Doctor Who — Page 39

I imagine its the times when The Doctor digs through his closet to pick out new outfits, and you can see old incarnations' outfits in the background. Tennant or Smith had one, I forget which.

Bingowings said:

Warbler said:

Tobar said:

So....the Master and the War Chief. One and the same?

 it has never been indicated so in the series.

 Correct but for the reasons I mentioned earlier it's a popular fan theory (and also my personal preferred arc for the character).

However the character of Rodan, this one :

 Ahh! I happen to be halfway through watching that serial ^ (The Invasion of Time) with Rodan in, right now... spoilers alert! ;-)

Jaitea said:

Wanna dance?

J

 With pleasure.

http://dancinghan.ytmnd.com/

Here's a "lost" episode that perhaps should have remained that way. ;)

http://www.the-medium-is-not-enough.com/2014/01/doctor_shmoo.php

Been on a big Doctor Who binge this month which has been a lot of fun. Some serials that were new to me and some that were like old friends. Here's what I watched...

The Invasion of Time (Tom Baker) - Parts 1-5 were really cool, the  Doctor claims his place as President of Gallifrey. Starts off very mysterious with the Doctor acting seemingly erratically with the layers of the story getting peeled away episode by episode. But sadly the final part is where it all crumbles. It's just running around a factory that is supposed to be the Tardis with almost zero set dressing and no story and the bit at the end with Leela is bullsh*t. Vast areas of the plot are left unexplained.

The Silurians (Jon Pertwee) - I love it when the Pertwee episodes get political and this was no let down. The Doctor is the couragous pacifist trying to hold back a war between the equally 'hawkish' man and alien. Interesting as it places the Brigadier in direct conflict with The Doctor.

Destiny of the Daleks (Tom Baker) - Essentially written by Douglas Adams it even slips in a reference to H2G2. Mostly brilliant thanks to witty dialogue from Adams/Baker, but it got a bit silly at the end with the seemingly deadly Movellans defeated by little more than a game of tag-you're-it. Always great to have Davros in the show. I thought a similar concept of computer warfare was handled better in the earlier ST:TOS episode 'A Taste of Armageddon'.

Frontier in Space (Jon Pertwee) - The first of an experimental double 6-parter (The experiment would not be repeated for reasons I'll explain). The production values are stunning, feeling like a precursor to Babylon 5. A big sprawling space-opera on the brink of war, with The Doctor and Jo caught in the middle. However it's a real shame that all the brilliant buildup of the 6 episodes is wasted at the end in a clumsy segue into the next 6-parter. A real WTF just happened moment and a poor send off for Delgado's Master (He sadly died soon after).

Planet of the Daleks (Jon Pertwee) - The second part after FIS ends up being better than the big budget intro. Firstly because it's all about character (There was no money left for anything else) and secondly because it has a proper end. It's worth seeing this DVD just to witness the documentary about how episode 3 was restored to colour. They somehow designed a program to extract and extrapolate the original colours from a black and white film of the episode (By reading the tiny patterns of dots)... seriously it's like voodoo!

Battlefield (Slyvester McCoy) - Hard to believe the show was cancelled 3 serials after this, as I think it's possibly the highpoint of the entire 50 years. I remembered loving it as a kid but my memories weren't wrong, it's a masterpiece. Aliens in medieval armour with laser guns battling UNIT and The Doctor was Merlin, it don't get no better. It's got action, drama, mystery and beautiful comedy too. The old Brigadier makes a final appearance and the new Brigadier is fantastic, see picture below (Shame she only got one go at it).

Interesting to note that it is an unknown future Doctor who will become Merlin (In the past) so the new-Who could follow this story up with a prequel/sequel/timequel.

Ghost Light (Slyvester McCoy) - However, it's not hard to believe the show was cancelled right after this serial as it's a mess, a strange and intriguing mess but a mess none the less. One of the 4 episodes was cancelled mid-way into production meaning a full quarter of the story was cut which explains most of the baffling holes in the plot. Still it's an entertaining Victorian ghost story of a serial with some wonderful dialogue from the Doctor.

Logopolis (Tom Baker) - Brilliant concept about a planet of humanoid computers, thousands arranged on pews like monks with abacuses. The Master returns thanks to Anthony Ainley in fine form to threaten the entire universe and The Doctor's very life.

The Mark of the Rani (Colin Baker) - The imoral Master is a bit wasted in this story as he's overshadowed by the brilliant and amoral Rani. Loads of location filming add a lot of style to this production but The Doctor feels a little lost in the story. I think they were having too much fun writing argumentative dialogue for the Rani and The Master.

Warriors of the Deep (Peter Davison) - This is a mere shadow of the two former Pertwee Silurian/Sea Devil stories. It all feels a bit flat taking place in only a couple of sets (Great sets though) with very little external photography. It's hard to get invested in the characters because they keep dying so often and the less said about the Myrka monster the better. However the chilling end with a superb performance by Davison is worth the watch alone.

Planet of the Spiders (Jon Pertwee) - The emotions are still too raw to talk about "A tear Sarah Jane?". But seriously, the beautiful writing allows you to easily forgive some of the production problems around visualising the Spider world.

Bingowings said:

I don't have a problem with the spaces inside the Tardis in the Invasion Of Time which are actually a hospital and a London Swimming Pool not a factory.

