Doctor Who — Page 43

There was an interview on the James Bond DVD's with that one fellow who pops up in various 007 movies, which mentioned demand for American actors in the UK. (I think he also voiced characters on Thunderbirds.) I would think that made them a little scarce for tv shows, which probably didn't pay as well as movies.

There was one story on The Tomorrow People, (the original, not the remake) that was chock full of broad American stereotypes, including a not very flattering portrait of a certain president. Even as a teenager I felt a little insulted. Had the show aired in the U.S. in the 70's, there might have been sanctions imposed! ;)

Nixon's famous visit to China occurred during Pertwee's run, so I imagine it was a reference to current events? Depending on when the UNIT stories were actually set, Mao was likely dead already. ;)

Bingowings said:

While Scotland had a sizable Tibetan refugee community during the time of Planet of the Spiders not many were actors. The Abominable Snowman had the same problem a few years earlier but hardly anyone seems to mind there because it's in marvelous monochrome.

Talking of which, next time I watch Warrior's Gate I'm going to turn off the colour for that full Cocteau feel.

True, monochrome does help a lot. Also a bit of cultural sensitivity helps.

Orson Welles directing himself in the monochrome Othello is still wonderful...

...but Laurence Olivier directing himself in the colour Othello is a crime against humanity...

Watched the William Hartnell six-parter 'The Keys of Marinus' (Thankfully it was much better than 'The Gunfighters').

The Doctor and his original companions (Grandaughter Susan, Barbara and Ian) land on the planet Marinus and are quickly sent off on a quest to recover the MacGuffin (The titular Keys). What makes it fun, is they escape to a new place (Using some nifty teleportation watches) each week and find another key. So I'll review each episode seperately...

1. The Sea of Death - Very much like a proto-Star Trek TOS episode. The island of glass surrounded by a sea of acid felt just like the kind planet Kirk and Co would beam down onto. It was awesome to have George Coulouris as Arbitan adding some real old Hollywood glamour (My idea of Hollywood glamour anyway). Shame some nice false-perspective sets are shot from the wrong angle and Hartnell keeps fluffing his lines (He cleary needs the holiday he takes during episodes 3 and 4) but nevermind it's still good.

2. The Velvet Web - Snoozzzzze, like 'I, Claudius' on Prozac. After the adventure got off to a thrilling start our heroes sit around on one set eating grapes. They must defeat the inhabitants evil plan, to hypnotize them into thinking they are sitting in a room which has ever so slightly nicer fittings and furnishings than the room they are actually sitting in. Ha Ha Ha! The ultimate evil! Wait what? I got a kick out of hearing the voice of Heron Carvic as Morpho. He was Gandalf in the 1937 BBC radio adaptation of The Hobbit (I grew up listening to that on an almost weekly basis).

3. The Screaming Jungle - Fantastic episode. Reminded me very much of 'Raiders of the Lost Ark' with a hint of 'Night of the Living Dead'. (Another piece of evidence in my "George Lucas was inspired by Doctor Who" theory. More of that in a minute) An Aztec like temple, full of pressure traps and surrounded by a deadly living Jungle.

4. The Snows of Terror - Chaplin's The Goldrush mixed with The Last Crusade. A perilous quest for a grail-of-sorts (Another Key) in a lost cave only reachable across a deep chasm and bridge. At the end is a cave where the Key is guarded by Crusader Knights.  (Sounds familiar doesn't it).

5. Sentence of Death - Probably my favourite of the six, Hartnell is back and visibly refreshed (Note - I don't mean "refreshed"). The Doctor is almost just playing Sherlock Holmes (Another favourite character of mine) as he must deduce the facts of a murder to save the life of Ian (He even basically quotes Holmes' catchphrase). Another top quality guest star in the shape of Donald Pickering (Sir Humphrey's sometime nemesis from 'Yes, Prime Minister').

6. The Keys of Marinus - Essentially just part two of the last episode. I liked the look of the black clad Voord, sleak alien Ninja Commandos. One more good guest star, Fiona Walker from 'I, Claudius'.

I still think there must be much better Hartell stories I haven't seen yet but this was damn good anyway. Pertwee's 'Invasion of the Dinosaurs' next I think.

Watched the infamous Jon Pertwee 6-part serial 'Invasion of the Dinosaurs'. In many ways it's one of the very best Pertwee stories I've watched so far but by Grabthar's hammer the Dinosaur puppets are some of the sh*test FX I've ever seen x-D

A real shame as the story is brilliantly written, the characters are complex and believable and the politics are really interesting.

The villains are almost not villains, because they actually believe in something, even if it is crazy. They want to save the earth from mankind's 'wickedness' by reseting earth almost literally back to the stone age. Even one of The Doctor's closest friends is in league with them. Oh and they seem to think mankind's new golden future involves wearing top to toe blue denim ;-)

I'd like to see The Beeb do one of those Dr Who Special Editions for this serial. Even if reshooting the Dinosaur puppets was too expensive, the shots would benefit hugely from being digitally colour-corrected and tweaked (Adding film grain, adjusting contrast, masking out clouds, removing CSO outlines etc) to fit better with the location footage. The real shots have the expected blank grey sky of London but the sky on the FX shots is like the Bahamas!

