Classic Who day by day

[Captain Pike]

It's one of my favs too, though I can understand some of the objections to the Toberman character (even though that's applying modern values to a 40 year old piece of television).

I prefer the cyber voices during this era, although on first viewing I really had to concentrate and even playback some sections of dialogue to understand them.

The sets are great, but some of the special effects are rubbish. Though this is par for the course, even by classic Who standards the visible stunt wires during the fight scene and the stuffed dummy cyberleader at the end are pretty bad.

But the story, wonderful acting from both regulars and guest stars, and above all the atmosphere really drive this story above such petty criticisms imo. It's every inch a classic.

 

[Davros]

Part of me loves the bad American accent of the starship captain.

This is also the episode that made me fall in love with Victoria.

 

[OmahaStar]

Tomb of the Cybermen, episode 3, originally aired 9/16/67
Written by Gerry Davis & Kit Pedler
Directed by Morris Barry

The Doctor figures it out. This whole place is a trap, intended for those with superior minds. The Controller confirms it.

Victoria returns with the Captain. It sounds like he wasn't quite as serious with his threat to shoot people after all.

The Controller remembers the Doctor. He blames The Doctor for the destruction of their home planet, which is why they attacked the moonbase. They froze themselves on Telos to survive.

Everyone but Jamie is captured. He escapes temporarily, then is shot by electricity.

With Victoria's help, the Captain opens the hatch, then he climbs inside. He throws a smoke bomb and yells at the others to run to the escape ladder. But not everyone escapes. Toberman, a giant man who serves as Kafta's bodyguard, is taken and the conversion begins. Klieg is also there, though the Cybs don't know it. And he escapes.

The Cybs release the Cyber-Mats. Klieg and Kafta find the Cyber-Weapon in the testing room. Klieg goes mad with power, takes the weapon into the lobby and fires at the Doctor.

* * *

This one has it all. Drama (The Doctor talking with Victoria about her father and the Dalek attack), romance (the Doctor and Jamie), insanity (Klieg), terror (the Cybermen), cute little animals (the Cyber-Mats), death destruction, and flying.

It's funny when the bodyguard dude gets picked up and tossed against the wall by a Cyb. They make no effort to hide the harness and wire. I know, it was filmed when most people had black and white tv sets that were, at most, 12 inches. Stuff like that, they probably figured people wouldn't be able to see. 42 years later, I can see it. And it gave me a case of the giggles.

Something else I've noticed ... Patrick doesn't seem to have the same dialog problems Bill had. That, or they could take multiple takes. It still has that "live" feel, so I'm thinking better memory.

Three episodes down, three excellent episodes. One to go.

 

[The Mirrorball Man]

Patrick doesn't seem to have the same dialog problems Bill had. That, or they could take multiple takes. It still has that "live" feel, so I'm thinking better memory.

I'm thinking all-around awesomeness.

 

[The Nth Doctor]

I concur on that feeling. Patrick Troughton was awesome embodied.

 

[Starkers]

Thirded!

 

[OmahaStar]

Tomb of the Cybermen, episode 4 - originally aired 9/23/67
Written by Gerry Davis & Kit Pedler
Directed by Morris Barry

Yay! Klieg missed. But he opens the hatch. Boo. Some of the Cybs go back to their pods to recharge. Bodyguard Toberman has been Cyber-converted.

Klieg thinks he's in command of the Controller. We call him an idiot.

The Doctor appears to take pity on the Controller and allows him to recharge. It's a rouse, which he uses to lock the Controller up in a recharging station. It SO doesn't work.

Yay. Bodyguard kills Klieg, and the Controller kills Kafta. The Doctor intervenes and snaps Bodyguard out of it. Then Bodyguard tries to kill the poor Controller.

Um, Klieg is alive again. But the Cybs kill him again. The Doctor refreezes the Cybs. He then booby-traps the whole complex. They depart, not realizing one Cyber-Mat has escaped the complex, leaving the door open for Cyber-returns.

* * *

Death, uh, doesn't mean much here. Klieg dies, but returns. The Controller dies - even his head pops off, but returns. If it had just been one, I'd think it was an error in the script. Since it's more than one, I don't think it's an error. I think it's on purpose. And it opens possibilities for the return of anyone who died in this story.

