Old Doctor Who - Part 4

[Replies From View]

oh god Mark Gatiss is in there


let me guess - he wrote that one.

[jamiefairlie]

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.

Aye, that's true, the body is that is Nyssa's dad, not a regenerated body at all.

[Deanjam]

Why is Alex McQueen's head so big here?

[daf]

oh god Mark Gatiss is in there


let me guess - he wrote that one.

Heh - no it's alright, he's just acting in it! *

Actually, Gatiss has only penned a couple of stories for Big Finish - Phantasmagoria back in 1999, and 'Invaders from Mars' in 2002 - that one might be of interest to Spaced fans as it has both Simon Pegg and Jessica Stevenson in the cast.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
* He's the 'Unbound Universe' Master - opposite David Warner as the 'Unbound Doctor' in a couple of recent Bernice Summerfield boxed sets.

[VelourSpirit]

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 :

Glad they quickly backtracked on the "first Master" thing. He was meant to be just in the First Doctor Adventures which is a David Bradley reimagining of that era so I'm not sure why they brought the transphobe cunt into the "real" timeline of the main range anyway

[JamesTC]

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 :

 

They should get Graham Linehan to replace him.

[Replies From View]

Heh - no it's alright, he's just acting in it! *

Actually, Gatiss has only penned a couple of stories for Big Finish - Phantasmagoria back in 1999, and 'Invaders from Mars' in 2002 - that one might be of interest to Spaced fans as it has both Simon Pegg and Jessica Stevenson in the cast.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
* He's the 'Unbound Universe' Master - opposite David Warner as the 'Unbound Doctor' in a couple of recent Bernice Summerfield boxed sets.

Astonished that Mark Gatiss would have been a Master of some kind without also penning it himself.

[Replies From View]

Glad they quickly backtracked on the "first Master" thing. He was meant to be just in the First Doctor Adventures which is a David Bradley reimagining of that era so I'm not sure why they brought the transphobe cunt into the "real" timeline of the main range anyway

I suppose Mark Gatiss is also the Third Doctor through the David Bradley connection.

[JamesTC]

Glad they quickly backtracked on the "first Master" thing. He was meant to be just in the First Doctor Adventures which is a David Bradley reimagining of that era so I'm not sure why they brought the transphobe cunt into the "real" timeline of the main range anyway

I believe The Psychic Circus was recorded but not yet released when his transphobia was highlighted and they cut ties. I'm not sure if it was announced either as I seem to remember a backlash about it.

[pigamus]

Sorry I've lost the thread a bit - who's the transphobe?

[JamesTC]

Sorry I've lost the thread a bit - who's the transphobe?

James Dreyfus who played "the first Master".

[daf]

Note that his image is on the cover of the 'The Psychic Circus', but not his name.

This was because he blotted his copybook on Twitter between the recording of the story and it's release. It was too late to pull the story, as the CDs were already pressed up, but the cover was changed.

[pigamus]

Oh! Well I'd never have recognised him from that cover. Don't think I've seen him since about 1996. Did they get Constable Habib in as the Rani?

[daf]

Did they get Constable Habib in as the Rani?

Heh - no, Siobhán Redmond is Big Finish's current Rani - and a fairly restrained spinoff at only two stories.

(apologies for turning this into the Audio thread!)

[Replies From View]

I remember when they did a special shit version of Willo the Wisp where they decided to use James Dreyfus as Willo the Wisp:




Yes well worth caricaturing this fellow when you redesign Willo the Wisp.  Such a recognisable visage.






Hadn't heard about the transphobia before now, but when you've ruined Willo the Wisp you're already cancelled.

[Norton Canes]

That's James Dreyfus? Shit!



Looking at that I had him down as some hard nut Glaswegian type actor.

[pigamus]

And all the other likenesses are from 1988 but that's him now, which is just odd.

[Billy]

If anyone's been following the 29(!) year history of Doctor Who fan film Devious, Episode 2 was recently released on YouTube, joining Episode 1 a couple years back. The story behind it is pretty incredible, they started filming it in 1991 and carried on until about the mid 2000s, and after over a decade of post-production are currently releasing one episode online on average about once a year, with ultra-modern CGI and effects doing their absolute best to spruce up the original blurry VHS camcorder footage.

It's basically just a load of amdram fans messing about on tape during the wilderness years with an older actor playing the Doctor (a secret incarnation set between Troughton and Pertwee), so will hardly win any BAFTAs anytime soon, but from an editing point of view it's surprisingly fascinating to watch - characters suddenly age fifteen years and back mid-conversation as they cross between shots, meaning haircuts switch from 90s to noughties styles, weights gain and fall and you can basically tell when the scene was filmed by how grey the Doctor's hair is (see also Clarkson and May in Top Gear repeats on Dave). They've clearly ADRed a hell of a lot of it many years later to stop the outdoor scenes being an inaudible mumble of wind noise and tape hiss (some bits working better than others), and the modern CGI they've used looks genuinely impressive given that the actors are reacting to thin air at a time when Atari STs and Amigas were the pinnacle of home computer technology. Most famously,

Spoiler alert

Jon Pertwee

[close]

makes an appearance in the serial's yet-to-be-finished final episode as it was filmed back in 1995, which got it a lot of attention from the fan community and that one scene made it on one of the official DVDs about a decade ago, The War Games I think.

