Revelation of the Daleks This was a strange one. I was completely lost for the first part. I had no idea what anyone was doing or why. The DJ just added to the confusion. The second part cleared things up, but it still seemed like a lot of different concepts were stitched together but none really connected to the other which made the Doctor and Peri seem like extras in the story. Actually, they didn't really need to be there at all. I did enjoy the recognizable cast (Eleanor Bron - The Beatles "Help!", Alexei Sayle - "The Young Ones", Clive Smith - "Keeping Up Appearances").
One of the quotes I heard on the commentaries for the Peter Davison years - I am paraphrasing here - if John Nathan Turner suggests anything, run for the hills. I, also, love hearing Janet Fielding's comments about her wig. (She has described it as a dead rat.) I find her more entertaining than L. Jameson who in every commentary would mention that she almost killed a cameraman with a knife and that her knife was replaced with a dummy knife. I learned also that M. Waterhouse - the actor who played Adric - gave advice to an experienced thespian. I find this hilarious as he was one of the most terrible actors who ever played a companion. It's good that he has a good sense of humor about his acting abilities. I was disappointed that for the Lalla Ward episodes, that both she and her ex-husband couldn't comment on their episodes together. I have seen "Four to Doomsday", "Kinda", and "Visitation". "Kinda" is the best of the three, with "Four to Doomsday" being the weakest.
This story is both true, and inaccurate, IYSWIM. Richard Todd was an immensely experienced film and stage actor who'd done very little TV, so he got a bit of a shock when he was hit with the Doctor Who in-studio production schedule. Matthew Waterhouse had been on the series for a year by that point, and tried to be helpful in a tactless way. A few years later, John Thaw's wife was cast as Helen A in The Happiness Patrol. He reportedly read the script, asked her how much studio time they had to make it, and then said "Not a hope. Needs twice as long." But they got it made. If they'd had twice as long, it might have looked better... though to be honest, the 1987 episodes of Morse look more dated than the equivalent episodes of Who.
The Daemons I understand that this was Pertwee and Courntey's favorite episode. While I found it watchable, I wasn't QUITE that taken with it. My big problem with Pertwee's tenure was that most of his stories just ran too long. Maybe since this one had 5 parts instead of the usual 6, it made it a little tighter. I really don't have anything negative to say about it, but nothing really glowing either. The premise reminded me a lot of Animated Trek's "The Magicks of Megas-Tu", only a little more sinister. I'm just not sold that this is the direction the Master would take, but since a one-off enemy wouldn't work here and the Doctor had no other credible on-going adversary at this point, I guess there was no other choice. I suppose I'm not a fan of trying to combine sci-fi with magic. It was good to see Yates and Benton have a substantial part here, however. and I couldn't help but ponder if the bespectacled, somewhat nerdy Sgt. Osgood here was the inspiration for UNIT scientist in "Day of the Doctor"/"Death In Heaven".
^ I really enjoyed The Daemons myself. I seem to remember that it showcased the personal side of a number of the UNIT characters. However, like a number of Pertwee's stories, the ending was really bad. It didn't ruin my enjoyment of the story but I don't know what it was with that era but they didn't always know how to end a story! Mr Awe
I think part of the problem is that all but one of the Daemons episodes are not in the best condition (Even on the DVD it kind of has a blurry look). Stephen Thorne who plays Azal is also the original Omega and male Eldrad actor.
^ Really? It looked fine to me. I guess it was re-colorized. But, on the other hand, I'm not expecting top image quality for the stories from this time.
Episode four of The Daemons is one of the earliest that exists as originally transmitted on the PAL625 master tape (the fourth, I think). The other four are 'merge' recolourisations, where the main image comes from a black and white telerecording, but the colour comes from an off-air recording of an American screening. It was originally done as a one-episode experiment, then when it worked the rest of the serial was done for a BBC2 repeat and VHS release across 1992/1993, and then it was redone with improved results for the DVD release (and the same technique was applied to other stories: Silurians and Terror of the Autons initially. It didn't work on all of Ambassadors of Death, so a full colour version of that had to wait a bit). As for Osgood... the fanon is that the recent Osgood is the daughter of the Osgood from The Daemons: she first met the Doctor via her father when she was a child (the UNIT Christmas parties... the ones where Yates first met the fourth Doctor according to the BBC CDs).
