Last Classic Who Story you watched
- Thread starter Pindar
- Start date
Well, the only one we see. Xoanon's insane breeding project would have ended fairly sharpish unless there were Sevateem and Tesh women.
Presumably they were locked up out of sight for breeding purposes only (wonder what the female Xoanon personality thought about that?).
Even if we assume that (and maybe the Tesh are bred artificially), however, a Sevateem warrior like Leela is a bit of an oddity unless it's normal for women to be warriors like her in her tribe.
There should (aside from the 'God does not exist' bit that gets her exiled) have been lots like her!
Well, yeah. I know. I was just being silly. One of the concessions of making a kiddie TV serial on a budget. You can't afford scads of extras. And the girl Sevateem costume is a lot more expensive than the loincloth and headband the guys had.
Anyway, finished up "Talons of Weng Chiang" tonight and I only just realized what an inept and bungling opponent Greel/Chiang is. I mean, he's just bad. The Doctor kind of takes him down a few pegs anyway, but if would have been fun to see him play the Time Lord card on him (assuming 51st century humans know what Time Lords are).
My other thought is that I really wish they'd been able to put Baker in Pertwee's old plaid Inverness cape. But if I were a betting man, I'd venture Pertwee kept that when he left the series.
I'd really like to know what he's wearing for a jacket under it. It looks more like a smoking jacket (from just the sleeves and glimpses of the lapels and such) than proper Victorian outerwear.
Anyway, finished up "Talons of Weng Chiang" tonight and I only just realized what an inept and bungling opponent Greel/Chiang is. I mean, he's just bad. The Doctor kind of takes him down a few pegs anyway, but if would have been fun to see him play the Time Lord card on him (assuming 51st century humans know what Time Lords are).
My other thought is that I really wish they'd been able to put Baker in Pertwee's old plaid Inverness cape. But if I were a betting man, I'd venture Pertwee kept that when he left the series.
I'd really like to know what he's wearing for a jacket under it. It looks more like a smoking jacket (from just the sleeves and glimpses of the lapels and such) than proper Victorian outerwear.
Ask and ye shall receive: http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-GGrzqiDw2lQ/UbsovwA1MbI/AAAAAAAAPuw/zYxtR4WcDrY/s1600/d4-4s-020.jpg
Not overtly a smoking jacket, per se, but more one than less. Which makes me wonder--smoking jacket and Inverness, if they were trying to make a comment about this being a 3rd Doctor-esque story. He certainly is authoritative and resourceful and even engages in some impressive hand-to-hand combat, but #3 tended to eschew firearms and The Doc, shooting the giant fake rat is a big scene in this story.
Another couple neat bits that I picked up on the 3rd watching in under a year: When the Doc and Leela come back to Lightfoot's house to find the cabinet has been stolen, the Doctor unobtrusively puts down his cane and picks up a castoff tomahawk. And, after being sucker-punched twice in a very short timeframe, when Lightfoot meets Jago, he quietly picks up a hefty club, in case Jago is up to no good. And the moment he decides he can trust Jago, so he puts down the cane/truncheon is a really neat little detail. The actors, writer, director...someone gets credit for doing that.
Not overtly a smoking jacket, per se, but more one than less. Which makes me wonder--smoking jacket and Inverness, if they were trying to make a comment about this being a 3rd Doctor-esque story. He certainly is authoritative and resourceful and even engages in some impressive hand-to-hand combat, but #3 tended to eschew firearms and The Doc, shooting the giant fake rat is a big scene in this story.
Another couple neat bits that I picked up on the 3rd watching in under a year: When the Doc and Leela come back to Lightfoot's house to find the cabinet has been stolen, the Doctor unobtrusively puts down his cane and picks up a castoff tomahawk. And, after being sucker-punched twice in a very short timeframe, when Lightfoot meets Jago, he quietly picks up a hefty club, in case Jago is up to no good. And the moment he decides he can trust Jago, so he puts down the cane/truncheon is a really neat little detail. The actors, writer, director...someone gets credit for doing that.