The Doctor sure is a conniving little man. He's always thinking at least five steps ahead of everyone else, and tricks people into doing exactly what he wants them to.

Victoria is quickly coming into her own, and I like her character's growth over these four episodes.

I absolutely adore the Cybermen hieroglyphs we see on the walls. It's the first thing I've seen in this project that makes me think WANT. As in, I want that on my wall. It's a combination of like ancient Egyptian-style with futuristic spacey stuff.

 

[OmahaStar]

The Mind Robber, episode 1, originally aired 9/14/1968
Written by Peter Ling and Derrick Sherwin
Directed by David Maloney

The Tardis lands in the middle of a lava flow. Zoe thinks it's super fun, but The Doctor and Jamie are losing their ever-loving minds. The only way out is to use the super duper escape thingamabob. It'll dematerialize the ship and take them "nowhere" in some alternate space and time.

While The Doctor goes into a secret new room to reverse the polarity and think about Jamie in private, Jamie and Zoe see impossible things on the tv. Jamie sees Scotland; Zoe sees her home city. Jamie, acting rationally, decides that whatever is on the tv may or may not be real, but he better go and make out with the Doctor first before going off on an adventure. Zoe, left all alone in the Tardis control room, does exactly what she said she'd do. She opens the door and walks out.

She finds herself alone in ... mist. There is nothing around as far as her eye can see. She's not looking two feet to her right, where she'd be able to find a wall, but she's not a bright girl. Jamie, feeling much more relaxed after his alone time with the Doctor, goes off to rescue the damsel in distress. They meet up and chat for a bit, before deciding that neither of them remembers the way back. They wonder arround and eventually find themselves surrounded by speechless robots.

Inside the Tardis, the Doctor is dreaming of Jamie, who is all dressed up in white in this dream. He wakes up and goes to rescue Jamie. As long as he's out there, he grabs Zoe too.

A humming sound overpowers the crew and they all pass out. And then the Tardis explodes. They appear to wake up and grab onto whatever piece of the ship they can hang on to. Jamie and Zoe float around on the control center, while the Doctor is off in the distance, floating away.

* * *

I dunno WHAT Peter and Derrick were smoking when they wrote this script, but man ... it must have been mind altering. The actors sure look like they're having fun. This isn't drama, it feels like three friends hanging out and having a good time.

I'm sort of waiting for this new Zoe character to fall down and have a problem with her ankle, or start screaming "grandfather!". She sure seems to have been created for that slot. That's all I'm saying. Wait ... Ok, Victoria's gone, that's right. That's the problem with so many missing stories. The companions come and go so fast, they become interchangeable.
​

 

[DWF]

I dunno WHAT Peter and Derrick were smoking when they wrote this script, but man ... it must have been mind altering. The actors sure look like they're having fun. This isn't drama, it feels like three friends hanging out and having a good time.​

I'm sort of waiting for this new Zoe character to fall down and have a problem with her ankle, or start screaming "grandfather!". She sure seems to have been created for that slot. That's all I'm saying. Wait ... Ok, Victoria's gone, that's right. That's the problem with so many missing stories. The companions come and go so fast, they become interchangeable.​

Peter Ling had very little to do with that first ep. it was written in haste to fill out the five weeks they needed for the storyline.

http://www.shannonsullivan.com/drwho/serials/uu.html

As Ling wrote his scripts, problems arose with the preceding serial, The Dominators, culminating in that story's reduction from six episodes to five. It was decided around March 29th to append the extra episode to the start of “Manpower”. On April 7th, Sherwin was granted permission to write the new part one (Ling's four scripts now becoming episodes two through five); a formal commission followed on April 19th. Sherwin composed his script with the intention that the only sets necessary would be the TARDIS console room and a white void. Meanwhile, the lone supporting characters appearing would be the White Robots, the costumes for which had already been used on The Prophet, a 1966 episode of the anthology series Out Of The Unknown, and which would only need to be repainted. Sherwin also took the opportunity to have The Dominators lead directly into “Manpower” to explain how the time travellers end up in the Land of Fiction; Ling's “magnetic storm” idea was therefore no longer necessary.

