Shada - Again!

[jaime]

I think that somehow, some way, all the different versions of Shada exist together in a big ball of wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey stuff. Besides, we know that a certain part of it is absolutely canon under any circumstances. The clip used in The Five Doctors. If that much of the Shada story is "true", then why not the rest of it?.

There’s two versions of that too. XD

 

[Qonundrum]

It's very nicely done. The focus is very much not on making something aimed at the real hadcore fans (the ones who cheerfully watch recons of missing stories and wouldn't find the format shifts odd), there's a real attempt here to make something that will work for folk who just like Tom Baker and/or Douglas Adams. Most notably with a new scene being added to make the first transition to animation as smooth as possible.

Plus the editing on the live action footage has been tightened up considerably, not so anything's cut in terms of dialogue, but it zips along much more than previous releases or indeed what it would have been like had it gone out in 1979. Previously the scenes I'd found flat and badly performed are improved tenfold.

the animation itself, whilst clearly not Disney level, is still up a level from Power of the Daleks and does the job nicely, and all the reunited actors slip into their parts well. I think Christopher Neame may actually be even better than he was before. The decision not to recast K9 or Professor Chronotis does mean some cut scenes and rejigging, but if anything the reveal of the Professor's secret is handled better here than in the script where he just comes out with it at the worst possible moment (ironically the novelisation changes that moment for that very reason).

It's not perfect, Shada as both a production and a script never was (the various changes Adams made for the first Dirk Gently book--like having only one student sidekick instead of two--are all improvements). But for the first time the original works as a piece of entertainment rather than an historical curio.

And having Tom Baker film the final scene was a brilliant idea. You're so used to the switch between young Tom and drawn Tom him suddenly being old Tom doesn't take you out of the drama, and the discussion of what people will think of him in 200 years is perfect for a moment like that. It's tremendously heart warming. And the season 17 console room they cobbled together from the Experience version looked great!

^^this

Hard core fans are great, but even if there's something approaching a solid story underneath, this would be one of the few times to take some creative liberties-- though how many soft core fans or casuals would care?

I just watched the first two episodes' worth on DVD, noting it's an omnibus edition so I guessed where the cliffhangers were. Apparently, the TARDIS arrives (Chronotis later reveals it's a type 40) while he's away and the Doctor and Romana go punting, as they don't meet and exchange pleasantries until he returns. Chonotis' surprise when seeing the police box suggests something rather different.

Lots of floundering jokes, a few good jokes, Roman numeral counters per CGI circa 1979, and some snazzy 2D and 3D animation, which is a step or two better than "The Power of the Daleks" and does exactly what it needs to do.

I'd seen earlier editions, so I know that Skagra's cloaked ship f/x were done in 1979. Holds up well.

Sadly, they nicked spaceship door and ball voice sound effects from the early-90s VHS. People not having seen that will just think "cheap sounds". People who have it will be distracted by cheap sounds coming from a cheap release.

Though I'm questioning the deliberate nature of the clock remaining at 1PM all the time, is Parson's flat inside a time bubble? (that may be addressed, I've only seen the first third of the story, which is nowhere near as great as people hype it up as being.)

When the Doctor and Romana went under the bridge, Doctor slipping punt oar, was it just me or did the incidental music hark back slightly to the incidental music used to kidnap the Doctor and Romana in "The Five Doctors"? (if I recall, the one scene from the special release that worked wonders was that they were returned in such a way that the kidnapping hadn't taken place. Not sure why the original release took extra footage in the cul de sac, probably just to get more Tom Baker into the story's 20th anniversary as opposed to sticking with the story's flow.)

