Anti-Social Media 9000

scifi, fantasy, vintage media, comic books, video games, animation, a weeb since before you were born

[davros42]

Rewatching Classic Doctor Who, some episodes I haven't seen in years, some of the animated reconstructions I haven't seen at all.

The Romans AKA Serial M

David Whitaker, Doctor Who's first script editor (vaguely equivalent to the modern 'show runner' in some respects but also not really in others), was sick of historicals. And to be fair, Marco Polo and The Reign of Terror (and the Tribe of Gum) were, despite their lavish production value, the weakest stories of Season 1. In my opinion, anyway. Verity Lambert convinced him and writer Dennis Spooner to take a more light hearted tone with this one and, with some influence from Carry On Cleo (and maybe a nod toward sword-and-sandal epics like Spartacus), turned in a lovely, breezy pastiche of Roman times. It gets called a 'comedy' fairly often but there's really only a few heavily slapstick moments in between the human trafficking, murder, assassination plots, arson, and sexual harassment. Ok, the sexual harassment is also a slapstick 'comedy' moment. It was the 60's.

To recap: The TARDIS lands and promptly falls off a cliff.

One month later, the TARDIS crew is squatting in a Roman villa while the owner is off campaigning in Gaul. Ian and Barbara are enjoying lounging around post-coitally, blissed out on wine, flirting constantly. Vicki, however, is restless and wants to see history. The Doctor departs with her to visit Rome, leaving Barbara to mommy domme Ian into a new hairstyle.

The Doctor and Vicki discover the corpse of a lyre player and The Doctor steals his identity and gets swept off to court of Nero, as one does. Ian and Barbara suffer a home invasion, during which Barbara smashes a vase over Ian's head and gets them both trafficked into slavery. Ian gets sent a galley crew and Barbara gets sold into Nero's court. Vicki and The Doctor just miss seeing Barbara get sold into slavery as they arrive in Rome, setting up the most amusing running gag of the serial. Ian gets shipwrecked and escapes. The Doctor, meanwhile, has to keep flattering Nero to keep from having to admit that he can't actually play the lyre. It becomes clear that the person that The Doctor is impersonating has some kind of mysterious task or mission. Nero, of course, has taken a shine to Barbara (who wouldn't?) and has decided to chase her around the palace like fucking Benny Hill. Vicki befriends the court poisoner and accidentally saves Barbara from poisoning by Nero's jealous wife by almost poisoning Nero instead. The Doctor gives her the standard lecture about changing history and then saves Nero's life. The poisoner takes the fall for Barbara's survival. The Doctor pretends to play music that only the most refined can hear (an idea he once loaned to Hans Christian Anderson) to once again get out of playing the lyre. However, Nero is preparing to kill him out of jealousy.

But first, sports. Ian and his friend have gotten themselves recaptured and sent to gladiator school. And they have been chosen to fight to the death in front of Nero. And Barbara, but that's not important right now. Ian loses but his friend doesn't kill him and attacks Nero instead. They escape. But Nero sets a trap for Ian with Barbara as bait. The Doctor (and Vicki) are informed that Nero plans to kill The Doctor but when The Doctor accidentally sets Nero's schematics for a new Rome on fire... well... Inspiration strikes. Nero goes off to burn down Rome and in the chaos Ian and Barbara reunite and escape. Vicki tells The Doctor off for changing history by inspiring the Fire of Rome.. but that wasn't really a change if it always happened anyway? Ian and Barbara return to the villa, get changed, and pass out. The Doctor and Vicki return and The Doctor chastises them for idleness and won't hear a word of explanation as he decides it is time to depart.

