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March 28, 2024, 02:32:48 PM

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Old Doctor Who - Part 3

Started by Ambient Sheep, October 21, 2016, 05:20:01 PM

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purlieu

What's odd is that Atom Bomb Blues was a pretty light-hearted, enjoyable story with a much more recognisable Doctor and Ace. There wasn't even any gratuitous nudity.

Replies From View

In scenes where Sylvester McCoy is pointlessly bleak-bollock-naked in these books, what efforts do the writers maintain to remind you that he is unclothed?

purlieu

The enclosed photograph ensures the image never leaves your mind.

Replies From View

"Aim for the eyestalk, Ace!" the Doctor whispered, naked.  "It is their only meaningful weakspot!"

pigamus

"Oh my God I can't believed that's shaped like a question mark as well," exclaimed Ace

Replies From View

Still nude, the Doctor took the Hand of Omega outside into the graveyard.  Later that morning, his dew-speckled glans glistened delicately in the sunrise.

Deanjam

It would've been Jon Pertwee's 100th birthday today. Season 10 bluray out tomorrow. Was this done on purpose?

Deanjam


Replies From View

Quote from: Deanjam on July 07, 2019, 01:04:31 PM
It would've been Jon Pertwee's 100th birthday today. Season 10 bluray out tomorrow. Was this done on purpose?

Yes; his mum held him in for an extra day to make sure this would line up.

Deanjam

Quote from: Replies From View on July 07, 2019, 02:05:25 PM
Yes; his mum held him in for an extra day to make sure this would line up.

Wow, what a lady!

Replies From View

Quote from: Deanjam on July 07, 2019, 02:11:55 PM
Wow, what a lady!

It's also why his neck looks squashed on the blu ray cover.

purlieu

Quote from: Deanjam on July 07, 2019, 01:04:31 PM
It would've been Jon Pertwee's 100th birthday today. Season 10 bluray out tomorrow. Was this done on purpose?
Yes.

Even with the correctly flipped cover, it still looks a bit odd. It's partially that the screwdriver is much sharper than the rest of the image (and not in a natural focus kind of way), and partially because he somehow looks like he weighs 18 stone, which for one of the lankiest Doctors, is bizarre. I'd say I'm looking forward to mine coming in the post, but since getting a new Mac that no longer plays BluRays at all, I'm not going to be watching it for a while anyway.

purlieu

My season 10 came today. Lovely packaging as ever, even if there are a couple of uses of a semi-colon in the liner notes where a colon would have been appropriate.

Cat's Cradle: Witch Mark

Well, I rather enjoyed that. I notice it has a very poor reputation, which I think is undeserved. It's certainly far less daring than the previous few books, generally reading like one of the expanded Targets of the later McCoy years. Indeed, I can imagine a stripped-back version of the story featuring in season 27, as the mix of classic mythology and contemporary Britain isn't far off a lot of what featured in seasons 25 and 26. The writing is solid if unremarkable, the characters could do with fleshing out but are at least identifiable, and the plot moves at a decent pace. Enjoyable, The Doctor and Ace feel exactly like The Doctor and Ace, with plenty of humour and enjoyable conversation between the two. It does jar a little after the last few books, and it won't win any awards for being a classic, but it was nice to have a straight-forward Doctor Who-style story again.

The whole Cat's Cradle series, though, what a joke that arc was. It definitely seemed like the events of Time's Crucible were going to be explained, but instead that book is left making no sense, and the other two are just bolted on by a couple of scenes vaguely referencing a cat. Very glad they just gave up on the idea and carried on with stand-alone books from this point. Mark Gatiss's first novel, Nightshade, follows...

Bad Ambassador

Although named story arcs went out of the window, there were several other within the series, the first being the Future History Cycle that begins with Love and War.

surely the one that starts with Blood Heat is about as arc-ey as an arc can get?

Bad Ambassador

Quote from: A Hat Like That on July 12, 2019, 02:30:51 PM
surely the one that starts with Blood Heat is about as arc-ey as an arc can get?

But really only the first and last books of the five really make play of the Alternate History notion of the arc. That said, Conundrum is also very good.

No Future, to skip ahead a bit, does have the moment where Benny discovers the Big Bad is the Vardans, and has a hysterical laughing fit as they're the only people ever outwitted by the Sontarans.

IIRC Dimension Riders does as the main bad guy is a paradox. Its an age since I read that one, too many mean and moody space marines, not enough sexy robot assassins in Oxford.

purlieu

Oh, arcs that are actual arcs are fine. Especially if they're not labelled, because then there's at least a hint of surprise. With Cat's Cradle, the only surprise is there was no actual arc other than a cat briefly appearing a couple of times.

Quote from: Bad Ambassador on July 12, 2019, 03:48:38 PM
But really only the first and last books of the five really make play of the Alternate History notion of the arc. That said, Conundrum is also very good.

No Future, to skip ahead a bit, does have the moment where Benny discovers the Big Bad is the Vardans, and has a hysterical laughing fit as they're the only people ever outwitted by the Sontarans.

also "chap with Wings, five rounds rapid".

purlieu

#2269
Nightshade

Cor, that was a bit good. Calls on Quatermass (the titular fictional character in particular) and Hammer Horror, which is no surprise given how much of an outspoken fan of both Gatiss is. Yorkshire village in the middle of a moor ends up cut off from the world, with various characters being killed by visitors dragged up from their worst memories. A ludicrously high death toll for such a story in an isolated setting, some very gruesome imagery and a few flashbacks make it stand out from the televised stories, but at the same time it feels very Doctor Who, with a particular '70s folk horror vibe. Pure Gatiss, really. This is the third book of his that I've read and they've all been superb. Why was he so hopeless at TV stories? In many ways, I think the version he, Gareth Roberts and Clayton Hickman came up with in the early '00s would have been really good, albeit not the hit RTD's series was.