Didn't know they cut scenes due to not recasting K9 (Brierly, who is still alive?) or Chronotis (Carey, who died some years ago). Now I feel somewhat bad in purchasing the release, since I would have expected a complete story and not an incomplete uncompleted story. They got all the living actors back. They recreated the music by lifting other season 17 scores in parts, though Mark Ayres' take on creating a Dudley Simpson-like season 17 score is rather excellent as the score often feels like a perfect or near-perfect graft, not due to borrowing and augmenting cues from "City of Death", the most appropriate score to use as Adams wrote it as well. So why not have voiceover actors close to the originals? Wouldn't be any different than adjusting the 1979 film with an animated voiceover with the same actors now 40 years older with slower inflection and minor tonal pitch changes due to age. (Which is not meant to be perceived as demeaning; the cast do slip in effortlessly into their roles and that renders the changes hardly noticeable.)

And yet it's still disappointing to read they cut out bits. I hadn't gotten to any animated K9 scenes yet, but now I know what to expect.

Am looking forward to seeing the final scene as well. Not because of the fantratic recreation of the console room set.

 

[Qonundrum]

I got through to what amounts episodes 3-5. David Brierly is either involved or there's a very good voice double. Some of the live action scenes filmed did not have K9's voice initially (e.g. boarding the invisible ship) and in the DVD there's a subtle difference for those particular scenes. Animated scenes with K9 exist as well, so I'm slightly massively relieved.

I'm fairly certain the story is being told in its entirety. At over 2 hours long...

It's still not an all-time great, but there's much to appreciate in the story. About 28 minutes remain until I get through it...

 

[Qonundrum]

Got through the rest of it. Not the greatest ever story but by no means is the worst ever.

A few points were glossed over despite the 6 episode length, I won't mention them all but will state the biggies, and nothing really happens with the Doctor's copied brain.

The prisoners, in the script, were said to have included a Zygon and Wirrn as well.

I wonder why they didn't use the original modelwork that had been completed... even the hackneyed bootleg version using the gold vortex end credits with police box (taken from The Time Monster) and Chronotis' office box models looked better as it showed the Doctor going through, not falling (taken from "Planet of Evil") only to magically reappear inside his TARDIS later...

So Salyavin contacts the Doctor to pick up the book. The reason he did that was so that nobody could ever find out he's escaped. So glad Salyavin is a nice bloke and all who only committed small crimes to be locked up in the first place? And why the surprise then for Salyavin to see the police box and be startled at the start, with Doctor and Romana introducing themselves only after returning from the punt...

And inside Skagra's travel ship they used red, but the scene with Chronotis' TARDIS revealed a brown/yellow rectangle patterned wall...

What's the point of the officer hauling everyone down to the station at the end?

Loved seeing Tom Baker and the old console room style back, especially with the amount of corridor they had shown past the inner door. Shame they only had voiceovers for Lalla Ward (unavailable or unwilling, of course).

Nice to see the story in a properly watchable format.

But Romana telling Parsons at the start where to go through the TARDIS to get the medical kit seems very casual about it all, never mind how quickly Chris gets the kit and comes out of it panting (1st door to the left dfown the corridor, then 2nd to the right, blah blah blah 3rd door... then 4th door on the blah blah blah)...

New series fans will probably like the story more than hardcore fans, or both will like it - for different reasons.

 

[Marc]

Lalla Ward (unavailable or unwilling, of course).

She has done some Big Finish audios with Tom so it might be more lack of availability..

 

[Christopher]

BBC America showed the animated reconstruction last night, so I've finally seen the complete "Shada." And... it's not that good, is it? The Cambridge sequence just drags, with lots of padding. The actor playing Parsons is unappealing, and Claire is a vaguely defined character; when she was wordlessly searching Chronotis's chambers at one point, I wondered if she was secretly in league with the villain or something, because practically nothing had been established about just who the heck she was. Skagra himself is a fairly underdeveloped villain -- indeed, his main defining quality in the first half is the fact that nobody knows who the hell he is, and the answers aren't all that interesting. The spheres are too silly-looking to be much of a threat. The actors in the live-action footage seem to be phoning it in. And the pieces of the story aren't that well tied together. There's a lot of new info about Gallifrey, but it's interwoven with this totally unconnected story about a scientist who wants to mentally take over the universe. And the titular prison planet is hardly even a significant plot point. It might've been a better story if the villain had been someone more directly connected to Shada and the Time Lords. I suspect that if this story had been completed normally, it wouldn't be remembered as a standout.

