Past Seasons: Classic Who

[elle]

the Meddling Monk?  What a great character name!

 

that the serial was never distributed overseas (having to do with how grim it was).

Was that actual policy or a choice of some unknown tptb?

[Llywela]

the Meddling Monk?  What a great character name!

Hee. And it does exactly what it says on the tin, too! He dresses as a Monk and he loves to meddle! The character is basically a trickster, playing games with other peoples' lives because he can and laughing at his own jokes while the devastation unfolds around him - a rogue Time Lord who likes to interfere for all the wrong reasons. When we meet him in The Time Meddler, he's dressed as a Monk for purposes of undercover in 1066. Then when he shows up again on the other side of the galaxy (and then again in ancient Egypt) in The Daleks' Master Plan he's still dressed as a Monk, for no apparent reason other than identity branding!

 

 

Was that actual policy or a choice of some unknown tptb?

It was only episode 7, The Feast of Steven, that was never offered for sale overseas, as it was considered throwaway Christmas fluff. The other 11 episodes were telerecorded for overseas sale as an 11-part version but although viewing prints were sent abroad, the right to broadcast was not purchased and what became of those viewing prints is not known. In those days, broadcasters didn't buy rights to an entire season of Doctor Who, they purchased individual serials on their own merits. The Daleks' Master Plan was considered too long and too grim, which is a shame. I mean, it is a dark story - two companions and a close ally of the Doctor all lose their lives along the way, and the Doctor's eventual victory is pyrrhic - but it's really engaging stuff.

[benteen]

Reading the description makes it sound epic enough.  It's hard to judge the episodes that are available because they are out of place (although I liked Episode 10 with the Monk).  Jean Marsh appears in the arc as Sara Kingdom and it marks the first ever appearance of the future Brigadier Nicholas Courtney as a completely different character.

 

A new creative team had taken over Doctor Who shortly before The Daleks Master Plan and were not happy with the prospect of being stuck with such a long serial.

 

As stated, the Meddling Monk was the first Time Lord after The Doctor and Susan that the audience met, although the name of the Doctor's species was still unknown at the time.  He stole a more advanced TARDIS than the Doctor's with a functioning chameleon circuit about 50 years after the Doctor did.  It's hard to believe they never brought him back or the Celestial Toymaker.  The Toymaker was played by Michael Gough (Alfred from the Batman films) and was supposed to come back to face Colin Baker's Doctor but sadly that was when the BBC put Doctor Who on an 18-month hiatus.

 

I just finished the final part of the Black Guardian trilogy, Enlightenment and I have to say I really enjoyed it.  Starting to get the appeal behind the Turlough character.

Edited October 18, 2014 by benteen

[HauntedBathroom]

As stated, the Meddling Monk was the first Time Lord after The Doctor and Susan that the audience met, although the name of the Doctor's species was still unknown at the time.  He stole a more advanced TARDIS than the Doctor's with a functioning chameleon circuit about 50 years after the Doctor did.  It's hard to believe they never brought him back

 

He's turned up in Big Finish, although he has been recast.

Edited October 19, 2014 by HauntedBathroom

[Llywela]

Reading the description makes it sound epic enough.  It's hard to judge the episodes that are available because they are out of place (although I liked Episode 10 with the Monk).  Jean Marsh appears in the arc as Sara Kingdom and it marks the first ever appearance of the future Brigadier Nicholas Courtney as a completely different character.

Ah, see, I didn't watch the existing episodes in isolation - I watched all 12 episodes in order, 9 of them as recons! I've got the hang of recons now, more or less. Some are easier to get into than others. This one sucked me in, at times I forgot I wasn't watching moving footage - same thing happened with Marco Polo, which I loved to bits.

[benteen]

Oh, I didn't know there were reconstructions for that.  I did see the 30-minute reconstruction for Marco Polo and it was excellent.  I agree with what you said that it doesn't feel like you're watching footage that doesn't move.  Like a real Ken Burns effect.

[Llywela]

Oh, I didn't know there were reconstructions for that.  I did see the 30-minute reconstruction for Marco Polo and it was excellent.  I agree with what you said that it doesn't feel like you're watching footage that doesn't move.  Like a real Ken Burns effect.

