I did not mind the first 3 episodes after that I lost interest
Last Classic Who Story you watched
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I did not mind the first 3 episodes after that I lost interest
Like, 2/3 of the way through "Greatest Show in the Galaxy." Don't care about any of the characters (including the Doctor). Don't understand anyone's motivations. Looking forward to being done with this terrible era of Dr. Who.
See, the thing, if you're telling a story, is if you introduce a character, you've got to make us care about them. Part of that is telling us something about them and their motivations. Then you need to have them act in a way that advances the plot but is consistent with their motivations.
Again, this story is a "throw shit against the wall and see what sticks" story. There's a guy in a Viking helmet on a motor trike. He significantly stops for a bit to open a panel to take a bite out of a sandwich. Why? Why waste time and resources on that shot? What does it tell us about the character? How does it advance the story? It doesn't. It was like the writer and/or the director said "we need something whacky here that will fill 20 seconds. Let's get props to add a lunchbox to the bike, put a sandwich in there, have the actor stop, open the box, and have a bite of the sandwich." Stupid and pointless.
Then this character meets our protagonists. Ace points out that his bike has mechanical problems and that she could help him fix it. He tells her to piss off. How does this exchange advance the story? It doesn't. It is like it was just stuck in to fill time. So we've got our Viking biker. Next we see him, he's a prisoner of this circus that ...I don't even know. Nothing at all about the circus makes any sense at all. Anyway, though, they lure people to the circus and then get them to perform in it. So our Viking biker does Feats of Strength--complete with a Fred Flintstone Strong Man animal skin. This apparently goes over well with the audience so... the ringmaster orders him to tell a joke. The joke bombs and he gets disintegrated. What the actual fuck?! If you're luring people to your circus to keep it staffed and keep your mysterious audience (that we don't actually give two shits about because you haven't told us anything) entertained, wouldn't it make sense to try and keep them around instead of killing them off?
Oh, and there's the Doctor, acting like a retard. He's got this huge boner to go to this circus. And he behaves like no Doctor ever before. "Ace, we must kiss up to this backwards hick and eat her horrible food to win her over so we can find out how to get to the circus that has a BIG FUCKING SIGN THAT SAYS "CIRCUS: THIS WAY ->" RIGHT BEHIND HER BIG STUPID HEAD. Then he goes on and on about how the place feels odd and evil--right until they get to the circus where Ace says she HEARS SCREAMING. At this point he has a manic swing and accuses her of being a pussy for not wanting to go to this awesome circus. Then he is genuinely surprised when the ringmaster asks him to go into a cage and and he finds out he's in--wait for it--a CAGE!--these episodes are literally torture to watch, but goddammit, back in the 80s, I moved to a city where the PBS station didn't show Dr. Who, so I've been waiting for a generation for these episodes and I'm maybe a month from being done with them, so I'm going to fucking watch them, as fucking absolutely horrible and retarded as they are.
Whoops, too much booze. Still, as God is my witness, Michael Grade is off my shit list. If anything, he is guilty of keeping this horrible show on the air with an incompetent producer for 4-5 years longer than he should have. But if I'm ever in England, I *will* piss on Mary Whitehouse's grave for getting Hinchcliffe fired. And I'll take a big steaming dump on JNT's grave for ruining my favorite show of my childhood.
See, the thing, if you're telling a story, is if you introduce a character, you've got to make us care about them. Part of that is telling us something about them and their motivations. Then you need to have them act in a way that advances the plot but is consistent with their motivations.
Again, this story is a "throw shit against the wall and see what sticks" story. There's a guy in a Viking helmet on a motor trike. He significantly stops for a bit to open a panel to take a bite out of a sandwich. Why? Why waste time and resources on that shot? What does it tell us about the character? How does it advance the story? It doesn't. It was like the writer and/or the director said "we need something whacky here that will fill 20 seconds. Let's get props to add a lunchbox to the bike, put a sandwich in there, have the actor stop, open the box, and have a bite of the sandwich." Stupid and pointless.
