Nostalga Talk: The Five Doctors
- Thread starter starsuperion
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I have to say I agree.. it was 1988, and my friend had it on VHS. So we watched it at his house, I was like 11..
I had already seen the chase and was familiar with some of Hartnell's performance as the First Doctor.. so when I saw Hurndall playing the role, I just assumed he was doing a good job, he certainly looked the part..
but with the time and effort I have placed in watching back to back episodes of the Hartnell era, it becomes increasingly evident that Hurndall turned in an only barely passable performance as Hartnell..
There was a sly almost hidden strength that Hartnell gave to his performance, as if the old weak man was an act, to throw off anyone around him of his true intentions, a sort of camouflage to his real sense of power. It was evident his playfulness in outwitting foes in the Space museum episode by hiding within a Dalek, or the Keys to Marinus when he fooled the brain in a jar aliens, and even still when he tricked the meddling monk..or his aggressiveness with a sword, that shocked me as well..
plus he may have seemed weak, but there he was traipsing off into the wild wilderness and hanging out with a native woman, drinking mead..now that show's his courage and lack of weak stature given his appearance and age..
the 1st doctor was all about making you think he was weak and helpless, and then surprising you at the last moment, showing how truly smart he was, and a chuckle when you knew he had figured out the problem way ahead of everyone, even his foes..
the word that best described Hartnell's doctor was "surprise" or "Sly." Hurndall seemed to focus too much on the cranky aspects of Hartnell's doctor's personality, rather then temper it with his chuckling, and playful genius, as he defeated his enemies in that manner..
This. Oh, so much.
Agreed. I always wondered if this was because it was the only time Terrance Dicks (who, along with Barry Letts, co-created the character and oversaw all of the Master's initial appearances) wrote for Ainley. Seriously, watch the scenes with the Master and the High Council and it's so easy to imagine Delgado in Ainley's place (not always the case with the Ainley Master).
Ainley did well given his having people compare him constantly to delgado..
I always loved this ep for the history of Doctor Who. When i first saw it, years ago, I really only knew Baker...I knew that he had been replaced by Davison, but hadn't seen much Davison as by that time I wasn't really keeping up with PBS. I was aware of who Pertwee was because my best friend at the time was from England and his favorite Doctor was Pertwee.
I remember being fascinated by the idea that there were three other people who had played the Doctor prior to Baker and was literally shocked to see pix of them and thinking "they're really old and not handsome!!!" I was young, and too used to the Hollywood style of casting young and handsome.
I remember picking it up years later, still long before I was a true fan, as I had always had a fondness for the character, and being even more fascinated by the first two Doctors as they were the most unknown to me. I became a true Doctor Who fan after watching Eccelston's run, but during that run, I picked up T5D on DVD, and by this time, I was more familiar with the images of Hartnell, Troughton and Pertwee, so that there was a sense of familiarity, but I was still in the dark as to their adventures, their companions, etc.
I recall being fascinated by the "images" of Jamie and Zoe, but part of that was the wondering of who they were and what strange adventures did they have with their Doctor.
As of this writing, I have all of the available Troughton eps, and am very familiar with both Jamie and Zoe. I have not gone back and watched either multi-Doc eps because I plan on doing a Who run through this year. Thanks to Eccelston, I've become a true fan of Who and have amassed quite the collection of Classic Who DVD's. I really love the Hartnell and Troughton era's especially. So this time going in to the multi-Doc eps, I'll have full knowledge of these Doctors, their companions and adventures.
Not sure how I'll feel about that. I'll get the references and so on, but that sense of wondrous mystery will be gone.
I remember being fascinated by the idea that there were three other people who had played the Doctor prior to Baker and was literally shocked to see pix of them and thinking "they're really old and not handsome!!!" I was young, and too used to the Hollywood style of casting young and handsome.
I remember picking it up years later, still long before I was a true fan, as I had always had a fondness for the character, and being even more fascinated by the first two Doctors as they were the most unknown to me. I became a true Doctor Who fan after watching Eccelston's run, but during that run, I picked up T5D on DVD, and by this time, I was more familiar with the images of Hartnell, Troughton and Pertwee, so that there was a sense of familiarity, but I was still in the dark as to their adventures, their companions, etc.
I recall being fascinated by the "images" of Jamie and Zoe, but part of that was the wondering of who they were and what strange adventures did they have with their Doctor.
As of this writing, I have all of the available Troughton eps, and am very familiar with both Jamie and Zoe. I have not gone back and watched either multi-Doc eps because I plan on doing a Who run through this year. Thanks to Eccelston, I've become a true fan of Who and have amassed quite the collection of Classic Who DVD's. I really love the Hartnell and Troughton era's especially. So this time going in to the multi-Doc eps, I'll have full knowledge of these Doctors, their companions and adventures.
Not sure how I'll feel about that. I'll get the references and so on, but that sense of wondrous mystery will be gone.
I've been through both versions on the 25th anniversary discs.
I had mis-remembered the "first" Doctor as saying "you've been doing the TARDIS up a bit....I don't like it" but that was Troughton's line in the Three Doctors. Though Troughton says something similar about the Brig's office.
One thing that I wonder about, and I know there have been different "cuts" over the years, but I remember something from the original PBS airings that's been edited out of both DVD versions for some reason.
When #1 is taken, and #5 has his first attack, he says "just a twinge of cosmic angst" and Tegan asked "cosmic how much?". Now all she says in both versions is "cosmic..".
Now why would they edit that out?
I had mis-remembered the "first" Doctor as saying "you've been doing the TARDIS up a bit....I don't like it" but that was Troughton's line in the Three Doctors. Though Troughton says something similar about the Brig's office.
One thing that I wonder about, and I know there have been different "cuts" over the years, but I remember something from the original PBS airings that's been edited out of both DVD versions for some reason.
When #1 is taken, and #5 has his first attack, he says "just a twinge of cosmic angst" and Tegan asked "cosmic how much?". Now all she says in both versions is "cosmic..".
Now why would they edit that out?
There have also been a couple of fanon explanations for this:
In one of the novels, the 3rd Doctor is injured and begins to partially regenerate. Jo mentions to him afterwards that he was becoming "all teeth & curls."
I recall reading about an exercise at the Time Lord Academy on Gallifrey where the young Time Lord tries to regenerate and all of his classmates put their energies towards stopping him. This gives the young Time Lord a preview of his next 3 regenerations. Of course, sometimes it goes wrong and he ends up regenerating for real.
Personally, I just go with the simplest explanation: The Doctor is a master at charades!
I dunno. Granted, I haven't seen a lot of Delgado episodes. (I think I've only seen "The Sea Devils," come to think of it.) But still, there's a playfulness to Ainley's Master in that scene that I can't see coming from Delgado. But then, I think Ainley always worked best playing camp. Delgado is the only one that could generate menace for any sustained period of time.
I love the bit in the making-of documentary where Peter Davison talks about how big of a coward Ainley was in real life and that he really was scared shitless by all of those laser pyrotechnics in the Death Zone.
I wonder why they never went back in and adjusted the sky in the death zone? I suppose the impenetrable force field was the reason? Maybe it gave off a false sky colour to confuse the players as to where they were abducted to, as to keep Gallifrey off the galactic crimes list..
Well, until recently Gallifrey's sky was only supposed to be burnt orange at night...
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