Last Classic Who Story you watched

[OmahaStar]

Iamnotspock wrote:

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The Curse of Fenric was as well.

Wasn't Spearhead from Space shot entirely on location as well?

[Sindatur]

The Invasion - Wow, yet another Cybermen Story and it's complete (well, with the animated episodes, it's complete in my opinion). I really liked this one, and had no problem with it being 8 episodes long, it was well paced. A shame I am so familiar with seeing Kit Peddler with Cybermen stories only, as soon as I saw the name, I suspected it had to be a Cybermen Story, it would've been nice to be surprised, but, it was still a great story, and I really enjoyed Isobel and the Introduction of U.N.I.T., Corporal Benton and Col Lethbridge-Stewart's promotion to Brigadier

The Krotons - This one was OK, definitely worth watching, but, probably my least favorite of the Troughton era so far (Other than The Highlanders, which pretty much bored me). The story premise was good enough, just something with the execution that didn't thrill me as much as most of the rest of the Trougton era.

Sadly only 3 more stories left in the Troughton era (I've seen The War Games before, but, that was on youtube with 3 chunks per episode, so this'll be nice watching it straight through an episode at a time, rather than waiting every 10 minutes or 5 minutes for the next chunk to load up)

[diankra]

OmahaStar wrote:

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Wasn't Spearhead from Space shot entirely on location as well?

Yes, due to a strike at television centre (over pay rates for using the new colour cameras. Something similar happened at ITV, which is why some episodes of Upstairs Downstairs, Budgie and Timeslip were shot with the old black and white cameras).

In addition,there's Silver Nemesis and Survival. Delta and the Bannerman cheats with a single console room scene shot during Dragonfire, and the same goes for Greatest Show in the Galaxy (which was otherwise shot in a tent in a BBC car park).

[Iamnotspock]

diankra wrote:

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Yes, due to a strike at television centre (over pay rates for using the new colour cameras. Something similar happened at ITV, which is why some episodes of Upstairs Downstairs, Budgie and Timeslip were shot with the old black and white cameras).

Not quite. It was shot entirely on film for those reasons, and almost entirely on location, but there was some studio work on it, the shots in the tent where Ransome is killed by an Auton for example.

[Lowdarzz]

Destiny of the Daleks (Fourth Doctor).

The Fourth Doctor's only other confrontation with the Daleks, except for Genesis, and it doesn't hold up quite as well. The humor feels out of place and I get the feeling that Douglas Adams rewrote a good deal of Terry Nation's script which was unfortunately his last contribution to Doctor Who. I don't like the idea of making the Daleks entirely robotic, I think the Daleks as genetically engineered mutants is more interesting than them being straight robots, and I'm glad this idea was abandoned in the current series. I know that the 5th, 6th and 7th Doctors each got their own Dalek story so we'll see if they continue this new robot idea.

Unfortunately Davros didn't seem to have much of a purpose in the story. True the Daleks needed him to reprogram their battle computer but that was it. The Doctor captures him first, the Daleks retake him and then he is captured by the Doctor again and put in suspended animation. I also think Michael Wisher's version of the character came off better than David Gooderson's. You could feel the malevolence in Wisher's interpretation whereas Gooderson's felt like he was just going through the motions.

Romana's ability to regenerate into any form she wishes is interesting and begs the question of whether or not this action is possible for all Time Lords. Based solely on the Doctor you'd think not but then again Romana chose to regenerate whereas the Doctor was always on the verge of death. The only time he may have had a chance to decide was when his first incarnation was on the way out since he was dying of old age at that point.

City of Death (Fourth Doctor).

An excellent serial all around. As far as I know this serial was the first time Doctor Who ever filmed outside the UK and they used it to great effect. The Paris locations add well to the sequences where Duggan is following the Doctor and Romana. Although Douglas Adams and Tom Baker's humor is found throughout the serial, it does not feel out of place here as it did in Destiny of the Daleks. Duggan's need to thump people and the Doctor's exasperation at finding the people he wishes to interrogate unconscious led to several good laughs.

