before, but it was BBC Worldwide that instigated the Asylum Of The Daleks / Angels Take Manhattan and Day Of The Daleks* and Day Of The Doctor and Deep Breath and.... whatever the other twofer was - Pandorica / Big Bang? - in Australian cinemas. AFAIK, the only UK screening of Power is a one-off at the BFI.

*this may have only been in Sydney, not nationally

Also, it's an especially good and much-loved story, Troughton in top form

xp

yes, lots of people have heard about the animated reconstruction of Power Of The Daleks. Have you heard about the animated reconstruction of The Invasion? Or the animated reconstruction of The Reign Of Terror? Or the animated reconstruction of The Moonbase? Or the animated reconstruction of The Tenth Planet? Or the animated reconstruction of The Ice Warriors?

― sad, hombres (sic)

yes, i've heard/seen of all those other ones (all of which were lone one/two episode runs from otherwise existing stories, unlike power). just didn't know there was one of power. thought they were having trouble getting the finances together or something.

I think they went with the PPV/theater distribution for the Power of the Daleks animation because it will probably make more money than just releasing it on DVD like they did the previous animations of lost stories... which are quite good!

― erry red flag (f. hazel)

well i will certainly pay up because god damn do i want a reconstruction of evil of the daleks (and just go ahead and animate episode 2 as well, going into live-action for one episode of a 7-episode story is kind of tough to sell).

JUst saw a clip of Power Of The daleks on Newsnight as part of a piece on restoring old BBC material. It looked pretty great, so hope they get to restore more of the missing episodes taht way.

look forward to finding a digital copy of that. don't knwo if I have the patience for that in a theater though

depends on your tolerance for '60s who, i think, although it's definitely one of the best episodes of the b&w era. have you seen "enemy of the world"?

I haven't seen that yet either. I haven't watched any 60s who since the late 80's, honestly.

xp oh i found this: http://www.doctorwholocations.net/stories/classic

time and the rani used 3 different quarries for some reason. i thought quarries might be used because they look ok on video, but general cheapness is the more likely reason.

Was it Enemy Of The World that apparently had an episode nicked after the whole series was discovered in Nigeria. Or Web of Fear?

Was it Enemy Of The World that apparently had an episode nicked after the whole series was discovered in Nigeria. Or Web of Fear?

― Stevolende

web of fear. lethbridge-stewart's first episode. fortunately enemy of the world had a fairly shit reputation before it was recovered, so nobody went out of their way to try and hoard any of its episodes.

thought they were having trouble getting the finances together or something.

Generally when anyone, oneself included, uses the term "they", it's worth stopping and asking who is actually being represented by that pronoun. It was Dan Hall who managed to fund one- or two- ep animated reconstructions, but that was by amortising costs across an entire year's budget for DVD extras, and hiring start-ups.

The Underwater Menace would have been the last one he got together, but (eg) the NSW Central Coast company he'd engaged used their Who reconstructions as a demo reel to sell their own in-house kids production, and thus were a) too busy and b) wouldn't work that cheaply anymore.

Then Pup Ltd.'s contract ran out, which by this time, as an external contractor, had been the only point of continuity in the range for some time. Thus we then get the examples of the Enemy Of The World and Web Of Fear DVDs coming out without any VAM at all - no docos, no production documents, no commentaries* - and then after that, the people setting up the first draft of the BBC Store literally asking the editor of a fan magazine published by an Italian company that makes collectible sticker sets if there's any old Dr Who that might be good to put on the Store, as they'd seen something in the news about those stories being recovered.

(*the bloke who used to moderate about half the commentaries on the old DVDs has since been hired by more nerds to get the actors and crew and such into a studio and record commentaries that you can buy, download, and sync up with your DVD or iTunes purchase.)

Still after that, the next batch of people at the Flogging DVDs Department Of BBCW responded to years of enquiries by announcing that The Underwater Menace would not be released on DVD.

The year after that, the NEXT next batch of people at the Flogging DVDs Department Of BBCW run out of petitions demanding the release of The Underwater Menace to write on the back of, and decide to put it out, BUT specifically demand of the bloke of the RT that they get to make a recon, that he make it as shit as possible. Like, he was ordered in writing just to link the telesnaps in order - no crossfading, no returning to earlier shots to show who's speaking, no cropping or closeups, regardless of what's happening on the soundtrack.

Then after that, some bloke pitches that some niche of the Beeb scrapes together some pennies to animate a missing Dad's Army episode as a trial for the website or the Store or something. Not unlike the way the Invasion reconstruction was done with some spare budget from the REG Ninth Doctor series after that got derailed by the RTD / Eccleston Ninth Doctor series getting secretly commissioned.

The Dad's Army ep gets received well enough that he's invited to pitch again, points out that it's the 50th Anniversary of the first Troughton story, and gets some money out of a promotional budget from the BBC Store. Halfway through production, they get another influx of budget from BBC America, pre-buying TX rights to the animation.

If you can work out which person or department is "they" in there, you're welcome to 'em!

and I would loooooove an Evil Of The Daleks recon too, but with much greater production values than this Power one, which is unlikely if they try and crack it out for the 50th anniversary. The first episode, being more or less 20 minutes of Troughton and Jamie going antiquing on a date, is basically my missing episode holy grail.

and I would loooooove an Evil Of The Daleks recon too, but with much greater production values than this Power one, which is unlikely if they try and crack it out for the 50th anniversary. The first episode, being more or less 20 minutes of Troughton and Jamie going antiquing on a date, is basically my missing episode holy grail.

― sad, hombres (sic)

not sure which would cost more, animating that episode or clearing the rights to "paperback writer"

If you can work out which person or department is "they" in there, you're welcome to 'em!

― sad, hombres (sic)

so who needs to get paid in order to animate jodorowsky's dune

xp oh i found this: http://www.doctorwholocations.net/stories/classic

lol one single shot in Battlefield from a quarry! :D

I'm fine with mixing animation and existing footage btw - I'd even be pleased with alt versions of Power or say Tenth Planet ep 4 that cross to surviving clips whenever they exist