The story hits the gas pedal and doesn't let up. The two parallel plots are well structured and well paced. If they slowed down at all, the whole thing would fall apart under it's own weight. All the essential Roman elements are present.. weird food, galley slaves, statues, saunas, centurions, mad emperors, gladiators. The history is.. ok? By AD 64 (when the story was set) Nero was known for his strange behavior, being susceptible to flattery, and violent temperament. His wife Poppaea Sabina was apparently a bit of schemer, and may have been the sort to poison a slave girl. Anyway, no one really knows how or why the Fire of Rome started. Most of the history we have of Nero was written by people who may have been biased. Even more biased than most historians, I mean. Anyway, it's a fun little Cliff Notes version of history that works a lot better than the longer, more slowly paced dramatic historicals that preceded it. No coincidence that the shorter, more action oriented The Aztecs is easily the best historical so far, with The Romans close behind.

Next up: The Web Planet (but not the Web of Fear)

[foone]

How did you get to be a pope, and why would you declare yourself to be a pope when you could declare yourself an antipope?

You get it for free when you become a discordian, and the cool thing about being a pope is that if the Vatican doesn't agree, you're automatically an antipope.

[davros42]

You get a fancy card and everything.

Would have been nice if it were gender neutral though.

[davros42]

Rewatching Classic Doctor Who, some episodes I haven't seen in years, some of the animated reconstructions I haven't seen at all.

The Rescue AKA Serial L

The second production block of episodes starts with a tight little two-parter. We get a new companion, the first that we've seen that The Doctor takes on by choice (presumably Susan came by choice as well, but we never actually see that). The TARDIS gets it's distinctive 'VWORP' sound effect for the first time. Barbara gets yeeted off a cliff and then does a pet murder. Ian pronounces the villain's name as "Cocky lickin'" for some reason. It's a very full serial.

The episode starts with a long pan over some decent modelwork of a crashed spaceship. We get an introduction to Vicki: clever and excitable. She claims the rescue ship has landed but her bedridden companion Bennett claims that can't possibly be true. So what is it? The TARDIS has landed in a cave system nearby with the Doctor asleep at the wheel. In the process of preparing to disembark, The Doctor rather sweetly calls out for Susan before remembering she's left. I do like callbacks to old companions. Ian and Barbara explore while the Doctor takes a rock sample back to the TARDIS. They think he may be a bit depressed following Susan's departure. The Doctor's analysis of the rock sample, indicates they have arrived on the planet Dido, somewhere he's been before. Ian and Barbara come to a cliff from which they can see the crashed rocket but are interrupted by a strange creature who interrogates them. He sends Ian back for the Doctor, then pushes Barbara off a cliff. He then causes a cave-in to trap Ian and the Doctor.

Barbara survives, of course, and is hidden by Vicki. Vicki explains that the ship crash landed the crew were betrayed by the people of the planet and only Vicki and Bennett remain, held captive by a man named Koquillion. Ian and the Doctor move through the cave system, setting off some booby traps while they're at it. Back at the ship, Vicki tells Bennett that Barbara survived and he promptly faints. Vicki steps out, just in time to be menaced by a creature. So anyway, Barbara starts blasting and in a dangerously American moment kills Vicki's pet Sandy. Ian and the Doctor arrive. Vicki is understandably upset, but everyone sides with Barbara anyway. She's clearly the most dangerous member of the team.

The Doctor searched Bennett's room finding it empty.. and also finding a secret trap door. Ian and Barbara explain to Vicki that they are time travelers from 1963. Much to Barbara's chagrin, Vicki points out that this means they are over 500 years old. The trap door leads to a temple, full of ceremonial robes and gear... Koquillion appears to confront the Doctor who tells him that is blasphemy to wear the holy garb and he should remove it. Koquillion does so... revealing Bennett. Bennett murdered the crew of the ship and the people of Dido (apparently there's only one settlement on this planet? That's not important right now.) to cover up a murder he did before the crash. It's a nice little twist. Bennett attacks the Doctor, strangling him but two people of Dido appear (apparently, they were not all killed) and frighten Bennett until he falls off a cliff to his death.

The Doctor awakens on the TARDIS with Ian and Barbara. The Doctor goes to Vicki and asks her to come along. Ian and Barbara agree she should but it is up to Vicki who decides to come along. The TARDIS dematerializes...

...leaving the two people of Dido to smash up the radio system in the crashed rocket, making sure that rescue ship will never arrive.

