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LTTP: He's only 907 years old! Let's share a Doctor Who Marathon
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GameplayWhore
Member
Lard said:My computer died last Sunday, I can't keep up.
You're on NeoGAF, child! Load up your Wii or PS3 or whatnot and use the web browser to watch the eps on Youtube!
BruceLeeRoy said:
It's pretty slowly paced and in black and white. There's a nifty sense of humour, but it's quite subtle (that is, they don't shove it in your face like stuff does these days).
I suspect you might not enjoy it if you suddenly picked it up right now, unless you can tolerate 1950s American monster movies (the episodes are much smarter than such films, but the feel is similar). My recommendation would be to watch some of the "New Who", the stuff from 2005 on, then if you like that you should watch some of the Tom Baker Doctor Who, which is sort of similar in some ways to the new stuff and sort of similar in some ways to the old stuff. Then, if you're still awake and perhaps even having the time of your life, trying out the classic episodes.
My route was the more typical American style of Tom Baker -> New Who -> Black and White, but I did it that way because the public broadcasting system played an episode of Doctor Who once every forty minutes when I was a kid, and Baker was the dude back then.
Fake Edit: Yeah, what Syth_Blade22. Also, watch Futurama and The Fairly Odd Parents.
Real Edit: A mad man would watch all existing episodes including the ones where the video was lost and you can only see a combination of still images and audio and -- occasionally -- just text telling you what the characters were doing according to the script!
BruceLeeRoy
Banned
Great thanks for the advice. I think Ill check out some of the new who episodes to see if I am into it.
GameplayWhore
Member
BLRGoOT,
Like he said, just make sure that you follow WanderingWind in posting your episode reactions to the regular Doctor Who thread as you watch them. You'll get useful warnings about the terrible episodes and lots of pre-hype for anything Moffat written as you go along, and it should very effectively help the thread readers keep from Who withdrawal.
-----
My final disorganized bits on The Space Museum:
"You'll be a fool if you kill me. It will achieve nothing" "Possibly, but it might be enjoyable" <-- I really like Ian's delivery of cheesy bad-ass lines. (I couldn't quite tell, but it might have actually been "He'll be" and "He will" in the quote above)
Hartnell has a very Yoda-like "Hmm?", and he uses it a lot in this episode.
Hm. the "Time and Space Visualiser" sounds interesting, but we didn't get to see it in action, and the next episode isn't on the marathon. I hope one of the further along episodes in this marathon uses it, or it'll just feel like a dangling thread. I watched "The Deadly Assassin" a few weeks ago, and there was something in the beginning which might have been that very device, but I'm not certain.
Ah good! "The Time Meddler" is available online.
...aww, Ian and Barbara are already gone! Sad that I didn't get to see them go.
Wait, a reference to "Daleks in Manhattan"? :O
"Don't call me Doc". He's got a bit of a hangup about that. He was similarly annoyed by the word midway through the last serial
Lard said:
Like he said, just make sure that you follow WanderingWind in posting your episode reactions to the regular Doctor Who thread as you watch them. You'll get useful warnings about the terrible episodes and lots of pre-hype for anything Moffat written as you go along, and it should very effectively help the thread readers keep from Who withdrawal.
-----
My final disorganized bits on The Space Museum:
"You'll be a fool if you kill me. It will achieve nothing" "Possibly, but it might be enjoyable" <-- I really like Ian's delivery of cheesy bad-ass lines. (I couldn't quite tell, but it might have actually been "He'll be" and "He will" in the quote above)
Hartnell has a very Yoda-like "Hmm?", and he uses it a lot in this episode.
Hm. the "Time and Space Visualiser" sounds interesting, but we didn't get to see it in action, and the next episode isn't on the marathon. I hope one of the further along episodes in this marathon uses it, or it'll just feel like a dangling thread. I watched "The Deadly Assassin" a few weeks ago, and there was something in the beginning which might have been that very device, but I'm not certain.
Ah good! "The Time Meddler" is available online.
...aww, Ian and Barbara are already gone! Sad that I didn't get to see them go.
Wait, a reference to "Daleks in Manhattan"? :O
"Don't call me Doc". He's got a bit of a hangup about that. He was similarly annoyed by the word midway through the last serial
GameplayWhore
Member
I finished watching The Time Meddler a bit early. I guess I'll get a nice one-day break before continuing onto the next serial. Coming up this month are the 8-episode and 10-episode serials of this ill-fated expedition. Fortunately, my schedule is pretty easy on my during those, but unless I catch it all on the 19th, I'll be missing Spearhead from Space on account of going to a small SF convention in Connecticut. Eh, this Pertwee fellow is probably some sort of loser anyway (joking!). With that aside, on to the rest of my reactions to this ep:
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Doc's more fun in general this episode. "That is a chair with a panda on it. Sheer poetry, my boy. Now please stop bothering me" and "What do you think it is, a space helmet for a cow?" had me laughing heartily.
A quarter hour into the first episode, the Doctor asks clever leading questions to figure out exactly the time he's in. So he can give the audience a lesson on what happened in 1066 England. I remember people talking about how the earlier episodes jumped back and forth between history lessons and monster manias, and the audiences loved the monsters, so the producers downplayed the educational stuff. On the whole, I've so far enjoyed the historical episodes more. It has about the same level of excitingness, but there's less material causing me to roll my eyes.
And this is the first time I've seen mead in non-written fiction that I can recall. Many of my friends are medieval recreationists, so I see it fairly often in real life. Seems kind of funny for an old man from another planet to be sucking it up on my screen, though. ^_^
The time meddler is a far more interesting vilain than the Master. He doesn't have magic powers backing him up, he's not planning acts of evil on the level of a bad sci-fi movie, and his methods seem much more, well, methodical. Plus, the mystery in this episode gradually unfolds, to the point where you work most of it all out instead of having the man tell you at the eleventh hour his entire plan! And, heck, he wasn't even evil! His motivations were fairly altruistic (and have an interesting ring along the lines of of Waters of Mars's "Time Lord Victorious!"). Were he successful, the damage would be great, but you could argue that he was in the right with his plans. Having an antagonist who isn't all maniacal laughter and universal domination|annihilation is a great breath of fresh air!
When they got to the other TARDIS and browsed the gallery of items gleaned from different points in history, I thought for a split second that the statue we first see was a weeping angel, hah!
Ahh, and the meddler was partially responsible for the plan to trap Doctor Eleven this past season! This is excellent, subtle foreshadowing that truly proves how fantastic a writing team Moffat and Spooner are!
I have to give them kudos for also foreshadowing the meddler's TARDIS by having the conversation earlier on about the ability of this kind of ship to disguise itself.
I could live with no further Master episode ever being filmed again if we could just get some good Moffat-era stories with this meddler fellow. Heck, his methods even seem really tuned to Moffat's style of storytelling!
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Doc's more fun in general this episode. "That is a chair with a panda on it. Sheer poetry, my boy. Now please stop bothering me" and "What do you think it is, a space helmet for a cow?" had me laughing heartily.
A quarter hour into the first episode, the Doctor asks clever leading questions to figure out exactly the time he's in. So he can give the audience a lesson on what happened in 1066 England. I remember people talking about how the earlier episodes jumped back and forth between history lessons and monster manias, and the audiences loved the monsters, so the producers downplayed the educational stuff. On the whole, I've so far enjoyed the historical episodes more. It has about the same level of excitingness, but there's less material causing me to roll my eyes.
And this is the first time I've seen mead in non-written fiction that I can recall. Many of my friends are medieval recreationists, so I see it fairly often in real life. Seems kind of funny for an old man from another planet to be sucking it up on my screen, though. ^_^
The time meddler is a far more interesting vilain than the Master. He doesn't have magic powers backing him up, he's not planning acts of evil on the level of a bad sci-fi movie, and his methods seem much more, well, methodical. Plus, the mystery in this episode gradually unfolds, to the point where you work most of it all out instead of having the man tell you at the eleventh hour his entire plan! And, heck, he wasn't even evil! His motivations were fairly altruistic (and have an interesting ring along the lines of of Waters of Mars's "Time Lord Victorious!"). Were he successful, the damage would be great, but you could argue that he was in the right with his plans. Having an antagonist who isn't all maniacal laughter and universal domination|annihilation is a great breath of fresh air!
When they got to the other TARDIS and browsed the gallery of items gleaned from different points in history, I thought for a split second that the statue we first see was a weeping angel, hah!
Ahh, and the meddler was partially responsible for the plan to trap Doctor Eleven this past season! This is excellent, subtle foreshadowing that truly proves how fantastic a writing team Moffat and Spooner are!
I have to give them kudos for also foreshadowing the meddler's TARDIS by having the conversation earlier on about the ability of this kind of ship to disguise itself.
I could live with no further Master episode ever being filmed again if we could just get some good Moffat-era stories with this meddler fellow. Heck, his methods even seem really tuned to Moffat's style of storytelling!
