Thoughts on the Series XII Flipside Cover?

[Renegade Rob]

Over this past weekend, I’ve been processing the reveal of the Series XII flipside cover. As someone who likes consistency but also wants each series to have their own identity, I’ve been trying to figure out how I feel about the color. The pale red bunkroom and pale blue Starbug cockpit made perfect sense for X and XI, but the fact that the Science Room for XII, despite being an obvious choice, still nags at me a bit, so I’ve created this post more as a sounding board to help me work out how I come down on this very important issue.

I really want each series to feel like it’s own distinct entity with its own identity, and up until now, they have. But let’s face it: the military blue Science Room XII cover is a little close to the ocean blue of the Starbug cockpit XI cover, so that’s 2 pale-blues in a row. Granted, they’re slightly different shades, with XII having more than a dash of light purple. But it’s the equivalent of making Series IV the officers Bunkroom and Series V the old III-V Science Room: same color scheme because of similar production design. If they had made XII yellow with the new Science Room at Yellow Alert, that would’ve been great. Or they could have, as I thought they might do, made XII pale-green with the Starbug 19 interior and echo the pattern of the original 6, so that a Series XIII cover would be even paler beige and so on.
As it is, two light blues in a row, leaves me a little cold.

But then I did some more thinking about the cover (What better way is there to spend a Sarurday night?), and the thought occurred that part of XII’s identity is the fact that it’s of a pair with XI. Thet were commissioned together, written together, share sets and even moved scenes, and were basically filmed together. This sort of was one long series split over two, more than possible any pair of series before. Now true, XII is, give or take a Timewave, way better than XI overall, as almost certainly it built off the momentum established by XI to be more bold and confident.

In that light, it makes some deal of sense to have XI and XII be similar colors, because much of their identity is the fact that they’re intrinsically linked. Like those weird quasi-two-parters from Series 9 of Doctor Who. So I think I’m coming down on the side of “I get it and can live with it” but would have preferred something a little more distinct.

Thoughts?

Topic

[Captain No-Name]

Incidentally I don’t yet own a DVD of Red Dwarf XII (that’s coming at Christmas) so I have yet to face the dilemma of which spine will allow me to sleep easiest at night.

[Ben Saunders]

Some of the gags are good, but when the show is JUST gags, I start to take issue. Doctor Who used to have pretty good plots and some nice serious messages back in my day.

By my day, I mean Pertwee’s era, even though I’m only in my 20s and only watched it last year. Ssh.

The burgundy coat 100% suits the tone of the season, like the Doctor knows he is going to die and is a whole lot more sombre. The first episode of Season 18 looks like a million dollar movie compared to the last of 17, even though it’s still fairly low budget.

I still don’t know if I’m getting XII for Xmas, but when I do get it, I’ll probably stick with the spine it comes with. Because I don’t have the individual DVDs of 1-8, yet. When I do, I’ll probably try to make them all look lovely and nice together.

[Captain No-Name]

I dunno. I get what you’re saying, but I’m not convinced it is that sombre. The high socks, the snazzy diamond waistcoat, the question marks on the collar, the purpley palette… I see it more as JNT’s first attempt at creating an iconic “costume” look for the Doctor, rather than as a reflection of the character’s mortality. I think the 5th/6th/7th Doctors all suffered sartorially because of a similar approach.

You’re tight Tom’s mood is sombre for much of season 18. He looks unwell, his hair is greyer and needed straightening. The scripts keep referencing entropy and decay. But I find it hard to imagine this version of the 4th Doctor going “I’m due a fabulous iconic wine-coloured makeover!” It seems more likely he would just look like an increasingly dishevelled and shabby version of his younger self. As if he’s let himself go and needs a new lease of life.

I don’t have the individual DVDs of 1-8, yet. When I do, I’ll probably try to make them all look lovely and nice together.

Good luck with that endeavour. Many before you have tried and failed, as this thread attests.