The TARDIS rematerializes... and promptly falls off a cliff, a literal cliffhanger. And a good one. Welcome to the team, Vicki.

Two very fast paced episodes with a nice twist that probably couldn't have been sustained over more than two episodes. Koquillion's costume looks good, the model work is good. It's a nice little story, even if two random people of Dido turning up at the end to resolve everything is a bit anti-climactic. It is a sort of karmic justice, so it works. Barely. Honestly, if they hadn't smashed the radio at the end, it could have been up to the audience whether they were real or figments of Bennett's imagination or ghosts or something and the additional ambiguity would have made for a stronger ending. Audiences at the time enjoyed the story too, the second part of The Rescue was the first episode of Doctor Who to crack the top 10 most watched program(me)s of the week, increasing ratings from The Dalek Invasion of Earth

Next Up: The Romans. Now we're playing with fire.

[davros42]

Rewatching Classic Doctor Who, some episodes I haven't seen in years, some of the animated reconstructions I haven't seen at all.

The Dalek Invasion of Earth AKA Daleks Threaten Earth AKA The Invaders AKA The Daleks (II) AKA The Return of the Daleks AKA The Daleks in Europe AKA Serial K

In February, 1964 Dalekmania hit Britain. The Daleks was immediately popular, spiking ratings and drawing big attention to this new show, Doctor Who. The donation of two of the original Dalek props to a children's charity drew attention and interest in the Daleks remained high. In March a sequel story was commissioned from Terry Nation for the second season, based on the strength of both The Daleks and The Keys of Marinus.

And what a sequel it was! It made use of extensive location shoots, the sight of Daleks chasing the TARDIS crew around London were instantly iconic. It also features the first quarry shoot for the show and probably one of the few times a quarry appears as an actual Earth quarry in Doctor Who history. The original 4 Dalek models were joined by 2 new ones, to flesh out the ranks of the invading army, which led to some impressively complex shoots in and around the Dalek saucer. During one of these complex shoots, William Hartnell was injured and had to sit out for an episode. The less said about the slyther, however, the better. And despite the best efforts of the crew to step up their games, some of the sets feature some obvious backdrops.

The story opens with an fantastic hook, a man with some kind of strange apparatus on his head, lurches about, tearing the mechanical apparatus off his head, and throws himself into the river. The TARDIS arrives and everyone is excited to have apparently returned to Earth. They very quickly realize, however, something is amiss. Susan injures herself and the TARDIS is blocked by rubble, the party separates once again displaying absolutely no degree of genre savvy. Barbara and Susan are discovered and "rescued" by some human resistance fighters. The Doctor and Ian come face-to-face with the unexpected... a Dalek, rising from the Thames. It's quite a cliffhanger!

It turns out that the Daleks have bombarded Earth with meteorites, infected them with a plague, and then invaded. Some of the survivors were enslaved, others were turned into Robomen: cyborg servants of the Daleks who eventually go mad and kill themselves. The Doctor immediately starts sassing the Daleks, who do not realize they have made a grave mistake in invading the Doctor's favorite planet. The Daleks don't recognize the Doctor (or Ian). The Doctor assumes that their previous adventure with the Daleks is "millions" of years in the future, which seems like the Doctor making stuff up again. The Daleks are running a mining operation for reasons unknown and the Doctor and Ian are taken aboard a Dalek saucer and come face to face with the Black Dalek, first seen in the Dalek comics. Of course, he's not entirely black yet, he needs another episode or two to finish his paint job.

The human resistance attacks. The Doctor escapes, Ian stays behind, Barbara is hurt and separated from Susan who escapes with David, a member of the resistance. Upon recovery Barbara goes off with Jenny, another member of the resistance, to find bomb making materials and killing a Dalek by running it over with a truck. Amongst Barbara's many talents, she apparently has her CDL (or whatever the UK equivalent is). One wheelchair bound member of the resistance shows some limited ability to move without his mobility device, which, to judge from recent critique, some people think is the most unbelievable thing to ever happen in Doctor Who. The Doctor meets up with Susan and David, third wheel on their extended date. Ian and another escapee make their way toward the Dalek's mining operation, meeting Mr. Rumbold from Are You Being Served? along the way (Nicholas Smith in his first speaking role).

