Last Classic Who Story you watched

[Sindatur]

The Seeds of Death - I loved this one. The Ice Warriors, are so creepy with those "Manacle" hands. And they were so, so, evil in this story, no ambiguity whatsoever, LOL.

I loved everything about this story, the advancement of the arc every episode, The stifling trapped feeling of the Moonbase segments, the threat of The Ice Warriors, the ingenuity of fixing and creating things, the Ice Warrior master plan, being so thought and playing out bit by bit, using foam as a monster/threat, with 6 episodes no episode felt like "Running down corridors, and being captured, and escaped and captured again"..... A whole lot happened in this story, compared with some other 6 parters

 

[Pindar]

Finished the Ambassadors of Death, I was enjoying this until I remembered Caroline John died last year which was a bit depressing.

Lots going on with not much happening in the end first commentary said that the writing need rescued half way through.

The music was interesting, Procul Harem-esque at times.

 

[DalekJim]

Season 7 is one of the best seasons of Doctor Who ever. Spearhead from Space is the weakest and I'd still probably give it a 10/10 .

I'm going through Troughton recons at the moment. Might do Enemy of the World tonight.

 

[Sindatur]

Season 7 is one of the best seasons of Doctor Who ever. Spearhead from Space is the weakest and I'd still probably give it a 10/10 .

I'm going through Troughton recons at the moment. Might do Enemy of the World tonight.

I really enjoyed Enemy of the World.

The Space Pirates - This one was pretty good, though it lost something as a Recon. Unlike many of the other recons, which I enjoyed the reconstructed episodes as much as the surviving ones, the survving episode was much better than the Rconstructed ones. It was always pretty obvious the Doctor favored Jamie over the others, but, this was nver so obvious in my memory as when in The Space Pirates, they pass out from oxygen deprivation, and the Doctor is laying next to Zoe and climbs over her in order to get to Jamie to ask if is alright, before bothering to ask Zoe, even though he was practically laying on top of her, and had to climb over to get to Jamie, LOL.

The War Games - Previously I had seen this on Youtube, in 3 chunks per episode, and the story seemed interminably long. Having seen it straight through this time, it was quite good, and didn't seen overly long or drawn out. Sad to see Trougton era come to an end, I've enjoyed the ride very much, and will be revisiting the era in the future wit great delight.

I planned on watching Stargate Universe next, but, it's still out on loan, so, I figured what the heck, I'll continue on with The Pertwee era, so, Spearhead From Space is up next

 

[Starkers]

Just finished watching City of Death which is the first classic story I've watched for a few months. Love it to bits, it really is a classic, and in many ways it felt like the sort of story the show could easily tell now (wibbly wobbly timey wimey plot, zippy one liners).

I still don't quite understand how Scaroth could look the same in each of his incarnations however!

 

[Lonemagpie]

Thinking of starting with An Unearthly Child and going through all that exists (TV-wise) before the anniversary... but some of the stuff I have on VHS only is 200 miles away at my dad's house. Some of it's not a problem - I'll be visiting well before I get to, say, Kinda/Snakedance/Black Orchid/Frontios etc (all of which are up there), but I suspect it'll mean having to skip The Time Meddler, The Krotons, The Dominators...

 

[Candlelight]

Just finished The Silurians. Great story, great characterisation from the Silurians and only let down by the costume, the design of the dinosaur and the music (which I spotted was by the same composer who did Death to the Daleks - very 'plinky-plonky' ).

Not sure what to do next. Might try Sea Devils.

 

[MickJo1701]

Watched Timelash last week, was too busy enjoying Paul Darrow chewing the scenery to focus on how bad the story was.

 

[The Borgified Corpse]

Just finished watching City of Death which is the first classic story I've watched for a few months. Love it to bits, it really is a classic, and in many ways it felt like the sort of story the show could easily tell now (wibbly wobbly timey wimey plot, zippy one liners).

I still don't quite understand how Scaroth could look the same in each of his incarnations however!

While he was wealthy, he was not wealthy enough to afford multiple guest actors.

 

[Starkers]

ha ha, true!

 

[Lowdarzz]

The Creature from the Pit (Fourth Doctor).

A good story somewhat hampered by the visual effects. I've always liked the idea of non-humanoid lifeforms, Devil in the Dark is probably my favorite Star Trek episode, but the Doctor Who team seems to have bitten off more than they can chew this time around. The model shots of the full scale creature look excellent, especially when compared to similar shots done in the serial The Power of Kroll, but the interactive prop just didn't seem to work. For example at the end of Part Two we're meant to think Erato is trying to eat the Doctor but it actually just looks like it's bashing him into the ground.

