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"It feels different this time..." - The new Doctor Who Thread
- Thread starter Kazin
- Start date
Fixed, thanks Vaeran. That's what I get for posting on mobile.
Same here! It always seemed like a corrective measure to me. I wonder what they were going to do before that happened, or if the rumors the show was just going to be cancelled (or "rested" like in 1989) were somewhat true. I guess we'll find out someday...
Same here! It always seemed like a corrective measure to me. I wonder what they were going to do before that happened, or if the rumors the show was just going to be cancelled (or "rested" like in 1989) were somewhat true. I guess we'll find out someday...
Surely a major media company wouldn't make up a cute positive story rather than acknowledge a failure. Surely!
David Tennant's Doctor Who Regeneration Changed Because Russell T Davies Didn't Want to Give Bigots Ammo
This is cowardly horseshit that's beneath RTD, tbh. Didn't want to upset the transphobes? Fuck off. Thirteen's outfit wasn't even particularly femme. It would have looked -- and been -- fine.
This is cowardly horseshit that's beneath RTD, tbh. Didn't want to upset the transphobes? Fuck off. Thirteen's outfit wasn't even particularly femme. It would have looked -- and been -- fine.
I've had a hankering for some classic Who lately, so I've begun rewatching The Invasion as my first stop, with plans to continue onward with some serials I haven't seen once I'm done with this. One thing that really strikes me as I watch is the casual physical intimacy that Troughton's Doctor and Jamie share. I don't mean that in a sexual sense, and I'm not about to start writing slash fiction, but they do have their hands on each other in just about every scene. They'll cling to each other or push/pull the other along when there's danger, and even in scenes of casual conversation you'll often find Jamie's hand lingering on the Doctor's shoulder or arm. And it all comes off as very natural, like they're just that comfortable with each other. It's something you wouldn't really see between two male actors anymore without people making a big deal out of it, and it's just... nice.
Finished The Invasion tonight. Fun action romp, but it really didn't need to be eight motherloving episodes long.
- I mentioned in my last post that I'm not shipping the Doctor and Jamie, but I absolutely ship Isobel/Zoe. Their chemistry comes across even in the animated reconstruction of episode one. Speaking of Zoe, her Missile Command speedrun (working out the trajectories to take out all the incoming Cyber ships with as few missiles as possible in 30 seconds) was a delight. It's a rare treat to see classic-era companions get to do something proactive and useful, entirely without the Doctor's assistance.
- Classic DW background music ranges from really catchy to unpleasant plinky-plonk synthesizer noise, but I appreciated the moody themes that accompanied sneaking around at International Electromatics. This piece popped up a number of times and added to the atmosphere.
- Why is the Doctor convinced that the Cybermen in orbit need the assistance of a terrestrial "radio control beam" to hit THE EARTH with what appears to be a one-and-done planet killer bomb?
- Tobias Vaughn is a delicious Bond-style villain, though his continued usefulness to the Cybermen is highly questionable. I have to imagine the discussion on their (unseen) end re: his repeated demands tended toward the "listen, we're going to delete this nitwit as soon as we get boots on the ground, so just keep him happy for now" side of things.
- The series hadn't yet settled on gold as the Cybermen's (goofy) weakness, and if we absolutely must have an anti-Cyber weapon then I prefer The Invasion's idea of a machine which induces emotions in a race that has forgotten how to handle them.
- As always I love a good UNIT story, as I think the existence of an organization that deals with Weird Space Shit independently of whatever the Doctor happens to be doing that week makes the world feel larger and richer in storytelling possibilities, and the Brigadier is always a welcome sight on my screen. Think I'll keep rolling right into the Pertwee era.
Show a little leg, you coward! I never get to have any fun.