[Ben Saunders]

He IS unwell for much of the Season, actually, and in at least one episode he had to have his hair permed to bring back his signature curls.

Yes, out of universe it was JNT wanting to make his mark, but in universe I think it works.

Fuck the question marks though. I like Peter and Colin’s outfits because that’s just what they wore when I was growing up, I can imagine as a fan in the 80s I would have been fucking mortified.

[Captain No-Name]

he had to have his hair permed

Yeah that’s what I meant. I said straightened. I meant the exact opposite.

Peter and Colin have utterly dreadful costumes. McCoy’s is good, but spoilt by the pullover, which should have been confined to Season 24. If he’d had a waistcoat from Remembrance onwards that would’ve been perfect. The TV Movie 7th Doctor looks a bit too “English gent.” He should be more like a slightly threadbare academic to my mind.

[Ben Saunders]

I really don’t like McCoy’s first costume, and I don’t think he liked it either. But then I don’t like McCoy himself in much of his first season, so that might explain it.

[Warbodog]

Pointing out for fairness that “Douglas Adams’ City of Death” was co-written by David Fisher and Graham Williams, not that they’re ever acknowledged even on the BBC book (however much or little they contributed, I don’t know).

I love the Pirate Planet, and silly late-70s Who over tedious early-mid 80s Who any day. A shame they were too boring to make his “too silly” Krikkitmen story at the time, it’s not like they didn’t put out loads of unintentionally ridiculous stuff already.

[Ben Saunders]

True, they are allowed to talk about it on the DVD. Although if I remember rightly David Fisher really only supplied the genesis of the story, and then Adams and Williams spent a weekend in a house staying up all night writing like mad, or something.

I know the accepted consensus on Davison was “he was the boring one”, but he does have some great stories. It’s just when they’re boring, they’re BORING.

It depends if I want to be bored to tears (Four to Doomsday), or physically offended by Tom Baker making a stupid joke right down the camera lens in a story that is shit anyway (Underworld)

[bloodteller]

haven’t actually seen much Doctor Who (the only one i can really remember is that slightly weird movie where the Doctor befriends a chinese kid, and then they have to stop the Master’s slime from stealing a clock or an eye or something) but i take it Tom Baker is considered the best one to watch?

[Ben Saunders]

Jesus, you’ve only seen the film?

Tom Baker is the most popular “classic Who” Doctor, somewhat deservedly. David Tennant is the most popular “new Who” Doctor, no comment.

Tom Baker’s first couple of seasons are really, really good, and he is a very good Doctor. Most people probably start with him, which is fine. I quite like Jon Pertwee and Patrick Troughton, as well. And Peter Davison. And Colin Baker, on audio. And Matt Smith. And Peter Capaldi. Yes.

When I was getting into Classic Who I just picked a “top 10 episodes of Classic Who” article and watched all those, the general consensus on what’s good seems to be pretty spot on honestly.

[Ben Saunders]

Tom Baker is also supported by the just wonderful Elisabeth Sladen for most of his good stuff, which helps. She was a phenomenal actress.

[Captain No-Name]

Warbodog – yeah, it’s curious how Douglas Adams is made to look like the sole author. I think Ben’s account sounds right, and Adams didn’t use any of David Fisher’s original script, but wrote something new which was superficially similar, and Graham Williams had a hand in guiding it. I doubt Williams’s contribution to City of Death was as significant as Adams’s was to Destiny of the Daleks for example. And Adams is never credited as co-author of that story.

I was surprised when I learnt the third Hitch-Hiker book was a rewrite of Adams’s unmade “Doctor Who and the Krikketmen” script. I can’t quite image it. Presumably you know there is a Krikkitmen novelisation coming out next month, adapted by James Goss? I’ll be getting that. I thought he did a decent job of novelising Pirate Planet.

