Stories You've Watched Recently

[evilnate]

I've been working through the awesome amount of classic Who that's available on Netflix. I haven't been watching them in any particular order, except where the story demands it. The great thing is that even though I'd seen most of the forth and fifth Doctors on PBS back in the 80s, I don't really remember any of it, so it's pretty much like watching these stories for the first time. Started with City of Death, which seems like a pretty lucky choice on my part.

Most recently I watched the Key to Time series (which I enjoyed for all of the Douglas Adams fun), The Ark in Space (which was just a great story), and The Trial of a Time Lord. Trial wasn't really as good as I was hoping that it would be, except for the final two parts where they broke from the flashback format. That had some great stuff in it, such as The Master coming to the rescue, the revelation about the Valeyard, and the way they introduced Mel to the Doctor...and the Doctor acting like he actually knew who she was.

One humorous note about those last episodes. My seven year old daughter is not shy about pointing out what she percieves to be "bad special effects" and my viewing of classic Who has given her plenty of opportunities to comment. However, when the the Valeyard and the Doctor were on the beach in the second to last part, and the Valeyard is doing is popping around thing, she commented, "that's a pretty good special effect! How do you think that did that Daddy?" I just told her that I didn't know, and I didn't have the heart to tell her that it was probably one of the easiest effects that they did, just by stopping the camera. It was neat that something as simple as that could still be effective to a seven year old's eyes, and create a sense of wonder. That made the whole episode for me!

 

[The]

Heh. I remember thinking The Valeyard's popping around on the beach was pretty cool, too. Of course, I was watching it in the era it was produced, so I guess it was pretty cool...

 

[evilnate]

Heh. I remember thinking The Valeyard's popping around on the beach was pretty cool, too. Of course, I was watching it in the era it was produced, so I guess it was pretty cool...

Thinking about it, what made it effective was that it had noe of the hallmarks of an effect of that type. No changes in lighting, no suddenly moving objects, etc. It was just a simple, effective, and seamless effect. It was so well done that you couldn't even detect the cuts in the shot that involved grass blowing in the wind. Sometimes the simplest things can be hard to do.

Also, I didn't mention how blown away I was by the special effect shot that started that season. When we saw the Time Lord's vessel approching the camera, I thought that it looked pretty good. It reminded me of the credits sequence of Red Dwarf. Then, I was completely shocked when the camera started doing it's motion controlled turn about the ship, ending with the flying TARDIS being drawn into the portal. I was completly blown away by that, and it was a far better special effects shot than I had ever expected to see in classic Who. So much better that I was actually disappointed by the exteriors of the Hyperion III later in the season. It really felt like that awesome effect was from some other movie or show.

 

[Bones2]

Most recently I watched the Key to Time series (which I enjoyed for all of the Douglas Adams fun)...

Adams' only contribution to the Key to Time was The Pirate Planet. Though that is certainly to best part, and one of my favourite Tom stories.

 

[evilnate]

Most recently I watched the Key to Time series (which I enjoyed for all of the Douglas Adams fun)...

Adams' only contribution to the Key to Time was The Pirate Planet. Though that is certainly to best part, and one of my favourite Tom stories.

I thought that he had a hand in the middle three, but a quick google search tells me otherwise. It was a fun storyline regardless, and the white guardian reminded my of The Architect from the Matrix movies for some reason.

 

[Kelso]

Finished Marinus and moved on to Aztecs. The final two eps. of Marinus were weak and the Doctor is still my least favorite character on the show, but it was still the best serial thus far. We've started mocking Hartnell while watching. (Hmmmm?)

Aztecs is fab. so far. I've seen it before, but it's been years.

 

[The]

We've started mocking Hartnell while watching. (Hmmmm?)

You have no soul!

 

[Kelso]

We thought about taking shots every time Hartnell flubs a line or botches the scene... but then we'd never make it through a serial.

And why do they insist on writing Susan as if she's a precocious ten year old? "Look, cartoons!"

Doc #2 and Jamie can't get here soon enough!

 

[Candlelight]

We thought about taking shots every time Hartnell flubs a line or botches the scene... but then we'd never make it through a serial.

It'll be 2012 before you get past The Chase...

 

[OmahaStar]

And why do they insist on writing Susan as if she's a precocious ten year old? "Look, cartoons!"

That's why the actress left. What she had been given as a character description and what they wrote for her were polar opposites. She was supposed to be this older alien ... but one who appeared to be the age of a school-age teen, one with alien ways, wisdom and such. Instead of Starman, we got Gidget.

 

[Capt_Pickirk]

I watched The Dalek invasion of Earth yesterday, I had a friend round and he kept making comments but he still enjoyed it

One of the funniest bits in it is when a man carrying a piece of wood is pushed by a roboman, you hear a wooden clunk off screen and my friend said 'Oops, there goes that actor.'

I guess you had to be there

 

[Kelso]

Three eps. into The Aztecs. Man, the first Doctor really was a buffoon, wasn't he? Ixta tricks him into helping in the fight against Ian, he accidentally proposes to a woman, and he completely fails to keep a watch out while Ian is crawling through the tunnel. Sheesh.

The hightlight of this serial is the dude playing Tlotoxl. Why can't he play the Doctor?!?

 

[The Squire of Gothos]

I caught The Two Doctors the other week, not a terribly good episode. I never really took that much of a shine to Colin Baker's Doctor, this episode doesn't help. Patrick Troughton seemed to get a lot less screen time than he might have deserved after the first episode.

The Three and Five Doctors stories are much superior, with as much thanks to the Doctors gathered together as to the plots.

 

[The Borgified Corpse]

Tonight, I watched Shada for the first time. And wow. If not for that strike causing this to go unfinished, it probably would have been the best Doctor Who story in the series.

