Doctor Who: Classic or Dud?

she looks like she's standing in front of a screensaver

needs more flying toasters

someone was telling me something about colorizing a hartnell episode for broadcast... which i don't think is actually happening, some misunderstood rumors and whatnot... but reading that it looks like they got funding to do animated versions of "the smugglers" and "the underwater menace"? wondering if an S4 blu-ray set is in the future, or if they're gonna try to flog them individually. S2 blu-ray is supposed to come out in the US next week or so... we'll see what winds up being cut, you get into the Beatles thing and rights issues start getting involved. i guess... is there a list of edits/cuts to the existing blu-rays by region? spearhead from space has that bit of "oh well" and mind of evil has "the devil's triangle".

anyway that leaves only one story per season (minus season 3, which, you know, not much you can do with S3) soundtrack-only. the animations are pretty crap, but for me they're easier to watch than the Chris Marker versions...

I have utterly stopped paying attention; did the regeneration into tennant happen already?

it's harder to get het up about edits when there's entire episodes missing, I just want 'em to get the entire OG series out in Blu-Ray before the world stops caring about physical media entirely

like, the supplemental material on the Blus is really fun and good! you can't beat the peter davison and crew's commentary tracks

to clarify, i'm buying them all irregardless, i'm just curious as to what cuts there are by region, haha. nerdy shit.

it'd be nice to have the whole classic series out on dvd before the culmination of the events of "turn left", which it seems the uk has taken as a blueprint to follow to the letter.

Season 2 box came in today. I'm watching "The Rescue" - it's a good background episode. I've never seen it before. Kind of surprising how, well, _postmodern_ it is. I knew about the twist but I didn't realize that it's not really sci-fi at all, just a domestic violence allegory. David Whitaker really was a very good writer.

We talked about precisely that realisation on our podcast a while back:
https://www.illexplainlater.com/post/141022895293/episode-10-behind-the-mask
It's a story that gets written off as a functional filler, but it's amazingly rich.

Maureen O'Brien was always great, even in later serials when she was sometimes stuck doing generic companion stuff, but she's particularly good in The Rescue. Vicki seems to be a relatively unsung member of the of the Dr Who companion pantheon, which is a pity?

It's funny how the multiple companion set up works so well in this era but worked so badly when they retried it in the early 80s, I'd say it's the biggest single problem with Peter Davison's era

It's funny how the multiple companion set up works so well in this era but worked so badly when they retried it in the early 80s, I'd say it's the biggest single problem with Peter Davison's era

― soref

re-watching episodes from that era i'm inclined to say the single biggest problem with the show from seasons 18-26 was john nathan-turner. always making ridiculous demands. (he, of course, was the one who decided the show needed three companions.) he _finally_ lets robert holmes write a script again and it's the show's best story ever, so of course for the next one he says "make it (the equivalent of) a six-parter!" (bob holmes hated six-parters) "put the sontarans in it! put the second doctor in it, boy if there's one person who knew how to write the second doctor it's you! set it in new orleans! you did all that? we couldn't get the budget to go to new orleans, it's now set in seville!"

even considering that holmes seems to have completely burned himself out and wrecked his career in his three years as script editor, you know, jnt wasn't exactly hinchliffian.

the Davison era is frustrating because there are lots of ideas that are interesting in theory, but more often than not it doesn't quite come together. I kind of feel predisposed to defend JNT because he was vilifyed so mercilessly by the fans, but it does seem like a lot of the big decisions he made were bad ones. The three choices he made for lead actor were the main exceptions, I think - Davison, Colin Baker and McCoy were all fine choices, even if he kneecapped Davison and particularly Baker with some of the other decisions he made.

I'm less clear on what his influence was in the McCoy era than in the 1980-6 period. Apart from stuff like casting Dolores Gray or Hale and Pace to play minor roles the only specific decision of his that I remember reading about in the last three series is changing the setting of Ghost Light from the 1860s to the 1880s because the costumes would look nicer, which I think was the correct decision even if it confuses the idea that it was supposed to be set shortly after Darwin published On the Origin of Species

I like the Two Doctors a lot, I think it's probably the best of Colin Baker's tv stories, even if Holmes didn't appreciate the various requirements imposed on him I don't think it stopped him writing a good story. The novelisation (the only one Holmes ever wrote) is fun, iirc he really leans into the grisly stuff in a way that is quite surprising for a kids book.