GameplayWhore
Member
The Tenth Planet starts off a bit unconventially, not feeling at all like an old-style Doctor Who episode (it's in black and white, but that could mean anything!). When we get to the TARDIS materialization scene, it's in a blizzard, which is a nice touch. It does look almost like they're using signal static to simulate the blizzard, but I could see it being blown in from the left side before they cut to inside the ship. One thing I must say about the older show is that they focus a bit more on adapting clothing to the climate of their destination. In New Who, it just seems to almost always be temperate (or they're indoors).
...who the hell are these losers? What happened to Babara and Ian?!? Hm, looking it up, it seems like those two jumped ship the serial right after the one we just watched, and we've skipped in this marathon an entire season, missing out on the run of four companions: Sara, Katarina, Dodo (lol) and Steven. That last person came in the episode right after the last one we watched and left merely three episodes ago. Hah, it's almost as if the organizer of the marathon went "Ah, Steven, what a jerk. I'll just move everything around so as to meticulously avoid him....". I have seen the serial in which Polly and Ben are first picked up, but I don't recall anything about them. That serial, War Machines, was pretty fun, but in a very silly 50's scifisploitation fashion.
Ugh, it's hard to hear a lot of dialogue in this episode! One of the real benefits of going towards the modern era is that younger audio is better preserved than older audio, for obvious reasons.
LOL at all the men in the submarine crowding around the periscope to get a glance at a woman's face. XD
Oh, crap, they're stuck in the futuristic year of 1986! At one point, the Doctor is trying to get to speak with a General. He quickly flashes a thing that looks like a card and he's allowed to go. My first thought was of psychic paper, though that's not what's going on here.
...who the hell are these losers? What happened to Babara and Ian?!? Hm, looking it up, it seems like those two jumped ship the serial right after the one we just watched, and we've skipped in this marathon an entire season, missing out on the run of four companions: Sara, Katarina, Dodo (lol) and Steven. That last person came in the episode right after the last one we watched and left merely three episodes ago. Hah, it's almost as if the organizer of the marathon went "Ah, Steven, what a jerk. I'll just move everything around so as to meticulously avoid him....". I have seen the serial in which Polly and Ben are first picked up, but I don't recall anything about them. That serial, War Machines, was pretty fun, but in a very silly 50's scifisploitation fashion.
Ugh, it's hard to hear a lot of dialogue in this episode! One of the real benefits of going towards the modern era is that younger audio is better preserved than older audio, for obvious reasons.
LOL at all the men in the submarine crowding around the periscope to get a glance at a woman's face. XD
Oh, crap, they're stuck in the futuristic year of 1986! At one point, the Doctor is trying to get to speak with a General. He quickly flashes a thing that looks like a card and he's allowed to go. My first thought was of psychic paper, though that's not what's going on here.
GameplayWhore
Member
The Cybermen's first appearance was an incredibly tedious experiment in exposition. The look is interesting, though it strikes me as a bit silly. I do like how they speak, with their mouths open but otherwise unmoving.
There's a nice moment where a character prepares to use the light from a film projector as a weapon, and we see some stock footage playing from it. The writers cleverly conceal that the story is filmed decades before it is set by having him remake, "I saw this movie twenty years ago!"
Good, good, Earth is going to use the Z-bomb! They really play up its strength, giving it the ability to slag an entire planet and produce enough radiation to wipe out life on the bomb-facing side of a planet tens of millions of miles away. The conflict in this episode (the real conflict, not the alien invaders fluff) stems from the decision of whether or not the risk of death of many is more important than the certainty of death of one.
It turns out that this is one of the partially reconstructed serials. The fourth (out of four) episode seems to be a bunch of stills with occasional short bursts of video. When there's action but video is not present, some helpful text to clear up what's going on. Occasionally, they try to play around with the stills, like slowly zooming in on a character to create the effect that the character is coming towards the camera.
It's a nice touch that some of the characters, who are supposed to be American or perhaps another non-British nationality, say "Zee-Bomb", while the Doctor and other British folk say "Zed-Bomb". I didn't pick up on that at first.
The ending was a little cheap, using the old trope of setting up an invincible enemy that happens to have a crippling weakness that happens to be as common as table salt to the heroes (think the movie "Signs" as a famously complained-about example). But this was still overall a heck of a lot better than the Dalek invasion, as the antagonists had a bit of a multi-layered element to their motivations and plans.
There's a nice moment where a character prepares to use the light from a film projector as a weapon, and we see some stock footage playing from it. The writers cleverly conceal that the story is filmed decades before it is set by having him remake, "I saw this movie twenty years ago!"
Good, good, Earth is going to use the Z-bomb! They really play up its strength, giving it the ability to slag an entire planet and produce enough radiation to wipe out life on the bomb-facing side of a planet tens of millions of miles away. The conflict in this episode (the real conflict, not the alien invaders fluff) stems from the decision of whether or not the risk of death of many is more important than the certainty of death of one.
It turns out that this is one of the partially reconstructed serials. The fourth (out of four) episode seems to be a bunch of stills with occasional short bursts of video. When there's action but video is not present, some helpful text to clear up what's going on. Occasionally, they try to play around with the stills, like slowly zooming in on a character to create the effect that the character is coming towards the camera.
It's a nice touch that some of the characters, who are supposed to be American or perhaps another non-British nationality, say "Zee-Bomb", while the Doctor and other British folk say "Zed-Bomb". I didn't pick up on that at first.
The ending was a little cheap, using the old trope of setting up an invincible enemy that happens to have a crippling weakness that happens to be as common as table salt to the heroes (think the movie "Signs" as a famously complained-about example). But this was still overall a heck of a lot better than the Dalek invasion, as the antagonists had a bit of a multi-layered element to their motivations and plans.
Dr Zhivago
Member
GameplayWhore said:
Yeah, I'd love to see the Monk come back. He could take a poke at the Doctor's hypocrisy - why is it OK for him to change history, but not anyone else?
GameplayWhore
Member
Hah, time to play catch up! I had too much fun during the weekend, and it left me too destroyed to keep to the schedule. Also, I've been feeling the call of Civ4.
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Okay, Tomb of the Cybermen
Second impression (because the first impression I got, in the previous episode, was just a shot of his face) of the new Doctor: He seems a bit eccentric, definitely less grumpier and human-friendly than the last guy. It's sort of like going back from Smith to Tennant.
Was the Cybermen in any episodes between this one and the one we just watched? One of the archaeologists exploring this planet comment that they don't know how the Cybermen became extinct. But that last episode showed it happening when their planet blew up!
Oh, hey, it's a dude in a kilt!
This Doctor is settling more as being very Tennant-like in my mind, what with his tendency to toss himself into the middle of other peoples' business and act like he's belonged there all the itme. To wit: "We shall stay and help you with your search." "We don't want your help" "That's just it, you so obviously do"
Yes, definitely eccentric. Doc warns the archaeologists not to break further into the tomb then solves the riddle that was preventing them from doing just that! XD
The new Cyberman voice is sooo much better than before (in terms of both effectiveness and comprehension). And that "YOU BELONG TO USSSS" almost gave me the chills!
The first time we saw the Cybermen, they were basically just invading aliens. This looks like the first episode where they exhibit the Borg-like "make everyone like us" behavior that they're well known for now. But they also lost the ability to stun people merely by touching them. They're really strong, though, in an obviously wire-fu way. But the changes they made make this the first episode that I could see the old legend of children peeking from behind their couches actually happening. There's a lot of menace here.
I really, really liked how they touched on the Doctor's age and how it affects his memories: "Oh yes, I can [remember my family], when I want to. And that's the point, really. I have to really want to, to bring them back in front of my eyes. The rest of the time they sleep in my mind, and I forget, and so will you. Oh, yes, you will. You'll find there's so much else to think about, to remember. Our lives are different to anybody else's. That's the exciting thing. Nobody in the universe can do what we're doing."
All in all, I really liked this episode. The non-cybernetic villains were pretty generically schemy, but I felt empathy with some of the redshirts, the story had genuine atmosphere, and it didn't bog down like some of the earlier episodes I've watched here.
-----
Okay, Tomb of the Cybermen
Second impression (because the first impression I got, in the previous episode, was just a shot of his face) of the new Doctor: He seems a bit eccentric, definitely less grumpier and human-friendly than the last guy. It's sort of like going back from Smith to Tennant.
Was the Cybermen in any episodes between this one and the one we just watched? One of the archaeologists exploring this planet comment that they don't know how the Cybermen became extinct. But that last episode showed it happening when their planet blew up!
Oh, hey, it's a dude in a kilt!
This Doctor is settling more as being very Tennant-like in my mind, what with his tendency to toss himself into the middle of other peoples' business and act like he's belonged there all the itme. To wit: "We shall stay and help you with your search." "We don't want your help" "That's just it, you so obviously do"
Yes, definitely eccentric. Doc warns the archaeologists not to break further into the tomb then solves the riddle that was preventing them from doing just that! XD
The new Cyberman voice is sooo much better than before (in terms of both effectiveness and comprehension). And that "YOU BELONG TO USSSS" almost gave me the chills!
