Dr Who News (5)
This topic contains 297 replies, has 25 voices, and was last updated by blenkinsopthebrave 1 month, 2 weeks ago.
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4 April 2024 at 05:05 #75490
@winston the “Victorian Library” was my favourite Tardis interior. I do like this one but I certainly wouldn’t want to live in it or record in it. It would be very echoey. A messy house is great for recording. (I have an excuse..) The whiteness does have a kind of 70 futuristic look and the colours improve it a lot. I would like to see a few bookcases though and I do miss the old hatstand.
Cheers
Janette
4 April 2024 at 09:49 #75491@dentarthurdent @janetteb @winston @nerys
I particularly like Bill Pott’s comment: ‘it’s a kitchen!’ shortly after she observed ‘you’ve had a knock-through!’
The kitchen was a reoccurring Moffat joke… remember Clara cooking the turkey? Also referenced by RTD with the coffee incident.
I also liked the actual library from Journey to the Heart of the Tardis. The most ridiculous Tardis interior has to be from The Invasion of Time, especially when Sonataran falling over a lounger by the pool.
4 April 2024 at 12:55 #75492@nerys Yes, the Doctor’s companion looks okay from the teaser. Can’t really tell until we see her in an episode. However, RTD is quite good a writing companions, so hopefully she’ll be good. I’m only up the The Power of the Doctor on DVD’s, I should see if my public library has later ones.
@winston @janetteb Yes Twelve’s victorian library look is my favourite too. But I don’t really see it as Victorian, the staircases and gallery give it a roomy, comfortable, timeless quality. Okay, maybe reminiscent of some of the better Victorian architecture, sans the cast-iron filigrees.
The new control room looks a bit too bare for my liking. (Though Nine’s coral/organic look was too cluttered, sorry Winston 🙂 I guess Twelve’s was the happy medium.@ps1l0v3y0u Yes I loved the actual library from Journey to the Heart of the Tardis, I would have liked to see more of that.
I’m about to embark on Thirteen (a few selected episodes only). I said that a week ago and haven’t got to it yet. It comes to mind only because that control room makes me cringe. I think it looks like some weird alien sex toy for some bizarre giant alien species. 🙂
5 April 2024 at 04:52 #75493@nerys @dentarthurdent @ps1l0v3y0u
The new Tardis looks great but I wouldn’t want to clean it! 😉
I could happily live in the Tardis library without the scary burnt guys of course.
Stay safe
5 April 2024 at 04:56 #75494How does the Tardis stay clean? If it is self cleaning I want that technology. If it is a cleaner then they are not payed enough.
5 April 2024 at 09:30 #75495In Twice Upon a Time, the first doctor remarks that 12’s could do with a good dusting. He laments that Polly’s not there to do it. 12 is embarrassed but not about the dust.
I don’t think The Invasion of Time Tardis had seen a cleaner since 1960
5 April 2024 at 12:04 #75496@ps1l0v3y0u From memory, I think Twelve rather hastily cut in before Bill could, err, bring One up to date with the 21st century…
Actually, checking the transcript, I was wrong, that was some time before Bill appeared. But there were several moments where I thought Bill was going to read the riot act to One. Evidently One’s travels had omitted to include visiting Earth in the late 20th century.
5 April 2024 at 17:46 #75497Twice Upon a Time was a bit seventies sitcom. In a good way.
’sunglasses indoors?’
’What’s browser history?’
’Has someone been drinking this?’
’If I hear any more language like that young lady…’ that must be what you were thinking of. Some light relief after the horror of ‘The World Enough’ and ‘Doctor Falls’.
I suppose we must grateful that 4 never hosted a crowded Tardis with the cast of ‘The Good Life.’
6 April 2024 at 04:56 #75498@ps1l0v3y0u That ‘browser history’ has been a running joke ever since The Eleventh Hour, when the Doc advised the helpful Jeff to delete his Internet history. I have to say, I know the feeling.
