Where do I start?

Discussion in 'Doctor Who' started by sbk1234, Dec 22, 2012.

  1. bbjeg

    bbjeg Admiral Admiral

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    I wasn't a fan of Spearhead From Space but I really enjoyed The Three Doctors. The concept of that episode was fantastical. I have a feeling I'll see Omega again.
     
  2. Guy Gardener

    Guy Gardener Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    But I want to buy a house with a maid for Liz, when all I want to do to Jo is tape her mouth shut so he shuts the hell up.

    Every one of the Jo Grant stories would have been at least half the size if Liz had boots on the ground instead of the knob Jo Grant.
     
  3. bbjeg

    bbjeg Admiral Admiral

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    If that was directed to me, I have no idea what it means. I just started watching Dr. Who and still learning the names.
     
  4. Starkers

    Starkers Admiral Admiral

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    Don't worry that's just Guy being Guy :) I don't think it was directed at you!
     
  5. Sindatur

    Sindatur The Gray Owl Wizard Admiral

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    LOL, yea, Guy being Guy.

    Translation: The sophisticated lady Companion in Spearhead From Space (Liz Shaw) is a Goddess and the Hippie Companion in The Three Doctors (Jo Grant) is a shrill dumbass who screwed up so much it took the Doctor longer to resolve the Story then if Liz had stuck around longer.
     
  6. bbjeg

    bbjeg Admiral Admiral

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    That I get. Shaw was a better companion than Grant.
     
  7. Guy Gardener

    Guy Gardener Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    (Thank you Sindatur.)

    Here's the problem.

    The job of the companion is to ask the Doctor to explain what is happening so that the audience isn't confused.

    The dumber the the companion, the more questions they ask, the more informed the audience is.

    In this regard, Jo is a far superior companion to Liz.

    However, Liz like perhaps Ian (The first male companion in 1963) is the Doctor's equal and should feel short-changed to be so marginalized below their station as an assistant rather than a associate.

    Doctor Shaw didn't want to be just and merely a "companion" which is why she left.

    ...

    U.N.I.T.'s Chielf Scientific Advisor would have got a reasonably impressive pay packet each week. The Chief Scientific Advisor's assistant less so. Did Liz get a pay cut when the Doctor stole her job (Which may be why the impressive academic might have really left.) and did she get paid the same as Jo did eventually get paid... Also that entire sexism thing, where women get paid a % of cash for doing the same job a man does, how much more money would they have paid the Doctor to do Liz's job, when he most probably wasn't even cashing his cheques?
     
  8. diankra

    diankra Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    Supposedly the Doctor was unpaid.. so either Liz still got the salary or the Brig used it for something else... maybe buying the stuff the Doctor is using to fix the TARDIS.
     
  9. Guy Gardener

    Guy Gardener Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    I'm sure that the Doctor did not remember that anything had a monetary value, which is probably why he got along so well with Chairman Mao and emptied Sir Reginald's wine cellar.
     
  10. Sindatur

    Sindatur The Gray Owl Wizard Admiral

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    Yea, didn't he specifically say he had no use for money, he just wanted parts coughed up at his slightest whim?

    Yea, I'm sure Liz didn't get docked for The Doctor being around, but, I wouldn't count on a woman in the early 1970s getting the wages a man would.

    LOL, yea, that caused my eyebrow to raise, he made himself far too much at home.

    And..."Pity, it was a good Year", was that a bottle he took on his way out and carried it around in his coat for all those episodes? I don't remember where else that bottle came from?
     
  11. Guy Gardener

    Guy Gardener Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    In his defence, not that he was aware at the time, but anything he didn't drink was exterminated by the Daleks when they tried to get a foothold on the 20th century, and anything that he had drunk if the Timelord had been more reserved and not drunk because he was a less imperfect house guest would have then been destroyed by the Daleks when they tried to get a foot hold on the 20th century, so what was the point of not drinking wine that was already predestined to be boiled away by Dalek Blaster fire?
     
  12. Lance

    Lance Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    You know, part of me is kind of glad they let Liz go rather than dumbing her down (which is almost certainly what Barry Letts would have done if he'd decided to keep her).

    Just look at the Brigadier. In The Web Of Fear he barely flinches when the Doctor tells him all about the TARDIS. In The Invasion, it's implied he had a personal hand in the formation of UNIT, specifically because like a certain agent on The X-Files, Lethbridge-Stewart Wants To Believe. Spearhead From Space basically draws this even further, painting the Brigadier as the believer and Liz Shaw as the Scully-esque skeptic (years BEFORE Scully, I know I know).

    Bascially, before Letts got his talons into the series, the Brig was a competent and professional soldier... but he was also a whole lot more than that. He was also an intelligent man who, when presented with rational evidence, could be persuaded to believe anything.

    The Silurians (produced by Letts) punctured that, by forcing Lethbridge-Stewart to choose between his duties and his beliefs. He pressed the nuke, and the Doctor hated on him for it.

    But this is Barry Letts' producership for you. Over the next five years, the UNIT crew became imbeciles.

    The Brigadier became a dumbass whose primary role was muscle, nothing else, culminating in some excrutiating Idiot Ball moments in The Three Doctors where he can't believe he's landed on an alien planet. Sgt Benton gradually turned into comic relief, going from the Brig's right-hand-man to being that guy who wears a nappy for the Everybody Laughs ending of The Time Monster. And Jo Grant was Barry's antidote for smart intelligent Liz Shaw: Jo is a dumb broad, whose primary role is to make the tea and ask the Doctor lots of probing questions. Oh, and she got into UNIT via nepotism rather than on merit (her uncle in the U.N. arranged for her to be assigned).

    Seriously, these guys are Earth's first line of defense? :shifty:
     
  13. bbjeg

    bbjeg Admiral Admiral

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    Finished The Green Death last night. It was alright. I'm starting to notice a formula in their writing but it's still good.

    I noticed that. The Brigadier has become idiotic compared to the first time I saw him.
     
  14. Australis

    Australis Writer - Australis Admiral

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    Ah, but after Green Death, iirc, you get the mighty Sarah Jane!
     
  15. bbjeg

    bbjeg Admiral Admiral

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    On to Doctor four. At first glance, Tom Baker is not as impressing as the first 3 Doctors (The third's stories are currently the best IMO, but the second Doctor is my favorite so far).
     
  16. Guy Gardener

    Guy Gardener Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    And Adolf Hitler was a house painter.
     
  17. bbjeg

    bbjeg Admiral Admiral

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    Oh, Guy.
     
  18. Guy Gardener

    Guy Gardener Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    Who do you think painted your house?
     
  19. bbjeg

    bbjeg Admiral Admiral

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    Mein Kampf painting company... Holy crap, I knew that guy had a funny mustache.
     
  20. Ar-Pharazon

    Ar-Pharazon Admiral Premium Member

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    Tom Baker is my Doctor, and not just 'cause I saw his episodes many times over in the 70's & 80's.

    He was great at the quirky.
     
    Last edited: Mar 17, 2014