well, when jnt wasn't doing stupid shit he was apparently finding... ephebes... to have threesomes with him and his boyfriend. so i'm personally disinclined to defend the man on any grounds, i'll admit.

i'm not aware of exactly what influence he had on the show post-season 23, so i guess i should amend my statement- the single biggest problem with the show from seasons 18-23. from season 24-26, the biggest problem was that michael grade and, i don't know, what's his name, jonathan whatever? were actively trying to kill the show. (he was trying to kill the show during season 23 as well, probably, but he still wasn't the biggest problem that season. hell of an own goal that season was.)

less clear on what his influence was in the McCoy era

Pretty positive overall - even the occasional Hale or Pace or Dodd are used as a curious spice, not a panto stunt turn. His disinterest in plot, theme, or most other aspects of writing was a liability with Saward, who was barely ready to be mentored as a writer, let alone be given free reign as story-runner. On top of JNT's lack of active managerial support, Saward actively resented aspects of his boss's behaviour as producer and as (self-)publicist, especially commuting on weekends to court the nascent convention scene in the US.

The same disinterest led to an extremely fruitful collaboration with Cartmel, who relished the freedom and was clearly dispositionally suited to story-running in a variety of ways that Saward wasn't.*

JNT might have also been spooked into doing a better job by the 1985 cancellation, the subsequent nigh-disaster of the uncancellation season, the complete chaos of Saward's quitting, and the experience of having to take over as script-editor himself for six months (and sixteen days). But it certainly seems that he was significantly encouraged and renewed by Cartmel's own positivity and enthusiasm. And he made great production decisions under pressure in this time, making lemonade out of shit sandwiches on several occasions: turning the episode reduction from three stories a year into four by splitting studio and OB, and inventing three-part stories (which most of his previous era could have benefited from, if not much of Who in total) in the process; salvaging the Greatest Show production by shooting in a tent, to the visual benefit of the programme; doing second-unit directing himself.

His fan-hunting on behalf of Downie is repugnant, of course, and L3vine's crying about how he was powerless not to find targets for them in nightclubs should have stopped anyone from ever listening to him on any subject ever again.

*eg: seeing the series as an opportunity to do any kind of story a writer could fit the Doctor into, vs seeing the series as a great chance to do lots of stories about space mercs with zap-zap guns; having an emotional connection between the Doctor and the companion provide an anchor for the audience, vs having the characters consistently complain about being on the TARDIS, or try to murder the Doctor, or have the Doctor try to murder the companions; using the new-setting-every-story to have the companion form new relationships with locals and shortcut worldbuilding, vs having three redundant characters rattle around a set together; building personal, professional and collective relationships with a stable of promising new writers (inc open-door-policy office group kibitzing and pub hangouts), vs moaning that all the submitted scripts sucked and refusing to write back to people for months at a time...

David Whitaker really was a very good writer.

most important showrunners in Who history, ranked:

Whitaker
Cartmel
RTD
Letts/Dicks
(tie) Holmes / Darvill-Evans/Levene

and Whitaker's work as solo writer is the strongest indicator of his influence - not just that he had ideas for things the show could do that were beyond other people's radar, nor the amount of ghosting he did on Terry Nation's scripts and comics (the show would not have sustained as an unbroken cross-media property for 59 years without the Dalekmania that was primarily Whitaker), but the structure of his stories is so much cleaner and more coherent than nearly any other writer 1963-74.

It's always interesting to find out what my brain is going to do when I wake up in the middle of the night (I always wake up in the middle of the night). Today it was some light entertainment. I woke up and thought, "Gee, 'Tomb of the Cybermen' really is a shit story. How could I rewrite the scenario to make it better?"

The Doctor and his companions land on the planet Telos. Victoria is pretty upset. Her dad decided to ally with the Space Nazis who wanted to take over the universe, and on top of that, he convinced himself that he was somehow doing it for _her_ sake. What the fuck went wrong with her dad, a man she loved, a man who raised her, that he decided to do this fucking evil shit, and on top of that to blame _her_ for it?

The Doctor responds by telling her about how he left his home planet, because it turned out his people were the _real_ Space Nazis all along. He talks about... it's important to find your people, and those people aren't always the people you grew up around. He tells Victoria that their lives aren't like anybody else's.

There's a scientific expedition going on! The Doctor fucking loves science. It's being financed by Klieg and Kaftan. They regard the Doctor with suspicion, basically because he's a Black man (this scenario doesn't really work if the Doctor in this scenario isn't a Black man), but they realize that he's one of The Good Ones which mollifies their hostility somewhat.