I see Tardises as temporal repair stations.

They carry a team of Time Lords around the universe to repair the damage caused by their ancestors during the dark time.

It explains the wardrobe of every kind of clothing, it explains the chameleon circuit and why regeneration changes the outer appearance of the Time Lord, it explains the scale of the Tardis interior.

What would that look like?

Well it would require workshops, recreation areas, showers, libraries (basically all the spaces we see inside the Tardis throughout the run of the show).

It has what looks like brick walls on the inside and why not? It has wood grain on the outer doors but they aren't made of wood. The interesting question is why does the Tardis have wood grain on it exterior when it's trying to be a Police Box...? Police Boxes of that design were made of concrete.

 I loved the Tardis Cloister in Logopolis which is also made of stone (One presumes). I thought it was atmospheric, strange and beautifully constructed

and it really felt like somewhere that the Doctor would retreat to get all introspective about life.

But there was nothing "other wordly" about the interiors in IOT...

...it's just the corridors of an old hospital (St. Anne's Surrey as you say) with almost zero dressing or lighting or even additional sound. Like you say the Tardis interior could look like anything but it would be nice if it looked like something with a little more imagination. Especially as we'd spent the first episodes on some really nice Gallifrey sets...

Bingowings said:

Logopolitans aren't computers (though it bares reminding that the first computers in the real world were people) they are processing nodes. Each person carries one data transformation therefore never carrying the full computation. The whole planet is an organic computer

Yeah that's correct, I was trying to be as brief as possible in that big post and probably over simplified that one. I really need to watch 'Keeper of Tracken' soon to get the backstory on that serial (I was lost with the Nyssa/father/master thing) and then 'Castrovalva' to see what The Master did next.

Bingowings said:

(now that is a reference to H2G2).

Vroomfondel demands that that ^ may (Or may not) be a solid fact.

Watched a few more serials in the past fortnight...

Robot (Tom Baker) - Obviously the main thrill of this show was seeing Tom Baker's version of the Doctor come into vibrant being. At one point he hilariously has a sulk, uttering the line "Well, of course I'm being childish! There's no point being grown-up if you can't be childish sometimes!" which echoed the Jon Pertwee line "What's wrong with being childish? I like being childish!" that I liked from 'Terror of the Autons'.



It's one of those serials that starts off well but falls apart somewhat in the second half. A great story about a peaceful Robot being forced against it's programming to perform wicked deeds by a cabal of fascistic scientists was very interesting. But then this all gets thrown out the window when the chance for some silly plot twists come along. So the benevolent creator of the Robot suddenly turns out to be evil in episode 3 then just as suddenly turns out to good again in episode 4. Quite why an evil Doctor would create a good Robot but then force it to do evil things against it's nature is beyond explanation. Plus the final episode's 'King Kong' pastiche is fairly clunking. Yet overall depite the flaws, I enjoyed it a lot and it's sad that some of the wonderful people interviewed on the DVD have since died (some quite recently).



The Mutants (Jon Pertwee) - The writing and production values of this 6-parter where terrific. It also has plenty for the dual Star Wars/Doctor Who fan to enjoy as two of the main characters are played by Lobot (John Hollis) and Biggs (Garrick Hagon), both giving superb performances. I wonder if Lucas saw these 1972 performances long before he cast them in ANH and ESB.

Especially as much of the episode revolves around a suspiciously 'Death Star' like orbitting space station with the power to lay waste to the planet below...

It's also tempting to see R2 and C3PO as less inspired by Kurosawa's 'The Hidden Fortress' and more by Cotton and Stubbs (LOL). The political tones come thick and heavy with the end of the British Colonial Empire and South-African Apartheid both transposed brilliantly to the far flung future. Unlike a few Pertwee 6-parters I've watched of late, the whole enterprise doesn't unravel in the last episode. The twisting, turning plot builds and builds and all wraps up in the end.



Curse of Fenric (Slyvester McCoy) - Being from the final season of classic era Who it's surprise on re-viewing how close this serial was to how the show returned. Ace the Doctor's companion takes a central part in the plot (Like Rose or Amy) and easter-egg like elements from other episodes all come together in the finale (Think Badwolf). Also great that the writers take the Doctor to a very dark place we rarely see. This ruthless take on the Doctor was nicely developed over the course of the last two seasons so it's a real shame we didn't see more of it.

It was a good choice to set the serial in a 'Bletchley Park' like millitary base, as it gives The Doctor and Ace the chance to make casual refrences to modern computers, illiciting astonishment from the code breakers of the time. Nicholas Parsons (More known now for his wonderful hosting of radio panel game 'Just A Minute') steals the show as a Vicar who has lost his faith after the horrors of war. It's a shame Nicholas didn't do more acting as he's just fantastic.

Bingowings said:

Nicholas is still alive. He was brilliant in Mr Jolly Lives Next Door.

 Very much so, I was listening to him on the wireless while I had lunch today, but he only acts once in blue moon. On the strength of Fenric he should do more... age permitting.

I watched all the Comic Strips ages ago, so I must have seen Mr Jolly but can't remember a thing about it. Should probably refresh my memory one day soon.

Bingowings said:

Do I look stupid wearing this? :

 Say what?