Twice Upon a Time was a big lightening-up from The Doctor Falls. In fact, as the Doctor said, “It isn’t an evil plan. I don’t know what to do when it isn’t an evil plan.” And the Doctor’s sole achievement was in rescuing the Brigadier and the unknown Toby Whithouse German from their fatal predicament. But I think that was just as well, trying to top The Doctor Falls would have been difficult and possibly too grim for a Christmas special. Anyway, I class it as a ‘B’ episode – good but not quite A-list. Which is okay.
13 April 2024 at 20:58 #75512It seems that Ruby is to be joined by another companion in 2025
Doctor Who confirms Varada Sethu casting with first look at season 15 TARDIS trio | Radio Times
Query: does the fact that the Jinkx Monsoon character is named Maestro have significance – or is it just a piece of misdirection?
Meanwhile, not so long now until May 11th
14 April 2024 at 22:43 #75513Good point about Jinkx Monsoon’s character being named Maestro.
Hmmm. I would have thought that the Master requires someone who can communicate real threat. The little I have seen of Jinkx Monsoon seems to evoke silly rather than sinister.
But who knows.
15 April 2024 at 08:37 #75514@mudlark thanks for sharing that. Always excited about any scrap of information. I don’t recall just who Sethu’s character was in Andor. All these Star Wars spin offs tend to blur into each other though Andor was the stand out of the pack.
Cheers
Janette.
27 April 2024 at 17:27 #75544It seems that RTD has answered the question of @ Maestro/Master connection:
https://ca.news.yahoo.com/doctor-boss-addresses-master-return-084200272.html
And yet, in spite of what RTD says, we know that somebody picked up the Toymaker’s gold tooth.
27 April 2024 at 17:53 #7554518 July 2024 at 00:53 #76773Some not exactly positive news here:
18 July 2024 at 03:38 #76774@whohar maybe flying low in the Disney radar is a good thing, just as long as they don’t drop it altogether. They probably view it as a minor production and that means less high end interference.
cheers
Janette
18 July 2024 at 05:51 #76775Maybe. I expect that – if Disney do end their involvement – then the show would revert back to the BBC. This might actually be a good thing. I don’t know what that would mean for the current creative team.
There always seems to be a level of glee any time DW ratings drop. I don’t know what would make the BBC decide to put the show on hiatus – it’s probably not just ratings. It may be related to merchandise sales, or possibly a creative decision. The very fact these discussions are apparently being had is not positive though.
Gatwa’s involvement after the next season also appears in doubt.
18 July 2024 at 13:11 #76777@whohar I was hoping that Gatwa would do at least three seasons. I guess it all comes down to the funding. Relying on streaming brings problems too. There are now so many competing services and most people can only afford one at a time. Most friends cycle between services now. Also unfortunately, those first two episodes will have lost viewers. We had to persuade second son to stick around for the third episode then he stayed for the rest of the series. With so much to choose from a lot of viewers are less forgiving.
Cheers
Janette
19 July 2024 at 04:00 #76778Agreed.
I was close to bailing after the first two eps, but thought I’d at least try the Moffat-penned Boom. It was only ok imo but the trend in episode quality was going up. I also heard somewhere that the finale would have a link to the 3rd Doc, (there wasn’t) which hooked me in and, from there, I decided I may as well watch the lot. 73 yards and TLoRS being, for me, the best of the season.
Gatwa’s unavailability for two of the 8 eps has made it more difficult for me to see him as The Doctor. I generally struggle with the first season of a new Doc anyway but the short season that includes two Doctor very-lite eps has made this more so. Hopefully I’ll get the “now he’s the Doctor” moment next season.
The broadcast landscape has massively changed since the 2005 revival, not only, as you say, with the amount of streaming available but, I’d also argue, that the quality of shows now available is higher. Add to that the constant and very vocal engagement of fans (and not-so-fans) online and that means that any show that is not seen to pass muster gets a harder time.
