The first draft of Mind of Evil was written before the Master came along, so the original villain got rewritten into the Master. In UK prisons some prisoners do get to wear civilian clothes. Not lifers like Mailer, but the clothes are accurate for the time (compare with the sitcom Porridge). Some hasty rewriting was needed when the Army troops guarding the real missile they'd loaned (yep, it's real. Not a prop) turned up in uniform. So the Master and Yates discuss how they're mercenaries in fake uniforms.
I saw Web Of Fear and it further cements my opinion of how great Troughton was. A great episode all around.
Wow, I thought the missle was just agood prop. I'm betting that it wasn't a nuclear powered gas bomb, but it was still impressive that they got an actual missle. The prison clothes thing is interesting. Honestly, it wasn't so much the lack of US style jumpsuits that was weird so much as the fact that they all had collared shirts and ties. It was some kind of uniform (because they were al wearing them), and just seemed werd trying to imagine a prison trying to get its violent prisoners (especiallysome who were basially on the equivilant of death row in the story) to wear ties.
The Aztecs is a terrific story, and it's got everything from history to fighting to Indiana Jones-type exploring to romance (and no, it's not Ian, Barbara, or Susan who gets the romance stuff!). You may wonder about the chocolate/cocoa references. They're historically accurate, and one of the sophisticated things the Aztecs did food-wise was serve meat with chocolate sauce (my SCA group re-created this one year at Harvest Feast, with great results). The Dalek Invasion of Earth is another great story. And the ending made me cry (you'll see why). BTW, the William Hartnell scene from The Five Doctors is from The Dalek Invasion of Earth. When you go on to other First Doctor stories, The Romans is another wonderful historical. Did American male prisoners wear jumpsuits in the early '70s? I have no idea, because the only prison movies I've seen are Escape From Alcatraz, Shawshank Redemption, and Dead Man Walking, plus the OZ TV series. The Classic-era Master, whether Roger Delgado or Anthony Ainley, would always wear a suit and tie or other formal wear whenever possible, because he's suave and sophisticated like that.
Yeah, it made sense for The Master, but I don't think most (if any) prisoners in America, especially violent ones, wear anything that isn't obviously prison wear, much less a nice shirt and tie. But I'm far from an authority on it. I've just never seen any pictures of prisoners, or prisoners in any media before, wear a collared shirt and tie while just being in prison.
I admit to an aversion to most of the Historicals, myself The First Hartnell Story (1,000,000 BC), Introducing the Series and him and Susan, I love the opening episode (One of the best Pilots, EVAH), but, The Cavemen stuff is pretty bland, other than learning how far the doctor will actually go (Seeing as he was willing to bash the Caveman's head in with a rock to escape, even though the Caveman was already conquered/dominated) I love The Aztecs, One of Hartnell's best, IMHO. I like The Romans a lot because it's really funny I recently watched the color Photo Recon of Marco Polo, and found I really enjoyed it (Would love to see this story returned, and it may rival The Aztecs for me, if it was to come back "live action", since I enjoyed the Recon so much). The other 6 Hartnell Historicals, and the Troughton Historical that introduces Jamie, just don't trip my trigger so far (Reign of Terror has 2 missing episodes, that are animated, and Gun Fighters is complete. Of the others, all are missing, except for 2 of 4 episodes of The Crusade), and did not excite me the last time through . The Evil of The Daleks (Which introduces Victoria) could be half called an Historical (Only 1 of 7 episodes survives), it's got Daleks, but, much of it features Victoria's former life and era, with only allusions to Daleks, or a Dalek or two passing down a corridor in the distance. I do really like this one too, and wish more (or all) episodes were available. If you can appreciate Recons, this is a Troughton one you'll want to check out
Have you read the novelizations? Since they tend to follow the script very closely, they're better than nothing.
I love the historicals - most are up there with the very best of Who for me. The writing and acting tends to be stronger than the other 60's stories and only a few fall short of the mark. Reign doesn't really do anything with its very interesting setting & The Smugglers is weaker than the rest but The Aztecs, The Romans & The Crusade are all 10/10 for me and The Gunfighters is a great romp. Marco Polo, The Massacre & The Myth Makers I've only listened to on audio but all 3 make my top 20 Who stories on that alone. The cavemen stuff in the first story may lack the exciting B movie plotting of The Daleks but for me it is the better story thanks to a much stronger script, better acting from the guest cast (the casts in the 60's always seemed more on solid ground in the historicals than the science fiction stuff) and more interesting character work.
Even better still was how the director changed the script and turned into a James Bond styled scene. Which later prompted thme to rework the scripts and the budgets to get more action out the show.
The Aztecs was a good story. It felt a bit repetitive at times, since the sacrifice priest was really the only focal point for the episode,but it was still enjoyable, even if it could have used something to take a little time away from the constant scheming of the priest. Barbara was an idiot, but at least she did admit she was wrong eventually. The Doctor was great, even if he got much less screen time than he should have. His "relationship" with the aztec woman was interesting. He actually seemed sad to say goodbye, and of course it was funny how he got into the relationship by seeming to just not know what he was doing (while simultaneously saying he knew exactly what he was doing). Susan wasn't much of a factor, and Ian served his purpose decently enough. I think the story would have benefited from having some conflict not related to the priest happening, but overall I enjoyed the story. Next up will be back to the 3rd Doctor with The Claws of Axos.
I finally got to see The Web Of Fear and The Enemy Of The World. I thought Web would be the better one ot see but really Enemy Of the World turned out to be the better of the two, I loved the Doctor's romp in the ocean and Troughton in both parts was incrdible. It's shame about part three of Web Of Fear but it's great that we've got those two stories back.
Claws of Axos is a pretty unique one IMO. It's probably the most psychedelic of the 70s adventures. Also if you've seen Seeds Of Doom you might recognize the aliens, they were painted green for one of the stages of the Krynoid in that serial.
The Claws of Axos wasn't very good. It wasn't terrible, but it felt like a chore to sit through at times. The Axos set and monsters were decent, but the story felt like it went on too long, and it just wasn't very interesting at times. The next 3rd Doctor serial is The Colony in Space, but I happen to have The dalek Invasion of Earth and The Mind Robber DVDs coming from Amazon, so I'll probably end up seeing at least one of them before continuing with the 3rd Doctor.
Colony in Space is IMO the weakest of that season, IMO. Sure it's Pertwee's first real trip to another planet & time, but it's too long and the world is a really crappy quarry. Mind Robber is a bit silly but quite fun and has a kind of creepy & unique first episode.
Just finished "The Daemons" last night and found it rather ridiculous, verging on parody. The TV reporter in the first episode seemed to be doing his best Eric Idle impression and many of the other characters and set pieces seemed to be straight out of Monty Python (the tall, horsey "witch"; the squire; the Morris dancers). Jo was a bigger idiot than usual (noted even by Mike Yates), the Brig veered between dense and supportive, the UNIT men were hapless. Even Pertwee seemed to be camping it up. I prefer Who when it shows a bit of humor but this story went too far for me. At least I finally got to hear the Brig say, "Chap with wings, five rounds rapid."
The story-which came out in the early 70s-actually is older than the Python TV series, which came out in the mid 70s when Tom Baker was the Doctor. IMO the story sort of suffers a bit from the picture quality of all but one episode (due to the original film/video being lost I think or destroyed). Even the restoration team on the DVD weren't able to really 'fix' the story.
Sorry, but Python went out 1969 to 1974. The Daemons was made and shown in the gap between seasons two and three.
oops! Got the date mixed up with Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Sorry. The Daemons seems to have had some influence on later stories, most notably The Awakening.