Lucky Day

[TranslatorCircuit @translatorcircuit]

@dentarthurdent

Your lack of knowledge of classic Who is disgusting! You need a viewing plan of various really important episodes to watch for your homework. I think you should start with “An Unearthly Child”, “The Daleks”, “The Dalek Invasion of Earth”, and “The Web Planet”. After that, watch “The Chase” and “The Time Meddler”. These are all First Doctor stories. Watching that era filled in a lot of gaps for me. “The Web Planet” is a more realistic story set on a planet completely different to Earth, without an Earth type atmosphere or humanoid natives. Out of these stories, only “An Unearthly Child” isn’t available on BBC iPlayer, so you’ve got no excuse! BBC iPlayer allows anyone to view it so long as their IP address is a residential UK IP address, not for business, but this can’t carry on indefinitely. There are plenty of alternatives which will allow you to watch classic Doctor Who and even The Flash (1990) without getting the episodes confused with NuWho or The Flash (2014).

 

[Dentarthurdent @dentarthurdent]

@translatorcircuit    That’s the first time I’ve been called disgusting today!    I really, deeply, don’t care.   And if you’re trying to tell me which episodes to watch that makes me almost determined not to.   Sorry ’bout that, I can be a perverse bastard when I want to be.   (That was ‘perverse’, not ‘perverted’.   No, wait….)

For example I’m sufficiently perverse not to like Tolkien much, either.

But as far as nuWho is concerned, I don’t think it’s necessary to be familiar with the old episodes to judge the quality of the writing or the standards of the production of new ones.  Continuity is a different matter, but the timeline is so long and convoluted by now that early Who has faded into the mists of time.   I’m not saying continuity can be disregarded, just that errors of continuity from last week or last year is a lot more obtrusive and significant than errors from oldWho.   IMNSHO.

As to which are the good and bad episodes, my opinions are almost the exact opposite of yours.   And so far as I can tell, there are more people here who share my views on that, than share yours.   If you’re not being deliberately contrary, it just shows that tastes can vary wildly.

Now I’m off to watch Red Dwarf.

[janetteB @janetteb]

@dentarthurdent. Well said.

We are all free to watch what we like. After all we watch Dr Who and Red Dwarf for pleasure and because we find enrichment in it. Our tastes do indeed vary to a degree. i love Tolkien for instance though I fully agree, it has some problems. It is of its time. Nothing is perfect and Old Who certainly is not.

Enjoy Red Dwarf. You can also listen to a (only slightly crazy) podcast review Here 

cheers

Janette

[Dentarthurdent @dentarthurdent]

@janetteb   Thanks for that.

That Red Dwarf podcast, sounds like you were all having fun   (I assume you were the janette mentioned?)

FWIW, I think they at their best around Seasons 3-5.    I just watched Back to Reality, which is as meta as you can get – the crew find that they’ve been in a total immersion video game for the last four years, they’ve just returned to Earth, then it turns out the returning to Earth was the illusion, induced by the Despair Squid.

But, of the early eps, probably my favourite is Kryten, with the three dead female crew – only Red Dwarf could make that funny.   “They’re dead.”   “Are you sure.”   “They’re all dead.”   “But I was only away for two minutes.”   Red Dwarf could never be accused of being tasteful.

Anyway, this is kind of Off Topic, not that anyone ever seems to worry too much.

[janetteB @janetteb]

@dentarthurdent Yes we do indeed have fun, too much fun sometimes.Everyone talks at once making it very difficult to edit. We do a Dr Who episode every year, (just to bring it back to topic), one for each Doctor. this year will be McCoy.

cheers

Janette

[Dentarthurdent @dentarthurdent]

Lucky Day And Ruby is back. Interesting.
Is this spooky scene in the warehouse a throwback to the Autons? Umm no, the guy just got slimed (like Ghostbusters?)
If the guy can take a snapshot of Ruby from what – ten yards away, and get a good sharp recognisable photo, his phone must be a lot better than mine, I think.
Um, not sure where this is going (though I have a dim recollection it isn’t something good). The Shreek gave me a heck of a jump scare when Kate tapped on the glass of its cell. I kenw it was coming but it still works, they always do.
Those two fake-Shreek were really risking their lives, Unit might have shot them (but I guess that would have made an even better story for their conspiracy theory). But Conrad, what a total slimeball. Not so much for thinking UNIT were doing a cover-up, but for leading Ruby on and then deriding her. Loathsome creature (and I don’t mean the Shreek). Incidentally, how did the fake-Shreeks produce those unearthly howls?
(Maybe it’s just me, but I think all scurrilous Internet ‘influencers’ should be taken out and shot, or at least have their phones permanently disconnected. The trouble they cause is out of proportion to any good they do.)
I’m not a fan of these UNIT episodes, and besides there’s the Vlinx, the most fake-looking Disney robot.
I did cheer when Kate let the Shreek nibble Conrad. She, (or Ruby?) should have let it finish its meal.
And Belinda seems to have been elsewhere for the duration. What’s with that?
I can’t say I really enjoyed this episode. On to the next.

[janetteB @janetteb]

@dentarthurdent. Have not rewatched any of this series so commenting from memory but I recall this episode as being rather confused. I agree that the UNIT stories have not been great which is a shame as I liked Kate L-S and the early UNIt stories were very good. I think perhaps UNIT have got too big, too well funded and not so well written, rather like the series itself.

cheers

Janette

 

[Dentarthurdent @dentarthurdent]

@janetteb   Well, I think I can recommend The Well and The Story and the Engine.   But of course it’s all a matter of taste.

And I do agree also about UNIT and the series.

[nerys @nerys]

So, immediately following “The Well” I found this one a bit of a disappointment. Millie Gibson was wonderful. It reminded me of my disappointment that she got only one season as the Doctor’s companion. I did think it was a nice callback to “Blink” in that we only saw the Doctor and Belinda together at the beginning of the episode.

However, we did get a rather long-winded lecture from the Doctor as a bookend … which I thought was unnecessary. We already knew what Conrad represented, and it’s not pretty. Getting worse and worse, I’m afraid. I didn’t want the Shreek to kill Conrad, though I wouldn’t have been disappointed if it had. But really, we’d been shown all of that and didn’t need more exposition to explain it to us.

I’m always happy to see Kate return, but I liked UNIT when it was less … well, populated. Maybe, as @juniperfish suggested, the idea was a spinoff with Ruby joining UNIT after dealing with her PTSD. I wouldn’t have minded that, but if that really was RTD’s plan, I don’t see any evidence of it becoming a reality.

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