Ben – there are a load of reasons why I’m not a massive fan of the 5th Doctor’s era, but boredom isn’t really one of them. There are very few DW stories which are actually boring. The Space Museum (from episode 2 onwards) jumps to mind. What little exists of the Celestial Toymaker tested my patience too.

bloodteller – Tom Baker is generally considered the best, yes. But in part this is simply because he did more years than the other Doctors, so he worked his way into the public consciousness. In addition, the long run means his era encompasses quite a broad range of styles and approaches (and several companions) so there is something for everyone to like. But Tom has clunkers and classics, it’s true.

[Captain No-Name]

the general consensus on what’s good seems to be pretty spot on honestly.

It’s all a matter of opinion of course, but I find some parts of accepted Who fan wisdom to be misleading personally.

The McCoy era is better than a lot of fans claim. I genuinely think Time and the Rani is the only poor McCoy story. People write off Season 24 but Paradise Towers is glorious, so long as you don’t get hung up on the stagey-ness of its execution.

Conversley, Davison’s era seems to be held in higher regard than it deserves. I mean yeah, Kinda is very good (although if we’re docking points for stagey-ness, what the hell is that forest!?) but I just do not understand the love for Tegan. Tegan’s presence automatically makes me like a story less.

Wow we’re really off topic now aren’t we?

[bloodteller]

>Jesus, you’ve only seen the film?

i’ve seen various actual episodes over the years, but the film is the only thing that really stuck in my mind and i can actually sort of remember the plot of. i did watch some of the newer stuff a while back, but i couldn’t really get into it and there was some annoying nob called Rory who wouldn’t go away.

i suppose i’ll try watching some of the Tom Baker stuff, my uncle said that he was quite good. but then he also said Red Dwarf VIII was great, so i wasn’t sure whether to trust him.

[Captain No-Name]

i couldn’t really get into it and there was some annoying nob called Rory who wouldn’t go away.

Ha ha!

Throughout the Amy/Rory years I felt like the programme was actively trying to get me to dislike it. I’m not surprised to hear some newer viewers found it hard to get into. If that was my first exposure to Doctor Who I think I would’ve run a mile.

The advice I give to anyone who is new to Doctor Who is: wait for a new Doctor and start with their first episode. If you like what you see, then think about going cherry-picking some older episodes.

So really, all that matters now is Jodie Whitaker.

Eccleston/Tom Baker/the rest are all water under the bridge.

[International Debris]

City of Death is my favourite Who story, and I had literally no idea how well rated it was before I saw it. I just enjoyed it more than the others, and still do to this day. It’s an utter joy on every conceivable level.

I’m a bit of a philistine who doesn’t enjoy the Hinchcliffe era that much, though. I like Who to be weird and/or amusing, and the gothic horror thing didn’t really do either. Not a fan of Who treading too closely on traditional horror stories. The Brain of Morbius is way too Frankensteiny for my taste, for example. I watch it for something new and surprising, not horror tropes rehashed with a sci-fi explanation. I love the Graham Williams era, it’s up there with Pertwee & UNIT and McCoy’s last series as far as my favourite classic Who goes.

New series, if it’s not got Donna, Amy & Rory or Bill in it, there’s more chance I’ll dislike it than like it. There are episodes here and there that I like, but the earlier RTD stuff was way too broad for my taste, and the Capaldi & Clara era stuff was mostly conceptually interesting but really blandly portrayed. Probably doesn’t help that Jenna Coleman only has two expressions and her character was appallingly underwritten. I don’t hate her QUITE as much as a lot of fans do, but she’s certainly in my top 10 least favourite companions of the whole show.

[Ben Saunders]

Oh hang on, it might have been Anthony Read who stayed up all weekend writing a script with Douglas Adams. Or it was Read and Williams, on Invasion of Time. Fuck. All those behind-the-scenes DVD interviews sort of blend into one, really.

Your Who opinions interest me, Captain No-Name, because I think Paradise Towers and Kinda are mediocre, but I like Delta and the Bannermen. I think McCoy is overrated by die-hards. At least we can agree Time and the Rani is shite.