- I mentioned in my last post that I'm not shipping the Doctor and Jamie, but I absolutely ship Isobel/Zoe. Their chemistry comes across even in the animated reconstruction of episode one. Speaking of Zoe, her Missile Command speedrun (working out the trajectories to take out all the incoming Cyber ships with as few missiles as possible in 30 seconds) was a delight. It's a rare treat to see classic-era companions get to do something proactive and useful, entirely without the Doctor's assistance.
- Classic DW background music ranges from really catchy to unpleasant plinky-plonk synthesizer noise, but I appreciated the moody themes that accompanied sneaking around at International Electromatics. This piece popped up a number of times and added to the atmosphere.
- Why is the Doctor convinced that the Cybermen in orbit need the assistance of a terrestrial "radio control beam" to hit THE EARTH with what appears to be a one-and-done planet killer bomb?
- Tobias Vaughn is a delicious Bond-style villain, though his continued usefulness to the Cybermen is highly questionable. I have to imagine the discussion on their (unseen) end re: his repeated demands tended toward the "listen, we're going to delete this nitwit as soon as we get boots on the ground, so just keep him happy for now" side of things.
- The series hadn't yet settled on gold as the Cybermen's (goofy) weakness, and if we absolutely must have an anti-Cyber weapon then I prefer The Invasion's idea of a machine which induces emotions in a race that has forgotten how to handle them.
- As always I love a good UNIT story, as I think the existence of an organization that deals with Weird Space Shit independently of whatever the Doctor happens to be doing that week makes the world feel larger and richer in storytelling possibilities, and the Brigadier is always a welcome sight on my screen. Think I'll keep rolling right into the Pertwee era.
Show a little leg, you coward! I never get to have any fun.
Zoe is great for that - one of the best scenes in the entirety of the classic series involves her and the Doctor in The Krotons (not a great story overall, but a good one, at least) where she bests the Doctor in a test and brags a bit, and the Doctor gets flustered and Troughton and Padbury act the hell out of the scene. I adore it.
The 60s generally had pretty good soundtracks - either stock music from the BBC library or specially written stuff, but it was before the plinky-plonk synth that really came into heavy use in the 70s. While I love the 70s, I think the music in the show in that decade is absolutely awful, in particular the Silurians which is actively grating. It doesn't help that in Pertwee's first serial, there's a 15 second clip of fucking Oh Well part 1 from Fleetwood Mac, which always depresses me because imagine if there wasn't stupid music licensing, and we could have era appropriate 70s rock in the show instead of plinky plonk nonsense? Imagine watching Pertwee run around in those outfits to Zeppelin or something. It'd have been awesome haha
Vaughn is why I watch The Invasion, when I do. Absolutely lovely performance. He kind of gets written out in an anticlimactic way, but he and Troughton are a delight to watch together.
Yep. I lament the show abandoning stuff like this for dumb crap like weaknesses to gold.
The Pertwee era has its charms, and while it's my least favorite classic era of the show, there are some stone cold classics in there. I've been watching The Three Doctors again lately, having a great time, and I adore all of Pertwee's first season, even if it's very strange to call that season "Doctor Who" (you'll see what I mean).
Somewhat related - my wife likes the show "Outlander," and the author of the original books named the main character "Jamie" after our be-kilted young man, who she found quite fetching in his kilt. That show is nothing like Doctor Who, of course, but I thought it was a fun fact lol
Oh, I'll definitely have to check out The Krotons then (I always want to call them The Croutons), because that sounds great.
I just wanted to clarify that I have seen quite a bit of the classic series already, so I'm familiar with what a near-total reboot of the show's core concept the Pertwee era was at first. (My problem is that I skipped around and watched most of the serials that people regard as legendary classics first, and now I'm sort of left with the B-tier and below stories. I really should just sit down and watch the whole thing through in order as you did, but I don't think I have the patience/attention span for that.)
This delights me. :3c
Like any scene with great characterization in the classic series, it's slight, but I still like it. It is a decent story overall, though. Blessedly short, too, half the length of The Invasion (though I like The Invasion more, still).
