The Mind Robber was a pretty good story. It was weird in a good way. The only thing kind of annoying was Zoe. This is the first serial I've seen with her, and she was especially useless, her only actions basically doing whatever stupid things she could to get them into trouble. The confrontation with the gorgon was just stupid. She just screamed about having to look at it it, even though no one was forcing her to. Well, I guess she did "defeat" a fictional superhuman in the stupidest fight scene ever, so she kind of helped. She just kept judo flipping him, probably 10+ times. It was really bad, but it was bad enough to be entertaining. I liked the idea of seeing fictional characters brought to life, and the villain was interesting, and also coincidentally was called the master (I'd like to see someone retcon him into being an amnesiac version of The Master ). The Doctor (the 2nd, in case anyone doesn't know) was great as always. Overall, this was a fun serial. Zoe was a bit annoying, but it didn't effect my enjoyment of the story.
IIRC, Zoe was a response to Emma Peel in this, so, you need to accept it on that level. I agree about The Master in this, those were thoughts, exactly, first time I saw it.
Reading between the lines, it seems that The Mind Robber (or the last four episodes to be precise) was in the works before Victoria's departure was lined up (Mind Robber was actually the last serial of the epic season five that so exhausted Troughton he decided to leave), with Victoria intended very much as an Alice figure who'd mesh with the fiction she was encountering as she fell down the rabbit hole. The rejigging for Zoe came as the scripts were being written, so its variable how deep it goes (you can't imagine Victoria throwing hte Karkas around, but all Zoe's stuff in episode is far more suited to Vic...)
So, was Emma Peel a completely incompetent woman who was constantly screaming? I've never seen the british Avengers show, so I don't know. Unless you just mean the lame judo flip contest, which makes more sense from the little I know of the character. It was stupid to see Zoe just repeat the same move over and over, but the kind of stupid you just laugh at.
Yea, "The Action Adventure" part was a response to Emma Peel. As Diankra mentions, the "helpless" part was because it was originally intended to be Victoria when the Story was conceived.
Unfortunately Zoe's last appearance (as an illusion in The Five Doctors) has her screaming again.... The Land of Fiction appears a few more times in the New Adventures novels, in CONUNDRUM and HEAD GAMES. HEAD GAMES in particular is interesting since it shows how Mel reacts to the more detached and manipulative version of the Seventh Doctor (It also features Ace, Benny and I think Roz and Chris, so it's kind of the "Journey's End" of the NA).
Oh, god, now I'm imagining Mel replacing Zoe in the story. I may have been annoyed at Zoe, but she's still better than Mel Also, seeing Mel with the psychotic 7th Doctor isn't really appealing. Take a companion I really dislike and put them with the only version of The Doctor I outright hate might just be the makings for the worst Doctor Who story every when it comes to my preferences. Now that I'm thinking about the Land of Fiction and the 7th Doctor, I just had a thought. I think a cool story would be where its revealed that after Dragonfire Ace and The Doctor were actually sucked into the Land of Fiction, and get separated (although Ace doesn't know it). She escapes, but accidentally brings a fictional copy of The Doctor with her, one who wasn't made quite right (but still has his memories, so he can fly the TARDIS). Then, after the events of Survival but before the TV Movie, the real Doctor escapes the land of fiction and defeats the psychotic replacement. Ace and The Doctor then fly off for some fun adventures. This thought really doesn't have much to do with the topic, but it was the first thing that came to my head when the 7th Doctor was mentioned as being involved with the Land of Fiction, and I figured I'd share it. Plus, imaging the 7th Doctor staying as his fun first version and kicking his evil version's butt just makes me happy
Funny thing if I remember correctly is there's sort of duplicate "Fictional" McCoy Doctor in HEAD GAMES, seen on the cover of the novel, one who wears the Doctor's season 26 outfit (In the novels it's mentioned that eventually, the real Seventh Doctor has a new outfit, sort of a white suit without the question mark vest. It's seen on some of the covers). The Sixth Doctor also sort of appears as a sort of manifestation of the Seventh's guilt toward sort of ending his previous life so he could be "born". It's sort of a complicated storyline.
Finally watched The Talons of Weng-Chiang the other night. Somehow I'd managed to avoid most of the spoilers on this one (aside from a certain duo surviving the story). That was absolutely fantastic, to borrow a phrase. Great casting, great story, a bit racist by today's standards (alas) but great ideas driving the plot (especially the secret of Mr. Sin). And Leela in Victorian dress looked so very odd that it was ultimately right. In a role that was, once again, originally written for Victoria.