Then this character meets our protagonists. Ace points out that his bike has mechanical problems and that she could help him fix it. He tells her to piss off. How does this exchange advance the story? It doesn't. It is like it was just stuck in to fill time. So we've got our Viking biker. Next we see him, he's a prisoner of this circus that ...I don't even know. Nothing at all about the circus makes any sense at all. Anyway, though, they lure people to the circus and then get them to perform in it. So our Viking biker does Feats of Strength--complete with a Fred Flintstone Strong Man animal skin. This apparently goes over well with the audience so... the ringmaster orders him to tell a joke. The joke bombs and he gets disintegrated. What the actual fuck?! If you're luring people to your circus to keep it staffed and keep your mysterious audience (that we don't actually give two shits about because you haven't told us anything) entertained, wouldn't it make sense to try and keep them around instead of killing them off?
Oh, and there's the Doctor, acting like a retard. He's got this huge boner to go to this circus. And he behaves like no Doctor ever before. "Ace, we must kiss up to this backwards hick and eat her horrible food to win her over so we can find out how to get to the circus that has a BIG FUCKING SIGN THAT SAYS "CIRCUS: THIS WAY ->" RIGHT BEHIND HER BIG STUPID HEAD. Then he goes on and on about how the place feels odd and evil--right until they get to the circus where Ace says she HEARS SCREAMING. At this point he has a manic swing and accuses her of being a pussy for not wanting to go to this awesome circus. Then he is genuinely surprised when the ringmaster asks him to go into a cage and and he finds out he's in--wait for it--a CAGE!--these episodes are literally torture to watch, but goddammit, back in the 80s, I moved to a city where the PBS station didn't show Dr. Who, so I've been waiting for a generation for these episodes and I'm maybe a month from being done with them, so I'm going to fucking watch them, as fucking absolutely horrible and retarded as they are.
Whoops, too much booze. Still, as God is my witness, Michael Grade is off my shit list. If anything, he is guilty of keeping this horrible show on the air with an incompetent producer for 4-5 years longer than he should have. But if I'm ever in England, I *will* piss on Mary Whitehouse's grave for getting Hinchcliffe fired. And I'll take a big steaming dump on JNT's grave for ruining my favorite show of my childhood.
And breathe... 
I've only watched TGSITG a couple of times, I'm not a huge fan of that era, although McCoy was a step up from Colin (Baker is a better actor, McCoy a better Doctor) and, on occasion, he's very good. Clearly they were going for the 'the bad guys think he's a buffoon but actually he's the smartest guy on the planet' vibe ala Troughton, trouble is Troughton could pull it off 99% of the time, McCoy's just not a good enough actor to do that so he really just comes across as a fool at times.
This is an odd one, there's a lot of style to it, the clowns are creepy as hell, but it's way too surreal and you get the feeling the writer and producers thought they were far cleverer than they actually were. There's a theory that characters are metaphors (The explorer is Star Trek, the bad guys (I won't spoil it) are BBC execs, the chief Clown Michael Grade, and another character is Blakes 7...oh and then there's Adrian Mole representing every anally retentive fan ever, never a good thing to insult your loyal fan base!
I've only watched TGSITG a couple of times, I'm not a huge fan of that era, although McCoy was a step up from Colin (Baker is a better actor, McCoy a better Doctor) and, on occasion, he's very good. Clearly they were going for the 'the bad guys think he's a buffoon but actually he's the smartest guy on the planet' vibe ala Troughton, trouble is Troughton could pull it off 99% of the time, McCoy's just not a good enough actor to do that so he really just comes across as a fool at times.
This is an odd one, there's a lot of style to it, the clowns are creepy as hell, but it's way too surreal and you get the feeling the writer and producers thought they were far cleverer than they actually were. There's a theory that characters are metaphors (The explorer is Star Trek, the bad guys (I won't spoil it) are BBC execs, the chief Clown Michael Grade, and another character is Blakes 7...oh and then there's Adrian Mole representing every anally retentive fan ever, never a good thing to insult your loyal fan base!