There are reconstructions available for every missing episode - most are fan made (but amazing, seriously - check out Loose Cannon's work) and only available online, but well worth the effort of finding. Daily Motion is the best place to start, I think most are also on Youtube (I acquired mine via torrent, so they are older and not the best versions available, but convenient). Now, when I watched the 30 minute Marco Polo recon I enjoyed it, but thought it was only so-so - 7 episodes condensed into 30 minutes, I was aware that there was a lot missing, but I'd always thought I wouldn't cope with full recons. Then one day I decided I cared enough about getting the complete picture on my 1st-Doctor-in-order re-watch to brave the world of the recon...and sat spellbound through 7 reconstructed episodes of Marco Polo. I wasn't expecting that. Hook, line and sinker. Seriously, that 30 minute recon doesn't give you anything like the real story. You get the main gist of the plot, sure, but Marco Polo isn't a story about a plot, it's a story about a journey. It's the story where the Doctor and his companions really bond for the first time - after the stresses of their first three adventures, which took place over a period of only a few frantic days, Marco Polo spans months, months in which they are all in it together, as a unit, pulling together rather than pulling apart as they'd tended to previously. The plot is merely a device to give them that time together, trapped in 13th century China. Everyone grows, relationships develop, Susan strikes up a beautiful friendship with a girl named Ping Cho. It's a lovely story, it really is, top of my list of 'missing serials I want to see recovered'. The sets and costumes were amazing, the dialogue is beautiful - everything about it just works.

 

Frustratingly, it is one of the serials that should be most likely to be recovered, as so many copies of it were made and distributed, yet not even a single episode has ever turned up.

Edited October 19, 2014 by Llywela

[elle]

 

Starting to get the appeal behind the Turlough character.

I always have to look up that name and when I do, I have to laugh be he is "that red-headed guy, I remember from watching Doctor Who".  I think I started really watching the show to figure out what that guy was up to.  The episode that stands out for me is Enlightenment, which is the last of Black Guardian trilogy, though I did not know that at the time.

 

7 reconstructed episodes of Marco Polo

That sounds like a good adventure.  I have seen reconstructed silent movies where they use stills.  I would be interested to see how they do it for a tv series.

[benteen]

It really is amazing they haven't found Marco Polo as it was distributed to 19 countries.  But it's one of three stories/serials that you can't even find any footage of.  There was rumors about a years ago that the whole serial had been found but it looks like those rumors weren't true.

[Robert]

the Meddling Monk?  What a great character name!

 

 

 

Was that actual policy or a choice of some unknown tptb?

 

 

Also IIRC, back in the 60s the first country to buy any BBC Serial was the ABC in Australia, and as a part of the agreement back then with the BBC, in purchasing those serials, it would take on the vast bulk of the overall cost of international distribution rights to televise it, thus making the costs for other, not so richer places (New Zealand, Singapore, Nigeria et cetera) more affordable. When the ABC in Australia past on a serial (like it did with the Daleks Master Plan) it just wasn't financial for other places to take the cost on themselves as they often didn't have the budget that Australia had.

 

I wish 'Marco Polo' could be found as all the sets do appear vary luscious and beautiful. It is one of my favourite reconstructed episodes mainly because of the sheer amount of photos taken during that serial, it is the one reconstruction that feels the 'most complete' because of that (plus a lot of the reconstruction being very lovingly colour tinted).

[SnideAsides]

The Edge of Destruction: Amazingly creepy. I'm usually a fan of bottle episodes anyway - they're the sort of thing that forces a writer to be more creative to counteract the setting, and it almost always pays off in the ones I've seen - but this one had kind of a German Expressionism feeling that made it so surreal and brilliant. I'd be shocked if it's still my favourite Hartnell story by the end of this marathon, but currently it's leading. Plus Barbara finally got something to do! And the Doctor finally grew up! Amazing.

 

Glad to hear Marco Polo is worth sitting through the recons for. Now that I'm done with this one, it's next on my list, and I wasn't sure whether to skip it or find time for it. I think I'll persevere through it - I listened to about ten minutes of what I'm told is a mediocre Big Finish story (Dreamtime, but we'll save that discussion for when I eventually decide to marathon them too and I've forgotten what I've heard) so I could get an idea of how I was going to feel, and it seemed fine - but it may not be for another week or so.

[benteen]

The Edge of Destruction wasn't bad though I didn't get why all four of them were acting so odd.  I did love the scene between The Doctor and Barbara at the end though.

 

I think with audio from the old episodes is tougher to listen to without visual representation.  Which makes since it was obviously done for television and not as an audio drama.  The official reconstructions I've seen of Marco Polo, Galaxy Four, and Episode 3 of The Web of Fear, I've greatly enjoyed because they did such a great job with the tele-snaps that I didn't feel as if I was losing a lot (though of course I'd love to see the actual episodes).  But listening to the audio only of Episode 2 of The Crusade (on the Lost in Time DVD along with the audio for Episode 4) I just couldn't sit through it.  I needed that visual representation.

 

I think The Massacre of St. Bartholomew's Eve is probably the serial that is hardest hit.  The audio is still around but no episodes and no footage exist.  Apparently only 3-4 production photos were taken too.

[Llywela]

I'm not that keen on Edge of Destruction, myself - it's a really intriguing concept, but was written in a rush and it shows, and the direction and technical limitations fail to sell the concept, there isn't enough explanation of, for e.g. the mass hallucinations they all suffer, etc. It's a really important step forward in the ongoing story of the Doctor and his companions and their developing relationship, though.

