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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

Mark Ayres tweeted a picture of a new 5.1 mix recently, so they've definately been working on *something*.

The Roofdog

Anyone listen to Tennant's podcast? It's a bit pants when he hasn't got his proper mates on, to be honest, but Billie is on it this week so could be good. The Olivia Colman and Michael Sheen ones were OK.

Malcy

Quote from: The Roofdog on October 20, 2020, 11:06:04 AM
Anyone listen to Tennant's podcast? It's a bit pants when he hasn't got his proper mates on, to be honest, but Billie is on it this week so could be good. The Olivia Colman and Michael Sheen ones were OK.

Listened to a couple of them but only ones with people i liked. Sheen, Colman & Whoopi Goldberg the only ones i remember. If Piper is on it this week i'll have a listen.

Replies From View

I watched half an episode of a Netflix show with Tennant about actors zooming during lockdown and couldn't be arsed to be honest.

If his podcast is anything like that I doubt I'll be arsed to be honest.


Arsed to be honest.

Malcy

Quote from: Replies From View on October 20, 2020, 12:38:25 PM
I watched half an episode of a Netflix show with Tennant about actors zooming during lockdown and couldn't be arsed to be honest.

If his podcast is anything like that I doubt I'll be arsed to be honest.


Arsed to be honest.
Staged is brilliant. Stick with it.

Replies From View


olliebean

Quote from: Malcy on October 20, 2020, 03:33:42 PM
Staged is brilliant. Stick with it.

Yeah, the first episode isn't very promising but it picks up thereafter.

purlieu

Doctor Who and What Ace Gets Up to in the Evenings Theatre of War by Justin Richards.


Previously... on Doctor Who: The Virgin New Adventures
Ace has finally stopped being a whiny twat and has begun to resemble the TV version of her character, only with Added Space Soldier Skills. The Doctor is sometimes a master manipulator with hints to something called Time's Champion, while other times he's just... well, The Doctor. The Brigadier's great-great-great granddaughter is out there somewhere. And Benny was last seen tagging along to some archeological dig sponsored by the mysterious[nb]or he would be, had I not read The Empire of Glass back in my First Doctor run[/nb] Irving Braxiatel. And now, the continuation...
Quote from: purlieu on October 05, 2020, 11:49:22 PM
After a break to go through a handful of "literary" novels as well as some Tolkien and The Dark Tower, I'm back on the VNAs again now. It's quite nice to read something as simple and pulpy as these again, actually. So I'll be back in a couple of days with my thoughts on Theatre of War. Stay tuned.
The fact that this ended up taking me three weeks says a lot about how enjoyable I found it. On completing it, I was surprised to discover it's a fairly well regarded book. I do understand some of the praise it gets: there's a very good story that finally comes about in the third act, but the first act is such a fucking slog that it killed my interest stone dead, and by the time it started to get interesting, I had forgotten most of what had happened because I'd read some reference two weeks prior, in blocks of two or three pages at a time.

Speaking of Acts, the book is split into them. You see, the 'Theatre' of war is very much a literal one: A race of people founded on the principle that theatre is a sign of the highest form of civilisation, who use their military to invade other cultures and impose said philosophy on them. Later on it turns out the military leader is conducting hideous experiments on the race they're invading (so bad they "make the Nazis look like Dad's Army," in the words of Ace), but this is so underdeveloped and at odds with everything else that it feels tacked on as an excuse to justify Braxiatel and the Doctor's actions. Archaeologists from this world are uncovering the remains of a theatre on what seems like another planet obsessed with theatre. This is my biggest problem with the book: the characters, largely space marines there to guard what is pretty much a jolly expedition in the middle of a war zone, are all one-dimensional nobodies, the kind we've come across dozens of times already in the books. There's generally a very military slant to the novels, and it got boring a while ago. So while a bunch of vaguely familiar with characters with not-quite-English names are picked off one by one, there's nothing to offer any interest to the reader at all.

Elsewhere, Benny is sent off to the Braxiatel Collection to investigate further, as everything on the planet seems just too coincidental to her and The Doctor. This bit is great. Benny really comes into her own as a smart, witty archaeologist. Meeting with Braxiatel, she holds her own, and the whole section manages to be much more pacy and exciting, despite it basically being Benny doing research in a museum. Braxiatel sends her off to meet with The Doctor, just in time for the climax.

The third Act throws in a number of twists and turns, involving a mythical lost play (guess who helped write it), a personal revenge story, and a resolution to the aforementioned war crimes. Much like the various documents sourced from the Braxiatel Collection that are placed between chapters, I get the feeling the connecting strands would have been more satisfying had I been able to get through the book in a couple of afternoons, but after three weeks I'd really begun to lose an idea of what was going on. It's clear from the fact that I read this final act in a couple of hours that there's loads more interest here, though, and I can definitely see the skeleton of an excellent story. I just wish I didn't have to wade through multiple chapters of meathead male and butch female soldiers trudging through mud, and intellectuals discussing Shakespeare, before I got to it.

Character-wise, The Doctor is definitely the Seventh, albeit in a fairly unsubstantial role, closer to his season 25 incarnation than the full-on 'playing chess with time itself' manipulator we find later. Ace mostly exists to smash things up, and be told not to smash things up. Benny is the highlight here, given a meaty role and some well thought-out characterisation.

Kadiatu still hasn't turned up yet.

Phil_A

Richards is a very workmanlike writer, isn't he. Not quite bland and dull like the output of B.U.L.I.S., but just sort of very meat-and-potatoes Dr Who. I have a hard time remembering anything written by him that I've read.

crankshaft

I've never managed to get through Theatre Of War - it's so turgid. Twice I got about a third of the way through and gave up. The audio adaptation, though, is very good.