Also along on this expedition is Toberman, their porter. He is a big, strong black man, and is not mute but neither is he exceptionally intelligent. Just kind of an ordinary guy, doing his thing, living his life. The Doctor, who is kind of unavoidably the embodiment of Black Excellence, is kind of aghast. Klieg and Kaftan both treat Toberman like... well, like he's their servant. So the Doctor says to Toberman, look, why are you serving these people? They're kind of shitty imperialists, they're there to loot the planet for artifacts and take them back to their museum. Toberman is just like, well, shit, what the hell else am I gonna do, you know?

Anyway so the men go down to the tombs to investigate further. Kaftan accepts this. The Doctor says to Victoria, hey, you know what, why don't you hang out with Kaftan, yeah they're shitty misogynists but let's play along a little and see what develops.

What develops is that Kaftan is Space Hillary Clinton, she's a liberal feminist and is playing along with the whole thing because she feels like it's going to advance the cause of women's equality. But yeah of course she's pissed about being left behind.

In the meantime Klieg discovers the Cybermen and immediately starts trying to work out how to revive them. Goddamn this could solve his labor shortage problem. He's really excited about this. Talking to the Cyber Controller makes him even more excited. There are _tremendous_ possible productivity advantages to having these folks as a labor pool. The Doctor is... well, I mean, they're fucking Cybermen, first off. Like, this isn't going to end well for anyone, you know?

Anyway they go back upstairs to the main party and Klieg is super excited talking about these Cybermen. Hmmm. Toberman thinks they sound pretty cool. He has a possible answer to "what the hell else am I going to do?" He goes down to see the Cybercontroller who is _really excited_ to have such a big, strong man presenting himself as a possible candidate for cyber-conversion.

Kaftan also gets to talk to the Cyber Controller and she's really impressed. Like, wow, the Cybermen are so _equal_. Race, gender, none of that stuff matters to the Cybermen. She's like, shit, why don't we just make the entire human race Cybermen? Victoria thinks Kaftan is full of shit and tells her so. She's Victorian but she's also educated and well-read, Edward (her dad) valued that, and she's all down with Mary Wollstonecraft and shit.

In the meantime the Cybermats are just kind of hanging around Cybermatting. Maybe they kill off a minor character or something to make them look, like, threatening. In the background the Doctor goes and reprograms them, he's got a remote control that lets him tell them what to do.

The Cybermen emerge from their tombs and you know what they're kind of more aligned with Kaftan than they are with Klieg, so they kill Klieg. Klieg is really aghast because he feels like Toberman has betrayed him. Kaftan is more just, like, really uneasy about this. Like cyber-conversion seems cool and all but Toberman is still a BIG BLACK MAN, still _visibly_ Black, and that makes her feel _unsafe_.

Anyway the Doctor shows up and starts talking to Toberman and Toberman is like, hey, I'm, like, an afro-futurist now, this is pretty rad. And the Doctor is like oh, you think you're an afro-futurist, really? You're all hanging out with these rubber dudes in silver masks and who do you think they are under the mask? And Toberman is like it doesn't matter. And the Doctor is like you think it don't _matter_, it don't _matter_ where they came from, that you put a white man in a mask and that's the same as a Black man in a mask? You think you're free now? Then why do you have a _Cyber Controller_, huh? Answer me that.

So Toberman is like hey you got that remote control that gives you control over the cybermats? And the Doctor is like yeah, why? And Toberman is like don't worry about it, just give me that remote control, OK? And the Doctor gives him the remote control, and he uses it to have the Cybermats kill the Cyber Controller. (In the TV episode he uses his physical strength and it's really important to me that his decisive action _not_ be based on his physical strength.) Now, the Doctor, being the Doctor, he's not going to go out there and say "kill your masters", because he's not down with violence, but let's be real, he knows why Toberman wants the remote control and he gives it to Toberman anyway.

Anyway the cybermen who now don't have a leader are all like so, uh, should we do something? And somebody comes up and says hey you know what let's not do anything, let's just go back in our tombs and preserve the status quo. That's probably the right thing to do here. So they do. Except for Toberman, the Doctor is like hey with your enhanced cybernetic blah-de-blah you can fly a spaceship, go off with the cybermats and find your people and be afro-futurist and shit. So he does.