That first ep. was pretty surreal and it gets better from there, I really liked this story.

 

[The Nth Doctor]

It helps to know Zoe's origins to appreciate her, although I admit I don't really remember what kind of role she had in The Mind Games. When you get to The Invasion, you'll have a very strong sense of who Zoe is. I think she shined the best in that story.

 

[The Mirrorball Man]

It helps to know Zoe's origins to appreciate her, although I admit I don't really remember what kind of role she had in The Mind Games. When you get to The Invasion, you'll have a very strong sense of who Zoe is. I think she shined the best in that story.

That's true, although I remember a scene from The Mind Games which displayed some of Zoe's best assets.

 

[OmahaStar]

It helps to know Zoe's origins to appreciate her, although I admit I don't really remember what kind of role she had in The Mind Games. When you get to The Invasion, you'll have a very strong sense of who Zoe is. I think she shined the best in that story.

That's true, although I remember a scene from The Mind Games which displayed some of Zoe's best assets.

Didn't someone win the avatar contest by showing Zoe's rear end on the console?

 

[The Nth Doctor]

It helps to know Zoe's origins to appreciate her, although I admit I don't really remember what kind of role she had in The Mind Games. When you get to The Invasion, you'll have a very strong sense of who Zoe is. I think she shined the best in that story.

That's true, although I remember a scene from The Mind Games which displayed some of Zoe's best assets.

Didn't someone win the avatar contest by showing Zoe's rear end on the console?

Yes, at least once.

 

[Captain Pike]

It helps to know Zoe's origins to appreciate her, although I admit I don't really remember what kind of role she had in The Mind Games. When you get to The Invasion, you'll have a very strong sense of who Zoe is. I think she shined the best in that story.

That's true, although I remember a scene from The Mind Games which displayed some of Zoe's best assets.

Don't you both mean The Mind Robber ?

 

[Starkers]

This thread is useless without pictures...

 

[OmahaStar]

Perverts.





And now ...

Somehow, they escape. Jamie gets frozen as a cardboard cutout, while Zoe walks around calling his name in the shrillest tone she can manage.

The Doctor wakes up, calling Jamie's name as he does. He goes off to find his boy toy. He keeps avoiding weird creatures, then runs into Gulliver (from Gulliver's Travels), then a group of children who challenge him to mind games.

He gets all excited when he hears Jamie's voice, but finds the cutout instead. He begins touching the picture, in a not-for-children sort of way. Through a convoluted series of events, the Doc must rebuild Jamie's face. But he does it wrong, and what pops out is a new, taller Jamie.

They rescue Zoe from a jar, and meet up with Gulliver again. But he departs with giant toy soldiers, leaving our heroes wondering why a unicorn is charging at them.

* * *

I had heard of the "alternate Jamie" before, but hadn't seem him before this. I know of the story - Frazer Hines, who plays Jamie, came down with a case of the chicken pox after filming the first week. He was not able to make it to film the next two weeks, and they rewrote the script to account for a temporary change in the character's appearance.

As much craziness as there is going on here, it's not the weirdest thing that happens.

I'm not sure what I think about this story yet. It's either one of the most brilliant stories ever, or one of the most fucked up nonsensical stories of the series. We'll wait and see.

 

[The Mirrorball Man]

I'm not sure what I think about this story yet. It's either one of the most brilliant stories ever, or one of the most fucked up nonsensical stories of the series. We'll wait and see.

I've seen it several times and I still don't know.

 

[The Nth Doctor]

I'm not sure what I think about this story yet. It's either one of the most brilliant stories ever, or one of the most fucked up nonsensical stories of the series. We'll wait and see.

I've seen it several times and I still don't know.

You make The Mind Games sound like Ghost Light but it's not nearly as complicated, weird or confusing as Ghost Light (and I say this as a huge fan of Ghost Light).

 

[Captain Pike]

What is this The Mind Games you keep referring to?

 

[The Mirrorball Man]

You make The Mind Games sound like Ghost Light but it's not nearly as complicated, weird or confusing as Ghost Light (and I say this as a huge fan of Ghost Light).

I'm not saying it's complicated, I'm saying it's hard for me to say if it "sucks" or if it "rules".