Paradise Towers feels like something I should enjoy, but there’s something… off… about it. The performance of that zombie dude doesn’t help, certainly. I love Tegan. And Rory!

The Brain of Morbius is possibly the worst example of the Hinchcliffe era. It’s an abortion of a script that is a massive compromise between two visions which no one was happy with. Some of the “re-tread of a Hammer Horror” Who is good, Morbius isn’t. Anything written by Robert Holmes that isn’t Morbius or The Power of Kroll is worth your time, I’d say.

I agree with RTD being broad and not to taste, but have to defend Jenna Coleman. She was the companion for a -very- long time, and was dire in Series 7, and should have left in that one episode, but I really, really like her. “Appallingly underwritten” only applies to Series 7, I have to say, rather adamantly.

[Ben Saunders]

Also my impressions going into Destiny of the Daleks many years ago was “Douglas Adams basically wrote this.” It certainly feels like it, with the humour. But I don’t know where I got that idea from.

[Hamish]

> Tom Baker is generally considered the best, yes. But in part this is simply because he did more years than the other Doctors, so he worked his way into the public consciousness.

Tom Baker also had the benefit of being the best known Doctor in America as he was the most played on PBS back in the day.

[Hamish]

The Simpsons would never have had a John Pertwee or Peter Davison cameo, for example:

[Lily]

I’ve only seen a few bits and bobs of classic Who and would love to watch more but don’t really know how to go about it. Start with the first old guy? Tom Baker? Any of the others? It’s a rather overwhelming amount of material.

The other issue is actually getting hold if it, I’m too poor to buy DVDs and too paranoid to torrent. How do you actually get to see all this without breaking the bank?

[Captain No-Name]

I’m a bit of a philistine who doesn’t enjoy the Hinchcliffe era that much, though.

Ooh bucking the trend there, International Debris. I love a controversial viewpoint. Myself, I can’t help but fall in line when it comes to the Hinchcliffe era, it’s great. I’m also a big fan of weird and amusing though (Carnival of Monsters, Happiness Patrol etc.)

my impressions going into Destiny of the Daleks many years ago was “Douglas Adams basically wrote this.”

That has always been my impression too. I can’t remember if I’m right but I have a vague memory that Douglas Adams said Terry Nation handed in 5 pages of running down corridors and a couple of explosions, and Douglas Adams padded it out. He was comically exaggerating, but perhaps not by much.

Oh hang on, it might have been Anthony Read

This, from Wikipedia: “Fisher was… unable to perform the rewrites. This meant that script editor Douglas Adams, aided by Graham Williams, had to perform a complete rewrite of the story over the course of a weekend. According to Adams, Graham Williams ‘took me back to his place, locked me in his study and hosed me down with whisky and black coffee for a few days, and there was the script.'”

Tom Baker also had the benefit of being the best known Doctor in America as he was the most played on PBS back in the day.

That’s right, but Tom had the most amount of colour DW episodes for PBS to repeat. Hence a greater opportunity to work his way into public consciousness, hence the Simpsons cameo. Although I confess I wasn’t really thinking about America.

I’m too poor to buy DVDs and too paranoid to torrent. How do you actually get to see all this without breaking the bank?

Ah Lily you have my utmost sympathy. This makes me realise how lucky I was seeing loads of Classic Who on UKGold in the 90s, and hoovering up VHS tapes in the early 2000s when they were discounted (I bought City of Death for about 99p circa 2003).

Comments like yours really make me wish the BBC had the money and resources for a subscription-based Netflix-style streaming archive with ALL of Classic Who on. Imagine that, if you could pay £20 and have a month to binge on old BBC content. I’d get a year’s membership definitely. But I totally understand it’s not a realistic notion, sadly.