Yes it is a bit curious. Leela may be the only female warrior, but she isn't really treated any differently than the men. It isn't like the others start nodding and making "Well that's what happens when you give a woman a knife" kind of comments. Her gender is never an issue, only her heresy, so either a female warrior isn't that unusual (in which case where are they?) or else Leela has spent a long time getting everyone to accept her (before promptly tossing away all that acceptance!)
The Seeds Of Doom, there are some six parters that are a bit hard to get though but I zipped though it this. I still say the the last four parts play like a James Bond movie, with a millionaire and a great henchman. Dunbar's motivations are similar to Lupton's in The Planet Of The Spiders, but Dunbar only wanted money. It's alittle unusual for the Doctor to suggest using explosives to take out the monster, but really he had no choice by the end of the story. I had planned on watching it along with Terror Of The Zygons, but I got alittle delayed, still Seeds is a great story in it's own right.
Yup. The number of times the Brigadier wants to blow something up or call in an RAF strike and the Doctor pooh-poohs it, it's too bad he was in Geneva for that serial. It would have been nice to have the Doctor admit that sometimes an RAF strike is the way to go.
Second half of "Androids of Tara" today. First half of "Horror of Fang Rock" Friday. This is accidentally perhaps the best compare and contrast between what Tom Baker can do with a good director, producer, and writer, compared with later episodes. "Androids..." has a reputation of being a weak serial, but I didn't really dislike it until I see it right next to "...Fang Rock" which, I've argued, is where the classic series jumped the shark.
Second half of "Androids of Tara" today. First half of "Horror of Fang Rock" Friday. This is accidentally perhaps the best compare and contrast between what Tom Baker can do with a good director, producer, and writer, compared with later episodes. "Androids..." has a reputation of being a weak serial, but I didn't really dislike it until I see it right next to "...Fang Rock" which, I've argued, is where the classic series jumped the shark.
The Seeds of Doom probably is one or episodes two long but I enjoyed it. Scorby is another one of those fun henchmen from the Fourth Doctor era and 4 ragging on him was pretty funny. This was another story more like a Third Doctor one.
Fang Rock was one of the best Fourth Doctor serials and I think a classic.
I last got to watch the classic series in 1999, living in Northern Virginia. A PBS station in Maryland ran them at midnight on Fridays. But since I was a young Marine officer at the time, I had to settle for videotaping them, because Friday nights were for drinking in DC. And it was tricky getting the time right because PBS often has those 8 minute bumpers between shows to fill in for the lack of commercials, so I taped a lot of garbage too. Before that was 1987, living near Minneapolis, in rural Wisconsin.
So when RetroTV started showing them, I've been gorging on them. I even got the VCR running in a halfhearted attempt to get the wiring set up to record the episodes, but I digress. The Saturday rotation is only 4 episodes while the weekday rotation is 2 per night, so weekdays have almost "lapped" weekends.
I was eager to see the Colin Baker and Sylvester McCoy stories, since I'd never seen them (except for "Twin Dilemma" and "The Two Doctors"--I moved somewhere that PBS didn't show them). I must say it was a bit disappointing, seeing them after literally decades of expectation. They weren't very good in the 1980s, and they certainly haven't gotten better waiting for them. But I'm rambling.
My point is, I'm finally starting to be filled up on Dr. Who, so I was going to stop watching the weekends after "...Fang Rock," but I'm weak and OCD, so I decided to keep watching on the weekends and watch weekdays until it catches up with weekends. Then I'll just catch them if it is a good serial or one that I've missed. Tonight was "The Invisible Enemy," which I'd pegged as the point where the series "jumps the shark," and my feeling was confirmed. It just isn't a very strong story. Really, it should be the end of the series. The whole concept of the supervisor getting possessed and then hiding it to get to the medical asteroid is stupid. The plan had been to get the Doctor and kill "the reject." When Leela leads him back to the Doctor, he should have just killed her. Then the Doctor gets possessed, the breeding happens, the Hive takes over the universe and that's that.