Yeah - even knowing this, the 7th season sticks out. You almost forget it's Doctor Who - the TARDIS barely appears, there's no time travel, and it's even more earthbound than the later Pertwee seasons. I still love it, though.
I sincerely don't recommend it lol. I had a good time with it, but it's a damn slog sometimes. Watch what you feel like when you feel like, you'll have a much better time with the show. There's also quite a bit of garbage to sift through, and it tends to come in big batches (large swathes of the Pertwee era, most of the back half of the Tom Baker era, large chunks of Colin Baker, etc).
I figured it would!
Just finished The Ambassadors of Death, which aside from having an all-time great title, also features a wonderfully tense and creepy atmosphere for the first couple episodes before we know what's going on. The news coverage of the rocket launch also adds some verisimilitude (and the reporter is played by Michael Wisher, better known as Davros!) The Brigadier, who's usually competent enough, is terrifyingly effective when off-screen, managing to miraculously escape arrest, somehow engineer the release of all the captured UNIT troops and re-take the space center within about eight minutes. S-ranked that shit. That the deadly aliens turn out to actually have entirely peaceful intentions, and the whole conflict is driven by paranoid and xenophobic humans, is a pleasant change of pace, even if the end is fairly anticlimactic. The serial also tries something new with the opening credit sequence: we get most of it, then a recap of the previous episode's cliffhanger is spliced in, and then the rest of the title sequence plays (with "The Ambassadors... of Death" accompanied by a cute scare chord). It's interesting but a bit distracting, and I'm glad they decided not to continue with it.
Now that I've eased myself back into the waters of classic Who, I'm ready to take on something a little more challenging: I'm going to watch the tele-snap reconstruction of Marco Polo. There's a vastly cut-down version (from seven episodes down to about half an hour of highlights) on the First Doctor boxset I own, but I've never actually sat down and watched an entire reconstructed serial. I'm actually rather excited!
Now that I've eased myself back into the waters of classic Who, I'm ready to take on something a little more challenging: I'm going to watch the tele-snap reconstruction of Marco Polo. There's a vastly cut-down version (from seven episodes down to about half an hour of highlights) on the First Doctor boxset I own, but I've never actually sat down and watched an entire reconstructed serial. I'm actually rather excited!
Ooh! Ooh! I love The Ambassadors of Death! Yes, it's title is fascinatingly odd, and it's got all kinds of other weird stuff in it. The Doctor uses magic (?) to "disappear" that tape or whatever, as well as the goofy little TARDIS shenanigans in the first episode where he and Liz travel a little bit in time. And those thieves get somehow magically glued to Bessie! All that aside, it really is creepy and tense for a while, and Reegan is a really straightforward, pragmatic, evil little prick. He's not even really evil, actually, just an extreme opportunist. UNIT is so weird, too - they "s-rank that shit" at the end as you say, but allow a single dude to come in and nearly poison the Doctor, let someone break in to kill that scientist who was there for his safety, and manage to get a space capsule stolen en route to the base by a couple dudes with a helicopter. Ah, Doctor Who. Glorious nonsense lol
I'm excited for you to watch Marco Polo, too - which version have you got? There was a black and white version that was released in, I want to say, 2014 or so, that is VASTLY superior to the one that was done in color like in 2002 or whatever. They've got more pictures and the sound is much more easy to parse/understand. The color one is cool - and was the first version I saw - but the story is much, much easier to follow with the later black and white one.
I'm excited for you to watch Marco Polo, too - which version have you got? There was a black and white version that was released in, I want to say, 2014 or so, that is VASTLY superior to the one that was done in color like in 2002 or whatever. They've got more pictures and the sound is much more easy to parse/understand. The color one is cool - and was the first version I saw - but the story is much, much easier to follow with the later black and white one.
He non-explains it to Liz simply as "transmigration of object," which is a D&D spell name if I've ever heard one. Roll me a perception check, Liz.
