Main Menu

Tip jar

If you like CaB and wish to support it, you can use PayPal or KoFi. Thank you, and I hope you continue to enjoy the site - Neil.

Buy Me a Coffee at ko-fi.com

Support CaB

Recent

Welcome to Cook'd and Bomb'd. Please login or sign up.

March 28, 2024, 10:35:45 PM

Login with username, password and session length

Old Doctor Who - Part 4

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

Previous topic - Next topic

JamesTC

Quote from: Replies From View on September 15, 2021, 04:54:02 PM
Maybe the last one to use the 2D style, then, I'm guessing.

Nah, I'm imagining the two teams (AnneMarie Walsh's and Gary Russell's) will continue to do the 2D projects for BBC America.

The 3D animations will be used for the stories that it is felt will not be possible to animate within budget using 2D animation (Marco Polo, The Crusade, The Daleks' Master Plan, The Highlanders).

QuoteIt felt like it was the first episode of a new series, setting up plot strands that would recur over the next 12 episodes, which sadly won't be the case, but I'm looking forward to seeing just what is going on with the Time Lords and the Faction Paradox at some point in the future. I know Miles's next book is a notorious game-changer.

and the EDAs, as far as I remember, completely fail to deliver on that front.

Within three books, there's an entirely different arc.

Looking at the list of EDAs, its nearly a year and a half until we revisit practically any of the ideas put into place by Alien Bodies.

Other notes:
iirc, read the intermission chapters in reverse order
one character has already met the Doctor. Looked him up once. Nope.
The Shift is a great idea.

Replies From View



Use of the Chibnall-era logo is so short-sighted.


When it comes to the blu ray box-sets, they'll still be releasing them long after the Chibnall era has ended and there is a new logo.  Will they use the newer logo for those later releases?  Stick to the Chibnall logo for uniformity?  This is why classic releases would have been better sticking to the McGann modification of the Pertwee logo.  Or using the logo of each specific season.

JamesTC

Quote from: Replies From View on September 15, 2021, 05:19:10 PM
Use of the Chibnall-era logo is so short-sighted.


When it comes to the blu ray box-sets, they'll still be releasing them long after the Chibnall era has ended and there is a new logo.  Will they use the newer logo for those later releases?  Stick to the Chibnall logo for uniformity?  This is why classic releases would have been better sticking to the McGann modification of the Pertwee logo.

For the Collection releases, I believe they stated from the outset that the logo will remain uniform throughout. I guess if the higher ups did send down a didact that they needed to change them, they could always just put a sticker over with the new logo and have the Chibnall era logo underneath for people who want uniformity.

They have reversible covers for the animated range. Sadly the steelbook can't have that but I personally only have three of those and of those it is just the Smith Specials that have the new logo (Shada and the four disc Power being the other two).


Malcy


Midas

Aye, the reversible sleeves were a nice touch...


Replies From View

Quote from: Malcy on September 15, 2021, 06:05:36 PM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fq5Rsl7WLbc

Trailer.

Can't say I'll ever really settle with the colour versions.  They don't mesh with the soundtracks for me.

pigamus

Quote from: Replies From View on September 15, 2021, 05:19:10 PM


Use of the Chibnall-era logo is so short-sighted.


When it comes to the blu ray box-sets, they'll still be releasing them long after the Chibnall era has ended and there is a new logo.  Will they use the newer logo for those later releases?  Stick to the Chibnall logo for uniformity?  This is why classic releases would have been better sticking to the McGann modification of the Pertwee logo.  Or using the logo of each specific season.

That cover makes Andrew Skilleter look like Pablo Picasso

Clearly the only bit of effort went on Hartnell's face and it still looks nothing like him

His left hand looks like it was drawn by a child, and as for Drahvin Vera Duckworth, well


Midas



Very unnerved by Hartnell's head tbh

Midas

(Because it looks like a withered, grey glans)

Midas


Replies From View

You don't need to include the "withered, grey".  This is CaB where there is no other kind.

Midas

something something Galaxy 4skin!!!!


purlieu


Mean Streets by Terrance Dicks.

