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March 28, 2024, 11:01:02 PM

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Old Doctor Who - Part 4

Started by Ambient Sheep, June 04, 2020, 11:02:35 PM

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Bad Ambassador

Quote from: Malcy on November 25, 2020, 12:16:50 PM
I'd really like this, especially the omnibus version of the Daemons, wish every release had the omnibus versions. It can get annoying watching a 6 parter and having to fast forward all the titles, credits and recaps.

The Collection sets have included all the ones produced for BBC broadcast so far, apart from the 1982 two-part version of Genesis of the Daleks, since there's already a 90-minute version on the disc, and The Sontaran Experiment and The Robots of Death, when they just double-billed the episodes and cut the extra titles and recaps out.

Norton Canes

#181
Quote from: Malcy on November 25, 2020, 12:16:50 PM
I'd really like this, especially the omnibus version of the Daemons, wish every release had the omnibus versions. It can get annoying watching a 6 parter and having to fast forward all the titles, credits and recaps

You don't watch all the titles, credits and recaps? Sacrilege!

A nice season with no out-and-out disappointments, which sets the template for the classic 'UNIT years'.

Terror Of The Autons has plenty of fantastic moments (of which the unmasking of the Auton policeman is my favourite), but they don't knit together especially well and the atmosphere is nowhere near as sinister as that of Spearhead From Space. The Mind Of Evil is a nice hangover from the grittier style of season 7 that benefits from the mind parasite remaining a faceless entity rather then manifesting as someone in a monster suit. Claws Of Axos is glorious, I could watch it over and over. Colony In Space would have made a great 4-part story if it had been restricted to the colonists versus IMC. The ruthless Dent is one of the series' most underrated adversaries. I don't think I've watched the Daemons since the BBC2 repeat in the 90's, must rectify that. It's probably the best UNIT story in terms of the whole squad and their chummy bantz. The opening chapters of Barry Letts' Target adaptation are excellent, really accentuating the folkloric atmosphere.

Of course it goes without saying that in all of the stories, Roger Delgado is phenomenal for every second of his screen time.

Deanjam

Quote from: Norton Canes on November 25, 2020, 02:23:08 PM
Of course it goes without saying that in all of the stories, Roger Delgado is phenomenal for every second of his screen time.

I know some people won't like this, but he's really the only version of the Master that I like. Everyone else plays it like a panto villain. Delgado is like an East End gangster. The only other person who felt like they had any danger to them was Derek Jacobi, but we only got him for 5 minutes.

frajer

Quote from: Deanjam on November 25, 2020, 04:35:35 PM
I know some people won't like this, but he's really the only version of the Master that I like. Everyone else plays it like a panto villain. Delgado is like an East End gangster. The only other person who felt like they had any danger to them was Derek Jacobi, but we only got him for 5 minutes.

I think that's valid. There's that scene in Mind of Evil where he levels an actual shotgun at the Doctor that is the most menacing he's been for my money. Something about it being a real-world weapon rather than his Tissue Compression Eliminator.


pigamus

I think the same - John Simm's a great actor but I wasn't arsed about him as the Master

Norton Canes

He may have been a Master but Delgado was the Master - the definitive article, you might say.

pigamus

Although I love Anthony Ainley in Survival and wish his Master hadn't been treated like a joke

purlieu

Yes, he's utterly brilliant in Survival. If his entire story had been cut down to the Regeneration trilogy, the two Kamelion stories and Survival he would have been great - still nowhere near Delgado level, but still a largely credible villain. It's those other Davison appearances and the Colin ones which just kill any chance of him being taken seriously. Plus, after five and a half years, his appearance in Survival would have been such a surprise.

John Simm was alright, although on the whole I don't like the wacky version of the character that started with his version. His best moment for me was, tellingly, World Enough and Time, in which he was basically doing a Delgado impression, right down to the beard. Much more underplayed and far more sinister for it.

Gurke and Hare

Quote from: purlieu on November 25, 2020, 05:31:56 PM
Yes, he's utterly brilliant in Survival. If his entire story had been cut down to the Regeneration trilogy, the two Kamelion stories and Survival he would have been great - still nowhere near Delgado level, but still a largely credible villain.

I think King's Demons would still be a massive blow to his credibility. "Who could this man who looks like a slightly aged version of The Master be? My god, it's The Master!"