Yeah there's lots of clunky line readings and a rather confusing plot so far, but fair play on the cast and crew who are now well into their fifties and older who've been working on this for most of their entire lives - it's a nice amount of dedication for something that started out as a bit of fun, and gives me hope that those unfinished Who fanfics I wrote as a teenager circa 2005 will also eventually get completed someday.

[pigamus]

Maybe I'm being unfair but I'm always a bit baffled by that sort of thing. I mean the entire British Broadcasting Corporation with all of its resources often struggled to make Doctor Who that wasn't shit and wasn't a joke - are you really going to be able to do it with three of your mates and a camcorder?

[Replies From View]

And all the other likenesses are from 1988 but that's him now, which is just odd.

To be fair he would have been about 15.


Edit:  checked, and he'd have been 20 in 1988.  Same difference.

[pigamus]

Yeah to be fair I suppose it doesn't matter what he looks like then or now because he wasn't in it in the first place (Greatest Show in the Galaxy I mean)

[Deanjam]

That's James Dreyfus? Shit!

One of his better reviews.

[Replies From View]

Yeah to be fair I suppose it doesn't matter what he looks like then or now because he wasn't in it in the first place (Greatest Show in the Galaxy I mean)

Maybe it's a tribute to Devious, with all the actors stemming from different decades of their own life.

[purlieu]

The Doctor Who Site have competitions to win BluRay boxes of seasons 12 and 14, if anybody's interested.
https://merchandise.thedoctorwhosite.co.uk/competition-win-a-doctor-who-season-12-blu-ray-set/
https://merchandise.thedoctorwhosite.co.uk/competition-win-a-doctor-who-season-14-blu-ray-set/

[Small Man Big Horse]

Doctor Who - Rose by Russell T. Davies - A fast, fun read where Davies adds to the story of his first ever Who story, largely by fleshing out the characters of Rose, Mickey and Doctor-obsessive Clive Finch, and by making the final battle at the end with the Autons invading London much, much bigger, to the extent that the death count would have been pretty brutal if televised, and would probably have had to be shown after the watershed. It's really enjoyable stuff even if you know the plot well, Davies paces it effectively, and my only real complaint is that Jackie didn't die Davies didn't give the Doctor a little more coverage, but other than that it was something I was very fond of it in general. 3.75/5

[Alberon]

Clayton Hickman on Twitter is doing his own Who themed advent calender.

40+ restored & remastered TARDIS set photos over 25 days, covering 25 seasons of Old Testament #DoctorWho. Includes 10 new colourisations and a bunch of previously-unseen images.

It'll be quite nice, honest

Day 1 is the first episode



Day 2 is from The Chase



I've reduced the size of these, as they're massive, but they're well worth looking at full size.

https://twitter.com/claytonhickman/status/1334059436491550720?s=20

[purlieu]

Doctor Who and More Bloody Vampires Blood Harvest by Terrance Dicks


I hate vampires. I don't know why. Just nothing about them has ever appealed to me. No horror tale involving vampires has scared me or grabbed my attention. Even when I used to watch Buffy, I'd get really bored during the vampire stories, waiting for one of the many monster-of-the-week episodes to come along. I didn't particularly rate Goth Opera, the sequel to this, when it came around as the first MA during my Davison run. I don't really enjoy State of Decay, which this is a sequel to. So my hopes here weren't high. Especially as Dicks doesn't have the best reputation when it comes to books (especially the BBC PDAs which I've read). And when it opened in the style of a first person Hard Boiled Crime style book, I almost thought about giving it up.

Thankfully, once it gets going, it's a decent little story. Benny is in E-Space with Romana, investigating why vampires have returned to the State of Decay planet, as they also try to introduce a British-style parliament system to the planet. It starts slow, but in the second half of the book it picks up pace and is a lot of fun. You can see the first hints of Dicks's later utter nonsense (think Warmonger) in the other part of the story, in which The Doctor installs himself as a speakeasy owner called Doc in Prohibition-era Chicago, working alongside Al Capone, a PI called Dekker, and his bodyguard 'The Lady in Black' (Ace, of course) to investigate who's trying to stir up violence in the city. Thankfully it's - mostly - done with a lightness of touch that makes it a silly romp. It almost comes off the rails at one point, in which The Doctor storms a brothel, shooting a sawn-off shotgun all over the place, trying to rescue Ace who has been captured, stripped to her underwear, and is about to be raped. It's been a while since a NA had a pervy Ace moment, so this was a nice reminder of how tasteless the series can be.

A denouement on Gallifrey ties the two stories together with some borderline interesting/fanwank nonsense about bringing Borusa back, followed by a couple of hints to what will happen in Goth Opera. It's far from a top-tier book, but after a shaky start it becomes pretty readable and a lot of fun.

[samadriel]

Good to have you back, purlieu, thanks for continuing with the books.

[purlieu]

I'm spending a lot less time online these days, but I always enjoy sharing my journey through these books here!
Actually been barely reading lately for various reasons, but I tore through the second half of this in a couple of hours this morning, hoping to get back to reading at that kind of speed again so should be getting through them quicker now. That said, I need to keep my purchases up to the same speed...

[samadriel]

There's a torrent with PDFs of every Who novel out there somewhere, that's how I finally read Alien Bodies. No good for those averse to ebooks I suppose.