Barbara and Jenny get sold out to the Daleks by two old women and are taken to the mine. After a series of adventures and romantic moments: The Doctor, Susan, and David also arrive at the mine. It turns out the Daleks are going to mine out the core of the Earth replace it with an engine so that they can pilot the planet as they choose, like some kind of Death Star. Which is either the dumbest thing I've ever heard or the most brilliant, I'm not sure. The Daleks are in the process of dropping a bomb down into the Earth's core when The Doctor and Barbara force the Robomen to turn on the Daleks through the power of impressions and everyone escapes, except the Daleks who are caught in the explosion. The Earth's core survives intact, but England gets a new active volcano.

The TARDIS is freed from debris and while Susan is busy debating leaving David, the Doctor makes her mind up for her, leaving her behind (with only one shoe?) to help rebuild the Earth, becoming the first companion to leave. Or be left anyway. Jenny was originally meant to become the new companion at this point but there were issues behind the scenes that prevented the character from being more than a one-shot. Personally I rather like Jenny, she would have made a much more interesting companion than Vicki.

It's a wonderful serial, using it's six episodes to the fullest and throwing almost everything into the mix to craft an impressive story, even alligators in the sewers. It feels more like Doctor Who than anything we've seen thus far. The Doctor taking a keen interest in upsetting the Daleks' plans and the crew firmly in the protagonist roles. William Hartnell gets at least three all-time classic lines including the famous speech at the end. It is a little convoluted, maybe, but almost everything is in service to the plot. There actually is a fair amount of effort put in to justifying David and Susan's relationship, more so than I remembered. They're actually kind of cute together? While it establishes the terrible "marrying off the companion to a guy she just met" standard exit, it is handled better here than in most other stories. Despite some cheap set backdrops (and the horrible slyther costume), there's some great camerawork and much more complex staging and scenes than we've seen previously. The Dalek Invasion of Earth spiked the Daleks' popularity even further leading to an avalanche of merchandising, comics, live appearances, and two feature films. And another sequel story, cementing the Daleks as the Doctor's only recurring nemesis in these early days. It also assured the popularity of the show, scoring high ratings.

Next up, The Rescue. The Doctor gets a new "granddaughter". For the first time, but not the last time.

[davros42]

where are you watching classic who? i watched as much as i could find about 10 years ago when i first got into doctor who but it is a lot more difficult to find now than the revival series

i’ve noticed a lot more throw backs to classic who that i can remember lately and i want to remind myself of the plot lines - also enjoying your reviews!

Hello!

I watch as much as possible using my own DVDs.

For things like the fanmade reconstructions of missing episodes: they're floating around the Internet. I think someone put them all up on archive.org. They're of dubious legality but, as far as I know, no one at the BBC has ever objected to their existence.

If you're in the US, classic Who is free to stream on Tubi (there's an app for that too). They have individual seasons and also a livestream loop (Deadly Assassin is playing at the moment!). It's also on Pluto TV but in a channel format where they just show random episodes on a loop with ad breaks. Everything but An Unearthly Child is up on BBC iPlayer now (I think) so if you're in the UK that's a good option. There's Britbox too for the US, UK, and Canada but that requires a subscription (as far as I know). If you're not in the US, UK, or Canada, you're out of luck for the moment (or need a good VPN).

There are other, more legally dubious options if you've the bandwidth and hard drive space, of course :-)

I'm glad you like the reviews! I found myself missing the big Doctor Who Twitch steams from years ago and decided to do a rewatch and post my thoughts here.

[davros42]

When old comics age extremely well.

[davros42]

We have an update on the situation.

[davros42]

Rewatching Classic Doctor Who, some episodes I haven't seen in years, some of the animated reconstructions I haven't seen at all.

