Last Classic Who Story you watched

[jaime]

I think the two scenes fit together pretty well. In the Tales of the TARDIS scene they get to go into a little more depth about what happened between them than they were able to in the heat of the moment during Power of the Doctor. TotT implies that there was a heated discussion / argument / disagreement following the events of DiT and Ace left.

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As for supplemental material, I never put those into consideration when new canonical material is concerned. As much as I loved the old Star Wars EU and the Star Trek novel verse, I had no illusions nor desire to see the books adapted to screen.

As for the soap opera of it all, I can honestly say that my only exposure to that soap opera has been Dimensions in Time, so therefore I can just write those people off as any other people who were caught in a bizarre situation with the Doctor and no different than Mike and Gary from last night.

I forgot the timelines line. That was them covering it all anyway, so I should just extend it to the DiT business they mention. Or just assume it was a different day with the Rani. Something more befitting the pair, like something about animal experimentation.

 

[JD]

You should consider purchasing it, then. Apart from being pretty decent, there's a fan-made animation of it available, courtesy of Josh Snares, and its available for free on YouTube.

Money is going to be getting tight for me, so I'm keeping unnecessary purchases to a minimum right now, but once I have more entertainment money, I'll keep it in mind.

There is also Dimensions in Time, which for better or worse, got a canonical shout out in Tales of the TARDIS.

Is Dimensons in Time available to watch or buy? I looked for it but couldn't find it anywhere.
I started the first episode of The Mark of the Rani and it was pretty good. I was a little shocked at the attitude The Doctor took to Peri at times, I'm not used to the Doctor being so snippy with his companions.

 

[Turtletrekker]

Is Dimensons in Time available to watch or buy? I looked for it but couldn't find it anywhere.
I started the first episode of The Mark of the Rani and it was pretty good. I was a little shocked at the attitude The Doctor took to Peri at times, I'm not used to the Doctor being so snippy with his companions.

It's available on YouTube. Keep in mind that it was not an actual production, but rather a special made for charity and the 30th anniversary. It was very low budget and quickly cobbled together. It's intent was more to make money for children than to tell any kind of classic Doctor Who story, and by all accounts it was very successful on that count.

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[26138]

And DiT is not good. You have to understand that going in, or you'll be left disappointed lol. It does feature the Brig meeting 6, though! Just shut your brain off for 10 minutes and enjoy seeing all the old actors/actresses reprising their roles.

 

[jaime]

It's available on YouTube. Keep in mind that it was not an actual production, but rather a special made for charity and the 30th anniversary. It was very low budget and quickly cobbled together. It's intent was more to make money for children than to tell any kind of classic Doctor Who story, and by all accounts it was very successful on that count.

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Theoretically if you improvise a pair of glasses with one lense slightly darke (by say popping out one lense from a cheap pair) or make a pair with red and turquoise lense, the 3D will still work.
You won’t enjoy it. But it will work.

 

[kirk55555]

Just watched The Moonbase. It was a pretty good story, with the two animated episodes being decently done. Its not the most unique story ever, but for the Cybermen's second outing it was solid. The 2nd Doctor also gets some time to shine, including getting a little speech about having to fight evil. I will say that the Cybermen were really hard to understand, the distortion used for their voices was way too strong and it was a strain to figure out their dialog. But besides that its a solid "base under siege" style plot, although if we're talking about Cybermen on the Moon and the 2nd Doctor then Tomb of the Cybermen is a stronger story.

 

[JD]

It's available on YouTube. Keep in mind that it was not an actual production, but rather a special made for charity and the 30th anniversary. It was very low budget and quickly cobbled together. It's intent was more to make money for children than to tell any kind of classic Doctor Who story, and by all accounts it was very successful on that count.

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Thanks for warning, I'll keep that in mind if I watch it. I knew it was part of one of the charity specials, but I had still expected it to be a big budget production
I finished up The Mark of the Rani, and it was OK. One thing I did think was interesting about The Rani, is she wasn't some full on megalomaniac who wanted to kill every, she was just a scientist with no morals, who basically treated humans as her lab animals.
As for the rest of it, I thought it was OK, but nothing spectacular. Once I got used to his attitude I start to like the Sixth Doctor a bit more. All of the stuff around the Industrial Revolution was kind of interesting, but I don't really see why The Rani picked that era for her work on the people, that seemed like the kind of thing she could have done at any time.
The supporting cast was OK, but none of them really stood out as being overly interesting.

 

[Haggis and tatties]

The 3D thing was quite a big thing back in the day for a Uk terrestrial tv broadcast, hence why Baker is inside a spinning screen saver, and if i remember correctly all sales of the 3D glasses went to Children in need, the reason this was made.

 

[26138]

Just watched The Moonbase. It was a pretty good story, with the two animated episodes being decently done. Its not the most unique story ever, but for the Cybermen's second outing it was solid. The 2nd Doctor also gets some time to shine, including getting a little speech about having to fight evil. I will say that the Cybermen were really hard to understand, the distortion used for their voices was way too strong and it was a strain to figure out their dialog. But besides that its a solid "base under siege" style plot, although if we're talking about Cybermen on the Moon and the 2nd Doctor then Tomb of the Cybermen is a stronger story.

Fun fact: Jamie didn't have much to do in this serial because he wasn't supposed to be a companion, so they had to alter the script when they kept him on as a companion. That's why he spent a lot of time in the hospital bed in this serial.

 

[26138]

One thing I did think was interesting about The Rani, is she wasn't some full on megalomaniac who wanted to kill every, she was just a scientist with no morals, who basically treated humans as her lab animals.