Romana also came across as rather stiff and aristocratic in this serial. Lalla Ward seemed to be trying to channel Mary Tamm more this time around, a complete turn around from her performance in the previous two serials. I looked up the serial on wikipedia and learned however that this was the first serial filmed for season 17 and that Ms. Ward was still trying to work out her character at the time.

David Brierley's as K-9 just doesn't have the same feel as John Leeson's. While I'm okay with the fact that the voice no longer sounds very synthetic, the performance just sounds lackluster.

Myra Frances' performance was the highlight of the serial. Her motivations were easy to understand, when your rich you want to remain so, and she had a very commanding presence. I understand the need to kill the character off but there definately seemed to be something missing in part four.

Nightmare of Eden (Fourth Doctor).

Doctor Who's first 'drugs are bad' serial, at least as far as I can remember, and it was very well done. Like The Creature from the Pit, the alien design was somewhat poorly executed but it still worked. The model designs were excellent and most of the shots were well executed. The only one that had problems was the shot that showed both ships merged. It just looks like one is parked in front of the other.

I also enjoyed the fact that this episode was sort of a semi-sequel to Carnival of Monsters since the conecpt behind Tryst's CET machine was similar to Vorg's miniscope.

Most of the major characters had something to do in this serial and that's always a plus in my mind. The captain showed us the effects of the vraxoin, the cops motivation was spelled out as we the motivations of Professor Tryst. The only characters I believe were short-changed were Della and Stott. Neither had much of a role beyond running around and giving exposition.

The Leisure Hive (Fourth Doctor).

The beginning of the final era of the Classical Doctor Who series with Johnathan Nathan-Turner taking over the producer's chair. I was surprised however to see Barry Letts listed as Executive Producer in the credits. That said this serial had a very different feel and I can't put my finger as to why. Perhaps it was the new electronic music, perhaps it was the tone, but it just didn't seem have the same feel as the rest of Tom Baker's era.

The story itself was good but not that well developed. It felt like two different stories had been compressed together into one and the script needed to go through a few more drafts in order to make it work. First there is the story of the Foamasi and their desire to buy Argolis and then there is the story of Pangol and his desire to clone himself and begin a war of conquest. One of these stories probably would have been enough. That said, I found it interesting that the Argolin seem to have been the aggressors in their war with the Foamasi. In most sci-fi series the reptilian aliens would have been the agressors like the were in season three Enterprise. Kudos for switching it around.

Also I'm glad to see that John Leeson has come back as the voice of K-9 and that the effects crew gave him tank tracks so that he could move over obstacles. Of course he then immediately went into the water and exploded part one so that was it.

 

[diankra]

Johnathan Nathan-Turner/QUOTE]
John Nathan Turner. Or Jonathan Turner, which was his real name, before he decided to turn it into something more interesting and arty!

(As you do when you start working in showbiz. Ask Archie Leach, and William Pratt, Reg Dwight and Bernie Schwartz. Mind you, Roger Delgado and Jon Pertwee are positively ordinary compared with their real names).

 

[sidious618]

I really enjoyed Nightmare of Eden, too. I think it's an underrated episode. It has one of my favorite fourth Doctor scenes: him telling the professor to "go away" as the professor attempts to justify himself is phenomenal.

 

[Pindar]

Mawdryn Undead, I forgot how slappable Turlough was in this episode.

I never liked that the Brig became a teacher.

My copy of Reign of Terror has arrived and hope to get that watched at the weekend.

 

[Lonemagpie]

Started at the start yesterday...

Sadly the caveman story doesn't match up (though nor is it as bad as most people think). It's interesting to rewatch to the point where you notice a lot of subtleties in the first episode- like how he's clearly building up to using Ian & Bab's intrusion as an excuse to make Susan want to leave Earth in return for letting them tell their story, and then when she threatens to stay he *panics and hits the "get the fuck out of Dodge" button with them still aboard... There's a great shot just after where he has a total "What the FUCK did I just do?" expression on his face. The other weird stuff now is the Doctor lighting up a pipe...

 

[Pindar]

Started at the start yesterday...

Sadly the caveman story doesn't match up (though nor is it as bad as most people think). It's interesting to rewatch to the point where you notice a lot of subtleties in the first episode- like how he's clearly building up to using Ian & Bab's intrusion as an excuse to make Susan want to leave Earth in return for letting them tell their story, and then when she threatens to stay he *panics and hits the "get the fuck out of Dodge" button with them still aboard... There's a great shot just after where he has a total "What the FUCK did I just do?" expression on his face. The other weird stuff now is the Doctor lighting up a pipe...

