Am I the only one that felt uncomfortable about the old Hurt Serials?

Re: Am I the only one that felt uncomfortable about the old Hurt Seria

None of you are bringing up "Remember the Rani" which in my opinion is the finest Hurt Doctor episode filmed. Call me a sentimental fool but what the series needed was a good romantic epic that especially after the events of "Rassilon's Fire" really showed the angst ridden Hurt given a shot at a normal happy life with unbeknownst to the audience up to that time was the Doctor's deepest love. I mean, you'd have to be a Cyberman/Dalek hybrid not to feel something when the Rani lets Hurt go at the hypertube port with that albeit campy line, "You can never know who you are to me but you'll never forget who I am to you!" and then sacrifices herself by falling into the interstitial rift.
Granted, it does set the stage for the penultimate two-parter "Homecoming/The Terror of a Time Lord" and the "Requiem for Methuselah" way in which Presta and Nesbin make him "forget" the events of the episode is a real eye roller but as a one-off it worked for me.

 

Re: Am I the only one that felt uncomfortable about the old Hurt Seria

Yes, the end of the Rani's storyline was excellent, and I was actually going to bring up "Return of the Rani," way back when we first saw Kate O'Mara again. She could have done so much more, but I understand why they wanted to have her regenerate, and I'm certainly not complaining about Claudia Black.

I'm just glad they cut that scene out of "Strange Bedfellows." Hurt and Black... that's something I didn't need to see that much of.

Of course, had they gone with their first choice and cast Alex Kingston as the Rani's new regeneration, things might have taken an even...weirder turn later on. For the longest time after "Silence In the Library," I kept hoping that's who River really was. Not that the BBC would have let Moffat do that even if he wanted to (which he very well may have done).

 

Re: Am I the only one that felt uncomfortable about the old Hurt Seria

Too much Claudia Black? Heresy!

 

Re: Am I the only one that felt uncomfortable about the old Hurt Seria

Too much Claudia Black only happens when it also involves seeing too much of John Hurt at the same time. *shudder*

And people think Game of Thrones sex is ... ewww.

 

Re: Am I the only one that felt uncomfortable about the old Hurt Seria

TJ, I think that's just a fan legend, that Kingston was in line for the Rani. She was still a regular on ER at the time and based out of LA. Nothing about casting Kingston ever made sense from a logistical standpoint. As dream casting on the part of the producers? Sure. We all know that RTD wanted Kate Winslet for River Song in "Silence of the Library," but that dream never came to pass. As something with a realistic chance of happening, though? Kingston as the Rani just doesn't work. *shrug*

 

Re: Am I the only one that felt uncomfortable about the old Hurt Seria

My favorite Hurt serial was "The Master and the Doctor", where the Hurt Doctor's first idea to end the time war was even worse than what he ended up doing, and it was up to the Master of all people to stop him. It was really interesting to see such a role reversal. You know things have gotten bad when it takes the Master to talk some sense into you! Shame we wouldn't get to see him again until third season of NuWho.

 

Re: Am I the only one that felt uncomfortable about the old Hurt Seria

Not necessarily, Allyn. Kingston did pop over to the UK to work while ER was in its off-season. She did Boudicca, after all. A guest spot here or there as the Rani wouldn't have been totally out of the realm of possibility, but at the time, she clearly wouldn't have been as available as Claudia Black since the winding-down and end of Farscape. All things considered, it probably worked out for the best, though.

As for Winslet as River... noooo. There goes the proper Mrs. Robinson vibe right out the window. And anyhow, in 2008, she was riding high off of Revolutionary Road and The Reader. No way she would have done a television show, let alone Doctor Who, at that time. This was well before Mildred Pierce. That was just RTD talking up the kind of actress he wanted, never a real chance of it happening in the slightest. And for that, I think we should all be grateful.

 

Re: Am I the only one that felt uncomfortable about the old Hurt Seria

Nobody mentioned, so far, the return of Traken as a result of reverse bypolarization (or whatever) done by the Sontarans, in order to harness the mythical Belt of Will that they thought would win them their war.

I thought that was, as mentioned, yet another nice parallel of the Bush-Blair era that explified the lengths at which an war-bent civilization will go into in order to gain knowledge that, by all rights, should have stayed dead.

On the other hand, it was nice for Nyssa to finally return to her home planet, after all.

 

Re: Am I the only one that felt uncomfortable about the old Hurt Seria

To be honest, I can't blame the BBC for sweeping this one under the rug. By the end, the show was positively drowning in continuity references, and I could barely watch it without my copy of The Terrestrial Index at my side. The Rani, Jamie, Kamelion, Peri, Ace, Romana, Adric, even Frobisher! Hurt's own companions barely got a look in. (Does anyone even remember Lindsay Gamma?)

