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March 28, 2024, 09:06:51 PM

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Old Doctor Who

Started by TJ, May 11, 2005, 09:20:24 AM

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Phil_A

I'd also defend the Two Doctors, because I do think there's some nice character stuff in there, especially with Oscar. It's nowhere near Robert Holmes's best, but then he did have to deal with a fairly absurd list of requirements - it has to feature both the Sontarans, the Second Doctor & Jamie and alien cannibals with silly eyebrows AND it has to be set in an expensive foreign location.

Apparently the novelisation (the only one Holmes ever completed) is supposed to be really good.

mycroft

My main problem with the story, after the big list of requirements thrown at Holmes, is the level of violence. Before seeing it I'd thought Michael Grade's complaints were all exaggerated, but really - Jamie stabbing a Sontaran in the kneecap, nice old Oscar getting brutally stabbed in public, and the Doctor cyaniding Shockeye before - most offensive of all - making a quip about it as if he was Sean Connery (in famously-conservative Australia, interestingly, the killing remained in but the quip was cut). No justification for any of it, it's just there to be shocking in the absense of proper horror. Oh, and the direction's pretty shoddy too, with its first proper shot of a Sontaran being a wide shot taken from about half a mile away as he strolls up to a front door.

I can forgive a lot of Season 22's faults, but this one is just a big old mess. Although, in its favour, the DVD extras are great. Now then now then.

Oscar?  Didn't like him either.  Can't see me watching that one again very often.  However, I really enjoyed the Robert Holmes documentary on disc two, despite Terrance Dicks doing his best impression of a mumbling frog and Eric Saward being dishwater dull.  ...Is that bald chap (I forget his name now) blind?  He never seems to look at the camera.