Doctor Who [8]

I find K9 annoying now, but I have to admit he hit the spot with me when I was a kid, I still think the scenes that save him are the ones with the Doctor- Tom Baker was very funny in how he interacted with K9 (helped no doubt by the voice being done live on set).

I have always been a Leella fan- its not so much the skimpy costume would raise eyebrows today I think but rather the violence from her- she is pretty quick to knife people!   

But she is one of those classic companions that was more common then but never happens now- a main full time companion who is someone not from earth- I dont think NuWho needs to go as far as the ropey Chamelion andriod or another K-9 but it would be nice to see either a companion from another planet or one from a completely different earth time (like Jamie who was from 1745ish) or Nissa who was from the future.

For my money Nuwho plays it too safe on that regard in always going for contemporary earth companions.


"Leela managed to appear more dressed than Amy despite having nearly nothing on, but it could be the resolution."- Amarie

Its all the legs- Karen has more leg than almost any other human!   

I am sure I would have adored K-9 as a kid. And the whole classic who for that matter.

From my current ageing perspective there is a lot of classic Who doesnt make the grade, and a lot that still does or is even better than I remember- but as a kid there wasnt a bad episode.   

I even charged my mates 10p to come to my Doctor Who exhibition as a kid (I think I still have the 10ps in my sporran)- which was basically a sand pit with all my Who toys in it, some posters and a Who album playing in the background!

So if you think Im a bit keen on Who now be glad you never knew me then! (apart from anything else it would have cost you 10p)

K9 was a bit of a silly prop, but I always liked how John Leeson portrayed him and his interactions with Tom Baker. If not for that relationship I'm not sure I could see it working close to as well.

I think I posted this earlier:

Now, what is it like losing to that dog at chess?



And what do you do if that happens?





Hm. Was that the Virus thing taking over the Universe episode, Amarië? It's a bit weird, but I quite like that one.   

The thing I enjoy most about K-9 is that he has a super computer brain but is programmed to be a dog- so the Doctor cant say 'walk' out loud without him wanting to go along too, antennae tail a-wagging.   

Yeah.  

And using the Tardis to knock over the chess board. Must remember that one.  

Some interesting Who hints from Ben Wheatley the Director who has the gig of doing the opening two epiosdes of series 8- not really spoilery, more general-

Ben Wheatley: With someone like Capaldi, he's a massive Who fan. He knows Who inside out. And everything he does is very, carefully planned and thought about. I remember when they first started talking to me about doing it, and I was very nervous for just those reasons. How do you shape this performance?

But then when I heard who was going to do it — when they told me it was Capaldi, [I thought] that's not really a problem. He's so good. I was relieved, pretty much. It would have been a very different situation if it had been another kind of Matt Smith character. A guy who you don't know. Molded from the start. But with Capaldi, you look at his career and you look at his performances they are all so brilliant, and all so different as well. It was a lucky break for me, I think that.

It was something I sought out. I got my agent to kind of badger them about doing, because I was a fan as a kid. But also because my kid was a fan of the show and I wanted to make something that he could see, for a change. That was it. And it's been very geeky indeed. Going into the TARDIS, I held the Sonic Screwdriver the other day, and that was a particular thrill. All sorts of stuff. Also stuff I can't talk about, that's been very, very exciting for me.

Doctor Who is pretty dark, I think. Generally it's dark, it's always been dark. Even in the more modern ones. If you look at the Tom Baker stuff, it's especially dark. When he leaves Leela — who's a very beloved assistant — he just laughs after it. There's none of the [breaking down and crying]. He just laughs, and "on to the next one," you know. It's a bonkers show. It's a monster. To have a unity that runs eight years [of the new series]… it's pretty crazy. They've done everything, they've tried all sorts of stuff. It seems to me the episodes that we're doing now seem more like classic Who. We're going back to that style. But you'll have to wait and see.'




Can't come fast enough for me.

[quote="Pettytyrant101"
I have always been a Leella fan- its not so much the skimpy costume would raise eyebrows today I think but rather the violence from her- she is pretty quick to knife people!   

But she is one of those classic companions that was more common then but never happens now- a main full time companion who is someone not from earth- I dont think NuWho needs to go as far as the ropey Chamelion andriod or another K-9 but it would be nice to see either a companion from another planet or one from a completely different earth time (like Jamie who was from 1745ish) or Nissa who was from the future.

For my money Nuwho plays it too safe on that regard in always going for contemporary earth companions.


"Leela managed to appear more dressed than Amy despite having nearly nothing on, but it could be the resolution."- Amarie

Its all the legs- Karen has more leg than almost any other human!    [/quote]

I do agree about Leela. I have, sadly, seen but one classic Dr. Who episode yet (JUDGE NOT), and I enjoyed it immensely. The Horror of Fanged Rock has a nice whimsical touch with the conflict between old and new in the lighthouse technology (older gas-burning in contrast to the "new-fangled" electricity). I really enjoyed Leela in this episode. From the first time she says "Doctor, we should hunt it!" and pulls out a long blade she captures your interest. And later in the episode, she ruffles the modesty of the lighthouse crew and the dignity of the rich wankers quite deliciously. Having only seen the rebooted series I was truly surprised

Spoiler:

I would love to see Clara go the way of companions past, to be replaced by an Egyptian scholar from ancient Alexandria, or an astronaut to Venus from the year 2100, or maybe a salty pirate wench.             
Who knows?  

