Last Classic Who Story you watched
- Thread starter Pindar
- Start date
Even if that's so, "Black Orchid" is the only Doctor Who story since "The Gunfighters" to have no science fiction or fantasy elements other than the main cast and the TARDIS, so it counts as a historical, at least technically.
I'd actually be happy if they'd do the occasional straight historical story again from time to time. I get tired of the contrivance of the Doctor's every visit to Earth history involving an alien invasion or time traveler or supernatural force or whatever.
It's a monster story, but the monster doesn't have an alien origin.
"I didn't get you where you wanted to go, but always got you where you needed to go."
I watched The Myth Makers recon years ago. I don't remember much about it. I haven't tried to tackle The Massacre, The Smugglers, or The Highlanders. I have tried to tackle Marco Polo and quickly quit.
Reverse the polarity of the neutron flow!
It’s a pastiche, I suppose it contains no actual historical figure. But it was terribly on trend at the time. This was about when all those romance dramas were kicking off in the same era, remains of the day, chariots of fire, and it hung around a long time — you rang m’lotd and house of Eliot within a decade of Black Orchid.
"The Keeper of Traken". A nice slow burn and build-up to a fantastic reveal of a long-forgotten villain (The Master), it's more fantasy than science fiction in a way, but it really manages to sell itself to get you into its world. I blame the lush art deco sets, some of which must have cost a packet to make as not everything could be borrowed from the 16th century monarch productions. It does have a Shakespearean feel to it as well.
"Black Orchid" got the 2-part slot, which is unfortunate. There are seeds of a great story in this, let down by generic direction and the underlying story lacks the pull to get beyond that "just point a camera at the stage and let the actors act", having to rush through episodes with no effective atmosphere, countered by overly long spectacle with the cricket match, emphasis on a book that isn't even real, and slang for which most of it isn't quite topping - or believable since all the "1920s slang" websites don't seem to have those words.
The show was also missing a proper script editor, since Bidmead had left and Saward had only just been hired and likely hadn't the time to tweak it. JNT himself was contemplating directing it, but due to time constraints had to hire stalwart Ron Jones to do it. Considering how JNT had directed (uncredited), among other scenes, the fantastic "Cyber massacre" scene from "The Five Doctors", he would have made a fantastic director as well.
Quick side note: While JNT was great at direction and brought in lots of new directors to add new style to the show, which was costly, he would turn to Ron and other directors who were more cost-effective to compensate, especially if there was a time crunch.
JNT had been working on Who since… I think The War Games? Didn’t he start as an assistant, and then floor manager?
^^^Indeed he did.
Yep. That was his first.
By the late-70s (season 15?) he became production unit manager. With Graham Williams leaving, he netted the producer's chair. He definitely had enough knowledge of the show and certainly loved it, even staying when otherwise knowing that if he moved on, nobody else would come in to revitalize it with their own visions.
He could balance the budget and make the show look better for less, and while not everyone liked his creative ideas, some of them paid off rather well - it was "Traken" where Christopher H Bidmead mentioned in a documentary that JNT popped into the office one day and had a great idea, to bring back the Master - which in turn resolved a lot of plot issues as the story needed a lot of rewriting (the original script bore resemblance to "Meglos", but Bidmead's rewrites added a lot of originality and freshness, making it its own. Add in JNT's walk-in impromptu idea of "let's bring back the Master" and voila: an iconic character was brought back, and given the panache of Anthony Ainley - whose acting of Tremas (nice anagram!) ensured that Nyssa's father would get some sympathy after the Master literally bodysnatches.)
Interestingly, JNT would often have that shopping list of items of who to bring back or which companion to get rid of, where it should be set, reusing old baddies (as if previous producers didn't do so already, but he did go back to the "well o' returning baddies" more), etc. Even the first producer to have old clips of mostly-relevant scenes involving previous Doctors to remind the audience that the show started long before 1975, not wrongly so. Didn't always work, but rarely was it truly awful, then you have the masterpieces of "Traken" and "Earthshock', as he loved the Cybermen and wanted their reveal to be an absolute secret.
Plus the multitude of new villains to complement returning ones. Again, not always hitting a homer each time, but hiring writers who created the Tereleptils, Mara, Valeyard, Rani, Sil, Malus, Tractators, Portreeve, Fenric, Ragnarok, etc, all taking the franchise in new directions as JNT too knew that having fresh ideas and not always digging up old ones and relying on lore was important, but so many of the older classic villains and monsters had sequel potential that it'd be bad not to try something, if the idea was solid enough. ("Warriors of the Deep" is an obvious misfire, but the idea of the Silurians returning, out for revenge, had some potential. )
Well, the Portreeve is just an extreme of the Master's long-standard trick of disguising himself, though the context of a completely manufactured species and making the Portreeve a lovely charismatic being - only to be the vicious Master - definitely caught a lot of people off guard, while remaining true to the Master's MO. Bidmead could belt out some great stuff.
To cut a long digression short, JNT's a tad underrated. But, yeah, his clunkers could be something awful as well. Even then, for many of them, he's either trying out new ideas or shaking things up.
Warriors of the Deep was a good story let down by poor design choices (Rentaghost Myrka) bad lighting (all of them all the time) and either bad direction or bad acting (kung fu as though it was developed in a Surrey disco) but is otherwise decent enough hard SF than can only really be done in the Who setting (for the Silurians and Sea Devils as a third party race in the Cold War.)
Like Frontios, it makes a better book than TV outing. (Though Frontios would have been far far too grim if it had made it to screen with it ideas in place) Kinda would also be, but the performances and some of the weird stuff elevated it above Studio Jungle and Blue Peter Giant Robot Suit stuff.
The sense I got of him back in the day was that he was considered a good producer, but fans (myself included, I think) came to feel that he'd stuck around too long and was getting stale, that the franchise thrived on the periodic change of cast and crew and the infusion of fresh ideas and approaches. They appreciated the fresh take he'd brought to Tom Baker's final season, but by the time JNT was on his fourth consecutive Doctor, it was felt that he'd used up his bag of tricks (sort of like how I felt about Moffat after a few years) and it was time for him to move on and let someone else have a go.
Although I think the things JNT and his writers did to shake things up in McCoy's final two seasons were something of a response to that perceived stagnation, and they were somewhat successful, though I found those seasons hit-or-miss.
The problem with JNT was Eric Saward. (Not entirely a joke…)
Space Pirates. One reason why he put the surviving episode on the Troughton Years VHS.
I generally think that script editors are more important than producers. Certainly JNT let Andrew (we worked together on Starburst) have free rein.
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