Oh at some point Kaftan gets killed too, you know, that whole plotline could get fleshed out a little more.

Like most of the best Doctor Who stories it's an obvious political parable. It's probably got all kinds of problems that I'm blind to but God it's got to be better than the actual Tomb of the Cybermen.

I think any change to the story that is predicted on Patrick Troughton being in blackface is de facto bad

lol it's not predicated on patrick troughton being in blackface, it would be an actual black actor

he would also have to be in aliveface

i do wanna be clear here though djp: your perspective on this matters in a way that mine doesn't, i'm absolutely out of my lane here.

You’re taking a Second Doctor story and highlighting changes to it surrounding a Second Doctor companion. You then said halfway through “oh btw the Doctor is Black” well after anyone familiar with the characters and the story would have slotted Troughton into it, so I’m not really sure what reaction you were expecting.

Like, if you’d said “what could Tomb of the Cybermen have been like with Ncuti Gatwa as the Doctor” we would have a starting point to talk about the horribly tone-deaf Afrofuturism tangent you threw into the story that doesn’t make it any better than what it already was.

that's good feedback, i appreciate your feedback a lot! i get shit wrong a lot and i really got shit wrong this time. i apologize.

No worries. I am a little touchy today because someone SWATted 4 black Harvard undergrads earlier this week and they were marched out of their room at gunpoint in the middle of the night by campus police. I would have had the same feedback under other circumstances but I probably would have been gentler about giving it.

honestly i appreciate you not being gentle. when i say things like the stuff i said i... don't think it's a reasonable expectation for people to have to tiptoe around my sensitivities when they correct me. so i do appreciate that.

anyway i would like to both curse and thank whoever posted the swipey tile doctor game itt

it is truly a time vortex / chronic hysterisis

but i have been going through a lot of stress and instability at work lately, and it is pretty amazing at turning off brain chatter

I had to ban myself from the swipy tile doctor game when I realized I was continuing to mentally swipe tiles after I was done playing the game. Like I'd be reading my book and could barely read the words because I'd be mentally swiping them all to the side. Reminded me of when I worked at a candy store and every time I closed my eyes I'd start mentally filling pound boxes with rows of chocolates.

haha i was like that when i worked in a commercial laundry - every night i’d dream
about folding towels endlessly & wake up exhausted having do it all again for real

Swipey tile game has inadvertently trained me to have an automatic “fuck not again” reaction to Hartnell’s face

Game is quite addictive innit.
Do know that feeling of having an activity's imagery fixed on your senses but thankfully not with this so far. Had a job power washing brick walls in Sloane Square in the late 80s and every time i closed my eyes for the week I was doing it I saw bricks, think it lasted a bit afterwards too.

I do love the Doctor's clothing, as I have for the last few decades. Think I might think twice about the colouring of Colin Baker's frockcoat etc. Do love that Late Victorian/Edwardian/ whatever look that is a theme through the classic era and has echoes in the newer one. Seen images of suitjackets that look a lot like Tennant's in adverts from the early 20th century too. The frockcoat look from the earlier era has been an influence in my own designs.

I've been slowly building a disc library of the old serials which were compelling mysteries to me as a child - known only from novelisations or lists of titles. Being able to buy a DVD of The Tenth Planet or The Time Meddler is like finding out there's footage of rituals at Stonehenge or similar (kind of a fun twist on the show's early intention). Going forward I thought at first Peter Davidson would be my cutoff point, but more and more I find myself uninterested in anything after 1980, as soon as the titles change from the "polarised tunnel" it doesn't feel like the real thing any more. Sorry Romana.
https://www.artofthetitle.com/assets/sm/upload/ms/jh/iy/ke/dw_1980_c.jpg

(even Tom looks done with it, there)

the 80s title sequences are much worse than what came before, but I quite like the Colin Baker ones where they embrace the gaudiness and go full-on end of the pier

https://cultbox.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Doctor-Who-Colin-Baker-titles-600x337.jpg

with the exception of Warrior's Gate (one of the all-time best imo) and State of Decay (which I think was an older script that disinterred) season 18 feels drab and lifeless compared to the previous few years, like they wanted to rein in the silliness and clowning about but didn't have any compelling ideas about what to replace it with.

i was the perfect age to be uncritically excited about season 18, am critical now but still see good in it and genuinely love Logopolis

that's a good point, I didn't really see any of this stuff until I was a teenager and old enough to see it in a more detached way - when I think about sci-fi/fantasy stuff I saw when I was a kid, I always hated it if I got the impression that the people making the show were not taking things seriously enough - I could never whole-heartedly enjoys the Adam West Batman for this reason (I love it now, though). I think if I'd seen them when I was 8 or 9 years old I would have preferred season 18 to season 17, and probably would have seen it as more 'grown up', whereas now the earnestness of season 18 makes it come across as more like a kid's show than the anything since the 60s.