I love that first episode, the character of Susan was never that good again.

 

[Starkers]

I just finished watching The Invasion. Good serial, if perhaps a tad too long, and though they aren't in it much the Cybermen are ace. Vaughn is a great villain, as if poor put upon Packer. It's fun to see UNIT in action and there are a couple of nice fire fights between soliders and Cybermen which are well handled, in fact some of the space effects look very good as well, all things considered, and obviously the production got a bit of a helping hand fro, the MOD. Have to say the use of stock footage was quite well utilised, it can look very jarring but here I thought it looked fairly seemless...maybe the B&W helped?

I love the bit where it looks like all the radar operators are checking out Zoe's bum as she rushes past them with her clipboard

 

[Mr Pointy Ears]

That would be death to the daleks

 

[Lowdarzz]

Full Circle (Fourth Doctor).

A very interesting story that was well written. The concept of accelerated evolution is one that I've seen before but was probably something new when this serial was aired. I'm not sure how evolution from spider to marsh man, which I assume to be some kind of amphibian, to humanoid would work. That said, the idea that the marsh men had taken the place of the original people from Terradon and were still trying to fix the ship worked well.

It was intersting to see George Baker in a Doctor Who serial. He did a good job with the material he was given but his definitive performance, at least to me, remain that of Tiberius in I, Claudius. Tom Baker unfortunately seemed to be phoning it in all through the serial while Lalla Ward didn't seem to have much to do. Adric is a character I'm not sure about. The smart kid is a trope that I could do without.

State of Decay (Fourth Doctor).

Vampires. Giant Vampires! Argggg. While I can appreciate a new take on Vampires, they're a creature that I could do without for a good long while. This serial seems to use the Bram Stoker version which is okay. At least the bastards don't glow in sunlight.

That said the serial was well written and acted, though Tom Baker was still phoning it in. I appreciate the amount of Time Lord history I got out of these four episodes. A long and bloody conflict between the Vampires and the Time Lords that was only settled when Rassilon was young. I also find it interesting that that was the war that made the Time Lords more or less pacifists for a time, except for a mission here or there to destroy the Daleks. Honestly, making the serial about that war would have made it more interesting.

Adric's still getting on my nerves. I'm hoping he doesn't reach Wesley Crusher levels.

Warriors' Gate (Fourth Doctor).

You could sort of call this serial Full Circle as well, though the title would have a different meaning. The Tharils were once a powerful race that used their abilities to plunder and enslave multiple worlds. They were then overthrown by the Gundans and later became slaves themselves. Now they have initiated their own revolt.

I liked the concept behind this story but I thought it was a little thin. More information about the Tharils, the fall of their empire and their enslavement, would have helped to flesh it out somewhat. Though the slavers were the bad guys, it would have also been interesting to learn how they got the idea to use the Tharils as their navigators. However I can see why this information wasn't included. The majority would have been exposition and might have weighed the story down too much.

I'm sorry to see both Romana and K-9 go. After blowing him up, cutting off his head and just leaving him in the Tardis half the time, the Tin Dog had a rough time this season. While Romana did have reason to leave the Tardis, wanting to help the Tharils and not wanting to return to Gallifrey, I think the writer could have developed her motivation more. There's no hint of her desire to stay in E-Space until she announces it.

I still like Mary Tamm's Romana better but Lalla Ward's was a good companion as well. She was not nearly as well developed but Ward and Baker had good chemistry on screen and this made up for it. The characters just seemed to enjoy eachother's presence throughout most of season 17 and here and there in season 18.

The library doesn't have a copy of The Keeper of Traken so it's on to Logopolis, Tom Baker's last serial.

 

[Lonemagpie]

The Daleks... Long and stagey but never quite too dragging (even though the movie tells the story in 80 minutes or so - the length of three out of the seven episodes!). Gives us a good chance to see the crew developing...

Susan tells us the Thals' crops have failed and the may soon starve to death if not helped. I immediately said "For just three pounds a month, you can keep a Thal family in gruel..."

I'd never noticed before but in the big showdown, one of the Thals gets blasted in the guts at point blank range with the full extermination effect, then just grimaces, attacks the Dalek that did it... and doesn't die. WTF? Is it Superman paying a surprise visit? The other Thals should have wondered a bit about him... "That Temmosus was a bloody wimp. Obviously just died of natural causes at a coincidentally embarrassing moment. Stupid Daleks probably thought they did it."