It seems to me that RTD has chosen to lean into the fan engagement side but has ignored the fact that the quality of writing needs to also improve. It’s a tough gig, and maybe some fresh faces and ideas would help.
19 July 2024 at 17:56 #76779That piece in Deadline was very interesting. When it comes to the long-term members of this forum, one of the things we all exhibit is loyalty to Who, and we always try and see the positive in each new show even when we feel a bit of disappointment . But an American audience with no real commitment to Who (particularly a young audience) can determine whether a show continues to warrant investment. So, yes, a bit concerning.
Even someone like myself, who eagerly looks forward to each new iteration of Who, can sometimes find myself starting to question whether the visions of Chibnall or RTD2 are really all that good. Of course, I’ll keep watching. But Disney is not really interested in whether I watch it or not.
19 July 2024 at 19:58 #76780@blenkinsopthebrave @janetteb @whohar
What pleases the Whoheads is probably not going to please a new audience across the pond, whoever the paymaster is.
Having said that there are hints Boom, 73 Yards, Dot and Bubble, and Rogue had a better reception. Which you would expect. Did that translate into numbers. Is Russ trying to gauge what might work?
Selling Who to the States is obviously tricky. Terry Nation couldn’t sell the Daleks in the late 60’s. I think Moff pitched for it and failed… too high brow. And not serious enough.
So Zchib was given the job: too no-brow… I mean, what was it really? Imagine…
Cute little monster.
Yawn.
I can do another story with it?
No thanks, Chris.
What about all the old faves?
I didn’t think you were going to do that? Try and make sense with it… oh…
So Russ probably doesn’t know. Maybe the noise is to keep the Whoheads happy? Hmmm. Sounded better in his head I expect.
26 July 2024 at 23:08 #7679827 July 2024 at 02:39 #76799@blenkinsopthebrave Wow! It has a great cast and an exciting premise. I will definitely check it out. thanks for the news.
stay safe
27 July 2024 at 08:13 #76801@blenkinsopthebrave just reread your previous post about selling it to the yanks your probably right unless Who was totally changed to being totally Americanised with a big American stars and becomes something akin to say Babylon 5 ( which I was a massive fan of btw) but it wouldn’t be Who. Who has always had a quintessential British feel and to be honest a show that works here doesn’t necessarily work over there. The shows that have transferred well if you can call it that have always been substantially changed when remade for an American audience like the Office , Ghosts etc.
27 July 2024 at 15:42 #76803@devilishrobby Have not been keeping up with discussion but just saw your mention of B.5. Me too. In fact I am currently editing a podcast about B.5. We tried convincing the younger members of the podcast group of its brilliance but I am afraid we failed to impress them.
I agree that there is something quintessentially British about DR Who. The 90s movie failed to capture that which is why it bombed. There is certainly a market in the U.S for that but is it probably never going to be huge hence the changes to tv series that you mention.
Cheers
Janette
27 July 2024 at 20:42 #76805You want to appeal to American audiences? Just blow more stuff up. Idiocracy and the Transformers movies proved that entertaining Americans really isn’t so hard. Just insert more gross-out gags and give the TARDIS its own Matrix-style minigun that the Doctor can use to decimate Dalek hordes. (Also make sure there’s an explosion every five minutes, otherwise the audience’s attention spans will start to tune out.)
27 July 2024 at 21:01 #76806@robertcaligari Sarcastic but a fairly valid generalisation, I fear. And as CGI gets better, there’s even more temptation to just ‘blow stuff up.’ Of course most of Who, most of it’s life, has suffered from pathetic special effects and rubber monsters. The recent ep with Tennant and Donna in the blue spaceship was a magnificent exception to that with restrained but beautiful CGI, done the way it should be.