So when RetroTV started showing them, I've been gorging on them. I even got the VCR running in a halfhearted attempt to get the wiring set up to record the episodes, but I digress. The Saturday rotation is only 4 episodes while the weekday rotation is 2 per night, so weekdays have almost "lapped" weekends.
I was eager to see the Colin Baker and Sylvester McCoy stories, since I'd never seen them (except for "Twin Dilemma" and "The Two Doctors"--I moved somewhere that PBS didn't show them). I must say it was a bit disappointing, seeing them after literally decades of expectation. They weren't very good in the 1980s, and they certainly haven't gotten better waiting for them. But I'm rambling.
My point is, I'm finally starting to be filled up on Dr. Who, so I was going to stop watching the weekends after "...Fang Rock," but I'm weak and OCD, so I decided to keep watching on the weekends and watch weekdays until it catches up with weekends. Then I'll just catch them if it is a good serial or one that I've missed. Tonight was "The Invisible Enemy," which I'd pegged as the point where the series "jumps the shark," and my feeling was confirmed. It just isn't a very strong story. Really, it should be the end of the series. The whole concept of the supervisor getting possessed and then hiding it to get to the medical asteroid is stupid. The plan had been to get the Doctor and kill "the reject." When Leela leads him back to the Doctor, he should have just killed her. Then the Doctor gets possessed, the breeding happens, the Hive takes over the universe and that's that.
Rewatched The Mark of the Rani. Its still a very good story. I wish we'd gotten more of The Rani in good episodes. Anthony Ainley was as awesome as ever, of course. The side characters are really generic, but not terrible or anything. Not my favorite 6th Doctor story, but still a good one.
Finished up "Image of the Fendahl" tonight and I'm increasingly convinced that it is an underappreciated gem. I don't recall if this is a leftover Hinchliffe era script, but it certainly has that feel. It also serves as a nifty bridge between early and late Tom Baker. He is wise and omniscient in it, but also out of his depth, up against a monster that is more than a fair match for him. They've started to relax his costume--no tie and a modern turn-down collar, but he still has an Edwardian aura to him. And they wisely have K-9 down for repairs, so he gets just a bit of comic relief at the end and a cameo that doesn't overpower the way K-9 can sometimes.
Decent villains. Decent monsters, sets, and FX. Just about the right mix of horror and humor. The "gram" and her grandson have some very nice supporting roles and Baker plays off them very nicely. And as always, Leela is top-notch. The bit where she rescues the Doctor from the skull. And when they rescue the one scientist who doesn't die and he has a freakout so she puts the knife to him and tells him "YOU NEARLY GOT US KILLED DOWN THERE, IF YOU'RE NOT CAREFUL, YOU'RE GOING TO GET KILLED UP HERE." (or something like that) made me clap and cheer--all these years after it first aired.
Oh, and there's some foreshadowing that Gallifrey and the Time Lords may not be as lily-white as they like to pretend to be--without giving away too much of the mystery. Top notch episode.
Decent villains. Decent monsters, sets, and FX. Just about the right mix of horror and humor. The "gram" and her grandson have some very nice supporting roles and Baker plays off them very nicely. And as always, Leela is top-notch. The bit where she rescues the Doctor from the skull. And when they rescue the one scientist who doesn't die and he has a freakout so she puts the knife to him and tells him "YOU NEARLY GOT US KILLED DOWN THERE, IF YOU'RE NOT CAREFUL, YOU'RE GOING TO GET KILLED UP HERE." (or something like that) made me clap and cheer--all these years after it first aired.
Oh, and there's some foreshadowing that Gallifrey and the Time Lords may not be as lily-white as they like to pretend to be--without giving away too much of the mystery. Top notch episode.
Remember that while Hinchcliffe left at the end of season 14 (though he'd been planning to stay on), script editor Robert Holmes stayed for the first half of season 15.
In production terms, Invisible Enemy was shot first, so Horror of Fang Rock and Image of the Fendahl were already in the scripting works before the decision to keep K-9 on was taken. As Sun Makers was written 'in-house' by Holmes himself, the first script from freelancers with K-9 as a companion is Underworld, written (guess what?) by the dog's creators...