Planet of Giants AKA Minuscule Story AKA The Minuscules AKA Serial I

Season 2 kicks off with a bit of a strange one. It feels very much like a prototype Third Doctor story. The first story to take place in the 'modern day' (and in the UK for that matter) since the first one. Apart from the hook/subplot of the TARDIS crew being shrunk, it has no particular SciFi trappings which, from the vantage point of the 21st century, makes it feel like a historical story. The strong influence from Rachel Carson's Silent Spring doesn't hurt either. Doctor Who getting in on the 'insecticide killing pollinators' thing fifty years early.

The TARDIS doors open midflight (something to do with 'space pressure' but that's not important right now) but Ian and Barbara brute force them closed again. The Fault Locator makes it's last (televised) appearance. And the TARDIS lands safely. Or appears to. All the sensors indicate safety but the scanner screen explodes as if trying to show something too big for the screen. That's not how television works, but ok. It turns out that the doors opening allowed the space pressure to shrink the occupants of the TARDIS (and the outer shell of the TARDIS, but don't think about that too hard) after spotting some dead things, the crew is menaced by a cat, Ian gets captured via matchbox (which is a nice change of pace from how he normally gets captured), and a scientist gets murdered. You see, he's come to reject the application for a phenomenally powerful insecticide having realized the ecological dangers.. so the financial backer of the insecticide straight up shoots him dead in the front yard. It is a powerfully American moment. Oh and Barbara accidentally doses herself with the insecticide and doesn't tell anyone because reasons. Eventually the crew get into the house and try to get involved, messing with the phone, and ultimately blowing up a spray can to attract attention. It works, the switchboard operator (kids, ask your great-grandparents what a switchboard was) is conveniently married to a cop and sends him 'round just in time to catch the baddies. The crew returns to the TARDIS, and returns to full size, saving Barbara. Somewhere along the way the viewer monitor in the TARDIS was repaired so our last shot is a scrambled signal, where could the TARDIS be headed next?

And before anyone gets the wrong idea from my snarky synopsis, I really like this one. Short and sweet. A little silly at times if you think too hard about it but a good story that doesn't get too bogged down in unnecessary explanations and detail. It fits the tone and temp of a lot of the modern era in that way. It has two parallel stories that converge in a satisfying way. Originally meant to be four episodes and cut down to three, it still moves well, not a lot seems to be left out. The oversized props are great fun and there's some decent effects. The production is wise enough not to linger on them, letting most of the special effects exist in the audience's imagination.

Up next - an epic, this one changes everything: The Dalek Invasion of Earth

[froggi1337]

Gonna vent about Gundam Wing here because FUCK

I know people like this show, and I can see the appeal in the angst between the pilots and the cool robot fights (when they actually happen and aren't just one-sided ass-beatings) and all that jazz. And i just want to say, I'm not gonna stop you from enjoying Gundam Wing. Hell, maybe someone can spell this show out for me and help me get it.

In the meantime, with that out of the way, I want to talk about my feelings regarding Gundam Wing as somebody actively watching through it.

I'm writing this review of Mobile Suit Gundam Wing in the middle of episode 34 (almost 10 episodes away from the end of the show), and I'm left questioning what the point of all this even was. Gundam Wing's upfront pitch was simple & sweet: Heero Yuy & other Gundam pilots go down to Earth and it's pretty straightforward: smash shit up for the larger United Earth Sphere Alliance folks, and is OZ & Zechs were there and sometimes Trieze would show up and say some shit and feel like a solid fit for a complex main villain. Then the Gundam pilots have to go back to Earth and now everyone is kind of meandering about. God, and then a few of them reunite under the female lead Relena's flag. But that kind of fizzles out when lo'-and-behold Heero Yuy runs off in a Gundam yet again while Quatre stands by? Who even is the main villain anymore? Because Trezie said his fight was "over" like his ass gets to say that when his soldiers are out there still clawing for relevancy now that a faceless main villain has invaded the story. It is impossible to feel any sort of way about anyone, nobody important ever actually dies and, again, the role of the antagonist has shifted between two or three different old guys. They really only did one pilot's backstory adequetly. I don't care about any of these people and at this point I'm just watching this to figure if the Gundam Wing Zero & Epyon doing weird mental stuff is going to go anywhere. But if that element is anything like the conflict, it's fizzle out right before it does anything worth discussing.