 

The Crusade is fabulous - I recommend experiencing it via recon, though, rather than audio only. I'm not great with audiobooks in general, and these episodes were always intended as a visual medium, so recon is almost always better than audio only. Neither option is perfect, though - the surviving episodes make it clear how much visual nuance we're missing. :(

 

I've just reached The Massacre in my ongoing Hartnell era marathon - the recon I've got isn't great quality, but better than nothing. They've had to be extremely inventive to put it together!

[benteen]

The two episodes of The Crusade that are available are really good.  When you have Julian Glover and Jean Marsh as your two main guest stars, you know you're in for a good show.

 

Have you finished The Massacre yet, Llywela?

[Llywela]

Have you finished The Massacre yet, Llywela?

Haven't started yet! It's just next on the list, but I don't get as much quality viewing time as I'd like. I'll watch it in chunks over the next couple of weeks. I've read the novelisation, so I know what happens - always interesting to compare the two, in fact, to see how much was amended for the book! I know that Hartnell was on holiday during the serial, so is missing for a big chunk of time, whereas the novelisation went back to an earlier draft before that holiday was announced, so has the Doctor playing a bigger role.

Edited October 22, 2014 by Llywela

[Sandman87]

Still watching on RetroTV. Boy the writers really liked the Master when they first introduced him. He's featured in three serials in a row so far, plus the next two (according to the cast lists in Wikipedia). That's an entire season of Master episodes.

[Llywela]

Still watching on RetroTV. Boy the writers really liked the Master when they first introduced him. He's featured in three serials in a row so far, plus the next two (according to the cast lists in Wikipedia). That's an entire season of Master episodes.

That's the 1971 version of a story arc: a common thread running through all the adventures in a season, linking them together and providing continuity. With the Doctor trapped on Earth, providing him with an arch-nemesis was good story fodder, a plausible reason for wild adventures, rather than a sudden rash of unconnected alien invasions.

[benteen]

Haven't started yet! It's just next on the list, but I don't get as much quality viewing time as I'd like. I'll watch it in chunks over the next couple of weeks. I've read the novelisation, so I know what happens - always interesting to compare the two, in fact, to see how much was amended for the book! I know that Hartnell was on holiday during the serial, so is missing for a big chunk of time, whereas the novelisation went back to an earlier draft before that holiday was announced, so has the Doctor playing a bigger role.

 

Cool.  I read the novelization to Doctor Who and the Tenth Planet.  I read it was written as it originally was with the Doctor having a bigger role (Hartnell was sick during the third episode) although to tell you the truth I didn't notice much of a change.  They did change the first regeneration scene at the end though.

 

I read the summary for The Massacre on Wiki and I read towards the end that the Doctor makes a rare reference to Susan by name.

[eXiled]

Does RetroTV run all the classic episodes? I don't get that channel. I've been watching classic Who on Netflix and enjoying it a fair bit. My favorite of the early doctors is the Second Doctor, Patrick Troughton. Looks like most of his episodes were lost. Such a shame.

[Llywela]

Does RetroTV run all the classic episodes? I don't get that channel. I've been watching classic Who on Netflix and enjoying it a fair bit. My favorite of the early doctors is the Second Doctor, Patrick Troughton. Looks like most of his episodes were lost. Such a shame.

I don't think they are running all of them, but certainly a good selection.

 

I love Patrick Troughton's Doctor, and his companions, but they were horribly hard hit by the missing episodes. :(

[eXiled]

Thanks for replying. I guess I'd hoped that more Second Doctor episodes had survived and that some kind soul would upload the eps somewhere. :) I'm also deeply curious about the Sixth Doctor. He seems to be despised (the clothes alone send me into a rage spiral!) but I'd love to see a few more of his episodes. Netflix pretends Sixth Doctor never existed! I saw one or two of his eps on Youtube, though, along with this hilarious video:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7EnhqkBXPgw

[Llywela]

Thanks for replying. I guess I'd hoped that more Second Doctor episodes had survived and that some kind soul would upload the eps somewhere. :) I'm also deeply curious about the Sixth Doctor. He seems to be despised (the clothes alone send me into a rage spiral!) but I'd love to see a few more of his episodes. Netflix pretends Sixth Doctor never existed! I saw one or two of his eps on Youtube, though, along with this hilarious video:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7EnhqkBXPgw

Oh, if it helps, here's a list of 2nd Doctor serials and which episodes exist - I've bolded the ones that have been released on DVD; these either exist in full or have one or two episodes animated/reconstructed:

 

Season 4 (1966-67):