Ugh, The Curse of Peladon is one of the most generic, bland, mediocre Doctor Who serials I've ever seen. I can't imagine anyone didn't immediately call every plot point before it happened. Its the "Good king tricked by evil adviser" story at its most generic, with some stupid "one off romance for The Doctor's companion" thrown in. The only thing that makes this different is the interesting alien delegates. Besides that, I'm pretty sure this royal betrayal story has been told thousands of times, and I'd be surprised if this was the only Doctor Who story with it. There is no twist or hook outside of the alien delegates to make this more than barely watchable. I mean, The Doctor is fine, but that's to be expected. I can't believe that this story actually gets a sequel on TV. Its far from the worst 3rd Doctor serial, but its a complete waste of time.
The Curse Of Fenric(extended version), I great Holloween story along with The Image Of The Fendahl. It's a compex story filled with some complex characters thanks to Ian Briggs. Setting it in WWII only made the story even more horrifing, there's always been something alittle murky about WWII stories. Mllington and Judson would've been the first gay relationship on the had Briggs not changd his mind. It's still alittle hard to believe that Fenric could've died so easily of the nerve gas and I don't quite understand the Lady Peinforte connection, but making Curse into the end of a trilogy was a good thing to do. And Janet Henfrey who played Miss Hardaker was the first vitim of the mummy in The Mummy On The Orient Express.
The interesting thing about Miss Hardaker (and there's a lot of background on her in the novelisation; why she knows what girls who go to Maiden's Point are up to, and why she's still a Miss and shunned by the respectable people at the church) is that Janet Henfrey is effectively reprising her role as the stern spinster schoolteacher from Dennis Potter's Singing Detective... where she was reprising her role as the stern spinster schoolteacher from Potter's Nigel Barton plays of 20 years earlier (around which time, apparently, Potter tried to write a Doctor Who submission, and abandoned it as being the hardest thing he'd ever tried to write. Unfortunately, we only know this from a sidenote in his diaries, and anything Who-related he did write doesn't seem to survive).
Yeah, I liked Image of the Fendhal too and also think it's an underrated story. The "gram" was a good character, almost had a companish vibe to her.
The actress who played Thea is Wanda Ventham, the mother of Benedict Cumberbatch. I think she says in the DVD commentary that it was the first role she did after his birth.
I kind of like Peladon (I, not II). The Doc is kind of a pawn of the Time Lords in it and yes, it's a hackneyed old story, but all the stories have been told and I feel like they pull it off. A nice twist, bringing back the Ice Warriors, only to make them Good Guys. I think that's the only time they've done that on Dr. Who.
Fenric, I only got to see a year ago. Loved the first half. Lots of neat bits like where the Doctor bluffs his way in and nonchalantly forges himself a pass while the guards are coming to their senses. Making Ace so sympathetic to Soviets in the second half is tolerable, if it rubs me the wrong way personally, but there are other things that kind of fall apart in the second half. A bit of a disappointment after such a promising start (in my book) but still, one of the better McCoy stories.
Just got into "Armageddon Factor," the last Key to Time serial, and while I realize it got butchered for various reasons, geez it is clunky and painful.
Fenric, I only got to see a year ago. Loved the first half. Lots of neat bits like where the Doctor bluffs his way in and nonchalantly forges himself a pass while the guards are coming to their senses. Making Ace so sympathetic to Soviets in the second half is tolerable, if it rubs me the wrong way personally, but there are other things that kind of fall apart in the second half. A bit of a disappointment after such a promising start (in my book) but still, one of the better McCoy stories.
Just got into "Armageddon Factor," the last Key to Time serial, and while I realize it got butchered for various reasons, geez it is clunky and painful.
So, because it was on Netflix and I was bored, I rewatched The Curse of Fenric. I didn't hate it like I did on my first viewing, but it definitely needed a few more passes on the script. It felt incomplete, with several things being super confusing (the whole Millington thing never made a lot of sense, and neither did the context of Fenric/The Doctor's history). I liked the stuff with Ace better on rewatch, though. Overall my rewatch raises my opinion of this serial, not up to "good" but definitely from bad to watchable.
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