The first time we saw the Cybermen, they were basically just invading aliens. This looks like the first episode where they exhibit the Borg-like "make everyone like us" behavior that they're well known for now. But they also lost the ability to stun people merely by touching them. They're really strong, though, in an obviously wire-fu way. But the changes they made make this the first episode that I could see the old legend of children peeking from behind their couches actually happening. There's a lot of menace here.
I really, really liked how they touched on the Doctor's age and how it affects his memories: "Oh yes, I can [remember my family], when I want to. And that's the point, really. I have to really want to, to bring them back in front of my eyes. The rest of the time they sleep in my mind, and I forget, and so will you. Oh, yes, you will. You'll find there's so much else to think about, to remember. Our lives are different to anybody else's. That's the exciting thing. Nobody in the universe can do what we're doing."
All in all, I really liked this episode. The non-cybernetic villains were pretty generically schemy, but I felt empathy with some of the redshirts, the story had genuine atmosphere, and it didn't bog down like some of the earlier episodes I've watched here.
GameplayWhore
Member
maharg said:
I don't know. I do miss a lot of the subtle stuff about people, in real life and on the screen (yeesh, I would never have noticed the jacket/watch thing in F&S, even after a hundred rewatches, without being told about it!). I do agree that both Ten and Smith are both more like Troughton than like Hartnell, but I can't see much that Smith took from Troughton that Tennant did not. I mean, all three are eccentric and run around a lot, and all three have a well-developed sense of using random technobabble to explain away stuff, where as the First was pretty well grounded in his teminology. They also took situations into their own hands more often, where Hartnell would let the others do a lot of the working and even thinking. That's one of the things I liked about his tenure -- that there was much more of a group effort involved -- but that's going on a wild tangent.
Tennant and Troughton seem more consistently upbeat and are happier working with Humans en masse. Smith and Hartnell frown on the actions of humans in groups more often and take a parental role to their respective companions.
But like I said, I miss a lot. I'd like to know some of the qualities that Smith shares with Troughton that aren't particularly found in Tennant or Hartnell. I haven't watched much at all of Troughton yet, so there's much to his personality I've yet to be exposed to, I'm sure.
GameplayWhore
Member
So, I'm starting The Invasion. It's a long one, eight episodes worth of story, over three hours of playtime in all. Turns out I have two versions to choose from -- a genuine, partly reconstructed version on my hard drive -- as mentioned earlier, some of the episodes have static pictures instead of video -- and a youtube-based version where the stills are replaced with animation. I think I'm going to set it up so they're playing simultaneously, since they're based on the same audio.
Ahh, a story about the stereotypical evils of giant corporations, all turned up to eleven!
"You can't lose a wall, can you?" Ha!
The animated version cuts some fat compared to the regular reconstuction. This probably helps the pacing a bit, but I can't tell for sure, since I've just been slowing down whichever one gets ahead whenever there's a desync.
Heh, disposable transistor radios.
Hah! The Doctor notices something wrong with the regional director of the evil corporation -- it's that he wasn't blinking nearly as often as humans are supposed to. It was then that I realized that, in the animated version I was watching, the Doctor and his companion were and had been blinking like normal people. The animator was paying attention to his plots! Now I just wonder if further episodes done by this artist continue this realistic eyelid action.
Ah, good! Looks likely that only episodes 1 and 4 are made from stills.
Aha, a Brigadier! Is this the same one who becomes a semiregular character? ....Yep, this appears to be the birth episode for UNIT. I'm happy that we're getting to see this episode as part of the marathon.
...oh, fookin' A! One of the companions outwits a voice-activated computer by vocally programming at it in ALGOL! XD XD XD
The company guy has the exact same layout in every one of his offices. It's explained away as conformity leading to success, but it's a pretty amusing way to cut on set costs.
"Kilroy Was Here!" was written in the elevator shaft. Cute little nugget there.
Cybermen use the same basic weapons technology as Daleks. It all seems based on turning the world into a photographic negative image for a second, killing anyone so exposed. They also don't sound menaching anymore, probably because their thrashing about noises sound disturbingly like H.E.L.P.eR. from the parodical animated series Venture Bros.
One interesting difference of this Doctor, or at least of this serial, is that he doesn't seem completely certain that everything's going to work out. Nowadays, the Doctor would tell people "Don't worry, I'll have a plan by the time things come to a head" with total confidence despite the level of danger. Here, he seems genuinely worried that something bad is going down, and it often looks like he's struggling uphill against the situation at hand.. Heck, while he was instrumental in getting rid of the more immediate situation of the Cybermen soldiers on Earth and the radio transmitter, the last ten minutes were entirely up to the combined military forces of Britain and Russia, with the Doctor sweating in fear with the rest of the grunts!
Ahh, a story about the stereotypical evils of giant corporations, all turned up to eleven!
"You can't lose a wall, can you?" Ha!
The animated version cuts some fat compared to the regular reconstuction. This probably helps the pacing a bit, but I can't tell for sure, since I've just been slowing down whichever one gets ahead whenever there's a desync.
Heh, disposable transistor radios.
Hah! The Doctor notices something wrong with the regional director of the evil corporation -- it's that he wasn't blinking nearly as often as humans are supposed to. It was then that I realized that, in the animated version I was watching, the Doctor and his companion were and had been blinking like normal people. The animator was paying attention to his plots! Now I just wonder if further episodes done by this artist continue this realistic eyelid action.
Ah, good! Looks likely that only episodes 1 and 4 are made from stills.
Aha, a Brigadier! Is this the same one who becomes a semiregular character? ....Yep, this appears to be the birth episode for UNIT. I'm happy that we're getting to see this episode as part of the marathon.
...oh, fookin' A! One of the companions outwits a voice-activated computer by vocally programming at it in ALGOL! XD XD XD
The company guy has the exact same layout in every one of his offices. It's explained away as conformity leading to success, but it's a pretty amusing way to cut on set costs.
"Kilroy Was Here!" was written in the elevator shaft. Cute little nugget there.
Cybermen use the same basic weapons technology as Daleks. It all seems based on turning the world into a photographic negative image for a second, killing anyone so exposed. They also don't sound menaching anymore, probably because their thrashing about noises sound disturbingly like H.E.L.P.eR. from the parodical animated series Venture Bros.
One interesting difference of this Doctor, or at least of this serial, is that he doesn't seem completely certain that everything's going to work out. Nowadays, the Doctor would tell people "Don't worry, I'll have a plan by the time things come to a head" with total confidence despite the level of danger. Here, he seems genuinely worried that something bad is going down, and it often looks like he's struggling uphill against the situation at hand.. Heck, while he was instrumental in getting rid of the more immediate situation of the Cybermen soldiers on Earth and the radio transmitter, the last ten minutes were entirely up to the combined military forces of Britain and Russia, with the Doctor sweating in fear with the rest of the grunts!
GameplayWhore
Member
Just finished The Krotons and only a day behind schedule!
The Doctor continues his well-groundedness by temporarily defeating a complex death machine ... with a pair of rocks. But then again ... last time around I commented about Troughton being less cocksure/godlike and more nervous/fearful than new Doctors. In this episode, he dials it up to the level of being a complete screaming ninny! It gets to the point where I want to smack him in the face.
The First Doctor rather emphatically insisted a few episodes ago that he's "not that kind of doctor" -- that is, he's not a physician. This Doctor, though, seems to have picked up a little bit of these arts as he periodically treats a comatose girl throughout the serial.
So the Krotons apparently know about the Doctor. I hope that they don't turn out to be Cybermen or Daleks in disguise; I've had enough of those particular baddies for a while and want to see some new antagonistic blood.
Ah, the answer to that question was revealed rather quickly. And this new race is kind of interesting. After watching last week's Futurama, my mind wants to see parallels. The machine-buildings are described as being put together in an organic manner. And the aliens are all robots. So naturally, this all seems like a bunch of naturally-evolved robots studying carbon based lifeforms. I know this can't be the real plot here, but ... where is the missing link!?
What? It vaporized the TARDIS! Oh, wait, false alarm.
I feel like they missed an opportunity to go more into detail about the alienness of these aliens. They were built upon an entirely different species, and there was a lot of subtle, potentially interesting facets revealed about them, but in the end they were just Evil Aliens with Convenient, Species-based Disadvantages. Granted, they were more complex to off than, say, the Sontarans with their neckplugs, but I would have really respected more dimensionality here. While we're at it, why did it seem earlier on like they knew about him in advance? Why were they pattern matching for him with their elongated death knob? Maybe I missed a plot point, but it seems like they swapped writers halfway through the serial, as later on they didn't seem interested in him at all until they found out about his superior intelligence.
The Doctor continues his well-groundedness by temporarily defeating a complex death machine ... with a pair of rocks. But then again ... last time around I commented about Troughton being less cocksure/godlike and more nervous/fearful than new Doctors. In this episode, he dials it up to the level of being a complete screaming ninny! It gets to the point where I want to smack him in the face.
