Past Seasons: Classic Who

[Sandman87]

Another thing that struck me: At one point Perri (or maybe it was the one after her) made a comment about #6 "having a thing about cats." Made me wonder why they never bothered to have an actual cat on the show with him. The cat lapel pins were cute and all, but it's not as if there had never been any other BBC shows with cats appearing in scenes before. Reginald Perrin springs to mind immediately.

[Featherhat]

I suggest listening to Colin Baker's Doctor on the Big Finish audios especially paired with a companion they invented for the audio called Evelyn Smythe.  I COMPLETELY agree with you about how he came across on tv but on the audios he grows to be loveable and very entertaining.  There are also no words for Colin in character singing" I Am the Very Model of a Gallifryan Buccaneer" in a parody of The Pirates of Penzanz.

 

Saw a documentary of classic who and thought it was interesting that Verity Lambert who was DWs first producer and kind of a trail blazer since women were not producers in 63 said that while Hartnell would always be best in her eyes since heck she cast him, that of all the other classic doctors she thought Tom Baker came the closest to Hartnel's eccentricity which she felt was an essential part of being the doctor.  She felt Peter Davidson was too young and nice.

 

I've heard the audios are much better. Do you have any particular recommendations? Does the way Peri is written off make more sense when you watch it than just reading about it? Because "Kidnapped by a warlord BRIAN BLESSED and married to him under those circumstances doesn't on the face of it sound an awful lot better than just "dead".

 

I think Four is closer to Hartnell than Five is obviously but I understand why they went in such a different direction with Peter Davidson. After so long with Tom Baker in the part they needed someone completely different who would own the role that way rather than be considered a pale knock off.

[MDKNIGHT]

I'll look up the titles of the audios I liked most and get back to you.

 

The ep where Peri leaves is still kind of confusing even if you aren't just reading "married to warlord Brian Blessed etc" It is part of the "Trial of a Timelord" arc and to me seemed VERY rushed at the end, as in plot happens, plot happens for several episodes and then BAM we (the Timelords) TELL you that Peri really isn't dead she married Prince- whatever-manic-wacko- Brian-Blessed-played's name.  First time I saw it I didn't even realize that they DID say she wasn't dead because I must have been destracted for 5 seconds.  I really thought they'd killed her off.

 

BTW I remember reading at some comprehensive site I think Tardis Data Core that there was a tie in novel where Prince Brian Blessed and Peri somehow come to earth after they are married and he works as a professional wrestler.  Make of that what you will.

 

Yes I can see the LOGIC behind going from Tom Baker (dark, very alien guy who sounds like he's reciting some Shakespeare that you've never read) to Peter Davidson (Blonde young guy who wants to not grow up and play cricket all day and sounds like he's narrating Winnie the Pooh or something).  You are trying to freshen things up so your audience doesn't get bored with the same old thing BUT that doesn't mean as an individual some people myself included, can't PREFER one over the other because their schtick appeals to you more. 

 

I mean it isn't that I hated Peter Davidson as a Doctor but there WERE times during his adventures where he'd whine "There should have been another way." in such a way that I'd find myself saying "for the love of God if you'd been a little more assertive instead of sulking around like a big man baby there may have actually BEEN another way, but you had to wait till the last minute to really do anything and now everybody's dead."     Am I misremembering or except for Fang Rock where it was like 2 lighthouse keepers and a couple of  shipwrecked people, didn't Tom's doctor have a lower collateral damage count?  I seem to remember him flouncing off with his scarf into the Tardis with more people alive and upright.  To be fair however I  haven't gotten that far in my rewatch to be sure. 

[benteen]

I've seen the AV Club writer mention in his reviews of Classic Doctor Who during the Davison years that the script editor viewed the character of the Doctor himself as a weak and passive character and that stories reflected this.

[Joe]

Eric Saward was on board at this time, I believe, and I've heard he liked a good bit of violence. It's odd that he was writing for the show with that attitude. But then, at what point did Michael Grade come on and start trying to kill it off?

