Back in 83, at the NFT, we had the Aztecs episode as the boring one when we could eat our sandwiches. How wrong we were.
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It's a Mac Hulke trope, capture-escape-capture etc for as long as necessary. Or in Silurians, this week they have a new plan (plague, etc). Though to be fair to him, most episodes involve a new twist.
I just discovered that the full-color, widescreen versions of the animated reconstructions are on the BBC's Doctor Who Classic YouTube page. I watched "Galaxy 4" last night. It's a mediocre story, well-intentioned with its message about not judging by appearances, but the writing is at a pretty simple level, as if it were aimed at 5-year-olds. It was a pretty good showing for Vicki, who got to be strong and assertive, though I gather Peter Purves thought he was stuck with a "feminine" role because many of his lines were written for Barbara. Hartnell seemed to have particular trouble remembering his lines. Overall, I have to wonder why they chose to animate this one while better serials like "Marco Polo" remain unadapted. And it still kind of bugs me when they do complete animated reconstructions for serials where there are surviving/recovered episodes (in this case episode 3 and a few minutes of episode 1).
The animation was about typical for the reconstructions, decent but jerky and limited. The animation of characters turning their bodies away from the camera was particularly strange. The animators failed to give the Chumblies the kind of motion that Vicki named them for. The Drahvins' spaceship was presumably pretty authentic to the original set, but the designers made the Rills' complex a lot bigger. Making all the synthetic Drahvin soldiers identical was probably done to reduce the number of character models they had to create, but it made sense in context and maybe even worked better that way. They also made the Drahvins larger, even taller than the 6'1" Steven. (The original actresses were between 5'4"-5'6", roughly, and wore flat-soled shoes.) I guess that's why they reanimated the whole thing, because their version changes things from the original.
It bothers me at the end that the TARDIS crew just left the Drahvins to die on the planet instead of offering them the chance to escape with them. I'm sure Maaga wouldn't have accepted, any more than she accepted the Rills' offer, but it feels wrong that the Doctor didn't at least make one last try to get through to her.
The animation was about typical for the reconstructions, decent but jerky and limited. The animation of characters turning their bodies away from the camera was particularly strange. The animators failed to give the Chumblies the kind of motion that Vicki named them for. The Drahvins' spaceship was presumably pretty authentic to the original set, but the designers made the Rills' complex a lot bigger. Making all the synthetic Drahvin soldiers identical was probably done to reduce the number of character models they had to create, but it made sense in context and maybe even worked better that way. They also made the Drahvins larger, even taller than the 6'1" Steven. (The original actresses were between 5'4"-5'6", roughly, and wore flat-soled shoes.) I guess that's why they reanimated the whole thing, because their version changes things from the original.
It bothers me at the end that the TARDIS crew just left the Drahvins to die on the planet instead of offering them the chance to escape with them. I'm sure Maaga wouldn't have accepted, any more than she accepted the Rills' offer, but it feels wrong that the Doctor didn't at least make one last try to get through to her.
"Monster" stories are more popular than non-monster ones. [edit: also, longer serials or serials with more background characters or costume changes cost more to animate. The high number of costume changes is one reason I've heard cited for why they haven't done The Crusades yet even though you'd only need to animate 2 episodes.]
They animated the whole thing "to provide a consistent viewing experience" for audiences. [edit: which again sucks when it comes to something like The Crusades where they could utilize the 2 existing episodes to cut costs.]
Agree or disagree, those are the reasons. They finally animated a missing non-monster serial The Savages.
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Which is a drawback of the CGI technique they use. If they'd do proper 2D animation drawn by hand, they could do as many costume changes as they wanted. Although I guess it would take longer, require more animators, and therefore cost more anyway.
Marco Polo (and The Crusade for that matter) have been cited as too difficult to animate due to the prohibitive cost of creating so many different character models and locations. They work within very limited budgets unfortunately.
Edit - Already answered and addressed by yourself. Apologies.
I decided to go back to Classic Who today, picking up where I left off with the beginning of Season 12 and the introduction of Tom Baker as the Fourth Doctor. Like a lot of people, Tom Baker is one of my favorite classic Doctors, and his introduction here was a lot of fun. It did a great job of making it clear right from the start that he was a very different Doctor from Jon Pertwee's Third. The introduction of new companion Harry Sullivan was pretty good too.
The mystery around the thefts of the tech for the disintegrator gun was pretty interesting too.
The mystery around the thefts of the tech for the disintegrator gun was pretty interesting too.
I finished up Robot this morning, and I was pretty happy with how it ended. I did not expect all of the stuff that ended up happening with the professor, and I was pretty happy with how they resolved things with the bad guys and the robot.
I was in mood for more after I watched the last episode, so decided to keep going and watched the first episode of The Ark in Space. It sounds like this one is pretty well regarded, and it's off to a pretty good start so far. I like what they're doing with Harry Sullivan as a companion, and the set up with the station has been pretty interesting. This one had some of the most New Who style uses of the Sonic Screwdriver than a lot of the other Classic serials I've watched so far.
I was in mood for more after I watched the last episode, so decided to keep going and watched the first episode of The Ark in Space. It sounds like this one is pretty well regarded, and it's off to a pretty good start so far. I like what they're doing with Harry Sullivan as a companion, and the set up with the station has been pretty interesting. This one had some of the most New Who style uses of the Sonic Screwdriver than a lot of the other Classic serials I've watched so far.
I've been watching Genesis of the Daleks over the last couple of days. This one definitely deserves it's reputation as a classic. This was actually one of the first Classic Who serials I ever watched, I bought it on DVD back when the new series started, but I haven't watched it since then. I'm watching it on BritBox just because it's quicker and easier, and possibly has better picture quality than the DVD. I am thinking checking out the special features on the DVD, which I've never watched before.
But even aside from that, the Master keeps coming back from apparently certain deaths without regeneration being involved, because he's still Anthony Ainley or whoever when he returns the next time. Like, in "Planet of Fire," the Master was completely vaporized on camera, burned up completely by the superhot flame, which was about as final a death as you can imagine -- but he came back without explanation in "The Mark of the Rani" (which also ended with a seemingly final demise for both him and the Rani, which they both escaped).
I always figured that the Source of Traken was what enabled him to regenerate his Tremas body after being vaporized. I also figured that it was the same thing that let him survive Dalek execution as the translucent goo creature that possessed Eric Roberts in the TV movie.
Oh, I didn't realize he'd ever had that kind of a "final" death in the classic show. I've never seen Planet of Fire. Most of what I've seen with the Master are the 3rd Doctor and New Series arcs. I did watch Mark of the Rani when I found out The Rani was gonna be back for the finale of Ncuti Gatwa's second season, but that was the only Classic story arc I've seen where he wasn't played by Roger Delgado.
It's the Master's inexplicable ability to escape death repeatedly that makes him the better candidate for being the Timeless Child, at least in my book.
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