As for the animated reconstruction, it's still not great animation, but it's a major improvement over the previous reconstructions. I'd be curious to know more about the process of its creation -- maybe there's a video or article link earlier in this thread, but I don't have time to look right now. Would I be right that the music is newly composed for the reconstruction, but done in an emulation of Dudley Simpson's style? The main melody is very close to the Paris-tourism music from "City of Death."

 

[Emperor-Tiberius]

BBC America showed the animated reconstruction last night, so I've finally seen the complete "Shada." And... it's not that good, is it?

Speak for yourself. One of my all-time favorites.

 

[Mr Awe]

I thought Shada was good. Not an all time classic of the original series but enjoyable. It's probably one of the better stories (top 5) of the Graham Williams era. Although, I suppose that's damning with feint praise. It's not in the same league as say City of Death or The Pirate Planet, but it's better than most from that time. I'm excluding Horror of Fang Rock because that's a Hinchecliffe/Holmes holdover.

If you're looking for a good representative story from the Williams era, that would be one candidate out of several that I'd consider. If you're looking for top DW, nah, there are plenty of others that are better.

 

[Emperor-Tiberius]

I do prefer it over almost anything in Tom Baker's era, post-Hinchcliffe. Almost - City of Death is just magical.

 

[kirk55555]

Yeah, I didn't find Shada particularly compelling in any form. Its slow, padded out, and just not that interesting. Chop off two episode, and it would be a decent but not all that memorable serial.

 

[jaime]

Yeah, I didn't find Shada particularly compelling in any form. Its slow, padded out, and just not that interesting. Chop off two episode, and it would be a decent but not all that memorable serial.

It was better in dirk gently.

I think Adams actually isn’t any good on Who. City of Death works, but that’s it.

 

[Professor Zoom]

It was better in dirk gently.

I think Adams actually isn’t any good on Who. City of Death works, but that’s it.

I have a fondness for that Pirate planet thing... but, yeah, I don't think he's all that great of a Who writer. Hitchiker's is untouchable genius, but, that doesn't mean his work on Who was.

 

[diankra]

David Brierly died 10 years ago. I understand that Tom and Lalla record their Big Finish stuff seperately, never in studio together.

 

[Marc]

David Brierly died 10 years ago. I understand that Tom and Lalla record their Big Finish stuff seperately, never in studio together.

I came across mention recently that T. Baker records at a different studio (was it in here?) - guess at his age he doesn't always feel upto traveling across London for a day's recording then back home.

 

[OCD Geek]

I came across mention recently that T. Baker records at a different studio (was it in here?) - guess at his age he doesn't always feel upto traveling across London for a day's recording then back home.

From what I understand, Baker records at a studio that was built in his house due to a combination of his age and Big Finish wanting to do whatever it took to get him to finally sign on after over a decade of turning them down.

The normal way Big Finish does things is have the actors actually record their scenes together. They feel it makes for better, more natural performances. That's why if an actor is unavailable or has limited availability they tend to write characters out for a time or have them temporarily replaced by an alien body snatcher or something. Or they'll have something like those Torchwood standalone releases that only focus on one or two characters at a time. It's also why they constantly rotate companions and time periods in the Monthly Range.

 

[Emperor-Tiberius]

Well, here's my actual top 10 of Tom Baker's time as the Doctor:

1. City of Death
2. Talons of Weng-Chiang
3. Genesis of the Daleks
4. Seeds of Doom
5. Deadly Assassin
6. Shada
7. Pyramids of Mars
8. Robots of Death
9. Ribos Operation
10. Horror of Fang Rock

So yeah, I would rate Shada pretty high. Its joyously entertaining all-around, with a memorable guest cast and witty dialogue befitting of Adams. And for that matter, the Cambridge part was my favorite.

