Old Doctor Who - Part 3

[purlieu]

Do you know if there are technical reasons why they might prefer any one of McCoy's three seasons above the other two?

24 and 25 are technically far worse than 26.

One I'm really interested to see on BluRay is Ghost Light. Curious to know how much of the murk they'll remove.

[daf]

The Ambassadors of Death didn't look great (though was nonetheless a massive achievement) and Doctor Who and the Silurians could do with a full new restoration.

Ooh yes - certainly room for improvement there. I've got the old and the new version of Inferno (and Claws of Axos), and it is a real improvement - the jagged NTSC 'crispyness' around the edges is toned right down.

Season 11 has Invasion of the Dinosaurs Episode 1 which is heavily damaged and is still missing the colour blue. The rest of the season exists in PAL Master Tape so should be one of the earlier Pertwee seasons to see release.

There actually is blue on the DVD version (I think they had to paint it in digitally) - It's not perfect, but does the job :



Unlike restorations using the luminance from colour off-airs (eg Inferno), the black and white version on the DVD doesn't look any better to me (as it was presumably the basis of the chroma dot recovered version) so a similar recombination of the elements is limited there, but maybe they can improve and reduce the flicker of the other colours digitally?

[Replies From View]

They could presumably do what they did for episode 3 of Planet of the Daleks, which was to combine the chroma dot recovery version with an entirely computer colourised attempt, to get the best of both worlds.  It only depends on the available budget or the will of people happy to do it cheaply.

See this if you haven't already:  https://youtu.be/TULL7uiIbLc

[Norton Canes]

I love Planet Of The Daleks. I love that it's just a pure, distilled, Nation-ized to the max Dalek story. All the cliches are there and no-one has at any point told him to think of anything original.

I couldn't remember much about it but I had the novelisation (actually it was the version in the Dalek Omnibus) and I really liked the scene where they escape up a lift shaft hanging onto a plastic sheet, and I always thought that bit was invented for the novelisation because there was no way they could do it on a studio budget, so I was gobsmacked when I finally watched the DVD and saw they actually do.

[Replies From View]

I love it too but they should have used some better angles for the Dalek toys stuff.

[purlieu]

It's one of my earliest Doctor Who memories, from a mid '90s repeat run. I remember the first time I saw The Daleks on DVD years later, thinking I must have seen it before because it was all so similar, yet knowing I'd never seen a black & white Doctor Who story. Then I got to Planet and everything became clear.

[Replies From View]

I wonder how they will get around the fact that seasons 1-6 have 40 episodes each and seasons 23-26 have only 14.  They surely can't release them at the same price?

[JamesTC]

There actually is blue on the DVD version (I think they had to paint it in digitally) - It's not perfect, but does the job :



Unlike restorations using the luminance from colour off-airs (eg Inferno), the black and white version on the DVD doesn't look any better to me (as it was presumably the basis of the chroma dot recovered version) so a similar recombination of the elements is limited there, but maybe they can improve and reduce the flicker of the other colours digitally?

Yeah, the painting does a job but it was all just done as an afterthought so it was very rushed. It very nearly went out with just the black and white version which would have been a great shame and I assume would have meant they wouldn't have gone to the effort they did with The Mind of Evil 1 in order to have the entire era in colour.

The episode needs a huge amount of restoration work and then a huge amount of work to paint in the blue. Whilst this is nothing compared to the work Season 7, 8 and 9 will all need, it is still a mammoth task.

[JamesTC]

Nice summary, thanks. Do you know if there are technical reasons why they might prefer any one of McCoy's three seasons above the other two?

Ghost Light is in terrible condition. As it was described in 2004 by the Restoration Team when it was being released on DVD:

Unfortunately, the combination of the low lighting, the ancient Link tube cameras that were still in use in studio TC3, and the multi-generation analogue tape editing conspired to produce some of the worst quality pictures in the show's history. High levels of video noise (especially in episodes two and three) combined with very laggy cameras produce a nasty, blurry mess which is very difficult to improve even with modern digital tools.

Overall there should be no major challenges to any of those seasons outside of Ghost Light. Most of them even already have a 5.1 mix so will only need a spruce up. I dare say they will look to have all of that era have a 5.1 mix.

The rumour is that Season 26 will come after Season 10 and 18.

[Norton Canes]

Ghost Light is in terrible condition. As it was described in 2004 by the Restoration Team when it was being released on DVD

I guess they had to use Redvers Standards Convention

[daf]

The Quark Invasion of Earth!!

[Small Man Big Horse]

The Quark Invasion of Earth!!