Anyway, yes, excellent book, even though I cannot work out what the prologue had to do with the rest of the story. Ooh, and Ace was going to leave at the end but it closed on a cliffhanger! So, onto Love and War.

edit: I also enjoyed the fact that an unseen character was called Dr. Shearsmith. I wonder whether Reece was prodding him to write him into the book.

Phil_A

Quote from: purlieu on July 14, 2019, 12:23:58 AM
Nightshade

Cor, that was a bit good. Calls on Quatermass (the titular fictional character in particular) and Hammer Horror, which is no surprise given how much of an outspoken fan of both Gatiss is. Yorkshire village in the middle of a moor ends up cut off from the world, with various characters being killed by visitors dragged up from their worst memories. A ludicrously high death toll for such a story in an isolated setting, some very gruesome imagery and a few flashbacks make it stand out from the televised stories, but at the same time it feels very Doctor Who, with a particular '70s folk horror vibe. Pure Gatiss, really. This is the third book of his that I've read and they've all been superb. Why was he so hopeless at TV stories? In many ways, I think the version he, Gareth Roberts and Clayton Hickman came up with in the early '00s would have been really good, albeit not the hit RTD's series was.

Anyway, yes, excellent book, even though I cannot work out what the prologue had to do with the rest of the story. Ooh, and Ace was going to leave at the end but it closed on a cliffhanger! So, onto Love and War.

edit: I also enjoyed the fact that an unseen character was called Dr. Shearsmith. I wonder whether Reece was prodding him to write him into the book.

I recommend looking up the "author's commentary" version of the book that was put up on the BBC Cult website years ago, it gives some good insight into Gatiss's approach and writing process at the time.

It's interesting that this early on in the run, we're already seeing clear distinctions emerging between the traditionalists who just wanted to recreate Dr Who exactly as it was on screen, and the radicals who wanted to shake things up a bit. Gatiss & Roberts definitely fall into the former category.


purlieu

Oh, I'll seek that out, ta!

purlieu

So far there's been a character called Paul Magrs, and a pagan God played by Vic Reeves (complete with "you wouldn't let it lie").

Catalogue Trousers

As I recall, said deity also does Vic's 'It's my cup!' gag, and a couple of other bits of Big Night Out verbal shtick. I remember enjoying it a lot at the time, but with hindsight it's (with the possible exception of the more throwaway Happy Mondays and Ian Brown bits in Revelation) the first real case of the tedious, in-crowd self-indulgence that Cornell should be able to realise just doesn't work. Like hipster Seltzerberg.

purlieu

I imagine it was probably more enjoyable when it came out than after reading a lot of books. There are loads of those kinds of things in the MAs and PDAs and they grew increasingly tiresome.

Anyway, Love and War

Yeah, that was really good. It felt totally different to the first eight books of the series and much more in line with a lot of the MAs / PDAs. The populated planet of Heaven, with a large cast of humans and Draconians, feels like it's part of a much larger-scale sci-fi world than any of the TV stories. The story itself was great, lots of mystery, some big shocks, some gruesome body horror. I'm not sure I buy Ace falling in love and preparing to get married within the space of a few days, much as it was necessary for her part of the plot, but otherwise it all fit together nicely. Her response to the Doctor's actions are obviously something we wouldn't really see in the classic series, so it was interesting to read. And so I say goodbye to Ace (for the moment), and hello to Benny, who I really liked immediately.

What's up next, then? Transit. Not an inspiring title, but I like Ben Aaronovitch so fingers crossed.

mjwilson

Quote from: Catalogue Trousers on July 15, 2019, 08:03:09 PM
As I recall, said deity also does Vic's 'It's my cup!' gag, and a couple of other bits of Big Night Out verbal shtick. I remember enjoying it a lot at the time, but with hindsight it's (with the possible exception of the more throwaway Happy Mondays and Ian Brown bits in Revelation) the first real case of the tedious, in-crowd self-indulgence that Cornell should be able to realise just doesn't work. Like hipster Seltzerberg.

There will also be a bit of a phase of Twin Peaks references at some point.

BRen

Quick question re. the limited edition blu-ray box sets. I've got the Peter Davison one (Season 19) and am wondering whether it's worth keeping hold of this and collecting them, as they seem to be dramatically shooting up in price after they've been around for a few months. Do we know if eventually they'll end up releasing every classic season in this format? Mainly as I know I'll want to own them all eventually, though Season 12 is ridiculously expensive now so that's a bit of a write-off as I missed the boat on that one.

Bad Ambassador

I think the plan is to release all of them. I'd snap up the Season 18 set NOW if I were you - it seems to have been discontinued just as the Season 10 set came out.

If you're really pushed, the R1 Season 12 set is still available and does not appear to be region-locked. The packaging doesn't match, but the content's the same.

purlieu

Yes, I have the US version of season 12 because I stupidly, like many others, thought it would be in print for a few months at least. So they need to be grabbed pretty quickly. I'm already a bit annoyed about having a shelf full of them in matching cases with the season 12 one being a totally different size right in the middle.

purlieu

Quote from: purlieu on July 15, 2019, 08:50:35 PM
What's up next, then? Transit. Not an inspiring title, but I like Ben Aaronovitch so fingers crossed.
Fucking hell this is hard going. Aaronovitch seems to mistake world building for "I'll just throw in another scene / more characters with no explanation" here. Almost a third of the way through and it's almost all padding so far. Lots of unlikeable characters just walking around being unlikeable. It's possible there's a reason for her behaviour that's explained later, but Benny is totally unrecognisable from the previous book.