I don't understand any of it, none of these little bastard Gundam pilots can stick together and it totally underminds the squad dynamic set up from the start. Half of them don't even do anything for most of the series. It leads me back around to my first question, what was the point of this show? Was ALL of this really slapped together to sell toys? (I mean, it was then it worked. I want a model kit of the Mobile Dolls and I own kits the 5 Gundams + Deathscythe Hell) Who is even the brainchild behind Gundam Wing? Who is to blame for this whole thing to begin with? Give me a name, if there even is one.

[davros42]

The point was yaoi.

[davros42]

BBC announces animated version of Celestial Toymaker

Not gonna lie gang, Skibidi Toilet has higher production values than this. Looks like a 20 year old machinima (derogatory).

It looks better in motion, but not by much. I do give them full credit for going all in on surreal... pity they spent all the Disney money on that new TARDIS set. Personally, I think there's issues doing something like this if you're actively rejecting and replacing the original design/tone/style of the show but.. that's probably strictly a minority opinion.

[davros42]

Rewatching Classic Doctor Who, some episodes I haven't seen in years, some of the animated reconstructions I haven't seen at all.

The Reign of Terror AKA Serial H

The last serial of Series 1, closing it out with another historical.

Director Henric Hirsch gives it all a fine style, even if it did drive him to a breakdown that led him to miss episode 3. There's a LOT of dialogue in this one and relatively little action after the first episode. Ian cons the Doctor into going out for a drink to celebrate returning to Earth and hijinks ensue. The Doctor did get them back to Earth but... it's the French Revolution. They crew breaks into a farmhouse to find out it's a safehouse for royalists, they get caught and arrested, the royalists get shot and the Doctor gets left in a burning building, roll credits over the rising flames.

Sadly, the serial doesn't get any better than that. Despite Barbara going full Shawshank Redemption to try and break out of the Concergerie, The Doctor tricking a simple minded road crew boss and then masquerading as a revolutionary official, and special guest appearances from Robespierre and Napoleon.. Not a lot happens. The direction is solid, the writing is fine, we get the first use of location shooting (and it's not even a quarry!) as well as some good uses of illustrations, maps, and even stock footage to spice up the studio shot footage. The problem is there's no real antagonist (Robespierre, nominally, is the 'main bad guy' I guess) and even if there was, the show's then-current internal logic dictates that history cannot be changed (in historical themed shows only!) which leaves the crew as witnesses to history. They get in scrapes and escape over and over but nothing really comes of it. The actual plot is lifeless and lacking much in actual stakes. Much like the resolution to Marco Polo, Robespierre gets overthrown without much input or assistance from the TARDIS crew. Who then leave disappointed they couldn't have gotten a pre-emptive shot in at Napoleon. The final shot of William Hartnell narrating over a starfield and then the credits rolling is rather lovely way to close out series 1 though. "Our destiny is in the stars... let's go and search for it..."

The history's not great either and the show is decidedly sympathetic to the royalists, taking some slight inspiration from The Scarlet Pimpernel with the subplot of English undercover spies working against Robespierre. There were many, many issues with the revolutionaries but, good grief, under no circumstances do you have to hand it to divine monarchy.

Oh, and not a critique of the original story but the animated reconstructions are quite bad. The 3D CG is cheap, almost every shot is a close up of a face running a basic loop of motion. There are some wider shots which are mostly rotoscoped from existing footage. But for all the pains the existing episodes take to use positioning, editing, and body language to spice up long stretches of dialogue.. all of that it lost in the reconstructions. I would have much rather had the Sealab 2021/Frisky Dingo/Archer style animation of other reconstructions or even a photo reconstruction. The audio doesn't seem to have been mixed/balanced to match the existing episodes either. Too bad the Turks blew up the only known surviving copies of those episodes.