[Llywela]

I've seen the AV Club writer mention in his reviews of Classic Doctor Who during the Davison years that the script editor viewed the character of the Doctor himself as a weak and passive character and that stories reflected this.

 

Eric Saward was on board at this time, I believe, and I've heard he liked a good bit of violence. It's odd that he was writing for the show with that attitude. But then, at what point did Michael Grade come on and start trying to kill it off?

Michael Grade came along a bit later - mid-80s, Colin Baker era, iirc. I'm hazier on the '80s than the earlier eras of the show, but it seems strange to have a script editor on board with such little understanding of the nature of the lead character of the show - that description bears no resemblance to any of the previous Doctors.

 

The '80s were a weird time for the show, though.

[Joe]

Yeah. And then there was the matter of not letting JNT quit when he wanted to go. The show could have lived into the 90's if only they'd got a couple of different people running it.

[elle]

Yeah. And then there was the matter of not letting JNT quit when he wanted to go. The show could have lived into the 90's if only they'd got a couple of different people running it.

JNT?

Edited June 26, 2015 by elle

[kassygreene]

John Nathan Turner.

[benteen]

Reading over the AV Club reviews, Eric Saward never said that he viewed the Doctor that way.  But the reviewer said when watching episodes he wrote, that he thought Saward viewed the Doctor as a weak and ineffective person.  When watching Resurrection of the Daleks, particularly when the Doctor confronts Davros, where you can't help but feel that that is true.

Edited June 27, 2015 by benteen

[ketose]

Christopher Lloyd as the Master in the 1996 TV movie... I hope we would have got a more subtle villain than his "Judge Doom" in Who Framed Roger Rabbit or his Klingon antagonist in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock.

Anyone is more subtle than Eric Roberts.

[Llywela]

Fortunately for him, most people have a higher opinion. He's Oscar- nominated.

But not for this particular role, in which, you must admit, he hammed it up to the nth degree!

[benteen]

I kind of found Roberts unintentionally hilarious as the Master.

[Sandman87]

Been watching Retro's episodes with #7 lately. I dunno what happened to the writers, but suddenly it's extra bizarre and dark: Robots made of candy, circus of death, little old middle-class lady cannibals, and so on. It's like a succession of Terry Gilliam movie scripts.

[benteen]

I just finished Season 7, Jon Pertwee's first season as the Third Doctor.  Very much enjoyed it…definitely a different tone.  Inferno was a really cool episode.  I have to say, it sucks that Liz Shaw never came back.

[Featherhat]

I just finished Season 7, Jon Pertwee's first season as the Third Doctor.  Very much enjoyed it…definitely a different tone.  Inferno was a really cool episode.  I have to say, it sucks that Liz Shaw never came back.

Especially as they decided it was too difficult to write a very intelligent female character as the companion and doubled down on that by introducing Jo Grant for whom test tube holding *was* at the right difficulty level, then combined that with being incredibly clumsy and a habit for always getting kidnapped. Although the character did acknowledge that on The Sarah Jane Adventures. But there were times the Master definitely looked like he wanted to hand her back and save himself the trouble.

[Llywela]

Jo Grant gets a bad rap. Despite the dodginess of her origins, she's great fun as a companion and works well with the Doctor. She might be ditzy, but she rescues him as often as he rescues her, while her drive to prove herself often leads her to get herself into scrapes, which facilitates sub-plots in a way that wasn't possible with the more sensible Liz.

 

In an ideal world, we'd have them both! Can't you just picture them together?

[Featherhat]

All three of Three's companions teaming up together would be great fun actually, especially since I enjoyed Jo and Sarah Jane meeting in Death of the Doctor on SJA (and Liz was mentioned as working for UNIT again). I dislike Jo less than that post actually made it sound. She's far from my favourite but she is genuinely good hearted. I do wonder if Sarah Jane herself was an attempt at a cross between Liz and Jo. She's more intelligent and more independent than Jo at the time but does get herself into the usual companion scrapes and could be a screamer.