Hah, that's fantastic, thanks for posting that.

[purlieu]

The Sixth Doctor meets... Hitler.

The Sixth Doctor and an elderly Brigadier meet Hitler's son, then travel back in time and meet Hitler himself. The Brig accidentally presents him with a half-eaten sausage roll. 2001-era UNIT are about as hopeless as '70s UNIT, which ties in a touch uncomfortably with the new series, but otherwise a very fun book, some surprising twists, and a sad ending.

And now...

The introduction isn't promising, as the name 'Mel' appears, as well as a dedication to Pip & Jane Baker and their supposedly underrated storytelling and characterisation.

[Small Man Big Horse]

The Sixth Doctor and an elderly Brigadier meet Hitler's son, then travel back in time and meet Hitler himself. The Brig accidentally presents him with a half-eaten sausage roll. 2001-era UNIT are about as hopeless as '70s UNIT, which ties in a touch uncomfortably with the new series, but otherwise a very fun book, some surprising twists, and a sad ending.

Well surely you knew that Hitler dies at the end?

[Deanjam]

Well surely you knew that Hitler dies at the end?

SPOILERS! FFS!!!!!

[Bad Ambassador]

The Sixth Doctor and an elderly Brigadier meet Hitler's son, then travel back in time and meet Hitler himself. The Brig accidentally presents him with a half-eaten sausage roll. 2001-era UNIT are about as hopeless as '70s UNIT, which ties in a touch uncomfortably with the new series, but otherwise a very fun book, some surprising twists, and a sad ending.

It's pretty good, given it was apparently written in a couple of months to replace a book that had fallen through.

[purlieu]

Yes, I gathered that, given Justin Richards' bio including "His plan for this year was not to write a Doctor Who novel. So here it is." Surprising how well some of these quickly-knocked-together novels are.

Another Brig story right now with Business Unusual, which also seems to picking up strands of the excellent Pertwee novel Scales of Injustice. Lots of sinister behind-the-scenes UNIT / C19 stuff.

[purlieu]

Another Brig story right now with Business Unusual, which also seems to picking up strands of the excellent Pertwee novel Scales of Injustice. Lots of sinister behind-the-scenes UNIT / C19 stuff.

That was pretty good. Much like the earlier book, a lot of pretty gruesome and violent moments, but also some lovely stuff with the Brig. Mel is given an introductory story and, much like Dodo, is immediately more likeable on paper than her on-screen portrayal. Most notably, The Doctor is brilliantly written: he's still obnoxious and arrogant, but in an amusing and entertaining way rather than the off-putting portrayal we saw on screen.

And now for... this. Er.

[purlieu]

Ah, it appears that the events of Downtime occur before this, so I'll head over to that first.


Fuck knows what's going on with the Brig in that picture.

[Deanjam]

Got my season 12 replacement bluray discs in the post this morning. So if anyone else requested replacements I can confirm they are sending them out.

[Bad Ambassador]

Got my season 12 replacement bluray discs in the post this morning. So if anyone else requested replacements I can confirm they are sending them out.

Any danger of them sending new copies to actual shops?

[purlieu]

Ah, it appears that the events of Downtime occur before this, so I'll head over to that first.


Fuck knows what's going on with the Brig in that picture.

Lots of nice ideas in there, but narratively that was a complete mess. Frankly I don't really know what was going on for half of it, particularly in regards to Victoria. Been meaning to pick up the DVD for a while, be interesting to see if it makes more sense than the book...

[Deanjam]

Any danger of them sending new copies to actual shops?

Doesn't look like it. Going for £345 on Amazon now!



Anyway, the replacement discs.

[Replies From View]

What did the faulty ones look like?

[Deanjam]

Like this.

[Replies From View]

I like the background's callback to The Ark in Space.

[Deanjam]

I like the background's callback to The Ark in Space.

I keep all my blu-rays in the husks of dead Wirrn.

[Deanjam]

If only these were real. Sigh ...

[Bad Ambassador]

Lots of nice ideas in there, but narratively that was a complete mess. Frankly I don't really know what was going on for half of it, particularly in regards to Victoria. Been meaning to pick up the DVD for a while, be interesting to see if it makes more sense than the book...

It's a cut above most of the 90s semi-pro films, largely because Christopher Barry directs it with a nice bit of style. But it's arguably even more of a mess as Courtney and Sladen do most of their scenes on their own.

[gatchamandave]

If only these were real. Sigh ...

On the other hand we are spared Elisabeth Sandifer denouncing them as racist