I really liked "The Daemons." Everyone seems to be having a lot of fun. Although I'd agree that the very end doesn't make much sense. And while I really like Stephen Thorne's shouty Omega performance in "The Three Doctors," it very quickly becomes very grating as Azal in "The Daemons." I think the reason why it works for Omega is because it fits the character. Omega has been lost and alone in the antimatter universe for thousands of years, screaming in vain for the universe to notice him. His boundless rage justifies his excessive volume. Azal has no such justification. I would also say that "The Daemons" is educational, since it's the only time I've ever seen Morris Dancing. The last story I saw was "An Unearthly Child." It's a very odd sort of beginning. Ian & Barbara seem fully formed right from their first appearance. But the Doctor & Susan seem far more unapproachably alien in this first appearance than they would ever be again. But mostly, I find the story really annoying because the cavemen are idiots. It's one thing to be an unsophisticated, superstitious savage. It's quite another thing to be a complete moron. I don't understand how the species could have survived with such a total lack of critical thinking skills. Leela's tribe would have wiped them out by lunchtime.
Just watched Tomb of the Cybermen again, it’s still very very good. I have to say though, for all the comments people make about the portrayal of Toberman being racist, no one ever seem to mention the racial overtones regarding Kleig and Kaftan as the shifty middle eastern types.
I agree the "100,000 BC" part of "An Unearthly Child" is hard to watch. Too bad the couldn't afford the original premiere idea of shrinking the Tardis crew down in a Gulliver's Travels sort of thing. Good thing the Daleks showed up in the next story because I don't know if caveman sort of stuff would have made Doctor Who a success, even with the kids. I didn't mind Susan being, well, "unearthly" at first. Its when she was only there to scream that's when she got irritating. The Doctor, on the other hand, I really don't understand his motivations. He basically took Ian and Barbara hostage. I didn't find him mysterious. I found him sinister.
And midway though the story the series got a new unit production manager and another future producer of the series in John Nathan-Turner.
Did you watch the original "An Unearthly Child" pilot or the second one they did? Because the Doctor is far more sinister in the original pilot. The first episode of this serial is the best one and as one reviewer pointed out, Susan is never more interesting again than she is in the first episode. The next three pilots goes into historical territory and are dragged down by the cavemens neverending talk about fire. It also doesn't help that the two rival cavemen look so much like each other that you can't tell them apart. Still, the original serial isn't bad and the third episode has a very interesting and out-of-character scene for the Doctor. They would evolve the character from that though.
Timelash - Wow. I could not finish this. This has not happened since Time and the Rani.... even the terrible Twin Dilemma I could watch with some difficulty. I had to stop this frequently. Not even the sight of a Jon Pertwee wallpaper and a Jo Grant locket could sustain interest. This is the worst Colin Baker DW story, and thats really saying something. Wow.
Yeah, that one wasn't very good (and this is coming from someone who actually kind of liked The Twin Dilemma). For me I seem to remember it being really boring. I just finished a rewatch of The Mysterious Planet (since I got the Trial of a Timelord Boxset for Christmas). It was still ok. In retrospect its really weird that the 7th Doctor got along with Glitz in Dragonfire, because in this serial Glitz's first plan was to release poison gas and kill everyone in the tunnels, and he wasn't bothered by mass murder at all He really was a very bad guy, but the 7th Doctor just kind of treated him like a con man, which was weird. The primitive tribe on the surface was still a bit annoying, especially their queen. Also, now knowing what the whole conspiracy is about the trial as I watch these episodes, the Time Lords really are arrogant a-holes. They probably deserved to be removed from this dimension long before the time war Overall this was ok, my thoughts didn't really change on it. Next up is Mindwarp, which I originally hated, so it will be interested to see if my opinion changes on a rewatch.
Yeah, I didn't think about that. Glitz probably deserves a parade and a planet named after him for doing that
Glitz is one of Robert Holmes' last Who creations. I like him, though he was inconsistent in intent - Holmes portrayed him as sinister but ineffective, whereas post-Holmes he was portrayed as a thief-with-a-heart-of-gold type of character.
Yeah, I didn't really have a problem with him, just how much he changed. Either one of his portrayals would have been fine, but the second one really doesn't match well with the first. He was really vicious, in a way The Doctor isn't going to find acceptable in any incarnation. Then, he reappears and we're apparently supposed to forget that he was planning to massacre people for money when we first saw him
The Doctor had no knowledge of any massacre and in any event Glitz sold off his crew as slaves that were turned into zombies for Kane. So he was hardly seen a good guy in Dragonfire just alittle bit better than Kane.