The First Doctor rather emphatically insisted a few episodes ago that he's "not that kind of doctor" -- that is, he's not a physician. This Doctor, though, seems to have picked up a little bit of these arts as he periodically treats a comatose girl throughout the serial.
So the Krotons apparently know about the Doctor. I hope that they don't turn out to be Cybermen or Daleks in disguise; I've had enough of those particular baddies for a while and want to see some new antagonistic blood.
Ah, the answer to that question was revealed rather quickly. And this new race is kind of interesting. After watching last week's Futurama, my mind wants to see parallels. The machine-buildings are described as being put together in an organic manner. And the aliens are all robots. So naturally, this all seems like a bunch of naturally-evolved robots studying carbon based lifeforms. I know this can't be the real plot here, but ... where is the missing link!?
What? It vaporized the TARDIS! Oh, wait, false alarm.
I feel like they missed an opportunity to go more into detail about the alienness of these aliens. They were built upon an entirely different species, and there was a lot of subtle, potentially interesting facets revealed about them, but in the end they were just Evil Aliens with Convenient, Species-based Disadvantages. Granted, they were more complex to off than, say, the Sontarans with their neckplugs, but I would have really respected more dimensionality here. While we're at it, why did it seem earlier on like they knew about him in advance? Why were they pattern matching for him with their elongated death knob? Maybe I missed a plot point, but it seems like they swapped writers halfway through the serial, as later on they didn't seem interested in him at all until they found out about his superior intelligence.
Yo I don't know if this is the right Who thread to ask this in, but...
Are... are there two versions of An Unearthly Child? I started watching on youtube, but with the third part missing I searched elsewhere, and discovered that there were differences between the scenes I had seen.
Here's the youtube version of the other link
??
Are... are there two versions of An Unearthly Child? I started watching on youtube, but with the third part missing I searched elsewhere, and discovered that there were differences between the scenes I had seen.
Here's the youtube version of the other link
??
cindersphere
Neo Member
Yay, almost to Pertwee. I still remember the first time I played Fallout 3 reminded me of the beginning of the Terror of the Autons. I will start posting and watching then.
GameplayWhore
Member
Htown said:
According to this Doctor Who wiki entry, the Youtube link -- which has Susan saying "I was born in the 49th century" near the end of the clip, while everyone's in the TARDIS for the first time -- is of the pilot, while the LiveVideo link -- which has Susan saying "I was born in another time, another world" in the same place -- is of the broadcast episode.
For what it's worth, here were my very brief ruminations about the difference that I posted about a month ago:
me said:
(by "violent", I think I more meant "aggressive". You can see how Ian delivers some lines almost as if he's angrier in the pilot)
-----
The War Games has an exciting and then possibly depressing intro sequence, panning across what at first glance looks like a desolate wasteland. Yeesh, this is gonna be a long one. Ten episodes! We'll see if I can get it all in before I leave for the weekend on Friday. I'll certainly be tardy with the following serial. But it's alright, I'll be hanging out at a cozy science fiction convention.
They're definitely going for gritty this time. When they duck an explosion, they get showered with a bucketload of dirt! Kudos for the added realism.
AAAAIGHHH, SCARY KIDS IN GASMASKS AGAIN!!! ...no, wait, false alarm, just regular people. Jeez, Moff, you've scarred me for life.
This mind-controlling general looks oddly familiar, like I've seen him in a movie somewhere, but I can't place it. Must be that kind of face. Anyway, it would have been cool if he happened to be the Master, before that character was originally unveiled, but I know we're a ways away from his first appearance.
Malevolent angry Troughton is pretty hilarious given how he usually acts. It's a fantastic scene, as he poses as a security inspector, as he leans over the shoulder asking the guard about the just-announced prisoner escape. "Docto--" "We'll see you get a doctor if you need one, my man!" XD
I'm pretty disappointed in the Doctor Who Wiki's entry on "John Smith". It notes the usage of the name by the Seventh and Tenth doctors as well as in other instances by other people, but they missed that he uses that name in this episode when he is (once again) taken prisoner and interrogated. Is this the first time he assumed this identity, or did I miss an even earlier use of the name?
I think this is the first time in this particular marathon that we've seen the sonic screwdriver. And lo and behold: It's used to unscrew something!
The story is slower than it should be, but it's starting to get interesting. Instead of a generally malevolent antagonist, the "bad guys" are simply scientists conducting an experiment. And they're not even the mad kind -- they're just goal oriented and interested in perfecting their methodology. The whole part with the scientists, starting from the lecture about the improved machine in front of the students, to the Doctor -- in disguise as a scientist/student -- being accused of being a German spy by the newly-rebrainwashed patient, to the scientists thinking that the experiment wasn't entirely successful because of the obviously flawed accusation, to the demonstrator unknowingly explaining in detail to the Doctor how to reverse the brainwashing process. This was just brilliant!
As an aside, I should note that I really like the Second Doctor's intro.
(I'm about 40% though this one -- ten episodes is as a rule of thumb too long, though it's turning out pretty well in this case so far)
GameplayWhore
Member
Somewhere midway through The War Games, Zoe is captured while the Doctor is on the run, just barely eluding capture in the main base of the antagonistic scientists. So what's his brilliant strategy for keeping a lot profile? He runs into rooms backwards, jumping around and only looking in the direction of places he's already been. This plan does not last long. Luckily, he comes across the dimwitter teacher/scientist from the previous episode and once again sweet talks him into spilling everything he knows.
Working in a Neuroimaging Lab as I do, my fancy was particularly tickled to see the head-mounted portable brain scanner It's nice to see that current MRI tech has room for improvement!
Oh! Clever how they knew the members of the resistance. Zoe, a genius with a photographic memory, is shown pictures of all known rebels by her captors at one point in an attempt by them to identify her travelling companion (the Doctor). Later on, this becomes incredibly convenient for other members of the resistance to break through the cell-like nature of their movement and bunch together for a more centralized resistance (they get slaughtered shortly thereafter, but that's just semantics).
I'm almost certain that the "cage" that the prisoners get locked in is made of painted cardboard, but the black and white makes it just hard enough to be entirely sure. They get away with that one on a technicality.
A villainous as the more villainous looking villain is, he has a solid point that the security chief is pretty blindly incompetent. He has a massive force of men, made even more massive by a potential mob of brainwashed prisoners, and the Doctor just strolls around, getting all the secrets of the place with ease and waltzing out with a minimum of difficulty.
This serial is interesting, but I reassert that this serial is way too long. And it's too redundant. The Doctor gets captured, cleverly escapes, gets captured, cleverly escapes, gets captured, cleverly escapes, ad infinitum. I've just finished with the seventh episode, so I'm seventy percent done with the story, and I don't even really know any more about the plot than I did three or four episodes ago! For those counting, by the way, the Doctor just got captured again.
Anyway ... hmmm, the mysterious character who's given the scientists control over time in this episode claims that his is the only race with this technology. Hmmmmm....
No more Who until Monday for me. I'm going to a science fiction convention this weekend to meet up with a pretty goth girl and drink with the local Barfleet chapter. There will, of course, be discussion of Doctor Who, but it will be mainly in the form of "compare Smith to X".
Working in a Neuroimaging Lab as I do, my fancy was particularly tickled to see the head-mounted portable brain scanner It's nice to see that current MRI tech has room for improvement!
Oh! Clever how they knew the members of the resistance. Zoe, a genius with a photographic memory, is shown pictures of all known rebels by her captors at one point in an attempt by them to identify her travelling companion (the Doctor). Later on, this becomes incredibly convenient for other members of the resistance to break through the cell-like nature of their movement and bunch together for a more centralized resistance (they get slaughtered shortly thereafter, but that's just semantics).
I'm almost certain that the "cage" that the prisoners get locked in is made of painted cardboard, but the black and white makes it just hard enough to be entirely sure. They get away with that one on a technicality.
A villainous as the more villainous looking villain is, he has a solid point that the security chief is pretty blindly incompetent. He has a massive force of men, made even more massive by a potential mob of brainwashed prisoners, and the Doctor just strolls around, getting all the secrets of the place with ease and waltzing out with a minimum of difficulty.
This serial is interesting, but I reassert that this serial is way too long. And it's too redundant. The Doctor gets captured, cleverly escapes, gets captured, cleverly escapes, gets captured, cleverly escapes, ad infinitum. I've just finished with the seventh episode, so I'm seventy percent done with the story, and I don't even really know any more about the plot than I did three or four episodes ago! For those counting, by the way, the Doctor just got captured again.
Anyway ... hmmm, the mysterious character who's given the scientists control over time in this episode claims that his is the only race with this technology. Hmmmmm....
No more Who until Monday for me. I'm going to a science fiction convention this weekend to meet up with a pretty goth girl and drink with the local Barfleet chapter. There will, of course, be discussion of Doctor Who, but it will be mainly in the form of "compare Smith to X".
GameplayWhore
Member
The SF Convention was great. Good sex, good dancing, excellent Barfleet party (with, of course, way too powerful booze), and there was even a really fun panel discussing Mr. Smith!