30. Power of the Daleks - 6 eps (all eps audio only) - Ben & Polly

31. The Highlanders - 4 eps (all eps audio only) - Ben, Polly & Jamie

32. The Underwater Menace - 4 eps (episodes 1&4 audio only) - Ben, Polly & Jamie

33. The Moonbase - 4 eps (episodes 1&3 audio only; animated) - Ben, Polly & Jamie

34. The Macra Terror - 4 eps (all eps audio only) - Ben, Polly & Jamie

35. The Faceless Ones - 6 eps (episodes 2,4,5&6 audio only) - Ben, Polly & Jamie

36. The Evil of the Daleks - 7 eps (episodes 1,3,4,5,6&7 audio only) - Jamie & Victoria

 

Season 5 (1967-68):

37. The Tomb of the Cybermen - 4 eps - Jamie & Victoria

38. The Abominable Snowmen - 6 eps (episodes 1,3,4,5&6 audio only) - Jamie & Victoria

39. The Ice Warriors - 6 eps (episodes 2&3 audio only; animated) - Jamie & Victoria

40. The Enemy of the World - 6 eps  - Jamie & Victoria

41. The Web of Fear - 6 eps (episode 3 audio only; reconstructed) - Jamie & Victoria

42. Fury from the Deep - 6 eps (all eps audio only) - Jamie & Victoria

43. The Wheel in Space - 6 eps (episodes 1,2,4&5 audio only) - Jamie & Zoe

 

Season 6 (1968-69):

44. The Dominators - 5 eps - Jamie & Zoe

45. The Mind Robber - 5 eps - Jamie & Zoe

46. The Invasion - 8 eps (episodes 1&4 audio only; animated) - Jamie & Zoe

47. The Krotons - 4 eps - Jamie & Zoe

48. The Seeds of Death - 6 eps - Jamie & Zoe

49. The Space Pirates - 6 eps (episodes 1,3,4,5&6 audio only) - Jamie & Zoe

50. The War Games - 10 eps - Jamie & Zoe

 

I'm rather fond of the 6th Doctor. His era has some awful writing and suffers badly from budget cuts - it was made as cheaply as possible and it shows - but it isn't as bad as popular opinion would have it and he does have some decent stuff and is a lovely character. Mark of the Rani is probably my favourite 6th Doctor serial. You get used to the clothes after a while!

Edited October 23, 2014 by Llywela

[tv-talk]

Hulu has tons of Classic Doctor who that Netflix doesnt carry, between the 2 best coverage I've found for Classic Doctor episodes. I like 6 also, seems like his initial insanity tainted his run more than it should have...he was pretty good actually.

[eXiled]

Thanks for the responses! I feel so silly. It never occurred to me to look for DVDs. I am already such a rabid fan that I'll look for some to purchase.

 

I subscribe to Hulu Plus and never looked at Doctor Who on it because I wrongly assumed their programming would match Netflix's. I won't make that mistake again. I've used Hulu Plus to sample a few eps of the Sarah Jane Adventures (even more kid-friendly than Doctor Who!) Thanks so much to @Llywela and @tv-talk for your help.

 

One thing about Colin Baker is that he's voted least favorite Doctor, but apparently, he's he best "audio" Doctor. I agree. The man has such a distinctive voice that I recognized him as the narrator of a couple of DW documentaries I recently watched. Also he seems to have a sense of humor about the whole thing. He was particularly hilarious in The Five-ish Doctors Reboot.

Edited October 23, 2014 by eXiled

[Llywela]

Bolding the ones that have been released on DVD was mostly intended just to indicate which ones are complete or near complete, for ease of reference. I fully support all support of the range, though, as the restoration team put a phenomenal amount of work into whipping those cracky old films into shape and creating extra material for the releases - they invented whole new technologies along the way.

[benteen]

I don't think they are running all of them, but certainly a good selection.

 

I love Patrick Troughton's Doctor, and his companions, but they were horribly hard hit by the missing episodes. :(

 

Along with Tom Baker, Patrick Troughton is my favorite Doctor of the classic era that I've seen (I'm going to start the 6th and 7th Doctor actor soon).  It was so good and infectious in the part, a joy to watch.  You can tell he was an influence on Matt Smith's characterization of the Doctor.  The reunion specials might have been a mixed bag (although I liked The Five Doctors a lot) but they were worth it simply to introduce Troughton's Doctor to a new group of fans.  He dominated both of them with his performance.  Not to mention he had a great companion in Jamie, who really was the first real "friend" that the Doctor had from his companions.

[ketose]

There aren't all that many sixth Doctor episodes to begin with. They expanded the show to 45 minutes in his first season, which led to fewer total episodes. I would highly recommend renting the "Trial of a Time Lord" DVDs. I got mine from Netflix and there were 2-3 discs, I think. Even though I watched that when PBS first rebroadcast it, I had no idea about the back story, which is covered in the special features. Basically, Doctor Who was cancelled after the first season of Six. Fan reaction made the BBC bring it back, and they lied and said they were "resting" it. They couldn't bring it back for 18 months because the budget was already allocated for BBC. When they did, they scrapped the original 23rd season and made the 14 part Trial instead.