So Lily, I guess your best option is cherry-picking a few classic DVDs which you can get cheap on e-bay. As for which ones, I’d say personal taste varies widely…

[Captain No-Name]

Your Who opinions interest me, Captain No-Name, because I think Paradise Towers and Kinda are mediocre, but I like Delta and the Bannermen. I think McCoy is overrated by die-hards. At least we can agree Time and the Rani is shite.

This may well be an age thing, but for many years whenever I met a Doctor Who fan (which was rare) they would always get onto the topic of how shit the McCoy era allegedly was. Repeating that Bonnie Langford was an embarrassment and saying Sylvester McCoy couldn’t act. Occasionally, in amongst the incoherent ranting I would hear the odd recognisable phrase… “Bertie Bassett”… “care bears on horseback”… “danglng off a cliff!”

I’ve never been very heavily involved in Doctor Who fandom, and these days it is a considerably broader church than it was when I was a lad. But I’m pleased to hear that someone is sticking up for McCoy nowadays, even if it is to the point where you are finding him “overrated.”

Paradise Towers feels like something I should enjoy, but there’s something… off… about it. The performance of that zombie dude doesn’t help, certainly. I love Tegan. And Rory!

There is *definitely* something off about Paradise Towers. And I think that is what obstructs so many people from enjoying it. But fortunately for me I have little difficulty squinting through its shortcomings. Also, even with its stagey execution, there is something I just love about the bonkers-ness of doing this re-telling of High Rise with theatrical feral punk children, and bloody CANNIBAL GRANNIES… It helps that I have a fascination with Brutalist architecture and the failed utopian idealism of post-war redevelopment schemes.

Yes, I wish the cleaning robots had brushes and sponges and things so they actually looked like cleaning robots; and yes the Kangs are a bit too much like earnest Peter Pans, but… I just can’t help loving it.

It amuses me how people always blanche at Richard Briers’ zombie performance. It’s over the top and silly, but I remember mimicking it when I was about 7 years old, and for me it’s all part of the delirious high camp grotesquerie of the piece.

Everybody loves Tegan. It’s an opinion I have heard loads. I wish I did, but I just can’t see it. I would’ve turfed her out of the TARDIS at the first available opportunity.

[Dave]

On the subject of McCoy, if you’re looking for classic stories to check out, I’m a fan of Remembrance of the Daleks.

[Captain No-Name]

Listen to Dave. He speaks wisely.

Ah, why the hell don’t the BBC repeat old classic episodes on BBC4? I know they randomly repeated one (was it Hand of Fear?) a few years back…

If I was in charge, this Christmas BBC4 would be showing both the new version of Shada AND all 4 episodes of The Tenth Planet (with a mini documentary to explain why the hell Part 4 is animated).

I can’t help thinking a number of viewers will be wanting to see The Tenth Planet as a result of Twice Upon A Time…

[Hamish]

> That’s right, but Tom had the most amount of colour DW episodes for PBS to repeat. Hence a greater opportunity to work his way into public consciousness, hence the Simpsons cameo. Although I confess I wasn’t really thinking about America.

Oh, no doubt his long tenure helps a great deal, I am just throwing his prominence on this side of the pond out there as another supporting reason for his fame.

> So Lily, I guess your best option is cherry-picking a few classic DVDs which you can get cheap on e-bay. As for which ones, I’d say personal taste varies widely…

My knowledge of Classic Who comes mostly from sporadic VHS and DVD recordings I have gotten out of public libraries. We have a system here in Alberta that links all of the small community libraries together outside of Edmonton and Calgary, and you can order all kinds of things online and have them delivered to your local branch.

It was the same thing with Red Dwarf for me before I got my own DVDs, alongside a few old PBS recordings my mother made back when she lived in Coquitlam and Calgary closer to the 49th (along with some old Doctor Who) and a couple of Byte tapes of Series IV and VI my dad bought while working in British Columbia.