Really? I happened to watch "Shada" for the 1st time as well this past week. I was thoroughly unimpressed. It's not an unrelenting shitfest like "Destiny of the Daleks" but it's no "City of Death" either. It seems to lack a lot of the usual Douglas Adams wit. Skagra is a lame, badly acted villain (who seems to visit the same godawful tailor as the Movellans). The music is bad & distracting (although that may be because it was only done much later on the super-cheap for the VHS release).

The Doctor seems oddly out of character the way he's so immediately & seriously concerned when he learns that Prof. Chronotis took a book from the Gallifreyan archives. The 4th Doctor is such a whimsical anarchist himself, it's hard to see why he'd object. His reaction felt more like a 3rd Doctor reaction, or perhaps even 1st or 2nd.

On the plus side, I do love the timey-wimey way that Prof. Chronotis comes back from the dead in the void.

I don't know what it is, but I like Destiny, possibly it's because its one of the few episodes I concretely remember watching at the time but I like it, not so much padding, and I found the Movellans interesting--as for the Dalek's looking a bit shoddy, well they were involved in a war, I like it, shows how badly they were losing (well how badly they were drawing I guess).

It's a nice theory, but they don't look like banged up cases of polycarbite battle armor. They look like hastily assembled wood props that a fan made in his garage.

["The Trial of a Time Lord"] had some great stuff in it, such as The Master coming to the rescue, the revelation about the Valeyard, and the way they introduced Mel to the Doctor...and the Doctor acting like he actually knew who she was.

That always confused me, the way most of the case examples in "The Trial of a Time Lord" are flashbacks, except for "Terror of the Vervoids," which was a flashforward. But then at the end, a version of Mel who has met the Doctor goes off with a Doctor who hasn't met her yet. It's a shame we never saw how the Doctor ended up with Mel in the 1st place. They probably could have streamlined things and made her one of the crewmembers of the Hyperion III, thus making "Terror of the Vervoids" their 1st meeting. But then, I tend to prefer companions that aren't from 20th century Earth. It helps lend to the broad scope of the series.

 

[The Borgified Corpse]

I also rewatched "The Leisure Hive" this past week. That story is better than I remember. The plot actually makes a lot of sense and the music is fairly effective, whereas I remembered it as being really intrusive. I like the way the Argolins die with the little beads gradually falling off that cobb at the top of their heads. The reptilian Foamasi were obviously where the production decided to save money that week. There were some flashes of Tom Baker brilliance here ("Arrest the scarf then!") but you can tell that he's tired of doing the show.

 

[starsuperion]

I just spent the last hour watching a remarkably entertaining and quite fun 1st Doctor Who show called the Space Museum!

now this epi was great.. it started out a mystery, and ended up fully action packed! the ending was dramatic and had elements of suspense.. the effects were classic. The acting was great, Hartnell surprised me, as did the performance by the character Ian Chesterton..

I highly recommend watching it..

Great show, and it shows that there were Galaxies out there where the time lords had little influence..in some cases some races who had time space tech...the doctor actually gets something from this epi..and it leads into the best Dalek episode in my opinion...

the Chase! I am so siked now to watch the chase, and the Mechanoids! I am going to watch it right now!

 

[Shatnertage]

I finally got around to watching The Twin Dilemma.

It had a bad reputation, but it was even worse than I feared. I barely made it through the end of episode two before I gave up on it. It was that bad.

In this period there's just this real self-loathing about the show. The first thing the Sixth Doctor does is talk about how shitty the Fifth Doctor was. Then Peri talks about how shitty his fashion sense is. Then he talks about how shitty Peri is.

Finally I said, "You know what, guys? You're right. This stinks," and turned the DVD player off.

It's like they're trying to talk you out of liking the show or something.

 

[OmahaStar]

I finally got around to watching The Twin Dilemma.

Oh nice. It's the first story with the best Doctor in the show's history. I bet you're going to love it!

It had a bad reputation, but it was even worse than I feared. I barely made it through the end of episode two before I gave up on it. It was that bad.

You gave up? You gave up? What sort of fan are you?

In this period there's just this real self-loathing about the show. The first thing the Sixth Doctor does is talk about how shitty the Fifth Doctor was. Then Peri talks about how shitty his fashion sense is. Then he talks about how shitty Peri is.

All things being equal, Six is right. Even Ten commented on his choice of wearing a decorative vegetable. I'm not sure Peri would know anything about fashion, since she constantly wonders around with skirts that barely cover her "hey now" ... and she is a shitty companion. She eventually grows tolerable, but when the Doctor tries to kill her, I for one was encouraging him. Wouldn't that have been something to see?

Finally I said, "You know what, guys? You're right. This stinks," and turned the DVD player off.

*horrified* You stopped watching a Sixth Doctor story? ANY Sixth Doctor story? I'm shocked. Flummoxed. I don't know what to say. Perhaps "You're dead to me" might work?

It's like they're trying to talk you out of liking the show or something.

That's a bit dramatic, don't you think? They were simply informing us that we're absolutely right ... the Sixth Doctor is the best, and all the others are quite clearly inferior when compared with his magnificence. True fact, look it up.

 

[Shatnertage]

You gave up? You gave up? What sort of fan are you?

The funny thing is, I could imagine Colin Baker saying that. And it's not bad.

This just isn't a period of the show that I'm a big fan of. I've seen just about every Colin Baker episode, and all but a few of Sylvester McCoy's, and I've got no desire to watch any of them again. Well, maybe Ghost Light, just to see if I understand it any better.

I'm kind of surprised that there was a season 23 after seeing that.

 

[starsuperion]

actually there are plenty of colin baker epis I just adore..some are brilliant!!

Attack of the Cybermen
The Mark of the Rani
The Two Doctors
Revelation of the Daleks