Scaroth was a well realized villain whose goal is not actually a bad one, he is trying to save the remnants of his people. He just happens not to care that his people were extremely war-like and that saving them means erasing all of human history. The idea of a man, or Jagaroth in this case, living throughout the entirety of human history and effecting it is not new. Splitting him into fragments that live in different time periods simultaneously with a shared memory of events in each period was an excellent way to make the idea fresh.

I also liked the idea of making the surviving copy of the Mona Lisa one of the supposed fakes. It would be interesting to see this referenced in the new series.

[The Borgified Corpse]

Count Zero wrote:

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I hate that song with a passion. Nice to know that some people like it.

They're an odd, unconventional group of reluctant Doctor Who fans. Odd because they also like Sylvester McCoy's question mark jumper. Reluctant because they've had my copy of the 4th season of the new series for nearly a year now and have yet to watch any of it. (They keep getting caught in an endless loop of old DVDs of Murder She Wrote, Mystery Science Theater 3000, Scarecrow & Mrs. King, Scooby-Doo, and Soap.)

Sindatur wrote:

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The cook, in a couple of instances sang out Holly from Red Dwarf to me, and the prissy Guard with the straight across bangs reminded me of Peter Davison a couple of times for some reason.

Speaking of random actors reminding me of other random actors, for a long time, I was convinced that one of the craven bureaucrats from "The Silurians" was the same actor that played Lister's Paranoia in the Red Dwarf episode "Confidence & Paranoia."

But they're different. Dr. Lawrence in "The Silurians" was played by Peter Miles, who also played Professor Whitaker in "Invasion of the Dinosaurs" & Nyder in "Genesis of the Daleks." Meanwhile, Lister's Paranoia was played by Lee Cornes, who made one of his earliest TV appearances on Doctor Who as the Trickster in "Kinda."

Lowdarzz wrote:

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It's also interesting that Davros is referred to as a Kaled despite his radically different appearance. The fact that he is confined to a chair and has the use of only one arm suggests that he was involved in some king of accident. Hopefully more information will be given about him in future serials since I know he did not actually die at the end of Genesis.

As has been mentioned, they never really go into his backstory on the TV series. But the audios are fantastic. I'm particularly fond of Terry Molloy (Davros during the Davison, C. Baker, & McCoy years) in the Colin Baker audio "Davros." There's something very broken in that man's soul that makes him so evil. Ironically, that inability to be anything but pure evil makes me pity him somewhat.

Sindatur wrote:

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The Dominators - Stupid name for Invaders to be called, LOL.

I love the whole thing about how the lead Dominator is always being foiled by his own henchman because his henchman is a sadistic idiot more interested in blowing up random shit than he is in actually completing their mission.

Lowdarzz wrote:

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I also liked the idea of making the surviving copy of the Mona Lisa one of the supposed fakes. It would be interesting to see this referenced in the new series.

Agreed. I was almost expecting some reference to this when we saw the Mona Lisa in the alien museum in "The Girl Who Waited." Like, the Doctor asks Rory to set the sonic screwdriver on x-ray scan. Rory reads, "This is a fake." The Doctor mutters, "Oh, I guess that means it's the real one." "Come again?" "Long story. Anyway..."

I just finished the E-Space trilogy. I have very mixed feelings on it. Adric is kind of annoying. More annoying than Wesley Crusher but less annoying than Turlough. Romana is super sexy. Tom Baker seems obviously bored.

"Full Circle."
I like the design of the Marsh Men. And the ideas about evolution and that the ship has actually been fully operational this whole time are interesting ones. Tom Baker seems a bit more engaged in this story than he does for the rest of the trilogy.

"State of Decay."
It's an interesting premise but feels a bit too thin to be an entire 4-parter. And, considering it's a classic horror pastiche, where's Robert Holmes?

"Warrior's Gate."
I must confess I don't understand this one at all. Romana's decision to leave the TARDIS seems very abrupt. But at least it looks fantastic. The sets & models are very well done, as are the video effects, including superimposing the color actors on black & white backgrounds.

[Pindar]

Started the Ambassadors of Death. Interesting soundtrack, seems to be bit of a departure from the norm.

It's a 7 parter which means I will need a few sittings to get through it.

[Count Zero]

Ah, the awesome space program the UK didn't actually have.