The upside of which is that Series II ended up being the last classic Dwarf series I ended up watching because my mother’s PBS recording of it got damaged, and I have somehow ended up watching a whole lot more Syvester McCoy than any other doctor outside of maybe Patrick Troughton.

[GlenTokyo]

Galifrey & Titan amirite

[Captain No-Name]

Not sure what you’re talking about GlenTokyo. Something to do with Red Dwarf? With the vampire dude and the bloke with an R on his forehead.

Never seen it, I heard it was shit.

[bloodteller]

go down to CeX, they usually have a load of Classic Dr. Who DVDs there, and they’re often really cheap.

[Dave]

MusicMagpie often have them for little more than a quid.

[Ben Saunders]

Lily, there is a Russian Facebook-type website which hosts every single Classic Who DVD and all its extras for streaming, but I think it’s a bit illegal and don’t want to link to it in case I get banned. They’re also on various other streaming sites in horrendously lower quality.
As far as what episode to begin with, maybe Ark in Space, the first good Tom Baker. Or City of Death, or Pyramids of Mars. Do not start with Caves of Androzani – it’s one of the greatest single Doctor Who stories ever, but it is the final episode of Peter Davison’s tenure, and works so well because it is his final episode and you understand his character and his relationship with his companion by that point.

It could well be an age thing, Captain No-Name. To me it feels like there is a relatively small but VERY vocal minority of Who fans who rate Sylvester McCoy higher than God, so much so that any criticism of him is immediately shut down. And any fanatic group like that end up doing more damage than good for what they’re trying to support, honestly. Also I’ve definitely met a couple of Tegan deniers, and honestly I get it – like Clara, she overstayed her welcome (in their eyes not mine) and didn’t get a lot of development initially. That was a problem with Davison’s companions as a whole – there were too many of them and therefore not enough time to give them any real meaningful development.

Thank you for clarifying that I was right about Williams and Adam’s Wild Weekend

[Ben Saunders]

I actually started with Tomb of the Cybermen, The Time Warrior and Genesis of the Daleks, which are good but perhaps a bit slow for somebody jus starting out. A lot of Classic Who is pretty lethargically paced.

[bloodteller]

just found some classic Doctor Who DVDs in my shelf (they came free with The Sun a couple of years ago), including Earthshock, Spearhead From Space, Robots of Death and Rose. any of these worth a watch?

[Lily]

Thank you for the ideas gentlemen. It looks like the classic ones are pricier than new who at about a fiver each, which is still too much for my pockets.

Hamish has come up trumps though – Norfolk library has a healthy collection of DVDs that I can get sent to my little bit of no-where. They appear to be mainly the Tom Baker years, so I guess I’ll start with him first.

[Ben Saunders]

Earthshock – decent. strong, even
Spearhead – brilliant, maybe a bit slow, Pertwee’s first
Robots of Death – considered a classic, it is quite good if i remember rightly
Rose – ehhhhhhh it’s alright, first ever episode of New Who

[Ben Saunders]

I actually think Earthshock is fantastic but it’s hard to separate the “I watched it when I was 10” from the “It is genuinely good”. Interesting that I forgot Nyssa and Tegan were even in it until I watched it again recently, lol.

Rose is actually quite fun I think but it’s definitely not the strongest episode, and has some dodgy cgi

[Ben Saunders]

Apologies for the unprecedented triple post, but Rose is quite deliberately a retread of Spearhead, so watch Spearhead first, imo

[Captain No-Name]

Norfolk library has a healthy collection of DVDs that I can get sent to my little bit of no-where. They appear to be mainly the Tom Baker years, so I guess I’ll start with him first.

Ah this makes me happy. Good old libraries. Good thinking Hamish.

We might argue about the various merits of one story over another, but it’s hard to deny that Tom Baker, the vast majority of the time, just brings a special something to the role that is utterly watchable.

Hope you enjoy, Lily.