Interestingly Mr. Sin (At least in the shots where he was walking and talking) was played by Deep Roy, whose appeared in a lot of genre films (Although I think he only appeared in Doctor Who once again as an ambassador in Trial of A Time Lord Mindwarp) Star Trek fans might know him best as Keenser in the last two Trek films. Also interesting thing about Talons is that it introduced the Time Agent concept which would be further developed in the new series.
LOL about the judo flipping. Yeah, classic Doctor Who (at least the ones I've seen) had no sense of fight chreography whatsover. Look at The Three Doctors as an example of that...it would be someone (in that case The Third Doctor) doing the same move over and over again. About Zoe screaming constantly, this seemed to be a trait shared by most if not all of the Doctor's female companions in the black and white days. Thank God Sarah Jane wasn't like that. While I liked many of the Doctor's female companions before her, she is a breath of fresh air. Much more assertive and less prone to bouts of (unneccessary screaming). I only saw Liz Shaw in one serial but I liked her a lot too. She was a match for the Doctor intellectually and very snarky. That being said, The Mind Robbers is still an awesome, trippy serial. Even got a great teaser at the end of the first episode. I like your idea about that guy being the real Master. I just finished Tom Baker's first season as the Doctor, which included the awesome Genesis of the Daleks serial. I really enjoyed the combination of 4, Sarah Jane, and Harry Sullivan.
The first Companion who was even marginally good at fighting was Leela. It was an illusion. Fake-Zoe wasn't really scared. She wasn't even there. It was a ploy to trap the Doctor. Besides, Jamie also screamed, and Jamie wasn't a screamer.
Huh! You learn something new every day. Yeah, I was quite surprised by that bit. Great bit of continuity in nuWho that I didn't even know existed.
Oh, Deep Roy gets surprisingly close to getting the full set of the Big SF Franchises - Trek in the new movies, two Who roles, two Blake's 7 roles, an Avengers appearance (Well, New Avengers), think he's got a tiny role in one of the original Star Wars movies as well... and, of course, he's all of the Oompa Loopmas in the Tim Burton Chocolate Factory...
^Just never play him at Speed Chess (unless you have Orac on your side). The New Avengers episode he's in is one of my favourites.
He also was a creepy bad guy in a season 8 X-files episode and appeared in Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. There's actually a documentary, Whose Doctor Who, which I think is on the DVDs of the story and has a interesting look BTS of that era of Doctor Who, as well as it's popularity and the controversy about violence/scary stuff.
Had my first true exposure to the Second Doctor with Tomb of the Cybermen, The ice Warriors, Seeds of Death and The Krotons. Enjoyed most of it. Cool to see the Cybermen in one of their earliest incarnations. Didn't see their origins, but enjoyed the three non-contemporary companions. I like Jamie the most of the three, but Zoe is pretty cool, too and both of them work well together with the Doctor. Victoria was a bit too much the damsel in distress most of the time, but she had her moments, too. The Doctor himself is ranking highest among the three classic Doctors I have seen in a meaningful amount of episodes so far.
Yep, It's on The Talons of Weng-Chiang DVD, and is effectively from season zero of The South Bank Show - it's from a BBC2 arts programme called The Lively Arts, but presenter/producer Melvyn Bragg then defected to ITV and did the same show under a new name for the next 30 years, and then after a brief break after Michael Grade cancelled it (he does this sort of thing. Though I suspect that it might have been Grade who poached Bragg to LWT back in 1977, so...), on Sky Arts. Alongside this, Bragg wrote some successful bonkbuster historical novels (one of which got adapted by the BBC, with Ronald Pickup out of Reign of Terror 'shagging' Dervla Kirwan out of The Next Doctor), and got a seat in the House of Lords. Six degrees of seperation? You're just lazy...
Just finished a two-fer.. I watched the Terror of the Zygons! It was smashingly brilliant! if only they went and did some CGI work on the lochness monster, and maybe tuned up the spfx, it would be a masterpiece of classic WHO! But it still was amazingly put together. Now, the Masque of Mandragora, that was sensational!! I was stunned, rich costumes, great locational shots, intrigue, and mystery, it was truly a well planned serial! I am surprised I have never seen those two episodes before. Well worth the watch!
I just finished a two-fer that involved Terror of the Zygons too, which was a terrific serial. A nice last hoorah for the old UNIT gang. I agree that I wish they could have done more with the lochness monster although the special effects otherwise weren't too bad given Classic Doctor Who standards at the time. But the second episode I saw was Planet of Evil, which immediately follows Terror. I really enjoyed that one, (I've always liked stories involving spaceship and their crews) a definite homage to Forbidden Planet. The jungle set was also very well-done.