Next time, another odd entry for early Doctor Who... Planet of Giants.

[davros42]

Now Playing: Doctor Who (2005?) S?? E?? - Wild Blue Yonder

[davros42]

Rewatching Classic Doctor Who, some episodes I haven't seen in years, some of the animated reconstructions I haven't seen at all.

The Sensorites AKA Mind Control AKA Serial G

I enjoy this one a lot. It is kind of weird and occasionally cheap (which makes it prototypical Doctor Who, let's be honest) but the script from Peter R. Newman (his only contribution to the canon) puts in a lot of work, trying to build out the Sensorite psychology/sociology.. or at least as much as you can in about two and a half hours.

It makes for a surprisingly dense story, crammed with world building, including the first description of what would eventually be identified as Gallifrey.

The TARDIS lands on a ship crewed by dead people. Ok, not dead, just sleeping but also in cardiac arrest. But warm. But dead. Until they aren't. Look, it's a hook, ok? Just don't overthink it. It is revealed this is Earth's future (the first story to explicitly take place in the future, relative to 1964 at least) so the Doctor tries to leave before Ian and Barbara hear some spoilers. But the TARDIS has been sabotaged to prevent them from making this a one episode long storyline.

The Sensorites have been psychically knocking out the ship's crew to keep them from escaping and telling Earth about the Sense-Sphere's rich molybdenum deposits. Molybdenum (atomic number 42) is used to alloy steel, as a fertilizer, as a catalyst, as a lubricant, and to make orange pigment. So, of course, Earth wants to do a colonialism. Or at least, that is Earth's reputation to the Sensorites.

Sorry, the Earthlings are the bad guys in this one.

Barbara and Susan meet a crazy man. Instead of just going to sleep, the Sensorites' psychic attacks have made him crazy. They get locked in a room, hijinks ensue. A Sensorite plays peeping tom (above). Everyone except Barbara goes down to the Sense-Sphere because Jacqueline Hill needs a break after carrying the show for this long. The Sensorites are having a plague and enlist the Doctor to help. Just in time as Ian catches the plague. Which turns out to be Earth survivors poisoning the water supply to kill the Sensorites who they believe they are at war with. The Doctor actually chooses to remain and help for once: some character growth! This growth is immediately reverted at the end of the episode when after some mild criticism about his piloting ability, The Doctor declares he's dumping Ian and Barbara wherever they land next. A man who never would... get his companions home safely.

There's also a strong theme of prejudice. The Sensorites seem extremely aggressive when we first meet them, through descriptions from the Earth ship's crew but in reality are as varied in attitude as humans. The City Administrator hates humans (which.. they're poisoning the Sensorites and are probably going to do a colonialism, so.. fair) and exploits the old "they all look alike to me" to kill the Second Elder, steal his clothes, and impersonate him to the TARDIS crew. The Sensorites have terrible vision so they can only tell each other apart by their clothes at range. The Sensorites mistake Susan for a "human" because, again, they all look alike to them, so she has to set them straight: she's not from Earth. Both sides of the story spend a fair amount of time misunderstanding and miscommunicating before trust can be secured. The real antagonist of the story is prejudice. Series 1 and we're woke as Hell, baby. Get used to it.

Like I said, there's a lot going on here. It's a lot of fun: political machinations, back and forths, traumatized survivors, attempted colonial genocide. The Sensorites are the best fleshed out alien race we've seen so far. It's a shame that Peter R. Newman suffered from crippling writer's block after this, his last work, he has a real talent for world building. "It all started out as a mild curiosity in the junkyard and now it's turned out to be quite a great spirit of adventure." is one of the all time great Doctor Who lines. And of course his brief description of Susan's "home planet" echoes down through the ages as the first mention of Gallifrey, put some respect on the gentleman's name. Daphne Dare and Jill Summers go to town on the Sensorites' costuming, but sadly it ends up looking kind of cheap. Digital restoration giving the story a visual clarity that would have been hard to attain on original broadcast probably not helping here. I think the masks have a certain charm though, full marks for effort at least. The set design is quite good too, even if it starts to become clear that there really is just one, tiny, aqueduct set.

