Have you heard him on audio? He's great.
John Nathan-Turner the Deathlord of Dr. Who
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Have you heard him on audio? He's great.
Mel was obsessed with fitness, which is why she was nagging the Doctor about riding the bike and drinking carrot juice. It's also why she was obsessed about finding "the great pool in the sky" in Paradise Towers so she could swim (what happened to the TARDIS swimming pool? Did that get jettisoned or something?).I didn't like that at all.. and the one with him riding a stationary exercise bicycle in the TARDIS with Mel?? WTF was that about? really?
Or at least a different voice dubbed in, that's not so screechy.I can think of a bunch of Doctor Who stories, old and new, that I dislike more than The Twin Dilemma. Also, say what you want about the coat (I love it, but I can see why people hate it) it makes him one of the most distinct Doctor's, and every "recoloring" of the coat I've seen just looks bad (especially that black on in the first post, there has been enough Doctor's with black clothes, plus it just looks bad). I also wouldn't edit his stories. Also, like Sindatur said, the exercise bike (while stupid) was on screen for 1-2 minutes. If anything was going to be edited, I'd want Mel digitally replaced with a good companion
Why would a producer make his male lead act like a clown? That's one of the reasons I hate the Matt Smith era.
When it became an angsty soap opera about Ace, that's when it finally became unwatchable for me. Well, that and most of the other stories. I did like Battlefield, because the Brigadier was in it.
I wouldn't put so much emphasis on #6 when judging JNT. One could notice the change of tone right from the moment he took the reigns with Tom Baker's last season - things like Nightmare of Eden and the Leisure Hive. Stories just didn't seem to jell anymore. Adversaries were either convoluted or one-dimensional. Davidson's era was steady just unremarkable (with occasional standouts) but the last batch of good writers were dropping away. By Colin Baker the only good writer left was Eric Saward (who I admire both as a writer and as a person - I just wanna give the guy a big hug), but even he was constricted by JTN until even he couldn't take it anymore.
I've always been a little puzzled by TPTB's decision, especially after the 18 month hiatus during #6's run, why they canned Baker yet retained JNT. (a case of addressing the symptom and not the illness.) By the time of McCoy, the writing improved somewhat but it still felt like the show wasn't as focused as it needed to be. JNT seemed to treat 80s Who as more as an outlet for his own indulgences rather than someone who had a tight, professional grip on what it meant to be a producer.
I've always been a little puzzled by TPTB's decision, especially after the 18 month hiatus during #6's run, why they canned Baker yet retained JNT. (a case of addressing the symptom and not the illness.) By the time of McCoy, the writing improved somewhat but it still felt like the show wasn't as focused as it needed to be. JNT seemed to treat 80s Who as more as an outlet for his own indulgences rather than someone who had a tight, professional grip on what it meant to be a producer.
Nightmare of Eden was Season 17, produced by Graham Williams.
Nightmare of Eden is more watchable than much of JN-T Who. JN-T Who failed against Buck Rogers and possibly Graham Williams Who, which was squarely aimed at children, would have not.
to say simply, "it was the 80s, it was loud" doesn't take into account the 70s which had the flower children and disco, and was much louder then the 80s.. not to mention the 4th Doctor's costume, and the fifth Doctor's costume weren't loud.. so I just do not agree with that rational.
It was actaully The A-Team who was Dcotor Who's major competition in 1985 not Buck Rogers.
It was Buck Rogers that did the major damage: The Leisure Hive opened season 18 with a mere 5.9 million and slid down from there, with the ratings never getting above six million until Warriors Gate began in the new year.
In comparison, season 17 had opened a year earlier with 13 million, and held that for the first two stories (with an added boost when ITV went off air between Destiny of the Daleks 4 and City of Death 3). After that it slid off a bit, but Horns of Nimon 4 still closed the season with 10.4 million.
The only sensible explanation for the massive drop before viewers had even seen the new season is the competition from Buck Rogers over on ITV - in particular, that Buck was being networked across all ITV regions, whereas in the past things like Space 1999 had only been run in some areas, with sitcoms or films in other ones.
In comparison, Attack of the Cybermen opened season 22 with more than nine million, Who's best figures since 1982 despite the competition from The A-Team, and had only slid down to a low of 5.5 by mid season before recovering... so even at its worst, season 22 was outrating the first half of season 18.
In comparison, season 17 had opened a year earlier with 13 million, and held that for the first two stories (with an added boost when ITV went off air between Destiny of the Daleks 4 and City of Death 3). After that it slid off a bit, but Horns of Nimon 4 still closed the season with 10.4 million.