^^^^ Carnival Of Monsters .... Could be a close contender
Doctorwhovian
Fleet Captain
Carnival does have some goofy elements, but in other ways it's kind of cool...it's the first story featuring Ian Marter (But not as Harry), it sort of introduces the Time Scoop concept that would be later explored in The Five Doctors, plus it's the only Pertwee story to sort of feature the Cybermen (in a cameo that's not stock footage or some publicity photo).
There's also a bit of satire to the story about the BBC, similar to "Greatest Show". It's also a Robert Holmes script, one of the four he did for Pertwee (Which combined introduced of course the Autons, The Third Doctor, the Master, and the Sontarans).
There's also a bit of satire to the story about the BBC, similar to "Greatest Show". It's also a Robert Holmes script, one of the four he did for Pertwee (Which combined introduced of course the Autons, The Third Doctor, the Master, and the Sontarans).
I did like the Drashigs.....
They were relentless. Chasing them through the machine till they got out. Like once they had that scent nothing would stop them.
My only nitpick with that is once the Doctor and co. had left a zone how did the Drashigs still have their scent once they had left a zone in the machine?
They were relentless. Chasing them through the machine till they got out. Like once they had that scent nothing would stop them.
My only nitpick with that is once the Doctor and co. had left a zone how did the Drashigs still have their scent once they had left a zone in the machine?
The FX on "Carnival..." have some clunky bits. And the grey greasepaint on the main aliens is god-awful, but we get a story. We get characters and character development--the struggling con man and his long-suffering assistant, the petty functionary with designs on grandeur. We find out about the characters on the ship. They even take time to explain to us why we should be worried about the Drashigs.
These McCoy stories don't bother with any of that. You're expected to care about characters you don't know anything about. And the rare time they actually develop a character enough that you care about them--like the Murray the space-bus driver in "...Bannermen" they just casually kill them.
These McCoy stories don't bother with any of that. You're expected to care about characters you don't know anything about. And the rare time they actually develop a character enough that you care about them--like the Murray the space-bus driver in "...Bannermen" they just casually kill them.
Doctorwhovian
Fleet Captain
Yeah, the McCoy stories do kind of suffer from that kind of thing. The supporting characters tend to get killed off or turn evil a great deal, with a few exceptions. Ace has two Romantic interests in McCoy's years-Smith (in Rememberance) and Sorin (In Curse of Fenric)-Smith ends up to have been working with Radcliffe (Who was working for the Daleks) and is killed off by the Battle computer girl;and Sorin eventually gets possessed by Fenric and is killed. On that note, pretty much the entire Fenric supporting cast with the exception of Kathleen, Audrey (Who of course had to live being Ace's ancestors!) and the two soldiers are killed off by the Haemavores, or like Jean and Phyllis and the radar girls, become Haemavores themselves (and are later killed off by the Ancient One). Ghost Light has the Pritchard family,one of the maids and the inspector killed off (The last two pretty gruesomely IMO).
Although this does tend to happen a lot in classic WHO, Pyramid Of Mars and Peter Davison's last season (Specifically Warriors of the Deep, Ressurection of the Daleks and Caves of Androzani) being notable examples. The Colin Baker era of all things had more optimistic endings!
Time and The Rani & Happiness Patrol-two of McCoy's most disliked stories-have the most optimistic endings, actually, with most of the supporting cast still alive and the Doctor having liberated the planets.
Although this does tend to happen a lot in classic WHO, Pyramid Of Mars and Peter Davison's last season (Specifically Warriors of the Deep, Ressurection of the Daleks and Caves of Androzani) being notable examples. The Colin Baker era of all things had more optimistic endings!
Time and The Rani & Happiness Patrol-two of McCoy's most disliked stories-have the most optimistic endings, actually, with most of the supporting cast still alive and the Doctor having liberated the planets.
I would be hard pressed to find a Doctor Who story that is worse! Even Twin Dillemma, Time and the Rani, and Paradise Towers are better!