[Anji]

I watched "The Armageddon Factor" about a month ago.

And what's this about Mary Tamm passing on????!!!! OMG I'm shocked!

I had the most lovely conversation with her at convention back in the 1980s about her choice of Romana's costumes. We spent so much time talking about clothing (we were in an autograph line) that we annoyed Jon Pertwee and he told us to move along!

She was so wonderful!!!!!

[diankra]

The Borgified Corpse wrote:

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"State of Decay."
It's an interesting premise but feels a bit too thin to be an entire 4-parter. And, considering it's a classic horror pastiche, where's Robert Holmes?

He commissioned it in the first place, while he was still script editor and was busy writing Talons of Weng-Chiang!
It was going to be the first story of Tom Baker's fourth season, but the BBC was making a Big Important Version of Dracula, and insisted that Doctor Who couldn't do vampires that year as a result (Count Dracula starred Louis Jourdan, from Octopussy, and was written by Gerald Savory, who has a part in the tangled backstage history of The Celestial Toymaker).
So The Horror of Fang Rock was written as a last minute replacement (or maybe pulled out of Terrance Dicks's unused scripts drawer, to judge by Louise Jameson's memories of getting a first draft that called her character 'Sarah').
Three years later the unused script for The Vampire Mutations was in turn dug out of Terrance's filing cabinet, and rewritten for Romana, Adric and K9...

[Sindatur]

The Seeds of Death - I loved this one. The Ice Warriors, are so creepy with those "Manacle" hands. And they were so, so, evil in this story, no ambiguity whatsoever, LOL.

I loved everything about this story, the advancement of the arc every episode, The stifling trapped feeling of the Moonbase segments, the threat of The Ice Warriors, the ingenuity of fixing and creating things, the Ice Warrior master plan, being so thought and playing out bit by bit, using foam as a monster/threat, with 6 episodes no episode felt like "Running down corridors, and being captured, and escaped and captured again"..... A whole lot happened in this story, compared with some other 6 parters

[Pindar]

Finished the Ambassadors of Death, I was enjoying this until I remembered Caroline John died last year which was a bit depressing.

Lots going on with not much happening in the end first commentary said that the writing need rescued half way through.

The music was interesting, Procul Harem-esque at times.

[DalekJim]

Season 7 is one of the best seasons of Doctor Who ever. Spearhead from Space is the weakest and I'd still probably give it a 10/10 .

I'm going through Troughton recons at the moment. Might do Enemy of the World tonight.

[Sindatur]

DalekJim wrote:

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Season 7 is one of the best seasons of Doctor Who ever. Spearhead from Space is the weakest and I'd still probably give it a 10/10 .

I'm going through Troughton recons at the moment. Might do Enemy of the World tonight.

I really enjoyed Enemy of the World.

The Space Pirates - This one was pretty good, though it lost something as a Recon. Unlike many of the other recons, which I enjoyed the reconstructed episodes as much as the surviving ones, the survving episode was much better than the Rconstructed ones. It was always pretty obvious the Doctor favored Jamie over the others, but, this was nver so obvious in my memory as when in The Space Pirates, they pass out from oxygen deprivation, and the Doctor is laying next to Zoe and climbs over her in order to get to Jamie to ask if is alright, before bothering to ask Zoe, even though he was practically laying on top of her, and had to climb over to get to Jamie, LOL.

The War Games - Previously I had seen this on Youtube, in 3 chunks per episode, and the story seemed interminably long. Having seen it straight through this time, it was quite good, and didn't seen overly long or drawn out. Sad to see Trougton era come to an end, I've enjoyed the ride very much, and will be revisiting the era in the future wit great delight.

I planned on watching Stargate Universe next, but, it's still out on loan, so, I figured what the heck, I'll continue on with The Pertwee era, so, Spearhead From Space is up next

[Starkers]

Just finished watching City of Death which is the first classic story I've watched for a few months. Love it to bits, it really is a classic, and in many ways it felt like the sort of story the show could easily tell now (wibbly wobbly timey wimey plot, zippy one liners).

I still don't quite understand how Scaroth could look the same in each of his incarnations however!