The only sensible explanation for the massive drop before viewers had even seen the new season is the competition from Buck Rogers over on ITV - in particular, that Buck was being networked across all ITV regions, whereas in the past things like Space 1999 had only been run in some areas, with sitcoms or films in other ones.
In comparison, Attack of the Cybermen opened season 22 with more than nine million, Who's best figures since 1982 despite the competition from The A-Team, and had only slid down to a low of 5.5 by mid season before recovering... so even at its worst, season 22 was outrating the first half of season 18.
Point taken. For various reasons I was reading something on the Knight Rider franchise and a made-for-tv movie called Knight Rider: 2010 came up. I think that was early '90s. It is funny to see what late 20th century people thought 2010 was going to look like--and how badly designed it was.
That said, it is just a litany of bonehead production moves. I was reading about "Frontios" and apparently they decided to hire dancers to play the tractator, with the idea that they would have insectlike movements. But the decision was also made for the costume to be basically a fiberglass coffin, so the actors they hired were limited to shuffling around. I also read somewhere that JNT didn't like using writers who'd, you know, *written* for Dr. Who before. Well, you make your bed, you get to lie in it.
Well it's 2015 and we still don't have the hoverboards and flying cars from 1989's Back To The Future Part II.
Tue, but also a little misleading: ITV was only off-air for four weeks, covering Destiny of the Daleks 4 to City of Death 3. The ratings were already good before that, and actually peaked for City of Death 4, AFTER ITV had come back on.
The actual figures:
Destiny of the Daleks: 13.0, 12.7, 13.8, 14.4 million (no ITv for ep 4).
City of Death: 12.4, 14.1, 15.1 (all no ITV), 16.1 million.
Creature from the Pit: 9.3, 10.8, 10.2, 9.6.
So the effect of the strike tends to be exaggerated: in its second week City of Death 1 actually got fewer viewers than the episodes of Destiny run when ITV was on, and the audience rose for the last week of City, even though ITV was back. But then several million didn't tune in for the start of Creature...
Heck, it's even amusing to see Robocop, with his awesome, futuristic '85 Ford Taurus.
I think both Michael Grade (BBC Controller during the classic series) and John Nathan Turner killed the series off originally. Michael Grade hates the show, and reduced funding to make it difficult to produce, however with the cost cuts, it was up to Turner to use his brain, develop great stories with superb writers, and use as much ingenuity to control, and develop effects and production values on a small budget just as the original Hartnell, and Troughton years had done. Michael Grade may have been the axe man, and still was into the 2000s, but Turner could have been a bit more inventive then complaintive IMHO.
Mark Thompson, the one-time BBC Director General, tried to get the popular science-fiction drama series Doctor Who cancelled, it has emerged.
Print
Doctor Who: BBC executive’s attempt to cancel popular sci-fi show
By Mathew Wace Peck Jul 24, 2013 in Entertainment
Mark Thompson, the one-time BBC Director General, tried to get the popular science-fiction drama series Doctor Who cancelled, it has emerged.
The revelation emerged during an interview with Jane Tranter who, as Controller of Drama Commissioning, was one of the key people responsible for bringing the long-running television series back to television in 2005.
In the first part of an extensive article in the new issue of Doctor Who Magazine (DWM ), Tranter says that she was asked to stop production of Doctor Who by Thompson, following the appointment of Michael Grade as the corporation’s new chairman.
Grade – who is notoriously anti-Doctor Who – was the person responsible for cancelling Doctor Who in the 1980s. In 1985, during his time as Controller of BBC 1, Grade first put the series on hiatus, then demanded that Sixth Doctor actor Colin Baker be sacked.
Although the part of the lead role was recast – Sylvester McCoy becoming the Seventh Doctor – the BBC hierarchy’s commitment to their own show was virtually nonexistent.
Consequently, in 1989, Grade ensured that Doctor Who was taken off air permanently.
In September 2003, after years of lobbying by fans and barely two months before Doctor Who ’s 40th anniversary, a successor of Grade’s as BBC 1 Controller, Lorraine Heggessey, announced that Doctor Who would finally be returning to TV screens.
“Michael Grade didn’t like Doctor Who at all,” Tranter tells DWM. “He thought it was hopeless.” That much, Doctor Who fans and BBC personnel have long been aware of. What hasn’t been commonly known though is what Tranter divulges next:
When he [Grade] arrived as [the BBC’s new] Chairman, Mark Thompson was back as [its] Director General and [he] actually asked me if we could stop [production of Doctor Who].”