 

There are elements of Six I liked that were unfortunately hurt by the outfit, (basically JNT's fault) his somewhat erratic characterization and the fact that Mel appeared out of sequence, so we never saw her introduced. Plus, what happened to Peri didn't make any sense.

[benteen]

After finishing Resurrection of the Daleks a few days ago, I finished Planet of Fire the other day and really enjoyed it.  Good final appearance for Turlough, a good story, and some beautiful location shooting.  Considering the budget limitations this show had during its original one, the location filming here does give it a legit alien vibe.

 

Up next, The Caves of Androzani...I only hope it's as good as I've heard it is.

[BizBuzz]

Up next, The Caves of Androzani...I only hope it's as good as I've heard it is.

 

Not that it matters, but this arc made me really like Five.  I hope you enjoy it!

[Lantern7]

I think it was rated the fourth-best story in the last Doctor Who Magazine readers poll, and it was ranked first in prior polls. I see it as the epitome of the Five era, in terms of body count, but you can see the excellence come out.

[benteen]

I just finished watching The Caves of Androzani and I very much enjoyed it.  Strong story, guest cast, and another one with better-than-usual production values.  Definitely the best episode for the Fifth Doctor due to his heroic efforts to save Peri and his regeneration is EPIC.  Now that's how you do it!  With that, I've seen every regeneration now (saw the clip of Six's regeneration...played by the 7th). 

 

I think I'll skip The Twin Dilemma and move onto some other Sixth Doctor tales before finally beginning the 7th Doctor era.

[Llywela]

I'm very fond of The Caves of Androzani - one of Davison's strongest performances, I think.

 

On the subject of The Twin Dilemma, I watched it this week for the first time since 1984, when I was 7, and maybe having low expectations and already being familiar with the 6th Doctor helped, but I thought it was a hoot - nowhere near as bad as I was expecting. I mean, the story is pants, but I thought the Doctor was actually both written and performed with more nuance and range than Capaldi has been allowed for half this season, and although Peri does tend to be a bit whiny, she coped admirably with a difficult situation and adjusted to a difficult new Doctor with a lot more grace than Clara - without letting either him or anyone else walk all over her, as she is usually accused. And she was far less experienced at that point than Clara (and a lot younger, too).

[SnideAsides]

Marco Polo... I don't know. I get that the seven episodes helps convey how much time the crew spent with Marco, and I get that it's well written, and the few photos that exist make it look visually stunning, but despite all that it's not particularly good? Or at least, it's good but it doesn't feel like the show I'm supposed to be watching? Then again, next up is The Keys of Marinus, which is one of the Hartnell stories I'm most looking forward to, so perhaps I was just projecting my desire to get to it onto the episode.

[benteen]

I liked what I saw of the Marco Polo reconstruction but then again, it was a 30-minute condensed version of it.  I still hope one of these days that the complete serial is found.

[Llywela]

I really love Marco Polo, all 7 episodes of it. It's probably one that's easily misunderstood, as there isn't a great deal of action but there doesn't need to be, imo.  It's a story about a journey and an important transitional stage in the development of the characters and their relationships. The first three adventures of the show took place over a period of no more than a few days in the lives of the characters, a frantic few days in which they were thrown together largely against their will, and neither understood nor trusted one another. Marco Polo takes place over a period of months and gives the characters breathing space to process everything they've been through, sees the four travellers bond as a unit for the first time, all in this together. By the time they begin their next adventure, The Keys of Marinus, they are a team, firm friends rather than mere reluctant allies.

 

Also, Marco Polo kind of represents what I love best about the Hartnell era, which is the freshness and freedom of the format. The show hadn't yet become defined by a particular format and was free to experiment with its central concept. It hadn't reached the stage where it believed it needed a monster to tell a story. It was a show about a group of time travellers, and allowing them to spend time exploring the past was a natural facet of that basic set-up - one that has since been lost, subsumed by the perceived need for a monster in every story. I like that minor setbacks can become massive obstacles in this era, because that feels very real - often, it feels more real than the glibness of the modern era. The smaller scale of the stories feels more intimate and believable.

 

So, yeah, I really love Marco Polo. I love the slow, leisurely pace, the gorgeous sets and costumes, the beautifully stylised dialogue, the development of the characters, the relationships they form along the way - all of it.

Edited October 27, 2014 by Llywela

[Mr. Simpatico]

I'm very fond of The Caves of Androzani - one of Davison's strongest performances, I think.