Thomas

Quote from: pigamus on November 25, 2020, 04:49:28 PM
I think the same - John Simm's a great actor but I wasn't arsed about him as the Master

Can't find the quotes now, but I think Simm has expressed a bit of regret at how he played the Master. I seem to recall that RTD instructed more wackiness, to Simm's reluctance. The scruffy dyed blond hair was something he also seemed to regret.

He got the chance to be colder, more menacing, and goateed in his return for series 10. I think he did have some great moments in series 3, when he gets to play angry (berating his Cabinet of traitors) and quiet (phonecall with the Doctor).

Yeah, RTD really buggered up Simm's Master. You can tell he's trying to tone it down in The End of Time as well, but he's written so utterly bonkers that he can't escape it. Even when he's trying to be all menacing, they keep using that cheesy skeleton effect which cheapens it. I'm glad he got a chance to come back and make things right.

purlieu

Quote from: Gurke and Hare on November 25, 2020, 06:11:46 PM
I think King's Demons would still be a massive blow to his credibility. "Who could this man who looks like a slightly aged version of The Master be? My god, it's The Master!"
I only include it because it sets up Planet of Fire. If that story could be re-written to get rid of the whole Kamelion setup then yes, it could be axed.

Replies From View

Was Ainley's Master supposed to resemble Delgado's Master for a clever reason, or was it just a lack of imagination on the part of the production team?

If the producers of the show had had the same approach in the 60s when working out how to replace Hartnell, Doctor Who would never have survived into the 70s.

Thomas

Quote from: Replies From View on November 25, 2020, 11:33:53 PM
Was Ainley's Master supposed to resemble Delgado's Master for a clever reason, or was it just a lack of imagination on the part of the production team?

Perhaps they were reluctant to drift from that striking, bearded image of the Master - especially as poor Delgado was lost so suddenly and unexpectedly - and wanted to reinforce to the audience that this was a continuation of that same slick-haired villain.

As you say, though, they never had to do anything like that with the Doctor (until the crappy question mark motif showed up around the same time).

pigamus

Quote from: Replies From View on November 25, 2020, 11:33:53 PM
Was Ainley's Master supposed to resemble Delgado's Master for a clever reason, or was it just a lack of imagination on the part of the production team?

Are you familiar with the concept of John Nathan-Turner

purlieu

Yeah, it's kind of strange that Ainley was basically a poor attempt at Delgado 2.0, and all the new series Masters have followed the same unhinged, Joker-style supervillain model, when The Doctor has always undergone radical changes from incarnation to incarnation. For all its flaws, at least the Movie managed to portray him as a different type of villain, albeit an unoriginal one with some real continuity issues.

That said, Sacha Dhawan is the most attractive Master to date.

pigamus

Michelle Gomez can eliminate my compressed tissue any day of the week

Replies From View

Quote from: purlieu on November 26, 2020, 12:05:19 AM
Yeah, it's kind of strange that Ainley was basically a poor attempt at Delgado 2.0, and all the new series Masters have followed the same unhinged, Joker-style supervillain model, when The Doctor has always undergone radical changes from incarnation to incarnation. For all its flaws, at least the Movie managed to portray him as a different type of villain, albeit an unoriginal one with some real continuity issues.

That said, Sacha Dhawan is the most attractive Master to date.

The Master has always, I think, worked best when the original concept of being the Doctor's opposite has been understood by the producers of the time.

Delgado was a perfect match/opposite for Pertwee's Doctor, Simm for Tennant and Gomez for Capaldi.

Ainley breaks the mould by spanning so many different incarnations of the Doctor.  It makes the 80s feel very compressed to have one Master for T Baker, Davison, C Baker and McCoy.  He can't form a meaningful connection with any of them, and it doesn't feel like his casting had Davison in mind, which it should have done.

JamesTC

In universe it kind of makes sense that Ainley is similar to Delgado. Delgado doesn't regenerate as he had none left so just deteriorated and then took over somebody's body.

Roberts\Jacobi could even still be Delgado Masters really unless you go by Big Finish.

Thomas

Quote from: Replies From View on November 26, 2020, 07:58:52 AM
The Master has always, I think, worked best when the original concept of being the Doctor's opposite has been understood by the producers of the time.