 

I think if Liz had travelled in the TARDIS and they'd bothered to stay true to her first series then she might have been a bit like Martha, not usually wondering off or getting into trouble accidentally but being frequently separated from the Doctor by having to perform dangerous tasks for him without too much screaming and more quiet heroics.

[benteen]

Liz didn't scream too much in Season 7.  I think she could have worked. 

 

The previous year, the Second Doctor had Zoe as a companion, joining with Jaime.  Zoe was definitely a screamer but she was even more of an intellectual match for the Doctor.  The Krotons wasn't a good story but the highlight of it was definitely the Doctor and Zoe's intellectual rivalry.

[Ringthane]

As ditzy as Jo Grant was, though, she was one of the few people who was able to resist the Master's hypnosis.  So she must have had more going on then she let on.

[benteen]

Terrance Dicks was a really good script editor but he's pretty much admitted in interviews that part of the reason for Sarah Jane was to throw a bone at the feminists.

Edited July 8, 2015 by benteen

[John Potts]

As ditzy as Jo Grant was, though, she was one of the few people who was able to resist the Master's hypnosis.  So she must have had more going on then she let on.

 

Or she had so little mind he couldn't find it to control!

[Llywela]

Or she had so little mind he couldn't find it to control!

That's not fair. Being able to resist the Master's mind control was a massive achievement for Jo - it was character growth, deliberately written character growth, in an era that rarely bothered with anything of the kind. The first time Jo met the Master, he hypnotised her and used her as an assassin. She very nearly blew up UNIT headquarters and everyone in it, and that scared her, she never wanted anything of the kind to happen again. So she did something about it. She didn't just hope for the best next time. She went away and learned how to resist hypnosis. The next time he tried it on her, it didn't work - and not by happenstance, we were specifically told why it didn't work, she rubbed his nose in it, told him what she'd learned and how she was applying it. He was furious. He redoubled his efforts. But he couldn't do it, couldn't break through the mental block she'd set up. He was forced to give up and try something else to get his way. It was a powerful character moment and you do not get to use it to demean her, even in jest.

 

Contrast that to everyone's favourite, Sarah Jane Smith, who was the most hypnotised companion of all time.

[HauntedBathroom]

Or she had so little mind he couldn't find it to control!

Not even Time Lords have microscopes that powerful.

[benteen]

I watched Terror of the Autons today.  First appearance of The Master and Roger Delgado was great.  Also first appearance of Jo Grant and I really liked her in this.  The Third Doctor though acted like an ass to everyone in it.  You can definitely see shades of this in 12.  As one reviewer noted, the Third Doctor seemed to put the Lord in Time Lord in this one.

Edited July 12, 2015 by benteen

[Locutus]

Loved watching Genesis of the Daleks again after a few decades. It was on the new "Daleks" dvd out this week. Even at 6 parts it flowed pretty well. I always wonder how new Who viewers take to old Who. Very different shows.

[Joe]

I've said this before, but I never liked Genesis. There's just one good scene, and a whole lot of the usual nonsense.

[HauntedBathroom]

It's certainly far too long.

[Llywela]

Genesis of the Daleks is great. It has the Fourth Doctor bamboozling people and wrestling with moral dilemmas, Harry being the perfect stalwart sidekick, and Sarah being intrepid and leading slave revolts. What more could anyone want?

[Joe]

Outside of the Do I have the right scene, I just don't enjoy it.

[HauntedBathroom]

Far too much capture/escape nonsense. It has all of the faults of the Pertwee era, and this early into their run, Hinchcliffe/Holmes can't fix all of the problems.