[International Debris]

McCoy’s era is a mixed bag, the production values are almost uniformly appalling, Keff McCulloch sucks the life out of every episode he and his fucking Casio keyboard score, Bonnie Langford is difficult going, and McCoy himself plays it way too broadly in his early stories. There are plenty of great ideas in season 24 – I bloody love Paradise Towers on paper, shame the final result is a 3.45PM CBBC slot show in performance and production; Delta and the Bannerman would work really well if it was written and played to give a shit about Delta and her baby, but frankly the characterisation makes Cat’s portrayal in VIII seem deep. Once the Cartmel stuff comes in, though, I think the show gets better, and I do rate the four stories in the final year as one of the strongest runs in the whole show (along with seasons 6, 7 and 12), despite – again – the CBBC production values. It’s always been a tragedy that the show was really discovering its strength again just as it was cancelled. I would have loved at least one more year of McCoy, although there’s always the possibility they would have killed off the character for good at the end.

Ooh bucking the trend there, International Debris. I love a controversial viewpoint. Myself, I can’t help but fall in line when it comes to the Hinchcliffe era, it’s great.

I had no idea how popular it was when I did my first Who marathon, but I remember my enthusiasm for the show suddenly dropped dramatically at the start of Hinchcliff’s second series and didn’t come back again until midway through Williams’s first. The era has grown on me – I love The Seeds of Doom and really like The Robots of Death now, for example – but it’s still a period with a lot of stories I have no desire to revisit at all.

I’m currently reading all the novels and novelisations in internal chronological order. Interestingly enough, I’m currently on the PDA novel Drift now, which is the last one to fall within the Hinchcliffe era, with Horror of Fang Rock up next. The books are a mixed bag, but some absolute belters are turning up.

[Ben Saunders]

I liked Delta and the Bannermen, but thought Battlefield was dull (minus any time the Brig was on screen) and Ghost Light was utterly incomprehensible. Apart from that, yeah.

Greatest Show in the Galaxy episode four is also probably the worst fucking thing I have ever seen. Such a good start, then that. Jesus.

[Captain No-Name]

Yeah Paradise Towers works best if you start from the idea it’s MEANT for the 3.45PM CBBC slot and the producer’s said “look, we’re supposed to be making 4 episodes of Grange Hill, but fuck it, I want to film Junior JG Ballard with cannibal grannies and a zombie caretaker and a killer robot in the swimming pool instead.”

I’d totally watch that after school.

I remember my enthusiasm for the show suddenly dropped dramatically at the start of Hinchcliff’s second series

But isn’t that… Terror of the Zygons? One of my all time favourite stories. I can’t imagine not loving that.

I will defend the McCoy era against many of its criticisms, but I concede most of the incidental music is irredeemable. It’s testament to quite how good Remembrance of the Daleks is in almost every single regard that it is somehow not diminished by its shit score.

I’m currently reading all the novels and novelisations in internal chronological order.

Wow you’ve got some stamina. There are so many of those books. SO MANY BOOKS.

I tried to read all the Virgin NAs but I wasn’t man enough. Got as far as First Frontier and felt exhausted. There is quality in those books, but blimey sometimes it’s like panning for gold.

[Ben Saunders]

That’s how I felt watching The Chase (the old Dalek serial)

I went and watched it because I wanted something lighthearted, quirky and fun, and it was great, but if I was tuning into Doctor Who for a serious emotional story and got fucking stuttering socially anxious Daleks and some spiv with a bad New Yoik accent it’d probably make me really angry.

[Captain No-Name]

To be fair, if you were tuning into Doctor Who for a serious emotional story then the year probably wasn’t 1965.

[Hamish]

> Hamish has come up trumps though – Norfolk library has a healthy collection of DVDs that I can get sent to my little bit of no-where. They appear to be mainly the Tom Baker years, so I guess I’ll start with him first.

You’re going to go with one of my plans? Are you nuts? What happens if we all get killed, I’ll never hear the last of it!

