The Classic Doctor Who Thread (1963 to 1989/1996)

[By Jove its holmes]

Fact of the Day: Tom Baker was the first DW series lead who wasn’t a veteran of the Second World War. He had the mercy of a late birth.

Topic

[Ben Saunders]

Aww I liked her. I can see why she would annoy somebody, though. A bit like how I can’t stand the DJ in Revelation. Slipback is the definition of alright for me, a pleasant way to spend 60 minutes or so and then basically forget about it immediately. Very light and breezy for a Saward script, none of the pointless sadism on display elsewhere.

[Warbodog]

The only trivia I remember about Slipback is that it’s the closest thing to my birthdate episode, just a few weeks off. You know how you orient things around the state of the world when you entered it.

[Ben Saunders]

Yuck, that goopy ass Trial of a Time Lord theme.

[Rushy]

Yuck, that goopy ass Trial of a Time Lord theme.

How dare you… 

[Ben Saunders]

It’s squidgey. Lacks presence. The ending is nice.

[Doomitron]

Yuck, that goopy ass Trial of a Time Lord theme.

How dare you… 

Trial theme slander will not be tolerated.

[Ben Saunders]

[Professor Flibble]

The only bad version of the Doctor Who theme is that godawful Big Finish McGann theme they used on the Mary Shelley audios.

[Ben Saunders]

Interesting that Robert Holmes’ final (completed) story for Doctor Who (The Mysterious Planet) shares such similarity with his first, The Krotons. A big robot or two, never seen by the public, that every now and then selects two of the brightest young minds from a society kept deliberately ignorant to be its slaves/food.

[Ben Saunders]

This is good stuff. I love the meta aspect of the Trial as a commentary on Doctor Who itself. “I was beginning to think you had lost yourself”, “Why do I have to sit here watching Peri getting upset, while two unsavoury adventurers bully a bunch of natives?”, brilliant.
Six is being written a bit like Four here, complete with jelly babies. The script has humour and confidence and is a huge step up from the bleakness and humourlessness of the past few seasons.

“I only have to look at the Graveyard to see that!”

[Ben Saunders]

Me: I enjoyed this

Every single review: This fucking sucks!

Here we are people watching a screen upon which people are watching a screen upon which people are on a screen watching people

[Ben Saunders]

Okay okay, the middle eight to the Trial theme is pretty good

[Ben Saunders]

God, the Time Lords are bastards. I have seen this before so I know it gets retconned, but what an insane climax to Mindwarp. While getting married off to a maladapted despotic warrior king is a questionable way to go, I’m sort of glad JNT made the executive decision to not really have Peri die. She doesn’t deserve that. Her time in the TARDIS was so abjectly horrible – constantly terrorised, ogled, traumatised and suffering in what is essentially an abusive relationship she can’t really get out of, being killed off in such a callous way would be a step too far, I think. I know they start acting more like friends during the Trial season, but we hadn’t seen enough of that for it to really take over from the impression that Sixie was constantly horrible to her.

Two gratuitous foot shots in this story, I didn’t know Vince Gilligan worked on Doctor Who.

Brian Blessed is a lot of fun, I have no idea what other people think of his performance, I can imagine it being extremely grating to some, but being able to steal scenes from Colin Baker and his technicolour dreamcoat is quite the achievement.

[Warbodog]

I mainly associate that story with the lovely 1986 space scenery.

[Ben Saunders]

Yes, that stuff is very very nice.

>Goodbye Peri, hello Mel

[Warbodog]

[Ben Saunders]

How many towels do you think the Hyperion III goes through if they just throw them into the pulveriser and out into space after every use?

[Professor Flibble]

Commonwealth? Idk, some sports thing idk, King Charles? Royal bollocks I don’t care

McCOY!!!!!!!

[Technopeasant]

I think it’s beyond time we had a mainline Doctor with a full beard.

[Dave]

I think it’s beyond time we had a mainline Doctor with a full beard.

Does Ruby count?

[Rushy]

Now that is the real McCoy

[Ben Saunders]

Terror of the Vervoids is pretty shit, Mel is pretty shit, Pip and Jane Baker dialogue is pretty shit. The exact logic of the Doctor showing the trial a story from the future and all the implications of that and how exactly that could possibly work doesn’t really bare thinking about.

But I love the genocide cliffhanger. It’s a real oh shit, how is he going to get out of this one moment. Such melodrama, but it’s great. And he got himself into the situation, really.

I thought every cliffhanger on Trial of a Time Lord famously ended with a melodramatic closeup on Colin Baker’s face, as an edict from JNT. But on this what-I-believe-to-be-Blu-Ray rip, Episode Eleven ends here:

Whereas the original version ends here:

I wonder why they re-edited it for the Blu-Ray. I also swear I read that episode nine doesn’t end on a Colin Closeup either, but checking a YouTube compilation it seems it does.

[Ben Saunders]

My mistake, it ends with Mel screaming, supposedly in the key of F so that it segues into the credits theme, which I guess she sort of does, but it really doesn’t do anything I don’t think. She screams like four times as well.

[Ben Saunders]

Bloody hell, part Thirteen of the Trial is bloody good. Robert Holmes’ pen was on fire. I wish we got his and Saward’s part Fourteen, but I’m more than well aware of what happened there.

[cwickham]

I think you can tell Pip and Jane had very little idea of what was meant to be going on with the trial, but really the whole thing hangs together an awful lot better than it has any right to.

[Ben Saunders]

The fact that Saward didn’t allow any of his/Holmes’ script/plans to reach them is a little insane. He must have bloody hated the lot of them.