Actually it was the Moff’s dictum that the audience needed something to grab them every five minutes (NOT necessarily an explosion!) and in that I tend to agree with him. But bigger and bigger explosions ain’t it. Look at any classic suspense movie – or Western – the graveyard scene from The Good the Bad and the Ugly comes to mind – minutes upon minutes of building tension and the ‘action’ when it comes is over in a few seconds.@janetteb I’ve got the American Who movie. I think Paul McGann was okay in that but it lacked, as you say, something of the flavour of ‘real’ British Who. McGann was, IMO, far better in Night of the Doctor, or was that the Moff’s paradoxical-but-meaningful dialogue – or a bit of both?
27 July 2024 at 22:15 #76807@dentarthurdent Sarcastic but a fairly valid generalisation, I fear.
Silly me. I thought sarcasm was par for the course for the internet.
Anyway: “Pathetic special effects and rubber monsters” could be applied to most of classic Who’s run, for sure, but that’s doing bit of a disservice to the ingenious craftsmen who were able to cook up all sorts of sights and sounds on a ludicrously thin budget. For example: Pyramids of Mars might come off stodgy to some American fans today, but the lack of CGI at the time forced the writer to rein himself in, however unknowingly, in favor of a “substance-over-style” approach that still holds up. For crying out loud, all Sutekh really does is sit on his damn butt for most of the story (anonymous hand holding down his pillow notwithstanding), but the quality of Gabriel Woolf’s vocal performance MAKES the character awesome despite of that fact.
Compare Pyramids of Mars to Empire of Death. RTD is abundantly clear that Sutekh isn’t sitting on his butt anymore. Knowing full well a guy with a plastic doggy mask won’t cut it for 21st century audiences, RTD reimagines Sutekh as a gigantic, quadrupedal jackal from the bowels of Hell. More money for the budget means more genuine spectacle rather than creeping around an old British mansion for most of the running time. Everything Sutekh promised he’d deliver in Pyramids of Mars, we get to see in Empire.
And it’s legitimately terrifying. The sequence featuring the Doctor talking with a nameless woman reminded me of Tela Barr’s The Turin Horse in terms of raw, existential horror. That’s exactly what Sutekh’s intergalactic holocaust should be like: Something that frightens on an intellectual as much as a visceral level.
Sadly, it’s all downhill from there, with RTD having to hit the reset button to undo the bad guy’s work, Thanos-style. In addition, the script is crowded, noisy and messy the same way most contemporary entertainment is crowded, noisy and messy. There just isn’t enough time to go into the finer details of Sutekh’s backstory, or Ruby’s, or UNIT’s. (Hence why RTD dismissed Sutekh’s Egyptian background with a head-scratching “cultural appropriation” joke.)
It seems as if there’s a give and take to everything. A lower budget means more effort put into the screenplay. More money means more effort put into the visuals for a prettier experience, and yet one that still rings hollow. I guess it’s impossible to have the best of both worlds.
27 July 2024 at 22:34 #76808@dentarthurdent IMO Paul McGanns acting abilities were woefully underused in Doctor Who the movie as you say he made a much better Doctor in the Night of the Doctor minisode. He actually looked much better in his semi-steampunk outfit instead of the part Pertwee part TomBaker outfit they had him in. Also your probably right having the right frontrunner/script writer helps too.I really think that was the main issue with Whittaker tenure so much more could have been if she was given better scripts instead of the tripe Chibbers forced on her, it’s not like she wasn’t a known quantity as an excellent actress before landing the role.
27 July 2024 at 22:56 #76809Nicola Coughlan with a clip from the up-coming christmas special:
28 July 2024 at 00:37 #76810@devilishrobby Well, I only know Whitaker from Doctor Who, so to me she’s an awfully hammy actress. Everyone who’s seen her in other productions says she’s good, so I’ll just conclude that she was possibly slightly mis-cast (I think a ‘darker’ character would have done better) and certainly mis-directed and had some awful scripts. (“I’m the Doctor, sorting out fair play throughout the Universe”. Aaaaaarrgh! The bathos! Of course she was new to the role and famously hadn’t watched any previous Who’s – blame Chibbers for that – but I’m pretty sure Capaldi or Smith or Tennant would have demanded a rewrite of that line.)