Uncle Terry clearly likes mid-century American crime fiction. The first third of Shakedown was set in Megacity, a city run by various criminal gangs and overseen by corrupt police; half of Blood Harvest had the Doctor and Ace dealing with Al Capone, partially written first person from the perspective of a PI. In Mean Streets, Chris and Benny return to Megacity, and part of the book is written first person from the perspective of a PI. They're there to find out what "The Project" is, how it'll kill lots of people, and stop it. It turns out one of the mining companies has been experimenting on their workers and have accidentally activated a dormant "killer gene", turning them into ruthless murderers. Benny fancies a Demoniac called Lucifer, and Chris shags a gangster called Sara. And that's about it.
It's full-on Terrance Dicks, with absolutely no characterisation, lots of exclamation marks, people who routinely talk in exposition and cliches, some glaring errors (Chris teaching Benny about Earth history?!), gratuitous and wholly unfitting swearing and use of the word whores, and low word count. It's rubbish, but quite fun rubbish.

Next time on The New Adventures of Bernice Summerfield... oh God it's Bulis.

Deanjam

Just mentioning in here that John Challis has died. A great guest appearance in The Seeds of Doom.

purlieu

Totally forgot he was in that. Amazing how many familiar faces were on the show over the years.


Tempest by Christopher Bulis.

Not bad for Bulis. It's a whodunnit on a train. Two murders, an attempted murder and a theft. All of the possible suspects have enough motive, but none of them the ability. There's some action when a subplot comes to town. The characters are competently written but without any real depth. They mostly have naff sci-fi names. The big reveal at the end isn't as surprising as Bulis thought it was, but it slots together quite well. Benny's diary entries are used for exposition rather than character growth. There's no reference to any of the on-going arcs from the other books. It didn't make me want to gnaw my hands off like Bulis's worst, and it was generally quite pacy and fun to read, but I also won't ever read it again. It's really hard to say much else about it to be honest.

Next time on Doctor Who... oh joy, a first time author.

frajer

I got round to ordering The Web of Fear Blu-ray last week and watched it yesterday. I wavered after seeing the animated clips online (that and I've already got the DVD) but I'd say it was worth the purchase. A cracking story gets an even better restoration. The film bits looked wonderfully crisp.

I didn't think the animation was terrible when viewed in black-and-white (haven't watched the colour version yet) but when compared to the other animated stories it can't help but feel perfunctory and wasn't very engaging. I know it was done to keep within budget and I'm not trying to kick something when it's down, but it's hard not to think something better will be done with it in the future. I'm glad a story like Evil of the Daleks hasn't been animated this way as I don't think I could sit through more than one episode of it.

On the other hand I thought the Making Of was wonderful. Really lovely stuff, well researched and crafted, and a big reason why I don't mind double dipping for the Blu-rays. So yeah, I'm glad I picked it up. But because the animation does feel like a placeholder for something better it doesn't quite feel definitive.

Replies From View

Also "kicking something when it's down" isn't really what you're doing when you're paying full price for a DVD or blu ray release after already buying the bare bones version.


At times it feels like we're holding back from criticism because these DVDs are only doing it for work experience or they've been given the job as part of an equal opportunities scheme.  When in truth we're all routinely paying a lot of money to support a product that feels consistently within its infancy one way or another.


I mean don't get me wrong - I am choosing to buy these releases and that's completely on me, but in no way do I feel like I am "kicking something when it's down" just by being honest.

frajer

Oh yeah I totally agree. £20 isn't a low price point either, and I couldn't justify paying £30 for the steelbook (although I did prefer Lee Binding's lovely artwork for the standard release anyway).

I meant more that the animation team seem to have been very limited in terms of budget and resource, and feels like they did the best they could, so I felt a bit mean in sticking the boot in when loads of people have already said it was crap. But the animation did feel substandard and I imagine it will be replaced or revised when it comes to the Season 5 Blu-ray.

JamesTC

They might improve the animation with slight tweaks for the Season 5 set but it will not be completely redone. They have previously said that the budget on the Collection sets would not stretch to an animation due to needing to utilise the budget for other areas. There are already compromises on these sets such as Season 8 not having any new work on The Mind of Evil Episode 1 (which IIRC Stuart Humphreys was a little upset about as he felt he could have improved the colourisation).

I believe the reason for using 3D animation for The Web of Fear was so that they could use the budget to pay for the initial set-up costs for the process and it will now enable them to other stories within the budget of a DVD/BR release which would not be possible utilising the 2D animation. Marco Polo, The Crusade, The Daleks' Master Plan and The Highlanders are stories hinted by Charles Norton* as being difficult for 2D due to either length, complexity or a mixture of both.

