FTA-TV Doctor Who

[Kram]

Tegan was such an awful companion, and was with 5th for all bar 2 stories.. imo a notable handicap.

I mean Nicola was an ordinary actress but at least he character wasn't a whinging tool, can you imagine Androzani with Tegan in it instead?

Lmao.

 

[Elmer_Hauser]

I love how Peter Davison and Janet Fielding take the piss out of Black Orchid on the commentary. It's a terribly annoying and embarrassing story..

The Awakening is so much better.

 

[Elmer_Hauser]

Tegan was such an awful companion, and was with 5th for all bar 2 stories.. imo a notable handicap.

I mean Nicola was an ordinary actress but at least he character wasn't a whinging tool, can you imagine Androzani with Tegan in it instead?

Lmao.

Tegan was fine. I find Nyssa to be the weak link out of that entire crew (Adric really wasn't as bad as people think)

Such a dull, drip and pointless character. Sarah Sutton was very attractive, I just am not convinced she was very good as an actor (I have the same problem with Debroah Watling as Victoria Waterfield)

 

[Kram]

He turned into a 5th wheel after the guardian arc finished but I actually didn't mind Turkough.

Would've liked to shave seen him in a few eps with just him and the Doctor or even Peri.

 

[Elmer_Hauser]

He turned into a 5th wheel after the guardian arc finished but I actually didn't mind Turkough.

Would've liked to shave seen him in a few eps with just him and the Doctor or even Peri.

Speaking of Peri, there is a debate on Gallifreybase as to whether her creepy step father father Howard sexually abused her (one of the few rare Telos novellas published years ago actually suggested this)

Based on the on screen events of Planet of Fire, she clearly had PTSD style nightmares/flashbacks of her Step Father after recovering from drowning by Turlough

And her rage at Howard deliberately sabotaging her attempts to go travelling with some male US students suggests he had possessive control over her.


.

 

[demondavey]

Disagree with that. The central conceit - that if the ship exploded it would set off a second big bang due to it being at the centre of the universe - was mind-numbingly stupid.

A second big bang? Or THE big bang?

 

[demondavey]

Terminus was probably too hard sci-fi with an setting that the budget couldn't afford to at the time

(The Target Novelisation audio book of Terminus with new material added by author and script writer Stephen Gallagher is very enjoyable and infinitely superior to the TV version)

Eric Saward commissioned a lot of scripts in the Davison era that could not possibly be done properly even if they had a Hollywood budget aka Time-Flight

Agree.

If you look at the best of classic who it’s typically set on Earth or there’s absolutely A grade scripting, directing and acting that overshadows the lack of budget for special effects.

 

[demondavey]

I thought the performances in Terminus were pretty good. Olvir's "We're all going to diIIIIE" cliffhanger is a bit OTT but not all that bad.

I thought the Vanir weren’t great. The cliffhanger to episode two was awful. Valguard was pretty poor. Didn’t help that Mark Strickson and Janet Fielding had nothing to do given they were the better actors to Sarah Sutton (who was pretty average).

 

[Elmer_Hauser]

Agree.

If you look at the best of classic who it’s typically set on Earth or there’s absolutely A grade scripting, directing and acting that overshadows the lack of budget for special effects.

The direction of Terminus was also terribly dull and pedestrian too which was unfortunate.

In comparison, Invasion of The Dinosaurs (an underrated season 11 classic) was absolutely brilliant given their meagre budget and resources at the time (I am a massive Malcolm Hulke fan) directed by the amazing and imo very underrated Paddy Russell (whom apparently was the only director Tom Baker was scared of critiquing whilst on the show)

I still don't know how she and the rest of the production managed to pull Invasion of The Dinosaurs so successfully off, definitely a top 5 Pertwee era story for me (the strongest, most consistent era in Who history imo)

 

[demondavey]

Season 21 is my favourite Davison season. It was him finally growing and settling in as The Doctor and all of the stories are interesting and different (yes even Twin Dilemma)

Frontios is probably my favourite 5th Doctor story, an excellent, tense story with fantastic nuanced performances from Davison and Mark Strickson.

Resurrection is a mess, but Tegan gets a very good and heartbreaking farewell scene.

I have a soft spot for Resurrection. It’s sort of what I expect a Dalek story to be given they are the most evil force in the universe in the Doctor Who landscape. It’s dark, there is mass killing, it’s realistic, the story is littered with cynical and ruthless characters; Lytton, Archer, Kiston, Styles and the Duplicate police troops. There is no positivity, hope, humour or the feeling from the beginning that there’ll be a happy ending. The only good guy is Stien and he does the honourable thing in the end.

I mean what else are Daleks supposed to define aside from death, destruction, a merciless mindset devoid of any respect for life, and pure uninhibited evil? Like the Caves of Androzani there are no winners, and that’s what life is like at times. Its good for Sci Fi to promote that and show us that our heroes can’t always save the day.