For once with a six-parter, the end was entirely satisfying. Our heroes end by feeling sympathy for the "villains", Pertwee delivers a politically charged speech about where mankind is going wrong (You wouldn't be allowed to broadcast this kind of thing now) then goes off into a poetic reminiscence about some beautiful Alien planet (Gives Roy Batty a run for his money).

I've uploaded it so you can see how great it is...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Jb3te1A-hI

Again tragic that a serial that is so mocked because of it's FX work, has scenes of that quality ^.

The original Land of the Lost, which aired the same year, has much better dino FX. And that was a mix of stop motion and "live" puppets.

I'm guessing the Beeb couldn't afford Ray Harryhausen's services? ;)

DrCrowTStarwars said:

the budget for Doctor Who was much lower then even children's shows in the states at the same time.

To give you some idea of just how much lower Doctor Who's budget was then the average American show I will compare the budget of two episodes of Doctor Who to one episode of Star Trek made in the 1960s since they have the same run time. Now remember Star Trek's special effects have been mocked from time to time. Well any way for the same run time Doctor Who had a budget of between five and six thousand pounds converted to dollars that makes just under ten thousand dollars give or take. Star trek had a budget of between one hundred and fifty thousand and one hundred and eighty thousand dollars for a fifty two minute episode. That means that Star Trek had a budget of around fifteen to eighteen times what Doctor Who did.

I know this conversion isn't perfect and that both shows had there own problems to contend with(Such as Star Trek's larger cast and model shots that were needed every week)but I bring it up to demonstrate why some times Doctor Who would come up short in the special effects department. Personally it never bothered me,even as a kid. As long as the actors reacted as if they were seeing monsters and space ships I believed in the monsters and space ships even if they were bits of clay and pieces of old toy.  Then again I grew up watching a lot of stuff that had bad special effects and was always more interested in the ideas that made up a story then how it looked on screen so I know I do not represent your average viewer.

 I'd wondered what the budget ratio between Dr Who and Star Trek was but never took the time to work it out thanks. I'm surprised it wasn't more.

Other things to consider though. A Dr Who serial is typically 4x 25 minute episodes long, meaning the set building budget is stretched twice as far as Star Trek. However Dr Who had to build entirely new sets for every story and often every episode (Tardis interior console room and The Doctor's UNIT laboratory room in the Pertwee era being two exceptions) where as I'd guess that around 75% of Star Trek is just shot on the single expensive looking Enterprise set every week, dramatically saving costs. On the other hand Dr Who used location filming to save on building sets for it's earthbound episodes, where as Star Trek shot damn near everything in the studio, so it all had to be built and paid for.

I can't imagine why anybody would mock TOS's original FX. The Enterprise always looked like a real ship. (The original model is huge if you've ever seen it in person.) The series even won an emmy for the FX in The Tholian Web. It's not ever going to be confused with shots from 2001, but it's a product of it's tv era. TOS could also reuse footage and recombine shots which Who usually couldn't.

I think most of the time, DW's FX were brilliant on a tiny budget. (And the size/image quality of televisions back then probably covered up a few shortcomings.) Dinosaurs is probably the only time they stumbled badly. Somebody must have used a really old outdated book on dinosaurs as a reference, as that T-Rex just looks really odd.

And having a lavish budget isn't always a guarantee of good FX. I still remember the tv miniseries adaptation of The Martian Chronicles from 1977. It had great locations, impressive sets, and and all star cast. The FX shots were like something out of an Ed Wood movie, and this was in 1980!

Reel to reel home video recorders did exist in the 60's, and at least one Doctor Who episode was taped that way. Alas, not a lost episode.

My parents owned a 25 inch RCA console tv in 1966. ;)

Yes I've seen the original ST miniatures from various eras, amazing detail. If anybody hasn't seen them 'in the flesh'... imagine how big you think they are, then quadruple it! They are huge.

Good call on the Henry V quote. Sums it up perfectly...

"Can this cockpit hold the vasty fields of Skaro? or may we cram within this wooden O, the very Daleks that did affright the air at Trenzalore"

;-)

As for the FX shots in TOS. They are good but pale in comparison to the lavish Enterprise sets, the costumes and the vibrant images (Which have barely dated a day). When I watch the Blu-Rays I tend to choose to view it with the enhanced FX turned on. It gells much better with the crisp HD of the rest of the footage.

Actually, I have to add (After that book cover reminded me) that the mini-terrordactyl puppets used in episode one of IOTD were pretty damn good, almost Hitchcock/Birds levels of scary.

(Ooh look, I accidentaly found the photo that cover was based on!)

Maybe they were constructed by different guys and they were of course photographed by the main unit in camera, unlike the big Dinosaurs, who were shot by the model unit. Plus it helps when you've got a great actor like Pertwee reacting to them live on set (A lesson certain Directors with a penchant for CGI could use).

Ryan McAvoy said:

btw I noticed 'Irish Jabba' aka Declan Mulholland is in it...

It was his very distinctive staccato Northern-Irish voice I spotted rather than the face, but it is him.

Occasionally I return to the Key to Time story arc; tonight I decided to watch the next installment which is The Androids of Tara - and Declan Mulholland appears in Part 1 of that story as well!