@robertcaligari I haven’t seen either of those episodes which you quote. But I have this theory that a successful production requires a certain basic level of adequacy in each aspect e.g. script, acting, sets, sound, special effects etc. And any one of those that falls too far below the basic level risks distracting the viewer. So long as each of those meets its ‘adequate’ standard, the viewer can basically ignore it and direct their attention to the really good bits of the episode, whatever they may be.
Old Who (and Blakes 7) suffered from effects that were often so bad they did risk ‘dropping the viewer out’ of the story. I think FX generally got ‘good enough’ some time around the start of nuWho.
Of course the earliest oldWho had the advantage of being viewed on tiny black and white TV’s which had the huge advantage of hiding many defects. I do agree that the craftsmen did a remarkable job for the budget they had. Though mention of the budget and black and white TV’s brings to mind Ridley Scott’s ‘Alien’, where he thought the ‘alien ship’ set looked so hokey and unconvincing he shot all the close-ups on ‘helmet cam’ played back through an old monochrome monitor with lots of ‘interference’ – and very convincing it was too.28 July 2024 at 09:50 #76812@robertcaligari @dentarthurdent @devilishrobby
Any story can crippled by acting, production, or effects (remember Capdoc on the prop horse in The Woman Who Lived?) but Whovians like to think the show lives or dies by the script/story.
Sometimes villains remain on their backside (Sutekh, numerous Master stories, The Gatherer) sometimes it’s The Doctor (Boom, Extremis, Flatline); as a means of telling a story it can be as valid as any number of corridor dashes.
I wonder if it’s the use of CGI that degrades story telling, or the proliferation of story-boarding. Directors in the ‘70’s or 80’s frequently vandalised a good script by making the shoot static and stagey, but if you didn’t have the effects, you had to go back to people talking to each other on camera. Once you can achieve almost anything that can be represented in a drawing, this erodes the opportunity for actors to act and writers to amuse and horrify.
Or worse, you write through the story board.
‘Ooh. We can do this twist!’
’Er… That makes no sense.’
’Yes. But it’s s twist. Twists are good. And we can fit in another bang.’
Jodie Whittaker: I thought the convincing part of her interpretation was the frequent deployment of the bewildered expression.
Otherwise, a feature of all The Doctors is their annoying idiosyncrasies. Reading The Lady Doctor as ‘being Mom’ is more than a bit iffy. This was the showrunner’s call I assume. And the scripts were awful. The good script writers had been ditched.
McGann… I always think of neurotic ‘I’ from Withnail. It might have been a good fit. As much as I enjoyed John Hurt’s War Doctor, I would have loved to see McGann becoming ‘Woobie Destroyer of Worlds’ in Day of the Doctor.
28 July 2024 at 18:58 #76813@dentarthurdent But I have this theory that a successful production requires a certain basic level of adequacy in each aspect e.g. script, acting, sets, sound, special effects etc. And any one of those that falls too far below the basic level risks distracting the viewer.
If that were true, movies like Night of the Living Dead and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre would have been left to rot into obscurity a looooooooooooong time ago. Hell, Army of Darkness is rife with all sorts of “incompetent” technical blunders, from stiff skeleton props to laughably cheap blue screen, but the film’s sense of humor and sheer chutzpah more than compensates. Rather than distracting the viewer, all the shoddy sets and props end up enhancing the overall experience of campy entertainment.
I think you’re placing a little too much emphasis on the importance of special effects. Granted, they can be a feast for the eyes if a director knows how to utilize them, but 1) they usually don’t, and 2) not every wannabe filmmaker on Earth has the clout to make his movie with an Avatar-scale budget. If you have the money to make a short film about two people arguing in a hotel room, make the best possible short film you can make about two people arguing in a hotel room.