Edited July 19, 2015 by HauntedBathroom

[benteen]

I finished The Mind of Evil yesterday.  Second serial of Season 8 and thus the second story for both The Master.  I can see why Roger Delgado's take on the character is so well-regarded, he's terrific in the role and a perfect foil for Pertwee's Doctor.  His plotting in this story is elaborate to say the least but it's really good.  I have to admit, I find myself liking Jo Grant quite a bit in these early appearances.

Edited July 23, 2015 by benteen

[Locutus]

Watched Earthshock on the Cyberman Disc and found it, meh. I remember at the time Adric's death was actually cheered, since most of the fans hated him. The Captain reminded me of Mrs.Slocome from AYBS.

[AshleighDSterling]

I re-watched The Twin Dilemma and I've changed my mind. This had to get out - The Twin Dilemma is actually very good!

Basically, this story has some of the best direction and music ever to appear in Doctor Who. Combined with some strong characters (and, admittedly, a few rather wet ones too), it makes for great viewing. 

[SnideAsides]

Having stopped my marathon watch after One because last year's new season drained any desire I had to continue, I finally, finally got around to starting Two's era and burned through the first three stories pretty quickly. The Power of the Daleks is probably the missing story I most want to see, because I thought it was great even without the moving pictures, but The Highlanders was dull and dreary and The Underwater Menace strikes me as a story where the writer came up with something brilliant without thinking about how it would look on television. (See also: Steven Moffat.)

[Llywela]

 The Underwater Menace strikes me as a story where the writer came up with something brilliant without thinking about how it would look on television. (See also: Steven Moffat.)

Speaking of, the planned-then-cancelled Underwater Menace DVD release looks to be on again and is available for pre-order, which means that the final unreleased Classic episode will finally be available for all to view.

 

...I did catch the bootleg version that was leaked online a couple of years ago. That re-discovered episode is way better than the single episode released on the Lost in Time boxset. It can be really hard to judge from recons just what some stories looked like, so many of them were so visual.

[SnideAsides]

Yeah, that one really got screwed by only having that episode instead of the others.

 

I feel like The Moonbase is something I'm supposed to love, and it's a very good story, but it's just too damn soon after the last time we saw the Cybermen for me to really be that interested in it.

[SnideAsides]

So, The Macra Terror is fucking bizarre. There's an excellent story there and I can definitely see how someone would get hypnotised by those songs, but also, the end result isn't exciting and the entire plot is about how anarchy is better than serving a race of mind-controlling crabs. Oh, 1960s, you amuse me.

[SnideAsides]

I really want to like The Faceless Ones, but something is stopping me from getting on board (so to speak). It's a sort of weird little entry where they're basically trying to do the kind of not-quite-action-adventure story that would turn up all the time in the early 1980s (think, like, Time-Flight) on the 1960s budget, and the end result is that the story becomes a well-intentioned mess. It's still wonderfully entertaining - I have it at tenth on my best-to-worst ranking right now - but compared to other stories I don't think I'd care so much about the missing episodes if they didn't include the final two appearances of Polly and Ben.

[benteen]

The Faceless Ones also features Pauline Collins, who apparently was offered a chance to become the next companion but turned it down.  She would return to Who almost 40 years later to play Queen Victoria in the Doctor Who Series 2 episode Tooth and Claw.

[SnideAsides]

I totally forgot about that/didn't realise that was her!

 

I got another three stories done over the weekend. Consensus opinion seems to be that Evil of the Daleks is slightly worse than Tomb of the Cybermen, although both are better than The Abominable Snowmen, but I actually think the reverse order is true? Evil isn't particularly great (rather than being creepy as intended, the Dizzy Dalek thing is just embarrassing, and the story makes no sense even by Dalek story standards), and I think Tomb is very overrated for what it is (also, as mentioned above, Cyberman fatigue), but Snowmen is kind of awesome? Like, it's a story set on Earth but the Buddhist monastery gives it a delightfully otherworldly feel (it's actually quite similar in feel - and plot, it must be said - to Planet of the Ood), and it's a story with monsters where the monsters aren't the bad guys, which I'm totally there for.