 

On the subject of The Twin Dilemma, I watched it this week for the first time since 1984, when I was 7, and maybe having low expectations and already being familiar with the 6th Doctor helped, but I thought it was a hoot - nowhere near as bad as I was expecting. I mean, the story is pants, but I thought the Doctor was actually both written and performed with more nuance and range than Capaldi has been allowed for half this season, and although Peri does tend to be a bit whiny, she coped admirably with a difficult situation and adjusted to a difficult new Doctor with a lot more grace than Clara - without letting either him or anyone else walk all over her, as she is usually accused. And she was far less experienced at that point than Clara (and a lot younger, too).

I think Peri (N. Bryant) and Six (C. Baker) were the saving grace of The Twin Dilemma - which is, as you say, "pants". It's a horribly written non-sensical story and I think the reason it sticks out like a sore thumb is because it came right after possibly the best story in the history of Who, with the demise of a very popular Doctor, in a season that wasn't half bad up till that point (even Davison has said he was beginning to regret choosing to leave). And then we get a story with an obnoxious Doctor who disses his predecessor, chooses a ridiculous outfit that was impossible to take seriously (something even JNT later admitted) and then tried to KILL his companion (which I think is the thing that clinches its dreadfulness). Why Peri chose to stay after that is never explored. If the Doctor's regeneration was one that had gone "wrong" was also never explored. Instead we get two teenage twin actors who couldn't act in a story that was illogical. Yet Bryant and Baker were a good team from the get-go, the Doctor was clearly established (unlike Capaldi a season in)  and I've always thought Peri was wasted (Big Finish has shown that Nicola Bryant is a much better actor than they let her show) and if the duo had some half-way decents scripts in the following season and hadn't been put on "hiatus" for over a year by Michael Grade/BBC I think the "death" of Peri in season would have been an even bigger shock in Who history than it was - because viewers would have cared.

Edited October 29, 2014 by Mr. Simpatico

[Llywela]

Have you finished The Massacre yet, Llywela?

Just finished The Massacre, which is a really interesting story - the Doctor's only real outing with a solo male companion (they pick up Dodo at the end, but not until the adventure has ended and they've moved on) and the Doctor is barely even in the story, because Hartnell was on holiday. Steven carries the entire thing, dropped into a time and place that's completely alien to him and just abandoned to struggle through as best he can, absolutely rudderless yet trying so hard to find the right thing to do at every step along the way. He's so doggedly loyal to the Doctor throughout, it's almost painful to see him finally break and lose faith at the end, but he's been through so much at this point, after the painful losses of the Daleks' Master Plan and then being unable to save the life of anyone he befriended here. As usual, I long for the visual, but even just in the audio Peter Purves does an excellent job. I can see where this would be a difficult story for children to watch - it's proper historical drama, rather than sci fi adventure, elegant but weighty and dry, and relies heavily on guest characters, with the Doctor barely present at all. I really enjoyed it, though - despite the lousiness of the recon.

Edited October 28, 2014 by Llywela

[elle]

For those of you who have been rewatching the classic episodes of Who, have you noticed a tif the writers have a trend between Doctor to Doctor where the new one refers back to the previous incarnation's adventures, maybe even negating what a previous self had done?

[benteen]

Just finished The Massacre, which is a really interesting story - the Doctor's only real outing with a solo male companion (they pick up Dodo at the end, but not until the adventure has ended and they've moved on) and the Doctor is barely even in the story, because Hartnell was on holiday. Steven carries the entire thing, dropped into a time and place that's completely alien to him and just abandoned to struggle through as best he can, absolutely rudderless yet trying so hard to find the right thing to do at every step along the way. He's so doggedly loyal to the Doctor throughout, it's almost painful to see him finally break and lose faith at the end, but he's been through so much at this point, after the painful losses of the Daleks' Master Plan and then being unable to save the life of anyone he befriended here. As usual, I long for the visual, but even just in the audio Peter Purves does an excellent job. I can see where this would be a difficult story for children to watch - it's proper historical drama, rather than sci fi adventure, elegant but weighty and dry, and relies heavily on guest characters, with the Doctor barely present at all. I really enjoyed it, though - despite the lousiness of the recon.

 

Sounds interesting.  It's too bad that this serial is completely lost.  I also read that Hartnell played two roles in it, being the first Doctor to do so.

 

The Daleks Master Plan and then The Massacre...talk about 16 episodes of hell for the Doctor and his companions.

 

The Doctor also make a rare reference to Susan at the end if I recall?

[Llywela]

For those of you who have been rewatching the classic episodes of Who, have you noticed a tif the writers have a trend between Doctor to Doctor where the new one refers back to the previous incarnation's adventures, maybe even negating what a previous self had done?

Not that I've noticed. There are odd references back to past selves, here and there, but I can't recall any occasion when a Doctor negates something his past self did. Not off the top of my head, anyway.

 

Sounds interesting.  It's too bad that this serial is completely lost.  I also read that Hartnell played two roles in it, being the first Doctor to do so.