-----
(back to the show; hopefully I can catch up in less than a week!)
XD at the Doctor's "Don't worry, I'm not going to hurt you" at the guards pointing deadly ray guns at him.
Wow, the meeting between the Doctor and his ex-Timelord rival in this episode catapults the storyline far forward and makes the serial interesting again. Once again, following the MO of the Time Meddler, the villain is not out for power or trying to be evil for evil's sake. He's working towards altruistic goals, albeit using nefarious means. I reiterate that New Who needs more antagonists like this. "You see? I'm not the cold-hearted villain you suppose me to be. My motives are purely peaceful." <-- This is more chilling than anything the Master has ever said, which in comparison seems generally along the lines of "MUA-HA-HA-HA!!!"
"We are going to bring a new order to the Galaxy. One United Galactic Empire." ... okay, fine, later on he acts a little more power hungry. And acts as convenient inspiration for George Lucas, apparently.
The sequence where the resistance coordinates its attack across all the time zones is a lot more interesting and even a little exciting when compared to the undirected action and meyhem earlier in the serial. And the Doctor's heel turn makes it all the more compelling!
I like the Doctor in his pseudo-evil mode here. His back and forth with the War Lord was pretty delicious.
I can't make out a damned word that the short angry guy is saying. Is he supposed to be Mexican?
Hmm, the Doctor shows off a bit of random psychic powers here. I always thought that was just something invented for the modern series, but I guess he does stuff like that throughout the decades.
Yay, early external shot of the spinning TARDIS!
Wow, the first appearance of the Time Lords is very well done, from the booming voice in the TARDIS to the pretty well done (and not super cheesey as we see in later serials with them) costuming to the creepy psychic eye attack thing that the head Time Lord did.
Everything that happens after the Doctor stop-motions his little magic info box is pretty golden. I really wish the rest of the episode was like this.
That's interesting: They wiped out the memories of the companions but only <em>after</em> their first adventure with the Doctor. I wonder what the significance of that is, why they didn't just erase the Doctor entirely from their minds. Still, they got a very nice bit of closure to their departures, and I really liked that.
I reiterate: The last two episodes or so of The War Games are fantastic. I'm completely satisfied with pretty much this entire final portion, and I wish that the material before that was stronger. He was perhaps a little too comedic overall, but it was absolutely blissful for me to see Troughton's antics before the inevitable end. This is probably my favourite ending to any of the Doctors, though I still haven't seen the rest of them.
And I'm really happy I'll see him three more times during this marathon ends!
-----
(back to the show; hopefully I can catch up in less than a week!)
XD at the Doctor's "Don't worry, I'm not going to hurt you" at the guards pointing deadly ray guns at him.
Wow, the meeting between the Doctor and his ex-Timelord rival in this episode catapults the storyline far forward and makes the serial interesting again. Once again, following the MO of the Time Meddler, the villain is not out for power or trying to be evil for evil's sake. He's working towards altruistic goals, albeit using nefarious means. I reiterate that New Who needs more antagonists like this. "You see? I'm not the cold-hearted villain you suppose me to be. My motives are purely peaceful." <-- This is more chilling than anything the Master has ever said, which in comparison seems generally along the lines of "MUA-HA-HA-HA!!!"
"We are going to bring a new order to the Galaxy. One United Galactic Empire." ... okay, fine, later on he acts a little more power hungry. And acts as convenient inspiration for George Lucas, apparently.
The sequence where the resistance coordinates its attack across all the time zones is a lot more interesting and even a little exciting when compared to the undirected action and meyhem earlier in the serial. And the Doctor's heel turn makes it all the more compelling!
I like the Doctor in his pseudo-evil mode here. His back and forth with the War Lord was pretty delicious.
I can't make out a damned word that the short angry guy is saying. Is he supposed to be Mexican?
Hmm, the Doctor shows off a bit of random psychic powers here. I always thought that was just something invented for the modern series, but I guess he does stuff like that throughout the decades.
Yay, early external shot of the spinning TARDIS!
Wow, the first appearance of the Time Lords is very well done, from the booming voice in the TARDIS to the pretty well done (and not super cheesey as we see in later serials with them) costuming to the creepy psychic eye attack thing that the head Time Lord did.
Everything that happens after the Doctor stop-motions his little magic info box is pretty golden. I really wish the rest of the episode was like this.
That's interesting: They wiped out the memories of the companions but only <em>after</em> their first adventure with the Doctor. I wonder what the significance of that is, why they didn't just erase the Doctor entirely from their minds. Still, they got a very nice bit of closure to their departures, and I really liked that.
I reiterate: The last two episodes or so of The War Games are fantastic. I'm completely satisfied with pretty much this entire final portion, and I wish that the material before that was stronger. He was perhaps a little too comedic overall, but it was absolutely blissful for me to see Troughton's antics before the inevitable end. This is probably my favourite ending to any of the Doctors, though I still haven't seen the rest of them.
And I'm really happy I'll see him three more times during this marathon ends!
GameplayWhore
Member
Spearhead From Space is the first serial we're watching in color, so any of you guys who wanted to join in when the black and white era ended can now have your chance.
The style and atmospheric music is so starkly different from such presentation in previous series. All of a sudden, it feels very 60s/70s. I suppose it makes sense: Episodes in prior series set in alien worlds often had strange, alien sounds going on continuously in the background, something to make it feel like you're really somewhere that is not your living room. Now, since we're going to be on Earth for a while, music that seems oddly reminiscent of The Pink Panther cartoons in the background probably will have the same effect. You're no longer on an alien planet. The more familiar background music you're hearing tells you subconscious that you're still not in your living room, but you are quite a bit closer than you were just before.
The beginning of this serial reminds me of the New Who reboot. A new female character comes in and is being fed vague information about this special man who has been around doing stupendous things in the past. In this case, the framework is set by the Brigadier talking roundabout about the "scientist" who helped thwart two recent alien invasions. It's not too much a parallel to the crazy tinfoil hat guy talking to Rose about the strange man with the blue box appearing all over history, but it does offer a parallel introduction to the character for new audiences.
We got a nice X-ray shot of the Doctor's two hearts. I don't recall, but had we heard about them prior to this in the show?
The set up for this serial was nicely done and a lot of fun. The pacing is better than we saw in the black and white show, generally speaking, and the humour level is high. There is a risk it could develop into camp, though.
I'm very glad that they explained what an EEG is, because my primitive 1970s mind would otherwise be unable to fathom it.
Very nice scene transition from the mysterious man's face in the photograph to the plastic doll factory baby head. Not an altogether terrible bit of foreshadowing, either.
This Doctor is a dick. There's a potentially dangerous situation brewing on Earth, so he takes advantage of the new girl to get his key from the Brigadier, then he tries to split town immediately
The Autons end up being pretty creepy villains. And the Nestene collective is a better here than in their New Who appearance (and they would have been even better without suddenly slipping in to tentacle rape territory). Still, their defeat isn't very satisfying. Aliens indestructible to Big Guns invade, Doctor makes a super weapon that can defeat them, Doctor uses super weapon, alien no longer a threat. The resolution wasn't very clever or deep at all.
The style and atmospheric music is so starkly different from such presentation in previous series. All of a sudden, it feels very 60s/70s. I suppose it makes sense: Episodes in prior series set in alien worlds often had strange, alien sounds going on continuously in the background, something to make it feel like you're really somewhere that is not your living room. Now, since we're going to be on Earth for a while, music that seems oddly reminiscent of The Pink Panther cartoons in the background probably will have the same effect. You're no longer on an alien planet. The more familiar background music you're hearing tells you subconscious that you're still not in your living room, but you are quite a bit closer than you were just before.
The beginning of this serial reminds me of the New Who reboot. A new female character comes in and is being fed vague information about this special man who has been around doing stupendous things in the past. In this case, the framework is set by the Brigadier talking roundabout about the "scientist" who helped thwart two recent alien invasions. It's not too much a parallel to the crazy tinfoil hat guy talking to Rose about the strange man with the blue box appearing all over history, but it does offer a parallel introduction to the character for new audiences.
We got a nice X-ray shot of the Doctor's two hearts. I don't recall, but had we heard about them prior to this in the show?
The set up for this serial was nicely done and a lot of fun. The pacing is better than we saw in the black and white show, generally speaking, and the humour level is high. There is a risk it could develop into camp, though.
I'm very glad that they explained what an EEG is, because my primitive 1970s mind would otherwise be unable to fathom it.
Very nice scene transition from the mysterious man's face in the photograph to the plastic doll factory baby head. Not an altogether terrible bit of foreshadowing, either.
This Doctor is a dick. There's a potentially dangerous situation brewing on Earth, so he takes advantage of the new girl to get his key from the Brigadier, then he tries to split town immediately
The Autons end up being pretty creepy villains. And the Nestene collective is a better here than in their New Who appearance (and they would have been even better without suddenly slipping in to tentacle rape territory). Still, their defeat isn't very satisfying. Aliens indestructible to Big Guns invade, Doctor makes a super weapon that can defeat them, Doctor uses super weapon, alien no longer a threat. The resolution wasn't very clever or deep at all.
