Last Classic Who Story you watched
- Thread starter Pindar
- Start date
Even if that's so, "Black Orchid" is the only Doctor Who story since "The Gunfighters" to have no science fiction or fantasy elements other than the main cast and the TARDIS, so it counts as a historical, at least technically.
I'd actually be happy if they'd do the occasional straight historical story again from time to time. I get tired of the contrivance of the Doctor's every visit to Earth history involving an alien invasion or time traveler or supernatural force or whatever.
It's a monster story, but the monster doesn't have an alien origin.
"I didn't get you where you wanted to go, but always got you where you needed to go."
I watched The Myth Makers recon years ago. I don't remember much about it. I haven't tried to tackle The Massacre, The Smugglers, or The Highlanders. I have tried to tackle Marco Polo and quickly quit.
Reverse the polarity of the neutron flow!
It’s a pastiche, I suppose it contains no actual historical figure. But it was terribly on trend at the time. This was about when all those romance dramas were kicking off in the same era, remains of the day, chariots of fire, and it hung around a long time — you rang m’lotd and house of Eliot within a decade of Black Orchid.
"The Keeper of Traken". A nice slow burn and build-up to a fantastic reveal of a long-forgotten villain (The Master), it's more fantasy than science fiction in a way, but it really manages to sell itself to get you into its world. I blame the lush art deco sets, some of which must have cost a packet to make as not everything could be borrowed from the 16th century monarch productions. It does have a Shakespearean feel to it as well.
"Black Orchid" got the 2-part slot, which is unfortunate. There are seeds of a great story in this, let down by generic direction and the underlying story lacks the pull to get beyond that "just point a camera at the stage and let the actors act", having to rush through episodes with no effective atmosphere, countered by overly long spectacle with the cricket match, emphasis on a book that isn't even real, and slang for which most of it isn't quite topping - or believable since all the "1920s slang" websites don't seem to have those words.
The show was also missing a proper script editor, since Bidmead had left and Saward had only just been hired and likely hadn't the time to tweak it. JNT himself was contemplating directing it, but due to time constraints had to hire stalwart Ron Jones to do it. Considering how JNT had directed (uncredited), among other scenes, the fantastic "Cyber massacre" scene from "The Five Doctors", he would have made a fantastic director as well.
Quick side note: While JNT was great at direction and brought in lots of new directors to add new style to the show, which was costly, he would turn to Ron and other directors who were more cost-effective to compensate, especially if there was a time crunch.
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