Richards is a funny one. He gets a lot better, very quickly, after this, and books like The Burning, The Medusa Effect and Dragons' Wrath are good, they're readable and rattle along. But he's never written anything which particularly distinguishes itself, either. The arse end of the EDAs is particularly problematic, where he starts off a giant, hard to follow "arc" that takes forever to unfold and is finally resolved in the most boring manner possible.

pigamus

I found out the other day that not only did John Nathan-Turner go to my school, he lived on the same road I lived on. Weirded me out for some reason.

Norton Canes

Don't know if this was mentioned at the time (I guess it belongs here in the Old Doctor Who thread) but back in August, TV Cream invited Steven Moffat to watch Once Upon A Time, the penultimate episode of the original version of The Prisoner...

TV Cream Stays Indoors With Steven Moffat


daf


Alberon

I don't remember the Autons being in Series Seve-- oh wait, that's Clara, isn't it?

Replies From View

Is this the first time series 7 has been on blu ray?  Feels like these have already all been released a hundred times.  Is this one just for the Chibnall logo?

Deanjam

Quote from: Replies From View on October 29, 2020, 05:54:58 PM
Is this the first time series 7 has been on blu ray?  Feels like these have already all been released a hundred times.  Is this one just for the Chibnall logo?

It's had a bluray before, yes.

Jerzy Bondov

Quote from: Alberon on October 29, 2020, 04:56:04 PM
I don't remember the Autons being in Series Seve-- oh wait, that's Clara, isn't it?
Haha.


Christ I miss the Clara years

olliebean

Does everything pre-Chibnall count as "Old Doctor Who" now?

Replies From View

Quote from: olliebean on October 29, 2020, 09:45:14 PM
Does everything pre-Chibnall count as "Old Doctor Who" now?

It all falls into the bracket of "Pre-Hopeless Doctor Who".


M-CORP

He signed himself off as 'the former Steven Moffat'. What a guy.
Always liked Moffat's self-deprecating style of humour, particularly in his columns in Doctor Who Magazine where he would answer fans' questions. These columns alone are really funny and probably better than much of the Chibnall era (less pleasurable it may be to still be saying stuff like that at this point).

M-CORP

Have also just skimmed through the first draft and, given that it's not too dissimilar, the fact he was able to nail about 75 to 90 percent of what became Blink on the first draft just makes me admire Moffat more. I do like the original ending (though the way it ultimately ended with the invitation to play a game with Real-life statues that may be Angels is better).

Norton Canes

I'm tempted to say "He lost me at..."

QuoteSALLY SPARROW. Early twenties, very pretty, just a bit
mad, just a bit dangerous. She's staring at the house,
eyes shining. Big naughty grin.

SALLY: Sexy!

...but I know I'm going to read the rest despite.

Quote from: M-CORP on November 03, 2020, 06:26:25 PM
He signed himself off as 'the former Steven Moffat'. What a guy.
Always liked Moffat's self-deprecating style of humour, particularly in his columns in Doctor Who Magazine where he would answer fans' questions. These columns alone are really funny and probably better than much of the Chibnall era (less pleasurable it may be to still be saying stuff like that at this point).

I often found his era a bit disappointing at the time, but have now come to realise there's such a gulf between that and the show being actively, unwatchably terrible.

purlieu

I just discovered Russell T. Davies wrote three episodes of Chucklevision.

JamesTC

Quote from: purlieu on November 08, 2020, 09:34:41 PM
I just discovered Russell T. Davies wrote three episodes of Chucklevision.

I did not know this. Looked them up but none of them ring a bell. Wondered if the one where Barry bodyswapped with a spider was one of his but it wasn't.

I did discover that ChuckleVision has a wiki of its own. Some excerpts from the in depth plots of his episodes:
QuoteBarry keeps making too much noise with his crisps and then he can't stop laughing so Paul makes him watch outside and on top of a load of boxes, Barry ends up falling over because he can't see so Paul traps him in a sleeping bag with a balaclava on his head so he can't talk.
QuotePaul starts to make some chicken moves and an old lady gives them a funny look.
QuoteBarry throws a scone onto a priceless painting, he tries to clean it off but ends up making the painting completley white. Paul tries to recreate it but instead draws a giant thumb, when the butler comes in he suggests croque the two go off for a game just as the butler see's the giant thumb painting on the top of the porch.


Replies From View

QuoteKrytie TV
Lister keeps making too much noise with his crisps and then he can't stop laughing so Rimmer makes him watch outside and on top of a load of boxes, Lister ends up falling over because he can't see so Rimmer traps him in a sleeping bag with a balaclava on his head so he can't talk.

QuoteCassandra
Rimmer starts to make some chicken moves and an old lady gives them a funny look.

QuotePete Part 2
Lister throws a scone onto a priceless painting, he tries to clean it off but ends up making the painting completley white. Rimmer tries to recreate it but instead draws a giant thumb, when Hollister comes in he suggests croque the two go off for a game just as Hollister see's the giant thumb painting on the top of the porch.

A friend wrote for Chucklevision years ago, and told me that at the wrap party, the brothers came round and shook everyone's hand, thanking them by name, down to the lowliest. Then they left the party and sat in a caravan parked outside playing cards with their wives. I think both parts of this story reflect excellently on them.

purlieu

Quote from: JamesTC on November 08, 2020, 10:07:41 PM

This is a very funny image.

I actually thought Davies would have written the episode with this brilliant moment in, but his work was a couple of series prior.
I grabbed some series from TVChaos and was pleasantly surprised that every episode has at least one utterly brilliant gag in it, despite being frequently quite tedious.

grainger