GameplayWhore said:Spearhead From Space is the first serial we're watching in color, so any of you guys who wanted to join in when the black and white era ended can now have your chance.
The style and atmospheric music is so starkly different from such presentation in previous series. All of a sudden, it feels very 60s/70s. I suppose it makes sense: Episodes in prior series set in alien worlds often had strange, alien sounds going on continuously in the background, something to make it feel like you're really somewhere that is not your living room. Now, since we're going to be on Earth for a while, music that seems oddly reminiscent of The Pink Panther cartoons in the background probably will have the same effect. You're no longer on an alien planet. The more familiar background music you're hearing tells you subconscious that you're still not in your living room, but you are quite a bit closer than you were just before.
The beginning of this serial reminds me of the New Who reboot. A new female character comes in and is being fed vague information about this special man who has been around doing stupendous things in the past. In this case, the framework is set by the Brigadier talking roundabout about the "scientist" who helped thwart two recent alien invasions. It's not too much a parallel to the crazy tinfoil hat guy talking to Rose about the strange man with the blue box appearing all over history, but it does offer a parallel introduction to the character for new audiences.
We got a nice X-ray shot of the Doctor's two hearts. I don't recall, but had we heard about them prior to this in the show?
The set up for this serial was nicely done and a lot of fun. The pacing is better than we saw in the black and white show, generally speaking, and the humour level is high. There is a risk it could develop into camp, though.
I'm very glad that they explained what an EEG is, because my primitive 1970s mind would otherwise be unable to fathom it.
Very nice scene transition from the mysterious man's face in the photograph to the plastic doll factory baby head. Not an altogether terrible bit of foreshadowing, either.
This Doctor is a dick. There's a potentially dangerous situation brewing on Earth, so he takes advantage of the new girl to get his key from the Brigadier, then he tries to split town immediately
The Autons end up being pretty creepy villains. And the Nestene collective is a better here than in their New Who appearance (and they would have been even better without suddenly slipping in to tentacle rape territory). Still, their defeat isn't very satisfying. Aliens indestructible to Big Guns invade, Doctor makes a super weapon that can defeat them, Doctor uses super weapon, alien no longer a threat. The resolution wasn't very clever or deep at all.
:O I think I might join in tonight when I get home from work!
I wont read your post yet so as to not spoil but I did read the words "This Doctor is a dick" and I can't wait!
only 4 minutes in so far, and this is SO delightfully charming.
It just has the campness that I know and love from modern Doctor Who, it's why I struggled with the early black and white Hartnell episodes and gave up a bit, he was too.. harsh?
ohwell, will edit this as I go through them!
I do love how the english pronounce Ma'am
I try saying it like that to people every now and again, and everyone just looks at me confused
Edit one: The acting is a hell of a lot better too, and the budget was obviously upped from $5 an episode, and the score being written 2 days before and played live whilst filming.
Ok onto episode two, the doctors just been shot at! oh lordie loo.
Edit two: WTF @ doll heads being made that kinda creeped me out
Edit for GP: anything exciting said at the SF panel?
It just has the campness that I know and love from modern Doctor Who, it's why I struggled with the early black and white Hartnell episodes and gave up a bit, he was too.. harsh?
ohwell, will edit this as I go through them!
I do love how the english pronounce Ma'am
I try saying it like that to people every now and again, and everyone just looks at me confused
Edit one: The acting is a hell of a lot better too, and the budget was obviously upped from $5 an episode, and the score being written 2 days before and played live whilst filming.
Ok onto episode two, the doctors just been shot at! oh lordie loo.
Edit two: WTF @ doll heads being made
that kinda creeped me outEdit for GP: anything exciting said at the SF panel?
GameplayWhore
Member
Syth_Blade22 said:
Yeah, Hartnell was a dick most of the time. For Pertwee, it's just a part time hobby (Troughton just did it when it was funny). He has more general charisma, too. The supporting characters are also more believably competent. The girl, for instance, is a trained expert who spouts out actual science, whereas a previous companion was just sort of magically a genius who could reprogram tape-based computers vocally. In ALGOL. Awesome in its own way, but not for most modern audiences.
I see that we both agree that there as creepiness here. I take it you picked up that these are the same creatures
as we see in the premiere episode of New Who as well as in the most recent finalé
The Who panel? Nothing too substantial, or at least nothing that you wouldn't typically hear on the Fnarg thread. I was reminded about Gaiman writing an episode next season, though, a fact which had escaped my memory.
Anyway, I'm one ahead (and I liked this next one better, with a few small reservations), though I'm enjoying your commentary on "Spearhead...", so don't hesitate to continue!
---------
Inferno starts with the Doctor riding around in the Whomobile. I'm truly hoping that the level of cheese and hokiness is kept down.
Ah, look: The third episode in a row (of this particular marathon) involving some form of mind control!
"Yes, well I'll tell you something which should be of vital interest to you, professsor" "What?" "That you, sir, are a nitwit!"
The Doctor apparently knows "Venusian Karate". Man, is every planet in this system full of violent life? Humans on Earth, Silurians on Earth, Space spiders on Earth since it was formed, Cybermen on upside-down Earth, evil water on Mars, and I think I heard that there's yet another planet out beyond Neptune which happened to also have some weird aliens. Now they teach you effective fighting technique on the second planet of our Solar System. Maybe Mercury just has a death ray just sitting around for some reason or other.
Due to the actions of the head scientist of the titular project, the Doctor while experimenting gets stuck in what looks like an alternate future (or an alternate present?). They do a good job of giving everything a subtle bizarro feel, including the well-worrn use of alien-ish ambient sounds to emphasize the otherworldliness of the area. Aha, looks like it is an alternate present! Anyway, I like how they hid alt-Liz's identity until the last moment, and the parallels here are pretty grand. I think the execution here is a lot better than how we were presented with the Cybus alternate Earth in New Who.
An aside: The 3D Tetris controls of the computer systems in the complex are pretty neat.
"I don't exist in your world!" "Then you won't feel the bullets when we shoot you" -- Wow, alt-Lethbridge-Stewart is a bad ass. But now that it's been brought up: Is it an unwritten rule that the Doctor never existed in parallel dimensions? Does this mean that Humanity alone managed to thwart something like eighty alien invasions on their own without his being there to assist? That the Doctor actually, despite the case he made with the Time Lords which led to his reduced sentence, is a trivial factor in the survival of the planet? This brings up interesting questions and suggests that some events -- like the very creation of Torchwood and the molding of UNIT with the Brigadier at its head -- ultimately produced negative results for humanity. Also, Lethbridge-Stewart looks very cool with scar and eyepatch, and I find it rather amusing that the Doctor joked about his moustacheless visage in an old photo earlier on in the episode, given that he lacks one presently in this reality.
There's little in the way of wasted storyline here. While earlier serials have tons of filler time and padding, it really feels like this one needs all seven episodes to properly tell the story, and that just barely!
It's very cool how a remote garage door opener is considered a neat, futuristic toy in this serial.
Wow, the story here was very bittersweet. An entire planet full of people were sacrificed to save ours. Some people I really came to like perished. It meant success and life for our usual regulars, and it led to a fun ending, but I still feel kind of sad throughout the credits.
This was a great episode, odd green wolfman creatures notwithstanding.
GameplayWhore said:Yeah, Hartnell was a dick most of the time. For Pertwee, it's just a part time hobby (Troughton just did it when it was funny). He has more general charisma, too. The supporting characters are also more believably competent. The girl, for instance, is a trained expert who spouts out actual science, whereas a previous companion was just sort of magically a genius who could reprogram tape-based computers vocally. In ALGOL. Awesome in its own way, but not for most modern audiences.
I see that we both agree that there as creepiness here. I take it you picked up that these are the same creatures?as we see in the premiere episode of New Who as well as in the most recent finalé
The Who panel? Nothing too substantial, or at least nothing that you wouldn't typically hear on the Fnarg thread. I was reminded about Gaiman writing an episode next season, though, a fact which had escaped my memory.
Anyway, I'm one ahead (and I liked this next one better, with a few small reservations), though I'm enjoying your commentary on "Spearhead...", so don't hesitate to continue!
---------
Inferno starts with the Doctor riding around in the Whomobile. I'm truly hoping that the level of cheese and hokiness is kept down.
Ah, look: The third episode in a row (of this particular marathon) involving some form of mind control!
"Yes, well I'll tell you something which should be of vital interest to you, professsor" "What?" "That you, sir, are a nitwit!"
The Doctor apparently knows "Venusian Karate". Man, is every planet in this system full of violent life? Humans on Earth, Silurians on Earth, Space spiders on Earth since it was formed, Cybermen on upside-down Earth, evil water on Mars, and I think I heard that there's yet another planet out beyond Neptune which happened to also have some weird aliens. Now they teach you effective fighting technique on the second planet of our Solar System. Maybe Mercury just has a death ray just sitting around for some reason or other.