Sadly I have the earlier version by Loose Cannon Productions. It's got a nice little intro by Mark Eden (who played Marco Polo, seen here in his jammies for some reason), and then a second, rather awkward in-character framing device where he reprises the role as an aged Marco Polo writing his memoirs. I understand the temptation to put your own stamp on DW, but rein it in a bit, fellas. The purist in me dislikes that it's been colorized, but I'll swallow my disdain and just enjoy the lavish costumes and sets. (Loose Cannon anticipated my complaint, and has Eden suggest that those who prefer 60s Who in black and white just turn down the color on their sets. Cheeky!)
The [REDACTED] of classic DW episodes I found is a bit of a weird grab bag -- the version of The Ambassadors of Death on here is pre-recolorization restoration, so the episodes drift back and forth between color and b&w, even between scenes.
Haha yeah that Mark Eden intro/outro is somehow both really cool and pretty cringeworthy. Those color photos were actually taken on set - iirc, it's a mixture of promotional photos and just production staff being proud of their work and taking color pictures. So, they weren't colorized by like, computers or whatever, so that's something.
And also lmao @ updog. I'm certain you could wrangle several "deez nuts" jokes out of various bits of Tegana's dialogue lol
And also lmao @ updog. I'm certain you could wrangle several "deez nuts" jokes out of various bits of Tegana's dialogue lol
Finished Marco Polo tonight! Normally I complain about the length of classic Who serials when they go past four episodes, but in this case I think it served the story well by emphasizing the length of time a journey like this would have taken. This being my first reconstruction I was a little worried I'd find it hard to sit through, but very few times did I find my attention wandering. I think the variety of sets and locations helps to keep things feeling fresh. This is a gorgeous serial, and what a pity it's among the missing. (Shame about all the yellow-face, though.)
- One thing that really struck me is what a secondary role the Doctor takes in the story, especially as compared to the modern era where they're in nearly every scene (though I understand this was at least in part due to William Hartnell falling ill during filming.) His bonding with Kublai Khan over the aches and pains of old age was very cute, and I loved the line about him winning the entire domestic product of Burma in a game of backgammon.
- Marco puts a great deal of faith in the TARDIS team's claims that their "caravan" can fly, especially given how untrustworthy they prove to be later on, and never asks to see its abilities demonstrated firsthand. He even surmises that it must be bigger on the inside(!) but seems generally uninterested in its wonders beyond its value as a gift. (Headcanon: he fears he would be too tempted by its power and keep it for himself rather than present it to the Khan.)
- Susan delivers a hall-of-famer scream when she sees the eyes moving behind the cave wall. Made me jump!
- I'm not sure Tegana's actions from episode to episode make sense when looked at holistically. His ultimate plan to assassinate the Khan was to just pull out his sword and take a swing? Come on man, you had weeks to plan this.
- I super ship Susan and Ping-Cho. Maybe the Doctor should have ultimately left Susan with her, instead of what's-his-name from The Dalek Invasion of Earth. The resolution of Ping-Cho's marriage dilemma via the convenient off-screen death of a character we never meet feels kind of cheap... but according to the DW Wiki, this mirrors an actual historical event in which Polo was involved, so I guess I can't complain.
- The reconstruction is bookended with another in-character scene of Mark Eden as Marco Polo... and then provides a ten minute educational tag about the exploits of the real Marco Polo. Okay.
While I very much enjoyed this and intend to watch further reconstructions (The Highlanders and The Massacre of St. Bartholomew's Eve are both high on my list), I'm going to have to space them out a little for the sake of my attention span. Up next will be The Web of Fear, about which I keep hearing wonderful things.
- One thing that really struck me is what a secondary role the Doctor takes in the story, especially as compared to the modern era where they're in nearly every scene (though I understand this was at least in part due to William Hartnell falling ill during filming.) His bonding with Kublai Khan over the aches and pains of old age was very cute, and I loved the line about him winning the entire domestic product of Burma in a game of backgammon.
