They had a 2-parter slot and decided to do the amazing task of taking a murder mystery and putting it into that slot, removing virtually every possible way to build up intrigue and suspense. Give it more episodes and a director more suited to mystery and the story would have worked a lot better. Time-Flight, being debatable as the more superficially fun of the two stories, has the great excuse of being a rewrite and rush job. And, of course, having no budget renders laughable any scene that to be authentic, which wouldn't make a difference if they had the money to make a Concorde wheel strut at the appropriate scale. Dominators was in part due to a dispute between the writers and the BBC. A lame commentary on the hippie movement didn't help, as the original Dalek story already told the same tale even before the hippies ever came about and told it a lot better right off the bat. Troughton and crew certainly work hard to make his scenes more entertaining, but there's a reason they're pronounced "Dull-cians".
Time-Flight was originally the season 18 finale, so while the final script was maybe rushed, it had been around for a while. Dominators, the heavy-handed politics definitely seems to have been a reason why it was cut from six to five during scripting. But increasingly I suspect that Derrick Sherwin simply irritated writers by his approach; Dominators was just the one where (fittingly) the argument went nuclear.
The Mutants- for the first time since an old rubbish copy off Australian TV in the early 90s. I didn’t really remember any of it, beyond the fact of how the story turned out. Having watched it I now know *why* I didn’t remember any of it… It’s actually a decent story, Stubbs and Cotton are engaging characters, and it’s really ambitious in places (that episode 4 cliffhanger must have read as awesome on the script page) - but the production lets it down. The acting is very much a mixed bag, and by ambitious I really mean so over-ambitious that no sensible shworunner should have gone ahead with it in it’s current form, given the resources available. There’s plenty of location filming, but as a result, the studio sets are cheaper than usual for 1972, and more noticeably small and cramped than you usually see even in that era…. It’d make a fun movie if anyone ever wanted to remake it with modern resources though.
I often internally debate whether it’s this or A.E Vogt that got ripped off for Alien tbh. Arks DNA is everywhere in Alien. Earthshick predates aliens of course...as does caves
I know this story is usually panned, but I LOVE it! It is ambitious. It creates a believable universe with a history of the Federation (or whatever it's called), relations with planet and station. It creates a planet with interesting characteristics that affects the life forms. That wasn't too common on TV back then where the orbital characteristics plays a role. I actually liked some of the set design. The big creature in the cave could've been horrible (bad track record for those types of things), but it was merely not a negative distraction (at least to my eyes). There are interesting events both on the station and on the planet. And, I like the characters. Well, we all have our guilty pleasures and The Mutants is one of mine! I agree that a movie could really bring it to life.
/ Ido actually enjoy the story, but it's one of those where the novelisation makes it- the Mutts are good, but the rest of the production is just so inadquate to what the story requires of it...
I'm two episodes into Time Flight. This is a weird one. The premise is ok. These effects are hilarious. They're just filming soap bubbles and putting them over the screen, which is so cheap and stupid its entertaining. The rock penises with legs, however, are just lame. Adric screaming in pain is never a bad thing, even if he is just a hallucination, and it was interesting to see the Melkur again. The unbelieving professor (or doctor or whatever) is pretty annoying. Nothing like having a supposedly "smart" character keep whining about how its all fake or how he definitely knows better then The Doctor. The main villain's voice was also annoying through most of the episode. One thing really saved episode 2 though: The Master is back! Anthony Ainley, my favorite Master, and I never expected to see him in this (I didn't look up the serial on wikipedia, or if I did it was a long time ago, so I didn't know he'd be in this). I'm really excited for the next two parts, because Ainley makes any serial better. Something that has solidified for me is that Tegan has beaten Mel as my least favorite Classic Who companion. Mel screaming can make my ears bleed, but Tegan is just unpleasant and useless 90% of the time. at least Mel did things and wasn't spending most of her time whining. This is far from her worst serial, but its the one where I realized that I really do dislike her a lot more then Mel.
I finished Time Flight. It was...watchable. I liked seeing The Master, so the second half was much better then the first. Overall though it just want' very impressive. If Tegan was actually gone forever I'd give it points for a great ending, but I know she comes back, unfortunately.
Well, as of The King's Demons and Warriors of the Deep she hadn't improved (I've seen some 5th Doctors serials out of order).
She leaves and comes back again in a different outfit. Tegan was my first companion (that I can remember) and the earliest serial I can remember is probably warriors of the deep or arc of infinity. She stops whinging...well..stops whinging about not being able to get home at least.