Due to the actions of the head scientist of the titular project, the Doctor while experimenting gets stuck in what looks like an alternate future (or an alternate present?). They do a good job of giving everything a subtle bizarro feel, including the well-worrn use of alien-ish ambient sounds to emphasize the otherworldliness of the area. Aha, looks like it is an alternate present! Anyway, I like how they hid alt-Liz's identity until the last moment, and the parallels here are pretty grand. I think the execution here is a lot better than how we were presented with the Cybus alternate Earth in New Who.
An aside: The 3D Tetris controls of the computer systems in the complex are pretty neat.
"I don't exist in your world!" "Then you won't feel the bullets when we shoot you" -- Wow, alt-Lethbridge-Stewart is a bad ass. But now that it's been brought up: Is it an unwritten rule that the Doctor never existed in parallel dimensions? Does this mean that Humanity alone managed to thwart something like eighty alien invasions on their own without his being there to assist? That the Doctor actually, despite the case he made with the Time Lords which led to his reduced sentence, is a trivial factor in the survival of the planet? This brings up interesting questions and suggests that some events -- like the very creation of Torchwood and the molding of UNIT with the Brigadier at its head -- ultimately produced negative results for humanity. Also, Lethbridge-Stewart looks very cool with scar and eyepatch, and I find it rather amusing that the Doctor joked about his moustacheless visage in an old photo earlier on in the episode, given that he lacks one presently in this reality.
There's little in the way of wasted storyline here. While earlier serials have tons of filler time and padding, it really feels like this one needs all seven episodes to properly tell the story, and that just barely!
It's very cool how a remote garage door opener is considered a neat, futuristic toy in this serial.
Wow, the story here was very bittersweet. An entire planet full of people were sacrificed to save ours. Some people I really came to like perished. It meant success and life for our usual regulars, and it led to a fun ending, but I still feel kind of sad throughout the credits.
This was a great episode, odd green wolfman creatures notwithstanding.
You know, everyone said those episodes had Autons, and I could never find them.
It took until one of them used his hand as a gun to realise it was the same gun rory had.. and then it all clicked
GameplayWhore
Member
Terror of the Autons is the fourth episode in a row we're watching which involve some sort of mind control or mind alteration (I had thought that the weird hot slime in "Inferno" was causing an intelligent mind control, but I'm not entirely sure how the motivations of the affected characters were changing and if there was a consistent direction of it. Either way, they certainly had their base instincts changed in the direction of "hot things good, cold things bad!"). This is the introduction of the Master, a character whom I first experienced upon watching The Curse of Fatal Death about a decade ago.
"I'm your new assistant!" "Oh, no." Huh. Liz is gone already, replaced my an incrementally prettier girl.
I'd seen this episode before, but it's nice to see the continuity now that I've seem prior episodes. When the Doctor exclaims that the artifact stolen from the National Space Museum is a "Nestene Energy Unit", I immediately know that this will be a plastic-heavy episode! And immediately after I thought "why didn't they just destroy it after all the trouble those things gave Humanity?", the writers answered my question.
Not a fan at all of the music in this episode.
"You are incorrigibly meddlesome, Doctor, but we've always felt that your hearts were in the right places"
The mind control in "The War Games" was far more credible than here. Back then, the soldiers being controlled visibly believed that what they were told was true, and acted on that truth. In this episode, those controlled act a bit more like your generic stereotypical brainwashed "YES MASTER!" zombies.
Nooooo, don't sit in iiiiit!!! ...warned ya.
The killer plastic doll is pretty silly, but it is nice that they keep it consistent in how it operates. But has any other Auton or Auton-derived thing required a heat source to operate?
Excellent Auton-behind-the-door cheap fright.
Huh, still a little confused about the whole what makes the plastic do it thing. Is it arbitrary? It turns out that radio waves wake up the flowers, and it seems to be implied that heat is not what caused the doll to wake up. But I double checked and couldn't see any hint that there was any radio source bringing the doll to life. And I suppose that the Master used sonics to wake up the telephone cord later on (lol). Then that means that the manner of controlling Auton technology is completely arbitrary. So, in retrospect, it is not nice that they didn't keep it consistent on how the Auton toys operate. >:|
I don't really like the talking Autons. They're much more effective when quiet.
Aha, they reverse the polarity to save the day! I've heard that this later becomes a common trope in Dr. Who.
This Master is much, much better than the John Simms Master. But, umm, I'm not entirely clear on why the Master helped the Doctor at the end. I mean, he didn't seem to have any guarantee of control over the Autons from the start, so he should have known from the beginning of his plan that they could easily destroy him. What am I missing here?
"I'm your new assistant!" "Oh, no." Huh. Liz is gone already, replaced my an incrementally prettier girl.
I'd seen this episode before, but it's nice to see the continuity now that I've seem prior episodes. When the Doctor exclaims that the artifact stolen from the National Space Museum is a "Nestene Energy Unit", I immediately know that this will be a plastic-heavy episode! And immediately after I thought "why didn't they just destroy it after all the trouble those things gave Humanity?", the writers answered my question.
Not a fan at all of the music in this episode.
"You are incorrigibly meddlesome, Doctor, but we've always felt that your hearts were in the right places"
The mind control in "The War Games" was far more credible than here. Back then, the soldiers being controlled visibly believed that what they were told was true, and acted on that truth. In this episode, those controlled act a bit more like your generic stereotypical brainwashed "YES MASTER!" zombies.
Nooooo, don't sit in iiiiit!!! ...warned ya.
The killer plastic doll is pretty silly, but it is nice that they keep it consistent in how it operates. But has any other Auton or Auton-derived thing required a heat source to operate?
Excellent Auton-behind-the-door cheap fright.
Huh, still a little confused about the whole what makes the plastic do it thing. Is it arbitrary? It turns out that radio waves wake up the flowers, and it seems to be implied that heat is not what caused the doll to wake up. But I double checked and couldn't see any hint that there was any radio source bringing the doll to life. And I suppose that the Master used sonics to wake up the telephone cord later on (lol). Then that means that the manner of controlling Auton technology is completely arbitrary. So, in retrospect, it is not nice that they didn't keep it consistent on how the Auton toys operate. >:|
I don't really like the talking Autons. They're much more effective when quiet.
Aha, they reverse the polarity to save the day! I've heard that this later becomes a common trope in Dr. Who.
This Master is much, much better than the John Simms Master. But, umm, I'm not entirely clear on why the Master helped the Doctor at the end. I mean, he didn't seem to have any guarantee of control over the Autons from the start, so he should have known from the beginning of his plan that they could easily destroy him. What am I missing here?
GameplayWhore
Member
Syth_Blade22 said:WHY DID 4 assignments all decide to be due in the next week
I've never seen any old ep's of the master,
is he much more sinister? I imagine him to be more of an evil proffessor type than john simms
He's got about zero wacky in him, even when he's doing patently silly things (like
summoning the devil
commanding telephone cord to animate and strangle people from miles away
He also does not like the Doctor.
lordfroakie
Member
Just watched the very first ep and wow....I really liked it. Sucks that BBC decided to be dicks and block the third part :/
GameplayWhore
Member
vectorman06 said:
Dailymotion.com has all the episodes non-blocked. The downside is that they pop up some pretty intrusive ads, but the upside is that you can select a playlist, and it'll advance to each subsequent episode without you having to think about it.
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The Dæmons. Being a Linux and BSD admin, I can only assume this episode is about servers.
In truth, this could be a fun one; many of my friends celebrate Beltaine. I must say, though, that the witch character here is quite a bit more powerful than the wiccans I know.
That dude looks a heck of a lot like the Master. ...oh, wait, it is him. And, there we go, fifth episode in a row involving mind control or some variant thereof.
The music and sounds effects in this episode are just terrible. This is the era where electronic music started to enter the public eye, so it's being used for anything otherworldly which, in this show, is everything on screen!
Waitwaitwait.... wouldn't a 750 ton object the size of a hand sort of fall through, well, nearly any sort of floor like a needle going through softened butter?
Now it's two episodes in a row where reversing the polarity was of instrumental use. Will this be an always-recurring thing like the mind control?
"Just do as you're told, the Doctor knows what he's doing.... Do you know what you're doing?" "My dear chap, I can't wait to find out."
"You know, sergeant, I sometimes wish I worked in a bank"
The whole scene with the doctor being tied up and having to role-play to escape a torturous death is really fun to watch, even if it is quite silly. And there seems to be quite a bit of tying up and restraining in this episode. Those pagan friends of mine, most of them are quite fond of bdsm. Perhaps I should just pass this particular episode along to them.
"Lamp, I order you to shatter!"
By the way, it's during the Pertwee era that they started including that weird cliffhanger sound that happens immediately prior to the ending of each episode. This dramatically increases the tension before the credits roll, and it was definitely an element that felt like a gaping whole when missing from the Hartnell and Troughton years.