Tranter’s unequivocal response to her boss was “No!” However, Thompson didn’t leave it there, demanding to know whether any part of the BBC had carried out research to show that viewers wanted Doctor Who to return.
Apparently, very little had been done officially to ascertain Doctor Who ’s popularity, but Tranter didn’t admit to that. “I lied,” she tells DWM. “I said we hadn’t any research at all,” when, in fact, BBC Worldwide did have some findings that were less than complimentary about Doctor Who.
Tranter continues, saying that BBC Worldwide hadn’t specifically asked people, ‘ “Do you want to watch Doctor Who?’ [But] focused on how much [they] knew about the show.”
The result? “The reaction was very much that there was a chunk of people who didn’t want to see it at all,” Tranter concedes. However, she did not relay this to Thompson. “What’s the point of making problems for yourself? So we just carried on …” she said.
article link here:
http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/355104
Michael Grade should go no where near BBC, and was an idiot with short sighted vision. Had he done what was needed, and what most Socialist politicians do by throwing more money at problems, in this case it probably would have worked.. but he simply hates Scifi, and would rather wallow in local dramas, sitcoms, and generally bland or uninteresting stories set in the late 1800s..
Short sited people should not be the head of a TV company, as it takes imagination and an eye for good quality ideas to make a good Controller, or even anyone in that business.. If you can't imagine then you should go to work for the Theatre, or at a Tax auditing firm..
Mark Thompson, the one-time BBC Director General, tried to get the popular science-fiction drama series Doctor Who cancelled, it has emerged.
By Mathew Wace Peck Jul 24, 2013 in Entertainment
Mark Thompson, the one-time BBC Director General, tried to get the popular science-fiction drama series Doctor Who cancelled, it has emerged.
The revelation emerged during an interview with Jane Tranter who, as Controller of Drama Commissioning, was one of the key people responsible for bringing the long-running television series back to television in 2005.
In the first part of an extensive article in the new issue of Doctor Who Magazine (DWM ), Tranter says that she was asked to stop production of Doctor Who by Thompson, following the appointment of Michael Grade as the corporation’s new chairman.
Grade – who is notoriously anti-Doctor Who – was the person responsible for cancelling Doctor Who in the 1980s. In 1985, during his time as Controller of BBC 1, Grade first put the series on hiatus, then demanded that Sixth Doctor actor Colin Baker be sacked.
Although the part of the lead role was recast – Sylvester McCoy becoming the Seventh Doctor – the BBC hierarchy’s commitment to their own show was virtually nonexistent.
Consequently, in 1989, Grade ensured that Doctor Who was taken off air permanently.
In September 2003, after years of lobbying by fans and barely two months before Doctor Who ’s 40th anniversary, a successor of Grade’s as BBC 1 Controller, Lorraine Heggessey, announced that Doctor Who would finally be returning to TV screens.
“Michael Grade didn’t like Doctor Who at all,” Tranter tells DWM. “He thought it was hopeless.” That much, Doctor Who fans and BBC personnel have long been aware of. What hasn’t been commonly known though is what Tranter divulges next:
When he [Grade] arrived as [the BBC’s new] Chairman, Mark Thompson was back as [its] Director General and [he] actually asked me if we could stop [production of Doctor Who].”
Tranter’s unequivocal response to her boss was “No!” However, Thompson didn’t leave it there, demanding to know whether any part of the BBC had carried out research to show that viewers wanted Doctor Who to return.
Apparently, very little had been done officially to ascertain Doctor Who ’s popularity, but Tranter didn’t admit to that. “I lied,” she tells DWM. “I said we hadn’t any research at all,” when, in fact, BBC Worldwide did have some findings that were less than complimentary about Doctor Who.
Tranter continues, saying that BBC Worldwide hadn’t specifically asked people, ‘ “Do you want to watch Doctor Who?’ [But] focused on how much [they] knew about the show.”
The result? “The reaction was very much that there was a chunk of people who didn’t want to see it at all,” Tranter concedes. However, she did not relay this to Thompson. “What’s the point of making problems for yourself? So we just carried on …” she said.
article link here:
http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/355104
Michael Grade should go no where near BBC, and was an idiot with short sighted vision. Had he done what was needed, and what most Socialist politicians do by throwing more money at problems, in this case it probably would have worked.. but he simply hates Scifi, and would rather wallow in local dramas, sitcoms, and generally bland or uninteresting stories set in the late 1800s..
Short sited people should not be the head of a TV company, as it takes imagination and an eye for good quality ideas to make a good Controller, or even anyone in that business.. If you can't imagine then you should go to work for the Theatre, or at a Tax auditing firm..
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