[cwickham]

Pip and Jane couldn’t know anything about the original Part Fourteen for legal reasons, rather than it being a protracted attempt by Saward to stop them from finding out. I think he was just past caring at that point.

[Ben Saunders]

I thought it was legal reasons instigated by Saward as some sort of vendetta against JNT, but I could also imagine it being a BBC bureaucracy thing.

[Ben Saunders]

What the fuck does this mean

[Rushy]

The episode established machonite as being some sort of elaborate carved stone, so I think Glitz is asking if the Doctor’s next expensive coat should be a tomb. 

A simpler version of this joke would be: “Do we need to order a multi-coloured coffin?”

[Ben Saunders]

The episode established machonite as being some sort of elaborate carved stone, so I think Glitz is asking if the Doctor’s next expensive coat should be a tomb. 
A simpler version of this joke would be: “Do we need to order a multi-coloured coffin?”

Oh, you’re right, it’s a pretty throwaway line to bring back later in the episode to be fair. I googled it and there was absolutely nothing lol. I thought it was just more obtuse Pip and Baker shit.

[Warbodog]

Any 90s kids remember Pip & Jane Baker’s CBBC series Watt on Earth? We were denied Doctor Who, but we had kiddie sci-fi like this (2 series), Space Vets and Mike & Angelo (CITV, I think). Extremely low budget, and never-ending fish-out-of-water alien jokes, but I found the villain’s relentless pursuit very tense as a kid, accompanied by his theme that whispered his name in a scary way (“Jem-a-dah!” Dun, dun. They could have repurposed it for the Jem’Hadar in Star Trek).

[Dave]

Yes I loved Watt On Earth. Detransanimateobjectify!

[Ben Saunders]

Did they constantly quote literature in that show, to the point where you can’t help but think fucking hell, we get it, you read, can’t you write something of your own instead of just quoting everything?

I guess my age equivalent of that show would be My Parents Are Aliens, perhaps. We also had Invader Zim and Jimmy Neutron etc. Futurama wasn’t for kids but I watched it like it was.

[Warbodog]

We also had Invader Zim and Jimmy Neutron etc. Futurama wasn’t for kids but I watched it like it was.

Bucky O’Hare made a big impression on me when I was 6/7 and ready for a post-Turtles craze (“If your Righteous Indignation has suffered a hit / and your photon accelerator’s broken a bit”), but it only lasted for a season, disappointingly. ITV grabbed the Doctor Who orphans with very successful Gerry Anderson repeats at the same time too. Then when we were allowed to stay up later, we all got obsessed with Red Dwarf, so life finds a way.

[Unrumble]

Mike & Angelo

I can very clearly recall the opening theme/title sequence of this, but not really anything of the show itself. 

[Warbodog]

Yeah, mainly because we’d pretend to walk up the walls, like from the start of Mike & Angelo. Or pretend spraying deodorant from both hands could make us fly, like from the start of My Secret Identity.

[Dave]

Mike & Angelo is something I have vague memories of but Bucky O’Hare was a big (albeit short-lived) craze at the time. Even if it was a bit shit.

[Professor Flibble]

I grew up watching Bucky O’Hare on DVD, it’s still a favourite of mine. 

Bucky O’Hare was a big (albeit short-lived) craze at the time. Even if it was a bit shit.

A bit shit? What do you mean, a bit shit? It was fantastic.

[Professor Flibble]

Think I overreacted a bit there, it was genuinely a staple of my childhood and very good for what it was. Loved all the characters and the sci-fi elements, and it had a great theme tune. Jenny might’ve even been one of my first crushes, I think.

[Dave]

[tombow]

I loved My Parents are Aliens, even though I was already an older teen when it came on, my younger siblings watched it and it made me laugh.

not sure if people know Bucky was a de-copyrighted version of a rabbit called Jaxxon from 70s Star Wars comics, bought back into canon in the Disney era.

[Warbodog]

one of my first crushes, I think.

Penny Gadget, I think (I was 6, alright).

[Professor Flibble]

Penny Gadget, I think (I was 6, alright).

I think I was about 8 when I was first made aware of Inspector Gadget’s existence. Loved it as a kid.

[Professor Flibble]

[Professor Flibble]

Nooo, not Duggan!

RIP Tom Chadbon

[Frank Lewis]

I have to admit.. I’m struggling a bit with the slow pace. I got halfway through “City” and switched to “Robots” for a break. I love the world and the robots, but I’m finding the royal people in charge of the craft a bit wearying – they sound like they’re all acting different plays and yelling in weirdly clashing tones to each other. I’ve still got Fang Rock and Dalek Invasion of Earth to watch, and I’ve ordered the first Leela story with her forest tribe as I think i have memories of seeing it as a kid.

And once, I abruptly ran into the end of one of the parts, seeing Xoanon’s Baker Head go “NO… NO… NOOO!!!!!!!!!)

Hee hee hee, so surreal.

[Rushy]

RIP Tom Chadbon

I loved him as Del Grant in Blake’s 7. He also reprised the role in Big Finish audios, and was absolutely spellbinding in them. 

[Professor Flibble]

Gutted he never reprised the role of Duggan in Big Finish. Could’ve made him a proper companion like H.G. Wells, Ray or Mags.

[Ben Saunders]

Penny Gadget, I think (I was 6, alright).

The earliest I remember seeing a girl and thinking “wow” was Lucy from Don’t Eat The Neighbours, who looks like this: 

Then I remember being really infatuated with Kim Possible:

I would have been 5 for the first one, 7 for the second maybe

[Author]

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