28 July 2024 at 23:52 #76814@robertcaligari I am NOT saying FX are more important than other factors, in fact they can’t compensate for inadequacies elsewhere (though some producers try). I don’t disagree with you. If it doesn’t need FX then it doesn’t.
Army of Darkness was a product of Sam Raimi, who, along with Rob Tapert, founded Renaissance Pictures which for five years produced the Hercules and Xena TV series around Auckland where I am. For that period they were virtually the whole of the New Zealand film industry. They were famous for their goofy / campy humour and their mastery of budget (cheap) special effects. (There is a continuous uninterrupted camera move in one episode that I still cannot explain, it could have been done with a very tiny drone but this was 20 years before small drones were a thing.) But generally their FX were – just adequate to support the story (with the exception of a few really painful rubber monsters). You could generally overlook the clunkiness if the story of the week was good. And the musical score was generally very good, which helped a lot to set the mood, I’d rate Joe LoDuca as better than Murray Gold.
When I say an ‘adequate’ level of special effects I mean adequate, not lavish. I’m not talking about Independence Day levels of excess, in fact too much CGI and not enough story is an embarrassment. I’ve got the remake of Total Recall – the original with Schwarzenegger had adequate FX, the remake has awe-inspiring CGI and it falls flat for me because too much CGI just overwhelms the story.
The FX need to be adequate for the scene. If it’s two people arguing in a hotel room then the FX required are absolutely minimal. If one of them runs out the door and gets hit by a car then the effects for that need to be – adequate. Or you can do it off-camera like in Father’s Day or Dark Water, which is equally effective. Either way you do at least need a real car.
Example of barely adequate props – almost every single gun in Blakes 7. And the space battles. B7 got its appeal from the personal clashes and sarcastic dialogue between (usually) the crew. Red Dwarf got away with FX that were hardly any better (in its early eps) because it was a comedy, I think audiences’ expectations of ‘realism’ are far more relaxed for a comedy, you’re looking for laughs so the perils don’t need to be so convincing.
@ps1l0v3y0u “Any story can crippled by acting, production, or effects (remember Capdoc on the prop horse in The Woman Who Lived?) but Whovians like to think the show lives or dies by the script/story.”
Well yes, that’s about my point. I thought the prop horse was – adequate. I’m not a horse person, sometimes our demands for ‘realism’ depend on our other fields of interest. For years, things to do with cars and driving on TV were often painfully bad – for me.
I’d agree that Who is mainly about the story. But since the advent of nuWho (i.e. ‘Rose’) I think the level of FX has generally been adequate to support the story. For example Smithdoc riding his old bike up the side of the Shard – not the most convincing, but near enough to not drop me out of the story with a snort.
The CGI blue spaceship in the Tennant/Donna story (can’t remember its name now) was an exception in the other direction, where the CGI was absolutely beautiful, but it supported rather than detracted from the story. The desert farmhouse with the Gallifreyan gunship looming over the Doctor in Hell Bent was another visually beautiful scene that enhanced a fantastically good story.
I hope the increased budgets (which have permitted better FX/CGI) can be matched by the writing. Um, Disney. Remains to be seen.12 August 2024 at 16:01 #76845Looks like we have finally reached a North American release date for the 60th anniversary DVDs and Blu-rays: July 30th. Hooray! I will keep a lookout at my library, where they have been regularly updating the Doctor Who collection.
Surely the new season will be soon to follow … I hope!
5 December 2024 at 15:26 #770282024 Christmas Special – Full Trailer
6 December 2024 at 02:14 #77029@blenkinsopthebrave A bit glitzy but I guess one has to expect that now. Otherwise it looks very promising. meanwhile we are still working through our seasonal re watch of the Christmas Specials. Did The Snowmen last night. One of my favourites.
thanks for putting up the link
cheers
Janette
10 December 2024 at 03:52 #77031@janetteb I am late starting my annual Who Christmas viewing. The mister and I have been fighting some nasty cold or flu thing and it has put me behind this year. We are getting better so I will have to start my baking and I like to watch the Xmas shows while I do. The Snowmen is a favourite of mine as well, although they all are. I like them all!