 

[ATimson]

Would I be right that the music is newly composed for the reconstruction, but done in an emulation of Dudley Simpson's style?

Yes, it was new work by Mark Ayres.

The normal way Big Finish does things is have the actors actually record their scenes together. They feel it makes for better, more natural performances. That's why if an actor is unavailable or has limited availability they tend to write characters out for a time or have them temporarily replaced by an alien body snatcher or something.

While they do like to get everyone together, they will waive that if that's what's needed to make the story happen. (Off the top of my head: The Fourth Doctor Adventures with Romana - although Jane Slavin plays a stand-in with him. Some of John Barrowman's and Eve Myles's appearances in the full cast Torchwood tales like Believe and Aliens Among Us. And I thought that some of Zagreus - specifically Don Warrington's part - was recorded separately?)

I'm actually blanking on explicit cases of someone being written out like that - normally they could just record with a different set of companions.

 

[Marc]

While they do like to get everyone together, they will waive that if that's what's needed to make the story happen. (Off the top of my head: The Fourth Doctor Adventures with Romana - although Jane Slavin plays a stand-in with him. Some of John Barrowman's and Eve Myles's appearances in the full cast Torchwood tales like Believe and Aliens Among Us. And I thought that some of Zagreus - specifically Don Warrington's part - was recorded separately?)

Some of Ruth Bradley's parts for Dark Eyes 4 had to be recorded separately iirc because she was getting busier and busier as the sets went along.

 

[Emperor-Tiberius]

Some of Ruth Bradley's parts for Dark Eyes 4 had to be recorded separately iirc because she was getting busier and busier as the sets went along.

Bradley didn't return for Dark Eyes 4.

 

[The Nth Doctor]

After the nearly a year-long delay for the American release (I'm still livid about that), followed by another two-month delay, followed by a delay in receiving it from Amazon, followed by a broken external DVD player, followed by a broken replacement and waiting for another replacement, I finally watched the new version of Shada this evening (I swear, I must've pissed off some god or another).

I've always been a huge fan of serial in all of its forms (well, almost), whether it's the incomplete serial with the Baker bridging narration, the stop-motion McGann webcast, the slightly longer Big Finish audio play, and now this version (once again, I have absolutely no interest in ever watching the Levine version).

I'm a little disappointed they used the same animation team as Power of the Daleks because, like the Troughton story, I'm not a big fan of the rendering of characters (except the Krags), but at least this time around the mouth movements were much more natural looking and less distracting. The set pieces were beautifully rendered particularly Shada and the interior of Skagra's ship, but I am bummed out that they didn't come up with more creative designs for the Shada prisoners (I would've loved to see an Ice Warrior and/or Zygon included in the mix). I guess they wanted maintain the illusion that of what they would've designed in 1979 (did they actually come up with any designs at the time beyond what was mentioned in the script?). On the flip side, the animators did slide in some lovely Easter eggs in The Doctor's workshop, where I spotted at least a Cyberman head and the parrot Polyphase Avatron (from The Pirate Planet) and I'm sure there are more that I missed, so clearly they weren't adverse about sliding away from the original intentions.

A bit weird they decided to edit the whole thing as one long episode, removing all of the cliffhangers. On the one hand, I miss the cliffhangers which are part of the classic flavor, but on the other hand, the story flows very nicely without them and makes the overall production more unique. My memory is rusty since it's been awhile since I last viewed/heard a version of the story, so I didn't immediately detect any of the small edits they made, which means those edits only helped tighten the story.

Even though it was mentioned earlier in the thread, I had completely forgotten that Tom Baker filmed a new scene, so I was pleasantly surprised when he popped up from the console at the end. I wish Lalla had filmed the scene on set, too, but alas...

(Nov 24, 2017): Cool addition although I wish it was left as a surprise.

You know what? Sometimes having a shitty memory is a blessing.