Classic Who on BBC America
- Thread starter OmahaStar
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A good little story, which seems very prescient in view of the way 'reality TV' has taken over in the intervening years. (The basic set-up is that this planet started relaying live footage of the tortures inflicted on dissidents as a way of keeping its own citizens entertained/warned, but they're now realising they can export the tapes...)
I really hope they end up showing the TV movie because I'd really like to see the retrospective on that one.
Well, unless they skip McGann altogether, they don't really have any choice but to show the movie. And since they've been going through one Doctor per month since January, we currently have 11 Doctors, and the anniversary itself is in late November, it seems likely that they will cover McGann in August.
Yeah, I'm hoping they don't skip him as the 8th doesn't always get much love.
I also hope the show the TV movie; I haven't seen it since it first aired!
^They did it on Sunday evenings during the time that new DW episodes were being aired on Saturday evenings. But I believe the first couple of specials, which aired before the latest batch of new episodes, were on Saturday evenings.
I'm not pleased that they ignored the behind-the-scenes conflicts that are a key part of Colin Baker's story -- the way the series was put "on hiatus" for a year and then Baker was fired, so that he had the shortest tenure of any Doctor to date. They also paid surprisingly little attention to the "Trial of a Time Lord" saga; they mentioned stuff that happened during it, but barely addressed the story arc itself, and offered no discussion of the Valeyard. No mention of the return of the Second Doctor either. Instead they spent a lot of time on more superficial subjects. We didn't need such a long segment about the Doctor's attempt to fix the chameleon circuit or about Mel trying to get the Doctor in shape. Maybe discussion of Mel should've been saved for the Seventh Doctor special since she spent more time with him. Really, the selection of what to focus on in this special was bizarrely poor.
Summarising, Christopher, that sounds as if a BBC-produced documentary focused on ANYTHING it could talk about except anything that might sound critical of the BBC...
I'm shocked, very shocked. Next thing you'll be telling me there was some gambling going on here.
I'm shocked, very shocked. Next thing you'll be telling me there was some gambling going on here.
Not for a single second did I believe they were going to talk anything about all the behind-the-scenes issues during Colin's era--that was simply too much dirty laundry. IMO, these specials are something of a celebration of the individual Doctors and they're going to steer clear of off-camera drama, particularly during the Sixth Doctor's era, IMO.
Still, I think that "Trial of a Time Lord," the Valeyard, and Troughton's return warranted more discussion than did the TARDIS turning into an organ and Mel making the Doctor drink carrot juice.
Just finished watching "Vengeance on Varos" (I recorded it since I was watching Sinbad and Primeval: New World last night), and I don't understand why so many people tout it as something terrific. I couldn't even stand to watch it straight through. I get what it was going for with the satire on politics and TV violence, and the parts with the couch-potato Greek chorus were fairly good, but for the most part it was painfully awkward. The dialogue was stilted and clunky, and there was too much expository declaiming. The Doctor and Peri took far too long to get into the story and weren't doing anything very interesting before they arrived. A lot of the plot beats were random and not very coherent -- that whole digression with turning Peri and the other woman into mutants seemed pointless. There were some really, really stupid lines, like when the masked guy didn't understand how the Doctor had guessed that he'd experimented on himself until the Doctor pointed out that he wore a mask. Or bizarre contradictions, like Sil mentioning how everyone in the galaxy needed Zeiton-7 for their space-time drives, and then nobody believing Peri when she said the TARDIS was a time machine that needed Zeiton-7, and then everyone believing the Doctor when he told them that the TARDIS needed Zeiton-7. And the resolution was far too abrupt, particularly with the absurdly well-timed updates from Thoros Beta that handily resolved the entire Sil subplot without any of the protagonists actually having to do anything. This is just incredibly inept writing all around. And the production values weren't much better. Much of the guest acting was stagey and amateurish, and frankly Nicola Bryant wasn't much better. The direction was lackadaisical and the attempts to convey danger, suspense, and action were unsatisfying. And while cheap-looking, limited sets are par for the course for the original series, these sets were so dreary and dark by design that they became very tiresome to watch.
Just finished watching "Vengeance on Varos" (I recorded it since I was watching Sinbad and Primeval: New World last night), and I don't understand why so many people tout it as something terrific. I couldn't even stand to watch it straight through. I get what it was going for with the satire on politics and TV violence, and the parts with the couch-potato Greek chorus were fairly good, but for the most part it was painfully awkward. The dialogue was stilted and clunky, and there was too much expository declaiming. The Doctor and Peri took far too long to get into the story and weren't doing anything very interesting before they arrived. A lot of the plot beats were random and not very coherent -- that whole digression with turning Peri and the other woman into mutants seemed pointless. There were some really, really stupid lines, like when the masked guy didn't understand how the Doctor had guessed that he'd experimented on himself until the Doctor pointed out that he wore a mask. Or bizarre contradictions, like Sil mentioning how everyone in the galaxy needed Zeiton-7 for their space-time drives, and then nobody believing Peri when she said the TARDIS was a time machine that needed Zeiton-7, and then everyone believing the Doctor when he told them that the TARDIS needed Zeiton-7. And the resolution was far too abrupt, particularly with the absurdly well-timed updates from Thoros Beta that handily resolved the entire Sil subplot without any of the protagonists actually having to do anything. This is just incredibly inept writing all around. And the production values weren't much better. Much of the guest acting was stagey and amateurish, and frankly Nicola Bryant wasn't much better. The direction was lackadaisical and the attempts to convey danger, suspense, and action were unsatisfying. And while cheap-looking, limited sets are par for the course for the original series, these sets were so dreary and dark by design that they became very tiresome to watch.
Agreed, it'd be rather stupid of them to even try and talk about such a thing while trying to entertain people with stories about the past Doctors and their companions.
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