Our daughter got us a year of Disney so I can watch the last series and the new Christmas special and I am so excited.
We have some snow but it is freezing rain right now and although it is beautiful to look at with everything glittering and shiny it is slippery as hell. The entire garden is a skating rink.Oh well that’s Canada.
stay safe.
10 December 2024 at 03:57 #77032@blenkinsopthebrave That looks really good! I love the Christmas episodes and this one looks to have a lot of crazy stuff happening.Thanks.
stay cozy
22 December 2024 at 16:59 #77044If you can access BBC iplayer or BBC 4… and you would hope it will be on other platforms soon… The War Games, from 1969, is being broadcast on Monday in a reduced colourised version…
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cr5639r46rlo
I think this is great news. Not least because the story has been drastically telescoped from about 250 minutes to 90 minutes but also colourised.
I don’t want to spoil the plot for anyone who has avoided this giant slab of Classic Who so far, but it’s a terrific and canonically hugely significant story, with a (possibly) contentious regeneration. I have distant memories of my family’s intrigue when they discovered the story was not all was what it seemed… and then the boredom as it went on and on week after week.
So, to edit it down to 9o minutes (ie from 10 to 4 eps) is quite an achievement and must make the story stronger. I can’t wait!
23 December 2024 at 15:34 #77045I’ll be watching the new colourised and edited version of The War Games, which I watched the original version of only 2-3 weeks ago, but I can’t remember how many times I’ve seen it before. It will be good to see it in colour, but I dread to think how many details have been edited out. I’ve been trying to write my own summary to make a quick check after viewing the new version. The Daleks in Colour was fine, but the original length was 175 minutes (including theme music) which was cut down to 75 minutes. I was struggling to remember which details were cut, so that was OK. In the case of The War Games, they’ve cut 250 minutes (including theme music) down to 90 minutes, so that’s a larger part of the story. Perhaps the Doctor and his companions won’t be captured and escape as many times, but it will take a lot more than that to reduce the length. I feel sorry for people who have never seen this epic Doctor Who story. I must advise them to watch the original version ASAP!
23 December 2024 at 22:29 #77047Yes, I agree wholeheartedly. As you say, the original is epic.
Like you, I will be keen to see the colourised version, but the original really should be appreciated in its entirety. In fact, Mrs Blenkinsop and I started rewatching it last night, and shall be doing so until its conclusion.
With Christmas treats and mulled wine, of course!
24 December 2024 at 15:39 #77048Well, I’ve seen it now. It’s a pity that this production hasn’t even got its own thread on here.
It was fairly obvious that various important information was deleted. I think even viewers who had never seen the original would have noticed this. It included the introduction of the other resistance fighters, especially Arturo Villar who led the largest resistance group. We never saw The Doctor blowing up the safe to get the map of all time zones. They were never shown taking over the Chateau and I don’t think it was mentioned that it was outside all the time zones. They were never captured by the Germans and taken to a German base where The Doctor demonstrated the sonic screwdriver. No fault with the SIDRAT machines was explained, which was why The War Chief wanted an alliance with The Doctor. The scene where the War Lord’s soldiers tried to rescue him was also cut out. Even The Doctor’s Trial was edited because they didn’t retire to consider their verdict.
I thought it was good that a full regeneration sequence was shown. I think this should have been included in “Spearhead from Space”. It didn’t all have to be filmed or videoed in the same session. They could have cut it together. I think that “The Two Doctors” with The Second Doctor and Jamie is a continuity error.
Compared with “The Daleks in Colour” it was a hatchet job! I don’t think there should be any more colourised productions which are heavily edited like this one was!
