Not actually Classic Who, but overlapping... I decided to sign up to BritBox, and the first thing I watched was the 1982 miniseries adaptation of The Hound of the Baskervilles that was the first thing Tom Baker did after Who, with Barry Letts as producer, Terrance Dicks as script editor, and Caroline John playing Laura Lyons, with visual effects supervised by Peter Wragg, who'd begun doing the same job for Who earlier in '82. The miniseries is four 28-minute episodes, the same format as a typical Who serial. It's very much a 1982 BBC production with stagey videotaped interiors and grainy prefilmed exteriors. I thought it was an okay adaptation. There's not much distance between Baker's Holmes and his Doctor, but there's no real reason why there should be, since the characters have so much in common. I found him reasonably effective in the role, but apparently Baker himself and the BBC were dissatisfied with his performance, which might be why they didn't continue the series. The big disappointment for me is Terence Rigby's Watson, who comes off as a distracted fuddy-duddy and leaves a weak impression. One could have wished for a more compelling presence as Watson, both because so much of the story focuses on Watson without Holmes and because Tom Baker was such a dominating presence that he needed a worthier co-star to balance him. At first I thought the music was by Dudley Simpson, since it had very similar orchestration, but the composer was someone else. I guess it must've sounded similar because it was probably using the same BBC studio musicians and instruments. The building used for Baskerville Hall's exterior looked familiar, and I've probably seen it in Who, but I can't remember where.
Nightmare of Eden. The Doctor flippantly tells the ship commander he's "just having fun!" when being asked about the Vraxoin problem developing and who he's working for... only to be topped later on by the quote "My arms my legs my everything" from the best cliffhanger never - a line that's cringe inducing on its own, but delivered more plainly than you'd expect from Tom to ensure there's no chance it would land. Romana continues to excel in this season. The overall theme of drugs is pretty heavy for the time, right down to spiking the drink that the ship commander takes by chance (it was meant for Romana). The story doesn't seem to be sure what target demographics, which gets jarring at times. There's a great story in this, but it all feels more blasé than anything. And it shouldn't. Also, be sure to brush your teeth after eating jelly babies.
Lalla insisted on rewrites as Zip made the drug seem too appealing. Not sure it made much difference. Troubled production: director was behind schedule, so producer sacked him and took over. An fx sequence of a dead Mandrel becoming drugs was lost in the catch up.
Just finished re-watching The Sun Makers. Anyone who thinks Dr Who being political is a new thing really ought to watch this I do hope Robert Holmes found writing it cathartic Leela gets a lot of agency and of course it's always good to see Michael Keating.
I just watched that too. It had been a loooong time since I had seen. I'd forgotten how good it is! Performances were really standout. Great Leela story too.
You're not kidding; the Pertwee era had The Doctor occasionally making critical judgements about government (even when he worked with / supported UNIT) and humankind's bad tendencies, which were more about political beliefs / procedures than a blanket dressing down of humans.
Which is why the "Third Doctor is a Tory" talking points always seemed dumb and devoid of knowledge. Apparently no one remembers the Third Doctor casually mentioning being pals with Mao? The Doctor at that incarnation just didn't view politics as a thing (at least not until the Moffat era).
Finally got around to Nightmare of Eden, the final 4th Doctor story I needed to watch to finish his era. It was ok, but it started out stronger then it ended. I was surprised to see them do a story about Drug smuggling, at least one that takes it so serious, but it was nice to see Doctor Who be serious about something like this after having recently watched the somewhat more kiddie/zany episodes of the latest Doctor who season. Still, around episode 3 it really starts coming apart, the space police are especially annoying and feel like an artificial obstacle added because the story had to be stretched to four episodes. The guy with the fake (German?) accent was also really annoying, and the monsters were mediocre even by the standards of the time. Overall its not a bad episode, but it also doesn't really leave much of an impression. So, in honor of (finally) having watched every 4th Doctor Serial, here's my Top 5 and Bottom 5 stories: Top 5 Fourth Doctor Stories: 1. Genesis of the Daleks 2. The Brain of Morbius 3. Robot 4. The Arc in Space 5. The Ribos Operation Honorable/Problematic Mention: The Talons of Weng Chiang (I can't put it on the top list because of the racism, but if you can get past that element Robert Holmes was really on his A-Game, writing wise). Bottom 5 Fourth Doctor Stories: 1. The Android Invasion 2. The Androids of Tara 3. City of Death 4. Image of the Fendahl 5. The Robots of Death
Just started Carnival of Monsters, and i think this is the first Dr Who Ian Marter appeared in but he was not Harry Sullivan.
As mentioned, the director was behind schedule and sacked, with the producer taking over with no time for retakes if a line was messed up. The cop costumes were probably down to the sacked director (a TV pioneer who was often given jobs by people he'd helped 20 years ago). Tryst's accent was a last minute choice. He didn't doit in rehearsal.
CoM was great, another one i had not seen in a few years, they really did well back then on that budget to making them small inside the machine. Now onto Frontier in Space......... Although i just realised that today we can watch any story in any order as most are self contained, yet we still watch them in the order they went out on, on tv, and i don't know if that is good or bad, did Who of old programe us to think in this way, in order.....IN ORDER!........YOU WILL ONLY WATCH IN ORDER........EXTERMINATE!!........IN ORDER!!. LOL
I love watching them in order because it takes you back to the time. You get immersed in another time, how they did things and thought about things. And, you also see it how people at the time would've viewed them. But I can also watch them out of order and still enjoy. So, it's not necessary but a nice plus in my book.
Just rewatched The Dalek Invasion of Earth (I got the Hartnell Season 2 Bluray recently and decided to rewatch this before getting to the stories I haven't seen). I think its a bit overrated. The story feels a bit too scattershot, and at six episodes it felt padded out. Still the ending is iconic, and there are definitely worse dalek episodes.
Really enjoyed Frontier in space, really good story as well, i think classic Who seems to get better with age. Next up Planet of the Daleks......and a big thank you to my restoration dvd collection, they are now paying dividends.