The Doctor uses scientific trickery to save his life, but he goes a step beyond by fessing up to the people who just threatened to kill him, the people who only stopped because they believed him a wizard of great power. His explanation of how science can explain everything that has been happening is as ridiculous as it is enjoyable. But better is that this is a pretty substantial character moment in which he shows that he's a pretty darn respectable man compared to the more schemey villains he regularly comes up against.
Pertwee has a bit of a Tennant moment when he gives the Dæmon a chance to leave before being destroyed despite not having any conceivable power or advantage over it. I think that's the first time I've seen that sort of signature warning to the villains. Anyway, this serial overall was a pretty fun romp, though it isn't as solid as some previous episodes, and the Master did sort of get a little sillier as time went on.
GameplayWhore said:Dailymotion.com has all the episodes non-blocked. The downside is that they pop up some pretty intrusive ads, but the upside is that you can select a playlist, and it'll advance to each subsequent episode without you having to think about it.
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The Dæmons. Being a Linux and BSD admin, I can only assume this episode is about servers.
In truth, this could be a fun one; many of my friends celebrate Beltaine. I must say, though, that the witch character here is quite a bit more powerful than the wiccans I know.
That dude looks a heck of a lot like the Master. ...oh, wait, it is him. And, there we go, fifth episode in a row involving mind control or some variant thereof.
The music and sounds effects in this episode are just terrible. This is the era where electronic music started to enter the public eye, so it's being used for anything otherworldly which, in this show, is everything on screen!
Waitwaitwait.... wouldn't a 750 ton object the size of a hand sort of fall through, well, nearly any sort of floor like a needle going through softened butter?
Now it's two episodes in a row where reversing the polarity was of instrumental use. Will this be an always-recurring thing like the mind control?
"Just do as you're told, the Doctor knows what he's doing.... Do you know what you're doing?" "My dear chap, I can't wait to find out."
"You know, sergeant, I sometimes wish I worked in a bank"
The whole scene with the doctor being tied up and having to role-play to escape a torturous death is really fun to watch, even if it is quite silly. And there seems to be quite a bit of tying up and restraining in this episode. Those pagan friends of mine, most of them are quite fond of bdsm. Perhaps I should just pass this particular episode along to them.
"Lamp, I order you to shatter!"
By the way, it's during the Pertwee era that they started including that weird cliffhanger sound that happens immediately prior to the ending of each episode. This dramatically increases the tension before the credits roll, and it was definitely an element that felt like a gaping whole when missing from the Hartnell and Troughton years.
The Doctor uses scientific trickery to save his life, but he goes a step beyond by fessing up to the people who just threatened to kill him, the people who only stopped because they believed him a wizard of great power. His explanation of how science can explain everything that has been happening is as ridiculous as it is enjoyable. But better is that this is a pretty substantial character moment in which he shows that he's a pretty darn respectable man compared to the more schemey villains he regularly comes up against.
Pertwee has a bit of a Tennant moment when he gives the Dæmon a chance to leave before being destroyed despite not having any conceivable power or advantage over it. I think that's the first time I've seen that sort of signature warning to the villains. Anyway, this serial overall was a pretty fun romp, though it isn't as solid as some previous episodes, and the Master did sort of get a little sillier as time went on.
lol @ Tennantesque, RTD sewing the seeds whilst he was young i bet.
GameplayWhore
Member
Syth_Blade22 said:
Oh, it gets better. Turns out that the Time Meddler, a villain from the Troughton era, was responsible for a critical part of the construction of the
trap that was set upon the Doctor
provided the antigravity technology needed to construct Stonehenge
(I mentioned about this in an above message, but I tend to ramble, so interesting points get lost in the noise)
Htown said:
dunno.. but its pretty interesting
tempting isnt itCloudy said:
not to sure on this one, try asking here
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=384256
Dr Zhivago
Member
Cloudy said:
There's a box with series 1-4, so everything bar the Specials up to the Matt Smith era.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B002KSA41U/
Also series 1-4 are available for netflix streaming if you want to watch them that way. It's how I did it. You'll need to look elsewhere for a couple of the later specials, though.
EDIT: Also I finally got around to watching An Unearthly Child and the Daleks. The Daleks is easily the better of the two - just a solid all around adventure story. Unearthly Child was okay.
One thing that seems odd coming from the new Who - the focus seems to be more on Ian and Barbara, and even Susan than the Doctor. It seems more like the Space/Time Adventures of Ian Chesterton than anything else.
EDIT: Also I finally got around to watching An Unearthly Child and the Daleks. The Daleks is easily the better of the two - just a solid all around adventure story. Unearthly Child was okay.
One thing that seems odd coming from the new Who - the focus seems to be more on Ian and Barbara, and even Susan than the Doctor. It seems more like the Space/Time Adventures of Ian Chesterton than anything else.
Dr Zhivago
Member
Yep, the Doctor only became the hero as the series progressed.
GameplayWhore
Member
Htown said:
It's a major spoiler for the most recent episode of Doctor Who, the one from this year, and an incredibly minor spoiler from one of the black and white episodes.
Htown said:
In addition to the regular reasons, there were episodes where the Doctor was entirely absent due to, I think, health reasons.
Thought this list of the ten best ever Who episodes was interesting. I agree strongly with Blink, Inferno and Empty Child. Human Nature and Genesis of the Daleks were pretty good, as well. I wasn't a very big fan of Weng-Chiang when I first watched it, but maybe my perspective on it will be better after watching so many episodes that preceded it. Several of these are in this marathon, so I look forward to those I haven't seen.
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Less than four minutes into The Sea Devils, the Doctor asks a prison warden, "has he tried to hypnotize any of the guards?" That's right, folks, it's another Master episode, which means that we'll likely have our sixth mind-alteration serial in a row! Doctor Who is nothing if not consistent!
The Master is in an island prison where the guards are hardened against his hypnotic abilities. The Doctor and Jo come in just in time to watch him via camera attempting -- and failing -- to influence one of the new guards. I would be overjoyed if this was just a ruse and The Master really is controlling the whole complex, it being a convenient spot to centralise his operations!
The Doctor denies the Master a handshake when they part. Smart move. It was definitely one of those "Don't doooo iiiiiit!!!" moments. Annoyingly, right after this the Master gives a cackle, which suits his persona in the years to come but isn't quite as great as his moods earlier on.
....yay, I was right about the ruse!
Arggg, do they really need to use these horrible electronic sound effects for a golf ball rolling across the floor?!?
Notable: This is almost certainly the episode from which they lifted the gesture-talking from behind windows that was used in the adipose (fat babies) episode. They have a very similar scene, though it's played straight.
When the Doctor first hears about the Master's presence, episodes ago, he describes his foe as being annoying, very smart, and ultimately flawed. In this episode, he describes the Master as "the personification of evil". I think this serial really represents when the Master started descending into being more of a two dimensional character. I'm really sad that they started this process so early.
And for the second time in a row, the Master -- who is supposed to be very intelligent -- helps xenophobic creatures to conquer the Earth without realizing that he has no insurance to keep himself alive once the deed is done.
Oh, for
fuck
This was a really weak episode made much worse by the terrible sound and music. Bleeps and bloops in a soundtrack should never have been considered futuristic!! It has unquestionably the worst audio in the long history of this show. The aliens also look very unrealistic even by Old Who standards. The action scenes are contrived (a motorboat chase? seriously, those should stay in Bond territory!), character motivations tend to be either uncertain or unrealistically rigid, the story lacks any sense of charm but also isn't very thrilling, despite the over-reliance on plot twists and the high body count. Aside from a slightly promising start, this episode was painful to watch. I would be embarrassed to view this in a group. Of Doctor Who fans.
As an aside, the serial ends with a character saying the same words over and over again, one of the things Moffat has been criticised over of late.
As another aside: Although this particular Master is in two serials after this one, they're not in our list, so this is the last Roger Delgado Master episode we get to see before Roger Delgado's untimely death, and he died after they'd written (but before they could film) the final Master episode, which was also going to be a regeneration episode for the Doctor -- looks like it would have been a possibly awesome parallel to that Holmes story where he sacrificed himself to defeat Moriarty, his nemesis, once and for all. Also, coincidentally, next episode in the marathon happens to be the final appearance of William Hartnell before his death a few years later.
Dr Zhivago
Member
GameplayWhore said:
Don't diss the Sea Devils.
GameplayWhore
Member
Dr Zhivago said:
That image will haunt me forever.
Enjoyed The Dalek Invasion of Earth. I feel like it contains the first badass Doctor moment of the serials so far, when the Dalek is closing in on the Doctor and he's just looking down on him like "yeah I'm a pimp do somethin'." :lol
EDIT: Also, no more links to where you can find the episodes?
EDIT: Also, no more links to where you can find the episodes?
Htown said:Enjoyed The Dalek Invasion of Earth. I feel like it contains the first badass Doctor moment of the serials so far, when the Dalek is closing in on the Doctor and he's just looking down on him like "yeah I'm a pimp do somethin'." :lol
EDIT: Also, no more links to where you can find the episodes?
Not enough people were posting so i didn't bother
they can be found easy enough though!- Status