 

The good news at this point is that I'm nearly done with the recon era (the final two stories of season five are mostly missing, but aside from that it's just a couple of random episodes and The Space Pirates). The bad news I'm right in the middle of an bunch of episodes where pretty much every story is either bringing back something that's been seen before (Daleks, Cybermen, Yeti) or introducing something that will be seen again in future (Ice Warriors, the Brigadier, Yeti), and... like, as much as I enjoy nostalgia, I'd also like some time to breathe, you know? (I'm already not looking forward to season eight's "All Master, All the Time"-ness, in case you couldn't tell.)

[benteen]

I enjoyed the "All Master, All the Time" season a great deal myself.  I've been watching most of the Pertwee run and haven't found one yet that I've been disappointed with.

[Llywela]

I suppose it's a question of individual viewer preferences - I mean, returning elements and continuity are what modern TV stylings are built on and are something we see a lot in the show today - but on the other hand they can get a bit samey, so it all comes down to how each story is handled and what each viewer prefers.

 

My re-watched stalled when I hit Troughton - I'm just not in the mood for all those recons at the moment. I'll get back to it after a break!

[benteen]

If I had any issue with the Troughton era, it was thier OBSESSION with base under siege storylines.

 

Mind you, they did a number of really good ones (though Tomb is vastly overrated) but half or more of their stories were "base under siege" by monsters.  I think that's one of the reasons why my two favorite stories from that era were Enemy of the World and The Mind Robbers.  They were atypical of their era and great stories as well.

Edited September 14, 2015 by benteen

[SnideAsides]

The Ice Warriors is a very good Base Under Siege story, actually, but I don't know how much of that is the actual quality of the episode and how much is that I just enjoy the Ice Warriors themselves. Compared to the deliberately inhuman Daleks and Cybermen, and the one-dimensional Sontarans and Silurians, there's just something really fascinating about them. Like, if we go with the reading that the Daleks represent Nazis and the Cybermen represent communism, then the Ice Warriors basically represent refugees, and that's a much more complex and interesting story than the Daleks have ever really been.

[benteen]

I liked the Ice Warriors too (both the serial and the aliens) but I wouldn't call the Silurians one-dimensional.  They always had an interesting backstory behind them.

[alias1]

I didn't know where to post this.  I'm so excited that BBCA is going to show some classic Tom Baker episodes starting this Sunday.  The first week's schedule is as follows:

 

Sun Sept 20th Genesis of the Daleks (9am to Noon)

Sun Sept 20th The Seeds of Doom (Noon to 3pm)

Mon Sept 21st Terror of the Zygons (10 am to Noon)

Tues Sept 22nd Pyramids of Mars (10am to Noon)

Wed Sept 23rd The Hand of Fear (10am to Noon)

Thurs Sept 24th The Brain of Morbius (10am to Noon)

Fri Sept 25th The Robots of Death (10am to Noon)

Sun Sept 27th City of Death (8am to 10 am)

Sun Sept 27th The Keeper of Traken (10am to Noon)

 

That's as far as my Cable Guide goes. 

Edited September 19, 2015 by SierraMist

[elle]

I didn't know where to post this.  I'm so excited that BBCA is going to show some classic Tom Baker episodes starting this Sunday.  The first week's schedule is as follows:

I am too!  I squealed happily when I saw the commercial!  Thank you for posting the episode guide :0)

[Lantern7]

Ditto. I've never seen "The Seeds of Doom." Is it ironic that I've seen "The Seeds Of Death" with Troughton?

[elle]

"Seeds of Doom" - why is there no warning for scientists in the Antarctic to *never, ever* bring in to a heated environment an pod, an rock-like capsule, a large block of ice with a THING in it.  And if you do, leave only ONE person in charge of said thing.

 

At the very least, Who Goes There? the science fiction novella by John W. Campbell, Jr.; should be required reading for all explorers.