26 December 2024 at 00:38 #77054@translatorcircuit @blenkinsopthebrave
A hatchet job? I was a bit unsure about trimming nearly 2/3rds from the story.
On the other hand 10 eps was too long and the fannying around in the various timezones was extraordinarily tedious. So was the demonstration of the sonic screwdriver… time to make yourself a cup tea perhaps? So was the shouty scenery chewing between the War and the Security Chief. So was scenery chewing of Arturo Villar.
It’s a worthy effort. Might have been better as 2 one hour specials: The War Games and then The Time Lords. It is effectively two stories.
I thought the adaptation became stronger as it went on. The initial set up had the same sequence of revelation as the original. Perhaps General Smythe could have retained a sense of mystery for longer, with a gradual discovery of his hypnotic powers, the discovery of the telescreen and the MFI wardrobe… sorry SIDRAT. The beginning was far too telescoped.
Wasn’t Phillip Madoc brilliant?
And surely The War Chief is supposed to be The Master?
Continuity… The Two Doctors… supposedly that happens before Fury From The Deep… Jamie talks as if they’ve just left Victoria or are going back. But then Jamie would know about the Time Lords, unless he’d been mindwiped, but equally at that point They couldn’t have known what The Doctor had been doing (guilty conscience… he couldn’t say no?)
Also I’m sure, when he was given his regeneration options he said something like ‘he’s too fat!’ which would have been a chance to show Colin Baker and have sone AI wizardry add ‘and he’s a colourblind poltroon!’
So, the regeneration to Pertwee seems straight forward. But what do you make of the 1970/1980 readout. Although we haven’t seen it, is this actually a bigeneration? The Time Lords say ‘the secret of the TARDIS will be taken from you… but that more accurately describes Ruth doesn’t? She seemed to have been chameleon-arched. The Time Lords just vandalised Pertwee’s TARDIS.
26 December 2024 at 06:56 #77058The main thing is that it’s not possible to tell a story with about two thirds of the original deleted! It was originally shown as ten episodes of 25 minutes each. The main selling point of this version is that it’s IN COLOUR! I once saw and recorded a version of “Genesis of The Daleks” which was cut down from six episodes to four episodes and that was very well done.
The War Chief isn’t The Master. This has been mentioned lots of times by writers and producers.
The 1970/1980 readout is because of a continuity error caused by the story “Mawdryn Undead”. In that story The Brigadier had retured before 1977. However, at a convention, actor Nicholas Courtney who played him said that they’d been told this era of Doctor Who was set about 20 years in the future, meaning it started in about 1990. This means the readout should have said 1970/1990. Of course, Doctor Who is set in a fictitious universe, so when the Brigadier had a phone call from the Prime Minister who he called “Madam”, this doesn’t refer to any actual Prime Minister in the real World, so that doesn’t place it in the period 1979-1990.
26 December 2024 at 09:03 #77059Yes, it would indeed seem to be the case that you can’t successfully cut a story by 2/3rds. Inevitable really.
I’m sure there were other Pertwee/Baker T references to the 1980’s. So why show 1970 at all? Who ended up there?
Not only is The War Chief quite Mastery, the War Lord’s bunch are pretty Vardanesque. Psychic powers. Different flavour. Even the Time War’s much vaunted time lock turned out quite permeable.
26 December 2024 at 20:43 #77064Finished re-watching the original black and white version of “The War Games” in glorious black and white. It was fabulous. I know that the colour version (with 2/3rds of the content jettisoned) is out there, but if you have never seen the original black and white version, you must watch it. One of the best Doctor Who stories ever.
26 December 2024 at 21:03 #77065A Christmas wish:
Would it be possible for you to create a forum page for “The War Games”? Given the interest that the new colourised version has sparked on the site, I think there might be a lot of interest in a discussion of both versions. Indeed, there already is but it is, somewhat confusingly, over here on the “Doctor Who News” page.
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