> I actually think Earthshock is fantastic but it’s hard to separate the “I watched it when I was 10” from the “It is genuinely good”. I

Earthshock was by far my least favourite Classic Who serial from The Doctors Revisited set I watched a few years back. If you want to talk about villains undermining their own threat by being too zany you just have to look at the Cyberman in Earthshock, especially when compared to the cold emotionless beings in The Tomb of the Cybermen, which was the story they chose for Patrick Throughton’s era.

[Hamish]

Come to think of it, I actually went to the trouble of ranking all of the classic Doctors based solely on their chosen serials from The Doctors Revisited set while I was watching as a mental experiment, just to see what order I would come up with:

1. Tom Baker
Pyramids of Mars

2. Jon Pertwee
Spearhead from Space

3. Patrick Troughton
Tomb of the Cyberman

4. Sylvester Mcoy
Remembrance of the Daleks

5. Colin Baker
Vengence on Varos

6. William Hartnell
The Aztecs

7. Peter Davison
Earthshock

That actually sits about right with me, plus or minus a few placements.

[Ben Saunders]

I guess. That ending though.

Imagine being kid in the 80s only having heard of the Cybermen or seen pictures in a magazine, these legendary enemies of the Doctor, and then witnessing that cliffhanger to episode one after 25 minutes of buildup and mystery. Someone on the DVD said they host about creamed themselves. Also one of the first times they showed clips from old Doctors in an episode, if not the first time

[bloodteller]

is Rememberance of The Daleks the one with Dursley McLinden in? i think i remember seeing that a while ago and being all excited because i liked Dursley McLinden when he was in Just Ask for Diamond, which was quite a good film.

dunno if he was any good in Doctor Who though, i can’t remember

[International Debris]

Earthshock is my favourite colour era classic Cybermen story, but that’s about all I can say for it. To be honest, the Capaldi two-parter is the only colour Cybermen story I’ve genuinely liked. I love all the ’60s ones, but after that I don’t think they’ve ever been written particularly well. Silver Nemesis is obviously a low point.

But isn’t that… Terror of the Zygons? One of my all time favourite stories. I can’t imagine not loving that.

I always think of that as being part of season 12, what with it being filmed for it and held over! Whoops.

Wow you’ve got some stamina. There are so many of those books. SO MANY BOOKS.

I tried to read all the Virgin NAs but I wasn’t man enough. Got as far as First Frontier and felt exhausted. There is quality in those books, but blimey sometimes it’s like panning for gold.

Throwing in the few companion spinoffs, the Telos novellas and Short Trips/Decalogs, running up through the new series adventures as well, there are 581. I’ve thankfully sourced most of them via the internet, as there’s no way I have the cash or space to buy the lot, but I’ll be picking up my favourites once I’ve finished in a year or so.

The novelisations are short and, if Terrance Dicks is writing them (as he usually is), simple, so they only take an hour or so. The MAs and PDAs I can slip through in an evening if they’re good, but some slower ones have actually taken me weeks. I’m halfway through Tom at the minute, and almost all his new stories have been terrible, sadly. Pertwee’s were almost uniformly superb too, which has made this even more of a let down. I’m well over halfway to the end of season 26, though, and it’s the NAs and EDAs that I’m looking forward to the most, as even though I’m sure a lot of them are terrible, I love the idea of it all going off into entirely new directions with whole plot arcs and such, rather than fitting in between existing stories.

[Captain No-Name]

Just Googled Dursley McLinden because the name didn’t ring a bell (turns out he played Mike in Remembrance) and learnt that he died of AIDS in 1995 when he was just 30. How incredibly sad.

[Captain No-Name]

International Debris – You can read a Target novel in an hour!? And a PDA novel in a single evening!?

My brain and eyes just couldn’t do that.

I am reminded of that moment in “Rose” when the Doctor reads The Lovely Bones.

(“sad ending…”)

[Author]

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