We know that The Evil of the Daleks and Galaxy 4 are on the way in the 2D style of animation. If we see The Myth Makers, The Massacre, The Celestial Toymaker, The Savages, The Smugglers, The Underwater Menace, The Abominable Snowmen, The Wheel in Space and The Space Pirates all done via the 2D animation at a rate of 2-3 a year then I'll be very happy myself. I think animating the others using the 3D animation (which I think has some benefits, even if it is a downgrade on the 2D) is a compromise I am willing to take in order to have everything recreated.

*

Quote from: Replies From View on September 20, 2021, 12:05:46 PM
Also "kicking something when it's down" isn't really what you're doing when you're paying full price for a DVD or blu ray release after already buying the bare bones version.

At times it feels like we're holding back from criticism because these DVDs are only doing it for work experience or they've been given the job as part of an equal opportunities scheme.  When in truth we're all routinely paying a lot of money to support a product that feels consistently within its infancy one way or another.

I mean don't get me wrong - I am choosing to buy these releases and that's completely on me, but in no way do I feel like I am "kicking something when it's down" just by being honest.

I think it depends. Much of the work on these releases are done by fans. Can you imagine what it must have felt like for Stuart Humphreys after working night after night on top of his day job coloursing The Mind of Evil 1 only to get fans then complain that it doesn't look as good as Planet of the Daleks 3. Or for Mark Ayres to be picking apart all of the audio and artificially creating a 5.1 surround sound Genesis of the Daleks only for some to complain that the entire release didn't have 5.1.

I should stress that this isn't aimed at anybody on here. I don't think any of the criticism on here has been out of order and has been understandable even when I may disagree. Whilst I like the animation for The Web of Fear, I understand why others don't.

The Web of Fear is one of those cases where it is a process that they are just finding their way with. Much like Planet 55 when they did Reign of Terror and it was a disaster but then did The Tenth Planet and The Moonbase to much praise. I put The Moonbase as my favourite of all of the animation and Reign of Terror is easily bottom. I think if there is one hope I have for the Season 1 set, it is some sort of new recreation for Reign (unfortunately no telesnaps exist). Whether it is right that a commercial release should be a guinea pig for an animation process, I guess is down to the individual buyers. I'm happy if it leads us to all episodes being recreated in some form eventually.

I'm usually very defensive on these releases, but even I do criticise when I feel it is necessary. I know I was pretty scathing about the Myths and Legends set, Reign of Terror, Silver Nemesis, The Underwater Menace plus those shit 16:9 cutdown messes done for a couple of Davison stories. How the hell those Davison cutdowns saw a commercial release I don't know. Even worse, they got a second disc whilst Silver Nemesis couldn't get an extended version due to disc space despite already previously having an extended version for the VHS era.

Midas

surely the BBC can just make a loss

JamesTC

Cancel Chibnall episodes and use the money to pay for animations. This is the way.

Midas

honestly tho, think how much dosh they've rinsed out of doctor who over the years. loads. mountains upon mountains of tat sold. they could easily justify investing a bit more cash to produce higher quality releases while making a comparatively tiny loss on a handful of niche animations. they'd probably sell more if they had higher production values too. ka-ching!

Midas

Quote from: JamesTC on September 20, 2021, 04:36:06 PM
Cancel Chibnall episodes and use the money to pay for animations. This is the way.

aye! a few million for each serial...

Midas

i actually just spent ages writing a furiously cynical tirade condemning the BBC's doctor who releases and re-releases and re-re-releases as being a symptom of a widespread predatory consumer culture and then i went on to explain in detail how everything's shit but i decided it was a bit miserable for a monday and would probably get people down so i deleted it. it was a stunning piece of work tho. very principled. i'm hesitant to say... christ-like.

Norton Canes

Do you think they'll ever consider making an animated version of Warriors of the Deep? It could be brilliant

JamesTC


mjwilson

I was already probably not going to double dip on the Web blu ray, but once they put the clips out, it was a definite no. DVD is fine for me until they find the actual episode.

Malcy

Quote from: mjwilson on September 20, 2021, 06:13:53 PM
I was already probably not going to double dip on the Web blu ray, but once they put the clips out, it was a definite no. DVD is fine for me until they find the actual episode.

Or get it off of the absolute shit who stole it after it was discovered. Bet it was an animator...

Jerzy Bondov

I've just been watching Timelash for the first time. Thought it was meant to be shit. It's great. Bit where the guy gets zapped and he turns into a skeleton and it falls over and goes THUNK on the floor. That's good telly.