 

The Daleks Master Plan and then The Massacre...talk about 16 episodes of hell for the Doctor and his companions.

 

The Doctor also make a rare reference to Susan at the end if I recall?

Aye, Hartnell does play two roles - the Doctor and the Abbot of Amboise. It's actually quite a weakness in the story, though, that the doppelganger concept isn't exploited more - it was supposed to be and the novelisation reverts to the original script, going into great detail to show what the Doctor is up to, impersonating the Abbot at key moments to try to help the oppressed apothecaries and Huguenots, but because Hartnell was unavailable for part of the production of the serial, that sub-plot was dropped. So on-screen the Doctor vanishes early on and then when Steven sees the Abbot of Amboise neither he nor the audience knows if it is the Doctor in disguise or just someone who looks like him - and we never find out, the Doctor simply disappears for 3/4 days and never tells Steven what he was doing all that time, and only at the very end does he realise the significance of the date and hurry Steven back to the TARDIS before the massacre begins, leaving Steven distraught that they couldn't save even a single life. So, yes, 16 episodes of hell indeed! And this is the end of the era where character and continuity are important to the show - with a new regime at the helm, that character focus begins to fall away through the remainder of season 3, so I really appreciate it here.

 

Although my absolute favourite thing about The Massacre is that having landed in 16th century Paris, the very first thing the Doctor and Steven do is find a pub to have a quiet drink together!

 

The Doctor does make a rare reference to Susan at the end. The TARDIS actually leaves Paris about 2/3 of the way through episode 4, allowing lots of time for the emotional fallout as Steven finally snaps, because he's been pretty much abandoned for days, he honestly believed the Doctor was dead at one point, and then when the Doctor finally reappeared he waited until they were back in the TARDIS and on their way to tell Steven that all the people he just befriended are about to be slaughtered and Steven is horrified, he can't understand why he couldn't be allowed to save even one life - and he doesn't mention that they just rescued poor Katarina from the fall of Troy, but it has to be on his mind, because why Katarina and not Anne Chaplet? Anne was a young serving girl who'd latched onto Steven as the first person who'd ever been kind to her, he promised to look after her, and is devastated that the Doctor simply sent her home knowing she would die rather than allow her to escape in the TARDIS - he feels his trust in the Doctor has been betrayed. So he decides he wants to leave at the next place they land, wherever that is, because the Doctor is being aloof and won't explain himself, but then after he's gone storming off, the Doctor kind of crumbles and gives a beautiful soliloquy, lamenting that none of his companions have ever really understood the dangers and necessities of time travel, not even his little Susan. He namechecks all the primary companions in this scene - Susan, Ian, Barbara, Vicki. It's really powerful stuff - character exploration and consequences that the modern show would be proud of (and, in fact, could learn from! This all stems naturally from the characters and their experiences, without being artificially manipulated for the sake of drama). This and The Daleks' Master Plan make 16 really strong episodes in a row.

 

And then Dodo wanders into the TARDIS thinking it's a real police box, and Steven rushes back because he's seen two policemen approaching and sudden fear for the Doctor overrides his anger, and off they go again - into a rather more lightweight era, by comparison!

Edited October 29, 2014 by Llywela

[Joe]

 

I can't recall any occasion when a Doctor negates something his past self did.

He sinks Atlantis three different times, I believe. Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, three times is deliberate. What does he have against the place?

[Llywela]

He sinks Atlantis three different times, I believe. Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, three times is deliberate. What does he have against the place?

The Doctor doesn't sink Atlantis on any of the occasions he visits. He just isn't able to save the place.

 

I can only think of two occasions when the Doctor actually visits Atlantis - they contradict one another, rather than being an example of continuity! In The Underwater Menace, the 2nd Doctor, Ben, Polly and Jamie land on Atlantis, which has a thriving underwater civilisation who live in hope of returning to the surface and have placed their hope in a mad scientist, who instead plans to destroy the world. The Doctor saves the world, but is unable to save Atlantis, and the city is destroyed with only a few survivors. Then in The Time Monster, the 3rd Doctor and Jo visit an entirely different Atlantis, in the distant past, which is then destroyed when the Master unleashes a Chronovore - again, the world is saved at the expense of Atlantis.

 

The other mention of Atlantis in the classic series is in The Daemons, again with the 3rd Doctor and Jo, but it is only referred to there rather than visited. The fate of Atlantis mentioned here is different again. So there are loads of fan theories about what was going on with Atlantis, trying to tie the stories together or suggesting that there were different Atlantises. But mostly, it was just that the writers wanted to use Atlantis again and didn't care that it had already been done!

 

I suppose we could argue that the Atlantis visited by the 2nd Doctor was then overwritten by the 3rd Doctor's visit in a later adventure that took place in an earlier timeline...or that the one led to the situation in the other...