Mr Awe
Yeah, I can't think of a worse one off the top of my head. I can think of a few NuWho episodes that I might hate more (maybe) but since they're generally 45 minutes, The Greatest Show in the Galaxy beats any bad story for length, at least based on the Who serials I've watched.
OK. First off, I apologize for the continued snarky Agony Booth style rants, but at least you've got just over a week of them before Retro's done with the classic run. And you've got to cut me a bit of slack, JNT is raping my childhood from beyond the grave.
I'm not sure which is more infuriating, the episodes that are just flat-out terrible in every way like "Greatest Show..." or "Time & the Rani" or the the ones where you can see a kernel of a good story, buried in there, and utterly suffocated by horrible writing, script editing, production, and directing choices.
First half of "Battlefield" tonight. And yeah, you can tell that the people making the show care more about telling us how eeeevil the military is than telling a good story. First annoyance? When they can't be bothered to scrounge up a decent military jeep, so they just take what appears to be a green Jeep Grand Cherokee, and slap some random patches of black and grey house paint on it to be a UNIT vehicle. Then, why do the majority of the UNIT members have some strange Welsh/French/Belgian accent? Yes, I get it is an international force, but it distracts from the story. Then what is a nuclear missile convoy doing parked out in the middle of nowhere? Beats me, because the writers can't be bothered to tell us. Apparently it is on an artillery test range where amateur archaeologists dig (isn't that kind of an accident waiting to happen?) so maybe they're going to test a nuclear missle. :/
We get a nice bit with a retired Brigadier and his wife, with a sweet (even if it is a cliche) Old Warhorse out for one last battle scene...that they proceed to run into the ground with the wife who is apparently anti-military. Then the current female Brigadier proceeds to act like ADHD Janeway on crack, eventually wrestling ROM, the Space Knight. And of course McCoy just acts in a completely manic manner himself.
Which is frustrating, because this could be an entertaining story if the production didn't have such jarring, frustrating bits that kept taking me out of the story. The bit with the Brig and the Lieutenant, making small talk in the helicopter (and him making plans and automatically assuming his successor is a man) is the kind thing the series needs more of and I almost wonder if Nicholas Courtney added in some of the dialog himself because it is so sensible and enjoyable compared to the random bewildering dialog in the rest of the bit--Oh! The archaeologist! He's got his prized scabbard hanging on the wall in the pub, so when the Doctor shows interest in it, he basically tells him to piss off. What amateur archaeologist is going to say "What does it matter!?" if a stranger notes his find is interesting and asks when it is from?
I'm not sure which is more infuriating, the episodes that are just flat-out terrible in every way like "Greatest Show..." or "Time & the Rani" or the the ones where you can see a kernel of a good story, buried in there, and utterly suffocated by horrible writing, script editing, production, and directing choices.
First half of "Battlefield" tonight. And yeah, you can tell that the people making the show care more about telling us how eeeevil the military is than telling a good story. First annoyance? When they can't be bothered to scrounge up a decent military jeep, so they just take what appears to be a green Jeep Grand Cherokee, and slap some random patches of black and grey house paint on it to be a UNIT vehicle. Then, why do the majority of the UNIT members have some strange Welsh/French/Belgian accent? Yes, I get it is an international force, but it distracts from the story. Then what is a nuclear missile convoy doing parked out in the middle of nowhere? Beats me, because the writers can't be bothered to tell us. Apparently it is on an artillery test range where amateur archaeologists dig (isn't that kind of an accident waiting to happen?) so maybe they're going to test a nuclear missle. :/
We get a nice bit with a retired Brigadier and his wife, with a sweet (even if it is a cliche) Old Warhorse out for one last battle scene...that they proceed to run into the ground with the wife who is apparently anti-military. Then the current female Brigadier proceeds to act like ADHD Janeway on crack, eventually wrestling ROM, the Space Knight. And of course McCoy just acts in a completely manic manner himself.