S18's biggest problems are nobody on the production side having any idea how to complement Bidmead's approach*, and Tom being burnt out and unwell.

*if Letts hadn't been hands-off this might have gone differently!

actually, The Keeper of Traken is good as well, I'd forgotten about that one

ok officially renouncing swipy tile game, can’t get past Tennant and I can’t imagine how it is even possible and i need my productivity back

idle thought, and maybe obvious - but game only works if you are a credentialled fan who understands the order of regenerations as a kind of alternate basic numeracy? feels weirdly unique / uniquely weird

anyway never again!!!!!

Aw yeah

When The Doctor summons me, I am compelled to answer ⛈️🎹 #DoctorWho pic.twitter.com/mRS7xifGLR

— Jinkx Monsoon (@JinkxMonsoon) April 19, 2023

I'm actually in love with Ncuti's Doctor's outfit, spectacular work.

I thought a YInka Shonibara take on the late Victorian/Edwardian style would be very interesting. But a 60s take on the style works for me.
Maybe Shonibara too gimmicky anyway. Would love to see it though.
Wonder to what extent Ncuti will be changing costume anyway. After the continual costume change in Sex Education is it going to continue here.
Do love teh reinvention of the style. The early Doctors have influenced my tastes and designs too.
Just watched the first episode of Tom Baker in Robot last night. Had me wondering where i started with Pertwee in terms of watching things at the time they were initially broadcast. Wondered also if my elder brother had been watching Troughton era when I was too young to really take in and remember , do remember a lot of Pertwee though.

I assume previous mention of Ncuti costume is the blue with white stripes 60s version of an Edwardian suit that is pictured in Radio Times.

Yinka Shonibara is a Nigerian artist. His work comments on the process of colonisation by recreating period clothing etc in waxed cotton.
Thinking frock coats made in that stuff would look good. Planned to make a couple myself and haven't got that far so far.

Did make a couple of frockcoats out of a pattern people have used for versions of Colin Baker's jacket. Customised the pattern a bit for my own tastes.
Colin Baker was a bit of a coincidence. That era clothing I. E.late 19th/early 20th has been an influence on me since I became interested in clothing decades back. Though do think the coat of many colours may be a bit OTT.

Started watching Tom Baker era show again from the start. Watched it through a couple of times over last couple of decades. & had seen it when it was first on. Which had me wondering when I had first watched Dr Who. If it was something my brother had been watching before I was really aware of things. Like if I was born in 67 and my brother in 63 if it was something I sat in front of as a baby. I definitely remember several Jon Pertwee stories from the time. So assume we watched it regularly throughout his era.

Watched all of the show that still had footage through a couple of times. Over last decade and a half. I'm not as into the later classic era. Think things decline for me from when Tom Baker stops wearing late 19th/early 20th century clothing and gets a costume redesign. It's still watchable I think but a bit lesser. Sylvester McCoy gets some really naff stories. Peter Davison gets a pantomime monster that is clearly 2 guys in a costume and I find him less interesting overall than the earlier stuff.

I am 100% lost to the matching game

Also I just got to 11 for the first time

I got 10 TWICE yesterday, #goals

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NMgKaTU9-bQ

yoooooooo Janet Fielding is so great, it’s unreal

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tEkC6InjWQ8

Still can't really get used to the show having a big SFX budget.

great way to showcase the new doctor, flash him up wordlessly for 2-3 seconds at the end

that said NPH is a good Celestial Toymaker

This looks like it's mostly an advert for one special - I could well believe it's a victory lap for Tate and Tennant (which I am 100% here for) and maybe the same amount of Gatwa in this one as Tennant in the previous (or none!).

I don’t expect Gatwa to be in the first two specials at all, and likely not more than a regeneration scene at the end of the third.

(Multi-doctor anniversary shenanigans teaming up the Fourteenth and Fifteenth together would be fun, but likely bemusing to the genpop audience that Tennant / Tate are expected to win back, compared to a handover at the end)