- Marco puts a great deal of faith in the TARDIS team's claims that their "caravan" can fly, especially given how untrustworthy they prove to be later on, and never asks to see its abilities demonstrated firsthand. He even surmises that it must be bigger on the inside(!) but seems generally uninterested in its wonders beyond its value as a gift. (Headcanon: he fears he would be too tempted by its power and keep it for himself rather than present it to the Khan.)
- Susan delivers a hall-of-famer scream when she sees the eyes moving behind the cave wall. Made me jump!
- I'm not sure Tegana's actions from episode to episode make sense when looked at holistically. His ultimate plan to assassinate the Khan was to just pull out his sword and take a swing? Come on man, you had weeks to plan this.
- I super ship Susan and Ping-Cho. Maybe the Doctor should have ultimately left Susan with her, instead of what's-his-name from The Dalek Invasion of Earth. The resolution of Ping-Cho's marriage dilemma via the convenient off-screen death of a character we never meet feels kind of cheap... but according to the DW Wiki, this mirrors an actual historical event in which Polo was involved, so I guess I can't complain.
- The reconstruction is bookended with another in-character scene of Mark Eden as Marco Polo... and then provides a ten minute educational tag about the exploits of the real Marco Polo. Okay.
While I very much enjoyed this and intend to watch further reconstructions (The Highlanders and The Massacre of St. Bartholomew's Eve are both high on my list), I'm going to have to space them out a little for the sake of my attention span. Up next will be The Web of Fear, about which I keep hearing wonderful things.
@Vaeran I could not believe, during The Very Special Lesson On Condensation (not a joke, folks, queue up classic Doctor Who right now! Lol), that Marco wouldn't demand to go inside the caravan and see. Or at any point later. His utter disinterest is the weirdest thing about this serial (well, plotwise, anyway).
I forget the details despite having watched this earlier this year - wasn't Tegana's plan to negotiate with the Khan in conjunction with Noghai's army invading at the same time, only to find out Noghai's army was stopped and in a panic, he whips out his sword? I may have that all wrong, because the serial does a great job getting me sucked into caring about the TARDIS crew finally getting away after all that time so I forget about the details lol
The Myth Makers is genuinely the funniest 60s serial, and one of my favorite Hartnells despite being entirely missing, so when you're in the mood for some Billy, give it a shot. Massacre is great, too, though.
Highlanders... Well, some people love it. I find it very hard to follow, though if we had the visuals I'm sure it'd be alright. Early Troughton is fascinating, at least. Looking forward to reading what you think about any and all of them, at any rate, and am happy you're enjoying yourself!
I forget the details despite having watched this earlier this year - wasn't Tegana's plan to negotiate with the Khan in conjunction with Noghai's army invading at the same time, only to find out Noghai's army was stopped and in a panic, he whips out his sword? I may have that all wrong, because the serial does a great job getting me sucked into caring about the TARDIS crew finally getting away after all that time so I forget about the details lol
The Myth Makers is genuinely the funniest 60s serial, and one of my favorite Hartnells despite being entirely missing, so when you're in the mood for some Billy, give it a shot. Massacre is great, too, though.
Highlanders... Well, some people love it. I find it very hard to follow, though if we had the visuals I'm sure it'd be alright. Early Troughton is fascinating, at least. Looking forward to reading what you think about any and all of them, at any rate, and am happy you're enjoying yourself!
This actually gave me agita. It's the first time Marco gets really angry with the TARDIS crew and you don't yet know what he's capable of, so the scene feels super tense and desperate. Having to convincingly explain middle school science lessons to someone from the 13th century to save your life should be one of the classic nightmares.
I think you have the first part right but not the second. It's possible I missed a line, but I don't recall anything about Noghai's army facing problems. Barbara sort of conversationally muses about having heard that Noghai's army is a lot closer than it should be, and they collectively realize this means an attack is imminent. There's then kind of a weird leap of logic where they go "and how do you weaken an opposing force? You kill its leader!" and this causes them to believe Tegana is about to assassinate Kublai Khan. Of course they're exactly right, and it's happening that very second. Your explanation would have worked a lot better, narratively.