Delgado was a perfect match/opposite for Pertwee's Doctor, Simm for Tennant and Gomez for Capaldi.

Ainley breaks the mould by spanning so many different incarnations of the Doctor.  It makes the 80s feel very compressed to have one Master for T Baker, Davison, C Baker and McCoy.  He can't form a meaningful connection with any of them, and it doesn't feel like his casting had Davison in mind, which it should have done.

Interesting point, Replies. In all the non-Ainley cases, the Master is tailored to oppose the incumbent Doctor in the most fitting way possible. Sacha Dhawan is good in the role, too, but I don't buy some of the character's actions (his mass slaughter of all the Time Lords, over a rather feeble grievance - and apparently the first grievance in his life to provoke enough ire - doesn't sit right).

It is touching how much Ainley loved the role:

QuoteAinley's great love of the role is often cited in documentaries and DVD commentaries. Script editor Eric Saward claimed that he introduced himself over the phone by saying "This is the Master" and then would laugh. In the commentary and documentary for The Mark of the Rani, both Colin Baker and Kate O'Mara say that "He only ever wanted to play the Master." Baker remarked that he could afford this luxury because he had built up a private income by the mid-1980s and had inherited a considerable sum of money from his father. In "Cat Flap: Making of Survival", Sylvester McCoy confirms that all he ever wanted to be is the Master, and he kept his role active, even off set. "He was as scary off camera as he was on it."

Replies From View

Sacha Dhawan is in the quite unique position of needing to be the perfect binary opposite of a puff of air that comes out of opening a packet of crisps.

purlieu

To me he seems like he's been written to play opposite Matt Smith rather than Jodie. Young with an odd, nervous energy.

Norton Canes

With regard to Ainley's incarnation I always thought it was entirely correct that while the Doctor darted between different personalities, the Master remained essentially the same person. If we're talking D&D then the Doctor is chaotic good while his nemesis is lawful evil. Unfortunately, although Ainley's take worked well with Tom Baker it didn't take long for the panto excesses to surface in his stories with Davison. Hardly surprising I suppose given that the Producer seemed more interested in making pantos than Doctor Who.

I can see why RTD essentially reinvented the character and went for the 'unhinged psychotic' angle, it was what was going on with movie villains at the time. Missy was a laudable attempt to blend the two approaches.

I plucked The Keeper Of Traken off the shelf the other day and watched a couple of episodes, Geoffrey Beevers has a gloriously sinister voice.

daf

Quote from: Norton Canes on November 26, 2020, 11:13:40 AM
I plucked The Keeper Of Traken off the shelf the other day and watched a couple of episodes, Geoffrey Beevers has a gloriously sinister voice.

He's great - he was the Big Finish Master for many years - now there's loads of the buggers (even old matey from the 1996 movie is working for them now!)

A good showcase is Master (main range #49) from 2003 - featuring Beevers and the 7th Doctor. You can sample it for free on Spotify. (alternatively, the downloads currently on sale for just £1.49 from the Big Finish - as are all the 1-100 stories at the moment)

daf

Since I'm really bored, here's how old matey from the 1996 movie scrubs up :



And those eight Big Finish Masters in Full - plus the ninth that turned out to be so Evil, he's been shot out of the official canon :

 

I would be very happy to see an Alex McQueen Master on TV.

pigamus

Quote from: Norton Canes on November 26, 2020, 11:13:40 AM
With regard to Ainley's incarnation I always thought it was entirely correct that while the Doctor darted between different personalities, the Master remained essentially the same person. If we're talking D&D then the Doctor is chaotic good while his nemesis is lawful evil. Unfortunately, although Ainley's take worked well with Tom Baker it didn't take long for the panto excesses to surface in his stories with Davison. Hardly surprising I suppose given that the Producer seemed more interested in making pantos than Doctor Who.

And they were always flops as well. How do you fuck up a panto? Especially when it was your nous with money that got you the producer's job in the first place?

Also, given how much stuff Eric Roberts is in nowadays, I remain 99 % sure he'd have a go at TV Who.

Replies From View

Quote from: purlieu on November 26, 2020, 11:12:16 AM
To me he seems like he's been written to play opposite Matt Smith rather than Jodie. Young with an odd, nervous energy.

I have Benedict Cumberbatch too fixed in my mind as the Eleventh Doctor's Master for me to accept anyone else.

Replies From View