I'm pretty sure Peri overheard Glitz plan, and I'm sure she would have told The Doctor. Regardless, the 7th Doctor seemed to be just a bit too friendly with him in my opinion. It wasn't a huge deal, but its something I notice.
Don't know if this has been mentioned in...89 pages of posts but RetroTV, on digital broadcast in the US, has been showing the classic episodes, in order, since August. They do 2 episodes a night, Monday through Friday, and then a separate rotation of 4 episodes on Saturday evenings. Weekdays, they're up to "Robots of Death" and on Saturdays they're just into "Inferno" from the Pertwee years. It's been neat because the last time I watched the Pertwee episodes many were in black and white because the videotapes had been wiped so they only existed on 16mm film. But scientist found a way to colorize the old film from artifacts left from the tape transfer process. One annoying thing is that they skip not only incomplete serials, but also some that I know exist for reasons I'm not clear on. For example they didn't show one of my favorite stories, "Pyramids of Mars." But I did get to see a couple Hartnell stories that had been recovered since the last time my local PBS was showing them.
Paradise Towers Its ok. But following "Time and the Rani" makes it look MUCH better. The whole terminology for the residents (Kangs, Rezzies) reminded me of the Grups & Onlies of "Miri" and Yangs and Kohms of "The Omega Glory". The Kangs' slang also reminded me of "Clockwork Orange" (although a lot easier to follow). The real problem with this one is that the whole threat of the Chief Caretaker/Kroagnon was way too hammy to take seriously; very miscast. Pex also could have used more depth to make his sacrifice meaningful. Mel using a gun was a highlight; perhaps the best Mel moment. (on a side note, I dated a girl like Mel for about a month. That was a LOOONNNG month.) Also, don't the Cleaners look an heck of a lot like namesake in Hartnell's "War Machines". I've looked around to see if they were redressed or rebuilt from the same basic plans with no results, but they have to be. its too close.
Yep. I spent the first episodes thinking "Richard Briers is a good actor, why is he messing this up like this?" Then I realised, "It's because he's going to be taken over at the end of part three, so he's saving it all up for part four." Then we got Part Four...
Yeah. I've been catching bits of them. (It's broadcast channel 44.2 in the Phoenix area.) I have nearly all of the classic series on DVD now so there's not a whole lot of point but I'll still stop while channel flipping. They do do some odd skipping. I didn't realize that they skipped "Pyramids of Mars." But the Saturday episodes skipped all the way from "The Mind Robber" to "The Silurians."
The Dominators First: the costumes were atrocious. Ok with that out of the way, a lot of people seem to have a problem with this one. Yes, it was a bit pedestrian but I didn't mind it. I thought the script and pacing were tight and the dialogue pretty good, especially the tension between the two Dominators themselves. And yes the problem here is the Quarks. They were designed for the toy market, but on-screen they weren't practical. Their boxy-ness and squeeky voices made them more "cute" rather than "dangerous". And if would have helped if the Dominators weren't so dependant on them. Its kinda like if Han Solo sent C3PO to handle the dirty work. But as usual Troughton is always a delight and Jamie had a lot of action and explosions.
I have finished watching "The Awakening". Having seen the episodes in order, I can feel the decay in the quality of the franchise as it entered the mid-80s. There were so many things going wrong for the franchise. I have liked some of the episodes, like "Enlightenment" and "Snakedance"; however, other episodes left me baffled, like "The Visitation" and "King's Demons".
The Awakening started out a four parter and the story was crunched down a bit. But I though The Visitation and The King's Demon's were pretty straightforward.
The Two Doctors, it's a well crafted story but it was written by Robert Holmes and I loved Roger Limb's score and it's Spainish feel to it. But really I can understand the complaints about using Seville as a location since it was had nothing to do with the storyline. In end though it just wasn't a very exciting story. And really the stroyline didn't seem to fit either Doctor. The Invasion Of Time, I've always liked this story it was my very second Doctor Who story and Tom Baker was pretty wacky thoughout the plot. The story was rushed though and it showed, it also seems to jump around though some of the scenes. Still it was a well intentioned story and I loved the gearing on the presidental office. I just generally like the story and it had some good continuity with The Dealy Assassin. Revenge Of The Cybermen, good resuse of the Nerva beacon sets, I loved the music and the landscape on a drum at the end. Really though it's a pretty ambitious storyline with pretty of location work and some good editing and some good characters and sets, but I can understand why many fans don't like it though. The ending is rushed and that was pretty normal for that era though.
I enjoyed both The Visitation and King's Demons greatly. The program did eventually start to decay, but it hadn't started at this point. Indeed, last night I just watched the amazing, Enlightenment! Mr Awe
I love Enlightenment too. But in the commentary for Snakedance, Janet Fielding says that the real problem with that storyline was that it was really the end for that kind of serialized storytelling and in a way she's right. Many of the old show's cliffhangers were in reality artificial drama created to make the cliffhanger. The success of the new series kind of shows that there's a different kind of storytelling at work now, season long story arcs seem to work better nowadays.
Season long arcs work best when there is a plan in place before the scripts are written and the episodes are filmed. It doesn't work as well when they are doing it on the fly. I feel the last few series haven't had a plan in place for the whole season, and the arc for Series 8 is one of the worst. For the decay, Grant used the footage of a person doing a martial arts move against the Myrka in "Warriors of the Deep" for evidence that Doctor Who should be retired.
Who's Grant anyway? And really The Horror Of Fang Rock was written on the fly, like I said it was a replacement story for Dicks' vampire story which was later turned into The State Of Decay. Warriors Of The Deep has it's share of problems but those can be traced back to the director and the production was rushed because the cameras were needed for election coverage.
Oh those artificial cliffhangers were around since the beginning of the series! They're outdate now. In fact, they tried moving towards longer episodes with Colin's first season but there was a backlash. At any rate, Enlightenment was still great with the cliffhangers. Although, the version I just saw for the first time was the newly edited special version on the DVD. That was really nice. 73 minutes or so. Worked great! Mr Awe
Actually, the first stab at a longer episode was the Fifth Doctor episode "Resurrection of the Daleks". It was two 45-minute episodes.
Was it made as two 45 minute episodes though? The DVD has four eps on it so was this something that was cobbled together for the initial showing, or has two episodes been split into 4?
It was made as a four parter but was turned into a two parter because of the winter Olympics. The second part was even originally broadcast without sound effects or musical score. The two parter though is on the special edition rerelease.
The Visitation's a bit of a weird one IMO. I mean it's an OK story with a neat setting, but I think it was only the second one Davison filmed, and it kind of shows in his performance a bit. Still I thought Mace was a fun sort of supporting character, and the villains were interesting and a bit smarter than the average monster. The story's also notable for getting rid of the sonic screwdriver (Which wouldn't appear again until the TV movie although Colin briefly used a "Sonic lance") and animatronics for the creature effects.