You know, I've never read a DW novelization. Maybe I should start. I recently picked up a few back issues of DWM, and one reminded me of the handful of novelizations of modern series episodes; I think I'm probably most interested in Moffat's The Day of the Doctor. What would you recommend from the classic series novels?
EDIT: oh my god there's a novelization of K9 and Company
EDIT: oh my god there's a novelization of K9 and Company
The Day of the Doctor is my favorite, though I greatly enjoyed Rose, Dalek, and Twice Upon A Time as well. I also haven't even seen K9 and Conpany yet lol
I haven't read all the classic novelizations, though the ones that stick out in my mind as good ones are The Three Doctors, The Tenth Planet, The Abominable Snowmen, Doctor Who and the Dinosaur Invasion, and Horror of Fang Rock, probably in that order (imo). They recently came out with two Terrance Dicks collections of novelizations as voted on by fans, so you can't go wrong with those, either (I believe they're called The Essential Terrance Dicks).
I haven't read all the classic novelizations, though the ones that stick out in my mind as good ones are The Three Doctors, The Tenth Planet, The Abominable Snowmen, Doctor Who and the Dinosaur Invasion, and Horror of Fang Rock, probably in that order (imo). They recently came out with two Terrance Dicks collections of novelizations as voted on by fans, so you can't go wrong with those, either (I believe they're called The Essential Terrance Dicks).
Also they aren't novelizations of TV episodes, but there's some absolute classic original novels, such as Love & War, Human Nature, and Timewyrm: Revelation, all by Paul Cornell, Damaged Goods by Russell T Davies, and Cold Fusion by Lance Parkin (a 5th/7th Doctor crossover). The latter two got excellent audio versions by Big Finish, too, with Damaged Goods being the best thing they've ever done imo.
Phantoon
I cuss you bad
Terrance Dicks was a genius. He'd never write a world shattering work of literature but by crikey he could smash out novels with some really arresting turns of phrase as a bewildering place.
Back in the day before VHS releases the Target books were Doctor Who. They were the accessible versions of something that was otherwise memory.
I remember loving Timewyrm: Exodus. It's the first Doctor Who to do Nazi Germany and it was a big paradigm shift for what Doctor Who could attempt.
Back in the day before VHS releases the Target books were Doctor Who. They were the accessible versions of something that was otherwise memory.
I remember loving Timewyrm: Exodus. It's the first Doctor Who to do Nazi Germany and it was a big paradigm shift for what Doctor Who could attempt.
I'm stealing from El Sandifer, but the opening line he wrote for the Dalek Invasion of Earth is a stonker: "Through the ruin of a city stalked the ruin of a man."
Christ that's good stuff.
Thanks for the recs! I'll definitely check some of those out. I actually do own a small collection of original Who novels, but to my shame the only one I've actually read is Damaged Goods, which was indeed amazing. I also have a few Big Finish stories purchased during my last manic DW phase that I never got around to listening to... but the sad truth of life in our capitalistic hellworld is that acquiring new media is easier and more exciting than finding the time to actually sit down and consume it.
[glances briefly at his shameful video game backlog] >.>
You're telling me - I've been sitting on tons of Doctor Who novels for years that I still haven't read. Maybe I'll use this thread as an excuse to pick one out and read it - never did read Genesis of the Daleks, which is a Terrance Dicks one, maybe I'll start there...
Phantoon
I cuss you bad
Yeah, the first lines of a book are supposedly the hardest part to write but you'd never pick that up from a Terrance Dicks book.
Also, the rest of that paragraph is pretty strong:
"Through the ruin of a city stalked the ruin of a man. His clothes were tattered and grimy, his skin blotched and diseased over wasted flesh. On his head was a gleaming metal helmet. He walked with the stiff, jerky movements of a robot—which was exactly what he had become."