Next up: Reign of Terror, the end of Series 1. Will the Doctor make good on his promise to dump Ian and Barbara? (no, he won't *insert "London 1965!" meme here*)

[davros42]

Now Playing - Doctor Who (2005) S??E?? The Star Beast

[davros42]

Happy 60th Anniversary to the best, worst, most exhilarating, most frustrating, most inspiring, cheesiest, hammiest, silliest, scariest, most serious SciFi show of them all.

I love it to death (even when it drives me up a wall) and wouldn't have it any other way. My first true fandom and it led me onto the Internet from CompuServe, to rec.arts.drwho, to webrings, to social media.

(image is official promotional art from the BBC)

[davros42]

Rewatching Classic Doctor Who, some episodes I haven't seen in years, some of the animated reconstructions I haven't seen at all.

And some episodes I haven't seen since last week.

The Daleks (now in glorious Dalekolour™)

I'll warn you up front, I'm generally not a fan of colorizations/special editions/re-edits so expect a bit of a grumpy post. But I'll try to be fair, I promise.

The episode starts with some extremely dodgy animation instead of the original linking material. It also starts with the intro in color, switches to black and white (apart from the credits which are in color) and then fades in the color and... why? An unnecessary and distracting flourish. The Wizard of Oz did this better nearly 90 years ago.

The colorization itself is quite good, I assume they were working off production documents (the Daleks are in their original colors, of course) but regardless the whole palette is a good match for SciFi film and TV of the era, as opposed to something more muted, moody, or modern. Compare and contrast with Forbidden Planet (1956), Queen of Outer Space (1958), or Star Trek (1966). The upconversion to HD video (and 50FPS?) went as well as it could, some parts of the episode are soft focus with lots of film grain but so was the original.

The music and sound design however is terribly distracting. Not an improvement on the original in any way, it's wildly out of place both stylistically and technically, at points directly in competition with the dialogue. Also, the Daleks received extensive re-writes and in some cases were re-voiced by Nick Briggs which is.. odd. I do have to admit enjoying the inclusion of the cloister bell in the initial fluid link sabotage scene, however, even if was a retcon.

Some of the re-editing was ok, some was intrusive. Constant cutaways to b-roll as if you were likely to forget something that happened 5 to 10 minutes earlier (or just might get bored watching a take longer than a minute) were a major distraction. Some of the digital additions, for instance adding footage to the Daleks' screens, worked well. Others, like William Hartnell "dodging" a Dalek beam that hadn't been there 60 years ago were forced. The digitally animated TARDIS dematerialization is actually worse than the original analog video mix effect. The pace is extremely quick now, much of the tension and suspense of the original story is lost along with the "Dals" origin of the Daleks, for better or for worse. But all in all, it's all right I suppose. I wonder if I would have been easier on it if I hadn't just watched the original.

The "And then the story continues.. for 60 years" teaser was nicely done. A great mix of moments from the First Doctor's stories including some tidbits from missing or rarely seen stories. Hat's off to whoever got the clip of the Beatles from The Chase in there.

Next up: The Sensorites, for real this time.

[davros42]

Happy "Doctor Manhattan gets his junk out at work" Day to all who celebrate.

[davros42]

Happy "Max Headroom Incident" Day to all who celebrate.

On November 22, 1987 television signals in Chicago were interrupted twice by an unknown person in a Max Headroom mask.

(Kids, ask your grandparents about Max Headroom)

The first time, WGN Channel 9's 9 PM news was interrupted for about 17 seconds before WGN's engineers got control of their signal back.

The second time, it was WTTW Channel 11's turn. The PBS station's airing of the classic Doctor Who episode The Horror of Fang Rock was interrupted with the clip above.

Those responsible were never caught and has since become a legendary moment in piracy/hacking.