To be fair that part has already stopped, since she mentions at the beginning of Time Flight that she didn't want to go back to the airport. Its fine if you like her, I personally really like Peri as a companion and that doesn't seem to be a bit of an uncommon opinion. Its just that, for me, I find Tegan very unplesant and mostly useless, something which doesn't change just because she stops complaining about not getting back to Heathrow. I didn't mention that next I'll be watching Planet of the Daleks. I'm only six serials away from having watched all of the 3rd Doctors era, which is cool. For Classic Doctors overall, I have these many serials left: 18 First Doctor Serials (including missing stories) 15 Second Doctor Serials (including missing stories) 6 Third Doctor Serials 9 Fourth Doctor serials 9 Fifth Doctor serials Completed 6th and 7th Doctor eras awhile ago. Watched 8th Doctor movie (several times at this point)
It’s not so much that I like Tegan (I am mostly ambivalent. Not counting hearing ‘it’s an entry coder’ in her voice every time I see a button for a door.) just that she does come into her own with the Mara stuff, and does a decent turn in most of her post Nyssa stories. She also gets a decent leaving story, from a certain point of view.
Planet is not one of the greats, but it is basically what people who don't watch Doctor Who much think Doctor Who is all the time. In that sense, the most Doctor Who story ever...
To be fair, Tegan starts off with a fairly negative impression of the one companion who constantly wants to leave the TARDIS. She is relatively better after she comes back, though.
Well, if I had any choice she would have died in Earthshock and Adric would have stuck around, but its not that big a deal. She's annoying and unpleasant, but she doesn't ruin good serials, she just makes bad or mediocre ones a little worse. Really, what gets me is that Nyssa is really good, and she should have gotten more of a focus instead of bringing Tegan back. but, various Doctor who writers were, and they seemed to admit this at least in the Pertwee era with their reasoning for getting rid of Liz Shaw, not good at writing around smart companions. So obviously Nyssa was always going to have to leave and Tegan would come back. Outside of Romana, having a smart companion is just something the Who writers only deal with for short periods of time. Not that every companion is Jo Grant or Dodo levels of stupid, far from it, but having companions who are smart scientifically and even capable of things like piloting the TARDIS are rare, and usually a breath of fresh air. I think if Nyssa wasn't treated like so much of an afterthought I'd feel a bit less annoyed by Tegan. Anyway, talking about Planet of the Daleks, having just finished episode 3 its ok, but has one trademark problem of the Pertwee era: it should have been four episodes. Episode three played like a second to last episode of the story, but its the halfway mark. As much as I enjoy Pertwee as The Doctor, and I've liked a bunch of his serials (he's definitely had some classics), I'll always remember the era as having way too many stories get stretched to ridiculous degrees just to save money.
See, that’s why Ace is perfect. She’s clearly smart as they come, but she shows it by blowing stuff up, and when she yells Doctor, you know it’s something serious.
Ace is really good. To bad she got the only Doctor in the franchise who I dislike, so about half the stories she's in I dislike for reasons she has nothing to do with. If she'd been with Colin baker, or McCoy as he played the 7th Doctor in his first season, she'd be an all time classic companion. As it is, her era being mediocre to terrible puts her below someone like Sarah Jane for me (my top 5 Classic Who companion ranking being Jamie, Peri, Sarah Jane, Ace and finally Leela).
Four episodes in now, and Planet of the Daleks should be over. Its so padded. They even added more thals just to give the Thal leader some drama over his girlfriend or whatever and have him get all mopey about whether he is fit for command or not. This is really obnoxious. I mean, its no Ambassadors of Death, since at least the base story is decent, but six episode stories in Doctor who really are generally a bad idea except for the few cases they're done right. They're so often just four episodes worth of story stretched out so they could reuse sets and actors. I will not miss this trend when I'm finished with this era, especially since all but one of the remaining 3rd Doctor serials that I have to watch are six part serials.
Just finished Planet of the Daleks. A decent story that was stretched two episode too long, making it ok but unimpressive. Something i didn't hate, but that I wouldn't feel like rewatching. Next up was going to be The Green Death, but I can't handle another 6 parter right now, so next will be The Horns of Nimon. Its not chronologically the next 4th Doctor story I should watch (that would be Destiny of the Daleks), but I mostly started skipping around his era once the Key to Time season came about anyway (I've already seen Logopolis, for example). This will be my third Romana II serial, after the atrocious City of Death and the decent Shada (well, fourth if you count the 8th Doctor version of Shada). I've never really formed an opinion on her, so it will be interesting to see how that goes.