Yup. I think it's her best appearance. Time and the Rani just isn't as good.

 

[Christopher]

Time and the Rani just isn't as good.

The novelization is even worse. All the Target novels were written for young readers, but this one was simplistically written even by the usual standards, and incredibly crude and awkward. Not only do the Bakers do the lazy thing of having the Tetraps' language just be English dialogue in reverse, but the narration actually explains outright to the reader that the language is just English in reverse.

 

[The Nth Doctor]

I just watched The Mark of the Rani (for the first time in many years) and truthfully, I enjoyed it far more than I recalled. Sure, it has plenty of 80s cheese to it, but it also has a solid story with a wonderfully atmospheric setting of the coal mine. The Sixth Doctor is a delight in this story, who is not too arrogant and is often tempered by Peri with a few great quips throughout the story. Plus, Peri actually has a decent role, isn't too much of a damsel in distress, and even gets the chance to use her botany skills.

I loved the squabbling dynamic between The Rani and The Master, even if I wasn't fond of how quickly The Master overpowered her to steal her scientific results. I particularly enjoyed the juicy tidbits about The Rani's notorious history with immoral experiments peppered throughout the serial by both The Master and The Doctor. That gave us the full flavor of how ruthless she was in her pursuit for scientific knowledge, regardless of the consequences to any life she deemed lesser than her (i.e. pretty much all animal lifeforms but especially humans). I delight in how her scorn for "lower life" and putting them on display bit her in the ass (almost literally) in the serial's conclusion. And no, I don't care how corny that scene played out. It was perfect, for both of them.

Perhaps my favorite thing about the serial is the marvelous way The Rani's landmines rapidly transformed people into trees. One of the benefits of a low budget is how it forces a production team to use basic methods that then results in creative effects. I think I much prefer the subsequent practical effects of the tree transformation over what would've been done with modern special effects (digital or otherwise). The earthy nature of that quick moment, complete with the dirt flying up and the tree quickly replacing the people, really stroke a chord with me.

 

[Mr Awe]

^ I rewatched Mark of the Rani within the past year or two when I worked my way through the Blu-ray season set. I also enjoyed it (and the whole season to be honest) more than I anticipated. While I enjoyed the dialog between the Master and the Rani, I had hoped there'd be more of that. But it was fun.

 

[The Nth Doctor]

^ I rewatched Mark of the Rani within the past year or two when I worked my way through the Blu-ray season set. I also enjoyed it (and the whole season to be honest) more than I anticipated. While I enjoyed the dialog between the Master and the Rani, I had hoped there'd be more of that. But it was fun.

It was definitely a lot of fun watching O'Mara and Ainley chew the scenery together.

 

[jaime]

The novelization is even worse. All the Target novels were written for young readers, but this one was simplistically written even by the usual standards, and incredibly crude and awkward. Not only do the Bakers do the lazy thing of having the Tetraps' language just be English dialogue in reverse, but the narration actually explains outright to the reader that the language is just English in reverse.

lol. I almost said even the novelisation didn’t save it. By the late eighties some of them had got rather good, in defence of being ‘for young readers’. I think the turning point was probably Turlough and The EarthLink Dilemma, but Time & the Rani was like something had been made by accident. It even had a terrible photo cover.

(Edit: in fairness, I finished reading the book, but don’t think I ever finished watching the serial. Same is true of all of season 24 apart from Dragonfire.)

 

[Emperor-Tiberius]

I've not seen it in years, but one of my issues with Mark of the Rani has always been that the Master has no place in it at all, and indeed having him there took away from the Rani's spotlight, especially when O'Mara was clearly the most memorable new villain in the Colin Baker era (though the Valeyard is a tie, I guess).

 

[diankra]

Theoretically if you improvise a pair of glasses with one lense slightly darke (by say popping out one lense from a cheap pair) or make a pair with red and turquoise lense, the 3D will still work.
You won’t enjoy it. But it will work.

The actors did it all for charity, and their contracts rule out any commercial sale.

 

[Christopher]

By the late eighties some of them had got rather good, in defence of being ‘for young readers’.

I certainly didn't mean to imply that young-readers books couldn't be good; I'm always horrified by the attitude that things for children should be of low quality. That was my point, that a bad novelization was the exception, not the rule, and that it seemed like the Bakers went overboard in dumbing it down for kids so that it was more simplistic than the norm. Or maybe it was just that they weren't very good writers, period. (The sudden drop in quality in "The Ultimate Foe" from Robert Holmes' Part 1 to the Bakers' Part 2 is jarring.)

 

[jaime]

I certainly didn't mean to imply that young-readers books couldn't be good; I'm always horrified by the attitude that things for children should be of low quality. That was my point, that a bad novelization was the exception, not the rule, and that it seemed like the Bakers went overboard in dumbing it down for kids so that it was more simplistic than the norm. Or maybe it was just that they weren't very good writers, period. (The sudden drop in quality in "The Ultimate Foe" from Robert Holmes' Part 1 to the Bakers' Part 2 is jarring.)

They were writing for the kids first show that was the knee jerk reaction to Sawards grim dark bollocks. They were hired to do that basically, and to bring more of an edutainment feel.

In terms of the books, those had grown into more short teen fiction, borderline adult. I always remember Turlough and the EarthLink Dilemma being much more adult in tone and theme, and I do wonder what Harry Sullivan War was like from the same range.

 

[jaime]

The actors did it all for charity, and their contracts rule out any commercial sale.

Yup.
But I’m talking about making the 3D work whilst watching on YouTube. I think my glasses are still in the box with my VHS recording somewhere in the house.