Fang Rock is a solid episode, really enjoyable and as you say Leela is brilliant in it- especially towards the hysterical women who keep screaming all the time- I just love how confused Leela is by it and how she has no idea why this women keeps screaming every time something happens

Spoiler:

Death in Nuwho is an odd thing, its rarer than in classic where there often many deaths per episode but as I said earlier I think the underlying theme of the 11 era has in fact been death and change, but actual onscreen deaths are still rarer.

But they do happen, its just somehow people seem to notice them less, in the Angels two parter Flesh and Stone none of the soldiers make it out alive and the Doctors attitude and to the consequences of his actions is challenged too when he tells Octavian there was nothing he could have done to save those who had died and Octavian replies, "I know that. And when you have flown away in your little blue box, I'll tell that to their families."

I always thought that was a brilliant hard hitting line.

What Fang Rock does exeptionally well is to create an incredible amount of atmosophere. The isolation, the fog, the light house. Really it's what Classic Doctor Who could be when everything was working in it's favour. And the smallness and claustrophobic nature of the set and the setting. Sometimes I wonder if the new series has to large a budget to play around with as it's almost always so large. I kind of want it to do more small scale episodes like Fang Rock.

Strange thing is that Terrance Dicks, the guy who wrote it, wrote it in five minutes as another script fell out and never really rated it.

Thats true Blue but it also works the other way too- take the Pirate Planet episodes - there you need to show a bit of the scale- the city,the main mountain with the 'Bridge' and the effects and models and low budget cant really convey it and the streets (or should I say street!) seems very small and studio bound.

True true.

Still, to my mind the series worked best when it managed to create that kind of atmosphere. Ribos Operation is another great example. Though the big stuff can work very well as well if properly concieved. Like in City of Death.

Theres a person called Lucky TARDIS who rescores Classic WHo epiosdes with modern soundtracks - now whilst I am a fan of a lot of the Radio Workshop stuff on classic Who I do find these interesting alternative versions, I'll stick to the originals personally but I appreciate the work thats gone into them and its interesing to see how the music changes certain scenes- heres a 7 minute example section from the 7th Doctor story The Curse of Fenric- set during WW2 on an army base where a professor is tasked with cracking the German codes (Bletchley Park style) bringing vampires, Norse myth and Doctor Who together as only Who can-



And this made me smile-

Ayup Jason...

Its amazing how much the Beeb has done over the years with so little money...

I assume thats ironic!
Its more amazing how little they like scifi even when it makes them a mint- they put the cash into Who now (sort of, even the 50th Anniversary ep however was underfunded and they struggled to make it on the budget- and amongst others a couple of scenes had to be cut from Gaimans first story the Doctors Wife too as the Beeb wouldnt spring for the sets), but boy they did everything not to fund it before NUWho, same goes for Red Dwarf or in fact any scifi- yet some of the BBC most popular and famous tv events have been scifi, gong all the way back to their live version of 1984 and Quatermass- I think its just the BBC snobby attitude that somehow scifi and fantasy is not 'proper' drama- you know like Eastenders   

Scifi has won oscars in the past- but only in technical catergories- 9 have been nominated in the Best Pictue category and none have ever won it.

Which is quite shocking really when you consider some of the thoughtful, brilliant scifi that has been made (Im somewhat surprised even 2001 A Space Odessey didnt win- it did win technical awards but not the big ones).

Same with Who- it never wins awards within the industry- but does win awards at ceremonies with public votes.

How come? What makes sci-fi any less worthy of awards than regular fiction or fantasy movies? Not that I'm a huge sci-fi fan, but that seemed a little harsh on the genre, don't you think?

Seems to be the same elitist thinking that for years refused to recognise LotR's as a 'proper' piece of literature. Despite it being written by a Professor of Languages and the eminent scholar in his field at the time.

Ayup Jason...

I suppose it was ironic, wasnt it ? Yes, the BBC has a snobbishness about many things. I asked the question on the anniversary if the BBC was milking 'Who' too much on a Modelling forum, and the deluge of abuse I got was amazing. And the irony of that was that most participante liked the 'Classic' doctors more than the new...

Maybe its because of the Trek/Star wars war that has been going on for Centuries, and Its seen as 'Nerd versus Geek'. Plus the rise of Stoner/slacker culture in the US and the rise of Comic-cons ? theres a massive Trek one going off in Germany very soon.with major major stars going, who may not be around for the next. I know i need to meet Shatner and Nimoy before I die. and preferably in the same room at the same time.

wow, u don't ask for much before u die  good luck meeting them and in the same room at the same time..

Thanks Norc.

I look forward to sending you the picture. Now I HAVE to do it !

I'm not sure I agree with the fact that a low budget means low quality. A whole lot of that is down to the writing. A too big budget can often be a problem as the writer doesn't necessarily know when to contain himself.

As William Faulkner said in his Nobel price acceptance speach, "The only thing worth writing about is the human heart in conflict with itself." You don't need millions of pounds to make great television out of that.

feanor 1999 wrote:Thanks Norc.

I look forward to sending you the picture. Now I HAVE to do it !

whatever. and i'll marry benedict.