Which is frustrating, because this could be an entertaining story if the production didn't have such jarring, frustrating bits that kept taking me out of the story. The bit with the Brig and the Lieutenant, making small talk in the helicopter (and him making plans and automatically assuming his successor is a man) is the kind thing the series needs more of and I almost wonder if Nicholas Courtney added in some of the dialog himself because it is so sensible and enjoyable compared to the random bewildering dialog in the rest of the bit--Oh! The archaeologist! He's got his prized scabbard hanging on the wall in the pub, so when the Doctor shows interest in it, he basically tells him to piss off. What amateur archaeologist is going to say "What does it matter!?" if a stranger notes his find is interesting and asks when it is from?
^ I think you probably just need to chill a bit! I rewatched the entirety of JNT's era, along with the rest of the series, recently. Davison had a lot of great stuff. And, I had to revise some of C. Baker's and McCoy's work up a bit. They weren't great, but some wasn't as bad as I remembered from the time. Some stories were actually fairly good. A few that I thought were stinkers (e.g. Delta), I actually enjoyed. True, some were still horrible (e.g. Greatest Show).
I'm just glad I won't have to watch them again for quite a long time!
Mr Awe
I rewatched the entirety of JNT's era, along with the rest of the series, recently. Davison had a lot of great stuff. And, I had to revise some of C. Baker's and McCoy's work up a bit. They weren't great, but some wasn't as bad as I remembered from the time. Some stories were actually fairly good. A few that I thought were stinkers (e.g. Delta), I actually enjoyed. True, some were still horrible (e.g. Greatest Show).I'm just glad I won't have to watch them again for quite a long time!
Mr Awe
I watched the first episode of City of Death yesterday, and its the most padded episode of Classic who I've seen since I finished Jon Pertwee's last seven parter. I swear, of the first episode of City of death, there is 5 minutes of story and 20 minutes of wandering around Paris. Since I'm not watching Doctor Who to watch Tom Baker get paid to be a tourist in Paris, this was pretty boring. I've heard a lot of good things about this serial, but it had better ramp up the story and cut out the wandering around Paris stuff next episode. As it is, so far its barely keeping me awake.
You're nuts! City of Death is my second favorite Fourth Doctor story. Its endlessly fun and inventively enjoyable.
Agreed. It's a ridiculously fun story.
Well, maybe the fun starts in the second episode, because it was missing from this one. I doubt City of death will end up being a really bad story, but its definitely not winning me over so far. This is also the first story I've seen with Romana II. So far I don't like her quite as much as Romana I, but she's not bad.
I love City Of Death to bits..... It's fun.
I did love how those spider walking spaceships in Attack Of The Clones looked like the Jaggeroth ship
I did love how those spider walking spaceships in Attack Of The Clones looked like the Jaggeroth ship
I do see Kirk's point, though. The first episode does involve a lot of the Doc and Romana, touristing in Paris. But you've got to understand the context--for a show that has been on for something like 15 years and had episodes set in Rome, Tombstone AZ, and all parts in between, this is the first time the BBC actually did location shooting for the show outside of England. So a bit like the early computer animations, where they do things for no point except to show the cool things you can do with computer animation, or early movies, where they'd show two trains running into each other simply to show off how cool moving pictures are--or Star Trek, where everyone is dressed in a rainbow of colored uniforms and there are all kinds of garish colors on the bridge--solely to show off that the show is IN LIVING COLOR--they showed a bunch of gallivanting around Paris to say "LOOK PEOPLE! THE EIFFEL TOWER! THIS ISN'T SOME CRAPPY SOUNDSTAGE OR GREEN SCREEN! WE'RE IN PARIS, BITCHES, PARIS!!!" It is what it is--getting the most mileage out of a production decision.
And lets face it, for whatever problems Tom Baker and Lalla Ward may have had later in life, their onscreen chemistry is very, very good as they romp around Paris (with Romana in her schoolgirl outfit).
And lets face it, for whatever problems Tom Baker and Lalla Ward may have had later in life, their onscreen chemistry is very, very good as they romp around Paris (with Romana in her schoolgirl outfit).
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