I still can't believe they did that five-parter that took place during the Vardon-Kosnax War, brought back the Xeraphin, and retconned the Vardon and Vardans to be the same thing, all taking it for granted that you had seen The Invasion of Time and Time-Flight! When Derek Jacobi turned up in the Khalid costume, I nearly died. I mean, it upped the stakes of the Time War, but otherwise, it was incomprehensible.

No wonder when Russell T Davies took over he avoided as much continuity as he could.

 

Re: Am I the only one that felt uncomfortable about the old Hurt Seria

Nice? NICE?!?

Oh, well, yeah, I guess it was nice, until we got the off-hand reference that Traken was one of the first planets to fall in "Scourge of the Daleks." It was Jonas Quinn and Kelowna all over again. Bye-bye Traken and Nyssa that time, and we didn't even see it. And by that point in the series, there was so much going on, it was barely noticed.

 

Re: Am I the only one that felt uncomfortable about the old Hurt Seria

All you Basterds!

The Hurt Era was never even broadcast in Germany!

It took Tennant to get out Tv Execs interested again.

I guess Tv back in the day was a little to vanilla for such a progressive show.

Since back then TV episodes were not widely vailable via other means, I still have not been able to get hold of a single episode!

Anyone know if they plan to do a Retro Bluray release?

 

Re: Am I the only one that felt uncomfortable about the old Hurt Seria

I liked "A Serbian Episode" and "Edge of Darkness" the most.

The former in particular had some truly disturbing implications of the mob and the BBC, and the references just wouldn't let go for the rest of the series, albeit lessening in frequency. You can still catch the occasional split-second visual reference to the former in the most recent episodes even.

The latter on the other hand was a classic monster story done so well, albeit with a twist. There would be real life death, and some very deliberate timing, but I won't spoil further, in case someone didn't see it back then, and wants to buy some cassettes, if you catch my drift.

Personally, I found the continuity wank utterly tasteless.

 

Re: Am I the only one that felt uncomfortable about the old Hurt Seria

My favourite episode was the one where he dropped acid while receiving a lapdance from Rani off of The Sarah-Jane Adventures. Definitely the best bit of an otherwise tedious sixteen-part story set in Gallifrey's Citadel.

 

Re: Am I the only one that felt uncomfortable about the old Hurt Seria

I think you're getting your wires crossed again; different characters with the same name. Unexpected lapdance from Claudia Black's Rani? Nice and unexpected for Who - though it did lead to too much John Hurt for TJ Sinclair.

The SJA Rani would have been... 12 at the time? 13?

To be fair, Lindsay only got... what, 2 episodes? We're talking Adam-level companion here. But you have a great point.

 

Re: Am I the only one that felt uncomfortable about the old Hurt Seria

I think you're getting your Rani's confused. Anjil Mohindra would have been about 12 during John Hurt's tenure. She was 14 going on 15 when Christopher Eccleston took over the role. Too young to be giving anyone a lap-dance, "post-Watershed" or not.

Methinks you were the one dropping acid that time.

 

Re: Am I the only one that felt uncomfortable about the old Hurt Seria

That does bring up the age old question of who was the best companion for Hurt. As you say, Lindsay only got 2 episodes, well 3 (and a lizard). Claire McCrimmon, on the other hand, was around a good long while, all things considered, and had a great impact on the show. Back then a lot of people derided her for simply being a "second-generation" knockoff character, but I don't think those folks really understood what was going on. Much like Frobisher.

It was good to see a couple of actual alien companions again, though, too.

 

Re: Am I the only one that felt uncomfortable about the old Hurt Seria

"The Pillars of Rassilon" wasn't sixteen parts. It only felt like it was sixteen parts. There was no budget for it, so what we got was fifty minutes of three people talking in an unadorned room. I can't even say that conversation was scintillating. It was, however, interminable.

And I agree with everyone else vis-a-vis Rani. What drugs were you on?

 

Re: Am I the only one that felt uncomfortable about the old Hurt Seria

Yeah, that's probably pretty accurate. I was on another plain of reality for most of 2004. Mostly to avoid Spider-Man 2.

 

Re: Am I the only one that felt uncomfortable about the old Hurt Seria

I actually thought the best reuse of the old monsters was the reintroduction of the Cybermen in "The Golden Plague". It ALMOST made me feel bad for them... tho seeing the head of that one later during Eccleston's "Dalek" ep was just icing...

 

Re: Am I the only one that felt uncomfortable about the old Hurt Seria

Can't blame you there. If only Alfred Molina had thought the same...