[ketose]

Yet Bryant and Baker were a good team from the get-go, the Doctor was clearly established (unlike Capaldi a season in)  and I've always thought Peri was wasted (Big Finish has shown that Nicola Bryant is a much better actor than they let her show) and if the duo had some half-way decents scripts in the following season and hadn't been put on "hiatus" for over a year by Michael Grade/BBC I think the "death" of Peri in season would have been an even bigger shock in Who history than it was - because viewers would have cared.

Did Nicola Bryant have to maintain an "American" accent in the Big Finish stories?

 

Michael Grade can burn in hell.

[Joe]

 

Did Nicola Bryant have to maintain an "American" accent in the Big Finish stories?

Yes.

[SnideAsides]

So I had some extra spare time and polished off both The Keys of Marinus and The Aztecs. Marinus was hilariously, beautifully off-the-wall in exactly the best way (cardboard set highlight: William Russell barging against a door, almost knocking it off its hinges, and immediately complaining as Ian that it was locked tight), and Aztecs was like a much better version of Marco Polo. I'm still not entirely sold on flat historicals as a Who genre - there just isn't the same sense of jeopardy in Marco Polo as there was in The Daleks or The Keys of Marinus - but there's definitely promise to the concept, as long as they stay away from known historical figures like they did in The Aztecs.

[benteen]

The Keys of Marinus is among a couple of First Doctor serials I still need to watch.  But I've seen The Aztecs and very much enjoyed it.  Ian is a badass in it, Barbara has a lot to do, and the Doctor gets his only romantic storyline of the ENTIRE Classic Who era.  The woman, Cameca, was mentioned recently in Titan's new 10th Doctor series.  10 says she's a dear friend whom he visits from time to time.

[Llywela]

Cameca is delightful. I really enjoy The Aztecs - it moves at a nice brisk pace, everyone has a share of the sub-plotting, the conflict between characters stems from within (their very different personalities and knowledge base and opinions) rather than being contrived from without and works beautifully to further explore their personalities and dynamics. Great stuff!

 

I've just moved onto The Ark after finishing The Massacre. Now, I've seen this one before, but I pretty much watched it in isolation last time, as a standalone, and watching the first episode again now as part of a marathon it really struck me what a difference it makes to watch this era in order. I mean, there isn't a through-arc like you'd get today, not even consistent, ongoing character stories as such, but it still makes a huge difference to watch these stories in order, because this era of the show was constructed not as an anthology of standalone multi-part adventures, as we often think of it, but as an ongoing series in which each episode fed into the next.. So if you watch the opening episode of this story in isolation, as part of a standalone adventure, Steven comes across as a bit of a random buzzkill in the opening scenes, the heavy-handed authority figure to Dodo's youthful playfulness. But when you return 'The Steel Sky' to its original context, watched not as the first instalment of a standalone serial called The Ark but as the episode that follows 'Bell of Doom' in a continuing series, his attitude suddenly makes perfect sense and plays as delightful character continuity: he is coming directly off the back of two very fraught adventures in which he made a number of good friends and then watched them die, and his over-cautious attitude toward Dodo here is a natural reaction. He barely knows her, but he's going to watch out for her safety nonetheless because he's seen too many people die already – they are in this together now! Knowing all that, being aware of what came before, makes such a difference. I'm finding Dodo easier to get a handle on this time, as well, now that I've seen her introductory scene at the end of The Massacre. This era of the show didn't have pre-planned arcs. It had progression. It was an ongoing story that always moved forward, and following it in order does make a difference.

[SnideAsides]

The Sensorites is a bit shit, isn't it? Probably the first story so far I wouldn't go back and rewatch unless I decided to marathon the show again. I don't know whether it was the story itself or whether it was just that it kind of felt like a bad theatre show, but something just didn't work. On the plus side, it put me in the perfect mood to appreciate Death in Heaven, so.

[elle]

When Three was stranded on Earth, the TARDIS was in the UNIT HQ, right?  Did they show the interior of the TARDIS often or was it a prop in the background?

[Llywela]

When Three was stranded on Earth, the TARDIS was in the UNIT HQ, right?  Did they show the interior of the TARDIS often or was it a prop in the background?

Through season 7 we never saw inside the TARDIS at all, the exterior was just a prop, but the Doctor removed the console and brought it out into his lab to work on it, trying to repair it. Then in season 8 he started making short hops in the TARDIS again, although it was still tied to Earth - he rather bitterly described himself as a 'cosmic yo-yo'. So from that time on we'd start seeing inside the TARDIS again - even the Earth-bound adventures, he'd often pop inside to tinker. Season 10 he was given full control of the TARDIS back and started going on longer jaunts - habit and familiarity kept him returning to UNIT for a few seasons, but those returns became fewer and farther between. Regeneration further loosened the bond and he began to drift even further away, and then when he no longer had companions from that period, he stopped going back completely.